"It has cost you a great deal of trouble to catch the fox, and now, if you let him go, you will have a great deal more trouble in hunting him again."
His fate.
This consideration decided them; so they took the terrified prisoner, and, in spite of his piteous cries for mercy, they hurried him away to a solitary place a mile or two from the castle, and there, on a little knoll by the side of the road, they cut off his head.
WARWICK CASTLE.
The Spencers.
The queen and Mortimer.
One would have supposed that by this time the king would have been cured of the folly of devoting himself to favorites, but he was not. He mourned over the death of Gaveston at first with bitter grief, and when this first paroxysm of his sorrow was passed, it was succeeded with a still more bitter spirit of revenge. He immediately took the field against his rebellious barons, and a furious civil war ensued. He soon, too, found a new favorite, or, rather, two favorites. They were brothers, and their names were Spencer. They are called in history the Spencers, or the Despensers. The quarrels and wars which took place between the king and these favorites on one hand, and the barons and nobles on the other, were continued for many years. The queen took sides with the nobles against her husband and the Spencers. She fled to France, and there formed an intimacy with a young nobleman named Mortimer, who joined himself to her, and thenceforth accompanied her and made common cause with her against her husband. With this Mortimer she raised an army, and, sailing from Flanders, she landed in England. On landing, she summoned the barons to join her, and took the field against her husband. The king was beaten in this war, and fled again on board a vessel, intending to make his escape by sea. The two Spencers, one after the other, were taken prisoners, and both were hung on gibbets fifty feet high. They were hung in their armor, and after they were dead their bodies were taken down and treated as it was customary to treat the bodies of traitors.[A]
Edward III. proclaimed king.
In the midst of these proceedings the barons held a sort of Parliament, and made a solemn declaration that the king, by his flight, had abdicated the throne, and they proclaimed his son, the young Prince of Wales, then about fourteen years old, king, under the title of Edward the Third. In the mean time, the king himself, who had attempted to make his escape by sea, was tossed about in a storm for some days, until at last he was driven on the coast in South Wales. He concealed himself for some days in the mountains. Here he was hunted about for a time, until he was reduced to despair by his destitution and his sufferings, when at length he came forth and delivered himself up to his enemies.