26. The Deposition and Murder of Edward II. 1327.—Early in 1327 a Parliament met at Westminster. It was filled with the king's enemies, and under pressure from the queen and Mortimer Edward II. was compelled to sign a declaration of his own wrong-doing and incompetency, after which he formally resigned the crown. He was allowed to live for eight months, at the end of which he was brutally murdered in Berkeley Castle. The deposition of Edward II.—for his enforced resignation was practically nothing less than that—was the work of a faithless wife and of unscrupulous partisans, but at least they clothed their vengeance in the forms of Parliamentary action. It was by the action of Parliament in loosing the feudal ties by which vassals were bound to an unworthy king, that it rose to the full position of being the representative of the nation, and at the same time virtually proclaimed that the wants of the nation must be satisfied at the expense of the feudal claims of the king. The national headship of the king would from henceforward be the distinguishing feature of his office, whilst his feudal right to personal service would grow less and less important every year.[Back to Contents]

Howden Church, Yorkshire—the west front; built about 1310-1320. The tower was built between 1390 and 1407.

CHAPTER XV.
FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD III. TO THE TREATY OF BRETIGNI.
1327—1360.

LEADING DATES

Reign of Edward III., 1327—1377