EDWARD II.

Character of Edward II.—Piers Gaveston—The Ordinances—Thomas of Lancaster—The Despensers—The King’s ruin and death.

Reactionary
policy of
Edward II.

It is not often that a strong son succeeds a strong father, and where that is the case the result is not always salutary. If Edward I. had left a son like himself, a new fabric of despotism might have been raised on the foundation of strong government which he had laid. Sometimes such alternations have worked well; a weak administration following on a strong one has enabled the nation to advance all the more firmly and strongly for the discipline to which it has been subjected; and a strong reign following a weak one has taught them how to obtain from the strong successor the consolidation of reforms won from the weakness of the predecessor. But more commonly the result has been a simple reaction, and the weak son has had to bear the consequences of his father’s exercise of power, the strong son has had to repair the mischief caused by his father’s weakness. The case of Edward II., however, does not come exactly under either generalization. It was no mere reaction that caused his reign to stand in so strong contrast to his father’s. Instead of following out his father’s plans he reversed them; and his fate was the penalty exacted by hatreds which he had drawn upon himself, not the result of a reaction upon a policy which he had inherited. He cast away at the beginning of the reign his father’s friends, and he made himself enemies where he ought to have looked for friends, in his own household and within the narrowest circle of home.

Personal
tastes and
favorites of
Edward II.

Piers
Gaveston.

Edward II. was the fourth son of Edward I. and Eleanor. John, their eldest boy, had died in 1272; Henry, the next, died in 1274; Alfonso, the third, lived to be twelve years old, and died in 1285. Edward was born in 1284, at Carnarvon, became heir-apparent on his brother’s death, and in 1301 was made Earl of Chester and Prince of Wales. Losing his mother in 1290, he was deprived of the early teaching which might have changed his whole history. His father, although he showed his characteristic care in directing the management of his son’s household, in choosing his companions, and rebuking his faults, was far too busy to devote to him the personal supervision which would have trained him for government and secured his affections. He grew up to dread rather than to love him, hating his father’s ministers as spies and checks upon his pleasures, and spending his time in amusements unbecoming a prince and a knight. His most intimate friend, Piers Gaveston, the son of an old Gascon servant of his father, had been assigned him by the King as his companion, and had gained a complete mastery over him. Gaveston was an accomplished knight, brave, ambitious, insolent and avaricious, like the foreign favorites of Henry III. Edward, although a handsome, strong lad, did not care to practice feats of arms or to follow the pursuits of war. He was fond of hunting and country life, averse to public labor, but splendid to extravagance in matters of feasting and tournament. He was indolent, careless about making new friends or enemies; the only strong feeling which marked him was his obstinate championship of the men whom he believed to be attached to himself. Edward was not a vicious man, but he was very foolish, idle, and obstinate, and there was nothing about him that served to counterbalance these faults or invite sympathy with him in his misfortunes. Edward I. some months before his death had found out this to his sorrow. He saw in the influence that Gaveston had won a sign that the scenes were to be repeated which, as he so well remembered, had marked the stormy period of his own youth. He had banished Gaveston from court and made him swear not to return without his leave. No sooner was he dead than the favorite was recalled, and by his return began that series of miseries which overwhelmed himself first, and then his master, and the consequences of which ran on in long succession until the great house of Plantagenet came to an end.

Peace with
Scotland.

Edward was absent when his father died, but within a few days he had rejoined the army, was received as king, without waiting for coronation, by the English and Scottish lords, and proclaimed his royal peace. One of his father’s last injunctions, that he should promptly and persistently follow up the war, was set aside from the first; Aymer de Valence was made commander and governor of Scotland, and the king himself moved southwards. Another of his father’s commands was set at nought directly after: Gaveston was recalled and raised to the earldom of Cornwall. Walter Langton, the late king’s treasurer and chief minister, was removed from office and imprisoned, and the chancellor also was displaced. Edward I. was not yet buried, and his son’s first parliament, called at Northampton, in October, 1307, was asked to provide money for the expenses of the funeral and the coronation; for already it was said the favorite had got hold of the treasure and was sending it to his foreign kinsfolk. But the jealous nobles were not inclined to hurry matters as yet: the Parliament granted money; Edward I. was solemnly buried; and orders were given to prepare for the coronation in February, 1308.

Marriage of
the king
with Isabella
of France.