The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (117 page)

While these doubts occasioned delays and difficulties, Isabella 1325.

proposed, that Edward should resign the dominion of Guienne to his son, now thirteen years of age; and that the prince should come to Paris, and do the homage which every vassal owed to his superior lord. This expedient, which seemed so happily to remove all difficulties, was immediately embraced: Spenser was charmed with the contrivance: Young Edward was sent to Paris: And the ruin, covered under this fatal snare, was never perceived or suspected, by any of the English council.

The queen on her arrival in France, had there found a great number of English fugitives, the remains of the Lancastrian faction; and their common hatred of Spenser soon begat a secret friendship and correspondence between them and that princess.

Among the rest was young Roger Mortimer, a potent baron in the Welsh marches, who had been obliged, with others, to make his submissions to the king, had been condemned for high treason; but having received a pardon for his life, was afterwards detained in the Tower, with an intention of rendering his confinement perpetual. He

was so fortunate as to make his escape into France;s
and being one of the most considerable persons now remaining of the party, as well as distinguished by his violent animosity against Spenser, he was easily admitted to pay his court to queen Isabella. The graces of his person and address advanced him quickly in her affections: He became her confident and counsellor in all her measures: And gaining ground PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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daily upon her heart, he engaged her to sacrifice at last, to her passion, all the

sentiments of honour and of fidelity to her husband.t

Hating now the man, whom she had injured, and whom she

Conspiracy against

never valued, she entered ardently into all Mortimer’s

the king.

conspiracies; and having artfully gotten into her hands the young prince, and heir of the monarchy, she resolved on the utter ruin of the king, as well as of his favourite. She engaged her brother to take part in the same criminal purpose: Her court was daily filled with the exiled barons: Mortimer lived in the most declared intimacy with her: A correspondence was secretly carried on with the malcontent party in England: And when Edward, informed of those alarming circumstances, required her speedily to return with the prince, she publicly replied, that she would never set foot in the kingdom, till Spenser was for ever removed from his presence and councils: A declaration, which procured her great popularity in England, and threw a decent veil over all her treasonable enterprizes.

Edward endeavoured to put himself in a posture of defence;u
but, besides the difficulties arising from his own indolence and slender abilities, and the want of authority, which of consequence attended all his resolutions, it was not easy for him, in the present state of the kingdom and revenue, to maintain a constant force ready to repel an invasion, which he knew not at what time or place he had reason to expect.

All his efforts were unequal to the traiterous and hostile

Insurrections.

conspiracies, which, both at home and abroad, were forming

against his authority, and which were daily penetrating farther even into his own family. His brother, the earl of Kent, a virtuous but weak prince, who was then at Paris, was engaged by his sister-in-law, and by the king of France, who was also his cousin-german, to give countenance to the invasion, whose sole object, he believed, was the expulsion of the Spensers: He prevailed on his elder brother, the earl of Norfolk, to enter secretly into the same design: The earl of Leicester, brother and heir of the earl of Lancaster, had too many reasons for his hatred of these ministers, to refuse his concurrence. Walter de Reynel, archbishop of Canterbury, and many of the prelates, expressed their approbation of the queen’s measures: Several of the most potent barons, envying the authority of the favourite, were ready to fly to arms: The minds of the people, by means of some truths and many calumnies, were strongly disposed to the same party: And there needed but the appearance of the queen and prince, with such a body of foreign troops, as might protect her against immediate violence, to turn all this tempest, so artfully prepared, against the unhappy Edward.

Charles, though he gave countenance and assistance to the

1326.

faction, was ashamed openly to support the queen and prince, against the authority of a husband and father; and Isabella was obliged to court the alliance of some other foreign potentate, from whose dominions she might set out on her intended enterprize. For this purpose, she affianced young Edward, whose tender age made him incapable to judge of the consequences, with Philippa, daughter of the count of Holland and Hainault;
w
and having, by the open assistance of this prince, and the secret protection of her brother, inlisted in her service near 3000 men, she set sail from the harbour of Dort, and landed safely, and without opposition, on the coast of Suffolk.

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The earl of Kent was in her company: Two other princes of the 24th Sept.

blood, the earl of Norfolk, and the earl of Leicester, joined her soon after her landing with all their followers: Three prelates, the bishops of Ely, Lincoln, and Hereford, brought her both the force of their vassals and the authority of

their character:x
Even Robert de Watteville, who had been sent by the king to oppose her progress in Suffolk, deserted to her with all his forces. To render her cause more favourable, she renewed her declaration, that the sole purpose of her enterprize was to free the king and kingdom from the tyranny of the Spensers, and of chancellor Baldoc, their creature.
y
The populace were allured by her specious pretences: The barons thought themselves secure against forfeitures by the appearance of the prince in her army: And a weak irresolute king, supported by ministers generally odious, was unable to stem this torrent, which bore with such irresistible violence against him.

Edward, after trying in vain to rouze the citizens of London to some sense of duty,
z

departed for the west, where he hoped to meet with better reception; and he had no sooner discovered his weakness by leaving the city, than the rage of the populace broke out without controul against him and his ministers. They first plundered, then murdered all those who were obnoxious to them: They seized the bishop of Exeter, a virtuous and loyal prelate, as he was passing through the streets; and having beheaded

him, they threw his body into the river.a
They made themselves masters of the Tower by surprize; then entered into a formal association to put to death, without mercy, every one who should dare to oppose the enterprize of queen Isabella, and of the

prince.b
A like spirit was soon communicated to all other parts of England; and threw the few servants of the king, who still entertained thoughts of performing their duty, into terror and astonishment.

Edward was hotly pursued to Bristol by the earl of Kent, seconded by the foreign forces under John de Hainault. He found himself disappointed in his expectations with regard to the loyalty of those parts; and he passed over to Wales, where, he flattered himself, his name was more popular, and which he hoped to find uninfected with the contagion of general rage, which had seized the English.
c
The elder Spenser, created earl of Winchester, was left governor of the castle of Bristol; but the garrison mutinied against him, and he was delivered into the hands of his enemies. This venerable noble, who had nearly reached his ninetieth year, was instantly, without trial, or witness, or accusation, or answer, condemned to death by the rebellious barons: He was hanged on a gibbet; his body was cut in pieces, and thrown to the dogs;
d
and his head was sent to Winchester, the place whose title he bore, and was there set on a pole, and exposed to the insults of the populace.

The king, disappointed anew in his expectations of succour from the Welsh, took shipping for Ireland; but being driven back by contrary winds, he endeavoured to conceal himself in the mountains of Wales: He was soon discovered, was put under the custody of the earl of Leicester, and was confined in the castle of Kenilworth. The younger Spenser, his favourite, who also fell into the hands of his enemies, was executed, like his father, without any appearance of a legal trial:
e
The earl of Arundel, almost the only man of his rank in England, who had maintained his loyalty, was, without any trial, put to death at the instigation of Mortimer: Baldoc, the chancellor, being a priest, could not with safety be so suddenly dispatched; but being sent to the PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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bishop of Hereford’s palace in London, he was there, as his enemies probably foresaw, seized by the populace, was thrown into Newgate, and soon after expired, from the cruel usage which he had received.
f
Even the usual reverence, paid to the sacerdotal character, gave way, with every other consideration, to the present rage of the people.

The queen, to avail herself of the prevailing delusion,

The king dethroned.

summoned, in the king’s name, a parliament at Westminster;

where, together with the power of her army, and the authority of her partizans among the barons, who were concerned to secure their past treasons by committing new acts of violence against their sovereign, she expected to be seconded by the fury of the populace, the most dangerous of all instruments, and the least answerable for their excesses.

A charge was drawn up against the king, in which, even though it 1327. 13th Jan.

was framed by his inveterate enemies, nothing but his narrow genius, or his misfortunes were objected to him: For the greatest malice found no particular crime with which it could reproach this unhappy prince. He was accused of incapacity for government, of wasting his time in idle amusements, of neglecting public business, of being swayed by evil counsellors, of having lost, by his misconduct, the kingdom of Scotland, and part of Guienne; and to swell the charge, even the death of some barons, and the imprisonment of some prelates, convicted of

treason, were laid to his account.g
It was in vain, amidst the violence of arms and tumult of the people, to appeal either to law or to reason: The deposition of the king, without any appearing opposition, was voted by parliament: The prince, already

declared regent by his party,h
was placed on the throne: And a deputation was sent to Edward at Kenilworth, to require his resignation, which menaces and terror soon extorted from him.

But it was impossible, that the people, however corrupted by the barbarity of the times, still farther enflamed by faction, could for ever remain insensible to the voice of nature. Here, a wife had first deserted, next invaded, and then dethroned her husband; had made her minor son an instrument in this unnatural treatment of his father; had by lying pretences seduced the nation into a rebellion against their sovereign; had pushed them into violence and cruelties, that had dishonoured them: All those circumstances were so odious in themselves, and formed such a complicated scene of guilt, that the least reflection sufficed to open men’s eyes, and make them detest this flagrant infringement of every public and private duty. The suspicions which soon arose of Isabella’s criminal commerce with Mortimer, the proofs which daily broke out of this part of her guilt, encreased the general abhorrence against her; and her hyprocrisy, in publicly bewailing with tears the king’s unhappy fate,
i
was not able to deceive even the most stupid and most prejudiced of her adherents. In proportion as the queen became the object of public hatred, the dethroned monarch, who had been the victim of her crimes and her ambition, was regarded with pity, with friendship, with veneration: And men became sensible, that all his misconduct, which faction had so much exaggerated, had been owing to the unavoidable weakness, not to any voluntary depravity of his character. The earl of Leicester, now earl of Lancaster, to whose custody he had been committed, was soon touched with those generous sentiments; and besides using his prisoner with gentleness and humanity, he was PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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suspected to have entertained still more honourable intentions in his favour. The king, therefore, was taken from his hands, and delivered over to lord Berkeley, and Mautravers, and Gournay, who were entrusted alternately, each for a month, with the charge of guarding him. While he was in the custody of Berkeley, he was still treated with the gentleness due to his rank and his misfortunes; but when the turn of Mautravers and Gournay came, every species of indignity was practised against him, as if their intention had been to break entirely the prince’s spirit, and to employ his sorrows and afflictions, instead of more violent and more dangerous expedients, for

the instruments of his murder.k
It is reported, that one day, when Edward was to be shaved, they ordered cold and dirty water to be brought from the ditch for that purpose; and when he desired it to be changed, and was still denied his request, he burst into tears, which bedewed his cheeks; and he exclaimed, that, in spite of their

insolence, he should be shaved with clean and warm water.l
But as this method of laying Edward in his grave appeared still too slow to the impatient Mortimer, he secretly sent orders to the two keepers, who were at his devotion, instantly to dispatch him; and these ruffians contrived to make the manner of his death as cruel and barbarous as possible. Taking advantage of Berkeley’s sickness, in whose custody he then was, and who was thereby incapacitated from attending his charge;
m
they came to Berkeley-castle, and put themselves in possession of the king’s person.