Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II Part 47

In this Parliament Adam Orleton began by making outrageous speeches as to the certain death it would be to the Queen and Prince if the King were released and restored to his authority, and he called upon the Lords to choose whether father or son should be King. The London mob clamored in fury without, ardent for the ruin of the King; and the Archbishop, saying, _Vox populi vox Dei_, added his influence. Young Edward was led forward, and a few hymns being hastily sung, received the oaths of allegiance of all the peers present, except the prelates of York, London, Rochester, and Carlisle, who boldly maintained the rights of the captive King, though with great danger to themselves.

The Bishop of Rochester was thrown down by the furious mob, and nearly murdered; and the sight so terrified the other friends of the poor King, that not a voice was raised in his defence. A bill was pa.s.sed declaring Edward II. deposed, and Edward III. the sovereign; whereupon Isabel, to keep up appearances, lamented so much, that she actually deceived her son, who came forward, and with great spirit declared that he would never deprive his father of the crown.

The King was at Kenilworth, honorably treated by his cousin, Henry of Lancaster, and thither a deputation was sent to force him to resign his dignity. The Bishops of Winchester and Lincoln were first sent to him to argue, threaten, and persuade, and, when they thought him sufficiently prepared, led him in a plain black gown to make his formal renunciation.

At the sight of his mortal enemy, Orleton, Edward sank to the ground, but recovered enough to listen to a violent discourse from that rebel prelate, reproaching him with all his misconduct, and requiring him to lay aside his crown. Meekly, and weeping floods of tears, Edward replied, that "he was in their hands, and they must do what seemed good to them; he only thanked them for their goodness to his son, and owned his own sins to be the sole cause of his misfortunes."

Then Sir William Trussel, in the name of all England, revoked the oath of allegiance, and the steward of the household broke his staff of office, as he would have done had it been the funeral of his master.

Would that it had been his funeral, must have been the wish of the unfortunate Sir Edward of Caernarvon, as he was thenceforth termed; disowned, degraded, with wife, son, and brothers turned against him; not one voice uplifted in his favor; all his friends murdered. He wrote some melancholy Latin verses during his captivity, full of sad complaints of the inconstancy of Fortune; but he had not yet experienced the worst that was in store for him. At first, presents of clothes and kindly messages were sent to him by the Queen; and when he begged to see her or his children, she replied that it would not be permitted by Parliament.

He pleaded again and again, and Henry of Lancaster began so far to appear his friend, that Isabel took alarm. The Pope refused her request that Thomas of Lancaster should be canonized as a saint and martyr, and she feared that he might even interfere on the King's behalf, and oblige her to give up Mortimer, and return to her husband.

Orleton had been sent on an emba.s.sy to the Papal court, but he was there consulted by the Queen whether the King should be allowed to live. His answer was the ambiguous line: "Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est." (Edward to kill be unwilling to fear it is good.)

Doubt, in such a case, is certain to end in evil. That the King should die, was determined, and the charge of the unfortunate monarch was therefore transferred to Maurice, Lord Berkeley, and to Sir John Maltravers. The latter set out with two men, named Ogle and Gurney, to escort the King from Kenilworth. At Bristol such demonstrations were made in his favor, that, taking alarm, his keepers clad him in mean and scanty garments, and made him ride toward Corfe in the chilly April night, scoffing and jeering him; and when, in the morning, they paused to arrange their dress, they set a crown of hay in derision on his head, and brought him, in an old helmet, filthy ditch-water to shave with.

With a shower of tears he strove to smile, saying that, in spite of them, his cheeks were covered with pure warm water enough. They brought him to Berkeley Castle, on the Severn, and there, it is said, tried to poison him; but his strength of const.i.tution resisted the potion, and did not fail, under confinement or insufficient diet. At last, when Berkeley was ill, and absent, came the night,

"When Severn should re-echo with affright The sounds of death through Berkeley's roofs that ring, Shrieks of an agonizing king."

At those cries many a countryman awoke, crossed himself, and prayed as for a soul departing in torment. Seven months after his deposition, Edward of Caernarvon lay dead in Berkeley Castle, and the gates were thrown open, and the chief burghers of Bristol admitted to see his corpse. No sign of violence was visible, but the features, once so beautiful, were writhed into such a look of agony, that the citizens came away awed and horrified; and hearing the villagers speak of the cries that had rung from the walls the night before, felt certain that the late King had perished by a strange and frightful murder.

But those were no days for inquiry, and the royal corpse was hastily borne to Gloucester Abbey Church, and there buried. The impression, however, could not be forgotten; mult.i.tudes flocked to pray at the shrine of the dead sovereign, whom living no one would befriend: and such offerings were made at his tomb, that the monks raised a beautiful new south aisle to the church; nay, they could have built the church over again with the means thus acquired. A monument was raised over his grave, and his effigy was carved on it--a robed and crowned figure, with hands meekly folded, and a face of such exquisite, appealing sweetness, dignity, and melancholy, that it is hardly possible to look at it without tears, or to help believing that even thus might Edward have looked when, in all the n.o.bleness of patience, he stood forgiving his persecutors, as they crowned him in scorn with gra.s.s, and derided his misfortunes. A weak and frivolous man, cruelly sinned against, Edward of Caernarvon was laid in his untimely grave in the forty-third year of his age.

Thus ended the Barons' Wars, no patriotic resistance of an opposition who used sword and lance instead of the tongue and the pen, but the factious jealousy of men who became ferocious in their hatred of favoritism.

CAMEO XLI. GOOD KING ROBERT'S TESTAMENT. (1314-1329.)

_Kings of England_.

1307. Edward II.

1327. Edward III.

1322. Charles IV.

_King of Scotland_.

1306. Robert I.

_King of France_.

1314. Louis X.

1316. Philippe V.

_Emperor of Germany_.

1314. Louis V.

_Popes_.

1305. Clement V.

1316. John XXII.

As England waxed feebler, Scotland waxed stronger and became aggressive.

Robert's queen was dead, and he married Elizabeth, daughter of the Earl of Ulster, thus making his brother Edward doubtful whether the Scottish crown would descend to him, and anxious to secure a kingdom for himself.

Ireland had not been reconciled in two centuries to the domination of the Plantagenets. The Erse, or Irish, believed themselves brethren of the Scots, and in all their wanderings and distresses the Bruces had found shelter, sympathy, and aid in the wild province of Ulster. It seemed, therefore, to Edward Bruce a promising enterprise to offer the Irish chieftains deliverance from the English yoke; and they eagerly responded to his proposal. In 1314, he crossed the sea with a small force, before any one was ready for him, and was obliged at once to return, having thus given the alarm; so that Sir Edward Butler, the Lord Deputy, hurried to the defence, and had mustered his forces by the time Edward Bruce arrived, the next spring, with 6,000 men. He was actually crowned King, and laid siege to Carrickfergus, while the wild chieftains of Connaught broke into the English settlements, and did great mischief, till they were defeated at Athenry by the Earl of Ulster's brother and Sir Richard Bermingham. After the battle, Sir Richard Bermingham sent out his page, John Hussy, with a single attendant, to "turn up and peruse" the bodies, to see whether his mortal foe O'Kelly were among them. O'Kelly presently started out of a bush where he had been hidden, and thus addressed the youth: "Hussy, thou seest I am at all points armed, and have my esquire, a manly man, beside me. Thou art thin, and a youngling; so that, if I loved thee not for thine own sake, I might betray thee for thy master's. But come and serve me at my request, and I promise thee, by St. Patrick's staff, to make thee a lord in Connaught of more ground than thy master hath in Ireland." Hussy treated the offer with scorn, whereupon his attendant, "a stout lubber, began to reprove him for not relenting to so rich a proffer." Hussy's answer was, to cut down the knave; next, "he raught to O'Kelly's squire a great rap under the pit of the ear, which overthrew him; thirdly, he bestirred himself so nimbly, that ere any help could be hoped for, he had also slain O'Kelly, and perceiving breath in the squire, he drawed him up again, and forced him upon a truncheon to bear his lord's head into the high town."

These notable exploits were rewarded by knighthood and the lords.h.i.+p of Galtrim.

Robert Bruce brought a considerable army to the a.s.sistance of his brother, and wasted the country up to the walls of Dublin; but Roger Mortimer coming to the relief of the city, he was forced to retreat. It was a horrible devastation that he made, and yet this was only what was then supposed to be the necessity of war, for it was while burning many a homestead, and reducing mult.i.tudes to perish with famine, that Bruce halted his whole army to protect one sick and suffering washerwoman.

"This was a full great courtesy, That swilk a king and so mighty Gert his men dwell on this manner But for a poor lavender."

Bruce was one of the many men tender to the friend, ruthless to the foe; merciful to sufferings he beheld, merciless to those out of his sight.

He returned to Scotland, and Mortimer to England, both leaving horrible hunger and distress behind them, and Mortimer in debt 1,000 to the city of Dublin, "whereof he payde not one smulkin, and many a bitter curse he carried with him beyond sea."

Edward Bruce continued to reign in Ulster until the 5th of October, 1318, when the last and nineteenth battle was fought between him and the English, contrary to the advice of his wisest captains. His numbers were very inferior, and almost the whole were slain. Edward Bruce and Sir John Malpas, an English knight, were found lying one upon the other, slain by each other's hands in the deadly conflict. Robert, who was on the way to bring reinforcements to his brother, turned back on hearing the tidings, and employed his forces against his old foe, John of Lorn, in the Western Isles, and it was on this occasion that, to avoid doubling the Mull of Cantire, he dragged his s.h.i.+ps upon a wooden slide across the neck of land between the two locks of Tarbut--a feat often performed by the fishermen, and easy with the small galleys of his fleet, but which had a great effect on the minds of the Islemen, for there was an old saying--

"That he should gar s.h.i.+ppes sua Betwixt those seas with sailis gae Should win the Islis sua till hand, That nane with strength should him withstand."

Accordingly they submitted, and Lorn, being taken, was shut up for life in Lochleven Castle.

It was about the time of Edward Bruce's wild reign in Ulster that Dublin University was founded by Archbishop Bigmore; and in contrast to this advance in learning, a few years later, a horrible and barbarous warfare raged, because Lord de la Poer was supposed to have insulted Maurice of Desmond by calling him a rhymer. Moreover, at Kilkenny, a lady, called Dame Alice Kettle, was cited before the Bishop of Ossory for witchcraft.

It was alleged that she had a familiar spirit, to whom she was wont to sacrifice nine red c.o.c.ks, and nine peac.o.c.ks' eyes; that she had a staff "on which she ambled through thick and thin;" and that between compline and twilight she was wont to sweep the streets, singing,

"To the house of William, my son, Hie all the wealth of Kilkenny town."

She was acquitted on the charge of witchcraft, but her enemies next attacked her on the ground of heresy, and succeeded in accomplis.h.i.+ng her death.

The Pope at Avignon a.s.sisted the English cause by keeping Bruce and his kingdom under an interdict; but the Scots continued to make inroads on England, and year after year the most frightful devastation was committed. In 1319, the Archbishop of York, hoping for another Battle of the Standard, collected all his clergy and their tenants, and led them against Douglas and Randolph at Mitton; but their efforts were unavailing, and such mult.i.tudes were slain, that the field was covered with the white surplices they wore over their armor, and the combat was called the Chapter of Mitton.

For many long years were the northern provinces the constant prey of the Scots, as the discords of the English laid their country open to invasion. Bruce himself was indeed losing his strength, the leprosy contracted during his life of wandering and distress was gaining ground on his const.i.tution, and unnerving his strong limbs; but Douglas and Randolph gallantly supplied his place at the head of his armies, and his affairs were everywhere prospering. He had indeed lost his eldest daughter Marjorie, but she had left a promising son, Robert Stuart; and to himself a son had likewise been born, named David, after the royal Saint of Scotland, and so handsome and thriving a child, that it was augured that he would be a warrior of high prowess.

Rome was induced, in 1323, to acknowledge Robert as King, on his promise to go on a crusade to recover the Holy Land--a promise he was little likely to be in a condition to fulfil; and Edward II began to enter into negotiations, and make proposals, that disputes should be set aside by the betrothal of the little David and his youngest daughter, Joan. But these arrangements were broken off by the rebellion of Isabel, and the deposition of Edward of Caernarvon; and Bruce sent Douglas and Randolph to make a fresh attack upon Durham and Northumberland. The wild army were all on horseback; the knights and squires on tolerable steeds, the poorer sort on rough Galloways. They needed no forage for their animals save the gra.s.s beneath their feet, no food for themselves except the cattle which they seized, and whose flesh they boiled in their hides.

Failing these, each man had a bag of oatmeal, and a plate of metal on which he could bake his griddle-cakes. This was their only baggage; true to the Lindsay motto, the stars were their only tents: and thus they flashed from one county to another, doing infinite mischief, and the dread of every one.

While young Edward III was being crowned, they had well-nigh seized the Castle of Norham. The tidings filled the boy with fire and indignation.

He was none of the meek, indifferent stock that the Planta Genista sometimes bore, but all the resolution and brilliancy of the line had descended on him in full measure, and all the sweetness and courtesy, together with all the pride and ambition of his race, shone in his blue eye, and animated his n.o.ble and gracious figure. He was well-read in chivalrous tales, and it was time that he should perform deeds of arms worthy of his ladye-love, the flaxen-haired Philippa of Hainault.

Strange was the contrast of the pure, ardent spirit, with the scenes of shame and disgrace of which he was as yet unconscious. He knew not that he was a usurper--that one parent was peris.h.i.+ng in a horrible captivity, the other holding himself and his kingdom in shameful trammels, and giving them over into the power of her traitorous lover.

But Edward was sixteen, and Isabel and Mortimer could only hope to continue their dominion by keeping him at a distance; and he was therefore placed at the head of a considerable army, with Sir John of Hainault as his adviser, and sent forth to deliver his country from the Scots.

Good Sir John of Hainault, accustomed to p.r.i.c.k his heavy Flemish war-horse over the Belgian undulating plains, that Nature would seem to have designed for fair battle-fields, was no match for the light hors.e.m.e.n of the Scots, trained to wild, desultory warfare. He and his young King thought the respectable way of fighting was for one side to wait civilly for the other, interchange polite defiances on either side, take no advantage of ground, but ride fairly at each other with pennons flying and trumpets sounding, like a tournament; and they did not at all approve of enemies of whom they saw no trace but a little distant smoke in the horizon, and black embers of villages wherever they marched.

There was no coming up with them. The barons set forth in the morning, fierce, and wound up for a battle, pennons displayed, and armor burnished; but by and by the steeds floundered in the peat-bogs, the steep mountain-sides were hard to climb for men and horses cased in proof armor, and when shouts or cries broke out at a distance, and with sore labor the knights struggled to the spot in hopes of an engagement, it proved to have been merely the hallooing of some other part of the army at the wild deer that bounded away from the martial array. When, at night, they reached the banks of the Tyne, and had made their way across the ford, they found themselves in evil case, for all their baggage and provisions were far behind, stuck in the bogs, or stumbling up the mountain-sides, and they had nothing to eat but a single loaf, which each man had carried strapped behind him, and which had a taste of all the various peat-bogs into which he had sunk. The horses had nothing to eat, and there was nothing to fasten them to, so that their masters were forced to spend the whole night holding them by the bridles. They hoped for better things at dawn, but with it came rain, which swelled the river so much that none of the foot or baggage could hope to cross, nor, indeed, could any messenger return to find out where they were. The gentlemen were forced to set to work with their swords to cut down green boughs to weave into huts, and to seek for gra.s.s and leaves for their horses. By and by came some peasants, who told them they were fourteen miles from Newcastle and eleven from Carlisle, and no provisions could be obtained any nearer. Messengers were instantly sent off, promising safety and large prices to any one who would bring victuals to the famis.h.i.+ng camp, and the burghers of Newcastle and Carlisle seem to have reaped a rich harvest, by sending a moderate supply of bread and wine at exorbitant prices. For a whole week of rain did the army continue in this disconsolate position, without tents, fire, or candle, and with perpetual rain, till the saddles and girths were rotted, the horses wasted to skeletons, and the army, with rusted mail and draggled banners and plumes, a dismal contrast to the gay troops who had lately set forth.

After waiting a week, fancying the Scots must pa.s.s the ford, they gave up this hope, and resolved to re-cross higher up. Edward set forth a proclamation, that the man who should lead him where he could cope on dry ground with the Scots, should be knighted by his own hand, and receive a hundred pounds a year in land. Fifteen gentlemen, thus incited, galloped off in quest of the enemy, and one of them, an esquire named Thomas Rokeby, who made toward Weardale, not only beheld the Scots encamped on the steep hill-side sloping toward the Wear, but was seized by their outposts, and led before Douglas. Sir James was in a position where he had no objection to see King Edward, with a natural fortification of rocks on his flanks, a mountain behind, and the river foaming in a swollen torrent over the rocks in the ravine in front of him. So, when Rokeby had told his tale, Douglas gave him his ransom and liberty, on the sole condition that he should not rest till he had brought the tidings to the King--terms which he was not slow to fulfil.

He found the English army on the Derwent, at the ruined Augustinian monastery of Blanchland; and, highly delighted, Edward gave the promised reward, and the army prepared for a battle by confession and hearing ma.s.s. Then all set forth in high spirits, and came to the spot, where they were so close to the enemy that they could see the arms on the s.h.i.+elds of the n.o.bles, and the red, hairy buskins of the ruder sort, shaped from the hides of the cattle they had killed.

Edward made his men dismount, thinking to cross the river; but, on examination, he found this impossible. He then sent an invitation to the Scottish leaders to come out and have a fair fight; but at this they laughed, saying that they had burnt and spoiled in his land, and it was his part to punish them as he could; they should stay there as long as they pleased. As it was known that there was neither bread nor wine in their camp, it was hoped that this would not be very long; but from the merriment nightly heard round the watchfires, it seemed that oatmeal and beef satisfied them just as well, and the English were far more miserable in their position.