Part 14

It was of course impossible that the nation or the baronage should accept such a preposterous regime, and Edward was soon involved in a lively struggle with his subjects. Of the leaders of opposition in his father's reign both Hereford and Norfolk were now dead. But Archbishop Winchelsea had returned from exile in a belligerent mood, and the place of Norfolk and Hereford was taken by an ambitious prince of the royal house, Thomas, earl of Lancaster, the son of the younger brother of Edward I. Thomas was selfish and incompetent, but violent and self-assertive, and for some years was able to pose successfully as a patriot simply because he set himself to oppose every act of the unpopular king. He had several powerful baronial allies--the earls of Warwick, Pembroke and Warenne, with Humphrey Bohun of Hereford, who had succeeded to his father's politics, though he had married the king's own sister.

Progress of Bruce in Scotland.

The "Lords Ordainers."

The annals of the early years of Edward II. are mainly filled by contemporary chroniclers with details of the miserable strife between the king and his barons on the question of Gaveston's unconstitutional position. But the really important feature of the time was the gradual reconquest of Scotland by Robert Bruce, during the continuance of the domestic strife in England. Edward I. had laid such a firm grip on the northern realm that it required many years to undo his work. A very large proportion of the Scottish nobility regarded Bruce as a usurper who had opened his career with murder and sacrilege, and either openly opposed him or denied him help. His resources were small, and it was only by constant effort, often chequered by failures, that he gradually fought down his local adversaries, and reduced the English garrisons one by one. Dumbarton and Linlithgow were only mastered in 1312. Perth did not finally fall into his hands till 1313; Edinburgh, Roxburgh and Stirling were still holding out in 1314. During all this time the English king only once went north of the Border--in 1311--and then with a very small army, for Lancaster and his friends had refused to join his banner. Yet even under such conditions Bruce had to retire to the mountains, and to allow the invaders to range unopposed through Lothian and Fife, and even beyond the Tay. With ordinary capacity and perseverance Edward II. might have mastered his enemy; indeed the Comyns and Umfravilles and other loyalist barons of Scotland would have carried out the business for him, if only he had given them adequate support. But he spent what small energy he possessed in a wretched strife of chicanery and broken promises with Thomas of Lancaster and his party, dismissing and recalling Gaveston according to the exigencies of the moment, while he let the Scottish war shift for itself. It must be confessed that the conduct of his adversaries was almost as contemptible and unpatriotic. They refused to aid in the war, as if it was the king's private affair and not that of the nation. And repeatedly, when they had Edward at their mercy and might have dictated what terms they pleased to him, they failed to rise to the situation. This was especially the case in 1311, when the king had completely submitted in face of their armed demonstrations. Instead of introducing any general scheme of reform they contented themselves with putting him under the tutelage of twenty-one "lords ordainers," a baronial committee like that which had been appointed by the Provisions of Oxford, fifty years back. Edward was not to levy an army, appoint an official, raise a tax, or quit the realm without their leave. He had also to swear an obedience to a long string of constitutional limitations of his power, and to promise to remove many practical grievances of administration. But there were two great faults in the proceedings of Thomas of Lancaster and his friends. The first was that they ignored the rights of the commons--save indeed that they got their ordinances confirmed by parliament--and put all power into the hands of a council which represented nothing but the baronial interest. The second, and more fatal, was that this council of "ordainers," when installed in office, showed energy in nothing save in persecuting the friends of Edward and Gaveston; it neglected the general welfare of the realm, and in particular made no effort whatever to end the Scottish war. It was clearly their duty either to make peace with Robert Bruce, or to exert themselves to crush him; but they would do neither.

Battle of Bannockburn.

Gaveston's unhappy career came to an end in 1312. After he had been twice exiled, and had been twice recalled by the king, he was besieged in Scarborough and captured by the earl of Pembroke. He was being conducted to London to be tried in parliament, when his two greatest enemies, Thomas of Lancaster and Guy, earl of Warwick, took him out of the hands of his escort, and beheaded him by the wayside without any legal authority or justification. The unhappy king was compelled to promise to forget and forgive this offence, and was then restored to a certain amount of freedom and power; the barons believed that when freed from the influence of Gaveston he would prove a less unsatisfactory sovereign. The experiment did not turn out happily. Bruce having at last made an almost complete end of the English garrisons within his realm, laid siege to Stirling, the last and strongest of them all, in the spring of 1313. Compelled by the pressure of public opinion to attempt its relief, Edward crossed the border in June 1314, with an army of 20,000 foot and 4000 men-at-arms. He found Bruce prepared to dispute his advance on the hillside of Bannockburn, 2 m. in front of Stirling, in a strong position with a stream in front and his flanks covered by rows of pitfalls, dug to discomfit the English cavalry. The Scots, as at Falkirk, were ranged in solid clumps of pikemen above the burn, with only a small reserve of horse. The English king, forgetting his father's experiences, endeavoured to ride down the enemy by headlong frontal charges of his men-at-arms, and made practically no attempt to use his archery to advantage. After several attacks had been beaten off with heavy loss, the English host recoiled in disorder and broke up--the king, who had kept in the rear all day, was one of the first to move off. The flower of his knights had fallen, including his nephew, the earl of Gloucester, who was the only one of the great magnates of the realm who had shown loyalty to him during the last six years. The Scots also made many prisoners; the disaster was complete, and the wrecks of the beaten army dispersed before reaching the border. Bruce followed them up, and spent the autumn in ravaging Northumberland and Cumberland.

Thomas, earl of Lancaster.

Thomas of Lancaster, who had refused to join in the late campaign, took advantage of its results to place the king once more in complete tutelage. His household was dismissed, he was bidden to live as best he could on an allowance of L10 a day, and all his ministers and officials were changed. For more than three years Lancaster practically reigned in his cousin's name; it was soon found that the realm got no profit thereby, for Earl Thomas, though neither so apathetic nor so frivolous as Edward, was not a whit more competent to conduct either war or domestic administration. The Scots swept everything before them, ravaging the north at their will, and capturing Berwick. They even made a great expedition to Ireland, where Bruce's brother Edward was proclaimed king by the rebellious Celtic septs, and rode across the whole island, exterminating the Anglo-Irish population in many districts (1315-1317). But the colonists rallied, and cut to pieces a great Irish army at Athenry (1316), while in the next year Roger Mortimer, a hard-handed baron of the Welsh march, crossed with reinforcements and drove back Edward Bruce into the north. Resuming his advance after a space, the rebel king was routed and slain at Dundalk (Oct. 14, 1318) and the insurrection died out. But it had had the permanent result of weakening the king's grip on the north and west of Ireland, where the Englishry had been almost exterminated. From this time forth until the reign of Henry VIII. the limit of the country in full subjection to the crown was always shrinking, and the Irish chiefs of the inland continued to pay less and less attention to orders issued from Dublin or London.

Though the Scottish expedition to Ireland had been beaten off, this was not in the least to be ascribed to the credit of Lancaster, who was showing the grossest incompetence as an administrator. He could neither protect the Border, nor even prevent private civil wars from breaking out, not only on the Welsh marches (where they had always been common), but even in the heart of England. The most extraordinary symptom of the time was a civic revolt at Bristol (1316), where the townsfolk expelled the royal judges, and actually stood a siege before they would submit. Such revolts of great towns were normal in Germany or Italy, but almost unknown on this side of the Channel. All this unrest might well be ascribed to Lancaster's want of ability, but he had also to bear--with less justice--the discontent caused by two years of famine and pestilence. In August 1318 he was removed from power by a league formed by Pembroke, Warenne, Arundel and others of the lords ordainers, who put a new council in power, and showed themselves somewhat less hostile to the king than Earl Thomas had been. Edward was allowed to raise an army for the siege of Berwick, and was lying before its walls, when the Scots, turning his flank, made a fierce foray into Yorkshire, and routed the shire-levy under Archbishop Melton at the battle of Myton. This so disheartened the king and the council that controlled him that they concluded a two years truce with Robert of Scotland, thus for the first time acknowledging him as a regular enemy and no mere rebel (1319).

The Despensers.

Execution of Lancaster.

The time of comparative quiet that followed was utilized by the king in an attempt to win back some of his lost authority. For a short space Edward showed more capacity and energy than he had ever been supposed to possess. Probably this was due entirely to the fact that he had come under the influence of two able men who had won his confidence and had promised him revenge for the murdered Gaveston. These were the two Hugh Despensers, father and son; the elder was an ambitious baron who hated Lancaster, the younger had been made Edward's chamberlain in 1318 and had become his secret councillor and constant companion. Finding that the king was ready to back them in all their enterprises, the Despensers resolved to take the fearful risk of snatching at supreme power by using their master's name to oust the barons who were now directing affairs from their position. The task was the more easy because Lancaster was at open discord with the men who had supplanted him, so that the baronial party was divided; while the mishaps of the last six years had convinced the nation that other rulers could be as incompetent and as unlucky as the king. Indeed, there was a decided reaction in Edward's favour, since Lancaster and his friends had been tried and found wanting. Moreover, the Despensers felt that they had a great advantage over Gaveston in that they were native-born barons of ancient ancestry and good estate: the younger Hugh, indeed, through his marriage with the sister of the earl of Gloucester who fell at Bannockburn, was one of the greatest landowners on the Welsh border: they could not be styled upstarts or adventurers. Edward's growing confidence in the Despensers at last provoked the notice and jealousy of the dominant party. The barons brought up many armed retainers to the parliament of 1321, and forced the king to dismiss and to condemn them to exile. But their discomfiture was only to last a few months; in the following October a wanton outrage and assault on the person and retinue of Edward's queen, Isabella of France, by the retainers of Lord Badlesmere, one of Pembroke's associates, provoked universal reprobation. The king made it an excuse for gathering an army to besiege Badlesmere's castle at Leeds; he took it and hanged the garrison. He then declared the Despensers pardoned, and invited them to return to England. On this Thomas of Lancaster and the more resolute of his associates took arms, but the majority both of the baronage and of the commons remained quiescent, public opinion being rather with than against the king. The rebels displayed great indecision, and Lancaster proved such a bad general that he was finally driven into the north and beaten at the battle of Boroughbridge (March 16, 1322), where his chief associate, the earl of Hereford, was slain. Next day he surrendered, with the wreck of his host. But the king, who showed himself unexpectedly vindictive, beheaded him at once; three other peers, Badlesmere, Clifford and Mowbray, were subsequently executed, with a score of knights.

Rebellion of Queen Isabella and Mortimer.

Such severity was most impolitic, and Lancaster was ere long hailed as a saint and a martyr. But for the moment the king seemed triumphant; he called a parliament which revoked the "ordinances" of 1311, and replaced the Despensers in power. For the remaining four years of his reign they were omnipotent; but able and unscrupulous as they were, they could not solve the problem of successful governance. To their misfortune the Scottish war once more recommenced, King Robert having refused to continue the truce. The fortune of Edward II. now hung on the chance that he might be able to maintain the struggle with success; he raised a large army and invaded Lothian, but Bruce refused a pitched battle, and drove him off with loss by devastating the countryside around him. Thereupon Edward, to the deep humiliation of the people, sued for another cessation of hostilities, and obtained it by conceding all that Robert asked, save the formal acknowledgment of his kingly title. But peace did not suffice to end Edward's troubles; he dropped back into his usual apathy, and the Despensers showed themselves so harsh and greedy that the general indignation only required a new leader in order to take once more the form of open insurrection. The end came in an unexpected fashion. Edward had quarrelled with his wife Isabella, who complained that he made her the "handmaid of the Despensers," and excluded her from her proper place and honour. Yet in 1325 he was unwise enough to send her over to France on an embassy to her brother Charles IV., and to allow his eldest son Edward, prince of Wales, to follow her to Paris. Having the boy in her power, and being surrounded by the exiles of Lancaster's faction, she set herself to plot against her husband, and opened up communications with the discontented in England. It was in vain that Edward besought her to return and to restore him his son; she came back at last, but at the head of an army commanded by Roger, Lord Mortimer, the most prominent survivor of the party of Earl Thomas, with whom she had formed an adulterous connexion which they for some time succeeded in keeping secret.

Deposition and murder of Edward II.

When she landed with her son in Essex in September 1326, she was at once joined by Henry of Lancaster, the heir of Earl Thomas, and most of the baronage of the eastern counties. Even the king's half-brother, the earl of Norfolk, rallied to her banner. Edward and the Despensers, after trying in vain to raise an army, fled into the west. They were all caught by their pursuers; the two Despensers were executed--the one at Bristol, the other at Hereford. Several more of Edward's scanty band of friends--the earl of Arundel and the bishop of Exeter and others--were also slain. Their unhappy master was forced to abdicate on the 20th of January 1327, his fourteen-year old son being proclaimed king in his stead. He was allowed to survive in close prison some eight months longer, but when his robust constitution defied all attempts to kill him by privations, he was murdered by the orders of the queen and Mortimer at Berkeley Castle on the 21st of September.

Regency of Isabella and Mortimer.

The three years regency of Isabella, during the minority of Edward III., formed a disgraceful episode in the history of England. She was as much the tool of Mortimer as her husband had been the tool of the Despensers, and their relations became gradually evident to the whole nation. All posts of dignity and emolument were kept for their personal adherents, and a new and formidable dignity was conferred on Mortimer himself, when he was made both justiciar of the principality of Wales, and also earl of March, in which lay both his own broad lands and the estates of Despenser and Arundel, which he had shamelessly appropriated. It is surprising that the adulterous pair succeeded in maintaining themselves in power for so long, since the ignominy of the situation was evident. They were even able to quell the first attempt at a reaction, by seizing and beheading Edmund, earl of Kent, the late king's half-brother, who was betrayed while organizing a plot for their destruction. The one politic act of Mortimer's administration, the conclusion of a permanent peace with Scotland by acknowledging Bruce as king (1328), was not one which made him more popular. The people called it "the shameful peace of Northampton," and firmly believed that he had been bribed by the Scots.

Edward III.

Yet Isabella and her paramour held on to power for two years after the peace, and were only overthrown by a blow from an unexpected quarter. When the young king had reached the age of eighteen he began to understand the disgraceful nature of his own situation. Having secured promise of aid from Henry of Lancaster, his cousin, and other barons, he executed a _coup de main_, and seized Mortimer in his chamber at midnight. The queen was also put under guard till a parliament could be called. It met, and at the king's demand passed sentence on the earl for the murder of Edward II. and other crimes. He was hanged at Tyburn (Nov. 1330); the queen suffered nothing worse than complete exclusion from power, and lived for more than twenty years in retirement on the manors of her dowry.

Edward III., who thus commenced his reign ere he was out of his boyhood, was, as might have been foretold from his prompt action against Mortimer, a prince of great vigour and enterprise. He showed none of his father's weakness and much of his grandfather's capacity. He fell short of Edward I. in steadiness of character and organizing power, but possessed all his military capacity and his love of work. Unfortunately for England his ambition was to be the mirror of chivalry rather than a model administrator. He took up and abandoned great enterprises with equal levity; he was reckless in the spending of money; and in times of trouble he was careless of constitutional precedent, and apt to push his prerogative to extremes. Yet like Edward I. he was popular with his subjects, who pardoned him much in consideration of his knightly virtues, his courage, his ready courtesy and his love of adventure. In most respects he was a perfect exponent of the ideals and foibles of his age, and when he broke a promise or repudiated a debt he was but displaying the less satisfactory side of the habitual morality of the 14th century the chivalry of which was often deficient in the less showy virtues. With all his faults Edward during his prime was a capable and vigorous ruler; and it was not without reason that not England only but all western Europe looked up to him as the greatest king of his generation.

Edward III. invades Scotland.

His early years were specially fortunate, as his rule contrasted in the most favourable way with that of his infamous mother and his contemptible father. The ministers whom he substituted for the creatures of Mortimer were capable, if not talented administrators. He did much to restore the internal peace of the realm, and put down the local disorders which had been endemic for the last twenty years. Moreover, when the war with Scotland recommenced he gave the English a taste of victory such as they had not enjoyed since Falkirk. Robert Bruce was now dead and his throne was occupied by the young David II., whose factious nobles were occupied in civil strife when, in 1332, a pretender made a snatch at the Scottish throne. This was Edward, the son of John Baliol, an adventurous baron who collected all the "disinherited" Scots lords, the members of the old English faction who had been expelled by Bruce, and invaded the realm at their head. He beat the regent Mar at the battle of Dupplin, seized Perth and Edinburgh, and crowned himself at Scone. But knowing that his seat was precarious he did homage to the English king, and made him all the promises that his father had given to Edward I. The temptation was too great for the young king to refuse; he accepted the homage, and offered the aid of his arms. It was soon required, for Baliol was ere long expelled from Scotland. Edward won the battle of Halidon Hill (July 19, 1333)--where he displayed considerable tactical skill--captured Berwick, and reconquered a considerable portion of Scotland for his vassal. Unfortunately for himself he made the mistake of requiring too much from Baliol--forcing him to cede Lothian, Tweeddale and the larger part of Galloway, and to promise a tribute. These terms so irritated the Scots, who had shown signs of submission up to this moment, that they refused to accept the pretender, and kept up a long guerilla warfare which ended in his final expulsion. But the fighting was all on Scottish ground, and Edward repeatedly made incursions, showy if not effective, into the very heart of the northern realm; on one occasion he reached Inverness unopposed. He held Perth till 1339, Edinburgh till 1341, and was actually in possession of much Scottish territory when his attention was called off from this minor war to the greater question of the struggle with France. Meanwhile he had acquired no small military reputation, had collected a large body of professional soldiers whose experience was to be invaluable to him in the continental war, and had taught his army the new tactics which were to win Crecy and Poitiers. For the devices employed against the Scottish "schiltrons" of pikemen at Dupplin and Halidon, were the same as those which won all the great battles of the Hundred Years' War--the combination of archery, not with cavalry (the old system of Hastings and Falkirk), but with dismounted men-at-arms. The nation, meanwhile prosperous, not vexed by overmuch taxation, and proud of its young king, was ready and willing to follow him into any adventure that he might indicate.

IV. THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR (1337-1453)

Causes of the Hundred Years' War.