Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

C >> Charlotte Mary Yonge >> Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

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"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; multitudes 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 nobleness of patience, he stood forgiving his
persecutors, as they crowned him in scorn with grass, 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 lordship of
Galtrim.

Robert Bruce brought a considerable army to the assistance 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 multitudes 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 L1,000 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 ships 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 shippes 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 cocks, and nine peacocks' 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 accomplishing her
death.

The Pope at Avignon assisted 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 multitudes 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 constitution, 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 grass 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 noble 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 perishing 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 prick 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
horsemen 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 grass 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
famishing 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 pass 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
mass. 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
shields of the nobles, 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.

On the third night, though the fires blazed and the horns resounded at
midnight, by dawn nothing was to be seen but the bare, gray hill-side.
The Scots had made off during the night, and were presently discovered
perched in a similar spot on the river side, only with a wood behind
them, called Stanhope Park.

Again Edward encamped on the other side of the river, and watched the
foe in vain. One night, however, Douglas, with a small body of men,
crept across the river at a ford higher up, and stealing to the
precincts of the camp, rode past the sentry, crying out in an English
tone, "Ha, St. George! no watch here!" and made his way into the midst
of the tents, smiling to himself at the murmur of an English soldier,
that the Black Douglas might yet play them some trick. Presently, with
loud shouts of "Douglas! Douglas! English thieves, ye shall die!" his
men fell on the sleeping army, and had slain three hundred in a very
short time, while he made his way to the royal tent, cut the ropes,
and as the boy, "a soldier then for holidays," awoke, "by his couch,
a grisly chamberlain," stood the Black Lord James! His chaplain threw
himself between, and fell in the struggle, while Edward crept out under
the canvas, and others of the household came to his rescue. The whole
army was now awakened, and Douglas fought his way out on the other
side of the camp, blowing his horn to collect his men. On his return,
Randolph asked him what he had done. "Only drawn a little blood," said
Douglas.

"Ah!" said Randolph, "we should have gone down with the whole army."

"The risk would have been over-great," said Douglas.

"Then must we fight them, by open day, for our provisions are failing,
and we shall soon be famished."

"Nay," said Sir James, "let us treat them as the fox did the fisherman,
who, finding him eating a salmon before the fire in his hut, drew his
sword, and stood in the doorway, meaning to slay him without escape. But
the fox seized a mantle, and drew it over the fire; the fisherman flew
to save his mantle, and Master Fox made off safely with the salmon by
the door unguarded!"

On this model the wary Scot arranged his retreat, making a multitude of
hurdles of wattled boughs to be laid across the softer places in the bog
behind them, and giving secret orders that all should be ready to move
at night. This could not be done so secretly that some tidings did not
reach the English; but they expected another night-attack, and, though
they continued under arms, made no attempt to ascertain the proceedings
of the enemy till daybreak, when, crossing the river, they found nothing
alive but five poor English prisoners bound naked to trees, with their
legs broken. Around them lay five hundred large cattle, killed because
they went too slowly to be driven along, three hundred skins filled with
meat and water hung over the fires, one hundred spits with meat on
them, and ten thousand of the hairy shoes of the Scots--the enemy were
entirely gone; and Edward, baffled, grieved, and ashamed, fairly burst
into tears at his disappointment.

His army was unable to continue the pursuit, and in two days arrived at
Durham, where the honest burghers had stored under outhouses all the
wagons that had been left behind in the advance thirty-two days before,
each with a little flag to show whose property it was. Tidings being
brought that the Scots had gone to their own country, Edward turned
his face southward, and, by the time he reached York, had had the
mortification of losing all his horses, from the privations the poor
creatures had undergone; while the discontent of his subjects found
vent in ascribing all the misfortunes to Roger Mortimer's treachery--an
additional crime of which he may fairly be acquitted. Edward continued
at York all that autumn, apparently keeping aloof from his mother's
court; or else it was her object to prevent him from perceiving the
guilty counsels that there prevailed, and which resulted in the murder
of his father. To York Sir John of Hainault fetched the young bride,
his niece Philippa, and the marriage took place in the cathedral on St.
Paul's Day, 1328, the two young people being then sixteen and fifteen
years of age. Meantime, Robert Bruce, partially recovering, laid siege
to Norham, and in the exhausted state of England it was decided to offer
him peace, fully acknowledging his right to the throne, yielding up the
regalia and the royal stone of Scotland, and uniting his son David with
the little Princess Joan.

The nation were exceedingly angry at the peace, necessary as it was, and
charged the disgrace upon Mortimer. They rose in tumult, and prevented
the coronation-stone from being taken away, and they called the marriage
a base alliance. Even Edward himself refused to be present with his
young wife at the marriage of his little sister, which was to take place
at Berwick. His mother tried to induce him to come, by arranging a
joust; she had six spears painted splendidly for his use, others for
his companions, and three hundred and sixty more for other English
gentlemen; but he was resolved to keep his Philippa aloof from the
company of Mortimer and his mother, and remained with her at Woodstock,
notwithstanding all temptations to display.

Bruce was too ill to go to Berwick, but gave his son, then five years
old, into the charge of Douglas and Randolph. The little bride, called
by the Scots Joan Makepeace, was conducted by her mother and Mortimer
with the most brilliant pomp.

Mortimer's display and presumption outdid even poor Piers Gaveston: he
had one hundred and eighty knights in his own train alone, and their
dress was so fantastically gay that the Scots jested on them, and made
rhymes long current in the North:

"Longbeards, heartless,
Gay coats, graceless,
Painted hoods, witless,
Maketh England thriftless."

Queen Isabel herself was wont to wear such a tower on her head, that
doorways had to be altered to enable her to pass under them; and her
expenses were so great, that no revenue was left to maintain her young
daughter-in-law Philippa.

Henry, sometimes called Wryneck, Earl of Derby, brother of the rebel
Thomas of Lancaster, and Thomas and Edmund, Earls of Norfolk and Kent,
the youngest sons of Edward I., had begun bitterly to repent of having
been deceived by this wicked woman. Even Adam Orleton had quarrelled
with her for attempting to exact a monstrous bribe for making him Bishop
of Winchester; but Mortimer was determined to keep up his power by
violence. At a parliament at Salisbury, where the young King and Queen
were presiding, he broke in with his armed followers, and carried them
off in a sort of captivity to Winchester. The three Earls took up arms,
but the Earls of Kent and Norfolk, who seem to have had their full share
of the family folly, deserted Lancaster, and he was forced to make
peace, after paying an immense fine.

Still Isabel and Mortimer felt their insecurity, or else they had such
an appetite for treachery and murder, that they were driven on to commit
further crimes. A report was set about that Edward of Caernarvon
was still living in Corfe Castle, and one of his actual murderers,
Maltravers, offered the unfortunate Edmund of Kent to convey letters
from him to his brother; nay, it was arranged, for his further
deception, that he should peep into a dungeon and behold at a distance a
captive, who had sufficient resemblance to the late King to be mistaken
for him in the gloom. Letters were written by the Earl and his wife to
the imaginary prisoner, and entrusted to Maltravers, who carried them
at once to Queen Isabel. A sufficient body of evidence having thus been
procured for her purposes, the unfortunate Edmund was arraigned before
the parliament at Winchester, when he confessed that the letters had
been written by himself; and, further, that a preaching friar had
conjured up a spirit on whose authority he believed his brother to be
alive. He was found guilty of treason, and sentenced to death by persons
who expected that his rank would save him; but the She-wolf of France
was resolved on having his blood, and decreed that he should die the
next day. Such was the horror at the sentence, that the headsman stole
secretly away from Winchester to avoid performing his office, and for
four long hours of the 13th of March, 1329, did Earl Edmund Plantagenet
stand on the scaffold above the castle gate, waiting till some one could
be found to put him to death, in the name of his own nephew and by the
will of his mother's niece. He was only twenty-eight, and had four
little children; and, in those dreary hours, what must not have been his
hopes that the young Edward would awaken to a sense of the wickedness
that was being perpetrated, so abhorrent to his warm and generous
nature! But hopes were vain. Queen Isabel "kept her son so beset" all
day, that no word could be spoken to him respecting his uncle, and at
length a felon was sought out, who, as the price of his own pardon,
dealt the death-stroke to the son of the great Edward.