the insolent favourite nick-named “the black dog of Ardenne forest," on account of the swarthiness of his complexion. The queen, a woman of lofty spirit, was also irritated as well at the behaviour of her husband towards one whom he loaded with wealth even to the impoverishment of his private coffers, and could not disguise her indignant feeling, but wrote to the king, her father, that the wretch Gaveston not only treated her contemptuously, but estranged her husband from her bed.

Lacy, earl of Lincoln, whom we have already mentioned as holding among his extensive lands and manors, the lordship of Risley in the county of Derby, was then lying on the couch of death. He had accompanied the late king in all his wars, and had shared his confidence on all occasions. He was one of those whom the royal warrior had called around him to hear his dying injunctions, when he breathed his last on the sands of Cumberland. Prince Thomas, the young earl of Lancaster and Derby, had married Alicia, the only daughter, and, indeed, the only surviving child of the earl of Lincoln. The noble earl, sensible that his end was approaching, and aware of the calamities which the government of the abject king and his vile favourite was bringing upon the nation, sent for the prince, his son-in-law, and thus addressed him. "Honour God above all things; but-seest thou, my son, that the church of England, heretofore honourable and free, is now enslaved by Romish oppressions, and by the king's unjust exactions? seest thou the common people, impoverished by tributes and taxes, and from the condition of freemen, reduced to a servitude? seest thou the nobility, formerly venerable through Christendom, vilified by aliens in their own native country? I therefore charge thee, in the name of Christ, to stand up like a man, for the honour of God, and his church, and for the redemption of thy country, associating thyself to that valiant, noble and prudent person, Guy, earl of Warwick, when it shall be proper to discourse of the public affairs of the kingdom; for he is judicious in counsel and mature in judgFear not thy opposers who contest against thee in the truth: and, if thou pursuest this my advice, thou shalt gain eternal honour."

ment.

Guy de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, to the guidance of whose counsels the dying earl thus recommended the attention of his royal son-in-law, had already formed a confederacy against the profligate authority of the king's favourite; at the head of which was Valence, earl of Pembroke, the archbishop of Canterbury and many of the most distinguished earls and barons of the realm. No sooner had Warwick introduced the young prince, who had instantly visited him, to the assembled nobles, than he was received by them with great joy, and declared general of the army they had determined to raise. He was soon at the head of a large body of forces, and with the expectation of surprising the king at York, who was with his favourite indulging in the festivities of that city, he marched thither; but Edward having heard of their approach, and being informed that the first of their demands was the delivery of Piers Gaveston into their hands, he fled before them. Having placed his favourite in the castle of Scarborough, the king withdrew into Warwickshire, where he expected the support of the royalists. He was closely pursued by the earl of Lancaster with the main body of the confederate army, while the earls of Pembroke and Warren carried on the siege of Scarborough. The castle, though well situate and strongly fortified, was ill provided with provisions, and it may very easily be imagined that the luxurious favourite and his attendants were not of that description of men who are best calculated to endure the deprivations of a protracted siege. In a few days they offered to capitulate, and Gaveston, in delivering himself up to his enemies, obtained a promise that he should speak with the king and be tried by his peers. In conformity to this promise, the earl of Pembroke proceeded to escort his prisoner to Wallingford, but on arriving at Deddington in Oxfordshire, he placed Gaveston under guard for the night, and Guy de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, who was extremely enraged that any terms should have been granted to a man who had been the cause of so much dishonour and vexation to the whole nation, came with a party of armed men and carried him off to the castle of Warwick. On the arrival of the earls of Lancaster, Hereford and Arundel, a consultation was held, and warm disputes ensued whether he should be conducted to the king or put immediately to death. In the midst of this discussion, "sobrius quidam," says an old historian, which we may translate, a cool-minded individual of the party," observed, "that after having been at so much

trouble and expense to catch this Gaveston, it would be great folly to risk the chance of his getting again under the king's protection: and that it was much better to put Gaveston to death than to continue a civil war." To this intimation the rest of the assembly acceded, and Gaveston was taken to an eminence called Blacklow hill, about a mile north-east of Warwick, where his head was struck off by a Welsh soldier, one of the attendants of the earl of Arundel.

Such an execution, unwarranted by any previous trial, and in direct violation of the capitulation entered into at Scarborough, cannot be vindicated upon any grounds, but it was not in the power of the king to manifest his indignation and resentment. The army of the barons had marched to London and Edward fled to Canterbury, where he prevailed upon the archbishop, together with the earl of Gloucester, son of his sister Joanna, to mediate between him and the confederates. Some terms of accommodation were agreed upon, but confidence was not restored, for, says the old historian Walsingham, there continued an ill-concealed enmity between the king and the barons; the earls of Warwick and Lancaster being more particularly the objects of the king's hatred. The former of these two barons died a short time after these events, and it was generally believed that poison had been given him.

The war carried on by Edward II. in Scotland, was a series of dishonourable defeats. The total discomfiture of an immense army, commanded by the king himself, at Bannockburn, re-established the independence of the Scottish crown. Edward fled from the field of battle, closely pursued by the victorious Scots, across the borders of the two kingdoms, and seemed not to consider himself out of danger until he arrived at the city of York. But while Edward was thus driven out of Scotland, he could have little expectation of repose amid the discontents of the people of England, where famine of the severest description, attended by disease, was adding its horrors to the distress and disorder which already prevailed throughout the kingdom. Walsingham assures us, that the most loathsome animals were eaten, that even children were stolen to serve as food, and that men were assassinated for the same purpose. The price of a quarter of wheat rose to 20s. which, according to the relative value of money at that time and this, would be little less than £20. of our present currency.

It is difficult to imagine the infatuation of a monarch, who in the midst of these disgraces and internal calamities, expended a large sum of money, in a magnificent celebration of the obsequies of his deceased favourite, whose body he caused to be removed, with solemn pomp, from Oxford to King's Langley, near St. Albans, where Edward had founded the church of the friar preachers, for the express purpose of praying for the soul of Gaveston. Nor was he contented with showing these posthumous attentions to the memory of a man hated by the nation, but sought every occasion of displaying his exasperation against those who had been instrumental in causing Gaveston's death. The earl of Lancaster and Derby was, in particular, the object of his vengeance, and he could stoop to any means of annoyance, however despicable, that might afford some vent to the irritation of his mind. In the spring of the year 1317, the king, without any process of law, gave his own warrant to a knight of the train of the earl of Warren, to seize the wife of the earl of Lancaster, under the pretence that she had been previously betrothed to him, that he had enjoyed all the freedoms of a husband, and that she was, by the custom of that period, legally his wife. This knight was named Sir Richard de St. Martin: he was very low in stature, lame and hunchbacked.. Being possessed of the king's warrant, he went to the residence of the countess in Dorsetshire, attended by a large retinue, and carried her off in great state to the castle of Ryegate in Surrey, which belonged to his patron the earl of Warren. The barons, and indeed the people at large, were astonished at the infliction of so extraordinary an insult as this, by the authority of the king, upon a prince of the blood, high in the esteem of the nation. Expressions of indignation were loud and general, nor were they diminished by the expedient to which the king resorted of having the deposition of the countess herself taken, who was reported to have acknowledged a criminal intimacy with this deformed knight, and a betrothment to him, before she became the wife of the royal earl at the instance of her father. To this deposition were added charges of adultery alleged by the countess against her husband, the earl, whom she was made to accuse of keeping several mistresses and of treating her with cruelty. The public would believe nothing

against a prince whom they honoured for his valour and patriotism and loved for his extensive charities and universal benevolence. Edward was, however, not deterred from his purpose of injuring his more popular and public spirited cousin, and being countenanced by his younger brother, Edmund of Woodstock, whom he had created earl of Kent, and by the earl of Warren, who had deserted the party of the royal earl of Lancaster, he countenanced the claims of the decrepit knight to the earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury, in the right of the countess, his pretended wife.

While Edward was thus increasing the enmity of those on whose support his own power depended, he had taken into his intimacy a new favourite named Hugh de Spencer, who with his father ruled for some time the king and the national counsels, with more arrogance than even Piers de Gaveston had done. Hugh de Spencer, the elder, was a very aged man, and, during the last reign, had won the estimation of his warlike sovereign by his conduct in numerous battles. His son, Hugh de Spencer, the younger, rose by obsequiousness into the favour of the king: his avarice and ambition were insatiable, and at every accession of power and possessions, his insolence towards the barons of the kingdom increased.

A confederacy of the barons was the consequence. They met at Sherborne, and placed themselves again under the authority of Thomas, earl of Lancaster. Having speedily raised an army, they marched, with banners displayed, to St. Albans, proclaiming their purpose to redress the grievances of the realm. From the town of St. Albans, where they remained three days, they sent the bishops of Ely, Hereford and Chichester to the king, calling upon him to banish the Spencers beyond the realm. Edward agreed to refer the matter to a parliament, which was soon assembled at Westminster, and in which the two favourites were sentenced to banishment for life. But this measure, though it allayed the discontent of the nation, and enabled the barons to dismiss their military tenants, served not as an admonition to the infatuated sovereign, but inflamed him with the desire of vengeance. Under pretence of chastising the Scots, who invaded the borders and laid waste the northern counties, he got together a large army, and recalled to his intimacy the younger Spencer, on whom he heaped more honours and possessions than he had previously done.

In the meantime, the party of the confederate barons had been weakened through jealousy and disaffection, and the earl of Lancaster was unable to collect any considerable body of troops to act against the king, who was in great strength in the heart of the kingdom. With those adherents whom he could hastily draw together, he marched first to Gloucester and thence to Burton upon Trent, and so on to his castle of Tutbury, where he intended to remain until he could raise troops from among his military tenants in Derbyshire and the neighbouring counties. For this purpose he sent one of his attendants, Robert de Holand,* whom he had taken out of his buttery, and preferred to the dignity of knighthood, with an income in land (chiefly in Derbyshire) of two thousand marks a year, into Lancashire and the northern parts of Derbyshire, to bring up the levies in those parts. While the earl of Lancaster remained at Tutbury, the earls of Hereford, Mowbray and de Lisle advanced through Coventry and Lichfield, closely pursued by the king and the two Spencers. In order to favour the passage of his associates and oppose their pursuers, the earl sent troops from the castle of Tutbury to seize the bridge at Burton; but the re-enforcements which Sir Robert de Holand had engaged to levy, and on which the royal earl greatly depended, not having arrived, he was unable to take measures for defending the ford at Walton.After a short but severe conflict at Burton, the king and the two Spencers withdrew to Walton, where they passed the Trent, with the intention of seizing and laying waste the possessions which the earl of Lancaster so extensively held in Derbyshire. The devastation was carried on with all the spirit of malicious revenge, and the earl and his associates finding themselves too inferior

▪Dugdale (Vol. II. p. 73.) says that the rise and advancement of this Robert de Holand was by being secretary to Thomas, earl of Lancaster and Derby, who obtained for him a grant from the crown, in fee, of the manors of Melbourn, Newton, Osmaston, Swarkstone, Chellaston, Normanton and Wyveleston, in this county.

to meet the king in a field of battle, withdrew, after a few skirmishes, from the castle of Tutbury and retreated towards the north.*

The king and the Spencers immediately entered Tutbury castle, but the cupidity of the favourites was disappointed of the booty they expected to have found there, the earl having sent forward his treasures to his castle at Pontefract, where he intended to fix his head quarters. A commission was, however, drawn up by the younger Spencer, and signed by the king at Tutbury, March 11th, 1321, commanding Edmund, earl of Kent, and John de Warren, earl of Surrey, to pursue and arrest the earl of Lancaster and his confederates.

When the patriotic prince arrived at Pontefract he held a consultation with the barons who accompanied him, in the cloisters of the Black Friars in that town, and they were of opinion that he should proceed onward to the castle of Dunstanburgh, a castle of his own in Northumberland, but he declared he would not place himself in a position in which he might be liable to the accusation of holding a correspondence with the Scots, the enemies of his country. Some of the few barons who continued among his remaining adherents, were extremely irritated at his determination: they saw that without assistance from Scotland they must yield to the king and his favourites, and as they were sure that no mercy would be shown them, they hoped that by reaching a place of security on the borders, they should at least be afforded opportunities of escaping out of the kingdom. The brave and patriotic earl, however, strongly resisted their persuasions, until, at length, Sir Roger de Clifford drew his dagger, and backed by others, swore that he would stab the earl to the heart if he would not accompany them northward. Thus compelled to yield to their resolves, with less than seven hundred men, he continued his march from Pontefract, and with the king's troops close upon his rear, he reached Boroughbridge, where he sustained, with considerable advantage, the attack of the earl of Warren, while Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, the firmest of his adherents, attempted to make himself master of the bridge, which was defended by lord Latimer, with some troops from York, and by Sir Andrew de Harcla, of Carlisle, with the militia from Cumberland. The conflict on the bridge was desperate and sanguinary, and the earl of Hereford had nearly taken possession of the pass, when a soldier, who had concealed himself under one of the arches of the bridge, leapt up and thrust him through the body with his spear. His followers, dismayed by this occurrence, gave way and fell back upon the main body commanded by the earl of Lancaster. The battle continued, but on very unequal terms. Lord Latimer and the earl of Surrey speedily surrounded the small remnant of the royal earl's adherents, who were, in a very short time, either slain or taken prisoners. The earl of Lancaster, Roger de Clifford, John de Mowbray, Warren de Lisle and several others, were taken back to Pontefract, where the king and the two Spencers had arrived. On their journey they were treated with every indignity. The earl of Lancaster was, in particular, insulted by the sycophants that surrounded the king: a paper crown was put upon his head, and he was saluted by the title of king Arthur, it having been insinuated, that under the pretence of taking arms to redress the grievances of the people, he had aspired at the throne. In the castle of Pontefract, which so lately had been his own, he found arrayed against him, on each side of Edward and the two Spencers, many of the barons who had been among his earliest confederates, and even insti

About the middle of June, 1831, an immense quantity of silver coins, of ancient date, was found completely buried in the sands and alluvia of the river Dove, near the castle of Tutbury. The particulars of this discovery will be given in another part of this work. There is great probability that this treasure (as a writer in the Derby Mercury intimates) was concealed by the earl of Lancaster on the occasion above narrated; and we fully agree with that writer in the following reasons given by him for his very judicious surmise.

1st. The magnitude of the treasure, which could only belong to a powerful baron.

2nd. That no coin after the period of Edward II. has been found, therefore the treasure was most probably hidden during that reign.

3rd. That as the earl alone might be privy to the concealment, and as his own friends were debarred access to him after his imprisonment, and as he might be unwilling to divulge the secret to his enemies; so it would die with him, or if divulged, the exact spot of concealment might never have been discovered.

4th. It may be inferred, as few or none of the groats, or half groats were found, and only pennies, that the money was intended for the payment of the troops, and might have been concealed during his very short abode at Tutbury; and flying from an enemy he might not think it prudent to carry it with him.

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gators in an undertaking, the object of which was the just enforcement of the laws. It gave him a severe pang, when he beheld among his judges, Valence, earl of Pembroke, who had urged him, in the former insurrection against Piers de Gaveston, the king's former favourite, to support by his rank and power the cause of the barons and of the people, against the tyranny and avarice of the king and his ministers. The tribunal, before which he stood, was not long in pronouncing his fate. He was sentenced to be drawn, hanged and quartered; but the king, in consideration of his being so nearly related to himself, consented that he should be beheaded, and that the other practices attending the execution of a person condemned as a traitor should be omitted. He suffered on the 23rd of March, 1322; and many of his followers perished also on the scaffold and the gibbet. Few men of his elevated rank were, at that period, so loved and reverenced by the people. His grave was thronged by multitudes, who believed that miracles were wrought by his remains, and the hill where he suffered was the constant resort of thousands, who could not be kept away, until their devotion to his memory was in some degree satisfied by the erection of a church on the spot where he died. In the next reign he was actually canonized, and his picture being set up in St. Paul's cathedral in London, it was regarded as an object of adoration by the common people, who always mentioned him by the appellation of the good earl of Lancaster. Robert de Holand, who, we already have stated, was sent by the earl of Lancaster to raise troops, and to conduct them to the castle of Tutbury, seems to have been generally suspected of having betrayed the noble earl, his benefactor and patron. The particulars of his treachery are not related by the historians of that period, but we shall find that a strong belief in it entertained by the public was ultimately the occasion of his death. On receiving intelligence of the defeat and capture of the earl of Lancaster and his friends at Boroughbridge, he surrendered himself to the king at Derby. He was sent prisoner to Dover castle.

The overthrow of the earl of Lancaster's party and the death of that excellent prince, left the avidity and tyranny of the two Spencers without control. Still they did not think their vengeance to be complete while Roger Mortimer was alive, who had been one of the most active partisans in the confederacy against them. He was in their power, and they procured his condemnation, but the queen found means so effectually to intercede in his favour, that his execution was continually delayed. The people, disgusted at the great sacrifice of life on the scaffold, which had followed the battle of Boroughbridge, and irritated at the death of a prince so generally beloved by them, were kept in a state of excitation by the emissaries of the queen, who everywhere declaimed against the recent severities, and the Spencers were afraid to crush one whom they knew to be their most inveterate enemy, and whom they held in their grasp. Sir Stephen Segrave was constable of the tower at that time; a brave soldier, who was not likely to betray a trust confided to him, however he might commiserate the condition of his prisoner. Segrave had a soldier from his own manor of Alspath in Warwickshire, named Gerard, who was little troubled with those scruples that are so intimately connected with military duties. To Gerard of Alspath the custody of Sir Roger de Mortimer had been confided, and through his means a correspondence was carried on between Mortimer and the queen, and a plot was laid to facilitate the escape of the former from the tower and his passage into France. On the evening appointed for this purpose, Mortimer invited the governor to sup with him. The old warrior loved to indulge in a social glass, and his memory was stored with many of the occurrences of the Scots' wars, which he was fond of relating; and particularly his own capture at the fatal battle of Bannockburn, where he, at the head of a company of his brave tenantry (many of whom were from Bretby, Rosleston and his other manors in Derbyshire) had actually driven a division of the Scottish army from the field, when, being deserted by those who ought to have supported them, they were surrounded by the enemy and made prisoners. The wine was potent, and in some that was particularly relished by the governor there had been infused a soporific drug. He fell fast asleep, and Mortimer prepared to effect his escape. Some persons concerned in the plot were of opinion that they should avail themselves of this opportunity to make themselves masters of the tower, which would encourage an immediate insurrection of the Londoners: but Mortimer receiving a private intimation from the queen that one of the Spencers, with a body of men, was hastening to the