tower, he privately made his escape by means of a rope supplied him by Gerard. It is asserted that he was afterwards concealed in the queen's chamber for several days, and at last sailed for France in a French vessel that was moored in the river Thames. Several of Mortimer's friends were seized by the Spencers, and Gerard de Alspath was hanged on the spot. The governor Segrave was reprimanded and sent to Guienne.

Queen Isabella soon found a pretence to follow Mortimer to France. The Spencers seconded her intentions, for the younger of them believed that his influence over the king would be complete in her absence, and therefore when it was proposed that she should repair to the court of her brother, Charles the Fair, of France, in order to accommodate certain differences that existed between the two courts, the Spencers persuaded the king to give his consent to her mission. Among those who at the particular desire of the queen were appointed to accompany her, as her council of embassy, to the court of Paris, was Henry de Beaumont, a foreigner, advanced in years, who appears to have been very nearly related to Eleanor of Castile, the first wife of Edward I. and mother of the reigning monarch. This Henry de Beaumont had been in the Scottish wars, where he was greatly distinguished for his bravery, and on the marriage of Edward II. with Isabella of France, he was in the train of the English king, to whom he was so intimately allied, that in sundry grants he is termed, consanguineus regis. He was for many years joined in commission with the earl of Angus to guard the southern districts of Scotland; and was present at the unfortunate battle of Bannockburn. So inveterate an enmity had he conceived against the Scots, that during a discussion in the privy council, relative to a truce with that nation, he, perceiving how the king and his chief advisers were inclined, kept silent. Edward, anxious probably to have his approbation of a measure which he was conscious would not be popular, called upon him to give his advice. "My advice," replied De Beaumont, in a loud and offensive tone, “will not be followed, and therefore I will not give it." The king, irritated at his conduct, commanded him to quit the council chamber. De Beaumont rose, and as he went out, exclaimed, that “ ing what disgraceful counsels were prevalent there, he had rather be gone than stay." The two Spencers were present, and the guard was instantly called to arrest him for his contumelious behaviour, but Henry de Percy and Ralph de Neville started forward and became his sureties. Habituated from his youth to regard the subjugation of Scotland as the most important object of English policy, he saw with grief that the money so repeatedly raised under the pretence of carrying on the war, was lavished upon unworthy favourites. He had also a personal motive for his anxiety on this matter. He had married Alicia, the niece and heiress of the earl of Buchan, constable of Scotland, and, in right of his wife, he had assumed the title and claimed the estates of the deceased earl. Edward's loss of that supremacy which his father had acquired over the Scottish realm, had occasioned the confiscation of these and other possessions claimed under similar titles by several of the barons of the English court; and this was the cause of much of that discontent which was ever ready to break forth against him and his advisers.

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Previous to the departure of the queen, a plot for the overthrow of the Spencers had been extensively espoused by the barons, but the actual dethronement of the king was probably contemplated by few. Among the conspirators were the king's brothers, Edmund, earl of Kent, and Thomas de Brotherton, earl of Norfolk and high marshal of the realm: prince Henry, the brother of the earl of Lancaster and Derby, was also actively engaged in promoting the objects of the confederacy. When the queen arrived at Paris, it became the determination of the conspirators to separate the young prince Edward, at that time a spirited youth not thirteen years of age, from his father, and to get him into the hands of Isabella and her adherents. For this purpose, the king of France was urged by his sister first to insist upon the homage of Edward for the province of Guienne, and afterwards to suffer himself to be persuaded by the representations of De Beaumont and the other ambassadors, to accept the personal homage of the young prince instead of that of Edward himself. The two Spencers might have perceived the advantage they placed in the hands of their enemies by entrusting them with the person of the heir apparent to the crown, but as they were in possession of the king himself, in whose name they carried on their system

of plunder and tyranny, and as the homage could not be refused without the certainty of a war for Guienne itself, they yielded to the expedient of sending the prince to his mother.

Immediately upon the arrival of young Edward in Paris, the English, who had either sought refuge in that country or had been banished by the Spencers from their own, hastened to pay their respects to him and the queen. Roger de Mortimer had waited for this opportunity to join her, and became the most intimate of her counsellors. By his advice a negociation was opened with the earl of Hainault for a body of troops to accompany herself and the confederates to England, and in order to secure an object of this importance, she did not hesitate to affiance the young prince, her son, with Philippa, the earl of Hainault's daughter. Having satisfactorily concluded this business, she left Paris, with a numerous train of the disaffected English, and proceeding to Hainault, she ratified the treaty concluded with the earl, and having solemnly betrothed the youthful couple, she embarked at Dort in the vessels which the earl had provided, and in which there were about three thousand troops under the command of the earl's brother. She landed in the mouth of the Orwell, on the coast of Suffolk, on the 22nd of September, 1326, where she was received by Henry, earl of Lancaster and Derby, Valence, earl of Pembroke, and several powerful barons, together with the bishops of Hereford, Lincoln and Ely.

The king and his two favourites were struck with terror when they heard of the landing of the queen and prince: they had no troops on whom they could depend, and the execrations of the excited people proved to them that all reliance on popular support would be vain. They remained a few days in the tower of London, and then issuing a proclamation, in which they of fered a reward of a thousand pounds for the head of Mortimer, and called upon the people of England to drive the foreign invaders from their shores, they fled towards the borders of Wales. They were pursued by the queen and her son, whose army daily increased; and fearful of being seized by the people and delivered up to their pursuers, they resolved that the elder Spencer should be left in Bristol, and that the king and the younger Spencer should embark for Ireland. Probably they entertained some hope that the city of Bristol would resist the queen's forces for some days, but the people opened their gates and received them with shouts of joy. The aged Spencer, then in his ninetieth year, was dragged into the presence of prince Edward, who sat in the public hall, surrounded by powerful barons. The old man, who had been respected for his military talents, and who would have been venerable for his years had he not rendered his very age the pander to his son's ambition and avarice, was immediately condemned to be hung upon the ramparts of the city over against the sea coast, where (says Froissard) his body might have been seen by the king and Spencer the younger, then beating about in a small vessel on the channel of the ocean below. His body, according to some old writers, was suspended by two strong cords, in his armour, and when it had remained four days thus exposed, the flesh was cut away with knives and thrown to the dogs.

to sea.

The king, with Hugh de Spencer the younger, escaped the morning before the queen and the prince entered the city. They embarked in a small fishing boat, which lay behind the castle. The sea was extremely rough, and it was with difficulty they could prevail upon its owner to put Their intention was to cross the channel to Ireland, but the seaman declared that to be impossible. They then persuaded him to endeavour to steer for the small island of Lundy, where there was a castle, built upon a ridge of rocks, and esteemed to be impregnable. The winds were adverse to their intentions, and after having been eleven days at sea, exposed to tempestuous weather and greatly distressed for provisions, they put into a small creek in Glamorganshire and proceeded to the abbey of Neath. The king made himself known to the Welsh population, spake of his birth at Caernarvon, and called upon them to be loyal to their countryman and prince. The abbot and monks of Neath treated the fallen monarch with much compassion and respect, but some expressions being dropped that intimated to Hugh de Spencer that he was not equally welcome to their hospitality, he retired by night to Caerphilly castle, on the banks of the river Rumney, where he was received by the garrison, whom he induced to stand a siege against a body of the queen's adherents some months. It is probable that he was not personally known by either the defenders or the besiegers of the castle, for on its surrender he was permitted

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to take the benefit of the general terms of capitulation, when he again joined the king at Neath abbey. After this occurrence a report got abroad that the king was concealed somewhere in Wales, and Henry of Lancaster, with a party of soldiers, accompanied by Henry de Beaumont, went in search of him. In consequence of a proclamation of two thousand pounds reward for such information that might lead to the apprehension of De Spencer the younger, intelligence was brought to De Beaumont which induced him to visit the abbey of Neath, where he found not only Hugh de Spencer and the king but several others, including the chancellor Baldoc and Simon of Reading. De Beaumont conveyed them to the castle of Llantrisan, where Henry of Lancaster awaited him. From Llantrisan the king and his companions were conveyed to Hereford, where Edward was persuaded to deliver up the great seal to his wife and son, and there Hugh de Spencer and Simon of Reading were hanged; the gibbet on which the former was executed was fifty feet high, and that on which the latter suffered, ten feet lower. Baldoc being in holy orders was sent under the charge of the bishop of Hereford to London, but on entering that city he was so severely treated by the populace that he died in prison of the injuries he had received.

The parliament, which met in January, 1327, deposed the king and nominated the young prince to the throne, by the title of Edward III. on whose accession the archbishop of Canterbury preached a sermon on these remarkable words-" The voice of the people is the voice of God." A coronation medal was also struck (if we may believe Rapin) on one side of which was the young king crowned, laying his sceptre on a heap of hearts, with this motto, "populo dat jura volenti"- 15 he gives laws to a willing people;" and, on the reverse, a hand held forth to catch a crown falling from heaven, with these words, "non rapit sed recipit”—" he does not seize but receives." There can be no doubt that the queen's party endeavoured to give a popular colouring to the dethronement of her unhappy husband, and the nomination to the crown of a youth, in whose name she hoped that she and Mortimer would be able to exercise the sovereignty of the realm, but such legends as these (as bishop Nicholson has observed) possess a neatness of sentiment and expression of which those rude times were not susceptible.

The government of the kingdom was nominally entrusted to twelve bishops and peers, of whom Henry, earl of Lancaster and Derby, was appointed the head, but the queen and Mortimer controlled the conduct of this council and exercised the supreme authority. It is not our business to narrate the sufferings and cruel death of the deposed king. He had remained some time at Kenilworth castle, under the custody of the earl of Lancaster, but Mortimer became apprehensive that the royal earls of Norfolk, Kent and Lancaster, who had already shown some dissatisfaction at the unwarrantable transactions of himself and the queen, might make use of the fallen sovereign as an instrument to destroy his power, caused him to be removed to Berkeley castle, where was perpetrated, by the hirelings of the queen and her paramour, that nameless deed—

"The shrieks of death, thro' Berkeley's roofs that ring-
Shrieks of an agonizing king!"

Under such rulers as then swayed the affairs of the realm, the minority of the young king, notwithstanding the occasional symptoms of future greatness which displayed themselves in the ardour of his character, could not fail of being disgraceful. A peace was made with Scotland, in which all that the politic Edward I. had done towards acquiring the sovereignty of the whole island, was annulled: the paramount right of the English crown was renounced, and a marriage was agreed upon between David, the son of Robert Bruce, and Joanna, the sister of the young king of England. The royal earls were disgusted at a measure which they considered as ignominious as it was subversive of the claims of those warlike barons who had acquired Scottish estates and titles during the wars. These earls, among whom the most active and intelligent was Henry of Lancaster and Derby, formed a confederacy, which included Henry de Beaumont and Thomas lord Wake of Chesterfield, both great claimants of lands in Scotland.

Henry of Lancaster had always considered Robert de Holand as a traitor to his illustrious brother Thomas, who was beheaded at Pontefract. This Robert, on his surrender to Edward II.

at Derby, was for a short time imprisoned in Dover castle, and on his liberation he retired to Henley, near Windsor, fearful of returning to his estates in the north. There he was discovered by Sir Thomas Wythers, one of the confidential attendants on the earl of Lancaster and Derby ; and the earl, on hearing him mentioned, could not refrain from those violent expressions of indignation and hatred of a man whom he believed to be the cause of his brother's death, which might seem to Sir Thomas sufficient to warrant him in becoming the instrument of his master's wrath. Accordingly, he first excited the populace against this suspected traitor, so that the unfortunate man was obliged to quit his dwelling and seek refuge in the neighbouring forest. He was pursued by Sir Thomas and other adherents of the earl, and being seized, he was beheaded without any trial, and his head was sent to the earl of Lancaster, who was then residing at Waltham Cross. From this circumstance, the queen and Mortimer accused the earl of Lancaster of abetting the murder of Holand, and insinuated to the youthful king, that the royal princes were aspiring to the exercise of an authority dangerous to the crown. Intimations of this nature from his mother, continually repeated, excited the jealousy of Edward; and his uncle, Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, who could not disguise his feelings with regard to the horrible fate of his brother, was pointed out as a person who raised extravagant reports in order to facilitate his own accession to the throne.

Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, the youngest son of Edward I. had always been strongly attached to his misguided and unfortunate brother; and when he joined the confederacy of the queen and Mortimer, he had no further design than that of displacing the Spencers, as the ministers who were abusing the confidence of their sovereign. The earl of Kent was connected with the county of Derby by his marriage with Margaret, the sister and co-heiress of Thomas lord Wake; who, on the death of her brother, came into possession of the town of Chesterfield, with the manors of Great Longstone, Sheldon, Wardlow, Holme, and Ashford with its hamlets. The earl, at the period of which we are speaking, was about twenty-seven years of age, and was more distinguished for the warmth and sincerity of his disposition, than for the spirit of intrigue and policy so usual in courts. He could not repress his sentiments with respect to the conduct of the queen, and as he openly encouraged the public discontent against the government, he was marked by Mortimer as a victim necessary to be sacrificed to his personal safety. An extraordinary plot was devised for the purpose of drawing the earl into such designs against the state as might render his seizure and execution excusable in the eyes of the people. Some emissaries were sent to him, who told him, in pretended confidence, that his brother, Edward II. was still alive and closely confined in Corfe castle. A friar, also, in whom he greatly confided, but who was a creature of Mortimer's, pretended to raise a spirit in his presence; and, by some delusion, a spirit seemed to appear to him, and assure him that his brother not only lived, but would be restored to his throne by his means. While his mind was agitated with this intelligence, he sent one of his confidants to Corfe castle to make enquiries, who returned with the information that he had actually seen the late king sitting at dinner in one of the chambers of the castle. The earl instantly went thither and demanded of the governor, Sir John Daverill, to be introduced to the apartment of his brother. Sir John, who had received instructions how to act upon such an occasion, said, that his orders were strictly to prevent any person from visiting his prisoner; but, he readily yielded so far to the earnestness of the royal earl, as to receive a letter addressed to the supposed sovereign, in which Edmund assured his brother that he would endeavour to restore him to freedom and to his throne, and intimated that a plot was on foot for that purpose. The letter was speedily conveyed to the hands of Mortimer and the queen, who instantly laid it before the young king, and persuaded him that his uncle was at the head of a conspiracy against the state. Edward was then not seventeen years of age, and having been continually under the tutelage of his mother, he had imbibed many of her political views, but he was with difficulty convinced that his uncle entertained any traitorous designs, and he reluctantly consented that the earl should be arrested and arraigned before the parliament then sitting at Winchester. Previous to his being cited before the peers, a confession was drawn from him, in an examination by Robert de Howel, the coroner of the household, in which it appeared that he had been acted upon chiefly

by Sir Ingeram Berenger and Sir Robert de Taunton, who had promised him the aid of the archbishop of York and the bishop of London, and that he relied also upon the assistance of lord Zouch (who then, with other manors, held Ilkeston in Derbyshire) and of Sir John Peche. He also stated, that on his visit to Paris, Henry lord Beaumont and Sir Thomas Rosselyne assured him that they would come to England to aid him.-On his impeachment, the next day, before the peers, he at once admitted this confession and his letter. No other evidence of his guilt was called for, and he was condemned. Having thus obtained the authority of the highest court in the realm for his death, Mortimer lost no time in effecting the execution of a man whom he dreaded, not so much for his talents as for his uncompromising and fearless honesty; but it was not easy to obtain an executioner on this occasion. The official headsman absconded, and it was evening before any one could be found to supply his place, when a wretch was brought out of the Marshal's prison at Winchester, who, upon the promise of pardon for the crimes of which he had been convicted, severed the royal earl's head from his body.

As Edward III. approached his manhood, he became sensible that the government, in the hands of Mortimer and his mother, was detrimental to his own honour and interests. He began to perceive, that for the sake of a tranquillity which left them free to their abandoned indulgences, they had given up his claims to the crown of Scotland, and that, in the same manner, they were letting slip an opportunity in which he might assert his right to the crown of France. Charles IV. the brother of Isabella, died in 1328, without male issue; and a few months afterwards his widow was delivered of a daughter. Philip de Valois, cousin-german to Charles, immediately took possession of the throne, without any remonstrance on the part of the queen in behalf of the claims of her son. But Edward was not inclined to relinquish a supposed right of this important character, and he took care to protest privately before a council of state against the accession of Philip, while, in conformity to the wishes of his mother and Mortimer, he consented to obey the summons of the French crown to perform the ceremony of homage at Paris, for his hereditary provinces of Guienne and Poictou.

The ambitious spirit of the young king was unable to bear the humiliating policy of the queen and her adviser; and, on his return from France, he particularly attended to those who pointed out to him the pride and tyranny of Mortimer, and accused that favourite of the murder of his father and of the unjust condemnation of his uncle. It was also insinuated to him that the queen was with child by Mortimer, and that it was the intention of her and her paramour to dethrone him as they had dethroned his father, and, by corrupting the parliament, to place their illegitimate offspring upon the throne. The criminality of the queen was notorious throughout the kingdom, and yet, it is said, that Edward was reluctant to admit the conviction of that shameless attachment which he was now old enough to have perceived. His eyes, however, were no sooner fully opened, than he resolved to seize the reins of power and to punish the culprits.

Mortimer, earl of March, surpassed any sovereign previously known in England in magnificence and the number of military retainers by whom he was perpetually surrounded.* He had also contrived to bind many of the barons to his interests, and the most extravagant designs that have been imputed to him and the queen seem warranted by the power he had acquired and by the submission of the parliament to his authority. It was therefore necessary for the young king to proceed with circumspection and even with secresy against a subject who was actually, in his own realm, greater than himself. The principal confidant of Edward upon this occasion was Sir William Montacute, a brave and intelligent knight, not more than eight years older than himself; and by the advice of Sir William, the plot was communicated to Sir Humphrey and Sir William de Bohun, Sir Ralph de Stafford, Sir William de Clinton, Sir John de Neville, of Hornby, Sir William Eland and some others. The time for executing their purpose was determined to be that appointed for the meeting of parliament at Nottingham, which was the fifteenth day after the festival of St. Michael. The queen and Mortimer arrived in the town attended by a

The earl of March possessed manors in almost every county: he held in this county the town of Ashbourn with its dependencies. Donington castle, on the bank of the Trent, belonged to him.