ROGER MORTIMER,the Queen's lover (who escaped to France in the last chapter),was far from profiting by the examples he had had of the fate of favourites.Having,through the Queen's influence,come into possession of the estates of the two Despensers,he became extremely proud and ambitious,and sought to be the real ruler of England.The young King,who was crowned at fourteen years of age with all the usual solemnities,resolved not to bear this,and soon pursued Mortimer to his ruin.
The people themselves were not fond of Mortimer-first,because he was a Royal favourite;secondly,because he was supposed to have helped to make a peace with Scotland which now took place,and in virtue of which the young King's sister Joan,only seven years old,was promised in marriage to David,the son and heir of Robert Bruce,who was only five years old.The nobles hated Mortimer because of his pride,riches,and power.They went so far as to take up arms against him;but were obliged to submit.The Earl of Kent,one of those who did so,but who afterwards went over to Mortimer and the Queen,was made an example of in the following cruel manner:
He seems to have been anything but a wise old earl;and he was persuaded by the agents of the favourite and the Queen,that poor King Edward the Second was not really dead;and thus was betrayed into writing letters favouring his rightful claim to the throne.
This was made out to be high treason,and he was tried,found guilty,and sentenced to be executed.They took the poor old lord outside the town of Winchester,and there kept him waiting some three or four hours until they could find somebody to cut off his head.At last,a convict said he would do it,if the government would pardon him in return;and they gave him the pardon;and at one blow he put the Earl of Kent out of his last suspense.
While the Queen was in France,she had found a lovely and good young lady,named Philippa,who she thought would make an excellent wife for her son.The young King married this lady,soon after he came to the throne;and her first child,Edward,Prince of Wales,afterwards became celebrated,as we shall presently see,under the famous title of EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE.
The young King,thinking the time ripe for the downfall of Mortimer,took counsel with Lord Montacute how he should proceed.
A Parliament was going to be held at Nottingham,and that lord recommended that the favourite should be seized by night in Nottingham Castle,where he was sure to be.Now,this,like many other things,was more easily said than done;because,to guard against treachery,the great gates of the Castle were locked every night,and the great keys were carried up-stairs to the Queen,who laid them under her own pillow.But the Castle had a governor,and the governor being Lord Montacute's friend,confided to him how he knew of a secret passage underground,hidden from observation by the weeds and brambles with which it was overgrown;and how,through that passage,the conspirators might enter in the dead of the night,and go straight to Mortimer's room.Accordingly,upon a certain dark night,at midnight,they made their way through this dismal place:startling the rats,and frightening the owls and bats:and came safely to the bottom of the main tower of the Castle,where the King met them,and took them up a profoundly-dark staircase in a deep silence.They soon heard the voice of Mortimer in council with some friends;and bursting into the room with a sudden noise,took him prisoner.The Queen cried out from her bed-chamber,'Oh,my sweet son,my dear son,spare my gentle Mortimer!'
They carried him off,however;and,before the next Parliament,accused him of having made differences between the young King and his mother,and of having brought about the death of the Earl of Kent,and even of the late King;for,as you know by this time,when they wanted to get rid of a man in those old days,they were not very particular of what they accused him.Mortimer was found guilty of all this,and was sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn.The King shut his mother up in genteel confinement,where she passed the rest of her life;and now he became King in earnest.
The first effort he made was to conquer Scotland.The English lords who had lands in Scotland,finding that their rights were not respected under the late peace,made war on their own account:
choosing for their general,Edward,the son of John Baliol,who made such a vigorous fight,that in less than two months he won the whole Scottish Kingdom.He was joined,when thus triumphant,by the King and Parliament;and he and the King in person besieged the Scottish forces in Berwick.The whole Scottish army coming to the assistance of their countrymen,such a furious battle ensued,that thirty thousand men are said to have been killed in it.Baliol was then crowned King of Scotland,doing homage to the King of England;
But little came of his successes after all,for the Scottish men rose against him,within no very long time,and David Bruce came back within ten years and took his kingdom.
France was a far richer country than Scotland,and the King had a much greater mind to conquer it.So,he let Scotland alone,and pretended that he had a claim to the French throne in right of his mother.He had,in reality,no claim at all;but that mattered little in those times.He brought over to his cause many little princes and sovereigns,and even courted the alliance of the people of Flanders-a busy,working community,who had very small respect for kings,and whose head man was a brewer.With such forces as he raised by these means,Edward invaded France;but he did little by that,except run into debt in carrying on the war to the extent of three hundred thousand pounds.The next year he did better;
