Part 2

Edward by the grace of God, King of England, etc., to the Mayor and Sheriffs of London greeting. Whereas from trustworthy relation we have heard that certain Friars of the Order of Preachers, who have made profession in that Order, despising such their profession and throwing away the religious garb, are wandering and running to and fro, arrayed in secular habit, in the city aforesaid; and that certain others, still wearing the garb aforesaid, but deserting their due obedience, are dwelling in the same city without the close of the same Friars, and do not fear to take part in various matters that are not beseeming to them to the peril of their souls, the scandal of the said Order, and the injury of ecclesiastical propriety--we, for the especial affection which for the same Order we do entertain, and have long entertained, wishing to restrain the malevolence of such insolent persons, and to provide for the repose and honour of the Friars of the said Order, so far as in good manner we may, do command you, that all vagabond Friars of the said Order found within the city aforesaid, so often as and when in future you shall be requested by the Prior of the same Order in the city aforesaid, or other the Friars by him thereunto deputed, you will cause to be arrested without delay, and to the house of the same Friars securely to be conducted, unto the brethren of the same house there to be delivered, by them, according to the discipline of their Order, to be chastised. And forasmuch as we have understood that the apostates aforesaid, contriving to the utmost of their power how to palliate the heinousness of their errors, and by false suggestions to vilify the Order aforesaid, have published defamatory writings, and have caused the same in public places within the city aforesaid to be read and recited, and have left copies of the same in those places fixed upon the walls, that so they might the more widely defame the same Order, and withhold the devotion of the faithful from the same; and still from day to day do not desist to do the like, and even worse, against the same Order; as, also, that many men are assisting the same apostates in the premises giving them aid and favour therein--we do command you, strongly enjoining, that on our behalf you will cause in the city aforesaid strict prohibition to be made that any person shall, on pain of heavy forfeiture to us, write any such manner of writings containing defamation of the said Order, or publish the same, or give aid to those writing or publishing the same, either secretly or openly; or shall presume to inflict loss, injury, or grievance upon the Friars of the said Order whom we have taken under our own especial protection and defence. And if you shall find any persons transgressors of such our prohibition, you are to cause them in such manner to be punished, that through their example others may be duly restrained from the commission of such offences. Witness myself at York this 18th day of September in the 8th year of our reign.

CHARGES AGAINST THE DESPENSERS (1319).

SOURCE.--_Holinshed's Chronicle_, iii. 327.

Articles wherewith the barons charged the Despensers:

1. Amongst other things it was alleged; first that Hugh Spenser the son, being on a time angry and displeased with the King, sought to ally and confederate himself with the lord Gifford of Brimsfield, and the lord Richard Gray, to have constrained and forced the King by strong hand to have followed his will and pleasure.

2. Secondly, it was alleged, that the said Spensers as well the father as the son, had caused the King to ride into Gloucestershire, to oppress and destroy the good people of his land, contrary to the form of the great charter.

3. Thirdly, that where the Earl of Hereford and the lord Mortimer of Wigmore, had gone against one Llewelyn Bren, who had raised a rebellion against the King in Glamorganshire, while the lands of the Earl of Gloucester were in the King's hands, the same Llewelyn yielded himselfe to the said earl, and to the Lord Mortimer, who brought him to the King, upon promise that he should have the King's pardon, and so the King received him. But after that the said Earl and lord Mortimer were out of the land, the Spensers taking to them royal power, took the said Llewelyn and led him into Cardiff, where after that the said Hugh Spenser the son had his purparty[4] of the said Earl of Gloucester's lands, he caused the said Llewelyn to be drawn, headed and quartered, to the discredit of the King, and of the said Earl of Hereford and Lord Mortimer, yea and contrary to the laws and dignity of the imperial crown.

4. Fourthly, the said Spensers counselled the King to forejudge Sir Hugh Audley, son to the lord Hugh Audley, and to take into his hands his castles and possessions. They compassed also to have attainted the lord Roger D'Amorie, that thereby they might have enjoyed the whole earldom of Gloucester.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] = Share, part.

POPULAR FEELING ABOUT THE EARL OF LANCASTER'S DEATH (1322).

SOURCE.--Henry Knighton's _Chronicle_ (Rolls Series), 426-427.

The Earl therefore having died for the sake of Justice, Church, and State, as it seemed to the people, crowds hurried from all parts with gifts of offerings in order to show honour and reverence to the body of the Earl according to his desert, and they ceased not until the King, aroused by the Despensers, sent armed men to prevent them from entering into the church, and ordered, under pain of imprisonment, that no one should go into the church to offer honour or reverence to the body. And when the people saw that they were prevented from entering the church by the royal power, they turned the seat of their devotion to the place where the Earl had died, and were rushing thither in greater numbers (for which cause the more intense severity of the King was directed against the pilgrims), until the soil of all the field was moved away, and a church was built there with chaplains serving God and by no means poorly endowed.... It is to be remarked that all those who consented to the death of the Earl afterwards finished by a shameful death. First of all the King himself; his two brothers, namely Thomas Earl Marshall and Edmund Earl of Kent, both of whom had been raised and promoted at the instance of the said Earl of Lancaster; the Earl Warrenne; the Earl of Arundell; Lord Hugh Despenser the father, and Lord Hugh the son; the Earl of Richmond; the Earl of Pembroke; Lord Aylmer de Valence; but among them there was not one who ended life honourably, neither them nor any of their adherents.

THE REVOCATION OF THE ORDINANCES (1322).

SOURCE.--_Statutes at Large_ (ed. 1762), i. 372.

Since our lord the King Edward, son of King Edward, the 16th day of March in the third year of his reign, to the honour of God and for the good of himself and his realm granted to the prelates, earls and barons of his realm that they should choose certain persons from among the prelates, earls and barons and other loyal men whom it should seem meet to call to them, in order to ordain and establish the estate of the household of our lord the King and of his realm according to right and reason and in such manner that their ordinances should be made to the honour of God and to the honour and benefit of holy church and to the honour of the said King and his benefit and to the benefit of his people according to right and reason and the oath which our said lord the King made at his Coronation, and the Archbishop of Canterbury Primate of all England and the prelates, earls and barons chosen for that purpose made such ordinances which began: "Edward by the grace of God, etc." ... which ordinances our said lord the King caused to be rehearsed and examined at his Parliament at York, three weeks from Easter in the 15th year of his reign, by the prelates, earls and barons among whom were most of the said ordainers who were then alive, and by the commons of the realm summoned thither by his command. And because it was found by this examination in the said Parliament, that by those things which had been ordained, the true power of our said lord the King was restrained in many ways contrary to the due embellishment of his true lordship and injurious to the estate of the crown; and moreover that in times past by such ordinances and purveyances made by subjects over the true power of the ancestors of our lord the King, troubles and wars had arisen in the realm by which the land had been emperilled; it was agreed and established in the said Parliament by our lord the King and by the said prelates, earls and barons and all the commonalty of the realm, in this Parliament assembled, that everything ordained by the said ordainers and contained in the said Ordinances for future should cease and lose for ever all force, virtue and effect, the statutes and establishments duly made by our lord the King and his ancestors before the said ordinances obtaining in their force, and that henceforth, at all time, any manner of ordinances or purveyances made by the subjects of our lord the King or his heirs, by whatever power or commission this may be done, over the true power of our lord the King or his heirs or against the estate of our lord the King or of his heirs or contrary to the estate of the Crown, shall be null and of no manner of value or force. But the matters which are to be established for the estate of our lord the King and his heirs and for the estate of the realm and of the people shall be treated, accorded and established in Parliaments by our lord the King, and by the consent of the prelates, earls and barons and the commonalty of the realm, according as it hath been heretofore accustomed.

THE MURDER OF THE KING (1327).

SOURCE.--Christopher Marlowe's _Edward the Second_ (1592).

ACT V., SCENE 5.

SCENE: _In Berkeley Castle_.

(MATREVIS and GURNEY having received the BISHOP OF HEREFORD'S well-known cryptic message, through the hands of LIGHTBORN, a creation of MARLOWE'S own mind, the KING is called up from the dungeon.)

KING EDWARD. And there in mire and puddle, have I stood This ten days' space; and lest that I should sleep, One plays continually upon a drum; They give me bread and water, being a King; So that for want of sleep and sustenance My mind's distempered and my body's numbed, And whether I have limbs or no I know not. O, would my blood dropp'd out from every vein, As doth this water from my tattered robes! Tell Isabel, the Queen, I look'd not thus, When for her sake I ran at tilt in France, And there unhors'd the Duke of Cleremont.

LIGHTBORN. O, speak no more, my lord! this breaks my heart. Lie on this bed, and rest yourself awhile.

K. EDW. These looks of thine can harbour nought but death; I see my tragedy written in thy brows. Yet stay a while; forbear thy bloody hand, And let me see the stroke before it comes, That even then when I shall lose my life My mind may be more steadfast on my God.

LIGHT. What means your highness to mistrust me thus?

K. EDW. What mean'st thou to dissemble with me thus?

LIGHT. These hands were never stained with innocent blood, Nor shall they now be tainted with a King's.

K. EDW. Forgive my thought for having such a thought. One jewel have I left; receive thou this: (_Giving jewel._) Still fear I, and I know not what's the cause, But every joint shakes as I give it thee. O, if thou harbour'st murder in thy heart, Let this gift change thy mind, and save thy soul! Know that I am a King: O, at that name I feel a hell of grief! Where is my crown? Gone, gone! and do I remain alive?

LIGHT. You're overwatch'd, my lord; lie down and rest.

K. EDW. But that grief keeps one waking, I should sleep; For not ten days have these eye-lids clos'd. Now, as I speak, they fall; and yet with fear Open again. O wherefore sitt'st thou here?

LIGHT. If thou mistrust me, I'll be gone, my lord.

K. EDW. No, no; for if thou mean'st to murder me, Thou wilt return again; and therefore stay. (_Sleeps._)

LIGHT. He sleeps.

K. EDW. (_waking_) O! Let me die; yet stay, O stay a while!

LIGHT. How now, my lord?

K. EDW. Something still buzzeth in mine ears, And tells me, if I sleep, I never wake; This fear is that which makes me tremble thus; And therefore tell me, wherefore art thou come?

LIGHT. To rid thee of thy life.--Matrevis, come.

_Enter_ MATREVIS _and_ GURNEY.

K. EDW. I am too weak and feeble to resist.-- Assist me, sweet God, and receive my soul!

LIGHT. Run for the table.

K. EDW. O, spare me, or despatch me in a trice.

(MATREVIS _brings in a table_. KING EDWARD _is murdered by holding him down on the bed with the table_.)

LIGHT. So, lay the table down, and stamp on it, But not too hard, lest that you bruise his body.

MAT. I fear that this cry will raise the town, And therefore let us take horse and away.

LIGHT. Tell me, sirs, was it not bravely done?

GUR. Excellent well; take this for thy reward.

(_Stabs_ LIGHTBORN, _who dies_.)

Come, let us cast the body in the moat, And bear the King's away to Mortimer, our lord: Away. [_Exeunt with bodies._

CHARACTER OF EDWARD II.

SOURCE.--_Gesta Edwardi de Carnarvon in Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward II. and Edward III._ (Rolls Series), ii. 91.

King Edward ... was indeed fine in body and distinguished among men, but, as it is commonly said, very different in his manners. For, caring little for the company of princes, he made friends with singers, actors, grooms, sailors, and with others of this kind, artists and mechanics, believing more in the counsel of others than in his own; prodigal in giving, bounteous and splendid in entertainments, quick to anger, unreliable as to his word, dilatory against foreign enemies, easily enraged against his servants, and ardently attached to some one familiar friend whom he would cherish, enrich, and promote, not enduring to be absent from his presence, and honouring him before all others; whence came hatred of the lover, and abuse and ruin of the one loved, injury to the people, and loss to the kingdom. Moreover he promoted unworthy and unfit men to be ecclesiastics; these afterwards in his time of trouble deserted him.

THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD III.

SOURCE.--Harleian MS. (British Museum), 2261, fols. 388-388_b_.

Edward, son of King Edward, after the conquest the third, of xv. years in age, was crowned into King in the feast of the Purification of our blessed Lady at Westminster, his father being in life and under keeping. In the beginning of whom the earth began to give much fruit, the air temperance, the sea tranquillity, the Church liberty. Edward sometime King was brought from Kenilworth to the castle of Berkeley, where he was slain.... Wherefore many people say that he died a martyr and did many miracles; nevertheless keeping in prison, vileness, and opprobrious death cause not a martyr, but if the holiness of life afore be correspondent; for it is well and if that[5] vile death do away sin in him and diminish his pains. But women loving to go in pilgrimage increase much the rumour of such veneration, until that a feeble edifying fall down.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] = If.

THE MANNER OF THE SCOTS (1327).

SOURCE.--Froissart's _Chronicle_ (Hafod Press, 1803), i. 31.

The Scots are bold, hardy, and much inured to war. When they make their invasions into England, they march from twenty to four-and-twenty leagues without halting, as well by night as day, for they are all on horseback, except the camp-followers, who are on foot. The knights and esquires are well mounted on large bay horses, the common people on little galloways. They bring no carriages with them, on account of the mountains they have to pass in Northumberland; neither do they carry with them any provisions of bread or wine, for their custom and sobriety is such, in time of war, that they will live for a long time on flesh half sodden without bread, and drink the river water without wine. They have therefore no occasion for pots or pans, for they dress the flesh of their cattle in the skins, after they have taken them off; and being sure to find plenty of them in the country which they invade, they carry none with them. Under the flaps of his saddle each man carries a broad plate of metal, behind the saddle a little bag of oatmeal; when they have eaten too much of this sodden flesh, and their stomach appears weak and empty, they place this plate over the fire, mix with water their oatmeal, and, when the plate is heated, they put a little of the paste upon it, and make a thin cake, like a cracknell or biscuit, which they eat to warm their stomachs; it is therefore no wonder that they perform a longer day's march than other soldiers.

THE RULE OF ISABELLA (1328).

SOURCE.--Sismondi, _Histoire des Français_ (Paris, 1828), x. 14-17.

Edward III., King of England, was only aged sixteen years; the administration of affairs was absolutely in the hands of his mother, Isabella of France, who was beginning to realise how hateful she was to the nation which she governed. A foreigner, and surrounded by foreigners, she was polluted in the eyes of the English by the blood of her husband, shed by her, and by her licentious conduct with Roger de Mortimer, her favourite. Fearing at any time a rebellion, she sought above all to diminish the number of her enemies, and to escape the possibility of a foreign war. With this end in view, she first made treaty[6] with Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, fully recognising the independence of his kingdom, surrendering to him all the titles and all the crown jewels, which Edward I. had taken from the Scots, and marrying her daughter Joan to David Bruce, son of Robert, and his heir-apparent, only seven years old.

This transaction, of the 1st of March, 1328, still more augmented the resentment of the English: they passionately desired to conquer Scotland, and they believed the moment to be very favourable since Robert Bruce was ill; in fact it was not long before he died, leaving his crown to a child. The agitation against the Queen increased; one of the adversaries whom she most feared was her brother-in-law, Edmund, Earl of Kent; all her skill was directed towards drawing him into a trap: she succeeded, in fact, in less than a month, in implicating him in a conspiracy, for which he suffered the extreme penalty.

But so long as Isabella felt herself to be so unsafe on the throne of England, she could hardly think to dispute that of France; she contented herself with protesting for the preservation of what she called the rights of her son. She wrote on the 28th of March in the name of Edward III. to the chief princes of Gascony, Navarre, and Languedoc, that the King intended to recover _his heritage and his rights in every good way that he knew and could_, that he prayed them then and charged them on their faith to work secretly to gain for him the heart of the nobles and the commons who were not under obedience to him that they might aid him when the time should come. On the 16th of May she gave power to the bishops of Winchester and Chester to demand and recover all the rights which belonged to him [Edward III.] as legitimate heir to the kingdom of France; on the 28th of June she caused letters of reprisals to be given to stop the goods and merchandise of all the French, as pledges for the reparation of certain hostilities which they had committed. The 28th of October, however, the effects thus seized were released under caution, and the violences committed between the two kingdoms were referred to tribunals.

Philip VI. was little concerned about these pretensions of his cousin, since she appeared to be too badly circumstanced to be able to take action; he judged with reason that, after he had been King for some time, the nation would feel itself bound in honour to defend his title. He appeared only to occupy himself with gaining the favour of certain princes, who were rather the friends than the feudatories of France. In the month of June he put forth an ordinance in favour of the Duke of Brittany, by which he recognised that the courts of this Duchy were in no way dependent upon the Parliament of Paris; he reconciled the Dauphin, Guigues VIII., with the Count of Savoy, and by this negotiation obtained the recognition of these two princes. Both were dependent on the Empire, but they spoke the French language, and they looked on the French Court as the most notable for fêtes and magnificence, where princes might acquire a reputation for chivalry, and where they might, at the same time, enjoy the greatest pleasures. This superior elegance, this attraction which Paris had for foreign princes, had a signal effect on politics during the whole of the century.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] The "Foul Peace" of Northampton.

WHY MORTIMER WAS CONDEMNED UNHEARD (1330).

SOURCE.--Adam Murimuth, _Continuatio Chronicarum_ (Rolls Series), 62.

And immediately the same earl [Roger Mortimer] was sent to the Tower until the meeting of Parliament, which was a little before the Feast of St. Andrew [November 30]. At this Parliament at Westminster, on the vigil of St. Andrew, the same earl was condemned to death by his peers. Nevertheless, he did not come before them, nor was he allowed to answer; nor was it to be wondered at, since, from the time of the death of the Earl of Lancaster until the death of this earl, all nobles had been handed over to death without being heard, and had perished without lawful conviction, as appears by precedents, as it is wisely written, anyone who places himself as judge of another stands to be judged by him, _etc._, and in the same measure that they meet out to others it shall be meeted to them. And that same vigil of St. Andrew was the said Earl of March hung at Elmis upon a common thieves' gallows, where he hung for two days, and afterwards was buried in London at the Friars Minors, but, a long time afterwards, was translated to Wigmore.

THE WAR OF THE DISINHERITED (1332).

SOURCE.--Robert of Avesbury's _De Gestis Edwardi Tertii_ (Rolls Series), 296.

Lord Edward Balliol, son and heir of the said Lord John Balliol, living in England in the year of our Lord, 1332, the 6th year of Edward, the Third after the Conquest, was, about the Feast of St. Lawrence, preparing to set out for Scotland, which belonged to him by hereditary right. Since the King of England was unwilling for him to enter the country from the realm of England, since David, son of the said Robert [Bruce], had married the sister of the King of England, coming by ship he entered Scotland without the consent of the King of England, taking with him the lords Henry de Beaumont and Ralph de Stafford, barons, and also Sir Walter Manny and other vigorous soldiers and armed men and archers to the number of 1,500, both footmen and horsemen together. And then, indeed, he was engaged in a fierce conflict, lasting from sunrise to the ninth hour of the day, against the Scots who came in great numbers to resist him at Kynghorn. But Christ, ever favouring justice, preserved the English unhurt, and threw to the ground before them more than 20,000 of the Scots. Indeed many of the Scots, because of their impetuosity and haste, falling over their own companions, rushed into battle, fell without a blow, and were crushed by their own companions rushing on over them, so that the mountainous heap of Scots there killed and crushed reached one stadium, [60 feet 9 inches, English], in length, and 6 cubits and more in height.

FOR THE SAFE-KEEPING OF THE CITY OF LONDON (DECEMBER 13, 1334).

SOURCE.--H.T. Riley, _Memorials of London_ (London, 1868), 192-193.

A PROCLAMATION IN THE TIME OF REYNALD DE CONDUIT, MAYOR OF LONDON.