though neither so apathetic nor so frivolous as Edward, was
not a whit more competent to conduct either war or domestic
administration. The Scots swept everything before them,
ravaging the north at their will, and capturing Berwick. They
even made a great expedition to Ireland, where Bruce’s brother
Edward was proclaimed king by the rebellious Celtic septs, and
rode across the whole island, exterminating the Anglo-Irish
population in many districts (1315–1317). But the colonists
rallied, and cut to pieces a great Irish army at Athenry (1316),
while in the next year Roger Mortimer, a hard-handed baron
of the Welsh march, crossed with reinforcements and drove back
Edward Bruce into the north. Resuming his advance after a
space, the rebel king was routed and slain at Dundalk (Oct. 14,
1318) and the insurrection died out. But it had had the permanent
result of weakening the king’s grip on the north and west of
Ireland, where the Englishry had been almost exterminated.
From this time forth until the reign of Henry VIII. the limit of
the country in full subjection to the crown was always shrinking,
and the Irish chiefs of the inland continued to pay less and less
attention to orders issued from Dublin or London.
Though the Scottish expedition to Ireland had been beaten off, this was not in the least to be ascribed to the credit of Lancaster, who was showing the grossest incompetence as an administrator. He could neither protect the Border, nor even prevent private civil wars from breaking out, not only on the Welsh marches (where they had always been common), but even in the heart of England. The most extraordinary symptom of the time was a civic revolt at Bristol (1316), where the townsfolk expelled the royal judges, and actually stood a siege before they would submit. Such revolts of great towns were normal in Germany or Italy, but almost unknown on this side of the Channel. All this unrest might well be ascribed to Lancaster’s want of ability, but he had also to bear—with less justice—the discontent caused by two years of famine and pestilence. In August 1318 he was removed from power by a league formed by Pembroke, Warenne, Arundel and others of the lords ordainers, who put a new council in power, and showed themselves somewhat less hostile to the king than Earl Thomas had been. Edward was allowed to raise an army for the siege of Berwick, and was lying before its walls, when the Scots, turning his flank, made a fierce foray into Yorkshire, and routed the shire-levy under Archbishop Melton at the battle of Myton. This so disheartened the king and the council that controlled him that they concluded a two years truce with Robert of Scotland, thus for the first time acknowledging him as a regular enemy and no mere rebel (1319).
The time of comparative quiet that followed was utilized by the king in an attempt to win back some of his lost authority. For a short space Edward showed more capacity and energy than he had ever been supposed to possess. Probably this was due entirely to the fact that he The De-spensers. had come under the influence of two able men who had won his confidence and had promised him revenge for the murdered Gaveston. These were the two Hugh Despensers, father and son; the elder was an ambitious baron who hated Lancaster, the younger had been made Edward’s chamberlain in 1318 and had become his secret councillor and constant companion. Finding that the king was ready to back them in all their enterprises, the Despensers resolved to take the fearful risk of snatching at supreme power by using their master’s name to oust the barons who were now directing affairs from their position. The task was the more easy because Lancaster was at open discord with the men who had supplanted him, so that the baronial party was divided; while the mishaps of the last six years had convinced the nation that other rulers could be as incompetent and as unlucky as the king. Indeed, there was a decided reaction in Edward’s favour, since Lancaster and his friends had been tried and found wanting. Moreover, the Despensers felt that they had a great advantage over Gaveston in that they were native-born barons of ancient ancestry and good estate: the younger Hugh, indeed, through his marriage with the sister of the earl of Gloucester who fell at Bannockburn, was one of the greatest landowners on the Welsh border: they could not be styled upstarts or adventurers. Edward’s growing confidence in the Despensers at last provoked the notice and jealousy of the dominant party. The barons brought up many armed retainers to the parliament of 1321, and forced the king to dismiss and to condemn them to exile. But their discomfiture was only to last a few months; in the following October a wanton outrage and assault on the person and retinue of Edward’s queen, Isabella of France, by the retainers of Lord Badlesmere, one of Pembroke’s associates, provoked universal reprobation. The king made it an excuse for gathering an army to besiege Badlesmere’s castle at Leeds; he took it and hanged the garrison. He then declared the Despensers pardoned, and invited them to return to England. On this Thomas of Lancaster and the more resolute of his associates took arms, but the majority both of the baronage and of the commons remained quiescent, public opinion being rather with than against the king. The rebels displayed great indecision, and Lancaster proved such a bad general that he was finally driven into the north and beaten at the battle of Boroughbridge (March 16, Execution of Lancaster. 1322), where his chief associate, the earl of Hereford, was slain. Next day he surrendered, with the wreck of his host. But the king, who showed himself unexpectedly vindictive, beheaded him at once; three other peers, Badlesmere, Clifford and Mowbray, were subsequently executed, with a score of knights.
Such severity was most impolitic, and Lancaster was ere long
hailed as a saint and a martyr. But for the moment the king
seemed triumphant; he called a parliament which revoked the
“ordinances” of 1311, and replaced the Despensers in power.
For the remaining four years of his reign they were omnipotent;
but able and unscrupulous as they were, they could not solve
the problem of successful governance. To their misfortune the
Scottish war once more recommenced, King Robert having
refused to continue the truce. The fortune of Edward II. now
hung on the chance that he might be able to maintain the struggle
with success; he raised a large army and invaded Lothian, but
Bruce refused a pitched battle, and drove him off with loss by
devastating the countryside around him. Thereupon Edward,
to the deep humiliation of the people, sued for another cessation
of hostilities, and obtained it by conceding all that Robert asked,
save the formal acknowledgment of his kingly title. But peace
did not suffice to end Edward’s troubles; he dropped back into
his usual apathy, and the Despensers showed themselves so harsh
and greedy that the general indignation only required a new
leader in order to take once more the form of open insurrection.
The end came in an unexpected fashion. Edward had quarrelled
with his wife Isabella, who complained that he made her the
“handmaid of the Despensers,” and excluded her from her
proper place and honour. Yet in 1325 he was unwise enough
to send her over to France on an embassy to her brother
Charles IV., and to allow his eldest son Edward, prince of Wales,
to follow her to Paris. Having the boy in her power, and being
surrounded by the exiles of Lancaster’s faction, she set herself
Rebellion
of Queen Isabella and Mortimer.
to plot against her husband, and opened up communications
with the discontented in England. It was
in vain that Edward besought her to return and to restore
him his son; she came back at last, but at the head
of an army commanded by Roger, Lord Mortimer, the
most prominent survivor of the party of Earl Thomas, with
whom she had formed an adulterous connexion which they for
some time succeeded in keeping secret.
When she landed with her son in Essex in September 1326, she was at once joined by Henry of Lancaster, the heir of Earl Thomas, and most of the baronage of the eastern counties. Even the king’s half-brother, the earl of Norfolk, rallied to her banner. Edward and the Despensers, Deposition and murder of Edward II. after trying in vain to raise an army, fled into the west. They were all caught by their pursuers; the two Despensers were executed—the one at Bristol, the other at Hereford. Several more of Edward’s scanty band of friends—the earl of Arundel and the bishop of Exeter and others—were also slain. Their unhappy master was forced to abdicate on
