Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

CAMEO XXXVII. THE VICTIM OF BLACKLOW HILL.

_King of England_.

1307. Edward II.

_King of Scotland_.

1306. Robert I.

_King of France_.

1385. Philippe IV.

_Emperor of Germany_.

1308. Henry VII.

_Pope_.

1305. Clement V.

"The foolishness of the people" is a title that might be given to many a son of a wise father. The very energy and prudence of the parent, especially when employed on ambitious or worldly objects, seems to cause distaste, and even opposition, in the youth on whom his father's pursuits have been prematurely forced. Seeing the evil, and weary of the good, it often requires a strong sense of duty to prevent him from flying to the contrary extreme, or from becoming wayward, indifferent, and dissipated.

This has been the history of many an heir-apparent, and of none more decidedly than of Edward of Carnarvon. The Plantagenet weakness, instead of the stern strength of the house of Anjou, had descended to him; and though he had what Fuller calls "a handsome man-case," his fair and beautiful face was devoid of the resolute and fiery expression of his father, and showed somewhat of the inanity of regular features, without a spirit to illuminate them. Gentle, fond of music, dancing, and every kind of sport, he had little turn for state affairs; and like his grandfather, Henry III., but with more constancy, he clung to any one who had been able to gain his affections, and had neither will nor judgment save that of the friend who had won his heart.

His first friend-and it was a friendship till death-was Piers Gaveston, the son of a knight of Guienne. Piers was a few years older than the Prince, and so graceful, handsome, ready of tongue, and complete in every courtly accomplishment, that Edward I. highly approved of him as his son's companion in early boyhood; and Piers shared in the education of the young Prince of Wales and of his favorite sister, Elizabeth. Edward I. was a fond father, and granted his son's friend various distinguished marks of favor, among others the wardship of Roger, the son and heir of the deceased Edmund Mortimer, warden of the Marches of Wales. Whatever were the intentions of Gaveston, Roger Mortimer did little credit to his education. The guardian had a license to use his ward's property like his own till his majority, in order that he might levy the retainers for the King's service, and he obtained a handsome gratuity from the relatives of the lady to whom he gave the youth in marriage, and this, probably, was the extent of the obligations to which Gaveston considered himself as bound.

Both he and his Prince were strongly sensitive to all that was tasteful and beautiful; they were profuse in their expenditure in dress, in ornament, and in all kinds of elegances, and delighted in magnificent entertainments. They gave one in the Tower of London to the princesses, on which occasion an immense expenditure was incurred, when the Prince of Wales was only fifteen; and his presents were always on the grandest scale to his sisters, who seem to have loved him as sisters love an only brother.

By and by, however, generosity became profusion, and love of pleasure ran into dissipation. Grave men grew uneasy at the idle levity of the Prince, and were seriously offended by the gibes and jests in which the tongue of Gaveston abounded, and at which he was always ready to laugh. In 1305, the Prince made application to Walter Langley, Bishop of Litchfield, the King's treasurer, to supply him with money, but was refused, and spoke improperly in his anger. It is even said that he joined Gaveston in the wild frolic of breaking into Langley's park, and stealing his deer. At any rate, at Midhurst, on the 13th of June, the Bishop seriously reproved him for his idle life and love of low company; and the Prince replied with such angry words, that the King, in extreme displeasure, sent him in a sort of captivity to Windsor Castle, with only two servants.

All his sisters rose up to take their brother's part, and assure him of their sympathy. The eager, high-spirited Joan, Countess of Gloucester, sent him her seal, that he might procure whatever he pleased at her cost; and Elizabeth, who was married to Humphrey de Bohun, the great Earl of Hereford, wrote a letter of warm indignation, to which he replied by begging her not to believe anything, save that his father was acting quite rightly by him; but a few weeks after, he wrote to beg her to intercede that his "two valets," Gilbert de Clare and Perot de Gaveston, "might be restored to him, as they would alleviate much of his anguish." He addressed a letter with the like petition to his stepmother, Queen Margaret, and continued to evince his submission by refusing his sister Mary's invitations to visit her at her convent at Ambresbuiy. At the meeting of parliament, Edward met his father again, and received his forgiveness. All went well for some time, and he gracefully played his part in the pageantry of his knighthood and the vow of the Swans.

Gaveston still continued about his person, and accompanied him to the north of England. At the parliament of Carlisle, in 1307, the Prince besought his father to grant his friend the earldom of Cornwall, the richest appanage in the kingdom, just now vacant by the death of his cousin, Edmund d'Almaine, son of the King of the Romans. Whether this presumptuous request opened the King's eyes to the inordinate power that Gaveston exercised over his son, or whether he was exasperated against him by the complaints of the nobles, his reply was, to decree that, after a tournament fixed for the 9th of April, Gaveston must quit the kingdom forever; and he further required an oath from both the friends, that they would never meet, again, even after his death. Oaths were lightly taken in those days, and neither of the gay youths was likely to resist the will of the stern old monarch; so the pledge was taken, and the Prince of Wales remained lonely and dispirited, while Piers hovered on the outskirts of the English dominions, watching for tidings that could hardly be long in coming.

So much did Edward I. dread his influence, that, on his deathbed, he obliged his son to renew his abjuration of Gaveston's company, and laid him under his paternal malediction should he attempt to recall him. It does not appear that Gaveston waited for a summons. He hurried to present himself before his royal friend, who had, in pursuance of his father's orders, advanced as far as Cumnock, in Ayrshire.

Both had bitterly to rue their broken faith, and heavily did the father's curse weigh upon them; but at first there was nothing but transport in their meeting. The merry Piers renewed his jests and gayeties; he set himself to devise frolics and pageantries for his young master, and speedily persuaded him to cease from the toils of war in dreary Scotland, and turn his face homeward to the more congenial delights of his coronation, and his marriage with the fairest maiden in Europe. To have made peace with Bruce because the war was an unjust aggression, would have been noble; but it was base neither to fight nor to treat, and to leave unsupported the brave men who held castles in his name in the heart of the enemy's country. But Edward was only twenty-two, Gaveston little older, and sport was their thought, instead of honor or principle. Piers even mocked at the last commands of the great Edward, and not only persuaded the new King to let the funeral take place without waiting for the conquest of Scotland, but to bestow on him even the bequest set apart for the maintenance of the knights in Palestine. At Dumfries, on his first arrival, the coveted earldom of Cornwall was granted to him; and, on his return, he was married to the King's niece, Margaret de Clare, daughter to Joan of Acre. He held his head higher than ever, and showed great discourtesy to the nobility. He had announced a tournament at Wallingford in honor of his wedding, and hearing that a party of knights were coming to the assistance of the barons who had accepted his encounter, he sallied out privately with his followers, and attacked and dispersed the allies, so as to have the advantage in his own hands in the melee. Such a dishonorable trick was never forgotten, though probably the root was chiefly vanity, which seems to have been the origin of all his crimes, and of his ruin.

The chancellor and all the late King's tried ministers were displaced, and some, among whom was the good Bishop of Litchfield, were imprisoned for two years. Gaveston, without any regular appointment, took the great seal into his own keeping, and set it to charters which he filled up after his fancy. In the meantime, the King set off for France, to celebrate his marriage with Isabel, the daughter of Philippe le Bel, the princess for whose sake the Flemish maiden was pining to death in captivity. The seal of this most wretched of unions was, that Philippe took this opportunity of persuading the gentle, reluctant Edward II, to withdraw his protection from the Templars in his dominions, and give them up to the horrible cruelty and rapacity of their exterminator. Isabel's dowry was furnished from their spoils. The wedding took place on St. Paul's Day, 1308, in the presence of four kings and queens, and the festivities lasted a fortnight; after which the young bride and bridegroom set off on their return to Dover, where Edward's favorite sister, Elizabeth, was already come to greet the little Queen, a beautiful girl of thirteen, proud, high-spirited, and exacting, very unwilling to be treated as a child. Her two uncles came with her, and a splendid train of nobles; and two days after their landing, Gaveston arrived at Dover, when, at first sight of him, Edward rushed into his arms, calling him brother, and disregarding every one else. Almost at the same time the King gave his favorite the whole of the rich jewelry and other gifts which had been bestowed on him by his father-in-law, Philippe le Bel; and this was regarded as a great affront by the young Queen and her uncles. Gaveston had a childish complaint of his own to make-men would not call him by his new title; and presently a proclamation came out, rendering it a crime to speak of him as Piers, Piers Gaveston, or as anything but the Earl of Cornwall.

It was the more resented because he was not respectful with other men's titles, and amused the King with nicknames for the nobles. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the son of Edmund Crouchback, was "the old hog" and the "stage-player;" pale, dark, Provencal Aymar de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, he called "Joseph the Jew;" the fierce Guy, Earl of Warwick, "the black dog of Ardennes." The stout Earl swore that he should find that the dog could show his teeth; and when Gaveston announced a tournament for the 18th of February at Feversham, no one chose to attend it, whereupon he jeered at them as cowards.

The King issued writs summoning his nobles to meet for his coronation on the 25th of February, but they took the opportunity of insisting that Gaveston should be dismissed from favor. Edward evasively answered that he would attend to their wishes at the meeting of parliament, and they were obliged to be content for the present; but they were exceedingly angry that, at the coronation, Piers appeared more splendidly and richly attired than the King himself, and bearing on a cushion the crown of St. Edward, while the Earl of Lancaster carried curtana, the sword of mercy, and his brother Henry the rod with the dove. The Bishop of Winchester performed the ceremony, Archbishop Winchelsea not having returned from his exile; and the King and Queen made magnificent offerings: the King's being first, a figure of a king in gold, holding a ring; the second, of a pilgrim given the ring; intended to commemorate the vision in which St. Edward received the coronation-ring from St. John the Evangelist.

Gaveston arranged the whole ceremony; but as his own display was his chief thought, he managed to affront every one, and more especially the young Queen and her uncles, so that Isabel wrote a letter to her father full of complaints of her new lord and his favorite, and Philippe entered into correspondence with the discontented nobility. In the tournaments in honor of the coronation, Piers came off victorious over the Earls of Lancaster, Hereford, Pembroke, and Warrenne, and this mortification greatly added to their dislike. At the meeting of parliament, the Barons were so determined against the favorite, that finally Edward was obliged to yield, and to swear to keep him out of the kingdom; though, to soften the sentence, he gave him the manors of High Peak and Cockermouth, and made him governor of Ireland, bestowing on him, as a parting token, all the young Queen's gifts to himself-rings, chains, and brooches; another great vexation to Isabel. He was obliged, at the same time, to grant forty other articles, giving greater security to the people.

Gaveston made a better governor of Ireland than could have been expected, repressed several incursions of the wild Irish, and repaired the castles on the borders of the English pale; but his haughty deportment greatly affronted the Irish barons of English blood, and they were greatly discontented with his rule.

The King was, in the meantime, doing his utmost to procure the recall of the beloved Earl. He wrote to the Pope to obtain absolution from his oath, and to the King of France to entreat him to relax his hostility; and he strove to gain his nobles over one by one, granting offices to Lancaster, and making concessions to all the rest. Philippe le Bel made no answer; Clement V. sent exhortations to him to live in harmony with his subjects, but at last absolved Gaveston, on condition that he should demean himself properly, and submit his differences with the Barons to the judgment of the Church.

Gaveston hurried home on the instant; his master flew to meet him, and received him at Chester with raptures of affection. Thence Edward sent explanations to the sheriffs of each county, saying, that Gaveston having been unjustly and violently banished, it was his duty to recall him, to have his conduct examined into according to the laws. The Barons, on the other hand, put forth other declarations, persuading the people that the King having violated one of the oaths, he evidently meant to break the other forty, which regarded their personal liberties.

Gaveston did nothing to mitigate the general aversion. He had not learnt wisdom by his first fall, and though the clergy and commons meeting at Stamford granted a twenty-fifth of the year's produce to the King, and consented to his remaining so long as he should demean himself properly, he soon disgusted them also. He wore the crown-jewels openly, and affected greater contempt than ever for the Barons, till it became popularly said that there were two Kings, the real one a mere subject to the false. The young Queen wrote piteous complaints to her father of her husband's neglect; and the Countess of Cornwall had still greater wrongs from Gaveston to complain of to her brother, the Earl of Gloucester. Dances, sports, and gayeties were the occupation of the court, heedless of the storm that was preparing. The Barons, jealous, alarmed, and irritated, looked on in displeasure, and on the All-Saints' Day of 1310, after high mass at St. Paul's, the bold-spirited Archbishop Winchelsea, in his pontifical robes, standing on the step of the altar, made a discourse to the Earls of Lancaster, Lincoln, Pembroke, Hereford, and eight other persons, after which he bound them by an oath to unite to deliver the kingdom from the exactions of the favorite, and pronounced sentence of excommunication against any who should reveal any part of their confederation before the time.

The Earl of Lincoln, the last of the Lacys, shortly after fell sick, and made what he thought a death-bed exhortation to the Earl of Lancaster, who had married his only daughter, not to abandon England to the King and the Pope, but, like the former barons, to resist all infractions of their privileges.

This Earl of Lancaster was the son of Edmund Crouchback and of Blanche of Artois, mother of the Queen of France. He was a fine-looking man, devout and gracious, and much beloved by the people, who called him the Gentle Count; but Gaveston's nickname for him of the "stage-player" may not have been unmerited, for he seems to have been over-greedy of popular applause and influence, and to have had much personal ambition; and it does not seem certain, though Gaveston might be vain, and his master weak and foolish, that Lancaster and his friends did not exaggerate their faults, and excite the malevolence of a nation never tolerant either of royal favorites or of an expensive court. Pembroke was Aymar de Valence, son of one of the foreign brothers who had been the bane of Henry III.; but now, becoming a thorough Englishman, he bore the like malice to the unfortunate Gascon who held the same post as his own father had done. Hereford, though husband to the King's favorite sister Elizabeth, was true to the stout old Bohun, his father, who had sworn to Edward I. that he would neither go nor hang. Two poor butterflies, such as Edward II. and Gaveston, could have done little injury to the realm, but the fierce warriors were resolved to crush them, impatient of the calls upon their purses made needful by their extravagance.

A tournament had been announced at Kennington, and preparations were made; but Gaveston's jousts were not popular. None of the Barons accepted the invitation, and in the night the lists and scaffolding were secretly carried away. This mortification was ominous, but Edward's funds were so low that he could not avoid summoning a parliament to meet at Westminster; and at their meeting the nobles again resorted to the device of Montfort at the Mad Parliament. They brought their armed followers, and forced the King to consent to the appointment of a committee of ordainers, who made him declare that this measure proceeded of his own free will, and was not to prejudice the rights of the Crown; but that their office would expire of itself on the ensuing Michaelmas-Day. So strangely and inconsistently did they try to bring about their own ends without infringing on the constitution.

Gaveston had either previously hidden himself, or was driven away by the ordainers; but the King, anxious to escape from their surveillance, proclaimed an expedition to Scotland, and summoned his vassals to meet him at York. Hardly any noble came except Gaveston, and they made an ineffectual inroad into Scotland together, after which Gaveston shut himself up in Bamborough Castle, while the King went to London to receive the decision of the ordainers. The foremost was, of course, the banishment of Gaveston; and he went, but only again to appear, before two months were past, in the company of the King, at York.

Lancaster and his friends now look up arms and marched northward. Edward and his court had proceeded to Newcastle, but no army was with them; and on the report of the advance of the enemy the King fled to Tynemouth, and embarked in a little boat with his friend, leaving behind him his wife, discourteously perhaps, but hardly cruelly, for Isabel was the niece of Lancaster, and probably would have been in more danger from a sea-voyage in a rude vessel, than from the rebel lords. She was, however, greatly offended, and was far more inclined to her uncle, who wrote her an affectionate letter, than to her regardless husband.

Edward and Piers landed at Scarborough, where the King was obliged to leave his friend for security, while he went on to raise his standard at York. Few obeyed the summons, and Pembroke hastened to besiege Scarborough. It was impossible to hold out, and Gaveston surrendered, Pembroke and Henry Percy binding themselves for his safety to the King, under forfeiture of life and limb. Gaveston was to be confined in his own castle of Wallingford, and the Earl proceeded to escort him thither. But at Dedington Pembroke left the party to visit his wife, who was in the neighborhood, and, on rising in the morning, Gaveston beheld the guard changed. They bore the badge of Warwick, and the grim black dog of Ardennes rode exulting at their head. The unhappy man was set upon a mule, and carried to Warwick Castle, where Lancaster, Hereford, and Surrey, were met to decide his fate in the noble pile newly raised by Earl Guy, to whom the loftiest tower owes its name.

They set Piers before them, and gave him a mock trial. At first there was a reluctance to shed blood, but a voice exclaimed, "Let the fox go, and you will have to hunt him again." And it was resolved that, in defiance of law and of their own honor, Piers Gaveston should die.

He flung himself on his knees before Lancaster, and implored mercy; but in vain he called him "Gentle Count." "Old hog" rankled in the mind of the Earl, who, with his two confederates, rode-forth to Blacklow Hill, a knoll between Warwick and Coventry, and there, beneath the clump of ragged pine-trees, they sternly and ruthlessly looked on while, on June 19th, 1312, the head of the unfortunate young Gaveston was struck off, a victim to his own vanity and the inordinate affection of his master.

Pembroke, regretting either his carelessness or his treachery, when he saw the dreadful consequences, went to the King, and satisfied him of his innocence. Poor Edward was at first wild with grief and rage, but his efforts to punish the murderers were fruitless; and gradually his wrath cooled enough to listen to the mediation of the Pope and King of France, and he consented to grant the Barons a pardon. They wanted to force him, for their own justification, to declare Gaveston a traitor; but weak as Edward was, his affection could not be overcome. He could forgive the murderers, but he could not denounce the memory of the murdered friend of his youth. And the Barons were forced to content themselves with receiving a free pardon after they had come to profess their penitence on their knees before the King enthroned in Westminster Hall.

Gaveston had been buried by some friars at Oxford; but, twelve years after, Edward showed how enduring his love had been, by transporting the corpse to the church he had newly built at Langley, and placing with his own hands two palls of gold on the tomb.