was buried in the old abbey of that ancient city, at forty-three
years old, after being for nineteen years and a half a perfectly
incapable King.
CHAPTER XVIII - ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD
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
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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 bedchamber,
'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
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
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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;
gaining a great sea-fight in the harbour of Sluys. This success,
however, was very shortlived, for the Flemings took fright at the
siege of Saint Omer and ran away, leaving their weapons and baggage
behind them. Philip, the French King, coming up with his army, and
Edward being very anxious to decide the war, proposed to settle the
difference by single combat with him, or by a fight of one hundred
knights on each side. The French King said, he thanked him; but
being very well as he was, he would rather not. So, after some
skirmishing and talking, a short peace was made.
It was soon broken by King Edward's favouring the cause of John,
Earl of Montford; a French nobleman, who asserted a claim of his
ow
n against the French King, and offered to do homage to England
for the Crown of France, if he could obtain it through England's
help. This French lord, himself, was soon defeated by the French
King's son, and shut up in a tower in Paris; but his wife, a
courageous and beautiful woman, who is said to have had the courage
of a man, and the heart of a lion, assembled the people of
Brittany, where she then was; and, showing them her infant son,
made many pathetic entreaties to them not to desert her and their
young Lord. They took fire at this appeal, and rallied round her
in the strong castle of Hennebon. Here she was not only besieged
without by the French under Charles de Blois, but was endangered
within by a dreary old bishop, who was always representing to the
people what horrors they must undergo if they were faithful - first
from famine, and afterwards from fire and sword. But this noble
lady, whose heart never failed her, encouraged her soldiers by her
own example; went from post to post like a great general; even
mounted on horseback fully armed, and, issuing from the castle by a
by-path, fell upon the French camp, set fire to the tents, and
threw the whole force into disorder. This done, she got safely
back to Hennebon again, and was received with loud shouts of joy by
the defenders of the castle, who had given her up for lost. As
they were now very short of provisions, however, and as they could
not dine off enthusiasm, and as the old bishop was always saying,
'I told you what it would come to!' they began to lose heart, and
to talk of yielding the castle up. The brave Countess retiring to
an upper room and looking with great grief out to sea, where she
expected relief from England, saw, at this very time, the English
ships in the distance, and was relieved and rescued! Sir Walter
Manning, the English commander, so admired her courage, that, being
come into the castle with the English knights, and having made a
feast there, he assaulted the French by way of dessert, and beat
them off triumphantly. Then he and the knights came back to the
castle with great joy; and the Countess who had watched them from a
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high tower, thanked them with all her heart, and kissed them every
one.
This noble lady distinguished herself afterwards in a sea-fight
with the French off Guernsey, when she was on her way to England to
ask for more troops. Her great spirit roused another lady, the
wife of another French lord (whom the French King very barbarously
murdered), to distinguish herself scarcely less. The time was fast
coming, however, when Edward, Prince of Wales, was to be the great
star of this French and English war.
It was in the month of July, in the year one thousand three hundred
and forty-six, when the King embarked at Southampton for France,
with an army of about thirty thousand men in all, attended by the
Prince of Wales and by several of the chief nobles. He landed at
La Hogue in Normandy; and, burning and destroying as he went,
according to custom, advanced up the left bank of the River Seine,
and fired the small towns even close to Paris; but, being watched
from the right bank of the river by the French King and all his
army, it came to this at last, that Edward found himself, on
Saturday the twenty-sixth of August, one thousand three hundred and
forty-six, on a rising ground behind the little French village of
Crecy, face to face with the French King's force. And, although
the French King had an enormous army - in number more than eight
times his - he there resolved to beat him or be beaten.
The young Prince, assisted by the Earl of Oxford and the Earl of
Warwick, led the first division of the English army; two other
great Earls led the second; and the King, the third. When the
morning dawned, the King received the sacrament, and heard prayers,
and then, mounted on horseback with a white wand in his hand, rode
from company to company, and rank to rank, cheering and encouraging
both officers and men. Then the whole army breakfasted, each man
sitting on the ground where he had stood; and then they remained
quietly on the ground with their weapons ready.
Up came the French King with all his great force. It was dark and
angry weather; there was an eclipse of the sun; there was a
thunder-storm, accompanied with tremendous rain; the frightened
birds flew screaming above the soldiers' heads. A certain captain
in the French army advised the French King, who was by no means
cheerful, not to begin the battle until the morrow. The King,
taking this advice, gave the word to halt. But, those behind not
understanding it, or desiring to be foremost with the rest, came
pressing on. The roads for a great distance were covered with this
immense army, and with the common people from the villages, who
were flourishing their rude weapons, and making a great noise.
Owing to these circumstances, the French army advanced in the
greatest confusion; every French lord doing what he liked with his
own men, and putting out the men of every other French lord.
Now, their King relied strongly upon a great body of cross-bowmen
from Genoa; and these he ordered to the front to begin the battle,
on finding that he could not stop it. They shouted once, they
shouted twice, they shouted three times, to alarm the English
archers; but, the English would have heard them shout three
thousand times and would have never moved. At last the crossbowmen
went forward a little, and began to discharge their bolts;
upon which, the English let fly such a hail of arrows, that the
Genoese speedily made off - for their cross-bows, besides being
heavy to carry, required to be wound up with a handle, and
consequently took time to re-load; the English, on the other hand,
could discharge their arrows almost as fast as the arrows could
fly.
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When the French King saw the Genoese turning, he cried out to his
men to kill those scoundrels, who were doing harm instead of
service. This increased the confusion. Meanwhile the English
archers, continuing to shoot as fast as ever, shot down great
numbers of the French soldiers and knights; whom certain sly
Cornish-men and Welshmen, from the English army, creeping along the
ground, despatched with great knives.
The Prince and his division were at this time so hard-pressed, that
the Earl of Warwick sent a message to the King, who was overlooking
the battle from a windmill, beseeching him to send more aid.
'Is my son killed?' said the King.
'No, sire, please God,' returned the messenger.
'Is he wounded?' said the King.
'No, sire.'
'Is he thrown to the ground?' said the King.
'No, sire, not so; but, he is very hard-pressed.'
'Then,' said the King, 'go back to those who sent you, and tell
them I shall send no aid; because I set my heart u
pon my son
proving himself this day a brave knight, and because I am resolved,
please God, that the honour of a great victory shall be his!'
These bold words, being reported to the Prince and his division, so
raised their spirits, that they fought better than ever. The King
of France charged gallantly with his men many times; but it was of
no use. Night closing in, his horse was killed under him by an
English arrow, and the knights and nobles who had clustered thick
about him early in the day, were now completely scattered. At
last, some of his few remaining followers led him off the field by
force since he would not retire of himself, and they journeyed away
to Amiens. The victorious English, lighting their watch-fires,
made merry on the field, and the King, riding to meet his gallant
son, took him in his arms, kissed him, and told him that he had
acted nobly, and proved himself worthy of the day and of the crown.
While it was yet night, King Edward was hardly aware of the great
victory he had gained; but, next day, it was discovered that eleven
princes, twelve hundred knights, and thirty thousand common men lay
dead upon the French side. Among these was the King of Bohemia, an
old blind man; who, having been told that his son was wounded in
the battle, and that no force could stand against the Black Prince,
called to him two knights, put himself on horse-back between them,
fastened the three bridles together, and dashed in among the
English, where he was presently slain. He bore as his crest three
white ostrich feathers, with the motto ICH DIEN, signifying in
English 'I serve.' This crest and motto were taken by the Prince
of Wales in remembrance of that famous day, and have been borne by
the Prince of Wales ever since.
Five days after this great battle, the King laid siege to Calais.
This siege - ever afterwards memorable - lasted nearly a year. In
order to starve the inhabitants out, King Edward built so many
wooden houses for the lodgings of his troops, that it is said their
quarters looked like a second Calais suddenly sprung around the
first. Early in the siege, the governor of the town drove out what
he called the useless mouths, to the number of seventeen hundred
persons, men and women, young and old. King Edward allowed them to
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