Page 51 of 163
1324.
Philip the Fair, king of France, who died in 1315, had left the crown to his son Lewis Hutin, who, after a short reign, dying without male issue, was succeeded by Philip the Long, his brother, whose death soon after made way for Charles the Fair, the youngest brother of that family. This monarch had some grounds of complaint against the king’s ministers in Guienne; and as there was no common or equitable judge in that strange species of sovereignty established by the feudal law, he seemed desirous to take advantage of Edward’s weakness, and under that pretence to confiscate all his foreign dominions.[**]
* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 1022. Murimuth, p. 60.
** Rymer, vol. iv. p. 74, 98.
After an embassy by the earl of Kent, the king’s brother, had been tried in vain, Queen Isabella obtained permission to go over to Paris, and endeavor to adjust, in an amicable manner, the difference with her brother: but while she was making some progress in this negotiation, Charles started a new pretension, the justice of which could not be disputed, that Edward himself should appear in his court, and do homage for the fees which he held in France. But there occurred many difficulties in complying with this demand. Young Spenser, by whom the king was implicitly governed, had unavoidably been engaged in many quarrels with the queen, who aspired to the same influence, and though that artful princess, on her leaving England, had dissembled her animosity, Spenser, well acquainted with her secret sentiments, was unwilling to attend his master to Paris, and appear in a court where her credit might expose him to insults, if not to danger. He hesitated no less on allowing the king to make the journey alone; both fearing lest that easy prince should in his absence fall under other influence, and foreseeing the perils to which he himself should be exposed if, without the protection of royal authority, he remained in England where he was so generally hated.
1325.
While these doubts occasioned delays and difficulties, Isabella proposed that Edward should resign the dominion of Guienne to his son, now thirteen years of age; and that the prince should come to Paris, and do the homage which every vassal owed to his superior lord. This expedient, which seemed so happily to remove all difficulties, was immediately embraced: Spenser was charmed with the contrivance: young Edward was sent to Paris: and the ruin covered under this fatal snare, was never perceived or suspected by any of the English council.
The queen, on her arrival in France, had there found a great number of English fugitives, the remains of the Lancastrian faction; and their common hatred of Spenser soon begat a secret friendship and correspondence between them and that princess. Among the rest was young Roger Mortimer, a potent baron in the Welsh marches, who had been obliged, with others, to make his submissions to the king, had been condemned for high treason; but having received a pardon for his life, was afterwards detained in the Tower, with an intention of rendering his confinement perpetual, He was so fortunate as to make his escape into France;[*] and being one of the most considerable persons now remaining of the party, as well as distinguished by his violent animosity against Spenser, he was easily admitted to pay his court to Queen Isabella. The graces of his person and address advanced him quickly in her affections: he became her confident and counsellor in all her measures; and gaining ground daily upon her heart, he engaged her to sacrifice at last, to her passion, all the sentiments of honor and of fidelity to her husband.[**]
* Rymer, vol. iv. p. 7, 8, 20. T. de la More, p. 596.
Walsing.[** unclear] p. 120. Ypoa. Neust. p. 506.
** T. de la More, p. 598. Murimuth, p. 65.
Hating now the man whom she had injured, and whom she never valued, she entered ardently into all Mortimer’s conspiracies; and having artfully gotten into her hands the young prince, and heir of the monarchy, she resolved on the utter ruin of the king, as well as of his favorite. She engaged her brother to take part in the same criminal purpose: her court was daily filled with the exiled barons: Mortimer lived in the most declared intimacy with her: a correspondence was secretly carried on with the malecontent party in England: and when Edward, informed of those alarming circumstances, required her speedily to return with the prince, she publicly replied, that she would never set foot in the kingdom till Spenser was forever removed from his presence and councils; a declaration which procured her great popularity in England, and threw a decent veil over all her treasonable enterprises.
Edward endeavored to put himself in a posture of defence;[*] but, besides the difficulties arising from his own indolence and slender abilities, and the want of authority, which of consequence attended all his resolutions, it was not easy for him, in the present state of the kingdom and revenue, to maintain a constant force ready to repel an invasion, which he knew not at what time or place he had reason to expect.
* Rymer, vol. iv. p. 184, 188, 225.
All his efforts were unequal to the traitorous and hostile conspiracies which, both at home and abroad, were forming against his authority, and which were daily penetrating farther even into his own family. His brother, the earl of Kent, a virtuous but weak prince, who was then at Paris, was engaged by his sister-in-law, and by the king of France, who was also his cousin-german, to give countenance to the invasion, whose sole object, he believed, was the expulsion of the Spensers: he prevailed on his elder brother, the earl of Norfolk, to enter secretly into the same design: the earl of Leicester, brother and heir of the earl of Lancaster, had too many reasons for his hatred of these ministers to refuse his concurrence. Walter de Reynel, archbishop of Canterbury, and many of the prelates, expressed their approbation of the queen’s measures: several of the most potent barons, envying the authority of the favorite, were ready to fly to arms: the minds of the people, by means of some truths and many calumnies, were strongly disposed to the same party: and there needed but the appearance of the queen and prince, with such a body of foreign troops as might protect her against immediate violence, to turn all this tempest, so artfully prepared, against the unhappy Edward.
1326.
Charles, though he gave countenance and assistance to the faction, was ashamed openly to support the queen and prince against the authority of a husband and father; and Isabella was obliged to court the alliance of some other foreign potentate, from whose dominions she might set out on her intended enterprise. For this purpose, she affianced young Edward, whose tender age made him incapable to judge of the consequences, with Philippa, daughter of the count of Holland and Hainault;[*] and having, by the open assistance of this prince, and the secret protection of her brother, enlisted in her service near three thousand men, she set sail from the harbor of Dort, and landed safely, and without opposition, on the coast of Suffolk. The earl of Kent was in her company: two other princes of the blood, the earl of Norfolk and the earl of Leicester, joined her soon after her landing with all their followers: three prelates, the bishops of Ely, Lincoln, and Hereford, brought her both the force of their vassals and the authority of their character:[**] even Robert de Watteville, who had been sent by the king to oppose her progress in Suffolk, deserted to her with all his forces. To render her cause more favorable, she renewed her declaration, that the solo purpose of her enterprise was to free the king and kingdom from the tyranny of the Spensers, and of Chancellor Baldoc, their creature.[*] The populace were allured by her specious pretences: the barons thought themselves secure against forfeitures by the appearance of the prince in her army: and a weak, irresolute king, supported by ministers generally odious, was unable to stem this torrent, which bore with such irresistible violence against him.
