field and in the stall; labour became costly to a mischievous extent; and though the landlord waived his claim for rent, the food of man was at a price that severely enhanced the sufferings of the poor whom the plague had spared.

War again-war with France, and for trifles light as air: for titles and homages, for parchments and genuflexions! The Black Prince, with sixty thousand men, plundered and devastated the south of France, from the Pyrenees to Thoulouse. Carcassone, not inferior to York in extent,-Narbonne, large as London,-were given to the flames. Edward himself advanced from Calais. The French system was defensive; they drained the country, and left the English to extract, as they could, sustenance from the waste. The Scots, at the instigation of their allies, invaded the English border; but Edward, returning from France, took such deep vengeance for the foray, that the Burnt Candlemas' was long remembered as a by-word and vindictive slogan. In 1356, the Prince of Wales renewed his inroad with a smaller army, varying the scene by ravaging in the direction of Auvergne and Berri. But he had advanced too far; his communications were cut off, and he knew nothing of the movements of his opponents, until his outposts fell in with the enemy near Poitiers, between him and his own frontier Seven to one is the lowest odds assigned by the annalists of the time, and the prince listened not unwillingly to proposals of mediation from the cardinal de Perigord, nor was he niggardly in concession:-“ My honour and the honour of my army excepted, I will consent to any sacrifice." King John of France, however, confident in a superiority which seemed to make resistance madness, would accept nothing short of personal surrender, and the parties prepared for battle. Every precaution was taken on both sides, but the English commander omitted nothing that a consummate knowledge of the art of war could suggest : trenches and barricades added strength to a position already strong and inaccessible except by a road of which the hedges were lined with archers. On the 19th of September, the battle was fought. The French men-at-arms entered the defile, where they were suffered to advance until irretrievably engaged in its long and narrow windings: then began the rout, the terrible archery of England poured its incessant storm, the generals of the first division were killed or taken,— and the second line, assailed by the archers in front, and turned by a body of cavalry which suddenly appeared on its flank, gave way. Then the English prince gave the word, 'In the name of God and St George, banners! advance.' The fight now became terrible. John brought up his reserves, and made a noble effort to wrest victory from his conquerors. All was in vain: slaughter wrought her perfect work, and the gallant king of France remained in the hands of the English. Historians and bards have vied with each other in lauding the courtesy of the Black Prince to his enforced guest. On the field and in his father's capital, that gentil seigneur honoured himself by honouring his prisoner. In truth, both father and son were a brilliant pair; mirrors of knighthood,-gentle in hall,—lions in fight; and their valour now had its ample reward in the exhibition of two sovereign princes, captives to England's sword. Ten years and more had David, king of

Froissard, 164.

Scots, remained in England, since he was compelled to surrender at the battle of Neuil's Cross, and shortly after this he was released on

ransom.

In 1360, the English king, with a brilliant army, attended for the first time by an extensive commissariat, advanced to the walls of Paris, but the season was adverse, and he retired with great loss, occasioned by one of the most tremendous tempests recorded in European history. In no long time after these events, peace was concluded, but the French derived little benefit from the cessation of arms. The ' companies,' as they were called, consisting of the soldiers of fortune who had been employed during the war, refused to disband, and setting military interference at defiance, maintained themselves by violence in the heart of France, until they were led by Bertrand du Guesclin into Spain, to the assistance of the bastard Don Enrique, Count Trastamara, against his half-brother, the legitimate Pedro, king of Castile. The latter craved the aid of the Black Prince. The battle of Najara, where Du Guesclin was beaten and made prisoner, replaced Pedro on his throne for a season; but the climate of Spain ruined the health of Edward, who lingered the remaining years of his life through a long and depressing malady.

-ex

In the meantime, Charles V. of France was steadily pursuing a cautious but effective system of policy, ostensibly pacific at first, but terminating in a war, not of battles, but of sieges and manoeuvres,hausting the means of the English by constant pressure upon their resources, and allowing them no opportunity of retrieving their losses by a decisive blow. At length the Black Prince, notwithstanding his debility, took the field, and his antagonists retired. But his last act was a bloody deed,—a massacre of the helpless, the women, children, and unwarlike burghers of Limoges, who had provoked him by what may have been treachery, but was probably mere cowardice, in delivering up their city to the king of France. After this, his standard was no more unfurled: he returned to England, and lingered during six years, condemning, but unable to restrain, the mal-administration of the kingdom, and seconding, to the utmost of his power, the efforts of the 'good parliament' to reform the government. His death, June 8, 1376, threw the power of the state into the hands of his brother, John of Gaunt (Ghent), duke of Lancaster, and the work of state-reformation was roughly checked. The king seems to have been, for some time past, lapsing into dotage. His excellent queen, Philippa of Hainault, was dead, and a rapacious mistress tyrannised over his closing years. He died, June 21, 1377.

Roger, Lord Mortimer.

DIED A. D. 1330.

AMONG the partisans of the unfortunate earl of Lancaster, none acted so conspicuous a part in the transactions which disgraced the close of the second Edward's reign as Roger, Lord Mortimer of Wigmore, one of the most potent barons of the Welsh marches. After the battle of Boroughbridge, he had been condemned for participating in

Lancaster's treason; but his punishment was remitted for perpetual imprisonment in the tower of London. He had the good fortune, however, to make his escape, by corrupting the fidelity of his keeper, and, hastening to France, joined Edward's queen in her exile in Paris, and was made the chief officer of her household. The graces of his person, and his fascinating manners, soon won upon her affections; she gave him her confidence, and ultimately sacrificed to him her honour and fidelity.1

The views of the queen and her paramour were from the first directed to the deposition of Edward; and they pursued this object with a resolution and boldness worthy of a better cause. But their success could not blind the people to their guilt. Sir James Mackintosh, indeed, considers it doubtful how far the licentious manners of the queen and her paramour rendered their government more generally unacceptable in an age when such vices must have been scarcely known to an ignorant people, and could not be sincerely blamed by a profligate nobility. Nevertheless, men began to pity the dethroned king and insulted husband, and the clergy publicly inveighed in their sermons against the scandalous connexion which existed between the queen and Mortimer. His elevation to the earldom of March increased the haughtiness and ambition of the favourite, and thus drew upon him the hatred and jealousy of the nobles; while the measures of his administration, and particularly the dishonourable peace with Scotland, proved in the highest degree unpopular. Henry, earl of Lancaster, and Thomas, earl of Kent, entered into an association with several of the other leading nobility, for the purpose of resisting the measures of the favourite, and procuring the emancipation of the young king from his mother's influence; they also resolved to call Mortimer to account for the murder of the late king, for depriving the regency of its proper influence and authority, and for embezzling the public treasure. But before matters came to an issue, Kent's courage failed him; and by the intervention of some of the prelates, an agreement was patched up betwixt him and Mortimer. Their reconciliation was in appearance only. A transaction of the most intricate treachery followed. Strange rumours were industriously circulated by the secret agents of Mortimer, that the late king was still alive, and Corfe castle was indicated as the place of his confinement. Meanwhile the earl of Kent received letters, undoubtedly forgeries, from the pope, exhorting him to liberate his brother from prison. Different messengers brought him various flattering promises of co-operation and assistance from several leading personages; he was assured of aid from Scotland; and Sir John Mautravers, the chief actor in the late cruel tragedy in Berkeley castle, not only encouraged him in the belief that his brother was yet alive, but actually undertook to be the bearer of letters from him to the imprisoned king. Such were the statements which the earl himself on his examination by Sir Robert Howel, when apprehended on a charge of conspiracy against the existing government, ingenuously confessed: he also acknowledged that he had, in consequence of the encouragement then received, written letters to his brother. The infamous policy of the secret instigator of the whole plot was almost forced into

Walsing. 122.

Rot. Parl. ii. 53.

sight during the proceedings which were directed against the unfortunate earl; but his influence and that of the queen still bore him through. A parliament assembled at Winchester in 1330, pronounced sentence of death and forfeiture against the earl of Kent; and on the 21st of March he was led, by the order of his nephew, to the place of execution; but so general was the sympathy felt for the unfortunate prince, that it was evening before an executioner could be found to perform the office. At last, after a painful suspense of several hours, a felon from the Marshalsea was induced, by a promise of pardon, to strike off his head.3 Mortimer lived to acknowledge the innocence of his victim; but Edmund's fate would have been more generally pitied by posterity, had he not been known to have countenanced the proceedings of the queen's faction before, and rendered himself unpopular by his haughty and oppressive behaviour. To silence public clamour, however, it was found necessary to issue a proclamation, ordering the sheriffs to arrest and imprison any one who should be heard to say that the earl of Kent was unjustly put to death, or suffered for any cause than treason, or that Edward of Caernarvon, the king's father, was still alive.

Mortimer had now reached the highest pinnacle of his fortunes, and began to affect a state and dignity equal, or superior, to that of royalty itself. But the inevitable tendency of a continued and unmixed career of servility, treachery, and rapacity, soon became apparent in the critical position of his affairs. All parties laid aside their reciprocal animosities for a time, and united in their hatred of Mortimer, and resolution to bring the arch-traitor to condign punishment. The king himself, though young in years, had long been galled by the fetters which he knew his mother and her minion to have placed upon him; but so closely was he surrounded by the emissaries of Mortimer, that he felt the utmost caution to be necessary for his own safety in prosecuting any measures for the overthrow of the favourite. At last he ventured to communicate his feelings to Lord Montacute, who engaged the lords Molins and Clifford, Sir John Nevil, Sir Edward Bohun, and others, in the design to seize the person of Mortimer. The castle of Nottingham, in which it was known Mortimer would reside during the session of parliament about to be holden in that city, was fixed upon for the scene of the enterprise. When the time approached for carrying their scheme into effect, Sir William Eland, the governor of the castle, being won over by Montacute, pointed out a subterraneous passage leading from the west side of the rock into the castle, which was unknown to Mortimer, and through which he undertook to introduce the king's friends. Mortimer had received some dark hints of the conspiracy which was forming against him, and had taken every precaution to secure his own safety; he had even informed the council of what he suspected, and boldly charged the young king with being privy to the plot. But on the evening of the same day on which he made this statement, the conspirators gained admission to the castle through the subterraneous passage above noticed, and bursting into the apartment of Mortimer, who was at the moment engaged in consultation with the bishop of Lincoln, led him away as their prisoner.

Heming. 271.-Leland Collect. 476, 552.

Next morning the king announced by proclamation that he had taken the reins of government into his own hands.

A parliament was immediately summoned at London for the trial of Mortimer. The principal charges exhibited against him were,—that he had accroached, or assumed the royal prerogative which parliament had committed to ten lay-lords and four prelates,—that he had placed and displaced ministers at his pleasure, and set John Wyard to be a spy on the king,—that he had removed the late king from Kenilworth to Berkeley castle, where he had caused him to be traitorously murdered, that he had inveigled the earl of Kent into a false charge of treason, that he had embezzled the royal treasures,—and that he had divided with his associates the twenty thousand marks already paid by the king of Scots.* The peers, after some deliberation, pronounced all these charges to be "notoriously true, and known to them and all the people," and condemned Mortimer "to be drawn and hanged, as a traitor and enemy of the king and kingdom." His associates, Sir Simon Bereford, Sir John Mautravers, John Deverel, and Boeges de Bayenne, were condemned to death at the same time. The favourite and Bereford were hanged at a place called the Elms, near Tyburn, on the 29th of November, 1300; but, as the other three were at large, a price was set on their heads. At the solicitation of the pope, the queen-mother was spared the ignominy of a public trial, but was adjudged to have forfeited her estates, and confined to her manor of Risings, where she passed in obscurity the remaining twenty-seven years of her life.

John of Gaunt.

BORN A. D. 1340.--DIED A. D. 1399.

JOHN of Gaunt, or Ghent, was the fourth son of Edward III. Trained to arms under the eyes of his warlike father, he early approved himself worthy of his descent, behaving, as Froissart tells us, very gallantly in many hard-fought fields. By his marriage with Blanche, the surviving co-heiress of Henry, third earl of Lancaster, the honours, titles, and estates of that powerful house, became concentrated in his person; but on the death of his first wife he contracted a still more splendid alliance with Constantia, one of the heiresses of Pedro, surnamed the Cruel, in virtue of which he assumed the imposing title of king of Castile. On his return from Spain, his father's marked partiality for him, and the indications which he frequently manifested of an ambitious disposition, roused the jealousy of the Black prince, who beheld in him a powerful and subtle rival of his own son.

In the latter years of his father's reign, John contrived to manage all things his own way, by means of a huge rout of retainers,' who bore down all opposition in every quarter. Not satisfied with hectoring the citizens of London, whose turbulent spirit was often directed against his measures, he embroiled himself with the prelacy by his persecution of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, and even defied the

4 Rot. Park, ii, 52, &c.