Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/366

352 Charles took advantage of his brother-in-law's difficulties, and endeavoured to deprive him of his French territories altogether. Edward sent out his brother, the Earl of Kent, to endeavour to negotiate matters, but without effect; and Isabella, who had long wished to quit the kingdom, now prevailed on the king to let her go over and endeavour to arrange the business with her brother. Edward fell into the snare; the queen found herself in Paris, and the centre of a powerful band of British malcontents. One common principle animated the queen and the refugees of the Lancaster faction, and bound them together—hatred of the Spensers. The queen had come attended by a splendid retinue—for she came not only as Queen of England and Princess of France, but in the character of an ambassador. Publicly, therefore, she was received with every honour; and, publicly, she appeared to be negotiating for a settlement of her royal husband's difficulties; but as the mode of solving them, she conceded that he should come over in person and do homage for his provinces. This proposal, which astonished both the king and the whole court, was strenuously resisted by the younger Spenser. He well knew the feelings entertained by the queen towards himself; and therefore would, on no account, trust himself in Paris with her. But to allow the king to proceed there alone was as full of danger. The king might there fall under the influence of some other person; and at home his own position would be a most dangerous one during the king's absence, surrounded as he was by universal hatred.

The king had advanced as far as Dover, where, no doubt, at the persuasion of the Spensers, he stopped, and, on the plea of illness, declined to proceed any further. Foiled in this scheme, Isabella hit upon another, which was that Edward should make over Guienne and Ponthieu to his son, who then could go instead of his father, and perform the requisite homage. This was more easily fallen into by the king, because it suited young Spenser by keeping the king at home. Edward resigned Guienne and Ponthieu to his son, now thirteen years old; he went over, did his homage, and took up his residence with his mother.

The plot now began to unfold itself palpably. The queen was not only surrounded by a powerful body of English subjects hostile to their king, but she had the heir to the throne in her possession, and she determined never to return to England till she could drive young Spenser thence, and seize the reins of power herself. When, therefore, the homage being completed, Edward urged the return of his wife and son, he received at first evasive answers, which were soon followed by the foulest charges against him by his own queen. She complained that Hugh Spenser had alienated the king's affection from her; that he had sown continual discord between them; had brought the king to such a feeling against her, that he would neither see her nor come where she was. She accused the Spensers of seizing her dower, and keeping her in a state of abject poverty and dependence, and that, beyond all this, they had a design on the lives of both herself and son. The king put forth a defence of himself, but nothing could clear him from the charge of having grossly neglected the queen for his favourites, or of having most thoroughly merited her contempt and aversion.

But while the queen was doing the utmost to disgrace and ruin her husband, her own conduct was notoriously scandalous. During the life of the Earl of Lancaster, she appears to have leaned very much on him for counsel and support; but now the Lord Mortimer was become the head of the Lancastrian party, and therefore necessarily was thrown daily into her society. Mortimer was handsome, brave, of insinuating address, and sufficiently unprincipled. The affairs of the party brought them into almost perpetual contact, and intimacy speedily ripened into intrigue and criminality. Very soon the position of the queen and Mortimer was universally known. They lived in the most avowed intimacy, and when Edward, made aware of it, insisted on Isabella's immediate return, she declared boldly that she would never set foot in England till Spenser was for ever removed from the royal presence and counsels. This public avowal won her instant and great popularity in England, where Spenser was hated, and threw for a while a slight veil over her own designs. An active correspondence was opened with the discontented in England; the vilest calumnies were propagated everywhere against the king, and this disgraceful family quarrel became the common topic of all Europe.

The King of France, from motives of policy, declared himself highly incensed against Edward for his treatment of his sister, and even threatened to redress her wrongs. He still protected her, even after her open connection with Mortimer; though both himself and his two brothers had thrown their wives into prison for irregularity of conduct, where the wife of his brother Louis had been strangled. But though Charles probably never seriously intended to take any active measures on behalf of Isabella, Edward was greatly alarmed, and not only sent, in the name of Spenser, rich presents to the French king and. his ministers, but also wrote to the Pope, earnestly imploring him to command Charles to restore to him his wife and son. This letter to the Pope was strongly backed, according to Froissart, "by much gold and silver to several cardinals and prelates nearest to the Pope." The interference of his holiness afforded a sufficient plea for Charles to withdraw all countenance from Isabella, and even to command her to quit the kingdom. To save appearances, therefore, Isabella quitted Paris, and betook herself to the court of the Count of Holland and Hainault. That this was a step by no means disagreeable to Charles le Bel, is obvious from the fact that the count was his own vassal, and suffered no remonstrance for this reception of the English queen. The partisanship of the count was of the most decided kind. The queen, the more indissolubly to engage him in her enterprise, affianced her son Edward, the heir to the English throne, to Philippa, his second daughter. The brother of the count, John of Hainault, became a perfect enthusiast in the cause of Isabella, who, still young—only eight-and-twenty years of age—and eminently beautiful, seemed to inspire him with all the chivalrous devotion of the most romantic ages. He declared his fall faith in Isabella's innocence of all impropriety, with the spectacle of her intimacy with Mortimer daily before his eyes; and he was deaf to all warnings of danger from the jealousies of the English, who, he was assured, were especially disgusted by the interference of foreigners. By this alliance, and the secret