Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/49

Edward II (Parl. Writs. II. i. 109) Edward made a short pilgrimage to Boulogne, but his journey was a secret one, and undertaken against the opinion of his subjects (Cont,, ed. Hall, p. 11). The Question of the ordinances was still unsettled, and soon became the source of fresh difficulties.

On 17 Feb. 1314 Edward attended the enthronement of Reynolds at Canterbury. On 28 Feb. Roxburgh was captured by Bruce; on 13 March Edinburgh fell, and soon after Stirling, the last of the Scottish strongholds that remained in English hands, promised to surrender if not relieved by St. John's day (24 June). Edward was provoked almost to tears by these disasters, and eagerly pressed the leading earls to march against Bruce with all their forces. The earls replied that to undertake such an expedition without the consent of parliament would be contrary to the ordinances. Edward was compelled, therefore, to rely upon the customary services of his vassals, whom he convoked for 10 June. After visiting for Easter the great abbeys of St. Albans and Ely (, p. 83), Edward started for the north. A great host tardily collected at Berwick, but Lancaster, Warenne, Arundel, and Warwick stayed behind, though furnishing their legal contingent of troops. At last, about a week before St. John's day, Edward left Berwick for Stirling with as much confidence as if he were on a pilgrimage to Compostella (, p. 202). When the great army, greatly fatigued by the march, reached the neighbourhood of Stirling, St. John's eve had arrived. A defeat in a preliminary skirmish and a sleepless and riotous night (, p. 299) still further unfitted the army for action. Gloucester strongly urged the king to wait another day before fighting; but in a characteristic outburst Edward denounced his nephew as a traitor, and ordered an immediate action. The English army was divided into three lines, in the rearmost of which Edward remained with the bishops and monks in attendance, and protected by Hugh le Despenser. The first line soon fell into confusion, and Gloucester, its leader, was slain. The royal escort at once resolved that Edward must withdraw to a place of safety; and the king, after requesting in vain admittance into Stirling Castle, hurried off towards Dunbar, hotly pursued by the enemy. Thence he took ship for Berwick. The retreat of the king was the sigal for the fiight of the whole army. Stirling surrendered, and all Scotland acknowledged as its king the victor of Bannockburn.

Meanwhile Lancaster had assembled an army at Pontefract, on the pretext that Edward, if successful in Scotland, had resolved to turn his victorious troops against the confederate earls. Edward was compelled to make an unconditional submission at a parliament at York in September, to confirm the ordinances, to change his ministers, and to receive the earls into favour. Hugh le Despenser remained in hiding. About Christmas time Edward celebrated Gaveston's final obsequies at Langley (, p. 209). In the February parliament at London the victorious barons removed Despenser and Walter Langton from the council, purged the royal household of its superfluous and burdensome members, and put the king on an allowance of 10l. a day. The humiliation of Edward was furthered by the appointment of Lancaster as commander-in-chief against the Scots in August, and completed by the acts of the parliament of Lincoln in January 1316 where it was 'ordained that the king should undertake no important matter without the consent of the council, and that Lancaster should hold the position of chief of the council' (lb. p. 224).

Edward had thus fallen completely under Lancaster's power. The invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce, the revolt of Llewelyn Bren in Wales, the revolt of Banastre against Lancaster, the Scottish devastations extending as far south as Furness (Lanercost, p. 233), the Bristol war in 1316, aggravated by the floods of 1315 and the plague of cattle, the unheard-of scarcity of corn and the unhealthiness of the season of 1316 showed that a stronger rule was required. But Lancaster failed almost as signally as Edward. After Michaelmas he attempted a Scottish expedition; but Edward now refused to follow him, so the earl returned, having accomplished nothing (ib. p. 233). His failure to carry a new series of ordinances drove him into a sulky retirement. This attitude again restored freedom to Edward and his courtiers. The king's application to the pope to be relieved from his oath to the ordinances, and for the condemnation of the Scots, failed of its purpose. But the baronial party was now broken up, and Edward vigorously intrigued to win to his side the middle party, led by Pembroke, Badlesmere, and D'Amory, husband of one of the Gloucester coheiresses. With this party hatred of Lancaster was stronger than dislike of the royal policy. The abduction of the Countess of Lancaster by Earl Warenne, planned, it was believed, by Edward and his courtiers (Cont., p. 21), produced a new crisis. Private war broke out between Warenne and Lancaster in Yorkshire. In July Edward went north, and under pretence of the Scots war assembled in September an