Read Ebook: The history of England from the accession of Henry III. to the death of Edward III. (1216-1377) by Tout T F Thomas Frederick Hunt William Editor Poole Reginald Lane Editor

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Soon after the departure of his brother for Gascony, Edward went to war against the Scots, regarding the non-appearance of King John on March 1 at Berwick as a declaration of hostility. The lord of Wark offered to betray his castle to the Scots, and Edward's successful effort to save it first brought him to the Tweed. Meanwhile the men of Annandale under their new lord, the Earl of Buchan, engaged in a raid on Carlisle, but failed to capture the city, and speedily returned home. On March 28, the day on which his brother attacked Bordeaux, Edward crossed the Tweed at Coldstream, and marched down its left bank towards Berwick. On March 30 Berwick was captured. The townsmen fought badly, and the heroes of the resistance were thirty Flemish merchants, who held their factory, called the Red Hall, until the building was fired, and the defenders perished in the flames. The garrison of the castle, commanded by Sir William Douglas, laid down their arms at once.

Edward spent a month in Berwick, strengthening the fortifications of the town, and preparing for an invasion of Scotland. Early in April, King John renounced his homage and, immediately afterwards, the Scots lords who had attacked Carlisle devastated Tynedale and Redesdale, penetrating as far as Hexham. Edward's command of the sea made it impossible for the raiders to cut off his communications with his base, and they quickly returned to their own land, where they threw themselves into Dunbar. Though the lord of Dunbar, Patrick, Earl of March, was serving with the English king, his countess, who was at Dunbar, invited them into the fortress. Dunbar blocked the road into Scotland, and Edward sent forward Earl Warenne with a portion of the army in the hope of recapturing the position. Warenne laid siege to Dunbar, but on the third day, April 27, the main Scots army came to its relief. Leaving some of the young nobles to continue the siege, Warenne drew up his army in battle array. The Scots thought that the English were preparing for flight, and rushed upon them with loud cries and blowing of horns. Discovering too late that the enemy was ready for battle, they fell back in confusion as far as Selkirk Forest. Next day Edward came up from Berwick and received the surrender of Dunbar. Henceforth his advance was but a military promenade.

Edward turned back from Dunbar to receive the submission of the Steward of Scotland at Roxburgh, and to welcome a large force of Welsh infantry, whose arrival enabled him to dismiss the English foot, fatigued with the slight effort of a month's easy campaigning. Thence he made his way to Edinburgh, which yielded after an eight days' siege. Stirling castle, the next barrier to his progress, was abandoned by its garrison, and there Edward was reinforced by some Irish contingents. He then advanced to Perth, keeping St. John's feast on June 24 in St. John's own town. On July 10 Balliol surrendered to the Bishop of Durham at Brechin, acknowledging that he had forfeited his throne by his rebellion. Edward continued his triumphal progress, preceded at every stage by Bishop Bek at the head of the warriors of the palatinate of St. Cuthbert. He made his way through Montrose up the east coast to Aberdeen, and thence up the Don and over the hills to Banff and Elgin, the farthest limit of his advance. He returned by a different route, bringing back with him from Scone the stone on which the Scots kings had been wont to sit at their coronation. This he presented as a trophy of victory to the monks of Westminster, where it was set up as a chair for the priest celebrating mass at the altar over against the shrine of St. Edward, though soon used as the coronation seat of English kings.

In less than five months Edward had conquered a kingdom. On August 22 he was back at Berwick, whither he had summoned a parliament of the nobles and prelates of both kingdoms, in order that the work of organising the future government of Scotland might be completed. Meanwhile a crowd of Scots of every class flocked to the victor's court and took oaths of fealty to him. Their names, along with those of the persons who made similar recognitions of his sovereignly during his Scottish progress, were recorded with notarial precision in one of those formal documents with which Edward delighted to mark the stages in the accomplishment of his task. This record, popularly styled the Ragman Roll, containing the names of about two thousand freeholders and men of substance in Scotland, is of extreme value to the Scottish genealogist and antiquary. The last entries are dated August 28, the day on which Edward met his parliament at Berwick. The administration of Scotland was provided for. John, Earl Warenne, became the king's lieutenant, Hugh Cressingham, treasurer, and William Ormesby, justiciar. When the land was subdued Edward showed a strong desire to treat the people well. The only precaution taken by him against the renewal of disturbances was an order that the former King of Scots, John Comyn of Buchan, John Comyn of Badenoch, and other magnates of the patriotic party were to dwell in England, south of the Trent, until the conclusion of the war with France. As soon as his business was accomplished at Berwick, Edward turned his steps southwards. At last he seemed free to lead a great army against Philip the Fair; and, in order to prepare for the French expedition, he summoned another parliament to meet at Bury St. Edmunds on the morrow of All Souls' day, November 3. At Bury the barons, knights, and burgesses made liberal offerings for the war. But a new difficulty arose in the absolute refusal of the clergy to vote any supplies. Once more the cup of hope was dashed from Edward's lips, and he found himself forced to enter into another weary conflict, this time with his English liegemen.

During these stormy times Edward had been straining every nerve to equip an adequate army for foreign service. Once more he laid violent hands upon the wool and hides of the merchants, while a huge male--tolt, varying from forty shillings a sack for raw wool to sixty-six shillings and eightpence a sack for carded wool, was exacted for such wool as the king's officers suffered to remain in the owner's possession. Moreover, vast stores of wheat, barley, and oats, salt pork and salt beef were requisitioned all over the land. Men said that the king's tyranny could no longer be borne, and that the rights decreed to all Englishmen by the Great Charter were in imminent danger. The movement, which had begun as a defence of feudal right, became a popular revolt in favour of national liberty. The commons joined the barons and clergy in the general opposition to the headstrong king.

Edward made light of this rebellion. Resolved to go to Flanders at all costs, he contented himself with calling upon the levies of the shires north of the Trent to protect his interests in Scotland. Early in July, Henry Percy, Warenne's grandson, rode through south-western Scotland, at the head of the Cumberland musters, and on July 7, the local insurgent leaders, with the exception of Wallace, made their submission to him at Irvine. Moreover, Edward released the two Comyns from their veiled imprisonment, and sent them back to Scotland to help in suppressing the insurrection. Henry Percy boasted that the Scots south of the Forth had been reduced to subjection. But a few days later Wallace was found to be strongly established in Ettrick forest and was threatening Roxburgh. At last Edward stirred up Warenne to return to his government. The king took the precaution of leaving some of his best warriors in England in case their services were needed against the recalcitrant barons or the Scots. Then, as has been said, on August 24 he crossed over to Flanders.

The constable and marshal were still in arms, and Winchelsea, who, in spite of his reconciliation with Edward, was in close communication with them, declined to take an active part on the council of regency. Two days before Edward took ship, Hereford and Norfolk appeared in arms at the exchequer at Westminster, and forbade the officials to continue the collection of supplies, until the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest had been confirmed. They strove to win the support of the Londoners, who had long had a grievance against Edward for depriving them of their right to elect their own mayor, and for subjecting the city to the arbitrary rule of a warden nominated by the crown. They forbade their followers to commit acts of violence, but they made it clear that there could be no peace until the charters were confirmed.

In August, Warenne grappled with the Scottish rising, but his own incompetence, and the half-heartedness of the Scottish magnates, on whom he relied, made his task very difficult. Wallace retreated beyond the Forth, and Warenne reached Stirling on September 10 in pursuit of him. He learnt that Wallace was holding the wooded heights, immediately to the north of Stirling bridge on the left bank of the Forth, not far from the abbey of Cambuskenneth. The Steward of Scotland, who, after the collapse of the revolt in the south-west, served under Warenne, offered his mediation. But no good result came from his action, and the English suspected treachery. Wallace took up a bold attitude, scorning either compromise or retreat. He had only a small following of cavalry, but his infantry was numerous and enthusiastic. The English resolved to attack him on September 11. The Forth at Stirling was crossed by a long wooden bridge, so narrow that only two horsemen could pass abreast. It was madness to send an army over the river by such a means in the face of a watchful enemy. But not only was the English plan of battle foolish it was also carried out weakly. Warenne overslept himself, and his subordinates wasted the early morning in useless discussions and altercations. When at last he woke up, he rejected the advice of a Scottish knight to send part of his cavalry over the river by a ford which thirty horsemen could traverse abreast, and ordered all his troops to cross by the bridge.

Wallace, seeing that the enemy had delivered themselves into his hands, remained in the woods until a fair proportion of the English men-at-arms had made their way over the stream. He then suddenly swooped down upon the bridge, cutting off the retreat of those who had traversed it, and blocking all possibility of reinforcement. After a short fight the English to the north of the Forth were cut down almost to a man. The English on the Stirling side, seeing the fate of their comrades, fled in terror, and their Scots allies went over to their country men. Among the slain was the greedy Cressingham, whose skin the Scots tanned into leather. Warenne did not draw rein until he reached Berwick, and in one day all Scotland was lost. The castles of Roxburgh and Berwick alone upheld the English flag. Wallace and Moray governed all Scotland as "generals of the army of King John". Within a few weeks of their victory, they raided the three northern counties of England.

On November 5 the king ratified, at Ghent, the action of his son's advisers. Thus the constitutional struggle was ended by the complete triumph of the baronial opposition. And the victory was the more signal, because it was gained not over a weak king, careless of his rights, but over the strongest of the Plantagenets, greedy to retain every scrap of authority. It is with good reason that the Confirmation of the Charters of 1297 is reckoned as one of the great turning points in the history of our constitution. Its provisions sum up the whole national advance which had been made since Gualo and William the marshal first identified the English monarchy with the principles wrested from John at Runnymede. In the years that immediately followed, it might well seem that the act of 1297, like the submission of John, was only a temporary expedient of a dexterous statecraft which consented with the lips but not with the heart. But in later times, when the details of the struggle were forgotten and the noise of the battle over, the event stood out in its full significance. Edward had been willing to take the people into partnership with him when he thought that they would be passive partners, anxious to do his pleasure. He was taught that the leaders of the people were henceforth to have their share with the crown in determining national policy. Common dangers were still to be met by measures deliberated in common, but the initiative was no longer exclusively reserved to the monarch. The sordid pedantry of the baronial leaders and the high-souled determination of the king compel our sympathy for Edward rather than his enemies. But all that made English history what it is, was involved in the issue, and the future of English freedom was assured when the obstinacy of the constable and marshal prevailed over the resolution of the great king.

THE SCOTTISH FAILURE.

The expedition of Edward to Flanders lost its best chance of success through the events which retarded its despatch. While the English king was wrangling with his barons, the French king was active. On the news of the alliance of Count Guy with the English, Robert of Artois was summoned from Gascony to the north. While Philip besieged Lille, and finally took it, Robert of Artois gained a brilliant victory over the Flemings at Furnes on August 20. Meanwhile John of Avesnes, Count of Hainault, was closely co-operating with the French, and kept Edward's son-in-law and ally, John, Duke of Brabant, from sending effective help to the Flemings. Moreover, the Flemish townsmen, in their dislike of their count, were largely on the side of the French. Edward's little army could do nothing to redress a balance that already inclined so heavily on the other side. The Flemings were disappointed at the scanty numbers of the English men-at-arms, and stared with wonder and contempt at the bare-legged Welsh archers and lancemen, with their uncouth garb, strange habits of eating and fighting, and propensity to pillage and disorder, though they recognised their hardihood and the effectiveness of their missiles. The same disorderly spirit that had marred the Rioms campaign still prevailed among the English engaged on foreign service. No sooner were the troops landed at Sluys on August 28, than the mariners of the Cinque Ports renewed their old feud with the men of Yarmouth, and many ships were destroyed and lives lost in this untimely conflict. Edward advanced to Bruges, where he was joined by the Count of Flanders, but the disloyalty of the townsmen and the approach of King Philip forced the king and the earl to take shelter behind the stronger walls of Ghent. Immediately on their retreat, Philip occupied Bruges and Damme, thus cutting off the English from the direct road to the sea. The Anglo-Flemish army was afraid to attack the powerful force of the French king. But the French had learnt by experience a wholesome fear of the English and Welsh archers, and did not venture to approach Ghent too closely. The ridiculous result followed that the Kings of France and England avoided every opportunity of fighting out their quarrel, and lay, wasting time and money, idly watching each other's movements.

Edward landed at Sandwich on March 14, 1298, and at once set about preparing to avenge Stirling Bridge. He met his parliament on Whitsunday, May 25, at York. The Scots barons were summoned to this assembly, but as they neither attended nor sent proxies, their absence was deemed to be proof of contumacy. A month later a large army was concentrated at Roxburgh. The earls and barons with their retinues mustered to the number of 1,100 horse, while 1,300 men-at-arms served under the king's banners for pay. Though Gascony was still in Philip's hands, the good relations that prevailed between England and France allowed the presence in Edward's host of a magnificent troop of Gascon lords, headed by the lord of Albret and the Captal de Buch, and conspicuous for the splendour of their armour and the costliness and beauty of their chargers. On this occasion Edward set little store on infantry, and was content to accept the services of those who came of their own free will. Yet even under these conditions some 12,000 foot were assembled, more than 10,000 of whom came from Wales and its march.

The leaders of the opposition were present in Edward's host. On the eve of the invasion, the impatient king was kept back by the declaration of Hereford and Norfolk that they would not cross the frontier, until definite assurances were given that the king would carry out the confirmation of the charters which he had informally ratified on foreign soil. Etiquette or pride prevented Edward himself satisfying their demand, but the Bishop of Durham and three loyal earls pledged themselves that the king would fulfil all his promises on his return. Then the two earls suffered the expedition to proceed; and on July 6 the army left Roxburgh, proceeding by moderate marches to Kirkliston on the Almond, where it encamped on the 15th. Here there was a few days' delay, while Bishop Bek captured some of the East Lothian castles which were threatening the English rear. Already there was a difficulty in obtaining supplies from the devastated country-side, and northerly winds prevented the provision ships from sailing from Berwick to the Forth. The worst hardships fell upon the Welsh infantry, who began to mutiny and talked of joining the Scots. Matters grew worse on the arrival of a wine ship, for such ample rations of wine were distributed to the Welsh that very many of them became drunk. So threatening was the state of affairs that Edward thought of retreating to Edinburgh. On July 21, however, the news was brought that Wallace and his followers were assembled in great force at Falkirk, some seventeen miles to the west. The prospect of battle at once restored the courage and discipline of the army, and Edward ordered an advance. That night the host bivouacked on the moors east of Linlithgow, "with shields for pillows and armour for beds". During the night the king, who was sleeping in the open field like the meanest trooper, received a kick from his horse which broke two of his ribs. Yet the early morning of July 22, the feast of St. Mary Magdalen, saw him riding at the head of his troops through the streets of Linlithgow. At last the Scots lances were descried on the slopes of a hill near Falkirk, and the English rested while the bishop and king heard mass. Then the army, which had eaten nothing since the preceding day, advanced to the battle.

Wallace had a large following of infantry, but a mere handful of mounted men-at-arms. He ordered the latter to occupy the rear, and grouped his pikemen, the flower of his army, into four great circles, or "schiltrons," which, with the front ranks kneeling or sitting and the rear ranks standing, presented to the enemy four living castles, each with a bristling hedge of pikes, dense enough, it was hoped, to break the fierce shock of a cavalry charge. The spaces between the four schiltrons were occupied by the archers, the best of whom came from Ettrick Forest. The front was further protected by a morass, and perhaps also by a row of stout posts sunk into the ground and fastened together by ropes.

Edward ordered the Welsh archers to prepare the way with their missiles for the advance of the men-at-arms. But the Welsh refused to move, so that Edward was forced to proceed by a direct cavalry charge. For this purpose he divided his men-at-arms into four "battles". The first of these was commanded by the Earl of Lincoln, with whom were the constable and marshal, who at last had an opportunity of serving the king in battle in the offices which belonged to them by hereditary right. On approaching the morass this first line was thrown into some confusion, and paused in its advance. Behind it the second battle, under command of the Bishop of Durham, who, perhaps, knew the ground better, wheeled to the east and took the Scots on their left flank. But Bek's followers disobeyed his orders to wait until the rest of the army came up, and they suffered heavy losses in attacking the left schiltron. Before long, however, Lincoln found a way round the morass westwards to the enemy's right, while the two rearmost battles, headed by the king and Earl Warenne, also advanced to the front. The combat thus became general. The Scots cavalry fled without striking a blow, and some of the English thought that Wallace himself rode off the field with them. The archers between the schiltrons were easily trampled down, so that the only effective resistance came from the circles of pikemen. The yeomanry of Scotland steadily held their own against the fierce charges of the mail-clad knights, and it looked for a time as if the day was theirs. But the despised infantry at last made their way to the front and poured in showers of arrows that broke down the Scottish ranks. Friend and foe were at such close quarters that the English who had no bows threw stones against the Scottish circles. When the way was thus prepared, the horsemen easily penetrated through the gaps made in the circles, and before long the Scottish pikemen were a crowd of panic-stricken fugitives. Edward's brilliant victory was won with comparatively little loss.

It was years before the Scots again ventured to meet the English in the open field. Yet the king's victory was not followed by any real conquest even of southern Scotland. Edward advanced to Stirling, where he rested until he had recovered from his accident, while detachments of his troops penetrated as far as Perth and St. Andrews. Meanwhile the south-west rose in revolt, under Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, whose father had fought at Falkirk. Late in August, Edward made his way to Ayr and occupied it, while Bruce fled before him. Provisions were still scarce, and the army was weary of fighting. The Durham contingent deserted in a body, and the earls were so lukewarm that Edward was fain to return by way of Carlisle, capturing Lochmaben, Bruce's Annandale stronghold, on the way. On September 8 the king reached Carlisle, where the constable and marshal declared that they had lost so many men and horses that they could no longer continue the campaign. Edward tried to stem the tide of desertion by promises of Scottish lands to those who would remain with his banners. But the distribution of these rewards proved only a fresh source of discontent. At last Edward was forced to dismiss the greater part of his forces. He lingered in the north until the end of the year, but there was no more real fighting; with the beginning of 1299 he returned to the south, convinced that the disloyalty of his barons had neutralised his triumphs in the field. The few castles which still upheld the English cause in Scotland were soon closely besieged.

A papal legate presided over a congress of English and French ambassadors at Montreuil-sur-mer, which belonged to Edward by right of the late queen, Eleanor as Countess of Ponthieu. The outcome of these deliberations was the treaty of Montreuil, concluded on June 19, 1299. It was not the final pacification which had been hoped for. Edward indeed abandoned his Flemish allies, but Philip would not relax his hold upon Gascony, and without that a definitive peace was impossible. The treaty of Montreuil was simply a marriage treaty. Edward was forthwith to marry Margaret, and his son was to be betrothed to Isabella of France. Neither the prolongation of the truce nor the affairs of the Flemings were mentioned in it, while all that Philip did for the Scots was to provide for the liberation of the deposed King John from his English prison. As soon as the ratifications were exchanged the king, who was then sixty years of age, and his youthful bride were married on September 9 at Canterbury by Archbishop Winchelsea.

Langtoft, ii, 320.

Edward's concessions once more enabled him to face the Scots, and the summer saw a gallant army mustered at Carlisle, though some of the earls, including Roger Bigod, still held aloof. A two months' campaign was fought in south-western Scotland in July and August. But the peasants drove their cattle to the hills, and rainy weather impeded the king's movements. The chief exploit of the campaign was the capture of Carlaverock castle, though even in the glowing verse of the herald, who has commemorated the taking of this stronghold, the military insignificance of the achievement cannot be concealed. Edward returned to the same district in October, but he effected so little that he was glad to agree to a truce with the Scots, which Philip the Fair urged him to accept. The armistice was to last until Whitsuntide, and Edward immediately returned to England. He had not yet satisfied his subjects, and was again forced to meet his estates.

The triumph over Winchelsea made Edward's position stronger than it had been during the first days of the Lincoln parliament. That assembly ended amidst the festivities which attended the creation of Edward of Carnarvon as Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester, and Count of Ponthieu. The new prince, already seventeen years of age, had made his first campaign in the previous year. But all the pains that Edward took in training his son in warfare and in politics bore little fruit, and Edward of Carnarvon's introduction to active life was only to add another trouble to the many that beset the king.

The heavy hand of Edward fell upon earls as well as upon bishops. Even in the early days of his reign when none, save Gilbert of Gloucester, dared uplift the standard of opposition, Edward had not spared the greatest barons in his efforts to eliminate the idea of tenure from English political life. A subtle extension of his earlier policy began to emphasise the dependence of the landed dignitaries on his pleasure. The extinction of several important baronial houses made this the easier, and Edward took care to retain escheats in his own hands, or at least to entrust them only to persons of approved confidence. The old leaders of opposition were dead or powerless. Ralph of Monthermer, the simple north-country knight who had won the hand of Joan of Acre, ruled over the Gloutester-Glamorgan inheritance on behalf of his wife and Edward's little grandson, Gilbert of Clare. The Earl of Hereford died in 1299, and in 1302 his son and successor, another Humphrey Bohun, was bribed by a marriage with the king's daughter, Elizabeth, the widowed Countess of Holland, to surrender his lands to the crown and receive them back, like the Earl of Gloucester in 1290, entailed on the issue of himself and his consort. In the same year the childless earl marshal, Roger Bigod, conscious of his inability to continue any longer his struggle against royal assumptions and at variance with his brother and heir, made a similar surrender of his estates, which was the more humiliating since the estate in tail, with which he was reinvested, was bound to terminate with his life. In 1306, on the marshal's death, the Bigod inheritance lapsed to the crown. Much earlier than that, in 1293, Edward had extorted on her deathbed from the great heiress, Isabella of Fors, Countess of Albemarle and Devon, the bequest of the Isle of Wight and the adjacent castle of Christchurch. In 1300, on the death of the king's childless cousin, Earl Edmund, the wealthy earldom of Cornwall escheated to the crown. To Edward's contemporaries the acquisition of the earldoms of Norfolk and Cornwall seemed worthy to be put alongside the conquests of Wales and Scotland.

Even more important as adding to Edward's resources than these direct additions to the royal domains, was the increasing dependence of the remaining earls upon the crown. His sons-in-law of Gloucester and Hereford were entirely under his sway. In 1304 the aged Earl Warenne had died, and in 1306 his grandson and successor was bound closely to the royal policy by his marriage with Joan of Bar, Edward's grand-daughter. In the same way Edward's young nephew, Thomas of Lancaster, ruled over the three earldoms of Lancaster, Derby, and Leicester, and by his marriage to the daughter and heiress of Henry Lacy, was destined to add to his immense estates the additional earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury. Edward of Carnarvon was learning the art of government in Wales, Cheshire, and Ponthieu. The policy of concentrating the higher baronial dignities in the royal family was no novelty, but Edward carried it out more systematically and successfully than any of his predecessors. He reaped the immediate advantages of his dexterity in the extinction of baronial opposition and in the zeal of the baronial levies against the Scots during the concluding years of his reign. Yet the later history of the Middle Ages bears witness to the grievous dangers to the wielder of the royal power which lurked beneath a system so attractive in appearance.

No attempt was made in the Lothians to stop Edward's advance, but the Scots, under the regent, John Comyn of Badenoch, made a vigorous effort to hold the line of the Forth against him. Their plan seemed to promise well, for Stirling castle was still in Scottish hands. Edward crossed the river by a ford, and all organised efforts to oppose him at once ceased. Prudently leaving Stirling to itself for the present, he hurried to Perth. After spending most of June and July at Perth, he led his army northwards, nearly following the line of his advance in 1296, through Perth, Brechin, and Aberdeen, to Banff and Elgin. The most remote point reached was Kinloss, a few miles west of Elgin, in which neighbourhood he spent much of September. Then he slowly retraced his steps and took up his winter quarters at Dunfermline. In all this long progress, the only energetic resistance which Edward encountered was at Brechin. Flushed with his triumph, he ordered Stirling to be besieged, and from April, 1304, directed the operations himself. The garrison held out with the utmost gallantry, but at last a breach was effected in the walls, and on July 24 the defenders laid down their arms. Long before the Scots people despaired of withstanding the invader, the nobles grew cold in the defence of their country. In February, 1304, the regent and many of the earls made their submission. It was more than suspected that this result was brought about by the threat of Edward to divide their lands among his English followers. But on Comyn and his friends showing a desire to yield, the king readily promised them their lives and estates. Believing that his task was over, Edward returned to England in August after an absence of nearly fifteen months. He crossed the Humber early in December, kept his Christmas court at Lincoln, and reached London late in February. As a sign of the completion of the conquest, he ordered that the law courts, which since 1297 had been established at York, should resume their sessions in London.

A few heroes still upheld the independence of Scotland. Foremost among them was Sir William Wallace, who, since his mission to France in 1298, had disappeared from history. The submission of the barons to Edward gave him another chance. He took a strenuous part in the struggle of 1303-4, and he was specially exempted from the easy pardons with which Edward purchased the submission of the greater nobles. It was the daring and skill of Wallace that prolonged the Scots' struggle until the spring of 1305. But he was then once more an outlaw and a fugitive, only formidable by his hold over the people, and by the possibility that the smallest spark of resistance might at any time be blown into a flame. At last he was captured through the zeal, or treachery, of a Scot in Edward's service. In August, Wallace was despatched to London to stand a public trial for treason, sedition, sacrilege, and murder. He denied that he had ever become Edward's subject, but did not escape conviction. With his execution, the last stage of Edward's triumph in Scotland was accomplished. Though the full measure of Wallace's fame belongs to a later age rather than his own, yet it was a sure instinct that made the Scottish people celebrate him as the popular hero of their struggle for independence. His courage, persistency, and daring stands in marked contrast to the self-seeking opportunism of the great nobles, who afterwards appropriated the results of his endeavours. Yet we can hardly blame Edward for making an example of him, when he fell into his power. Even if Wallace had successfully evaded the oath of fealty to Edward, it is scarcely reasonable to expect that the king would consider this technical plea as availing against his doctrine that all Scots were necessarily his subjects since the submission of 1296. It was Wallace's glory that he fought his fight and paid the penalty of it.

A full parliament of the three estates sat with the king at Westminster from February 28 to March 21, 1305. The proceedings of this assembly are known with a fulness exceeding that of the record of any of the other parliaments of the reign. Among the matters enumerated in the writs as specially demanding attention was the "establishment of our realm of Scotland". Three Scottish magnates, Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, and John Mowbray were particularly called upon to give their advice as to how Scotland was to be represented in a later parliament, in which the plans for its future government were to be drawn up. They informed the king that two bishops, two abbots, two barons, and two representatives of the commons, one from the south of the Forth and the other from the north thereof, would be sufficient for this purpose. This further "parliament" assembled on September 15, three weeks after the execution of Wallace. It consisted simply of twenty councillors of Edward, and the ten Scottish delegates. From the joint deliberations of these thirty sprang the "ordinance made by the lord king for the establishment of the land of Scotland".

Following the general lines of the settlement of the principality of Wales, the ordinance combined Edward's direct lordship over Scotland with a legal and administrative system separate from that of England. John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond, the king's sister's son, was made Edward's lieutenant and warden of Scotland, and under him were a chancellor, a chamberlain, and a controller. Scotland was to be split up for judicial purposes into districts corresponding to its racial and political divisions. Four pairs of justices were appointed for each of these regions, two for Lothian, two for Galloway and the south-west, two for the lands "between Forth and the mountains," that is the Lowland districts of the north-east, and two for the lands "beyond the mountains," that is for the Highlands and islands. Sheriffs "natives either of England or Scotland" were nominated for each of the shires, and it was significant that the great majority of them were Scots and that the hereditary sheriffdoms of the older system were still continued. The "custom of the Scots and the Welsh," that is the Celtic laws of the Highlanders and the Strathclyde Welsh, was "henceforth prohibited and disused". John of Brittany was to "assemble the good people of Scotland in a convenient place" where "the laws of King David and the amendments by other kings" were to be rehearsed, and such of these laws as are "plainly against God and reason" were to be reformed, all doubtful matters being referred to the judgment of Edward. The king's lieutenant was bidden to "remove such persons as might disturb the peace" to the south of the Trent, but their deportation was to be in "courteous fashion" and after taking the advice of the "good people of Scotland". Care for the preservation of the peace, and for administrative reform, is seen in the oath imposed upon officials and in the pains taken to secure the custody of the castles. The Scots parliament was to be retained, and recent precedents also suggested the probability of Scottish representation in the parliament of England. If Scotland were to be ruled by Edward at all, it would have been difficult to devise a wiser scheme for its administration. Yet the Scottish love of independence was not to be bartered away for better government. Within six months the new constitution was overthrown, and the chief part in its destruction was taken by the Scots by whose advice Edward had drawn it up.

Never did Edward's prospects seem brighter than in the early days of 1306. Scotland was obedient; the French alliance was firmly cemented; the pope was complacent; the Archbishop of Canterbury was in exile and the Bishop of Durham in disgrace; the commons were grateful for the better order secured by the commissions of trailbaston, and the king had in the papal absolution a weapon in reserve, which he could always use against a renewal of baronial opposition, though, for the moment, neither nobles nor commons seemed likely to give trouble. Once more there was some talk of Edward leading a crusade, and the French lawyer, Peter Dubois, at this time dedicated to him the first draft of his remarkable treatise on the recovery of the Holy Land. Nor did the project seem altogether impracticable. Though Edward was sixty-seven years of age, he remained slim, vigorous and straight as a palm tree. He could mount his horse and ride to the hunt or the field with the activity of youth. His eyes were not dimmed with age and his teeth were still firm in his jaws. The worst trouble which immediately beset him, was the undutiful conduct of the young Prince of Wales, who foolishly quarrelled with Bishop Langton, and preferred to amuse himself with unworthy favourites rather than submit himself to the severe training in arms and affairs to which Edward had long striven to inure him. When all thus seemed favourable, a sudden storm burst in Scotland which plunged the old king into renewed troubles.

In 1304 Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, became by his father's death the head of his house. Though he had long adhered to the regency which had governed Scotland in Balliol's name, he had now made terms with Edward, and had taken a conspicuous part in bringing about the pacification of Scotland under its new constitution. But the double policy, which had involved him in the shifts and tergiversations of his earlier career, still dominated the mind of the ambitious earl. At the moment of his submission to Edward, he entered into an intimate alliance with Bishop Lamberton of St. Andrews, the old partisan of Wallace. Lamberton was then, like Bruce, on Edward's side, and as John of Brittany had not yet personally taken up his new charge, the blind confidence of Edward entrusted him with the foremost place among the commissioners who acted as wardens of Scotland during the king's lieutenant's absence. Bruce, still remembering his grandfather's claim on the throne, welcomed the definitive setting aside of Balliol. While Edward believed that Scotland was quietening down under its new constitution, Bruce was secretly conspiring with the Scottish magnates, with a view to making himself king. His chief difficulty was with the late regent, John Comyn the Red, lord of Badenoch. The Bruces and the Comyns had long been at variance, and the Red Comyn, who was the nephew of the deposed King John, regarded himself as the representative of the Balliol claim to the throne, and was not unmindful how his father had withdrawn his pretensions in 1291 rather than divide the Balliol interest. Meanwhile the antagonism of the two houses was the best safeguard for the continuance of Edward's rule.

Bruce was violent as well as able and ambitious. He invited Comyn to a conference for January 10, 1306, in the Franciscan friary at Dumfries. On that day the king's justices were holding the assizes in the castle, and Brace and Comyn, with a few followers, met in the cloister of the convent. Hot words were exchanged, and Bruce drew his sword and wounded Comyn. The lord of Badenoch took refuge in the church, and some of Bruce's friends followed him and slew him on the steps of the high altar. This cruel murder involved a violent breach between Bruce and the king. The earl took to the hills, declared himself the champion of national independence, and renewed his claim to the crown. He was joined by a great multitude of the people and by a certain number of the magnates. Conspicuous among the latter was Bishop Wishart of Glasgow, who broke his sixth oath of fealty, using the timber given him by Edward for building the steeple of his cathedral in constructing military engines to besiege the castles which were still held for the English king. Before long Bishop Lamberton, the chief of the Edwardian government, also went over. The support of the two bishops enabled Bruce to be crowned on March 25 at Scone. All Scotland was soon in revolt, and only the garrisons and a few magnates remained faithful to Edward.

A liberal grant from the estates facilitated the military preparations. But since the beginning of the year, Edward's strength had rapidly broken. He was no longer able to ride, and his movements were consequently very tedious. His army gathered together with more than the usual slowness, and Aymer of Valence, Earl of Pembroke, the king's cousin, was sent forward as warden of Scotland to meet Bruce with such forces as were ready. On June 26 Aymer fell upon Bruce at Methven, near Perth, and inflicted a severe defeat upon him. The power of the pretender died away as rapidly as it had arisen. The Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow were made prisoners, and Bruce's brothers, wife, and daughter fell into the enemy's hands. The brothers were promptly beheaded, though one of them was an ecclesiastic, and the ladies were confined in English nunneries. Bruce himself fled to Kintyre, and thence to Rathlin island, off the coast of Antrim.

Edward went north in July, and, after a long stay in Northumberland, took up his quarters early in October with the Austin canons of Lanercost, near Carlisle. There he remained for above five months. In January, 1307, the parliament, whose anti-clerical policy has already been recounted, assembled at Carlisle, and remained in session until March. With the spring, Brace crossed over from Ireland, and re-appeared in his own lands in the south-west. In May he revenged the rout of Methven by inflicting a bloody check on Aymer of Valence near Ayr, and within three days gained another victory over Edward's son-in-law, Earl Ralph of Gloucester. These blows only spurred on Edward to increased efforts. The levies were summoned to meet at Carlisle and, regardless of his infirmities, the old king resolved to lead his troops in person. On July 3 he once more mounted his horse and started for the border. But his constitution could not respond to the demands made on it by his unbroken spirit. After a journey of two miles he was forced to rest for the night. Next day he could only traverse a similar distance, and his exertions so fatigued him that he was compelled to remain at his lodgings all the following day. This repose enabled him to make his way, on July 6, to Burgh-on-Sands, less than seven miles from Carlisle, where he spent the night. On July 7, as he was being raised in his bed by his attendants to take his morning meal, he fell back in their arms and expired.

GAVESTON, THE ORDAINERS, AND BANNOCKBURN.

That is Gabaston, dep. Basses Pyr?n?es, cant. Morlaas.

The readiness with which the barons acquiesced in Edward's reversal of his father's policy shows that they had regarded the late king's action with little favour. Lincoln, the wisest and most influential of the earls, even found reasons for the grant of Cornwall to Gaveston, and kept in check his son-in-law, Earl Thomas of Lancaster, who was the most disposed to grumble at the elevation of the Gascon favourite. Gilbert of Gloucester was but newly come to his earldom. He was personally attached to the king, his old playmate and uncle, and was not unfriendly to his Gascon brother-in-law. The recent concentration of the great estates in the hands of a few individuals gave these three earls a position of overwhelming importance both in the court and in the country, and with their good-will Edward was safe. But the weakness of the king and the rashness of the favourite soon caused murmurs to arise.

Early in 1308 Edward crossed over to France, leaving Gaveston as regent, and was married on January 25, at Boulogne, to Philip the Fair's daughter Isabella, a child of twelve, to whom he had been plighted since 1298. The marriage was attended by the French king and a great gathering of the magnates of both countries. Opportunity was taken of the meeting for Edward to perform homage for Aquitaine. After the arrival of the royal couple in England, their coronation took place on February 25. Time had been when the reign began with the king's crowning; but Edward had taken up every royal function immediately on his father's death, and set a precedent to later sovereigns by dating his own accession from the day succeeding the decease of his predecessor. The coronation ceremony, minutely recorded, provided precedents for later ages. It was some recognition of the work of the last generation that the coronation oath was somewhat more rigid and involved a more definite recognition of the rights of the community than on earlier occasions. Winchelsea was still abroad, and the hallowing was performed by Henry Woodlock, Bishop of Winchester.

Discontent was already simmering. Not even Lincoln's weighty influence could overcome the irritation of the earls at the elevation of the Gascon knight into their circle. The very virtues of the vigorous favourite turned to his discredit. At a tournament given by him, at his own castle of Wallingford, to celebrate his marriage with the king's niece, the new-made earl, with a party of valiant knights, challenged a troop, which included the Earls of Hereford, Warenne, and Arundel, and utterly discomfited his rivals. The victory of the upstart over magnates of such dignity was accounted for by treachery, and the prohibition of a coronation tournament, probably a simple measure of police, was ascribed to the unwillingness of Peter to give his opponents a legitimate opportunity of vindicating their skill. There had been much resentment at Gaveston's appointment as regent during the king's absence in France. A further outburst of indignation followed when the Gascon, magnificently arrayed and bedecked with jewels, bore the crown of St. Edward in the coronation procession. The queen's uncles, who had escorted her to her new home, left England disgusted that Edward's love for Gaveston led him to neglect his bride, and the want of reserve shown in the personal dealings of the king and his "idol" suggested the worst interpretation of their relations, though this is against the weight of evidence. Rumours spread that the favourite had laid hands on the vast treasures which Bishop Walter Langton had deposited at the New Temple, and had extorted from the king even larger sums, which he had sent to his kinsfolk in Gascony by the agency of the Italian farmers of the revenue.

Gaveston was a typical Gascon, vain, loquacious, and ostentatious, proud of his own ready wit and possessed of a fatal talent for sharp and bitter sayings. He seems to have been a brave and generous soldier. There is little proof that he was specially vicious or incompetent, and, had he been allowed time to establish himself, he might well have been the parent of a noble house, as patriotic and as narrowly English as the Valence lords of Pembroke had become in the second generation. But his sudden elevation rather turned his head, and the dull but dignified English earls were soon mortally offended by his airs of superiority, and by his intervention between them and the sovereign. "If," wrote the annalist of St. Paul's, London, "one of the earls or magnates sought any special favour of the king, the king forthwith sent him to Peter, and whatever Peter said or ordered at once took place, and the king ratified it. Hence the whole people grew indignant that there should be two kings in one kingdom, one the king in name, the other the king in reality." Gaveston's vanity was touched by the sullen hostility of the earls. He returned their suspicion by an openly expressed contempt. He amused himself and the king by devising nicknames for them. Thomas of Lancaster was the old pig or the play-actor, Aymer of Pembroke was Joseph the Jew, Gilbert of Gloucester was the cuckoo, and Guy of Warwick was the black dog of Arden. Such jests were bitterly resented. "If he call me dog," said Warwick on hearing of the insult, "I will take care to bite him." The barons formed an association, bound by oath to drive Gaveston into exile and deprive him of his earldom. All over the country there were secret meetings and eager preparations for war. The outlook became still more alarming when the Earl of Lincoln at last changed his policy. Convinced of the unworthiness of Gaveston, he turned against him, and the whole baronage followed his lead. Only Hugh Despenser and a few lawyers adhered to the favourite. Gloucester did not like to take an active part against his brother-in-law, but his stepfather, Monthermer, was conspicuous among the enemies of the Gascon. Winchelsea, too, came to England and threw his powerful influence on the side of the opposition.

In April, 1308, a parliament of nobles met and insisted upon the exile of the favourite. The magnates took up a high line. "Homage and the oath of allegiance," they declared, "are due to the crown rather than to the person of the king. If the king behave unreasonably, his lieges are bound to bring him back to the ways of righteousness." On May 18 letters patent were issued promising that Gaveston should be banished before June 25. Gaveston, bending before the storm, surrendered his earldom and prepared for departure, while Winchelsea and the bishops declared him excommunicate if he tarried in England beyond the appointed day. The king did his best to lighten his friend's misfortune. Fresh grants of land and castles compensated for the loss of Cornwall and gave him means for armed resistance. The grant of Gascon counties, jurisdictions, cities and castles to the value of 3,000 marks a year provided him with a dignified refuge. The pope and cardinals were besought to relieve him from the sentence hung over his head by the archbishop. It is significant of Edward's early intention to violate his promise, that in his letters to the curia he still describes Gaveston as Earl of Cornwall. Peter was soon appointed the king's lieutenant in Ireland. This time he was called Earl of Cornwall in a document meant for English use. As midsummer approached, Edward accompanied him to Bristol and bade him a sorrowful farewell. Attended by a numerous and splendid household, Gaveston crossed over to Ireland and took up the government of that country, where his energy and liberality won him considerable popularity.

Edward was inconsolable at the loss of his friend. For the first time in his reign he threw himself into politics with interest, and intrigued with rare perseverance to bring about his recall. Meanwhile the business of the state fell into deplorable confusion. No supplies were raised; no laws were passed; no effort was made to stay the progress of Robert Bruce. The magnates refused to help the king, and in April, 1309, Edward was forced to meet a parliament of the three estates at Westminster. There he received a much-needed supply, but the barons and commons drew up a long schedule of grievances, in which they complained of the abuses of purveyance, the weakness of the government, the tyranny of the royal officials, and the delays in obtaining justice. The estates refused point blank the king's request for the recall of Gaveston and demanded an answer to their petitions in the next parliament.

Edward saw in submission to the estates the only way of bringing back his brother Peter from his gilded exile. He persuaded the pope to annul the ecclesiastical censures with which Winchelsea had sought to prevent Gaveston's return, and then recalled his friend on his own authority. Gaveston at once quitted Ireland and was met at Chester by Edward. Together they attended a parliament of magnates held in July at Stamford. There Edward announced that he accepted the petitions of the estates and issued a statute limiting purveyance. But the real work of this assembly was the ratification of the recall of the favourite, which was assured since Edward had won over some of the chief earls to agree to it. Gloucester was easily moved to champion his brother-in-law's cause. Lincoln reverted to his former friendship for the Gascon, and managed both to overbear the hostility of Lancaster and to induce Earl Warenne, "who had never shown a cheerful face to Peter since the Wallingford tournament," to become his friend. Warwick, alone of the earls, was irreconcilable. But Edward had gained his point. It was even agreed that the returned exile should regain his earldom of Cornwall.

The barons drew up a statement of the "great perils and dangers" to which England was exposed through the king's dependence on bad counsellors. The franchises of Holy Church were threatened; the king was reduced to live by extortion; Scotland was lost; and the crown was "grievously dismembered" in England and Ireland. "Wherefore, sire," the petition concludes, "your good folk pray you humbly that, for the salvation of yourself and them and of the crown, you will assent that these perils shall be avoided and redressed by ordinance of your baronage." Edward at once surrendered at discretion, perhaps in the vain hope of saving Gaveston. On March 16 he issued a charter, which empowered the barons to elect certain persons to draw up ordinances to reform the realm and the royal household. The powers of the committee were to last until Michaelmas, 1311. A barren promise that the king's concession should not be counted a precedent made Edward's submission seem a little less abject. Four days later the ordainers were appointed, the method of their election being based upon the precedents of 1258.

Twenty-one lords ordainers represented in somewhat unequal proportions the three great ranks of the magnates. At the head of the seven bishops was Winchelsea, while both Bishop Baldock of London, the dismissed chancellor, and his successor, John Langton of Chichester, were included among the rest. All the eight earls attending the parliament became ordainers. Side by side with moderate men, such as Gloucester, Lincoln, and John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond, were the extreme men of the opposition, Lancaster, Pembroke, Warwick, Hereford, the king's brother-in-law, and Edmund Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. Warenne and the insignificant Earl of Oxford do not seem to have been present in parliament, and are therefore omitted. With these exceptions, and of course that of the Earl of Cornwall, the whole of the earls were arrayed against the king. The six barons, who completed the list of nominees, were either colourless in their policy or dependent on the earls and their episcopal allies. The ordainers set to work at once. Two days after their appointment, they issued six preliminary ordinances by which they resolved that the place of their sitting should be London, that none of the ordainers should receive gifts from the crown, that no royal grants should be valid without the consent of the majority, that the customs should be paid directly into the exchequer, that the foreign merchants who had lately farmed them should be arrested, and that the Great Charter should be firmly kept. During the next eighteen months they remained hard at work.

Under the first of these heads, the ordainers worked out to the uttermost consequences their favourite distinction between the crown and the king. The crown was to be strengthened, but the king was to be deprived of every shred of power. The great offices of state in England, Ireland, and Gascony were to be filled up with the counsel and consent of the barons, a provision which, if literally interpreted, meant that the barons intended to govern Gascony as well as England. The king was not to go to war, raise an army, or leave the kingdom without the permission of parliament. He was to "live of his own," however scanty a living that might be. Special judges were to hear complaints against royal ministers and bailiffs. Parliaments were to meet once or twice a year. It was a complete programme of limited monarchy. But there was no reference to the commons and clergy. We are still in the atmosphere of the Provisions of Oxford, and there is no Earl Simon to emphasise the fuller conception of national control.

To Edward and to the barons, the penal clauses were the very essence of the ordinances. The twentieth ordinance declared that Peter of Gaveston, "as a public enemy of the king and kingdom, be forthwith exiled, for all time and without hope of return," from all dominions subject to the English king. He was to leave England before All Saints' day, and the port of Dover was to be his place of embarkation. Other ordinances dealt with lesser offenders. Exile was once more to be the doom of the Frescobaldi, and the other alien merchants who had acted as Edward's financial agents; Gaveston's kinsfolk, followers and abettors incurred their master's fate. All Gascons were to be sent to their own country, their allegiance to the crown in no wise saving them from the hatred meted out to all aliens. Neither high nor low were spared: Henry de Beaumont, the grandson of an Eastern emperor, and his sister, the lady Vesey, were to leave the realm; John Charlton, the pushing Shropshire squire who was worming his way by court favour into the estates of the degenerate descendants of the house of Gwenwynwyn, was, with the other English partisans of the favourite, to be driven from the royal service.

Edward made a last desperate attempt to save Gaveston. He would agree to all the other ordinances, if he were still allowed to keep his brother Peter in England and in possession of the earldom of Cornwall. But the estates refused to yield the root of the whole matter. Threatened with the prospect of a new battle of Lewes, if he remained obdurate, Edward bowed to his destiny. The ordinances were published in every shire, and new ministers, chosen with the approval of the estates, deprived the king of the government of the country.

Early in November, Gaveston sailed to Flanders, but within a few weeks Edward insisted upon his return. Rumours spread that Gaveston was in England, hiding himself away in his former castles of Wallingford and Tintagel, or in the king's castle of Windsor. The thin veil of mystery was soon withdrawn. Early in 1312, Peter openly accompanied the king to York, where, on January 18, Edward issued a proclamation to the effect that Gaveston had been unlawfully exiled, that he was back in England by the king's command, and prepared to answer to all charges against him. A few weeks later, Edward restored him to his earldom and estates. King and favourite still tarried in the north, preparing for the inevitable struggle. It was believed that they intrigued with Robert Bruce for a refuge in Scotland. Bruce, according to the story, declined to have anything to do with them. "If the King of England will not keep faith with his own subjects," he is reported to have said, "how then will he keep faith with me?"

The ordainers looked upon Gaveston's return as a declaration of war. Winchelsea pronounced him excommunicate, and five of the eight earls who sat among the ordainers, bound themselves by oaths to maintain the ordinances and pursue the favourite to the death. These were Thomas of Lancaster, Aymer of Pembroke, Humphrey of Hereford, Edmund of Arundel, and Guy of Warwick. Gilbert of Gloucester declined to take part in the confederacy, but promised to accept whatever the five earls might determine. Moreover, John, Earl Warenne, who had hitherto kept aloof from the ordainers, at last threw in his lot with them, won over, it was believed, by the eloquence of Archbishop Winchelsea. The ordainers then divided England into large districts, appointing one of the baronial leaders to the charge of each. Gloucester himself undertook the government of the south-east, while Robert Clifford and Henry Percy agreed to guard the march, to prevent Gaveston escaping to the Scots. Pembroke and Warenne marched to the north to lay hands on the favourite, and Lancaster himself followed them.

While the ordainers were acting, Edward and Gaveston were aimlessly wandering about in the north. They failed to raise an army or to win the people to their side, and on the approach of Lancaster, they fled before him from York to Newcastle. The earl followed quickly. On the afternoon of Ascension day, May 4, Lancaster, Clifford, and Percy suddenly swooped down on Newcastle. The king and his friend escaped with the utmost difficulty to Tynemouth, leaving their luggage, jewels, horses, and other possessions to the victor. Next day they fled by sea to Scarborough. The queen, left behind at Tynemouth, fell into her uncle Lancaster's power.

The royal castle of Scarborough, whose Norman keep and spacious wards occupy a rocky peninsula surrounded, except on the town side, by the North Sea, had lately been transferred from the custody of Henry Percy, one of the confederate barons, to that of Gaveston. There was no fitter place wherein the favourite could stand at bay against his pursuers. Accordingly Edward left Gaveston, after a tender parting, and betook himself to York. Lancaster thereupon occupied a position midway between Scarborough and Knaresborough, while Pembroke, Warenne, and Henry Percy laid siege to Scarborough. Gaveston soon found that he was unable to resist them. His troops, scarcely adequate to man the extensive walls, were too many for the scanty store of provisions which the castle contained. After less than a fortnight's siege, he persuaded the two earls and Percy to allow him easy terms of surrender. The three baronial leaders pledged themselves on the Gospels to protect Gaveston from all manner of evil until August 1. During the interval parliament was to decide as to what was to be his future fate. If the terms agreed upon by parliament were unsatisfactory to him, he was to return to Scarborough, which was still to be garrisoned by his followers, with leave to purchase supplies.

Pembroke undertook the personal custody of the prisoner, and escorted him by slow stages from Scarborough to the south, where he was to be retained in honourable custody at his own castle of Wallingford. Three weeks after the surrender, the convoy reached Deddington, a small town in Oxfordshire, a few miles south of Banbury. There Gaveston was lodged in the house of the vicar of the parish, and told to take a few days' rest after the fatigues of the journey. Pembroke himself did not remain at Deddington, but went on to Bampton in the Bush, where his countess then was. Thereupon on June 10, at sunrise, the Earl of Warwick, the most rancorous of Peter's enemies, occupied Deddington with a strong force. Bursting into the bedchamber of his victim, Earl Guy exclaimed in a loud voice: "Arise, traitor, thou art taken". Peter was at once led with every mark of indignity to Warwick castle. Thus the black dog of Arden showed that he could bite.

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