1.
EDWARD came back from the continent and proceeded at once to organize his forces for the reconquest of Scotland. He summoned Parliament to meet him at York on May 25 and included the Scottish n.o.blemen. The order was a peremptory one; anyone who did not obey would be considered a traitor. None responded. This did not mean, however, that the n.o.bility of the country had taken their places with Wallace. They still held aloof from the winner of that famous battle of Stirling Bridge. As Hemingburgh says in one of the chronicles of the day, "he was deemed base-born by the earls and the n.o.bles."
There is much difference of opinion as to the size of the army the English king led into Scotland, some estimating it at more than eighty thousand, some convinced that he had no more than a tenth of that number, three thousand horse and four or five thousand foot soldiers, mostly archers. Although Edward had won an enviable reputation as a general he still held some belief in the theory which led to the defeat of French chivalry at the Battle of the Golden Spurs; he placed his reliance on cavalry and did not depend much on his foot soldiers.
Wallace, lacking the support of the n.o.bility (not one earl was with him in the fatal battle which followed), had a much shrunken army to meet the threat. As at Stirling, the ranks were made up almost exclusively of recruits from the lowest orders; brave fellows, but hurriedly trained and poorly armed. A member of the Comyn family, John of that ilk and known as the Red, was in command of a handful of hors.e.m.e.n, considerably less than a thousand. Again the chief weapon was the spear, twelve feet in length and an excellent thing in repelling an attack of cavalry but of small use in hand-to-hand-fighting.
Wallace"s plans for the battle again demonstrated his skill as a strategist. He had laid waste the English countryside immediately below the border and had taken the precaution of sending a small force to attack the city of Carlisle, which Edward had selected as his chief base of supply. The Lowland counties, all the way from the border to the Forth, had been burned over, the inhabitants and livestock being moved behind the lines of defense at the Forth. Thus the English king had to move his forces up through bare fields and blackened hills which offered nothing in the way of food. A provision fleet had been sent by sea with instructions to join the army where the tidal waters of the Firth locked horns with the stout stream of the Forth. But Wallace and his small but determined army lay somewhere between.
By the time the English army reached Queensferry, where they hoped to receive supplies, they were close to the point of starvation. Edward, who was now in his sixtieth year and growing irascible with the pa.s.sing of time, had to wait for several days before venturing farther inland to find and attack the Scots. Among his foot soldiers were many Welshmen armed with a new weapon, the importance of which had not yet been fully realized. It was a bow of unusual length which discharged arrows with sufficient force to pierce the thickest armor and could be used three times in the s.p.a.ce required to wind and discharge a crossbow once. The Welsh are given credit for the conception of the deadly longbow, but the English took it over and improved it both in design and deadliness. In the following century the English yeomen would display such skill with this lethal weapon that the whole face of medieval warfare would be changed.
The presence of the Welsh, in spite of their powerful equipment, was not deemed an unmixed blessing. They are described as a cantankerous lot, which is not strange in view of past relations between the two races. There was a clash in camp in which eighteen priests were said to have been killed while trying to restore peace. The Welsh threatened to leave and join the Scots. Edward was reported indifferent to what might happen. "What do I care," he asked, "if my enemies join my enemies?" But, as things came about, it was a good thing for England that the Welsh did not leave.
It was at this point that a spy, alleged to be in the employ of two Scottish earls, March and Angus, was brought to the king. The army of Wallace, the spy reported, was no more than a few miles away, near the town of Falkirk, in readiness to strike as soon as hunger forced the English to retreat.
Edward was delighted with the news. "They need not follow me!" he cried. "I go to meet them. This very day."
The army set out at once and by nightfall was close to Linlithgow, where, as the crow flies, they were only a few miles from Falkirk. The troops settled themselves there for the night. It was now that an incident occurred which displayed the mettle of the English king. He was sleeping on the ground, wrapped in his robe stamped with the royal leopards, when his horse, which was tethered beside him, became restive and trampled on him. Two of his ribs were broken. To prevent any panic, the old king got to his feet, vaulted into his saddle without a.s.sistance, and gave orders to strike camp. It was still dark, a murky night without a glimpse of moon or stars. They went so slowly that they covered a few miles only; but when dawn broke, the cautious troops saw the bonnets and spear points of the enemy on a high ridge ahead.
It was to be a different battle from the miracle at Stirling, but Wallace had made the best possible plans for the test. The hillside where his forces waited was high and steep, but he had not stationed his men at the crest. Instead they were disposed for battle on a level spot about halfway up the slope. This arrangement may have been due to a desire to fight the battle there, which led Wallace to abstain from making his position so difficult that he would be drawn away from it by encircling movements on his flanks. As a further advantage, a moss stretched across part of the front, of sufficient softness to hamper, if not actually prevent, the free use of cavalry in attack.
In this position the Scottish leader had drawn up his men in three schiltrons, the forerunner of the British square. The schiltron was a hollow circular formation, with the spearmen in the front rank, where the length of their weapon was well suited to defense, and with reserves in the center to fill the gaps which would develop in the line. The Scottish archers were stationed between the schiltrons to hamper further the English attack. Little was expected of them, for archery had been neglected in Scotland and the bows they used were completely outdated by the deadly longbow of the Welsh. The cavalry, such as it was, was held in the rear as a reserve.
Although scholars fighting the battle over and over again with pen and ink have been inclined to criticize the Scottish dispositions, it has been acknowledged by military authorities that the brave Scot made the best use of the ground with the forces at his command. It has been pointed out that Wellington fought Waterloo on similar ground and with the same distribution of his regiments.
There seems to have been a dispute among the Scottish leaders before the battle began. Both Comyn the Red and Sir John Stewart, who had bluer blood in their veins than any of the others, contended that they outranked Wallace and should be in charge. How Wallace settled the matter is not known, but when the English attack came he was in command. He cried loudly to those about him as the hors.e.m.e.n under the marshal and constable of England came clashing and thundering up the hillside: "I have brought you to the ring! Dance the best you may!"
When BiG.o.d and Bohun, the hereditary holders of those two eminent posts in the English army, came to the moss, they were checked temporarily (as the French Imperial Guard would be when they encountered the sunken road of Ohain at Waterloo) and had to divert their forces to right and left, for the moss was wide and dank and a much better aid to Wallace than his blue-blooded lieutenants. This took much of the sting and the force from the first blow of the cavalry. The schiltrons stood firm, the spear points as lethal as bayonets, the spirit of the men who formed the lines undaunted and leal. But the cavalry under that man of pride, Comyn the Red, melted away at the first sign of attack. They never came back. For the rest of that bitter day the brunt of the heavy, steel-mounted attack was borne by the ill-equipped foot soldiers in their woolen tunics. Sir John Stewart, who commanded the archers, fought with real valor, dismounting to join his clansmen and Lowland clerks and peasants, and dying in the struggle.
The battle continued, and for a time it seemed that the stout defense of the schiltrons must prevail. At this critical stage of the struggle it must have occurred to Edward that the pattern of the battle of Hastings was being repeated. He decided to do as William the Conqueror had done on that fateful day. He fell back on the archers. Whether the Welsh had any great part in what followed is uncertain, but the credit undoubtedly goes to the mighty longbow. The shafts, launched up over the rising ground, fell in the schiltrons like hail. What chance had those stouthearted Scots with no protection save shirts stuffed with wool? The only hope would have been to scatter the bowmen, but the circles could not be broken up and the Scottish cavalry had gone with the wind-and with Comyn the Red. The ranks began to break. Edward, sitting cramped in his saddle and suffering agonies with his broken ribs, was still the best captain in Christendom. He saw his chance and sent a strong body of cavalry to swing far wide of the moss and attack the Scots from the rear.
The sudden appearance of this body completed the rout. The Scottish ranks broke. It was fortunate that Wallace had given consideration to the consequences of failure. The land behind the hillside at Falkirk was heavily wooded, and so the pursuit of the beaten Scots was very much hampered. Wallace himself is said to have encountered and killed Sir Brian de Jay, the master of the English Templars who thundered after him into a wooded thicket at Callandar.
Ten thousand Scots were killed in this battle and the back of the defense against invasion was, for the second time, broken. The gallant gentlemen who had refused to fight under Wallace the Base-born now emerged to blacken his name and debate the soundness of his judgment. This gave them personal satisfaction, no doubt, but availed the country nothing. Though he had been defeated, the strategic policy of Wallace still stood between the victorious king and the complete subjugation of the land. Wherever he took his troops, Edward found nothing but wasted country and burned towns. His provisions had not reached him, and his men went for long stretches of time without food. In the end he had to withdraw his army to Carlisle.
2.
The next six years were devoted to consolidating the conquest of Scotland. It was not an easy task that confronted the English king. The Scots were as stubborn as they were brave, and the land itself offered cover to those who still fought against submission. Wallace, no longer regarded as their leader after the failure at Falkirk, was still among the most active of the die-hards.
It is known that he paid a visit to France with a train of five followers to beg a.s.sistance from Philip the Fair under the terms of the treaty between the two countries. Philip, who had become quite obese and more taciturn than ever, if possible, promptly made him a prisoner and offered to send him over to England. Edward thanked the French king and asked him to keep the Scot in close custody. Philip, however, had a change of heart. Perhaps he grew to admire the grave and doughty Wallace, or it may have been that he saw more advantage for himself in adopting a different att.i.tude. Whatever the reason, he released Wallace and even gave him a letter to the Pope in which he craved the pontifical favor for the bearer. It is unlikely that the Scot went to Rome, although Blind Harry declares that he did.
He returned in time to witness what seemed the final collapse of the Scottish defense. Stirling Castle, which had been holding out valiantly, fell into English hands. Comyn the Red and most of the barons laid down their arms and threw themselves on the king"s mercy. Wallace found himself almost alone in his refusal to submit.
The obduracy of this lone figure had ruffled the feelings of the English king beyond the point of endurance. Edward let it be known that nothing less than the immediate elimination of Wallace would suffice. The records mention many instances of grants paid to cover the cost of raids undertaken for the sole purpose of his capture. The remittance of punishments which had been meted out to various t.i.tleholders was promised if they would aid in the capture of the fugitive.
And now one John de Menteith takes the center of the stage. He was a younger son of Walter Stewart, Earl of Menteith, and had fought against the English in the earliest stages of the struggle. Later he was said to have been a "gossip" of Wallace"s, which could be construed as meaning that he was in the confidence of the latter. In 1304 he was back in favor with Edward and was made sheriff of Dumbarton, an important post. The story is that he entered into an agreement with Aymer de Valence, who was in command of the English army, to capture Wallace, then in hiding not far away. They worked, apparently, with a servant of Wallace"s named Jack Short, who held a grudge against his master. The latter brought the word to Menteith that the fugitive was near Glasgow at a place called Robroyston and offered to lead the way to him.
There is a strange lack of detail about the story of the capture of Wallace. The only explanation that fits the few facts known is that he was in a tavern and that Menteith identified him to the English troops who had been summoned. It is said that he "turned the loaf" (or, in Scottish terms, whummled the bannock) as a signal. This brings up a picture of Menteith eating in the tavern and keeping a close watch on the door. As soon as he saw Wallace enter, he carelessly picked up the loaf and turned it end to end. Wallace had not expected to find any but friends and was not prepared to defend himself. The mighty claymore remained in its scabbard as the English swarmed about him and pinioned his arms.
He was loaded with irons and taken at once to London. One report has it that Menteith himself took his prisoner to the English capital; another, that he made the journey in the train of the king. The latter explanation seems unlikely and has only one sc.r.a.p of evidence to support it. For centuries thereafter the arch over the gateway into Carlisle Castle was pointed out as the spot where Wallace spent a long cold night chained in an open cart, there being no room for him inside.
The general belief in Menteith"s guilt was substantiated by the honors which Edward proceeded to heap on him. Among other favors, he was made sheriff of Dumbarton for life. As a final evidence of the king"s grat.i.tude, he was given the earldom of Lennox.
The wheels of justice, so called, moved with lightning speed in disposing of the Scottish patriot. The day after his arrival in London, August 22, 1305, he was taken to the great hall at Westminster. A scaffold had been erected at one end and he was placed there, wearing a laurel wreath, a form of mockery typical of the period. Charges were made against him of being a traitor to the king (he had sworn allegiance only to the King of Scotland and so could not be a traitor to Edward), of sedition, homicides, depredations, fires, and felonies.
As he had been declared an outlaw, he was not allowed to make any answer in his own defense. This arbitrary regulation was one that might have been amended in the code so well compiled by the English Justinian (one"s admiration for the great Edward sinks to its lowest point at this moment), but it would have made no difference. The fate of Wallace had already been determined and the trial was no more than a formality. He was found guilty by the five judges who sat on the case and was condemned to die by the now familiar method; he was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.
The sentence was carried out with not so much as an hour"s delay. Wallace was taken from Westminster to the Tower and then through streets crowded with avid watchers to Smithfield, being dragged the whole distance on a hurdle at the heels of the horses. The gallows at Smithfield had been raised high so that the mult.i.tude which a.s.sembled could see the body turn at the end of the hempen rope. He was cut down before dead and was then mutilated in the manner prescribed by law. His head was struck from his lifeless trunk and was hoist on a spear point above London Bridge.
Edward was one of the very few men in London who did not see Wallace die.
The body was cut into quarters and distributed for display in Stirling, Perth, Newcastle, and Berwick. They might at least have sent his head to Scotland, where his sightless eyes would have been turned to the land for which he had done so much.
CHAPTER XIV.
Edward Takes a Second Wife
1.
And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.
Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favored.
And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter.
IT is not likely that Edward had ever heard the story of Jacob and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and the double apprenticeship he had to serve. Copies of the Vulgate were few and far between in the land. One was not included in the three volumes which made up the royal library, but there may have been a copy, securely chained, in the chapel at Westminster. The king was not a scholar and his knowledge of Latin was scanty at best.
If he had known the story, he would have recognized the pattern which began to develop out of the frantic letters he received from his brother, Edmund of Lancaster, in Paris. A truce had been signed between the two countries, by which Edward was to marry the engaging and beautiful Blanche and his son and heir was to marry Isabella, the daughter of Philip, who was showing promise of becoming as lovely as her aunt. Edward was so set on Blanche as his second wife that he agreed on his part to give Gas cony to Philip! This was an incredible deal, for the Plantagenets were not only acquisitive but bitterly retentive and they had never been known to give anything away willingly. Gascony was one of the gems in the Plantagenet crown, and to give it away was such a prodigal gesture that Edward"s advisers must have thought him temporarily bereft of his senses.
Edmund"s uneasiness can be easily understood, therefore, when he found it necessary to report to Edward that Philip was becoming evasive in the matter of the agreement. Gascony had already been turned over to France, but the king"s brother was dismayed to find the French court buzzing with other plans for the marriage of the self-willed Blanche. Rodolphus, Duke of Austria, had asked for her hand, and it was freely said that Blanche favored the Austrian match, in the expectation that Rodolphus would someday become the Holy Roman emperor.
Deeply apologetic over what he considered his failure as a diplomat, Edmund finally sent on to Edward an amended treaty of marriage in which the name of the younger sister, Marguerite, was inserted in place of Blanche. This change was probably not the fault of Philip. The truth of the matter was that the fair Blanche had put her foot down. She had no intention of marrying an old husband, even if he did happen to be the great Edward of England.
Edward discovered thus that elderly kings, like beggars, cannot be choosers. It was a blow to his pride that Blanche would have none of him, and it was a long and bitter time before he brought himself to the point of taking the younger sister instead. The matter had to be referred to the Pope finally, who settled it by laying an injunction on Philip to return the provinces that Edward had relinquished and on Edward to accept Marguerite as his wife, with a portion of fifteen thousand pounds left to her by her father, Philip the Hardy. Edward decided to make the best of a bad bargain, and agreed.
The younger sister traveled to England in great state with a long train, including three ladies of the bedchamber and four maids of honor, all of n.o.ble blood. Philip was not known to show much affection under any circ.u.mstances, but he seems to have been fond of his little sister May, as she was called at the French court. He did not make any trouble over the matter of that truly regal dower she was taking out of the kingdom.
The wedding took place at Canterbury on September 8, 1299. The very young bride was endowed with her marriage portion at the door of the cathedral, as was the custom.
2.
The story up to this point had followed the same lines as Jacob"s romance. Marguerite was probably no better favored than the tender-eyed Leah of the Bible episode while Edward"s fancy had been fixed on Blanche as firmly as Jacob"s had been on Rachel. But the outcome was much happier. Unlike Leah, who became scrawny and sallow and bitter of tongue with the years, Marguerite matured into an attractive and very sweet woman. Her nose was a mite too long for real beauty, but her eyes were large and bright; and the truth of the matter was that Edward became well content with his child bride. Marguerite seems to have loved her elderly bridegroom devotedly, and so the marriage was an almost immediate success. Perhaps the fact that Blanche"s husband never became anything more important than King of Bohemia, which was rather humble compared to the throne of England, was not unwelcome news to the kingly Jacob. When the beautiful Blanche died in 1305, he expressed himself as deeply sorrowful because "she was the sister of his beloved consort, Queen Marguerite."
Edward had to leave for more campaigning in Scotland a week after the wedding, leaving his bride in the royal apartments in the Tower of London and enjoining his officers in charge that "no pet.i.tioners from the city should presume to approach, lest the person of the queen be endangered by the contagion being brought from the infected air of the city." The contagion was smallpox, which was raging in that most unsanitary of towns. The younger Edward, one feels, might have expressed some concern for the welfare of the citizens, who could not take refuge in the Tower, and perhaps have enjoined the officers to do something about holding the plague in check.
The next year the new queen went to Scotland with Edward, who was well content to have her thus fall into the familiar habit of his beloved Eleanor. She did not stay long in that war-torn land, for her accouchement was near. She traveled back to Yorkshire and to Cawood Castle, a truly amazing pile of medieval masonry. Here a prince was born who was named Thomas and from whom the Howards, the top-ranking family in the English peerage, would stem.
The next year the queen was at Woodstock and gave birth to a second son, who was given the name of Edmund after the perplexed negotiator of the marriage bond. Fortunately the sons of the somewhat frail Marguerite were born with a better heritage of health than the three sickly little sons that Eleanor had first brought into the world. Thomas and Edmund seem to have been stout lads and had no difficulty in surviving the usual ills of infancy.
Edward became quite uxorious, as elderly husbands so often do. He even developed a greater interest in music because his Marguerite was fond of it. The young queen had brought a minstrel with her from France who was known as Guy of the Psaltery. Edward enjoyed the fine programs that Master Guy provided and settled on him a yearly stipend of twenty-eight shillings. He also allotted three horses for the minstrel"s use when the royal family went on their travels. The royal liking for music was shown in other directions, as witness an item in the royal household accounts: "To Melioro, the harper of Sir John Mautravers, for playing on the harp while the king was bled, 20s."
The queen bore one more child, a daughter who was named Eleanor, after the first wife; there did not seem to be any jealousy or pettiness in the king"s new consort. The little princess, sad to relate, died in a few days.
Memories of Queen Marguerite have to do largely with her continual intercessions on behalf of people who fell into the king"s displeasure. The Rolls carry many such references as, "we pardon him solely at the request of our dearest consort." It was due to her that a ban laid on the city of Winchester, because a hostage from France had been allowed to escape, was lifted. Edward was getting very testy and he had not only taken the city"s charter away but had imprisoned the mayor in the Marshalsea and had fined him three hundred marks, a great fortune in those days. Marguerite pleaded with the king until his displeasure was removed from both the city and its unfortunate mayor.
There can be no doubt that she did much to alleviate the king"s burdens during his last years. Her affection for him was very real, for after his death she wrote, "When Edward died, all men died for me."
CHAPTER XV.
The Prince of Wales and Brother Perrot
1.
EDWARD was not entirely pleased with the way his son was growing up. The prince was entirely normal in a physical sense. From the time he outgrew his Welsh cradle he had been a healthy, rosy boy. He lengthened out fast and seemed likely to approach his tall father in stature. He was not dissolute and he was liked by those about him. But there was something missing in him; he was not princely; in fact, it was becoming clear that he had a common streak which showed in his tastes. He did not take to books and reading. He did not care for swordplay. He was like a blunt weapon when he should instead have been capable of taking a steel-like edge.
At the age of five he had been given a household of his own, and the men at the head of it had not been chosen with the necessary care. It was a large household at King"s Langley; seven knights, nine sergeants, as well as minstrels, hunters, grooms and cooks, and of course the upper echelon of administrators, magisters, and tutors. It cost the state in excess of two thousand pounds yearly. In one year this hearty circle consumed 239 casks of wine, not to mention ale and beer. The household seemed inclined to practical jokes, in which the prince himself took an active part. He went about on his travels (they usually visited as many as fifty places in the course of a year) with Genoese fiddlers to provide music and a tame lion. There was always a great deal of gambling going on with dice, and the young Edward did not seem too adept at it. He was always in debt. A rowdy and raucous household, in fact. The great-grandfather of the prince, King John of infamous memory, had a curious tendency to clown at the most inappropriate, even solemn, times; perhaps this accounted for the noisy antics of the prince and his liking for low company.
Perhaps he should have been a farmer instead of heir to a great throne. He was much more interested in horses and cattle and in a camel kept in the royal stables (how it came to be there, or why, was a mystery) than he was in the not too persistent efforts of Master Walter Reynolds to teach him Latin. He was happier helping to plant turnips than in discussing the strategy of a campaign; a fact that caused people to recall that he had been born on St. Mark"s Day, when long processions were held with crosses swathed in black and prayers were said for good weather and fine harvests.
In one respect only did the young prince run true to form. Like most youths of royal blood, he was interested in his wardrobe. As it happened, the world was seeing a sudden revolution in men"s apparel. The ladies, perhaps because they were preached at from the pulpit and partly because husbands had not yet been educated to spending money to clothe their wives, continued wearing modest long robes which seldom allowed as much as the tip of a toe to show and fitted snugly up under the chin. But suddenly the young men of blue blood and wealth began to support an extravaganza of fashion. The first indications of it seem to have come from France, where even in those days the tailors were an enterprising and imaginative lot. The first step was the introduction of the cote-hardie, a close-fitting garment like a waistcoat which fell some distance below the waist but exposed to view the masculine leg in tight-fitting hose. With this foppish fashion, as it was called in conservative circles, went a positive frenzy for fantastic color schemes. The cote-hardie could be parti-colored, red on one side and perhaps tan on the other. The shades would be reversed for the hose. Sometimes greater extremes were reached with diagonal and vertical bars of contrasting colors. In these garments the young men of fashion strutted about like animated chessboards. Their shoes, moreover, had such long toes that they curled up in front. This queer fashion was carried to such extremes in later years that the tips had to be tied to the ankles with silken cords. Their hoods were supplied with long ta.s.sels which had to be tied around the neck and became known as liri-pipes.
Young Edward was tall and straight and his legs were well turned, so he became a leader in this rather silly revolution.
The king did everything possible to train the boy along the right lines. When the prince was thirteen years old, as we have already said, the father had to take an army to the continent to strike a blow for his Flemish allies, and before leaving he appointed his son regent. It happened to be a troubled time, one crisis following another. Warenne got himself thoroughly beaten by Wallace at Stirling Bridge; the barons became incensed with the king"s att.i.tude in levying taxes without parliamentary sanction and insisted on a confirmation of the Great Charter and the Forest Charter. A Confirmatio cartarum was laid before the youthful regent, and on the advice of the chief officers of the crown he signed it in his father"s name; an act which Edward confirmed later. The boy, in fact, seems to have behaved with proper decorum and even a trace of dignity.
The king began to devote a great deal of time to the education of the young Edward in all matters of statecraft and personal conduct. In one year he addressed no fewer than seven hundred letters to his heir, full of sage advice and often couched in terms of sharp reproof.
Almost from the time he was born there was much speculation as to his matrimonial future. First a marriage arrangement was made by which he would wed the Maid of Norway, but this eminently satisfactory plan became null when the little princess died before reaching Scotland. Then Edward conceived the idea that his son should marry the daughter of Guy de Dampierre, hereditary ruler of Flanders, whose name was Philippa, although she seems to have been called the little Philippine. The King of France put a stop to that by swooping down on the Flemish cities and taking Guy and his daughter prisoners. The father was imprisoned for most of his life and the little Philippine became a member of the French royal household. Finally it was settled that the heir to the English throne was to marry Isabella of France, Philip"s daughter, who was called Isabella the Fair.
King Edward had every reason to know that the Capetian family tree had sprouted something strange and fearsome in Philip the Fair. That the daughter of this cruel and capricious monarch might take after him in character as well as in looks should have given Edward reason to pause and wonder. Would the lovely and sophisticated Isabella be a suitable mate for his undeniably nave son?
The king made two great mistakes in his efforts to map the future life of his long-legged heir. This was the first.
2.
From the time Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine and so became ruler of all the western provinces of France, the princes of the Plantagenet line had spent most of their time abroad. Richard of the Lion-Heart was seldom in England, not even when he became king. Edward would have followed this example if the troubles in which his father had involved himself with the barons in England had not made it necessary for him to stay at home and fight the king"s battles. Both of these high-spirited and brave princes had preferred to live in the south, making the old Roman city of Bordeaux their headquarters but being much of the time in Gascony. Life was gracious and comfortable in that great city on the Garonne, with its soft airs and golden sunlight beating down so warmly on the leaves of the plane trees; with its wealth and culture. It was pleasant to sit on the open terrace of a low, white stone palace and look out over the lands of the triangle where the grapes grew; much more desirable, in fact, than to be housed in a tall, frowning, mysterious hotel in malodorous Paris or in a grimly frowning Norman castle in foggy London. There was another reason: the companionship they found in the knights and cadets of Gascony who had the minstrel strain in them but were nonetheless long-headed, shrewd, and gallant.
One of these old retainers of Edward"s, a certain Arnold de Gaveston, put in an appearance in London in a dest.i.tute condition, having escaped from a French prison. He was accompanied by a son called Piers or Perrot. In striving to provide for this unfortunate old comrade-in-arms Edward took the boy into his household as a squire. The boy behaved himself so well that the king decided he would be a suitable companion for his own son. It seemed to the king that the handsome and accomplished Gascon youth would introduce a better note into the oafish household at King"s Langley, where they were still emptying five casks of wine weekly and keeping the dice rolling on the trestle table both above and below the salt. So Piers de Gaveston was sent to live there as a comrade for the prince; and this was the second of the two grave errors of which the king was guilty.
With the first glance that pa.s.sed between them, Piers de Gaveston gained a complete ascendancy over the young prince. He was one of the figures who appear frequently in history and who can only be described perfectly by a modern word, incandescent. A prime example of this was a long-legged and decorative young man named George Villiers who would come along in the reign of James I and be given the t.i.tle of Duke of Buckingham. A room seemed to light up when men of this caliber entered. They were always handsome and filled with amusing talk. The youthful Gascon had these qualities. He was, moreover, adept at games and the use of weapons.
There were two serious flaws in his character which began to show as soon as he was certain of his hold on the heir to the throne of England. He was greedy for wealth and honors, and his pride was like tinder. Nothing was too much for him to ask. At the least hint of opposition he would flare up into tempers, even at the expense of the most important men in the realm. There was one occasion when the boisterous train of the prince, headed by young Edward himself and Gaveston, invaded the preserves of Bishop Langton, the king"s treasurer. After pulling down the palings, they proceeded to wreak havoc among the deer and smaller game. Langton was not one to accept such treatment in silence, prince or no prince. He had been one of the king"s most respected councilors for many years and stood high in the royal regard. He went to the king and told his story, with the result that the prince was sent to Windsor Castle with none of his personal household to wait upon him. Here he was kept in disgrace for six months. He was not allowed to see "Brother Perrot" or Gilbert de Clare, who had borne a part also in the household revels.
In 1306, when the heir to the throne had reached the age of twenty-two and had been given the t.i.tle of Prince of Wales, he went with his father on a final campaign in Scotland, or at least what they hoped would be the last. He did not distinguish himself particularly, except in the ferocity with which his troops were urged on to ravage the countryside. At the close of the season"s fighting he sat in the Parliament at Carlisle, where arrangements were discussed for his marriage to Isabella of France. Edward had never expressed any interest before in matrimonial arrangements, but the reports of the beauty of the French princess had made him favorable to and even eager for the match.
It was during these discussions that the full extent of the favorite"s hold on his affections became evident for the first time. There had been a great deal of talk about them, and it was being said openly that there was an immoral side to the tie. The king must have heard something of this, for he was keeping too close a watch on his son to have missed it; but if so, he had kept the knowledge to himself.
At Carlisle, however, the prince made a demand which caused his father to fall into one of his blackest rages. He wanted the province of Ponthieu in France to be given to Brother Perrot. Ponthieu contained the busy city of Abbeville at the mouth of the Somme. It had belonged to the queen, Edward"s mother, and on her death it had remained among the royal possessions. The demand of the prince was a monstrously foolish one. The fief was strategically situated on the Channel and was of the first importance to the English king; it would have taken all the armed might of France to wrest it from him.