Comic History of England Part 9

[Footnote A: Doubtless this is an error, so far as the steamer is concerned; but the statement can do no harm, and the historian cannot be positive in matters of this kind at all times, for the strain upon his memory is too great. The critic, too, should not be forgotten in a work of this kind. He must do something to support his family, or he will become disliked.--AUTHOR.]

Edward found himself now on the verge of open war with Ireland and Wales, and the population of the Isle of Wight and another person, whose name is not given, threatened to declare war. The English n.o.bles, too, were insubordinate, and the king, who had fallen under the influence of a man named Spencer and his father, was required by the best society, headed by Lancaster, to exile both of these wicked advisers.

Afterwards the king attacked Lancaster with his army, and having captured him, had him executed in 1322.

[Ill.u.s.tration: UNFORTUNATE KING WAS TREATED WITH REVOLTING CRUELTY.]

The Spencers now returned, and the queen began to cut up strangely and create talk. She formed the acquaintance of Roger Mortimer, who consented to act as her paramour. They organized a scheme to throw off the Spencers and dethrone Edward the Thinkless, her husband, in 1325.

Any one who has tried to be king even for a few weeks under the above circ.u.mstances must agree with the historian that it is no moonlight frolic.

Edward fled to Wales, but in 1326 was requested to come home and remain in jail there, instead of causing a scandal by staying away and spending his money in Wales. He was confined in Kenilworth Castle, while his son was ostensibly king, though his wife and Mortimer really managed the kingdom and behaved in a scandalous way, Mortimer wearing the king's clothes, shaving with his razor, and winding the clock every night as though he owned the place.[A] This was in 1327.

[Footnote A: The clock may safely be omitted from the above account, as later information would indicate that this may be an error, though there is no doubt that Mortimer at this time wore out two suits of the king's pajamas.--Author.]

In September the poor king was put to death by co-respondent Mortimer in a painful and sickening manner, after having been most inhumanly treated in Berkeley Castle, whither he had been removed.

Thus ends the sad history of a monarch who might have succeeded in a minor position on a hen farm, but who made a beastly fluke in the king business.

The a.s.surance of Mortimer in treating the king as he did is a blot upon the fair page of history in high life. Let us turn over a new leaf.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON A HEN FARM.]

CHAPTER XIV.

IRRITABILITY OF THE FRENCH: INTERMINABLE DISSENSION, a.s.sISTED BY THE PLAGUE, CONTINUES REDUCING THE POPULATION.

It is a little odd, but it is true, that Edward III. was crowned at fourteen and married at fifteen years of age. Princes in those days were affianced as soon as they were weighed, and married before they got their eyes open, though even yet there are many people who do not get their eyes opened until after marriage. Edward married Philippa, daughter of the Count of Hainault, to whom he had been engaged while teething.

In 1328 Mortimer mixed up matters with the Scots, by which he relinquished his claim to Scotch homage. Being still the gentleman friend of Isabella, the regent, he had great influence. He a.s.sumed, on the ratification of the above treaty by Parliament, the t.i.tle of Earl of March.

The young prince rose to the occasion, and directed several of his n.o.bles to forcibly drag the Earl of March from the apartments of the guilty pair, and in 1330 he became the Earl of Double-Quick March--a sort of forced March--towards the gibbet, where he was last seen trying to stand on the English climate. The queen was kept in close confinement during the rest of her life, and the morning papers of that time contained nothing of a social nature regarding her doings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN 1330 MORTIMER BECAME THE EARL OF DOUBLE-QUICK MARCH.]

The Scots, under David Bruce, were defeated at Halidon Hill in 1333, and Bruce fled to France. Thus again under a va.s.sal of the English king, Edward Baliol by name, the Scotch crooked the reluctant hinges of the knee.

Edward now claimed to be a more direct heir through Queen Isabella than Philip, the cousin of Charles IV., who occupied the throne, so he proceeded to vindicate himself against King Philip in the usual way. He destroyed the French fleet in 1340, defeated Philip, though with inferior numbers, at Crecy, and demonstrated for the first time that cannon could be used with injurious results on the enemy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EDWARD DEMONSTRATED AT THE BATTLE OF CReCY THAT CANNON COULD BE USED WITH VIGOROUS RESULTS.]

In 1346 the Black Prince, as Edward was called, on account of the color of the Russia iron used in making his mackintosh, may be said to have commenced his brilliant military career. He captured Calais,--the key to France,--and made it a flourishing English city and a market for wool, leather, tin, and lead. It so continued for two hundred years.

The Scotch considered this a good time to regain their independence, and David Bruce took charge of the enterprise, but was defeated at Neville's Cross, in 1346, and taken prisoner.

Philippa here distinguished herself during the absence of the king, by encouraging the troops and making a telling equestrian speech to them before the battle. After the capture of Bruce, too, she repaired to Calais, where she prevented the king's disgraceful execution of six respectable citizens who had been sent to surrender the city.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CLOSE CALL FOR THE SIX CITIZENS OF CALAIS.]

During a truce between the English and French, England was visited by the Black Death, a plague that came from Asia and bade fair to depopulate the country. London lost fifty thousand people, and at times there were hardly enough people left to bury the dead or till the fields. This contagion occurred in 1349, and even attacked the domestic animals.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NO MONARCH OF SPIRIT CARES TO HAVE HIS THRONE PULLED FROM UNDER HIM JUST AS HE IS ABOUT TO OCCUPY IT.]

John having succeeded Philip in France, in 1350 Edward made another effort to recover the French throne; but no monarch of spirit cares to have his throne pulled from beneath him just as he is about to occupy it, and so, when the Black Prince began to burn and plunder southern France, his father made a similar excursion from Calais, in 1355.

The next year the Black Prince sent twelve thousand men into the heart of France, where they met an army of sixty thousand, and the English general offered all his conquests cheerfully to John for the privilege of returning to England; but John overstepped himself by demanding an unconditional surrender, and a battle followed in which the French were whipped out of their boots and the king captured. We should learn from this to know when we have enough.

This battle was memorable because the English loss was mostly confined to the common soldiery, while among the French it was peculiarly fatal to the n.o.bility. Two dukes, nineteen counts, five thousand men-at-arms, and eight thousand infantry were killed, and a bobtail flush royal was found to have been bagged as prisoners.

For four years John was a prisoner, but well treated. He was then allowed to resume his renovated throne; but failing to keep good his promises to the English, he came back to London by request, and died there in 1364.

The war continued under Charles, the new French monarch; and though Edward was an able and courteous foe, in 1370 he became so irritated because of the revolt of Limoges, notwithstanding his former kindness to its people, that he caused three thousand of her citizens to be put to the sword.

The Black Prince fought no more, but after six years of illness died, in 1376, with a good record for courage and statecraft. His father, the king, survived him only a year, expiring in the sixty-fifth year of his age, 1377.

English literature was encouraged during his reign, and John Wickliffe, Gower, Chaucer, and other men whose genius greatly outstripped their orthography were seen to flourish some.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A STRIKING ILl.u.s.tRATION OF WAT TYLER'S CONTROVERSY WITH THE TAX RECEIVER.]

Edward III. was succeeded by his grandson, Richard, and war with France was maintained, though Charles the Wise held his own, with the aid of the Scotch under Robert II., the first of the Stuarts.

A heavy war-tax was levied _per capita_ at the rate of three groats on male and female above the age of fifteen, and those who know the value of a groat will admit that it was too much. A damsel named Tyler, daughter of Wat the Tyler, was so badly treated by the a.s.sessor that her father struck the officer dead with his hammer, in 1381, and placed himself at the head of a revolt, numbering one hundred thousand people, who collected on Blackheath. Jack Straw and Rev. John Ball also aided in the convention. The latter objected to the gentlemen on general principles, claiming that Adam was no gentleman, and that Eve had still less claim in that direction.[A]

[Footnote A: Rev. John Ball chose as a war-cry and transparency these words:

"When Adam delved and Eve span, Where was then the gentleman?"

Those who have tried it in modern times say that to be a gentleman is no sinecure, and the well-bred author falls in with this sentiment, though still regarding it as a great boon.--HISTORIAN.]

In this outbreak, and during the same year, the rebels broke into the city of London, burned the palaces, plundered the warehouses, and killed off the gentlemen wherever an _alibi_ could not be established, winding up with the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

During a conference with Tyler, the king was so rudely addressed by Wat, that Walworth, mayor of London, struck the rebel with his sword, and others despatched him before he knew exactly Wat was Wat.

Richard, to quiet this storm, acceded to the rebel demands until he could get his forces together, when he ignored his promises in a right royal manner in the same year. One of these concessions was the abolition of slavery and the novel use of wages for farm work. By his failure to keep this promise, serfdom continued in England four hundred years afterwards.

Richard now became unpopular, and showed signs of worthlessness. He banished his cousin Henry, and dispossessed him of his estates. This, of course, irritated Henry, who entered England while the king was in Ireland, and his forces were soon joined by sixty thousand malecontents.

Poor Richard wandered away to Wales, where he was in constant danger of falling off, and after living on chestnuts knocked from the high trees by means of his sceptre, he returned disgusted and took up his quarters in the Tower, where he died of starvation in 1400.

Nothing can be more pathetic than the picture of a king crying for bread, yet willing to compromise on tarts. A friendless king sitting on the hard stone floor of the Tower, after years spent on board of an elastic throne with rockers under it, would move even the hardened historian to tears. (A brief intermission is here offered for unavailing tears.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: A FRIENDLESS KING SITTING ON THE HARD STONE FLOOR OF THE TOWER.]