"At this period, the king had selected a new favourite, called Hugh de Spencer, a young man of noble family, and highly accomplished. His father, who was much in years, was respected for his valour, integrity and wisdom, but the royal favour so abundantly bestowed on his son obscured all his virtues; for the weak prince forgetting the lesson he had received in the treatment of Gavestone, loaded his new favourite with honours, and even seized unjustly on the estates of some of his nobles to bestow them on the Spencers."

"Now, indeed," interrupted John, you may well call Edward a weak prince, he had himself to blame for whatever happened, I am sure I shall not pity him."

"Do not be too certain of that," answered Mr. Wilmot," but to continue; exasperated at this fresh proof of the king's unjust partiality, the Earls of Lancaster and Hereford, again had recourse to arms, while the parliament decreed a forfeiture of the estates of the Spencers, father and

son, and doomed them to perpetual banishment. This blow roused Edward from his lethargy, and at the head of thirty thousand men, he took the field, and pressed the Earl of Lancaster so closely, that he was at length made prisoner, when he met with as little mercy as his party had before shewn to Gavestone, for mounted on a mean horse, and treated with the greatest indignity, he was led to a hill near Pomfret, and there beheaded.

"The rebellion thus crushed, the greater part of the forfeited estates were bestowed on young Spencer, whose pride rose in proportion, and whose haste to accumulate, made him guilty of many acts of injustice and rapine.

"The king was now doomed to meet with an enemy, of all others to a feeling mind, the most dreadful; I mean his queen Isabel, a woman naturally cruel, daring, and haughty, who, exasperated at his conduct, and emboldened by his weakness, fled to France; openly refusing to return, unless the Spencers were not

only removed from court, but banished the kingdom.

"By this step Isabel became popular in England, where Spencer was universally disliked; all the discontented who fled their country, or that were banished from it, joined her party, until at length conceiving herself sufficiently strong, she, with three thousand armed men, sailed from Dort harbour, and landed on the coast of Suffolk. Her party was immediately joined by numbers; and the king had the vexation to find that the disaffection was general over his kingdom. A garrison, on whom he most depended, he placed in the castle of Bristol, under the command of the elder Spencer, but the troops mutinied, and the unfortunate governor was delivered up, and condemned by the exasperated Barons to death, and immediately hanged on a gibbet in his armour. His body was afterwards cut to pieces, and thrown to the dogs, and his head sent to Winchester, where it was fixed on a pole, and exposed to the insults of the populace."

"Dear papa," said Frances,

"the

people were very cruel at that time."

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They were, and each party appeared to endeavour to outdo the other in barbarity. Where a life, from guilt, is unavoidably forfeited to the laws of our country, we have now to thank heaven, that has enlightened mankind sufficiently to recoil from those unnecessary cruelties, which disgraced those who devised them equally with the offender.

Hugh Spencer did not long survive his father; following the fortunes of the wretched king, he was taken in an obscure convent in Wales. The merciless queen, adding insult to cruelty, had not patience to wait the formality of a trial, but ordering him to be brought into her presence, appeared to take a savage pleasure in viewing his distress. He was at length executed on a gibbet, and his head afterwards severed and sent to London, where the citizens, with brutal triumph, fixed it on London bridge.

"The king, in the meantime, fell into

the power of his adversaries, who conducted him to the capital, where, amidst the insults and reproaches of the people, he was led prisoner to the tower, and a charge exhibited against him, of indolence, incapacity to govern, a love of pleasure, and being swayed by evil counsellors, to the detriment of the people. These charges being allowed, the parliament voted him to resign the crown, and appointed his son Edward, a youth of fourteen, to reign in his stead; the queen to act as regent during his minority."

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Notwithstanding Edward's errors,' said Mrs. Wilmot, "'tis impossible to avoid feeling for him; the monarch of a great kingdom, subdued, insulted and despised; the principal agent of his disgrace, his wife, and the mother of his children. Had the queen been truly a good wife, she would surely have endeavoured to awaken him from the infatuation he shewed for his favourites,-not have wrested his crown from him, and confined him in a prison."