caster was appointed guardian and protector of the king's person. But though it was reasonable to expect, that, as the weakness of the former king had given reins to the licentiousness of the barons, great domestic tranquillity would not prevail during the present minority; the first disturbance arose from an invasion by foreign enemies. The king of Scots, declining in years and health, but retaining still that martial spirit which had raised his nation from the lowest ebb of fortune, deemed the present opportunity favourable for infesting England. He first made an attempt on the castle of Norham, in which he was disappointed; he then collected an army of twenty-five thousand men on the frontiers, and having given the command to the earl of Murray and lord Douglas, threatened an incursion into the northern counties. The English regency, after trying in vain every expedient to restore peace with Scotland, made vigorous preparations for war; and besides assembling an English army of near sixty thousand men, they invited back John of Hainault, and some foreign cavalry, whom they had dismissed, and whose discipline and arms had appeared superior to those of their own country. Young Edward himself, burning with a passion for military fame, appeared at the head of these numerous forces; and marched from Durham, the appointed place of rendezvous, in quest of the enemy, who had already broken into the frontiers, and were laying every thing waste around them. Murray and Douglas were the two most celebrated warriors, bred in the long hostilities between the Scots and English; and their forces, trained in the same school, and enured to hardships, fatigues, and dangers, were perfectly qualified, by their habits and manner of life, for that desultory and destructive war which they carried into England. Except a body of about four thousand cavalry, well armed, and fit to make a steady impression in battle, the rest of the army were light-armed troops, mounted on small horses, which found subsistence every where, and carried them with rapid and unexpected marches, whether they meant to commit depredations on the peaceable inhabitants, or to attack an armed enemy, or to retreat into their own country. Their whole equipage consisted of a bag of oatmeal, which, as a supply in case of necessity, each soldier carried behind him; together with a light plate of iron, on which he instantly baked the meal into a cake in the open fields. But his chief subsistence was the cattle which he seized; and his cookery was as expeditious as all his other operations. After flaying the animal, he placed the skin, loose and hanging in the form of a bag, upon some stakes; he poured water into it kindled a fire below, and thus made it serve as a caldron for the boiling of his victuals2. The chief difficulty which Edward met with, after composing some dangerous frays which broke out between his foreign forces and the English3, was to come up with an army so rapid in its marches, and so little incumbered in its motions. Though the flame and smoke of burning villages directed him sufficiently to the place of their encampment, he found upon hurrying thither, that they had already dislodged; and he soon discovered, by new marks of devastation, that they had removed to some distant quarter. After harassing his army during some time in this fruitless chase, he advanced northwards, and crossed the Tyne, with a resolution of awaiting them on their return homewards, and taking vengeance for all their depredations. But that whole country was already so much wasted by their frequent incursions, that it could not afford subsistence to his army; and he was obliged again to return 2 Froissart, liv. iv. chap. 18. 3 Ibid. liv. i. chap. 17. Ibid. liv. iv. chap. 19. VOL. III. F : southwards, and change his plan of operations. He had now lost all track of the enemy; and though he promised the reward of a hundred pounds a year to any one who should bring an account of their motions, he remained inactive some days, before he received any intelligence of them. He found at last, that they had fixed their camp on the southern banks of the Were, as if they intended to await a battle but their prudent leaders had chosen the ground with such judgment, that the English, on their approach, saw it impracticable, without temerity, to cross the river in their front, and attack them in their present situation. Edward, impatient for revenge and glory, here sent them a defiance, and challenged them, if their dared, to meet him in an equal field, and try the fortune of arms. The bold spirit of Douglas could ill brook this bravado, and he advised the acceptance of the challenge; but he was overruled by Murray, who replied to Edward, that he never took the counsel of an enemy in any of his operations. The king, therefore, kept still his position opposite the Scots; and daily expected that necessity would oblige them to change their quarters, and give him an opportunity of overwhelming them with superior forces. After a few days, they suddenly decamped, and marched farther up the river; but still posted themselves in such a manner as to preserve the advantage of the ground, if the enemy should venture to attack them. Edward insisted, that all hazards should be run, rather than allow these ravagers to escape with impunity; but Mortimer's authority prevented the attack, and opposed itself to the valour of the young monarch. While the armies lay in this position, an incident happened which had well nigh proved fatal to the English. Douglas having gotten the word, and 5 Rymer. vol. iv. p. 312. Froissart, liv. iv. chap. 19. surveyed exactly the situation of the English camp, entered it secretly in the night time, with a body of two hundred determined soldiers, and advanced to the royal tent, with a view of killing or carrying off the king in the midst of his army. But some of Edward's attendants, awaking in that critical moment, made resistance; his chaplain and chamberlain sacrificed their lives for his safety; the king himself, after making a valorous defence, escaped in the dark: and Douglas, having lost the greater part of his followers, was glad to make a hasty retreat with the remainder". Soon after, the Scottish army decamped without noise in the dead of night; and having thus gotten the start of the English, arrived without farther loss in their own country. Edward, on entering the place of the Scottish encampment, found only six Englishmen, whom the enemy, after breaking their legs, had tied to trees, in order to prevent their carrying any intelligence to their countrymenR. The king was highly incensed at the disappointment which he had met with in his first enterprise, and at the head of so gallant an army. The symptoms which he had discovered of bravery and spirit gave extreme satisfaction, and were regarded as sure prognostics of an illustrious reign: but the general displeasure fell violently on Mortimer, who was already the object of public odium: and every measure which he pursued tended to aggravate beyond all bounds, the hatred of the nation both against him and queen Isabella. When the council of regency was formed, Mortimer, though in the plentitude of his power, had taken no care to ensure a place in it: but this semblance of moderation was only a cover to the most iniquitous and most ambitious projects. He rendered that 7 Froissart, liv. iv. chap. 19. Heming. p. 268. Ypod. Neust. p. 509. Knyghton, p. 2552. 8 Froissart, liv. iv. chap. 19. council entirely useless by usurping to himself the whole sovereign authority; he settled on the queen dowager the greater part of the royal revenues; he never consulted either the princes of the blood or the nobility in any public measure: the king himself was so besieged by his creatures, that no access could be procured to him; and all the envy which had attended Gaveston and Spenser, fell much more deservedly on the new favourite. 1328.] Mortimer, sensible of the growing hatred of the people, thought it requisite on any terms to secure peace abroad; and he entered into a negotiation with Robert Bruce for that purpose. As the claim of superiority in England more than any other cause, had tended to inflame the animosities between the two nations, Mortimer, besides stipulating a marriage between Jane, sister of Edward, and David, the son and heir of Robert, consented to resign absolutely this claim, to give up all the homages done by the Scottish parliament and nobility, and to acknowledge Robert as independent sovereign of Scotland. In return for these advantages, Robert stipulated the payment of thirty thousand marks to England. This treaty was ratified by parliament1o, but was nevertheless the source of great discontent among the people, who, having entered zealously into the pretensions of Edward I. and deeming themselves disgraced by the successful resistance made by so inferior a nation, were disappointed, by this treaty, in all future hopes both of conquest and of vengeance. The princes of the blood, Kent, Norfolk, and Lancaster, were much united in their councils; and Mortimer entertained great suspicions of their designs against him. In summoning them to parliament, he strictly prohibited them, in the king's name, from coming attended by an armed force, an illegal but 9 Rymer, p. 337. Heming. p. 278. Anon. Hist. p. 392. 10 Ypod. Neust. p. 510. |