Earl of Lancaster

“ HENRY of Lancaster, first Duke of Lancaster (1299?–1361) , son of Henry, earl of Lancaster (1281?–1345) [q. v.] , and his Countess Maud, was born about 1299, and was called ‘of Grosmont,’ possibly from the place of his birth. He is said to have gone while a young man to fight as a crusader in Prussia, Rhodes, Cyprus, and Granada, to have been so renowned a captain that he was known as ‘the father of soldiers,’ and the noblest youths of France and Spain were anxious to learn war under his banner (Capgrave, p. 161) . ”

“ Earl Henry died at Lincoln’s Inn, 1310, leaving a daughter, Alice, who married Thomas, eldest son and successor of Edmund Earl of Lancaster.
Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, and, either by his wife Alice, or by his father’s grant, Earl of Lincoln, and Lord of Pontefract, succeeded. He was much at the castle, and probably refaced the lower part of the keep, built Swillington Tower, and no doubt some of the structures the bases of which remain in the main ward. He also in 1315 built Dunstanborough, and added Lancaster’s Buildings to Kenilworth. Earl Thomas’s history is well known. ”

“ Your correspondent is alarmed lest the honour he claims for the Lancastrians should be denied them, because it has been "discovered that William III. never created himself Duke of Lancaster." Where is it asserted that either he or any other of our sovereigns ever did? When Henry of Bolingbroke merged the lesser name of duke in the greater name of king, he was no more Duke of Lancaster than he was Earl of Derby or Duke of Hereford; but the title of Duke of Lancaster he willed not to be lost altogether as the others were, and therefore by an act of parliament (1 Hen. IV., Art. 81.) ”

“ In 1315 he took command of the forces raised to fight the Scots, and was soon appointed to the “chief place in the council,” while his supporters filled the great offices of state, but his rule was as feeble as that of the monarch whom he had superseded. Quarrelling with some of the barons, he neglected both the government and the defence of the kingdom, and in 1317 began a private war with John, Earl Warrenne, who had assisted his countess to escape from her husband. ”

“ In the Scottish war of this year Lancaster was sent with the Earl of Kent and other lords to Newcastle to strengthen the border. They were unable to check the ravages of Douglas, and were forced to remain inactive while he wasted the country almost to the walls of the town. Lancaster attended the parliament held at Leicester in November, and prevailed on the clergy in convocation to make a grant. In spite of the high place which he held in the council and as guardian of the king, he found himself without power, and was denied access to the king by the queen-dowager and Mortimer. ”

“ This Edmond, Earl of Lancaster, was succeeded by his son Thomas, who in the fifteenth year of the reign of Edward II. was attainted of high treason. In the first of Edward III. his attainder was reversed, and his son Henry inherited his titles, and subsequently was created Duke of Lancaster. ”

“ Does she think she will capture an earl or a duke?" she sneered, and De Vere answered, coldly:
"I do not believe that she has any matrimonial designs on any one, Lady Lancaster. She returns to America in a very few days."
Lady Lancaster was so surprised that she gave vent to her relief in a hasty exclamation:
"Thank Heaven! And I devoutly wish that she had remained there."
"There are more persons than one who will agree with your ladyship there," he said, betrayed into a laugh at her naïveté. ”

“ Lancaster was too strong for his enemy. Before winter had begun, Conisborough and Warenne's other Yorkshire castles fell into his hands. Lancaster's partisans even laid hold of the king's castle of Knaresborough, while other Lancastrian bands occupied Alton castle in Staffordshire. Intermittent hostilities continued until the summer of 1318. Twice Edward himself went to the north, and on one occasion appeared in force outside Pontefract. But the more moderate of the baronage managed to prevent open hostilities between the king and the earl. Lancaster was, as ever, fighting for his own hand. ”

“ So great was the earl's power and popularity that he accomplished the restoration of Lancaster almost without drawing his sword; and no man suffered death upon the scaffold, with the exception of John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, whose cruelties, exercised in spite of learning and a love of letters that have made his name famous, had exasperated the people to phrensy, and won him the name of "the Butcher." Warwick was not a man, save when on fields of fight, to delight in the shedding of blood ”

“ Her white arms and dimpled wrist, left bare by the elbow-sleeves of her dress, were more beautiful in their shapely grace than Lady Adela's ten-button gloves and diamond bracelets.
"She has had the impertinence to get herself up in full evening dress, the minx!" the earl's daughter muttered, almost audibly; and then she uttered a suppressed exclamation of annoyance, for Lord Lancaster had started for her side, and was making his way rapidly across the room to the door.
"He has left me for her!" was her jealous, angry thought, and a sudden hatred for Leonora entered her heart. ”

“ All the hopes of the house of Lancaster seemed now to be utterly extinguished. Every legitimate prince of that family was dead; almost every great leader of the party had perished in battle or on the scaffold; the Earl of Pembroke, who was levying forces in Wales, disbanded his army when he received intelligence of the battle of Tewkesbury, and he fled into Brittany with his nephew, the young Earl of Richmond. The bastard of Falconberg, who had levied some forces, and had advanced to London during Edward's absence, was repulsed ”

“ Much stress was laid on this document at the trial of the earl of Lancaster: in point of law it was certainly treasonable, yet, regarding it dispassionately, at this distance of time, we may be justified in doubting the treason of its spirit. It provided that the king of Scots and his adherents should aid the earls in the maintenance of their cause ”

“ No one attained success, in the years after Bannockburn,—neither Banaster, nor Llewelyn Bren, nor the Bristol commons nor Edward Bruce and his Irish allies. Before long, the incompetence of Lancaster became as manifest as the incompetence of Edward II. Lancaster's failure led to the dissolution of the baronial opposition into fiercely opposing factions. Personal and territorial jealousies slowly undermined a unity which had always been more apparent than real. The Earl of Pembroke had never forgiven the treachery of Deddington. ”

“ Lancaster showed more energy in upholding his own rights than in maintaining the honour of England. He raised such an overwhelming force that Banaster, unable to hold the field against him, shut himself up in his house. His refuge was stormed and his head brought to Earl Thomas as a trophy of victory. While Banaster was raiding Lancashire and Llewelyn south Wales, the Scots were devastating the country as far south as Furness, and Edward Bruce, King Robert's brother, was conquering Ireland. ”

“ Five confederate lords with Gloucester at their head took up arms against the king’s favourite ministers, and the Wonderful Parliament put to death without remorse almost every agent of his former administration who had not fled the country. Gloucester even contemplated the dethronement of the king, but found that in this matter he could not rely on the support of his associates, one of whom was Henry, earl of Derby, the duke of Lancaster’s son. ”

“ He loves me for my own true worth,
And that is well—'"
Lady Lancaster could have killed her for her brilliant triumph, but she was powerless to do anything but carry out her angry threats, so she retired from the scene and went to her dower house, where she actually adopted a scion of the house of Lancaster and made him the heir to her wealth; but this lad was too young to marry the earl's daughter, so the dowager never had that honor in the family. ”

“ In the spring of 1384 there was an ominous revival of the old charges of treason against John of Gaunt (cf. Cont. Eulogii, p. 369; Hardyng, p. 353) . Richard accepted Lancaster's explanations, in spite of which his youngest uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, earl of Buckingham, threatened him with death if he charged his brother Lancaster with treason. Equally disquieting was the refusal of the commons to take any responsibility for the terms of the proposed peace with France, though they agreed that the country needed peace badly. As the year closed the political atmosphere grew thunderous ”

“ He was an usurper, and his cruelty had incensed the Duke of Buckingham, his favourite, to such a degree, that he contrived his ruin, and offered the crown to Henry Earl of Richmond, the only surviving Prince of the House of Lancaster, then at the court of France, on condition that he would marry Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV. in order to unite the Houses of York and Lancaster -- Richard being informed of the affair, ordered the Duke to be instantly beheaded without a trial. ”

“ The Scots revenged themselves later by ravaging his lands. In December 1384, while he was attending parliament, the Scots, through the treachery of his lieutenant, obtained possession of Berwick Castle, which was in the earl's custody. Lancaster is said to have gladly seized this opportunity of spiting his enemy, and to have procured that the lords should pronounce sentence of forfeiture against him for having thus lost one of the royal castles; but the king remitted him all penalty. He gathered an army and besieged the castle. ”

“ In 1324, two years after Thomas had lost his life for opposing the king, Henry was made earl of Leicester by his cousin, Edward II., but he was not able to secure the titles and estates of Lancaster to which he was heir, and he showed openly that his sympathies were with his dead brother. ”

“ Some fled in terror. When all the faithless had either gone or joined Lancaster, there remained six, who loved their master better than themselves, and followed, voluntary prisoners, outwardly in the train of Henry of Lancaster, but really in that of Richard of Bordeaux.
These six loyal, faithful, honourable men our story follows. They were—Thomas Le Despenser, Earl of Gloucester; John de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury; Thomas de Holand, Duke of Surrey; William Le Scrope, Earl of Wilts; Richard Maudeleyn, chaplain to the King ”

“ When they came to Windsor, and thus were deceived, they fled to a town where the queen lay, fast by Reading, and there, before the queen's household, he blessed him this earl of Kent. "O benedicite," he said, "who may this be that Harry of Lancaster hath taken the Tower at London, and our very King Richard hath broken prison, and hath gathered a hundred thousand fighting men." So gladded he the queen with lies, and rode forth to Wallingford, and from Wallingford to Abing3don, warning all men by the way that they should make them ready to help King Richard. ”

“ A man bearing a nobler name, and gifted with a higher intellect than Tudors, Hollands, or Beauforts, now joined the Lancastrian exiles. It was John De Vere, Earl of Oxford.
At the beginning of the contentions of York and Lancaster, the De Veres naturally took part against the misleaders of the monk-monarch, and as late, at least, as 1455, John, twelfth Earl of Oxford, was a friend of the duke. Oxford, however, was not prepared for a transfer of the crown ”

“ West, significantly.
"It is dreadfully close here in this closet. One can scarcely breathe," said Leonora. "Oh! Lady Lancaster, you said. What has she to do with Lord Lancaster and [Pg 102] the earl's daughter? It seems to me she is a very meddlesome old lady."
"She wants her nephew to marry Lady Adela. Every one knows it. She invited her here just to throw them together and make the match."
"But perhaps he will not marry her just to please his aunt!" spiritedly.
"He will be apt to do just what my lady tells him," said Mrs. West. "If he does not, she will leave her money away from him. ”

“ When Queen Isabella took up arms against her husband in 1326 she was joined at once by the earl, who took a leading part in the proceedings against the king and his favourites, the Despensers, being Edward’s gaoler at Kenilworth castle. ”