Edward of Lancaster

“ It was different with Edward. The party amongst his nobles who opposed him formed not a casual conspiracy but a chronic rebellion. Headed at first by Lancaster, and after his death by the queen mother and Mortimer, it made his whole reign a period of dissension which would have weakened a more powerful monarch, and told largely in favour of Scotland and Bruce. In December 1321 Lancaster entered into a correspondence with the Scotch leader Douglas, who invaded Northumberland and Durham simultaneously with the rising of Lancaster ”

“ Having conducted some military operations against Lancaster’s friends on the Welsh marches, Edward led his troops against the earl, who gradually fell back from Burton-on-Trent to Pontefract. Continuing this movement, Lancaster reached Boroughbridge, where he was met by another body of royalists under Sir Andrew Harclay. After a skirmish he was deserted by his troops, and was obliged to surrender. Taken to his own castle at Pontefract, where the king was, he was condemned to death as a rebel and a traitor, and was beheaded near the town on the 22nd of March 1322. He left no children. ”

“ Yet if Lancaster had any political ideal at all, it was the revival of Simon de Montfort's abortive scheme for government by a council of magnates with himself, in the place of Simon, as the chief and most powerful member. The only thing in which he was consistent was the unrelenting hatred with which he pursued those who offended him. Popular idealism, however, made him into a saint and a martyr. All the misfortunes which befell the country were laid at Edward's door, though Thomas's futile policy was quite as much to blame for them. ”

“ Lancaster, whose romantic admiration for his antagonist had not been in the least diminished by Sir Nigel's bearing in captivity and the lofty tone of the young knight's society and conversation, which he frequently courted, absolutely made him shrink from heading the force which was to conduct him a prisoner to England, for he well knew those very qualities, calling forth every spark of chivalry in his own bosom, would be only so many incitements to Edward for his instant execution. ”

“ Though to all outward show fair and glistening, yet was there a heavy gloom brooding over the nation. Prince Edward, the flower of chivalry, usually called the Black Prince, from the colour of his armour, lay then grievously sick, and the whole hope and welfare of the land seemed to hang on his recovery. The known ambition of John of Gaunt was a main source of alarm and anxiety. "Edward had, however," says the historian, "declared his grandson heir and successor to the crown, and thereby cut off all the hopes of the Duke of Lancaster, if he ever had the temerity to entertain any." ”

“ Meanwhile, on the 6th of October, Warwick entered London in triumph; and, going directly to the Tower, the great earl released Henry of Windsor, proclaimed him king, and escorted him from a prison to a palace. After this the king-maker called a Parliament, which branded Edward as a usurper, attainted his adherents as traitors, restored to the Lancastrians their titles and estates, and passed an act entailing the crown on Edward of Lancaster, and, failing that hopeful prince, on George, Duke of Clarence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This flagrant violation of his word set all England against the King. The old Archbishop Winchelsea of Canterbury, as in the last reign, became a centre of revolution; he excommunicated Gaveston, while the Barons, at the head of whom were now the Earls of Lancaster and Hereford, proceeded to take active measures. This Lancaster was the eldest son of Edmund, brother of Edward I. His power in England was enormous; he was Earl of five counties. From his father he had received Lancaster and the confiscated estates of De Montfort and Ferrers, the Earldoms namely of Leicester and Derby ”

“ When, in 1316, Lancaster mustered his forces at Newcastle against the Scots, Edward repaid him for his inaction in 1314 by declining to accompany him over the border. "Thereupon," wrote the border annalist, [1] "the earl at once went back; for neither trusted the other." Edward, who forgot and forgave nothing, secretly negotiated with the pope for absolution from his oath to the ordinances. He gradually built up a court party, and soon restored Hugh Despenser to his position in the household. As might be expected in such circumstances no effective resistance was made to the Scots. ”

“ In spite of a prohibition issued by Edward on 7 Feb., he and others of the barons attended the parliament which met in March 1310 in arms, and by threats of withdrawing their allegiance forced the king to consent to the appointment of twenty-eight ‘ordainers,’ by whom his own authority was to be superseded until Michaelmas 1311, and who were to make ordinances for the redress of grievances and the good government of the kingdom. Lancaster was one of the six co-opted earls on this commission, his father-in-law, Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln and Salisbury, being one of the two co-opting earls. ”

“ For some days they rested at the cottage, tended with endless care by the loyal robber and his wife, until the pursuit from the battle of Hexham was over. Then, with the aid of her protector, the queen made her way to the coast, where a vessel waited to convey her and the prince to Flanders. Thus, for a time they escaped from all their dangers. Had the young prince lived to become King of England, we may be sure that the kind act of the robber would not have been suffered to die unrewarded. But, alas! Edward of Lancaster was never King of England. ”

“ Hist. ii. 426) . A petition was also presented that the king would find a remedy for papal provisions, by which the pope obtained the first-fruits of ecclesiastical dignities and money was drawn away from the realm. To this it was answered that he had already sent ambassadors to the Roman court. On 8 Aug. of this year Edward gave all the jewels and other goods of his late queen to Alice Perrers (Fœdera, iii. 989) . Lancaster returned to England in April 1374, and Aquitaine, with the exception of Bordeaux and Bayonne, turned to the French king (Cont. Murimuth, p. 215) . ”

“ 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. ”

“ A like story was invented, and even a ballad was current, making Queen Eleanor of Provence confess that Edmund Crouchback, not Edward I., was the rightful heir, but that he was set aside on account of his deformity; and Lancaster, as Edmund’s son, was on the watch to profit by the King’s unpopularity. Discontents were on the increase, and were augmented by a severe famine, and by the constant incursions of the Scots. ”

“ When Edward determined after Easter 1360 to leave the neighbourhood of Paris and lead his army into the Loire country, he appointed Lancaster and two others to command the first division. At Chartres the duke persuaded him to listen favourably to the French proposals for peace, and took the leading part in arranging the treaty of Bretigni, which was concluded in his presence on 8 May. At the feast which followed he and the king's sons and other lords served the kings of England and France bareheaded. On 8 July he joined the Prince of Wales in conducting the French king to Calais ”

“ At a baronial parliament at Stamford on 27 July Edward courted popular favour by accepting the articles of 1309, while Gloucester succeeded in persuading the magnates to a formal reconciliation with Gaveston, and even to his restoration to the earldom of Cornwall But the favourite's behaviour was as insolent as ever. Lancaster soon raised the standard of opposition. Along with the Earls of Lincoln, Warwick, Oxford, and Arundel, he refused to attend a council summoned at York for October (Hemingburgh, ii. 275) . Edward, as usual, sought by postponing its session to escape from his difficulties. ”

“ His continued hostility to the court is also shown by his being one of the permanent council nominated in 1318 to keep Edward II in check as the result of Lancaster's triumph. He was, however, constantly acting against the Scots, and seems to have shown some activity in enrolling foot soldiers from his Welsh estates. ”

“ The impressive approach to Lancaster Castle is by way of John o’ Gaunt’s gateway, one of the many works added by that historic personage, Shakespeare’s “time-honoured Lancaster,” when his father, Edward the Third, created him Duke of Lancaster and raised Lancashire in consequence to the condition of County Palatine. The “time-honoured” one himself stands in effigy in a niche over the door-way. One would like to think the statue contemporary with him, but the guide-books, from which no derogatory secrets are hid, tell the disappointing tale that it dates only from 1822. ”

“ But the treachery of the barons, the seizure of Gaveston by Warwick, and his murder on Blacklow Hill (19 June) showed that all the bad faith was not on Edward's side. Edward was powerless to do more than pay the last honours to his dead friend. The body found a last resting-place at Langley, where a house of black friars was established by Edward to pray for the deceased favourite's soul (Knighton, c. 2533) . The Earls of Pembroke and Warenne never forgave Lancaster. ”

“ Since Edward had put himself in the hands of Pembroke and Badlesmere he had enjoyed comparative security and dignity. Only when great enterprises were attempted was Lancaster still in a position to break up the government of the country. But Edward loved neither Pembroke nor his allies, and had now found in the younger Hugh le Despenser [q. v.] a congenial successor to Gaveston. The increasing favour shown by Edward to father and son, the revival of the old court following under their leadership, and the extensive grants lavished on them by the king, made them both hated and feared. ”

“ But the magnates, in no mood to run risks, insisted on an immediate return to England. Before Edward had reached Yorkshire, Douglas had made his way home over Stainmoor and Gilsland. Thereupon the king sent back his troops, each man to his own house. The magnificent army had accomplished nothing at all. So inglorious a termination of the campaign naturally gave rise to suspicions of treason. A story was spread abroad that Lancaster had received £4,000 from the King of Scots and had consequently done his best to help his ally. ”

“ Clifford and Mowbray were hanged at York, and Badlesmere at Canterbury. In all, more than twenty knights and barons paid the penalty of death.
It is hard to waste much pity on Lancaster. He was the victim of his own fierce passions and, still more, of his own utter incompetence. His attitude all through the crisis had been inept in the extreme, and the poor fight that he made for 287his life at Boroughbridge was a fitting conclusion to a feeble career. But with all his faults he remained popular to the end, especially with the clergy and commons. ”

“ This salutation being over, Henry Wilson addressed himself again to the grandfather, and said—I felicitate you, honoured sir, upon this noble scyon to your ancient stock. Look, if he does not over-top us all! Edward and I are hardly fit to stand in the same file with him: we are but summer soldiers: He may let the tempest blow, and bid defiance to it.
I hope so, old De Lancaster replied, for he may chance to hear the tempest blow where he is going. John and your brother Edward are for Lisbon.
For Lisbon! cried the major; that is lucky: for Lisbon is my very destination. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even in the first flush of victory, Isabella and Mortimer were too insecure and too bitter to allow Edward of Carnarvon to remain quietly in prison under the custody of the Earl of Lancaster. As long as he was alive, he might always become the possible instrument of their degradation. At Orleton's instigation the deposed king was transferred in April from his cousin's care to that of two knights, Thomas Gurney and John Maltravers. He was promptly removed from Kenilworth and hurried by night from castle to castle until, after some sojourn at Corfe, he was at last immured at Berkeley. ”

“ Henry of Lancaster was esteemed throughout Western Europe as a perfect knight; he was brave, courteous, charitable, just, and at once magnificent and personally temperate in his habits. He had a thorough knowledge of public affairs, was a wise counsellor, and was loved and trusted by Edward III beyond any other of his lords. ”