Part 25 (1/2)

Edward II. (1307-1327).--_Edward II_., a weak and despicable sovereign, cared for nothing but pleasure.

He was under the influence of the son of a Gascon gentleman, _Peter of Gaveston_, whom, contrary to the injunction of his father, he recalled from banishment. _Gaveston_ was made regent while the king was in France, whither he went, in 1308, to marry _Isabel_, daughter of _Philip the Fair_. After his return, the disgust of the barons at the conduct of _Gaveston_, and at the courses into which _Edward_ was led by him, was such, that in 1310 they forced the king to give the government for a year to a committee of peers, by whom Gaveston was once more banished. When he came back, he was captured by the barons, and beheaded in 1312.

BRUCE: BANNOCKBURN: DEPOSITION OF EDWARD II.--After various successes, _Robert Bruce_ laid siege to _Stirling_ in 1314. This led to a temporary reconciliation between the king and the barons. _Edward_ set out for Scotland with an army of a hundred thousand men. A great battle took place at _Bannockburn_, where _Bruce_, with a greatly inferior force of foot-soldiers, totally defeated the English. He had dug pits in front of his army, which he had covered with turf resting on sticks. The effect was to throw the English cavalry into confusion. Against the _Despencers_, father and son, the next favorites of Edward, the barons were not at first successful; but in 1326 Edward's queen, _Isabel_, who had joined his enemies, returned from France with young _Edward_, Prince of Wales, and at the head of foreign soldiers and exiles. The barons joined her: the _Despencers_ were taken and executed. The king was driven to resign the crown. He was carried from one castle to another, and finally was secretly murdered at Berkeley Castle, by _Roger Mortimer_, in whose custody he had been placed.

On the suppression of the _Knights Templars_ by _Pope Clement V._, their property in England was confiscated. The _Temple_, which was their abode in London, became afterwards the possession of two societies of lawyers, the _Inner_ and _Middle Temple_.

THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR:

PERIOD I. (TO THE PEACE OF BReTIGNY. 1360).

ORIGIN OF THE WAR: EDWARD III. OF ENGLAND (1327-1377).--England and France entered on one of the longest wars of which there is any record in history. It lasted, with only a few short periods of intermission, for a hundred years. At the outset, there were two main causes of strife. _First_, the king of France naturally coveted the English territory around Bordeaux,--_Guienne_, whose people were French. _Secondly_, the English would not allow _Flanders_ --whose manufacturing towns, as Ghent and Bruges, were the best customers for their wool--to pa.s.s under French control. Independently of these grounds of dispute, _Edward III_. laid claim to the French crown, for the reason that his mother was the sister of the last king, while _Philip VI_. (1328-1350), then reigning, was only his cousin. The French stood by the ”Salic law,” but a much stronger feeling was their determination not to be ruled by an Englishman.

_Edward III._ claimed the throne of France in right of his mother, _Isabel_, the daughter of _Philip IV_. The peers and barons of France, on the whole, for political reasons, decided that the crown should be given to _Philip (VI.)_. his nephew, of the house of _Valois_, a younger line of the _Capets_. Edward rendered to him, in 1328, feudal homage for the duchy of _Guienne_, but took the first favorable occasion to re-a.s.sert his claim to the throne. _Robert II._, Count of Artois, was obliged to fly from France on a charge of having poisoned his aunt and her daughters, as a part of his unsuccessful attempt to get possession of the fiefs left to them by his grandsire. He went over to England from _Brussels_, and stirred up the young English king to attack _Philip_ (1334). _David Bruce_, whom _Edward_ sought to drive out of Scotland, received aid from France. Philip ordered _Louis_, Count of Flanders, between whom and the burghers there was no affection, to expel the English from his states. _James Van Arteveld_, a brewer of _Ghent_, convinced the people that it was better to get rid of the count, and ally themselves with the English. _Edward_ even then hesitated about entering into the conflict, but the demands and measures of _Philip_ showed that he was bent on war. The princes in the neighborhood of Flanders, and the emperor _Louis V_., to whom the Pope at _Avignon_ was hostile, declared on the side of _Edward_.

The following tables (in part repeated, in a modified form, from previous tables, and here connected) will ill.u.s.trate the narrative:--

THE HOUSE OF VALOIS.

CHARLES, Count of Valois (_d_. 1325), younger son of PHILIP III, KING OF FRANCE. (See below.) | +--PHILIP VI, 1328-1350.

| +--JOHN the Good, 1350-1364.

| +--CHARLES V the Wise, 1364-1380.

| | | +--CHARLES VI, 1380-1422.

| | | | | +--CHARLES VII, 1422-1461.

| | | | | +--LOUIS XI, 1461-1483.

| | | | | +--CHARLES VIII, 1483-1498.

| | | | | +--Jeanne, | | _m_ | | +--Duke of Orleans, afterwards LOUIS XII, 1498-1515.

| | | | | +--Charles, Duke of Orleans, (d. 1467) | | | | +--Louis, Duke of Orleans (a.s.sa.s.sinated 1407), | founder of the House of _Valois-Orleans_.

| +--Louis, Duke of Anjou, founder | of the second Royal House of Naples.

| +--John, Duke of Berry.

| +--Philip, Duke of Burgundy (_d_. 1404).

PHILIP III, 1270-1285.

| +--PHILIP IV, 1285-1314.

| | | +--Isabel, _m_. Edward II of England | | | | | +--Edward II of England.

| | | | | +--Edward III of England.