hundred and eighty knights with their military tenants, and were lodged in the castle. The recent estrangement in the conduct of Edward had rendered his mother suspicious that he harboured some secret design: she remained secluded from the public view, and even caused the keys of the castle to be brought to her every evening, and at night she laid them under her pillow. On the opening of parliament, Mortimer could not fail to perceive that his authority in that assembly had lost much of its customary respect. The young king did not arrive until the third day after the meeting of parliament, when he entered the town privately, with a very small retinue. On the evening of the 20th of October he sent for the high sheriff of the counties of Nottingham and Derby, to whom he gave his precept, in which were recited the charges to be preferred against the earl of March, before the parliament then sitting, and in which the sheriff was commanded, in the name of the king, to issue his warrant for the apprehension of the said earl. The execution of this warrant was confided to Sir William Montacute and the confederates, who, accompanied by Edward himself, entered the castle at midnight by means of a subterraneous passage, with which Sir William Eland, who had some time been the governor, was well acquainted. This passage is an excavation of the rock on which the castle is built, and within it there is an ascent by means of steep steps to the keep it still retains the appellation of Mortimer's hole. The confederates proceeded from the keep to the anti-room of the queen's bed chamber, where they found Mortimer already aroused, and surrounded by some of his most confidential knights. A severe conflict of some duration ensued, in which Sir William Montacute slew Sir Hugh de Turplington, steward of the queen's household and Sir Richard de Monmouth. Mortimer then, with the bishop of Lincoln, the queen's almoner, who remained at his side, retreated into the chamber of Isabella, where Mortimer was seized by the young king himself and two or three of the confederates, and dragged away, in spite of the exclamations of the queen, who cried out to her son, 'Bel fils, bel fils, ayez pitié du gentil Mortimer !”—"Sweet son, sweet son, have pity on the gentle Mortimer !"

The earl of March was carried out of the castle, through the subterranean passage, and immediately conducted, under a strong guard, to the tower of London. The king having now assumed the whole authority of his station, and knowing that in the parliament there were many of the adherents of Mortimer, he dissolved that assembly and appointed another to meet on the 25th of the next month at Westminster. In the meantime he caused many to be seized who had been subservient to the ambitious views of the earl of March, and among these his two sons, who were also sent guarded to London. On the 23rd of October royal precepts were issued, commanding the seizure of all Mortimer's castles and manors, and three days afterwards a commission was granted to John de Kingston and others to take an inventory of all his treasure and jewels in Wales and the Marches; but the commissioners were particularly ordered to respect the wardrobe of Joan, the countess of March, and that of her daughters and servants, at her residence in Ludlow castle.

Edward, on the opening of the parliament he had summoned, addressed the members, and declared to them that he could no longer bear to see the country dishonoured and oppressed under the government of his mother and her favourite, who had at once oppressed the people and injured the interests of the crown: he had therefore, for the preservation of the state, anticipated the term prescribed by the law for the termination of his minority, and he looked to parliament for the confirmation of that authority, which he had by circumstances been compelled to Such confirmation was gladly voted, and on this the king hesitated no longer to resume all the grants of crown lands that had been made by the favourite, during his minority, together with the exorbitant dower of the queen, whom he confined at Castle Rising in Norfolk for the remainder of her life.

assume.

The impeachment of Mortimer was immediately brought before the parliament: it consisted of several articles, in which he was charged with the deaths of Edward II. and the earl of Kent; with criminal intercourse with the queen mother, and with receiving a bribe of twenty thousand pounds from Scotland. His condemnation on each of these articles was voted with very little hesitation, and his sentence to be drawn and hanged directly followed. No evidence appears to

have been heard, the notoriety of these crimes being considered sufficient to warrant the judgment of this parliamentary tribunal, and on the 29th of November he was drawn upon hurdles, from the tower, to the common place of execution, at the Elms, near Smithfield. His body, after hanging naked on a gallows two days and two nights, was granted to the Grey Friars, who buried it in their church on the south side of Smithfield.

Roger Mortimer, earl of March, was at the time of his death about forty-four years of age (queen Isabella was not much younger) and was the father of eleven children, by his wife, Joan de Gennville. His father dying in his minority, he was given in ward, by Edward I. to his favourite, Piers de Gaveston. While yet a youth, in order to emancipate himself from this guardianship, he paid Gaveston the sum of two thousand five hundred marks, in order that he might be declared of age and be put into possession of his estates. His conduct both in Ireland and Wales, where he held large domains, was extremely turbulent, and he was continually engaged in petty warfare with the neighbouring barons. When through the favour of the queen he rose to the enjoyment of uncontrolled power, his extravagant magnificence exceeded any thing that had been previously witnessed in the realm, and his pride was often so imprudently manifested, that his own son Geoffrey called him the King of Folly.

Edward was now at liberty to carry into action the designs he had nurtured with respect to Scotland and France; but he was hardly prepared with sufficient money or troops to attempt a war of invasion with either of these powers. There were, as we have before observed, several English barons, who, during the sway of his grandfather, had been put into possession of large territories in Scotland, and had espoused Scottish heiresses to titles and domains. These barons were eager for a renewal of war with that kingdom, which, if successful, would put them again in possession of their honours and estates. Among these was Henry lord Beaumont, who had long resided in France to avoid the consequences of the enmity of Mortimer. In that country, Beaumont became acquainted with Edward Baliol, the son of that Baliol whom Edward I. had for some time placed on the Scottish throne, and persuaded him that if he would lay claim to the crown of Scotland, the English barons would aid him, and that he need not doubt of the enterprize being countenanced by the young English sovereign. Some historians assert that Beaumont had the authority of Edward to encourage Baliol with these expectations. However that may be, it is certain that Baliol ventured to come to England and was in constant communication with the barons who had an interest in the undertaking.

The barons concerned in this business, who were in any way connected with this county, were principally, Henry lord Beaumont and Thomas de Wake, lord of Chesterfield. The latter was the brother of Margaret, widow of Edmund, earl of Kent, who perished on the scaffold during the administration of Mortimer, to whose government he was in constant opposition. His father had been employed by Edward the First, in the Scottish wars, and had acquired extensive claims upon the territory of that kingdom. When the nobility of the realm forsook the king, who had forsaken them through his attachment to his despicable favourites, De Wake joined the army of Isabella and Mortimer; but no sooner did he perceive that personal avarice and ambition were as manifest in the favourite of the queen as they had characterised the conduct of the favourites of her unfortunate husband, than he absented himself from their councils and refused to attend the parliament summoned by them at Salisbury in the year 1328. On account of his connexion with the earl of Kent, he very nearly shared his fate, but Mortimer contented himself with seizing his lands and driving him into exile. On the seizure and execution of Mortimer, his estates were restored to him, and he obtained letters from Edward to the king of Scotland, urging the restitution of the territories in that country, of which he had been deprived. Edward had given similar letters to other English barons who were claimants of Scottish estates, and this fact has been adduced as a proof that the young English sovereign encouraged the preparations of the barons for the invasion of Scotland.

Of these barons, Henry de Beaumont was the most active. He engaged them to join with him in a petition to Edward, whom they styled the lord paramount of that realm, to issue his commands to the earl of Murray, then regent of Scotland during the minority of David, for the

restoration of their honours and estates. In this petition, De Beaumont styled himself the earl of Buchan. Edward received their petition with courtesy, but he returned them no public answer: to several of them, however, he gave letters, recommending the consideration of their claims to the regent. He seemed so far to discourage their enterprise, that he made a proclamation forbidding his subjects from joining in any expedition which might tend to disturb the peace happily existing between the two realms. It was, however, remarked, that this proclamation was not issued until the day after the expedition had sailed.

The small fleet that had been got together chiefly by the activity of De Beaumont, lay at anchor at Ravenspurg, and in the beginning of March, 1331, received Edward Baliol, the claimant of the Scottish crown, with the English barons and their military retainers. They shortly landed at Kingshorn, near Perth, and when the army was drawn up upon the shore, it was found to consist of less than two thousand five hundred men. In order to show the troops that they had nothing to trust to but their own valour, De Beaumont advised that the ships should be sent back to England, and in a very short space of time, this handful of men gained four important victories over armies four and five times their number, who were sent to oppose their progress. On the 27th of September, Edward Baliol was crowned at Scone, and immediately proffered his homage to the English sovereign for the Scottish crown.

There can be little doubt that these transactions were pleasing to the young king of England, but he was not yet prepared to avow himself the patron of this rapid conquest. On the representation of the Scottish ambassadors at his court, the estates of the English barons concerned in this enterprise were seized, and particularly those held by Henry de Beaumont in the counties of Derby, Leicester, Nottingham and Warwick. A negociation was at the same time commenced, in which the Scottish ambassadors agreed that Henry, earl of Buchan, Thomas lord Wake and others, should have restitution of their Scottish estates; and acknowledgments being made by these barons to the king that they had engaged in this expedition without his leave, for which they craved his pardon, their English possessions were also restored to them. It is plain that in these transactions Edward was endeavouring to keep up appearances, while his real design was to profit in due time by the success of Baliol and by the civil dissensions which that success would necessarily create. Young as he was, he was cool enough to repress his natural ardour, in order the more effectually to secure the object of his ambition. He pretended to the parliament that the discontents in Ireland were the principal subjects of his disquietude, and he demanded the means of conveying an army into that island; but the army, when raised, was ordered to march towards the confines of Scotland. In enumerating those knights and barons connected with Derbyshire, who attended Edward in these Scottish wars, we shall be called upon to mention the descendants of those whom we have spoken of in our preceding pages.

John de Segrave was the son of Stephen de Segrave, the governor of the tower of London when Mortimer escaped from that fortress. He was a mere boy when he accompanied his father to Gascony, and was scarcely of age at the period of which we are writing. So greatly was he distinguished by his prowess and military talents, that Edward bestowed upon him the hand of his cousin, the princess Margaret, eldest daughter of Thomas de Brotherton, earl of Norfolk and marshal of England.

Nicholas de Cantilupe was lord of the manor of Ilkeston in Derbyshire: he had been much employed in the wars, which, during the last reign, had been carried on in Scotland with much loss and disgrace, and was esteemed an intrepid warrior. By king Edward III. he was highly estimated, and during this Scottish expedition, he was entrusted with the government of the fortress of Berwick upon Tweed. We shall find frequent mention of him during the reign of this heroic sovereign. His descent was from the second branch of the Cantilupes.

John de Bardolph, whose father and grandfather, as we have already stated, were employed under Edward I. in the Scottish wars, was about eighteen years old when he was summoned to attend the king to the borders of Scotland. He obtained the favour of his sovereign, and was subsequently employed in Germany and Brittany.

Richard de Grey of Codnor had been engaged in all the unfortunate wars, both in Scotland

and Gascony, during the last reign. On being summoned to attend Edward III. he pleaded his age and infirmities; and his eldest son, John de Grey, then nearly thirty years old, accompanied the king, and behaved himself so bravely, that in acknowledgment of his merit, he had a remission of all dues to the king's exchequer. His father died while he was in Scotland. He was afterwards entrusted with important missions in Flanders, and, "being so active a person," says Dugdale, “had such great esteem with the king, that, about that time, he received, at his hands, a hood of white cloth, embroidered with blue men dancing, buttoned before with great pearls. And, being to perform divers military exercises, in a tournament at Canterbury, had certain accoutrements of Indian silk, whereon the arms of Sir Stephen Cosyngton, knt. were painted, bestowed upon him by the king." We may add, that in the year 1353, when an invasion from France was apprehended, this John de Grey of Codnor was joined in commission with William lord d'Eincourt, to array all the knights, esquires and other able persons residing in the counties of Derby and Nottingham, and to conduct them to such places as should be needful for the defence of the realm. He was also employed in the wars of France, chiefly in the retinue of Henry, duke of Lancaster, and in the year 1360, he was constituted governor of the town and castle of Rochester for life. Three years afterwards he obtained the royal license to go on pilgrimage, and in his sixty-sixth year he received a special dispensation from all summons to attend the court or parliament, and an exemption from levies for soldiers.

Henry de Grey, of Wilton, then in possession of the manors of Stretton and Shirland in this county, had summons to attend the king. He had previously been employed in Gascony, and, in consequence of his services, a debt of £152. due from him to the exchequer was remitted. He died early in the expedition of Edward against France, to which he was assessed to furnish twenty men at arms and twenty archers.

Thomas le Blond (or, as it is generally written, Blount) and William le Blond were in the Scottish wars of Edward III. They possessed numerous manors in the counties of Derby, Stafford, Leicester and Rutland. One of the ancestors of the Blounts, or Blonds, was William, who was slain at the battle of Lewes, fighting on the part of the barons. In him the elder branch became extinct, and the estates, which were chiefly in Lincolnshire and Suffolk, fell to the husbands of his two sisters. The younger branches of the Blounts rose gradually into dignities and wealth. The Thomas abovementioned, came into possession of extensive estates in this and the neighbouring counties, by his marriage with Juliana, the daughter of Thomas de Leyburne and widow of John lord Bergavenny: he was steward of the household to Edward II. but on the flight of his unhappy sovereign to Wales he joined the party of the queen and Mortimer, and was in parliament among the barons by whose vote the king was deposed.

Henry Fitz Hugh was of a line of distinguished warriors who had taken no regular surname until this period, each son contenting himself with prefixing the word Fitz to the name of his father: the descendants of this Henry, who was employed in all the Scottish wars of the last feeble reign, and had been summoned to parliament as a baron, retained the name of Fitz Hugh, and became a wealthy and powerful family, possessing in this county the manor of Beighton, with large territories in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. This noble baron attended Edward III. on this occasion.

William d'Eincourt was lord of the manors of Holmesfield, Elmton and Cresswell in this county. Being young at this period, he served in the retinue of Eubulo l'Estrange in this Scottish expedition. He was afterwards employed beyond sea, and having been appointed commissary to the army, he returned to England for stores, when he obtained license to transport thirty-three sacks of his own wool towards the payment of the charges of his expedition. He was constantly in the wars of this reign, and was joined in commission with lord Grey of Codnor to raise troops in the counties of Derby and Nottingham.

The family of D'Arcy was held in high favour by this great military monarch, and on this occasion John d'Arcy, then a youth, attended the king to Scotland, while his father was employed in Ireland, of which country he was governor and justiciary.

Henry, styled earl of Derby during the life of his father, Henry, earl of Lancaster, attended the king in these Scottish wars and subsequently signalized himself in France.

The success of Baliol, as we have already remarked, had been surprising. The young king David of Scotland had been obliged to take refuge in France, with his queen, the sister of the king of England. Edward was not slow in taking advantage of these favourable circumstances. He marched against Berwick, and the governor, Sir William Keith, finding all means of defence, unless he could depend upon re-enforcements and supplies of provisions, to be hopeless, capitulated for the surrender of the town on a certain day, should he not be relieved by the regent, earl Murray, in the interval. Edward awaited the Scottish army at Halidon hill, and there, after a sanguinary engagement, the Scots were entirely defeated. The surrender of Berwick followed; and Edward having left with Baliol a body of troops to ensure the subjugation of the rest of the kingdom, and having garrisoned the castle of Edinburgh and most of the southern fortresses with his own soldiers, returned to England.

Edward soon found, as his warlike grandfather had so often experienced, that the Scots were not subdued however they might be defeated. Shortly after his departure, the lords Douglas and Marr headed a large body of insurgents and drove Baliol from his throne, and Edward again entered Scotland with similar success, but his conquest was never secure; a third and a fourth time did he try the dreadful experiment of subjugating a brave and independent people by the sword, and would have pursued still further this cruel course of policy, had not a greater object given a new direction to his ambition. This object was the crown of France, to which he had long secretly aspired, and of which the circumstances of the French court seemed to favour the acquirement. Robert d'Artois, having been denied his claim to the earldom of that province, which Philip seized in the presumed right of his queen, who was cousin to Robert, came over to Edward and urged him to enforce his claims to the French crown. In the train of Robert d'Artois there came over to this country the famous James d'Arteville, a brewer of Ghent, who was so popular in the free towns of Flanders that he was able to draw them all to the English interest. Edward having strengthened his cause by alliances with the emperor and other potentates, commenced his enterprise by sending a body of troops over to Flanders; and some time afterwards followed in person with a fleet of five hundred sail. Various negociations and other important circumstances protracted his stay in Brabant, and it was not until the September of the ensuing year (1339) that he invaded the province of Cambray. This first campaign terminated without any general engagement, although the armies of Edward and of his rival Philip were encamped for some weeks at no great distance from each other, on the borders of Picardy.

The second campaign was likewise undistinguished by incidents favourable to the ambitious views of the English sovereign. The preparations had been great, and in the month of June, 1340, Edward embarked at the mouth of the Orwell in Suffolk. Having received intelligence from Sir John de Chandos, who had sailed before him, that the French fleet, consisting of four hundred vessels, was in readiness to intercept him in his passage, he prepared to engage the enemy, notwithstanding their manifest superiority. This naval battle is one of the most glorious on record. Edward gave astonishing proofs of his bravery and prudence. The vessels grappled with each other, and the men fought furiously, hand to hand, from eight in the morning until seven at night. At length, on the approach of night, the French, in a state of desperation, leapt into the sea, unable any longer to stand the encounter with their assailants animated by the sence of the king. Of the whole French fleet, only thirty escaped. The courtiers of Philip dared not to communicate this misfortune to him, and, it is said, that the melancholy message was entrusted to the court buffoon, who, in the king's presence cried out several times, "Oh those cowardly, faint-hearted Englishmen !" Philip demanded why he called them faint-hearted, "Why," replied the buffoon, "they dared not leap out of their ships into the sea, as our brave Frenchmen did."

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Having landed in Flanders, Edward laid siege to Tournay; but as the town held out several weeks, and the besieging army was annoyed by the forces under Philip, which, without coming to a general engagement, had encamped at a short distance and intercepted the foraging parties