King Edward the Second was not really dead; and thus was betrayed
into writing letters favouring his rightful claim to the throne.
This was made out to be high treason, and he was tried, found
guilty, and sentenced to be executed. They took the poor old lord
outside the town of Winchester, and there kept him waiting some
three or four hours until they could find somebody to cut off his
head. At last, a convict said he would do it, if the government
would pardon him in return; and they gave him the pardon; and at
one blow he put the Earl of Kent out of his last suspense.
While the Queen was in France, she had found a lovely and good
young lady, named Philippa, who she thought would make an excellent
wife for her son. The young King married this lady, soon after he
came to the throne; and her first child, Edward, Prince of Wales,
afterwards became celebrated, as we shall presently see, under the
famous title of EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE.
The young King, thinking the time ripe for the downfall of
Mortimer, took counsel with Lord Montacute how he should proceed.
A Parliament was going to be held at Nottingham, and that lord
recommended that the favourite should be seized by night in
Nottingham Castle, where he was sure to be. Now, this, like many
other things, was more easily said than done; because, to guard
against treachery, the great gates of the Castle were locked every
night, and the great keys were carried up-stairs to the Queen, who
laid them under her own pillow. But the Castle had a governor, and
the governor being Lord Montacute’s friend, confided to him how he
knew of a secret passage underground, hidden from observation by
the weeds and brambles with which it was overgrown; and how,
through that passage, the conspirators might enter in the dead of
the night, and go straight to Mortimer’s room. Accordingly, upon a
certain dark night, at midnight, they made their way through this
dismal place: startling the rats, and frightening the owls and
bats: and came safely to the bottom of the main tower of the
Castle, where the King met them, and took them up a profoundly-dark
staircase in a deep silence. They soon heard the voice of Mortimer
in council with some friends; and bursting into the room with a
sudden noise, took him prisoner. The Queen cried out from her bedchamber,
‘Oh, my sweet son, my dear son, spare my gentle Mortimer!’
They carried him off, however; and, before the next Parliament,
accused him of having made differences between the young King and
his mother, and of having brought about the death of the Earl of
Kent, and even of the late King; for, as you know by this time,
when they wanted to get rid of a man in those old days, they were
not very particular of what they accused him. Mortimer was found
guilty of all this, and was sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn. The
King shut his mother up in genteel confinement, where she passed
the rest of her life; and now he became King in earnest.
The first effort he made was to conquer Scotland. The English
lords who had lands in Scotland, finding that their rights were not
respected under the late peace, made war on their own account:
choosing for their general, Edward, the son of John Baliol, who
made such a vigorous fight, that in less than two months he won the
whole Scottish Kingdom. He was joined, when thus triumphant, by
the King and Parliament; and he and the King in person besieged the
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Scottish forces in Berwick. The whole Scottish army coming to the
assistance of their countrymen, such a furious battle ensued, that
thirty thousand men are said to have been killed in it. Baliol was
then crowned King of Scotland, doing homage to the King of England;
but little came of his successes after all, for the Scottish men
rose against him, within no very long time, and David Bruce came
back within ten years and took his kingdom.