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to Philippa of Hainault, whose father, William, count of Holland, supplies a small force to invade England.

The queen lands at Orwell, accompanied by the earl of Kent and Roger Mortimer, and other exiles, Sept. 24. Her troops are commanded by John de Beaumont, brother of the count of Holland.

The queen is joined by many of the barons; the king flees from London, and is pursued into Wales.

Walter Stapeldon, bishop of Exeter and treasurer, is seized and beheaded, Oct. 15; Robert de Baldock, the king's secretary, is thrown into Newgate".

The elder Spenser is taken at Bristol, and hanged, Oct 27. Prince Edward proclaimed "guardian of the realm." The king embarks for Ireland; is driven back by bad weather; is seized at Neath, Nov. 16, and carried prisoner to Kenilworth.

Spenser is captured at the same time; is executed at Hereford, Nov. 24.

A.D. 1327. A parliament meets at Westminster, Jan. 7, when the king is deposed P; the sentence is notified to him at Kenilworth, Jan. 20, and he is placed in the keeping of Henry, earl of Lancaster 9.

• He died there May 28, 1327.

The young prince Edward was immediately proclaimed king in Westminster Hall, "Edward the Third," but he refused to accept the title without his father's consent; the bishops of Hereford and Lincoln, (Adam Orleton and Henry Burghursh,) one of the judges, and several of the barons proceeded to Kenilworth, to obtain this; the royal prisoner simply replied that he was in their power, and submitted to their will. The two prelates must have been particularly obnoxious to him; Orleton had been placed in his see by the pope, after a long contest with the king, and had appeared in arms against him at Boroughbridge; and Burghursh was the nephew of Lord Badlesmere. See p. 371.

Brother of the earl executed in 1322.

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EDWARD, eldest son of Edward II. and Isabella of France, born at Windsor Nov. 13, 1312, succeeded to the throne on the deposition of his father in 1327.

The first few years of the reign thus inauspiciously commenced were passed in a kind of tutelage, all real power being in the hands of Queen Isabella and her paramour, Roger Mortimer. They concluded a peace with Scotland, which acknowledged the independence of that kingdom, put the deposed king to death, and publicly executed his brother, the earl of Kent; but at length Edward made himself independent of them, when Mortimer was hanged, and the queen-mother imprisoned for the remainder of her life.

Soon after this the attack on Scotland was renewed, by Edward Baliol, the son of the former king, which, though at first successful, eventually failed; and a little. later commenced a contest for the crown of France, which forms the great distinguishing feature of Edward's reign. His claim was contrary to the French law, and

was unanimously rejected by the states of France, yet he persisted in it, and thus involved the countries in a war of nearly thirty years' duration. The French were signally defeated at Sluys, Crecy, Poitiers, and elsewhere, their country was ravaged up to the gates of Paris, and their king taken prisoner; their councils were distracted by the rivalry of the princes of the blood, and the peasantry broke out into insurrection; yet they succeeded eventually in foiling their assailant, and when the contest came to an end, by the peace of Bretigny, he accepted, instead of the whole kingdom, the province of Aquitaine, and much of this was lost before his death, in consequence of a new war. In fact, his only gain was Calais.

Beside attacking France, Edward endeavoured to gain possession of Flanders, and his son, Edward the Black Prince, interfered in the affairs of Spain. These ceaseless foreign expeditions obliged the king to have very frequent recourse to his parliaments, and in return for their liberal aid they gained many concessions, by which the power of the crown was limited in several important particulars.

Edward's latter days were embittered by the deaths of his queen and eldest son, and the loss of most of his French acquisitions, and he died at Shene (now Richmond), June 21, 1377; he was buried at Westminster. Edward married Philippa, daughter of William, count

Truces were frequently made, but they were ill observed, especially in the remote provinces of Britanny and Guienne; such was also the case under his successors. French historians, indeed, speak of the whole period, from Edward's claim until the expulsion of the English by Charles VII., as the Hundred Years' War,

of Holland and Hainault, in 1326. She accompanied him on some of his foreign expeditions, at other times defended his realm in his absence, and died much lamented, at Windsor, Aug. 15, 1369. Their children were five sons and five daughters :

1. Edward, usually styled the Black Prince, born at Woodstock, June 15, 1330, became one of the most renowned warriors of his time. He

served at Crecy, and gained the victory of Poitiers; he received as his patrimony the English conquests in the south of France, and ruled as an independent prince. He was unfortunately induced to undertake an expedition into Spain, in favour of Peter the Cruel, but ruined his health there, and so impaired his finances that he was obliged to tax his Gascon subjects too heavily; they resisted, and appealed to the king of France, who soon overran the province, and the prince retired to England, where he died June 8, 1376, leaving by his wife, Joan of Kent, a son, Richard, who became king.

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2. William of Hatfield, born in 1336, died in childhood, and was buried at York.

3. Lionel, born at Antwerp, Nov. 29, 1338, was created duke of Clarence; he was made lieutenant of Ireland, and also aspired to the Scottish crown. He married, first, Elizabeth, the heiress of William de Burgh, earl of Ulster, and had by her a daughter, Philippa, who

b She was the daughter of Edmund, earl of Kent, and had been before married, first to Sir Thomas Holland, and secondly to William, earl of Salisbury. Her two sons, Thomas and John, were greatly favoured by their half-brother Richard II.

married Mortimer, earl of March; and secondly Violante, daughter of Galeasius, duke of Milan, by whom he had no issue. He died in Italy in 1368.

Arms of John of Gaunt.

4. John of Gaunt, born at Ghent, probably in 1340, was created earl of Derby, and duke of Lancaster. He succeeded his brother Edward in the government of Gascony, served also in Spain and Scotland, and took a very prominent part in the conduct of affairs in the reign of his nephew Richard II. He was thrice married; his first wife, Blanche, daughter of the duke of Lancaster, brought him a son, who became king, as Henry IV., and two daughters; his second wife was Constantia, daughter of Peter the Cruel, (in whose right he assumed the title of king of Castile and Leon,) who bore him a daughter, Catherine, who married Henry III. of Castile; his third was Catherine Swinford, by whom he was the father of the Beauforts. He died Feb., 1399, and was buried in St. Paul's, London.

5. Edmund, born in 1341, at Langley, was earl of Cambridge and due of York. He, like his brother John, married a daughter of Peter the Cruel, and had by her two sons, Edward, duke of York, killed at Agincourt, and Richar earl of Cambridge, beheaded; and a daughter, Constance, married to Thomas, earl of Gloucester.

6. Thomas, born at Woodstock, January 7, 1355, became earl of Buckingham, duke of Gloucester, and lord high constable. He was engaged in constant struggles with his nephew, Richard II., and after being victorious on several occasions, was at last suddenly seized, hurried off to Calais, and put to death, in

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