heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

DE BOHUN. 213
He seems, however, to have been rather fickle in his allegiance, for
in the succeeding reign (Edward II.) he joined Thomas Earl of Lancaster,
in his insurrection for the redress of certain grievances and the banishment
of the King's favourites.
After the murder of Piers Gaveston a reconciliation was effected
between him and his brother-in-law, Edward II., who sent him from York
to guard the Marches of Scotland. He was with the King
at the battle
of Bannockburn, where he was taken prisoner when flying from the field
after the English army had been routed. He was eventually exchanged
for the wife of Robert Brus, who had been long in captivity in England.
He joined Thomas of Lancaster again, however, and having forced the
King to agree to their demands, published the edict for the banishment
of the Despencers in Westminster Hall. He was ultimately slain at the
battle of Boroughbridge, March i6th, 1322, five years after the death of
his wife, who was buried at the abbey of Walden, in Essex, where many of
the De Bohuns are interred.
In the journal of the Archa3ological Institute
(vol. ii. p. 338) his will is printed, made at Gosforth, near Newcastle, on
his way to Scotland. His body was buried at York.
John, his eldest son, seems to have been early invalided, and died.
He was succeeded by his brother Edward, who was one of those who
accompanied Edward III., his first cousin, when, by the connivance of
Sir William Elland, governor of Nottingham Castle, he was admitted at
midnight through a subterranean passage, long disused and forgotten, to
the apartments inhabited by Queen Isabella and her paramour, Mortimer.
They found him conversing with the Bishop of Lincoln and a number of
his friends ; but, though stout resistance was made by Sir Hugh Turpleton
and Richard Monmouth, he was overpowered and taken away, while the
voice of Isabella was heard from a neighbouring chamber exclaiming,
"Beau fils, beau fils, ayez pitie du gentil Mortimer!" Mortimer was afterwards
hung, either on the elms or under the elms, on the banks of the
Ty-bourn or Tyburn the first execution on that afterwards notorious spot
the gallows being removed here from St. Giles pound, which continued
to be the place of the public execution for 450 years, the last criminal
suffering there being one Ryland, who was hung for forgery, 1783. (Waiford's
Old and New London.)
Edward died without issue. His younger brother, Humphrey, the
sixth earl, was one of the warlike companions of Edward III., and he
assisted at the celebrated feasts and jousts which the King held in London
in honour of Elizabeth Montacute, Countess of Salisbury, daughter and
co-heir of Lord Mohun of Dunster, with whom the King was much smitten,
and when, under circumstances which I need not repeat,
" the order of the
" Garter was established ;
" and Camden says of this old story,
" Haec vulgus
" perhibet, nee vilis sane haec videatur origo, cum nobilitas sub amore jacet."
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