heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

338 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
"to sacrifice at last to his passion
all the sentiments of honour and
"fidelity to her husband. Hating now the man whom she had injured
" and whom she had never loved, she entered ardently into all Mortimer's
" conspiracies, and having got the young Prince of Wales into her hands,"*
she engaged her brother in the same criminal purpose, viz., the ruin of
the King and the Despencers lived in declared intimacy with Mortimer ; ;
and when Edward, informed of these alarming circumstances, required her
immediately to return, defiantly answered that she would never set foot in
the kingdom till the Despencers were for ever removed from his presence
and his councils. This spirited declaration at once secured her popularity
with the English people, and stimulated many traitorous conspiracies
against him. The King's half-brother, the Earl of Kent, joined her. The
Earl of Norfolk, the Earl of Leicester, and even Walter de Reynel, Archbishop
of Canterbury, and many of the prelates expressed their approbation
of the Queen's measures. Having affianced the young Edward to Philippa,
daughter of the Count of Hainault, and thus secured his assistance, she
landed with Mortimer on the coast of Suffolk. Edward II. fled to the
west. The virtuous and loyal Bishop of Exeter was at once seized and
beheaded. The garrison of Bristol mutinied, and delivered up
the elder
Despencer (lately created Earl of Winchester) to the foreign forces of John
de Hainault. The venerable noble, now nearly ninety years of age, was
instantly hanged on a gibbet, and his son soon after captured and beheaded
;
the Earl of Arundel put to death ;
and Baldock, the chancellor
(a priest) expired under the cruel usage he received at Newgate. Edward,
as I have already mentioned, was eventually taken as he endeavoured to
conceal himself amongst the mountains of Wales, and ruthlessly murdered.
The Queen and Mortimer were now triumphant.
Mortimer caused himself to be advanced to the title of Earl of
March ; extorted from Edward innumerable grants of manors, castles, and
lands, to gratify his insatiable greed t insisted on receiving the same
;
reverence as the King, claiming equal precedence. The next year, 1328,
at a Parliament held at Northampton under the auspices of Isabel and
Mortimer, a treaty of peace was concluded with David Bruce, by which it
was agreed that the Princess Joanna should marry his son David, that all
claims to allegiance from the Scotch should be given up, all lands granted
to Englishmen in Scotland surrendered, and all charters, &c., seized by
Edward I. restored, including the " Ragman Roll," i.e. the acknowledgment
of English supremacy signed by the late candidates for the Crown, the
"
Scottish Regalia, the black rood," supposed to be a piece of the true
Cross, and the stone from Scone. Neither Edward nor the Earls of Kent
and Lancaster would attend the wedding, which took place at Berwick.
* Hume's History of England. t Dugdale.