of the Barons. They demanded of Edward the banishment of his favourite. The King tampered with their claims;-and it soon appeared probable that the sword would decide the controversy. The Barons solemnly demanded in Parliament that Gaveston should be expelled the kingdom;-the clergy denounced him excommunicated should he continue in the island. The King at length appointed him Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, assigned the whole revenue of that kingdom for his subsistence, and attended him to the place of his embarkation.

In a very short period Edward, being impatient for the return of his favourite, prevailed upon the Pope to absolve Gaveston, according to the wretched superstitions of those days, from the oath he had taken to leave the kingdom for ever. The sentence of excommunication was also suspended. At the Parliament which followed, the King induced the nobility to consent to Gaveston's recall. But the favourite had not learned prudence. He continued to display the same unbounded arrogance which had provoked the original resentment of the nobility;and he indulged without reserve a talent for ridicule, which of all qualities is the most dangerous to the possessor. The Barons came armed to Parliament;

and having a popular subject of complaint against the King, they succeeded in compelling him to authorise a commission for regulating the affairs of the kingdom. The Monarch proceeded to the Scottish war against Robert Bruce, accompanied by Gaveston, but his enterprises were not eventually successful. Edward returned to England. The commission which he had authorised had formed many salutary, though perhaps extreme and unconstitutional regulations, for the restriction of the royal prerogative. One of the articles particularly insisted upon was the banishment of Gaveston. The King was compelled to yield, and his favourite left the realm, and for some time resided at Bruges, with all the splendour of a sovereign prince. The next year, 1312, he ventured to return to York. The Barons almost

immediately took arms, under pretence of holding tournaments. They suddenly united their forces, and proceeded to attack the King at Newcastle. The unhappy Monarch fled with precipitation;-and Gaveston secured himself in the fortress of Scarborough, then one of the strongest holds in the kingdom. A detachment of the baronial army immediately invested that post. Gaveston stood several assaults with great bravery ;-but, dreading to exasperate his enemies, he at length capitulated to the Earl of Pembroke, on condition of being kept in safe custody, while the Barons should deliberate on the disposal of his person, and if he should not agree to their terms, that he should be placed in the same posture of defence which he resigned. The Barons in authority pledged themselves to this treaty, on pain of forfeiting all their possessions. The Earl of Pembroke proposed to convey his prisoner to his own castle at Wallingford, but left him during one night at Deddington Castle, near Banbury. Guy, Earl of Warwick, the implacable enemy of Gaveston, immediately seized upon his person. He bore him in triumph to Warwick Castle, where the Earls of Lancaster, Hereford, and Arundel repaired to hold a consultation about their prisoner. His fate was speedily decided. He was dragged to Blacklow-hill, about two miles from Warwick Castle, where he was beheaded amidst the scorn and reproach of his implacable and perfidious enemies.

On the top of Blacklow-hill there is a rude stone, on which the name of Gaveston, and the date of his execution, are cut in ancient characters. As we have here sat, looking with delight upon the beautiful prospect which this summit presents, we could not avoid contrasting the peacefulness and the fertility that were spread around, with the wild appearance that the same spot must have presented, at the period of lawless violence which we have described. Beneath our feet the Avon was gliding in tranquillity and loveliness, pursuing its silent course through plenteous fields or by elegant villas-now ornament

ing the mansion of the noble, and now bestowing its beauty upon the cottage of the peasant. When Gaveston fell, it glided amongst sterile cliffs, or through barren plains-for equal laws had not then bestowed upon industry the blessing of security;the labourer worked for a severe task-master, and the possessions of the yeoman were under the control of a tyrannical lord. In the distant prospect we saw the lofty towers of Warwick Castle rising above the woods in ancient magnificence. When Gaveston perished, they were the scenes of many a midnight murder, and many an ignominious torture. Here had been the rude pomp, the fearful counsels, and the tumultuous passions, of the feudal days. The pride, and the devices, and the ambition of those times were now only "to point a moral, or adorn a tale." The towers of antique splendor indeed remained ;but they were associated with the beauties of modern adornment; and the hand of taste had arrested the slow ravages of time, to preserve those memorials of past generations, whose records should teach us how much we have gained in intelligence and in happiness.

A tragedy like that of Gaveston can never occur, where all men are under the equal justice of the laws. As long as those are upheld, neither a noble nor a peasant can perish without trial, by the will of the strongest.

K.

THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT.

It is only within a few years that the title of King of France has been discontinued by the sovereigns of England, and that the fleurs-de-lis have been withdrawn from the armorial bearings of the British crown. It was wise and prudent in our monarchs thus to surrender a vain and empty dignity; and to cease the use of an absurd distinction, which only

provoked those national jealousies, which were sufficiently strong without a reference to ancient enmities. But there was a time when the sovereignty of France was seriously maintained by the Kings of England, on the principle of descent; and when these claims gave rise to some of the most bloody and expensive wars in which the two countries have been engaged. The most remarkable of these contests were those carried on by the heroic Edward III.; and the victories to which they gave rise will ever be famous in the military annals of this country.

From the time of the Conqueror, the English crown possessed certain portions of territory contiguous to the French dominions, and naturally forming a part of the kingdom of France. There were occasional disputes as to the precise rights of each crown; but it was not till the time of Edward III. that any national rivalry was excited. The pretensions of this monarch to the entire sovereignty of France had a remarkable influence on the destinies of the two countries for more than a century; and we may probably be able to trace to this cause the jealous and irritable spirit which has prevailed, even to our own time, between two nations so little separated by distance, and so capable of deriving the greatest mutual advantages from an amicable intercourse.

The origin of the dispute for the sovereignty is sufficiently curious. There was an old law in France, called the Salic Law, by which females were excluded from the crown. Charles the Fair having died in 1328 without male issue, leaving his Queen great with child, a dispute arose concerning the regency of the kingdom during her pregnancy. Edward III., whose mother was sister to Charles the Fair, claimed this important trust, upon the principle that the Salic Law only applied to females themselves, but had no reference to their male descendants. Philip of Valois, on the contrary, maintained that the exelusion by this law applied to the male heirs of royal females, as well as to themselves; and he asserted his own right to the regency, as cousin-german to

C

the late King. The Peers of France decided in favour of Philip; and the Queen being delivered of a daughter, he caused himself to be crowned, in virtue of the same judgment which gave him the regency. Edward for some time dissembled his resolution of laying claim to the crown; but in 1340 he assumed the title of King of France, and quartering the arms with those of England, added the motto which the British monarchs still retain," Dieu et mon Droit,"-God and my right. His declaration was not an empty parade. He embarked a numerous army on board a fleet of 300 ships; he defeated the French navy with immense loss, and landed in Flanders. But on this occasion the dispute was procrastinated by a truce for several years. The en

mity, however, was too deadly to admit of a final arrangement. The English troops again took the field. Edward had in a great degree confided the conduct of the war to his heroic son, the Black Prince. The victories of Cressy and Poitiers were won by that courage which to this day belongs to the British character; and, though the war originated in personal ambition, its results were such as will be ever glorious in our annals.

During the latter part of the reign of Edward the Third, and in the succeeding reigns of Richard the Second and Henry the Fourth, the English conquests in France were gradually lost by neglect and supineness. At the accession of Henry the Fifth, England was happily freed from those rebellions which had furnished abundant occupation for the previous possessors of the throne. The change of situation in which the young King was placed, immediately produced a correspondent change in his conduct; and he appeared most anxious, by his prudence and activity, to obliterate the remembrance of his former levity and dissipation. Religious differences, however, clouded the brilliant prospect of domestic tranquillity; and Henry, with a bold and commanding policy, resolved to avail himself of his dying father's advice, and to engage the turbulent spirits of his

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