CHAPTER X. DRAYTON'S "BARONS' WARS." MICHAEL DRAYTON, born in Warwickshire, of about Daniel's age and not more than a couple of years older than Shakespeare, published in 1596 his "Mortimeriados: the Lamentable Civell Warres of Edward the Second and the Barrons." This was the first edition of the work, republished with much alteration as "The Barons' Wars" in 1603. There are six cantos, and it is written in octave rhyme. Drayton says, in an introduction to the reader, that he began the poem in the seven-lined Chaucer stanza, but finding that "the often harmonie thereof softened the verse more than the majesty of the subject would permit," he recast what he had so written. the First Canto opens: THE ARGUMENT. Thus The grievous plagues, and the prodigious signs, III. The inveterate malice in their bosoms bred, Who for their charter waged a former war, Their angry sires in them that venom fed, As their true heirs of many a wide-mouthed scar: Or was 't the blood they had in conquest shed, Having enlarged their countries' bounds so far, That did themselves against themselves oppose, With blades of Bilbo changing English blows? IV. O Thou, the wise director of my muse, Upon whose bounty all my powers depend, Into my breast Thy sacred'st fire infuse; Ravish my spirit this great work to attend : Let the still night my laboured lines peruse, That when my poems gain their wished end, Such whose sad eyes shall read this tragic story In my weak hand may see Thy might and glory. What Care planted, Dissension strove to crop. The Church took the sword instead of opposing to bloodthirsty war the Word of God. When War rose from hell there were signs in the heavens and plagues upon earth. Edward II. was compelled (A.D. 1308) to banish his favourite Piers Gaveston, son of a Gascon knight, after he had married him to his niece, the sister of the Earl of Gloucester. But Edward made Gaveston, when banished, his lordlieutenant in Ireland, and obtained his recall. In 1311 the Barons again forced the king to banish Gaveston, but Edward removed to York, called Gaveston back from Flanders, and again lavished favours upon him. The Earl of Lancaster, Guy, Earl of Warwick, Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, and others, at once banded against the favourite. Earl of Lancaster led troops to York, and followed the king and Gaveston to Newcastle. When Edward fled thence to Scarborough, and left Gaveston in the castle there, which he was unable to hold against his enemies, Gaveston was taken to Warwick after his The capitulation and there summarily executed. The Scots, then gathered under Robert Bruce, were opposed by a large force of the English, who were united again after Gaveston's death; but Bruce, on the 25th of June, 1314, defeated the English force at Bannockburn. The king's next favourite was Hugh le Despenser, or Hugh Spenser, the handsome son of an old noble who did not want ability. The Barons, with the Duke of Lancaster foremost among them, entered London and procured from Parliament a sentence of perpetual exile against the Spensers. Edward then attacked his enemies. The Duke of Lancaster was defeated and taken at Boroughbridge, and beheaded near his own castle of Pomfret in 1322. Edward's queen, Isabella, sister to the King EDWARD II. (From the "Mirror for Magistrates," ed. 1610.) of France, went to Paris for the professed purpose of arranging with her brother, Charles the Fair, some difficulties touching the English government in Guienne. She proposed that her son Prince Edward (afterwards Edward III.), who was then thirteen years old, should be sent to rule in Guienne, and visit Paris to do homage to his lord. Queen Isabella shared the hatred of the Barons for the Spensers; and among those with whom she now shared counsels was young Roger Mortimer, a baron from the Welsh Marches, who became her intimate companion. This is Drayton's hero. XIX. In all that heat, then gloriously began The serious subject of my solid vein, Brave Mortimer, that somewhat more than man, For whom invention, doing all it can, XX. Whose uncle then (whose name his nephew bare) The only comfort of the woful queen, Who from his cradle held him as his care, In whom so many early hopes were seen, For this young lord most wisely doth prepare, Whilst yet her deep heart-goring wound was green, And on this fair advantage firmly wrought, To place him highly in her princely thought. XXI. This was the man, at whose unusual birth The stars were said to counsel to retire, And in aspects of happiness and mirth Marked him a spirit to greatness to aspire, That had no mixture of the drossy earth, But all compact of perfect heavenly fire; So well made up that such a one as he, Jove in a man like Mortimer would be. The Barons complain of the dishonour of the State; the queen grieves for her husband's alienation from her. XXXII. Now comes the time, when Mortimer doth enter, And she upon more certainty doth stay, XXXIII. This dreadful comet drew her wandering eye, Which soon began his golden head to rear, Whose glorious fixture in so clear a sky, Struck the beholder with a horrid fear; And in a region elevate so high, And by the form wherein it did appear, As the most skilful wisely did divine, Foreshowed the kingdom shortly to decline. XXXIV. Yet still recoiling at the Spensers' power, So often checked with their intemperate pride, The inconstant Barons wavering every hour, The fierce encounter of this boisterous tide, That easily might her livelihood devour, Had she not those that skilfully could guide: She from suspicion cunningly retires, Careless in show of what she most desires. XXXV. Dissembling so, as one that knew not ill, So can she rule the greatness of her mind, As a most perfect rectress of her will, Above the usual weakness of her kind: For all these storms, immovable and still, Her secret drift the wisest miss to find; Nor will she know yet what these factions meant, But with a pleased eye soothes sad discontent. XXXVI. The least suspicion craftily to heal, Still in her looks humility she bears, The safest way with mightiness to deal, So policy religion's habit wears: "Twas then no time her grievance to reveal, "He's mad, which takes a lion by the ears." This knew the queen, and this well know the wise, This must they learn that rightly temporise. XXXVII. The Bishop Torleton, learned'st of the land, Upon a text of politics to preach, |