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EDWARD II.

THE first Edward had been in disposition a tyrant. As often as he had dared, he had trampled on the liberties, or invaded the property of his subjects; and yet he died in his bed, respected by his barons and admired by his contemporaries. His son, the second Edward, was of a less injurious character: no acts of injustice or oppression were imputed to him by his greatest enemies: yet he was deposed from the throne, and murdered in a prison. Of this difference between the lot of the father and the son, the solution must be sought in the manners and character of the age. They both reigned over proud and factious nobles, jealous of their own liberties, but regardless of the liberties of others; and who, though they respected the arbitrary sway of a monarch as haughty and violent as themselves, despised the milder and more equitable administration of his successor. That successor, naturally easy and indolent, fond of the pleasures of the table and the amusements of the chase, willingly devolved on others the cares and labours of government. But in an age unacquainted with the more modern expedient of a responsible minister, the barons considered the elevation of the favourite as their own depression, his power as the infringement of their rights. The result was what we have seen, a series of associations, having for their primary object the removal of evil counsellors, as they were called, from the person of the prince, but which gradually invaded the legitimate rights of the crown, and terminated in the dethronement and assassination of the sovereign. LINGARD.

EDWARD III.

IN personal accomplishments Edward is said to have been superior, in mental powers to have been equal, to any of his predecessors. More than usual care had been bestowed on his education and he could not only speak the English and French, but also understand the German and Latin languages. His elocution was graceful; his conversation entertaining; his behaviour dignified, but also attractive. To the fashionable amusements of hunting and hawking he was much addicted: but to these he preferred the more warlike exercise of the tournament: and his subjects, at the conclusion of the exhibition, often burst into transports of applause, when they found that the unknown knight, whose prowess they had admired, proved to be their own sovereign. Of his courage as a combatant, and his abilities as a general, the reader will have formed a competent opinion from the preceding pages. The astonishing victories, which cast so much glory on one period of his reign, appear to have dazzled the eyes both of his subjects and foreigners, who placed him in the first rank of conquerors: but the disasters, which clouded the evening of his life, have furnished a proof that his ambition was greater than his judgment. He was at last convinced that the crowns of France and Scotland were beyond his reach; but not till he had exhausted the strength of the nation by a series of gigantic but fruitless efforts. Before his death all his conquests, with the exception of Calais,

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had slipped from his grasp: the greater part of his hereditary dominions on the continent had been torn from him by a rival, whom he formerly despised and a succession of short and precarious truces was sought and accepted as a boon by the monarch, who in his more fortunate days had dictated the peace of Bretigni.

LINGARD.

RICHARD II.

THE features of Richard were handsome, but feminine; his manners abrupt; his utterance embarrassed. He possessed some taste for literature, and occasionally gave indications of resolution and spirit. But he was passionately fond of parade and pleasure: and the loss of his crown has been sometimes attributed to his extravagance and pecuniary exactions. It would, however, be difficult to prove, that his expenses were greater than those of his predecessors: it is certain, that his demands on the purses of his subjects were considerably less. "What concern have you," he once observed to the commons, "with the establishment of my household, as long as I maintain it without asking you for assistance?" misfortunes may be more correctly traced to the early age at which he mounted the throne, and to the precaution taken by his mother and her friends to defeat the supposed designs of his uncles. By these he was estranged from the princes of his blood, whose pride refused to pay court to a boy; and whose neglect compelled

His

him to fix his affections on his ministers and companions. Jealousies and rivalry ensued, which ended in the celebrated commission of government, and the ruin, perhaps originally undeserved, of the royal favourites. When the king had recovered the exercise of his authority, he reigned in comparative tranquillity for a long period; but his conduct in the twenty-first and twenty-second years of his reign betrayed such a thirst for revenge, and habit of dissimulation, such despotic notions of government, and so fixed a purpose to rule without control, that no reader can be surprised at the catastrophe which followed. We may indeed abhor the wiles by which he was ensnared; may sympathize with him in his prison; and may condemn the policy which afterwards bereaved him of life: but at the same time we must acknowledge, that he deserved to be abandoned by the people, on whose liberties he had trampled; and to forfeit that authority which he sought to exalt above the laws and constitution of his country. LINGARD.

HENRY V.

THE splendour which conquest threw round the person of Henry during his life still adheres to his memory four centuries after his death. But he was not only a warrior; he was also a statesman. The praise of constitutional courage he may share with many of his predecessors: he surpassed most of them in the skill with which he fomented the dissensions among his antagonists, and improved to the best advantage the

unexpected events which chequered the busy scene of French politics. Success, however, gave a tinge of arrogance to his character. He did not sufficiently respect the prejudices, or spare the feelings of his new subjects: the pomp and superiority, which he displayed, mortified their vanity and the deference which he exacted from the proudest of the French nobility was reluctantly yielded by men, who, under the weak reign of Charles, had been accustomed to trample on the authority of their sovereign. Continually engaged in war, he had little leisure to discharge the duties of a legislator: but he has been commended for his care to enforce the equal administration of justice; and was beloved by the lower classes, both in France and England, for the protection which he afforded them against the oppression of their superiors. To those who served him, if he were a stern, he was also a bountiful master: and though he punished severely, he rewarded with munificence. By military men he was beloved and adored: and the officers of the army in France resolved to prove the sincerity of that attachment which they professed for him while living, by the extraordinary pomp with which they paid the last duties to his remains.

LINGARD.

HENRY VI.

On that day expired the reign of Henry VI., a prince whose personal character commanded the respect of his very enemies, and whose misfortunes still claim the sympathy of the reader. He was virtuous and religious; humane, forgiv

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