A Metrical History of England :: :: University of Virginia Library

A Metrical History of England

Or, Recollections, in Rhyme, Of some of the most prominent Features in our National Chronology, from the Landing of Julius Caesar to the Commencement of the Regency, in 1812. In Two Volumes ... By Thomas Dibdin

Dibdin, Thomas (1771-1841)

[And as the new abashed nightingale]

[section]

PART THE SIXTH.

II.

VOL. II.

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“Now, lighter humour, leave me and begone,
“Your passion poor yields matter much too slight:
“To write these plagues that then were coming on,
“Doth ask a pen of Ebon, and the night;
“If there be ghosts their murder that bemoane,
“Let them approach me, and in piteous plight,
“Howle, and about me with black tapers stand,
“To lend a sad light to my sadder hand.”
Drayton.

To illustrate his character, let us view his common amusements from an old French MS. of his private expences:—

Item.—Paye a Jak de scint Albon, peyntre de Roi qui daunsa devant le Roi sur une table, et lui fist grandement rire, &c.

The extract is long, and not easily understood from the obsoleteness of the language; but it proves that the King played at tossing up “heads and tails” for farthings, besides rewarding the above-mentioned buffoon for making him laugh by dancing on a table; he remunerated another for tumbling off a horse before him. Moreover that he made a party on the water in a returned faggot barge, and bought cabbages of the gardeners on the banks of the Thames to compose his soup.

Ancient Relics.

EDWARD THE SECOND.

“Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,”
When second Edward claim'd the regal sway;

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A reign of imbecility and care,
A life of terror closed in sad despair.
A scene unchanged of fierce, domestic jars,
Rebellion, tyranny, and civil wars,
Mark'd the whole period of a monarch's rule,
Who knew not how to learn in sorrow's school.
Adversity should prove a wholesome friend,
And past experience teach us how to mend;
But who of mild correction takes no heed,
Lost to reflection, must be lost indeed!

Could turn of face or majesty of form,
Shield from misfortune's overwhelming tide,
Edward had weather'd the relentless storm,
Nor under pangs unprecedented died.

The eye of beauty beams with dazz'ling light,
Yet brighter far the lustre of the mind:
And dark and cold as drearest winter night
The soul to intellectual pleasure blind.

Immersed in soft effeminacy's down,
The feeble Prince his subjects good neglects
For minions, who monopolize the crown,
And stain the sceptre which their vice protects.

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The pamper'd Gaveston, of favour vain,
First rous'd our angry Barons' slighted pride;
Till forced to banish him, the King with pain,
Escorts his darling to the vessel's side.

Soon he return'd, again in exile sent,
Edward once more his favourite recalls;
The land o'erflows with furious discontent,
And, spite of royal frowns, the Gascon falls.

Next in the list, two worthless Spencers came,
Whose arrogance the people's rage renew'd;
Who peaceful England gave to quenchless flame,
And harmony exchanged for civil feud.

The Scotch too, mindful of their former woes,
When the first Edward with his spoilers came,
At Bannockbourn on their now humbled foes
Take great revenge and win eternal fame.

Baffled by Bruce, the King of England bends
To terms prescribed, that wars abroad may cease;

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Yet loses all his best domestic friends
By follies which at home destroy his peace.

The Spencers driven from their native land,
For rude extortion and oppression sore;
Turn pirates, and with fierce marauding band,
Infest the coast they oft had robb'd before.

Great Lancaster the Barons' phalanx leads,
Edward for once against a foe succeeds;
And his opponent on a scaffold bleeds.

But Isabel, the monarch's angry wife,
(Jealous of influence the Spencers gain, )
Against her husband mingles in the strife,
And thoughtless Edward quickly ceas'd to reign.

Disgust had made the Queen repair
To seek her brother, Charles the Fair;

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Then leagued with Philip of Hainault,
Her lord and sov'reign to assault.

Yet who shall free the Gallic dame
From stigma, and deserved blame;
Was it for her the mote to spy
That haply dimm'd her consort's eye:
When Mortimer as it should seem,
Was, in her own, a monstrous beam.

Drayton, thy verse can better tell,
The hapless King what next befell;
Deposed, deserted, and disgraced,
In Ruffian restriction placed,
To insult cruelly exposed,
With agony his being closed!
Gurney, Mautravers, and the crew,
Who dared so fell a crime to do,

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Were punish'd for the blood they spilt,
Yet live immortalized in guilf.
Oh! may the careless, thoughtless, great,
Profit by reading Edward's fate,
And men of cruel nature know,
Like Edward's murd'rers, more than Edward's woe.

The Spencers, who had caus'd this strife,
Paid for delinquency with life;
And what the folks of England gain,
Is, Edward's son styled King in vain,
While Mortimer and Isabella reign.

Gaveston returning in 1312, the whole kingdom was up in arms; the favourite was besieged in Scarborough, taken, and beheaded by the Earl of Warwick.

Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, grandson of King Henry III.

Isabella of France, daughter of Philip le Bel, the greatest beauty of her age, whom Edward's father had in his dying moments conjured him to marry.

The Spencers were recalled and loaded with fresh honours.— They were, however, on the King's fortunes suffering a reverse, both executed by the Queen's and Mortimer's party.

Miscreants, who after practising every degradation on the deposed King, that meanness and malice could invent, put him to a most excruciating death in Kenilworth Castle. When to add to other atrocious indignities, they brought cold and dirty water for Edward to shave with, the unfortunate Monarch, whose tears flowed fast, exclaimed, “You see I have warm water “in spite of you!” It is some alleviation to know that all concerned in Edward's murder met signal retribution. Gurney died by the hands of the executioner; Mautravers perished for want; Edmund, Earl of Kent, who conspired against the King, his brother, was beheaded through the intrigues of Mortimer, and the Queen; of whom the former was hanged, and the latter imprisoned for life.

Adam de Orleton, Bishop of Hereford, is said to have sanctioned the assassination of Edward by this ambiguous line:

Edwardum occidere, nolite timere, bonum est.

Or,

Edwardum occidere nolite, timere bonum est.

The punctuation making it either,

Edward to slay avoid, to fear 'tis good.

Or,

Edward to slay, avoid to fear! 'tis good.

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Royal Poetry of this Reign.

Edward was learned, tho', like me, no poet;
The following lines, his own, may serve to shew it;
When, to a dungeon fallen from a throne,
The royal sufferer thus made his moan:

Written by Edward the Second.

(On the authority of Fabian.)

Damnum mihi contulit
Tempore brumali,
Fortuna satis aspera
Vehementis mali.
Nullus est tam sapiens,
Mitis, aut formosus
Tam prudens virtutibus,
Cæterisque famosus
Quin, stultus reputabitur
Et satis despectus,
Si fortuna prosperos
Avertat effectus.

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Imitated by J. P. Andrews.

On my devoted head
Her bitterest showers,
All from a wintry cloud
Stern fortune pours;
View but her favourite,
Sage and discerning,
Grac'd with fair comliness,
Famed for his learning;
Should she withdraw her smiles
Each grace she banishes,
Wisdom and wit are flown,
And beauty vanishes.

Of these verses, which Bishop Tanner styles, “Lamentatio gloriosi “Regis Edwardi, de Karnarvon, quam edidit temporæ suæ incarcerationis.”

Horace Walpole says,

I should believe that this melody of a dying Monarch is about as authentic as that of the old poetic warbler the Swan, and no better founded than the title of Gloriosi.

Catalogue of Royal Authors.