We cannot but lament, that the scrophula received its second appellation from a cause so decidedly unfounded; as the king or his predecessors do not appear to have had the disease; though it is very certain their subjects, and those of their successors, were in the constant practice of imploring their healing touch till within an hundred years past, which was a heavy penalty derived from the usage of ages. It appears, that a sermon has been known to supersede this property of the monarch's hand. A profligate fellow, afflicted with the evil for more than twelve years, and who had been touched unsuccessfully by Charles II. received an immediate cure, according to Turner, during a sermon preached by Mr. Edward Coles, November 29th, 1693; which not only removed his corporeal sufferings but enlightened his mind, and made him internally as well as externally a new man. "In king Edward the First's time, Adam Underwood held one yard land in Brayles, in com' Warwic, of William earl of Warwick; paying therefor seven bushels of oats yearly, and a hen; and working for the lord from Michaelmas till Lammas every other day, except Saturday; viz. at mowing as long as that season lasted, for which he was to have as much grass as he could carry away with his scythe; and at the end of hay harvest, he and the rest of his fellow mowers to have the lord's best mutton, except one, or xvjd. in money; with the best cheese saving one, vjd. in money, and the cheese vat, wherein the cheese was made, full of salt. From Lammas to Michaelmas he was to work two days in the week, and to come to the lord's reap with all his household, except his wife and his shepherd, and to cut down one land of corn, being quit of all other work for that day; that he should likewise carry two cart loads and a half of the lord's hay, and seven cart loads of stones, and gather nuts for three days; and in case the lord keep his Christmas at his manor of Brayles, to find three of his horses meat for three nights; that he should plough thrice a year, viz. 6 selions, and make three quarters of malt for the lord, and pay for every hog he kept above a year old, jd.; and for every one under, a halfpenny; and lastly, that he and the rest of the tenants of this manor should give 12 marks yearly to the lord at Michaelmas, by way of aid; and not marry their dauginers, nec fil os coronare (nor make their sons priests), without licence from the lord. "This was an usual restraint of old in villanage tenure, to the end the lord might not lose any of his villans, by their entering into holy orders." * * From Blount's Tenures, 1679, 8vo, p. 21. A very fatal instance of the folly of kings, in permitting private friendships to supersede public duty, distinguished the reign of Edward II. It rarely happens, that subjects of sufficient virtue are to be found whose abilities and integrity make them proper confidants for the monarch. There is too much honesty and bluntness in the truly worthy man for the situation of a royal favourite. Opposition from a courtier seems as unnatural as a frost in July; and as almost all favourites are selected from courtiers, Sir Thomas More's are as uncommon as Spencers would be the reverse. It is impossible to judge of the real character of a king who is weak enough to trust his power in the hands of a favourite, beyond that of being totally indifferent to the welfare of his people; which was precisely the case with Edward II. whose misfortune it was to have been intimate with Sir Hugh Spencer from his early youth. At this time, when the liberty of the subject is. perfectly understood, and must be respected in the manner the law prescribes, it appears difficult to comprehend how custom could have so far debased the public mind as to permit the introduction of a person at court, who was long known to make his master a mere cypher, at the moment he dictated the most atrocious acts; or how feudal lords, each governing his vassals with absolute command, could be seized upon with im punity, punity, and beheaded instantly: yet such was the fact. Spencer had contrived to persuade Edward several of his barons meditated to dethrone him; the king, equally credulous and wicked, ordered the lords named by him to be arrested; and their deaths followed, even before the least enquiry took place as to the truth of the allegations urged against them. By these means, the detestable favourite removed twenty-two of his enemies, including Thomas Earl of Lancaster, whose real offences consisted in their meeting to consult measures for the removal of himself and his father from the king's presence. The consequences of this atrocity are foreign to the plan of my work, except in those circumstances which give particular traits of manners: we find from them, that ambition, power, and cruelty, though they enervate the oppressed, and seem to frown away all resistance, are not seated upon an eminence beyond the reach of justice. Measures, too long deferred, were at length taken, which reduced the two Spencers to the situation of mere men. The elder, having been made prisoner by the queen, was condemned to death, and beheaded, with the usual inflictions on traitors, before the castle of Bristol; where Edward II. and Sir Hugh the son were then closely besieged. Despairing of relief, and reduced to the utmost necessity, the king and his wicked adviser adopted the the desperate resolution of attempting to escape by water to Wales. Froissart says they were eleven days in the boat, constantly beaten back by contrary winds, till at last discovered by Sir Henry Beaumont : he manned a barge, and they were soon captured. The moment for retaliation was now arrived; and the conduct of the successful party describes the barbarous habits of even the highest classes. Sir Thomas Wager, marshal of the queen's army, was entrusted with the conveyance of the miserable Sir Hugh towards London. For this purpose, he ordered him to be mounted and tied to the worst horse the country afforded; and, that the contrast might be the more conspicuous, the marshal compelled him to wear a tabart suited to his former situation in life; and announced his arrival, at the different towns they passed, by flourishes of trumpets and cymbals. Isabella, gratified by this cruel exhibition of her prisoner, rested for some days at Hereford; where the festivities of All Saints' Day contributed more deeply in wounding the broken spirit of her enemy, who was taken, at their termination, before the queen and her barons, and by them sentenced to be drawn on a hurdle through all the streets of the city, and thence to the market place, preceded by trumpets and clarions, where a high scaffold was prepared, on which he suffered the most dreadful living mutilation |