The queen, who was in her bed in an adjoining room at this time, rushed frantically out when she heard the noise of the affray, and, with piteous entreaties and many tears, she begged and prayed Edward, her "sweet son," as she called him, to spare the gentle Mortimer, "her dearest friend, her well-beloved cousin." The conspirators did spare him at that time; they took him prisoner, and bore him away to a place of safety. He was soon afterward brought to trial on a charge of treason, and hanged. Isabel was deprived of all her property, and shut up in a castle as a prisoner of state. In this castle she afterward lived nearly thirty years, in lonely misery, and then died.
The adjoining engraving represents a near view of the subterranean passage by which Lord Montacute and his party gained admission to the castle of Nottingham. It is known in modern times as MORTIMER'S HOLE.
[Illustration: MORTIMER'S HOLE.]
CHAPTER III. THE BLACK PRINCE.
A.D. 1336-1346
Parentage of the Black Prince, Richard's father.-Reason for the name.-Situation of Crecy.-Nature of Edward's claim to the crown of France.-The Salic law.-Reason for it.-Edward's case.-Edward raises an army and sets out for France.-Map.-The army reaches Rouen.-Progress of the army.-Arrival at Amiens.-Progress of the two armies down the Somme.-Edward's anxiety about crossing the river.-Danger from the tide.-Edward posts himself at Crecy.-Plan of the battle.-The Black Prince in command.-Picture of the Genoese archer.-Philip gets out of patience.-The rain.-The battle.-More difficulty with the archers.-They send for help for the Prince of Wales.-Flight of the King of France from the field of battle.-Account of the old King of Bohemia.-Origin of the motto and device of the Prince of Wales.-Fate of Calais.-The six citizens.-Margaret of Calais.-John of Gaunt.
The father of King Richard the Second was a celebrated Prince of Wales, known in history as the Black Prince. The Black Prince, as his title Prince of Wales implies, was the oldest son of the King of England. His father was Edward the Third. The Black Prince was, of course, heir to the crown, and he would have been king had it not happened that he died before his father. Consequently, when at last his father, King Edward, died, Richard, who was the oldest son of the prince, and, of course, the grandson of the king, succeeded to the throne, although he was at that time only ten years old.
The Christian name of the Black Prince was Edward. He was called the Black Prince on account of the color of his armor. The knights and warriors of those days were often named in this way from some peculiarity in their armor.
Edward, being the oldest son of the king his father, was Prince of Wales. He was often called the Prince of Wales, and often simply Prince Edward; but, inasmuch as there were several successive Edwards, each of whom was in his youth the Prince of Wales, neither of those titles alone would be a sufficiently distinctive appellation for the purposes of history. This Edward accordingly, as he became very celebrated in his day, and inasmuch as, on account of his dying before his father, he never became any thing more than Prince of Wales, is known in history almost exclusively by the title of the Black Prince.
But, although he never attained to a higher title than that of prince, he still lived to a very mature age. He was more than forty years old when he died. He, however, began to acquire his great celebrity when he was very young: he fought at the great battle of Crecy, in France, as one of the principal commanders on the English side, when he was only about seventeen years old.
Crecy, or Cressy, as it is sometimes called, is situated on the banks of the River Somme, in the northeast part of France. The circumstances under which the battle in this place was fought are as follows. The King of England, Edward the Third, the father of the Black Prince, laid claim to the throne of France. The ground of his claim was that, through his grandmother Isabel, who was a daughter of the French king, he was the nearest blood-relation to the royal line, all the other branches of the family nearer than his own being extinct. Now the people of France were, of course, very unwilling that the King of England should become entitled to the French crown, and they accordingly made a certain Prince Philip the king, who reigned under the title of Philip the Sixth. Philip was the nearest relative after Edward, and he derived his descent through males alone, while Edward, claiming, as he did, through his grandmother Isabel, came through a female line.
Now there was an ancient law prevailing in certain portions of France, called the Salic law,[C] by which female children were excluded from inheriting the possessions of their fathers. This principle was at first applied to the inheriting of private property, but it was afterward extended to rights and titles of all sorts, and finally to the descent of the crown of France. Indeed, the right to rule over a province or a kingdom was considered in those days as a species of property, which descended from father to child by absolute right, over which the people governed had no control whatever.
[Footnote C: The Salic law is very celebrated in history, and questions growing out of it gave rise, in ancient times, to innumerable wars. It derived its name from a tribe of people called Saliens, by whom it was first introduced.]
The chief reason why the Salic law was applied to the case of the crown of France was not, as it might at first be supposed, because it was thought in those days that women were not qualified to reign, but because, by allowing the crown to descend to the daughters of the king as well as to the sons, there was danger of its passing out of the country. The princes of the royal family usually remained in their own land, and, if they married at all, they married usually foreign princesses, whom they brought home to live with them in their native land. The princesses, on the other hand, when they grew up, were very apt to marry princes of other countries, who took them away to the places where they, the princes, respectively lived. If, now, these princesses were allowed to inherit the crown, and, especially, if the inheritance were allowed to pass through them to their children, cases might occur in which the kingdom of France might descend to some foreign-born prince, the heir, or the actual ruler, perhaps, of some foreign kingdom.
This was precisely what happened in Edward's case. The Salic law had not then been fully established. Edward maintained that it was not law. He claimed that the crown descended through Isabel to him. The French, on the other hand, insisted on passing him by, and decided that Philip, who, next to him, was the most direct descendant, and whose title came through a line of males, should be king.
In this state of things Edward raised a great army, and set out for France in order to possess himself of the French crown. The war continued many years, in the course of which Edward fitted out several different expeditions into France.
It was in one of these expeditions that he took his son, the Black Prince, then only seventeen years of age, as one of his generals. The prince was a remarkably fine young man, tall and manly in form, and possessed of a degree of maturity of mind above his years. He was affable and unassuming, too, in his manners, and was a great favorite among all the ranks of the army.
The map on the following page shows the course of the expedition, and the situation of Crecy. The fleet which brought the troops over landed there on a cape a little to the westward of the region shown upon the map. From the place where they landed they marched across the country, as seen by the track upon the map, toward the Seine. They took possession of the towns on the way, and plundered and wasted the country.