Stothard, Charles Alfred; Kempe, Alfred John: The monumental effigies of Great Britain: selected from our cathedrals and churches ; for the purpose of bringing together, and preserving correct representations of the best historical illustrations extant, from the Norman conquest to the reign of Henry the Eight (London, 1817)

held in the King's auctions, became equally obnoxious to the Barons, and, with his
father, who had been created Earl of Worcester, and had shared with his son in the
fruits of the King's favour, was banished from the Realm by a decree of Parliament,
exacted by the confederate nobles sword in hand. The Spensers, however, shortly
afterwards returned to England. The King's party was successful in their turn, and
Thomas Earl of Lancaster, the leader of the Barons, was defeated, made prisoner, and
beheaded at Pontefract, his own Castle,^ 22d March, 1322.
His Queen Isabella, who was in France with her paramour Mortimer and the young
Prince Edward, now instituted a series of intrigues against her husband. She inflamed
the minds of the English people against their monarch, and, aided by William Earl of
Hainault and Holland, Rtted out an expedition to invade his dominions, under the
plausible pretence of ridding the nation of its burthens, and reforming the Government.
The King fled into Wales; the elder Spenser was besieged in Bristol, taken, hanged
without trial, his body cut to pieces and thrown to the dogs: this in the ninetieth year
of his age. The King himself was shortly after captured in the monastery at Neath, in
South Wales, with the younger Spenser, who was hanged at Hereford on a gibbet dfty
feet high, furnished expressly for the occasion by the citizens of London.
The Queen and Mortimer now proceeded to procure a formal deposition of the King
by the Parliament. The King acceded to their decree, communicated by certain com-
missioners, delegated for the purpose. Judge Trussel pronounced, in the name of the
Bishops, the Barons, and the people of England, all allegiance to him void. The High
Steward of the Household broke his staff, and declared all officers discharged from his
service. Thus was the political demise of this unfortunate King attended by the same
ceremony which had consigned his predecessors to the grave!
He was at first committed to the custody of Henry Earl of Lancaster, his cousin, who
treating him with too much lenity, Thomas Lord Berkeley, John Maltravcrs, and Sir
Thomas Gournay, were constituted his keepers in rotation. He was transferred from castle
to castle, poorly clothed; and on one occasion Maltravers commanded him to be shaved
with water from a neighbouring ditch, when bursting into indignant tears, he exclaimed,
<' Here is at least warm water on my cheeks, whether you will or not! " The eyes of the
people began now, however, to be opened to just consideration, and their hearts to relent
in favour of their liege lord. The Queen and Mortimer saw that, even from his
miserable existence, if protracted, might accrue vengeance for their own heads. They
therefore send orders to Gournay and Maltravers for his death ; a command too promptly
and cruelly obeyed by those instruments of hell, who in the absence of Lord Thomas
Berkeley from his Castle, entered the King's chamber at dead of night, threw him on his
bed, and introduced a red-hot iron through a horn into his body. The ancient walls of
the Castle, the neighbouring town of Berkeley, and the shores of the Severn Sea, re-
sounded with his dying shrieks ! The peasant was aroused from the tranquil slumber so
little known to the royal couch, and uttered a prayer for the passing soul of his King.^*
* He was the son of Edmund Crouchback, whose tomb has been described.
t See Holinshed, fol. edit. vol. H. p. 344.

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