CHAPTER XII.

GAVESTON, THE ORDAINERS, AND BANNOCKBURN.

Edward of Carnarvon was over twenty-three years of age when he became king.  Tall, graceful, and handsome, with magnificent health and exceptional bodily strength, the young king was, so far as externals went, almost as fine a man as his father.  Yet no one could have been more absolutely destitute of all those qualities which constitute Edward I.’s claims to greatness.  An utter want of serious purpose blasted his whole career.  It was in vain that his father subjected him to a careful training in statecraft and in military science.  Though not lacking in intelligence, the young prince from the first to the last concerned himself with nothing but his own amusements.  A confirmed gambler and a deep drinker, Edward showed a special bent for unkingly and frivolous diversions.  Save in his devotion for the chase, his tastes had nothing in common with the high-born youths with whom he was educated.  He showed himself a coward on the battlefield, and shirked even the mimic warfare of the tournament.  He repaid the contempt and dislike of his own class by withdrawing himself from the society of the nobles, and associating himself with buffoons, singers, play-actors, coachmen, ditchers, watermen, sailors, and smiths.  Of the befitting comrades of his youth, the only one of the higher aristocracy with whom he had any true intimacy was his nephew, Gilbert of Clare, while the only member of his household for whom he showed real affection was the Gascon knight, Peter of Gaveston.[1] Attributing his son’s levity to Gaveston’s corrupting influence, the old king had banished the foreign favourite early in 1307.  But no change in his surroundings could stir up the prince’s frivolous nature to fulfil the duties of his station.  Edward’s most kingly qualities were love of fine clothes and of ceremonies.  Passionately fond of rowing, driving, horse-breeding, and the rearing of dogs, his ordinary occupations were those of the athlete or the artisan.  He was skilful with his hands, and an excellent mechanic, proficient at the anvil and the forge, and proud of his skill in digging ditches and thatching roofs.  Interested in music, and devoted to play-acting, he was badly educated, taking the coronation oath in the French form provided for a king ignorant of Latin.  Vain, irritable, and easily moved to outbursts of childish wrath, he was half-conscious of the weakness of his will, and was never without a favourite, whose affection compensated him for his subjects’ contempt.  The household of so careless a master was disorderly beyond the ordinary measure of the time.  While Edward irritated the nobles by his neglect of their counsel, he vexed the commons by the exactions of his purveyors.

    [1] That is Gabaston, dep.  Basses Pyrenees, cant.  Morlaas.