ground with the queen. Though no one was injured, all were terribly frightened, and great confusion ensued. When the young king saw the peril of his wife he flew into a tempest of rage, and vowed that the careless carpenters who had constructed the building should instantly be put to death. Whether he would thus far have stretched the prerogative of an English sovereign can never be known, for his angelic partner, scarcely recovered from the shock of her fall, threw herself on her knees before the incensed king, and so effectually pleaded for the pardon of the poor men, that Edward became pacified, and forgave them. In the decline of the year 1330, Edward III. shook off the restraints imposed upon him by his unworthy mother and her ferocious paramour. He executed justice on the great criminal Mortimer in the summary and hasty way in which he was always inclined to act when under the impulse of passion, and at a distance from his queen. No one can wonder that he was impatient to destroy the murderer of his father and of his uncle Edmund. Still this eagerness to execute sudden vengeance under the influence of rage, whether justly or unjustly excited, is a trait in the character of this mighty sovereign which appears in his youth, and which it is necessary to point out in order to develop the beautiful and nearly perfect character of his queen. No sooner were the reins of government in the hands of the young king, than he vigorously exerted himself for the reformation of the abuses for which the administration of Mortimer was infamous: many excellent laws were made, and others revived, to the great satisfaction of the English people. But, above all things, the king had the wisdom to provide a profitable occupation for the active energies of his people. "Blessed be the memory of king Edward III. and Philippa of Hainault, his queen, who first invented clothes," says a monastic chronicler. Start pot, gentle reader; the English wore clothes before the time of this excellent queen. The grateful monk, by this invocation, merely means to imply that, by her advice, the English first manufactured cloth.1 Philippa, young as she was, well remembered the sources of prosperity which enriched her own country. She established a manufacturing colony at Norwich in the year 1335; but the first steps towards this good work were commenced so early as the 3rd of July, 1331, within a few months of the assumption of power by the youthful king. A letter so dated, from Lincoln, is addressed to John Kempe of Flanders, cloth-weaver in wool, in which he is informed, "That if he will come to 1 A more coherent notice of this great benefit to England is given by Fuller, who defines the difference between a pastoral and a manufacturing land in his usual impressive though quaint style. "The king, having married Philippa, the daughter of the earl of Hainault, began now to grow sensible of the great gain the Netherlands gat by our English wool, in memory whereof the duke of Burgundy, a century after, instituted the order of the Golden Fleece, wherein indeed the fleece was ours, but the gold theirs, so vast was their emolument by the trade of clothing. Our king therefore resolved, if possible, to reduce the trade to his own coun trymen, who as yet were ignorant, as knowing no more what to do with their wool than the sheep that bore it." 335.] Her house at Norwich. 383 England with his servants and apprentices of his mystery, and with his oods and chattels, and with any dyers and fullers who may be inlined willingly to accompany him beyond seas, and exercise their mysteries in the kingdom of England, they shall have letters of protecLion and assistance in their settlement." Philippa occasionally visited Kempe and the rest of her colony in Norwich. Nor did she disdain to blend all the magnificence of chivalry with her patronage of the productive arts. Like a beneficent queen of the hive, she cherished and protected the working bees. At a period of her life, which in common characters is considered girlhood, she had enriched one of the cities of her realm by her statistic wisdom. There was wisdom likewise in the grand tournaments she held at Norwich, which might be considered as exhibitions showing the citizens how well, in time of need, they could be protected by a gallant nobility. These festivals displayed the defensive class and the productive class in admirable union and beneficial intercourse, while the example of the queen promoted mutual respect between them. Edward III. did not often take part in these visits to Norwich, which were generally paid by the queen while her husband spent some days with his guilty and miserable mother at Castle-Rising, in Norfolk; a strong proof that he did not consider her a fit companion for Philippa. The house in which his queen usually sojourned was long pointed out by the grateful inhabitants of Norwich: its site is not forgotten at the present day. As the most interesting comment on the lasting benefits conferred by the illustrious consort of the third Edward on Norwich, when she assisted its inhabitants to compete with her countrymen in the manufactures from which she knew the wealth and importance of those princely merchants were derived, we take leave to subjoin the testimony of a gentleman who contributed in no slight degree to the prosperity of the metropolis of our eastern counties, and whose school of design carried, the fine arts in wool and silk to a degree of perfection which no foreign loom can surpass: "The citizens of Norwich are especially indebted to the good queen Philippa for her condescension in introducing and promoting manufactures, which for five centuries have furnished wealth and employment to a large portion of its inhabitants." 2 The dearly-purchased laurels of Cressy and Poictiers have faded to the mere abstract memory of the military prowess of the victorious Edward and his sons, regarding which no national benefit remains; while the fruits of Philippa's statistic practical wisdom continue to provide sources of wealth and national prosperity for generations yet unborn. It.is likely that the establishment of the Flemish artists in England had some connexion with the visit that Jeanne of Valois, countess of Hainault, paid to her royal 1 Foedera. Kempe was the patriarch of the Norwich woollen manufactures. 2 Letter of the late Edward Blakeley, Esq., shawl manufacturer and sheriff of Norwich. daughter in the autumn of 1331. The mother of Philippa was a wise and good woman, who loved peace and promoted the peaceful arts. During her sojourn in England she further strengthened the beneficiat alliance between England and the Low Countries, by negotiating a marriage between the king's sister, Eleanora, and the duke of Gueldres, which was soon after celebrated. Edward III. commenced a furious war on Scotland in 1333. His faithful queen followed his campaign; but while the king laid siege to Berwick, Philippa was in some danger at Bamborough-castle, where she resided that summer for Douglas, the valiant guardian of his young king, turned the tables on the English invader, and made a forced march, to lay fierce siege to Bamborough,1 hoping that Edward, alarmed at the danger of his queen, would relinquish Berwick and fly to her assistance; but Edward knew too well the strength of "king Ina's castle broad and high,” and the firm mind of his Philippa, to swerve from his designs on Berwick. Infuriated, however, by the attempt to capture his queen, he, in a sudden transport of passion, ordered the two sons of the governor of Berwick, who, unfortunately, were in his hands, to be put to death. Perhaps this atrocious deed would have been prevented if the just and gracious Philippa had been by the side of her incensed lord; but Philippa was closely besieged in Bamborough, and her danger exaspe rated her husband into an act really worse than any performed by his stern grandsire, Edward I. Berwick was won by the victorious king from the stunned and paralysed father, but by the murder of the hap less boys he for ever stained his chivalric name. Douglas and Edward joined battle not far from Berwick soon after, and the Scots were overpowered at the disastrous battle of Halidon-Hill. Edward, with his queen, afterwards triumphantly entered Berwick, which ever since remained annexed to the English crown.2 3 Edward and Philippa were in England during the winter of 1334. At the palace of Woodstock, on February the 5th, the queen brought into the world Elizabeth (likewise called Isabella), the princess-royal. The queen undertook another campaign in the succeeding spring. That year her father sent king Edward a present of a rich helmet, made of gold and set with precious stones, with a remonstrance against wasting his strength in Scotland, where there was no plunder to be got, when 1 Guthrie, folio Hist. 2 Edward Baliol invaded Scotland with the English army, having first sent a civil message to young king David, offering to secure to him the family estates of the Bruce if he would surrender to him his kingdom and his wife, the young sister of king Edward. To this modest request the Scotch council (for the gallant Douglas lost his life at Halidon) replied by sending their young king and Some queen for safety to France, and preparing to 3 The names of Isabella and Elizabeth were synonymous in the middle ages, to the confusion of history and genealogy 1336.] Monastic etiquette at Durham Priory. 385 the same expense would prosecute his claims on France. The queen this winter became the mother of a second princess, named Joanna. Philippa followed her lord to a third northern campaign. Her second son, William of Hatfield, was born in a village in Yorkshire, in the winter of 1336: this infant, lived but a few weeks, and was buried in York Minster. In the absence of Edward, the Scotch war was prosecuted by his only brother, John, earl of Cornwall, with great cruelty; this young prince died at Perth, October the 5th, of a wound which he received in his ferocious attack on Lesmahago. While Philippa resided in the north of England, a circumstance occurred which is an amusing instance of monastic etiquette. King Edward had returned from Scotland, and advanced as far as Durham, where he established his lodging in St. Cuthbert's priory, near the castle. The queen travelled from York to meet and welcome him. She supped in the priory; and, thinking it was no offence, retired to pass the night in her husband's apartment. Scarcely had she undressed, when the affrighted monks came to the door, and pathetically remonstrated against the infringement of the rules of their order, intimating "that their holy patron, St. Cuthbert, who during his life very sedulously eschewed the company of the fair sex, would be direfully offended if one of them slept beneath the roof of his convent, however high her rank might be." The pious Philippa, distressed at the idea of unwittingly offending St. Cuthbert, immediately rose from the bed in haste, fled in her night-dress to the castle, which was fortunately close by, and passed the night there by herself.1 The gout and other maladies put an end to the existence of count William of Hainault, soon after he had formed a league against France with king Edward. With the wealthy father of his queen, Edward lost the liberal supplies with which he carried on his warfare. The English people chose always to be at war; but they expected their monarchs to find the cost out of their private revenues and feudal dues, which were certainly not sufficient for the purpose. Edward was reduced to extreme poverty, even in the commencement of his long war, and obliged to pawn his queen's crown at Cologne for 2,500l., in the year 1339. Soon after the English people submitted, not to a tax on wool, but a tax of wool, and subscribed 30,000 packs of that commodity, which, being sent down the Rhine to Cologne, redeemed Philippa's best crown from thraldom. During the whole of this reign the crown jewels were seldom out of pawn, notwithstanding the wealth that the infant manufacture of cloth was already drawing to the coasts of England. The History of the Cathedral of Durham. The priory is at present the residence of the dean. It seems that an especial licence from the pope was needful to permit ladies, even were they queens, to sleep in a monastery. In the Bodleian there is a licence, with the VOL. I. leaden bull appendant, of pope Innocent IV., 20 prosperity that the queen's colony of Flemish artists had brought to Norwich had been felt so early as 1335, when Philippa paid that city a visit during her husband's progress to Castle-Rising. She was received by the grateful citizens with all the honours due to a public benefac tress. Her memory is yet revered in that city, which may be truly called the English Ghent. As vicar of the empire, and head of the confederated league of Germany, Edward III. had his head-quarters, during several of the Flemish campaigns, at Antwerp and Ghent, where his queen kept her court. A Antwerp the third son of Philippa and Edward III., Lionel, duke of Clarence, was born November 29th, 1338. He inherited all the cha racteristics of his royal mother's Flemish race, and in due time grew to be nearly seven feet high, and was athletic in proportion. The queen returned with this infant Hercules to England in the autumn of 1339; and in the ensuing year king Edward paid a long visit to his unhappy mother in Norfolk, while queen Philippa went to Norwich, to visit her woollen manufactories. She found a vast number of Norwich people who, having been apprentices of Kempe and his followers, were esta blishing themselves in the profitable trades of weaving and dyeing. She was received with great joy, and favoured the citizens with her presence from February to Easter. At the festivities of that season her royal lord held a grand tournament at Norwich where he tilted in person. In the spring of the same year Philippa again sailed for the opposite coast, and established her court at Ghent. King Edward, in the meantime, cruised between England and Holland, where he had a fleet of upwards of three hundred ships. Philippa gave birth to her fourth son at Ghent, on Midsummer-day, 1340, at the very time that her warlike lord was fighting his great naval battle off Blankenburg. Next day the king landed at Sluys, impatient to embrace his queen and her infant, and cheer her with tidings of the greatest naval victory the English at that time had ever gained over the French. The prince born at this auspicious season was John of Gaunt, afterwards so renowned as duke of Lancaster. The interference of the mother of Philippa about this time occasioned a temporary cessation of hostilities between France and England. This princess, just as the belligerents were about to engage before Tournay, went to her son-in-law, and then to her brother, king Philip, and kneeling before them, implored them to make peace, and stop the effusion of Christian blood. The pacification thus effected by the mother of queen Philippa for awhile put a stop to this kindred warfare. The relationship between Edward's queen and king Philip was near; her mother was both his niece and name-child. The motives that prompted the mother of the count of Hainault. This retreat was fired by the troops of her brother, king Philip, in this war. |