e assumption of all
legislative action by the baronage alone. The same policy was seen in a
reissue in the form of a royal Ordinance of some of the most beneficial
provisions of the Ordinances which had been formally repealed. But the
arrogance of the Despensers gave new offence; and the utter failure of a
fresh campaign against Scotland again weakened the Crown. The barbarous
forays in which the borderers under Earl Douglas were wasting
Northumberland woke a general indignation; and a grant from the Parliament
at York enabled Edward to march with a great army to the North. But Bruce
as of old declined an engagement till the wasted Lowlands starved the
invaders into a ruinous retreat. The failure forced England in the spring
of 1323 to stoop to a truce for thirteen years, in the negotiation of which
Bruce was suffered to take the royal title. We see in this act of the
Despensers the first of a series of such attempts by which minister after
minister strove to free the Crown from the bondage under which the
war-pressure laid it to the growing power of Parliament; but it ended, as
these after attempts ended, only in the ruin of the counsellors who planned
it. The pride of the country had been roused by the struggle, and the
humiliation of such a truce robbed the Crown of its temporary popularity.
It led the way to the sudden catastrophe which closed this disastrous
reign.

[Sidenote: Isabella]

In his struggle with the Scots Edward, like his father, had been hampered
not only by internal divisions but by the harassing intervention of France.
The rising under Bruce had been backed by French aid as well as by a
revival of the old quarrel over Guienne, and on the accession of Charles
the Fourth in 1322 a demand of homage for Ponthieu and Gascony called
Edward over sea. But the Despensers dared not let him quit the realm, and a
fresh dispute as to the right of possession in the Agenois brought about
the seizure of the bulk of Gascony by a sudden attack on the part of the
French. The quarrel verged upon open war, and to close it Edward's queen,
Isabella, a sister of the French king, undertook in 1325 to revisit her
home and bring about a treaty of peace between the two countries. Isabella
hated the Despensers; she was alienated from her husband; but hatred and
alienation were as yet jealously concealed. At the close of the year the
terms of peace seemed to be arranged; and though declining to cross the
sea, Edward evaded th