enemy disappeared, and an offer of knighthood and a hundred
marks was made to any who could tell where the Scots were encamped. But
when they were found their position behind the Wear proved unassailable,
and after a bold sally on the English camp Douglas foiled an attempt at
intercepting him by a clever retreat. The English levies broke hopelessly
up, and a fresh foray into Northumberland forced the English Court in 1328
to submit to peace. By the treaty of Northampton which was solemnly
confirmed by Parliament in September the independence of Scotland was
recognized, and Robert Bruce owned as its king. Edward formally abandoned
his claim of feudal superiority over Scotland; while Bruce promised to make
compensation for the damage done in the North, to marry his son David to
Edward's sister Joan, and to restore their forfeited estates to those
nobles who had sided with the English king.

[Sidenote: Fall of Mortimer]

But the pride of England had been too much roused by the struggle with the
Scots to bear this defeat easily, and the first result of the treaty of
Northampton was the overthrow of the government which concluded it. This
result was hastened by the pride of Roger Mortimer, who was now created
Earl of March, and who had made himself supreme through his influence over
Isabella and his exclusion of the rest of the nobles from all practical
share in the administration of the realm. The first efforts to shake
Roger's power were unsuccessful. The Earl of Lancaster stood, like his
brother, at the head of the baronage; the parliamentary settlement at
Edward's accession had placed him first in the royal Council; and it was to
him that the task of defying Mortimer naturally fell. At the close of 1328
therefore Earl Henry formed a league with the Archbishop of Canterbury and
with the young king's uncles, the Earls of Norfolk and Kent, to bring
Mortimer to account for the peace with Scotland and the usurpation of the
government as well as for the late king's murder, a murder which had been
the work of his private partizans and which had profoundly shocked the
general conscience. But the young king clave firmly to his mother, the
Earls of Norfolk and Kent deserted to Mortimer, and powerful as it seemed
the league broke up without result. A feeling of insecurity however spurred
the Earl of March to a bold stroke at his opponents. The Earl of Kent, who
was persuaded that his brother, Edward the Second, still lived a priso