sent his brother Edward to them, who was crowned King of
Ireland. He afterwards went himself to help his brother in his Irish
wars, but his brother was defeated in the end and killed. Robert Bruce,
returning to Scotland, still increased his strength there.

As the King's ruin had begun in a favourite, so it seemed likely to end
in one. He was too poor a creature to rely at all upon himself; and his
new favourite was one HUGH LE DESPENSER, the son of a gentleman of
ancient family. Hugh was handsome and brave, but he was the favourite of
a weak King, whom no man cared a rush for, and that was a dangerous place
to hold. The Nobles leagued against him, because the King liked him; and
they lay in wait, both for his ruin and his father's. Now, the King had
married him to the daughter of the late Earl of Gloucester, and had given
both him and his father great possessions in Wales. In their endeavours
to extend these, they gave violent offence to an angry Welsh gentleman,
named JOHN DE MOWBRAY, and to divers other angry Welsh gentlemen, who
resorted to arms, took their castles, and seized their estates. The Earl
of Lancaster had first placed the favourite (who was a poor relation of
his own) at Court, and he considered his own dignity offended by the
preference he received and the honours he acquired; so he, and the Barons
who were his friends, joined the Welshmen, marched on London, and sent a
message to the King demanding to have the favourite and his father
banished. At first, the King unaccountably took it into his head to be
spirited, and to send them a bold reply; but when they quartered
themselves around Holborn and Clerkenwell, and went down, armed, to the
Parliament at Westminster, he gave way, and complied with their demands.

His turn of triumph came sooner than he expected. It arose out of an
accidental circumstance. The beautiful Queen happening to be travelling,
came one night to one of the royal castles, and demanded to be lodged and
entertained there until morning. The governor of this castle, who was
one of the enraged lords, was away, and in his absence, his wife refused
admission to the Queen; a scuffle took place among the common men on
either side, and some of the royal attendants were killed. The people,
who cared nothing for the King, were very angry that their beautiful
Queen should be thus rudely treated in her own dominions; and the King,
taking advantage of this feeling, besieged the castl