e, took it, and then
called the two Despensers home. Upon this, the confederate lords and the
Welshmen went over to Bruce. The King encountered them at Boroughbridge,
gained the victory, and took a number of distinguished prisoners; among
them, the Earl of Lancaster, now an old man, upon whose destruction he
was resolved. This Earl was taken to his own castle of Pontefract, and
there tried and found guilty by an unfair court appointed for the
purpose; he was not even allowed to speak in his own defence. He was
insulted, pelted, mounted on a starved pony without saddle or bridle,
carried out, and beheaded. Eight-and-twenty knights were hanged, drawn,
and quartered. When the King had despatched this bloody work, and had
made a fresh and a long truce with Bruce, he took the Despensers into
greater favour than ever, and made the father Earl of Winchester.

One prisoner, and an important one, who was taken at Boroughbridge, made
his escape, however, and turned the tide against the King. This was
ROGER MORTIMER, always resolutely opposed to him, who was sentenced to
death, and placed for safe custody in the Tower of London. He treated
his guards to a quantity of wine into which he had put a sleeping potion;
and, when they were insensible, broke out of his dungeon, got into a
kitchen, climbed up the chimney, let himself down from the roof of the
building with a rope-ladder, passed the sentries, got down to the river,
and made away in a boat to where servants and horses were waiting for
him. He finally escaped to France, where CHARLES LE BEL, the brother of
the beautiful Queen, was King. Charles sought to quarrel with the King
of England, on pretence of his not having come to do him homage at his
coronation. It was proposed that the beautiful Queen should go over to
arrange the dispute; she went, and wrote home to the King, that as he was
sick and could not come to France himself, perhaps it would be better to
send over the young Prince, their son, who was only twelve years old, who
could do homage to her brother in his stead, and in whose company she
would immediately return. The King sent him: but, both he and the Queen
remained at the French Court, and Roger Mortimer became the Queen's
lover.

When the King wrote, again and again, to the Queen to come home, she did
not reply that she despised him too much to live with him any more (which
was the truth), but said she was afraid of the two Despensers. In short,
h