deals of the young English nation.

[1] Froissart (ed. Luce), viii., 231; _cf_. Canon of
Bridlington, p. 95.

The internal history of the first few years of Edward's reign was
uneventful. John Stratford became chancellor after Mortimer's fall, and
remained for ten years the guiding spirit of the administration.
Translated on Meopham's death in 1333 to Canterbury, he continued, as
primate, to take a leading part in politics. His chief helper was his
brother Robert, rewarded in 1337 by the see of Chichester. The brothers
were capable but not brilliant politicians. The worst disorders of the
times of anarchy were put down, and parliaments readily granted
sufficient money to meet the king's necessities. After a few years, the
strife of parties was so far hushed that Burghersh was suffered to
return to office, and it looks as if the balance between the
Lancastrian party, upheld by the Stratfords, and the old middle party
of Pembroke and Badlesmere, with which Burghersh had hereditary
connexions, was maintained, as it had been during the least unhappy
period of the preceding reign. The country was growing rich and
prosperous. The annalists tell us of little save tournaments and
mummings, and the setting up of seven new earldoms to remedy the gaps
which death and forfeiture had made in the higher circle of the
baronage. The earldom of Devon was revived for the house of Courtenay;
that of Salisbury in favour of the trusty William Montague, and an
Audley, son of Despenser's rival, was raised to the earldom of
Gloucester. William Bohun, a younger son of the Humphrey slain at
Boroughbridge, became Earl of Northampton, an Ufford, Earl of Suffolk,
a Clinton Earl of Huntingdon, a Hastings Earl of Pembroke, and Henry of
Grosmont, the Earl of Lancaster's first born, Earl of Derby. A new rank
was added to the English peerage when the king's little son, Earl of
Chester in 1333, was made Duke of Cornwall in 1337. The old feuds
seemed dead and with them the old disorder. But Edward was ambitious of
military glory, and it was natural that he should seek to reverse the
degrading part which he had been forced to play in relation to Scotland
and France. His hands being tied by treaties, it was not easy for him
to make the first move. Before long, however, circumstances arose which
gave him a chance of taking up a line of his own with regard to
Scotland. From that time Scottish affairs mainly absorbed his attention
until the outbreak