reign, this ought not to have been an easy undertaking.

This king left four children, two sons and two daughters: Edward, his
eldest son and successor; John, created afterwards earl of Cornwall, who
died young at Perth; Jane, afterwards married to David Bruce, king of
Scotland; and Eleanor, married to Reginald, count of Gueldres.

CHAPTER XV.

[Illustration: 1_207_edward3.jpg EDWARD III.]

EDWARD III.

{1327.} The violent party which had taken arms against Edward II., and
finally deposed that unfortunate monarch, deemed it requisite for their
future security to pay so far an exterior obeisance to the law, as to
desire a parliamentary indemnity for all their illegal proceedings; on
account of the necessity which, it was pretended, they lay under, of
employing force against the Spensers and other evil counsellors, enemies
of the kingdom. All the attainders, also, which had passed against
the earl of Lancaster and his adherents, when the chance of war turned
against them, were easily reversed during the triumph of their
party;[*] and the Spensers, whose former attainder had been reversed by
parliament, were now again, in this change of fortune, condemned by the
votes of their enemies.

* Rymer, vol. iv. p. 245, 267, 258, etc.

A council of regency was likewise appointed by parliament, consisting of
twelve persons; five prelates, the archbishops of Canterbury and York,
the bishops of Winchester, Worcester, and Hereford; and seven lay peers,
the earls of Norfolk, Kent, and Surrey, and the lords Wake, Ingham,
Piercy, and Ross. The earl of Lancaster was appointed guardian and
protector of the king's person. But though it was reasonable to
expect that, as the weakness of the former king had given reins to the
licentiousness of the barons, great domestic tranquillity would not
prevail during the present minority; the first disturbance arose from an
invasion by foreign enemies.

The king of Scots, declining in years and health, but retaining still
that martial spirit which had raised his nation from the lowest ebb of
fortune, deemed the present opportunity favorable for infesting England.
He first made an attempt on the Castle of Norham, in which he was
disappointed; he then collected an army of twenty-five thousand men on
the frontiers, and having given the command to the earl of Murray and
Lord Douglas, threatened an incursion into the northern counties. The
English regency, after trying in vain ev