, one Alice Pierce, who acquired a
great ascendant over him, and by her influence gave such general disgust
that, in order to satisfy the parliament, he was obliged to remove her
from court.[*]

* Walsing, p. 189.

The indolence also, naturally attending old age and infirmities, had
made him in a great measure resign the administration into the hands of
his son, the duke of Lancaster, who, as he was far from being popular,
weakened extremely the affection which the English bore to the person
and government of the king. Men carried their jealousies very far
against the duke; and as they saw, with much regret, the death of
the prince of Wales every day approaching, they apprehended lest the
succession of his son Richard, now a minor, should be defeated by the
intrigues of Lancaster, and by the weak indulgence of the old king. But
Edward, in order to satisfy both the people and the prince on this head,
declared in parliament his grandson heir and successor to the crown; and
thereby cut off all the hopes of the duke of Lancaster, if he ever had
the temerity to entertain any.

{1376.} The prince of Wales, after a lingering illness, died in the
forty-sixth year of his age; and left a character illustrious for every
eminent virtue, and, from his earliest youth till the hour he expired,
unstained by any blemish. His valor and military talents formed the
smallest part of his merit: his generosity, humanity, affability,
moderation, gained him the affections of all men; and he was qualified
to throw a lustre, not only on that rude age in which he lived, and
which nowise infected him with its vices, but on the most shining period
of ancient or modern history.

{1377.} The king survived about a year this melancholy incident: England
was deprived at once of both these princes, its chief ornament
and support: he expired in the sixty-fifth year of his age and the
fifty-first of his reign; and the people were then sensible, though too
late, of the irreparable loss which they had sustained.

The English are apt to consider with peculiar fondness the history of
Edward III., and to esteem his reign, as it was one of the longest,
the most glorious also, that occurs in the annals of their nation. The
ascendant which they then began to acquire over France, their rival and
supposed national enemy, makes them cast their eyes on this period with
great complacency, and sanctifies every measure which Edward embraced
for that end. But th