EDWARD the eldest surviving eon of Edward I., was born nt Caernarvon 25th April 1284, and became the heir apparent to the crown by the death of his elder brother, Alphonse, a few months after. Iu 1289 he was affianced to the young queeu of Scotland, who died the following year. On the 1st of August 1297 his father, before setting out for Flanders, assembled a groat council at London, and made the nobility swear fealty to the prince, whom he then appointed regent during his absence. The parliament in which the first statute Tallagio non Concedendo' received the royal assent was held at West. minster by Prince Edward a few months after his father's departure. In the summer of 1300 we find him accompanying his father in n military expedition to Scotland, and he is particularly mentioned as leading one of the divisions of the army, called the' Shining Battalion,' in an encounter with the Scottish forces on the banks of the river Trviue. As he grew towards manhood however he appears to have begun to form those vicious associations which were the chief source of the calamities of his life. In October of this same year (1300) the notorious Piers Gaveston was banished by the king from about the person of Prince Edward, who, through his persuasion, had been guilty of several outrages against the Bishop of Lichfield, and the prince himself was ordered to prison for stealing the bishop'a deer. Gaveston was the son of a knight of Gascony, and is admitted to have been distinguished by his wit and accomplishments as well as by his personal advantages, but he is affirmed to have, as the prince's minion, carried himself to men of all ranks with unbearable insolence. In 1301 Edward was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester. He was again in Scotland with his father in the expedition in the summer of 1303: while the king proceeded along the east coast, the prince marched westward, and afterwards wintered in Perth, while his father remained in Dunfermline. When Edward was preparing for his last Scottish expedition after the insurrection under Robert Bruce, he knighted his eldest eon at Westminster on the morrow of Whit suntide 1306; after which the prince bestowed the same honour on 300 gentlemen, his intended companions in arms. Ile was at the same time invested by his father with the duchy of Guienne. The royal banquet that was given on this occasion is celebrated for what is called the ' Vow of the Swans,' an oath taken by the king to God and to two swans, which were brought iu and act upon the table, that he would take vengeance on Robert Bruce and punish the treachery of the Scots. The prince also vowed that lie would not remain two nights in the same place until he reached Scotland. He set out accordingly
before his father, and as soon as he had crossed the borders he began to signalise hie march by such unsparing devastation that even the old king is said to have reproved him for hie cruelty. While King Edward was at Lanercost in February 1307, he found it necessary, with the consent of the parliament there assembled, to issue an order banishing Oaveaton for over from the kingdom, as a corrupter of the prince. It is doubtful, notwithstanding the story told by Froiseart [EDWARD I.] if the Prince of Wales was with his father when he died on the 7th of July following; but he was at any rate at no great distance, and he was immediately recognised as king. His reign appears to have been reckoned from the day following.
The new king obeyed his father's injunctions to prosecute the war with Scotland by proceeding on his march Into that country as far as Cumnock in Ayrshire; hut here he turned round without having done anything, and made his way back to England. Meanwhile his whole mind seems to have been occupied only with one object—the advance ment of the favourite. A few date, will best show the violence of his infatuation. Ilia first recorded act of government was to confer upon Gaveston, now recalled to England, the earldom of Cornwall, a dignity which bad hitherto been held only by princes of the blood, and had a few years before reverted to the crown by the death, without issue, of Edmund Plantagenet, the late king's cousin. Tho grant, bestowing all the lands of the earldom as well as the dignity, is dated at Dum fries, the 6th of August 1307. About the Caine time Walter de Langton, bishop of Lichfield, who was lord high treasurer, w imprisoned In Wallingford Castle, as having been the principal pr moter of Gaveston's banishment. In October the new Earl of Cor wall married the king's niece, Margaret de Clare, the daughter of h sister Joanna, countess of Gloucester. He was also made guardi: during his minority to her brother, the young earl The grant several other lordebips followed immediately, and it is even said th the reckless prodigality of the weak king went the length of inakii over all the treasure his father had collected for the Scottish we amounting to nearly a hundred thousand pounds, to the object of insane attachment. Finally, he left him guardian of the realm whi he set out for Boulogne in January 1303, to marry Isabella, ti daughter of the French king, Philip V., to whom he had be affianced ever since the treaty concluded between Philip and h father in 1299. The marriage took place on the 25th of Januer and on the 25th of February the king and queen were crowned I Westminster.