Edward II. left by his queen, Isabella of France, two sons, Edward, vho succeeded him, and John, born at Eltham, 15th of August 1316, reared Earl of Cornwall, in 1327, who died at Perth in October 1336; nd two daughters, Joanna, married 12th July, 1328, to Prince )avid, eldest son of Robert Bruce, afterwards King David II. of ?cotland, and Eleanor, who became the wife of Reginald Count of ;udders.
Some attempts have been made in modern times to dispute tho Lidice of the character which has been generally given of this king, nd to throw the blame of the civil distractions which rendered his sign so unhappy and so ignominious a one, rather upon his turbulent obility than himself. Hume has written the history of the reign pith a studied endeavour to put the barons in the wrong throughout, nd to represent Edward as the victim, not of his own weakness and ices, but rather of the barbarism of the age. The facts however on hich the common verdict rests cannot be thus explained away. It may admitted that among the motives which excited and sustained the iveral confedera;ies against the king, and in the conduct of some of lose who took the lead in them, there was violence and want of rineiple enough; it is of the nature of things that the baser passions could mix themselves up and even act an important part in all such inflicts, however righteous in their origin and general object; but thing that can be alleged on this head can affect the question of dward's unfitness to wear the crown. That question must bo con dered as settled, if not by the course of outrage against all decency anifested by his conduct in the matter of Gaveston, certainly by his relapse into the same fatal fatuity a few years after, when he fell into the hands of his second favourite Despencer.
To the reign of Edward II. belongs the memorable event of the suppression in England, as in the other countries of Europe, of the great order of the Knights-Tempters. Their property was seized all over England in 1308; but the suppression of the order in this country was not accompanied by any of that cruel treatment of the persona of the members which they had experienced in France. In
1324 the lands which had belonged to the Templar' were bestowed upon the order of St. John of Jerusalem.
The moat important legal innovation of this reign was that made by the statute of sheriffs (9 Edward II., st. 2), by which the right of appointing those officers was taken from the people and committed to the chancellor, the treasurer, and the judges. Several of the royal prerogatives, relating principally to tenures, were also defined by the statute entitled 'Prerogative Regis' (17 Edward II., et. I). The statutes down to the end of tho reign of Edward II. are commonly distinguished as the 'Vetem Statute.' Pleading now began to assume a scientific form. The series of yearbooks, or reports' by authority of adjndged cases, is nearly perfect from the commencement of this reign. The only law treatise belonging, or supposed to belong, to the reign of Edward II. is Home's ' Miroir des Justices.' The circumstances of the reign were as little favourable to litera ture as to commerce and the arts. Warton observes that though much poetry now began to be written, he lute found only one English poet of the period whose name has descended to posterity; Adam Davy or Davie, the author of various poems of a religious cast, which have never been Among these however is not to be reckoned the long work entitled The Life of Alexander,' which is erroneously attributed to him by Warton, but which has since been conclusively shown not to be his. There is still, extant a curious Latin poem on the battle of Bannockburn, written in rhyming hexameters by Robert Boston, a Carmelite friar, whom Edward carried along with him to celebmto his anticipated victory, but who, being taken prisoner, was compelled by the Scotch to sing the defeat of his countrymen in this jingling effusion. Bale speaks of this Balton as a writer of tragedies and comedies, some of which appear to have been English ; hut none of them are now know to exist.