Oh! when with chafed, indignant hearts, Sully and stain some brow baptized, Where Christ's pure light should shine; Pause we awhile, nor trust our tongue Remembering, how th' Archangel stood, He railed not, though he hated sin, Vengeance to God he duteous left, Blest Picture! may we muse on thee, NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. L. F.-Very pretty fancies, but wait at least seven years before yo try to put them into print. M. P.-"The Primrose," &c., declined with thanks. John and Charles Mozley, Printers, Derby. THE VICTIM OF BLACKLOW HILL. 'THE foolishness of the people" is a title that might be given to many a son of a wise father. The very energy and prudence of the parent, especially when employed on ambitious or worldly objects, seems to cause distaste, and even opposition in the youth, on whom his father's pursuits have been prematurely forced. Seeing the evil, and weary of the good, it often requires a strong sense of duty to prevent him from flying to the contrary extreme, or from becoming wayward, indifferent, and dissipated. This has been the history of many an heir-apparent ; and of none more decidedly than of Edward of Caernarvon. The Plantagenet weakness, instead of the stern strength of the house of Anjou, had descended to him; and though he had what Fuller calls 'a handsome manse, his fair and beautiful face was devoid of the resolute and fiery expression of his father, and showed somewhat of the inanity of regular features, without a spirit to illuminate them. Gentle, fond of music, dancing, and every kind of sport, he had little turn for state affairs; and like his grandfather, Henry III. but with more constancy, he clung to whosoever had been able to gain his VOL. 13. 8 PART 74. affections, and had neither will nor judgment save that o the friend who had won his heart. His first friend, and it was a friendship till death, wa Piers Gaveston, the son of a knight of Guienne. Pier was a few years older than the prince, and so graceful handsome, ready of tongue, and complete in every court ly accomplishment, that Edward I. highly approved o him as his son's companion in early boyhood, and Pier shared in the education of the young Prince of Wales, and of his favourite sister, Elizabeth. Edward I. was a fon father, and granted his son's friend various distinguished marks of favour, among others the wardship of Roger, the son and heir of the deceased Edmund Mortimer, warder of the Marches of Wales. Whatever were the intention of Gaveston, Roger Mortimer did little credit to his edu cation. The guardian had a license to use his ward property like his own till his majority, in order that h might levy the retainers for the king's service, and he ob tained a handsome gratuity from the relatives of the lad to whom he gave the youth in marriage, and this probably was the extent of the obligations to which Gaveston con sidered himself as bound. Both he and his prince were strongly sensitive to al that was tasteful and beautiful; they were profuse in their expenditure in dress, in ornament, and in all kind of elegances, and delighted in magnificent entertainments They gave one in the Tower of London to the princesses when an immense expenditure was incurred, when the Prince of Wales was only fifteen; and his presents wer always on the grandest scale to his sisters, who seeu to have loved him as sisters love an only brother. By-and-by, however, generosity became profusion, and love of pleasure ran into dissipation. Grave men grew uneasy at the idle levity of the prince, and were seriously offended by the gibes and jests in which the tongue of Gaveston abounded, and at which he was always ready to laugh. In 1305, the prince made application to Walter Langley, Bishop of Lichfield, the king's treasurer, to supply him with money, but was refused, and spoke improperly in his anger. It is even said that he joined Gareston in the wild frolic of breaking into Langley's park, and stealing his deer. At any rate, at Midhurst, on the 13th of June, the bishop seriously reproved him for his idle life and love of low company; and the prince replied with such angry words, that the king, in extreme displeasure, sent him in a sort of captivity to Windsor Castle, with only two servants. All his sisters rose up to take their brother's part, and assure him of their sympathy. The eager, high-spirited Joan, Countess of Gloucester, sent him her seal, that he might procure whatever he pleased at her cost; and Elizabeth, who was married to Humphrey de Bohun, the great Earl of Hereford, wrote a letter of warm indignation, to which he replied by begging her not to believe anything save that his father was acting quite rightly by him; but a few weeks after, he wrote to beg her to intercede that his two valets,' Gilbert de Clare and Perot de Gaveston, 'might be restored to him, as they would alleviate much of his anguish.' He addressed a letter with the like petition to his step-mother, Queen Margaret, and continued to evince his submission by refusing his sister Mary's invitations to visit her at her convent at Ambresbury. At the meeting of parliament, Edward met his ather again, and received his forgiveness. All went well for me time, and he gracefully played his part in the pageantry of his knighthood and the vow of the Swans. Gaveston still continued about his person, and accompanied him to the north of England. At the parliament of Carlisle, in 1307, the prince besought his father to grant his friend the earldom of Cornwall, the richest appinage in the kingdom, just now vacant by the death of his cousin, Edmund d'Almaine, son of the king of the Romans. Whether this presumptuous request opened th king's eyes to the inordinate power that Gaveston exe cised over his son, or whether he was exasperated again him by the complaints of the nobles, his reply was, decree that after a tournament fixed for the 9th of Apri Gaveston must quit the kingdom for ever; and he fu ther required an oath from both the friends, that the would never meet again, even after his death. Oath were lightly taken in those days, and neither of the ga youths was likely to resist the will of the stern ol monarch; so the pledge was taken, and the Prince Wales remained lonely and dispirited, while Piers hover ed on the outskirts of the English dominions, watchin for tidings that could hardly be long in coming. So much did Edward I. dread his influence, that on hi death-bed he obliged his son to renew his abjuration Gaveston's company, and laid him under his paterna malediction should he attempt to recall him. It does no appear that Gaveston waited for a summons. He hurrie to present himself before his royal friend, who had, i pursuance of his father's orders, advanced as far as Cum nock, in Ayrshire. Both had bitterly to rue their broken faith, and heavily did the father's curse weigh upon them; but at firs there was nothing but transport in their meeting. Th merry Piers renewed his jests and gaieties; he set himsel to devise frolics and pageantries for his young master; and speedily persuaded him to cease from the toils of war in dreary Scotland, and turn his face homewards to the more congenial delights of his coronation, and his mar riage with the fairest maiden in Europe. To have made peace with Bruce because the war was an unjust aggres sion would have been noble; but it was base neither to fight nor to treat, and to leave unsupported the brave men who held castles in his name in the heart of the enemy's country. But Edward was only twenty-two, Gave |