But the "Statute of Treasons" claims the chief rank among the enactments of this reign. Hitherto all kinds of offences against the Crown, however trivial, had been included under the convenient name of treason; but now the crime was strictly limited to compassing the king or queen's death, or that of their eldest son; levying war within the realm; taking part with the king's enemies; uttering base coin; or murdering any of the king's servants while in the discharge of their duties. High treason, so defined, was accounted the greatest crime known to the law, and involved the traitor in the loss of dignities, lands, goods, and life.

Among the minor events of Edward's reign were the resistance offered to the undue accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of the clergy; the encouragement given to trade and commerce; and the use of the English language, for the first time, in Parliament and the Law Courts."

Many of our noblest buildings also, such as Melrose Abbey, Exeter Cathedral, and Windsor Castle, were erected in this reign. The latter was commenced by Henry the Second, but was now completed under the direction of William of Wykeham, the wise and good Bishop of Winchester.

Now, too, English literature may be said to have had its birth in the persons of Chaucer and Gower, the poets, and the famous John Wycliffe, who by his translation of the Bible and by his sermons denouncing the growing abuses in the Church, did more to enlighten and instruct the people than any other man of the age.

The closing years of Edward's life were clouded by misfortune, sorrow, and shame. Queen Philippa had gone to her grave deservedly lamented, and in 1376 her famous son, the Black Prince, found a tomb in Canterbury Cathedral. Then the king, in his dotage, fell into the hands of a wicked, designing woman, who, having tarnished his good name, deserted him in his dying moments, but not until she had stolen the rings from his fingers.

Men read of Edward's brilliant victories and feats of arms, which shed lustre over what was after all a disastrous war, and they look back upon him as a national hero; but in his own day, though he was admired as a soldier, the people at large never had any very great regard for him. He was unprincipled and selfish, and he valued England chiefly as the source whence he could draw supplies for his campaigns on the Continent.

How little he was loved by the poor French peasantry, whose country it had been the great business of his life to harry and lay waste, whose homesteads he had burnt, whose vineyards he had cut down, and whose corn-fields he had trampled under foot, we need not stay to inquire.

Stat'-ute of La'-bour-ers. By this statute any labourer (not otherwise engaged) was bound to serve the employer who required him to do so. If he refused he was subject to imprisonment, and, in some cases, to be branded on the forehead with a hot iron.

2 Peas'-ant re-volt' under Wat Tyler and other leaders.

3 Ses'-sions, the time during which Parliament sits.

Pre'-lates, dignitaries of the

Church.

5 The Commons were presided over by a Speaker as at the present day.

"Pur-vey'-ance. Edward extend. ed this system to the seizure of the lower orders for soldiers and sailors. This was the origin of the press-gang of later days.

7 Before this Norman-French was spoken.

RICHARD THE SECOND.

T Edward's death, in

A 1377, the son of the
AT

Black Prince succeeded to the crown,

under the title of Richard the Second.

For the sake of his father, all England was ready to admire the beautiful boy, then in his eleventh year; but he lived to disappoint the nation's hopes, and after a

of bellag

troubled reign of twenty-two years, he deposed, and

RICHARD II.

was

ended his days a lonely captive in Pontefract Castle. But by what means he died, by whose hand, and at whose orders, we are unable to say with any degree of certainty.

Quarrels with his subjects, quarrels with his uncles, quarrels with the Commons, and quarrels on behalf of worthless favourites, with whom he surrounded his throne, filled up the years of Richard's unhappy reign.

The peasantry of England at this period consisted of labourers, free to hire out their services to any master; and villeins, or serfs, who were still the mere slaves of the lord on whose land they lived.

By the operation of a variety of causes, however, many of these bondsmen acquired their liberty, and during the whole of the fourteenth century a great social revolution-the transformation of serfs into free sons of the soil-was being silently, but rapidly effected, both in England and France.

But the pestilence came, and the statute fixing wages which the men refused to accept. Then the masters at their wits' end for labour, enforced their half-forgotten rights over villeins, and recalled to servitude many a man who was as good as free.

The result was that the land became a mass of smouldering discontent, which broke out into flames of actual rebellion when, in an evil hour, Parliament consented to the imposition of a poll-tax, from which no individual over fourteen years of age was exempt, but which was levied alike on rich and poor, the penniless serf being compelled to pay as much as the owner of vast estates.

The actual rising commenced at Dartford; but very soon thousands of insurgents from Essex, Hertford, and Kent marched to London, headed by Wat Tyler and other popular leaders. Here, after committing serious excesses, and putting to death many obnoxious individuals, they received from Richard a promise that their grievances should be redressed and their rebellion pardoned. No sooner, however, had the rebels returned to their homes, than the Charters were annulled, and great numbers of those who had taken part in the rising were tried and put to death.

The gallant bearing of the young king-he was

only sixteen years of age-during this trying crisis, raised the highest hopes respecting his future conduct; hopes which were, alas! doomed to bitter disappointment.

Already Richard had shown an unfortunate weakness for favourites, and his reign, henceforth, presents a series of dark crimes, errors, and calamities.

For many years a struggle was carried on for power between the king on one side, and his uncles, supported by some of the great nobles, on the other; and at times, Richard showed that he could be as cool and daring as when he faced Wat Tyler and the mob. Thus at a great council held in the north, he suddenly said to his uncle and guardian, the Duke of Gloucester: "Tell me, I pray you, how old I am."

"Your highness," was the answer, "is in your twenty-second year."

"Then," said the king, "I am surely of age to manage my own affairs. I thank you, my lords, for your past services; but I need them no longer."

He then caused it to be proclaimed, that being of full age, he had taken the government of the kingdom into his own hands; and for a period of eight years he seems to have ruled with a moderate degree of success. But he never forgave those who during his minority had opposed his will; and on the first favourable opportunity he caused his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, to be seized, and hurried off to Calais, where he died-secretly murdered, as most men thought, The Earl of