performed with great pomp by Cardinal i Arnold. The child had seven godfathers, but not a single godmother. Isabella's brother, Louis, King of Navarre, and other French nobles then in England, wished him to be named Louis, but the idea being repugnant to the national feelings of the English, he w*as christened after his father and grandfather, Edward, a name venerated both by the nobles and the people, who viewed the sainted Confessor as the framer of the matchless laws on which their boasted liberty was built. This happy event again bound Isabella and her royal lord in the bonds of conjugal happiness. The influence of the Queen became considerable, and her conduct at this period appears to have been worthy and womanly in the highest degree. At the commencement of 1313, Edward, who could neither entirely forget nor forgive the death of Gaveston, accused the barons of treating the crown with contempt. The barons replied, "that they had done nought but for the safety of the realm, and the true interest of their sovereign." Words ran high, and arms would probably have been appealed to, but for the earnest mediation of the Queen, who, aided in the good task by the Pope's legate, the French ambassadors, and the Luke of Gloucester, effected a reconciliation between the King and the barons. The very valuable plate and jewels found in Gaveston's baggage, and which consisted, for the most part, of gold and silver ewers, basons and plates, and rings, brooches, buckles, and other precious ornaments, presented at various times by-Edward to the favourite, were restored to the King, and on the sixteenth of October, the King, seated on his throne at "Westminster Hall, received the feigned regrets of the barons, who, on bended knees, asked pardon for having given him offence, and on the next day a general amnesty was proclaimed, and upwards of five hundred special pardons granted. " These pardons," says the chronicler, " were granted through the earnest prayers of the Queen ; in fact, Isabella allowed the King no rest till he had agreed to the reconciliation." The parliament met amicably, granted the King a fifteenth, and breaking up, returned home in joy and peace. But soon afterwards, the Earl of "Warwick dying suddenly, and, as it was generally reported, from the effects of poison, administered by some of the King's secret friends, the barons again became mistrustful, and, but for the influence of Isabella, would have again taken up arms. Inl314, Edward, aroused into action by the startling intelligence that the victorious Bruce—already master of all Scotland, save a fewfortresses—was successfully besieging the Castle of Stirling, crossed the Tweed with one hundred thousand men. Bruce met this mighty army with thirty thousand Scots at Bannockburn, and defeated them with prodigious slaughter. The English crossing a rivulet to the attack, and Bruce having dug pits which he had covered, they fell into them, and were thrown into irretrievable confusion, and fled in dismay. " In the flight," says Stowe, "Edward vowed to God, that he would build for the poor Carmelite Friars a house, in which he would place twenty-four brethren, to be students in divinity ; a vow he performed by building and endowing the White Friars, in Oxford." This important victory secured the independency of Scotland. Luring the campaign, the Queen resided principally at York and Brotherton. The defeat at Bannockbum was followed by a most dreadful famine and pestilence. In 1314, the harvest was alarmingly deficient. Corn was imported from France, but the supply being scanty, the King, by the desire of the parliament, which met in the ensuing February, fixed a maximum on the price of provisions, but to no purpose ; all kinds of provisions rapidly increased in value. Poultry was not to be had, eggs could scarcely be procured, sheep died of the rot, cattle and even swine famished for want, or were carried off by a pestilential disease, wheat, peas, and beans were sold for twenty shillings a quarter, flour was so scarce that the King's table was with difficulty supplied with bread, and, to increase the