arose amongst the noblemen, and great murmuring amongst the common people, who said that Roger Mortimer, the Queen's paragon and the King's master, sought all the means he could to destroy the King's blood, and to usurp the regal majesty, which report troubled much the King's friends—to wit, William Montacute and others, who, for the safeguard of the King, swore themselves to be true to his person, and drew unto them Robert de Holland, who had of long time been keeper of the castle, unto whom all secret corners of the same were known. Then, upon a certain night, the King^ lying without the castle, both he and his friends were brought by torchlight through a secret way under ground, beginning far off from the said castle, till they came even to the Queen's chamber, which they, by chance, found open; they, therefore, being armed with naked swords in their hands, went forwards, leaving the King, also armed, without the door of the chamber, lest that his mother should espy him. They who entered in slew Sir Hugh Turpmton, who resisted them, and gave John Neville a deadly wound. From thence they went towards the Queen Mother, whom they found with the Earl of March, ready to retire to rest, and having taken the said Earl, they led him out into the hall, the Queen following, and pitcously exclaiming : ' Sweet son, fair son, have pity on my gentle Mortimer !' for she suspected her son was there, though she saw him not. Then were the keys of the castle sent for, and every place, writh all the furniture, yielded up into the King's hands, but in such secretwise, that none without the castle, except the King's friends, understood thereof. 1 1 The next day, in the morning very early, they conveyed Roger Mortimer, and other his friends taken with him, with a horrible shout and crying (the Earl of Lancaster, then blind, being one of them that made the shout for joy), towards London, where he was committed to the Tower, and afterwards, on the twenty-sixth of November, condemned by the Parliament to be drawn and hanged as a traitor. Immediately after his condemnation, he was hanged at Tyburn, then known as the Elms. After his body had hung on the gallows two days and nights, it was cut down, and buried in the church of the Grey Friars, within Newgate." The principal charges against Mortimer are comprehended in the following rude stanzas, by an old rhyming historian :—• "Five heinous crimes Against him soon were had. First, that he caused The King to yield the Scot {To make a peace) Towns that were from him got; And withall, The charter called the Ragman. Second, that of the Scots He had bribed privy gain. Third, that through his means King Edward of Carnarvon In Berkeley Castle Most traitorously was slain. Fourth, that with his Prince's Mother he had lain. Fifth, and finally, With polling at his pleasure, He had rohbed the King and Commons Of nearly all their treasure," Sir Simon Hereford, John Deverai, and several other of Mortimer's satellites, were executed along with him ; and a few days previously, the King published a proclamation, declaring that he had taken the reins of government into his own hands, and summoning a new parliament to meet at Westminster. Isabella, although spared the pain of a public trial, was stripped of her extravagant dower, and with an income of three thousand pounds a-year, confined in Castle Rising, in Norfolk, where the King paid her one or more state visits annually. She was no more allowed to assumo any political power ; but the King carefully guarded her name from obloquy, only permitted it to be mentioned with the greatest respect, and, in L344, honoured her with a grant of tho revenues of Ponthieu and Montrieul, formerly conferred on her by her murdered husband, Edward the Second. In 1348, the French King endeavoured to again draw Isabella into the arena of diplomacy, by naming her and the Queen-Dowager of France the mediatrices of a peace. Rut Edward im