into the arid
fields of such research, that you may call it wambasium, gobison,
wambeys, gambiex, gaubeson, or half a dozen other names; but, to my
mind, you will get no further with such knowledge.

Falding is an Irish frieze; cyclas is a gown; courtepy is a short
gown; kirtle--again, if we know too much we cannot be accurate--kirtle
may be a loose gown, or an apron, or a jacket, or a riding-cloak.

The tabard was an embroidered surcoat--that is, a surcoat on which was
displayed the heraldic device of the owner.

Let us close this reign with its mournful end, when Piers Gaveston
feels the teeth of the Black Dog of Warwick, and is beheaded on
Blacklow Hill; when Hugh le Despenser is hanged on a gibbet; when the
Queen lands at Orwell, conspiring against her husband, and the King is
a prisoner at Kenilworth.

Here at Kenilworth the King hears himself deposed.

'Edward, once King of England,' is hereafter accounted 'a private
person, without any manner of royal dignity.'

Here Edward, in a plain black gown, sees the steward of his household,
Sir Thomas Blount, break his staff of office, done only when a King is
dead, and discharge all persons engaged in the royal service.

Parliament decided to take this strong measure in January; in the
following September Edward was murdered in cold blood at Berkeley
Castle.

EDWARD THE THIRD

Reigned fifty years: 1327-1377.

Born 1312. Married, 1328, Philippa of Hainault.

THE MEN

Kings were Kings in those days; they managed England as a nobleman
managed his estates.

Edward I., during the year 1299, changed his abode on an average three
times a fortnight, visiting in one year seventy-five towns and
castles.

Edward II. increased his travelling retinue until, in the fourth year
of the reign of Edward III., the crowd who accompanied that King had
grown to such proportions that he was forced to introduce a law
forbidding knights and soldiers to bring their wives and families with
them.

Edward III., with his gay company, would not be stopped as he rode out
of one of the gates of London to pay toll of a penny a cart and a
farthing a horse, nor would any of his train.

This toll, which included threepence a week on gravel and sand carts
going in or out of the City, was raised to help pay for street
repairs, the streets and roads of that time being in a continual state
of slush, mud, and pits of water.

Let us imagine Edward III. and his retinue pass