the utmost elegance of shape
and person, was noted for a fine mien and easy carriage, distinguished
himself in all warlike and genteel exercises, and was celebrated for
those quick sallies of wit in which his countrymen usually excel. By
all these accomplishments, he gained so entire an ascendant over young
Edward, whose heart was strongly disposed to friendship and confidence,
that the late king, apprehensive of the consequences, had banished him
the kingdom, and had, before he died, made his son promise never to
recall him. But no sooner did he find himself master, as he vainly
imagined, than he sent for Gavaston; and even before his arrival
at court, endowed him with the whole earldom of Cornwall, which had
escheated to the crown by the death of Edmond, son of Richard, king of
the Romans.[*] Not content with conferring on him those possessions,
which had sufficed as an appanage for a prince of the blood, he daily
loaded him with new honors and riches; married him to his own niece,
sister of the earl of Glocester; and seemed to enjoy no pleasure in his
royal dignity, but as it enabled him to exalt to the highest splendor
this object of his fond affections.

* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 1. Heming. vol. i. p. 243. Walsing, p.
96.

The haughty barons, offended at the superiority of a minion, whose
birth, though reputable, they despised as much inferior to their own,
concealed not their discontent; and soon found reasons to justify their
animosity in the character and conduct of the man they hated. Instead of
disarming envy by the moderation and modesty of his behavior, Gavaston
displayed his power and influence with the utmost ostentation; and
deemed no circumstance of his good fortune so agreeable as its enabling
him to eclipse and mortify all his rivals. He was vain-glorious,
profuse, rapacious; fond of exterior pomp and appearance, giddy with
prosperity; and as he imagined that his fortune was now as strongly
rooted in the kingdom as his ascendant was uncontrolled over the weak
monarch, he was negligent in engaging partisans, who might support his
sudden and ill-established grandeur. At all tournaments he took delight
in foiling the English nobility by his superior address: in every
conversation he made them the object of his wit and raillery: every day
his enemies multiplied upon him; and nought was wanting but a little
time to cement their union, and render it fatal both to him and to his
master.[*]

It beho