was announced that the lord Edward had died a natural death, and his
corpse was exposed to the public view that suspicion might be averted.
He was buried with the state that became a crowned king in the
Benedictine Abbey Church of St. Peter, Gloucester. A few years later
the piety or remorse of Edward III. erected over his father's remains
the magnificent tomb which still challenges our admiration by the
delicacy of its tabernacle work and the artistic beauty of the
sculptured effigy of the murdered monarch.

The tragedy of Edward's end soon caused his misdeeds to be forgotten,
and ere long the countryside flocked on pilgrimage to his tomb, as to
the shrine of a saint. By a curious irony the burial place of Edward of
Carnarvon rivalled in popularity the chapel on the hill at Pontefract
where Thomas of Lancaster had perished by Edward's orders. Like his
cousin, Edward became a popular, though not a canonised, saint. From
the offerings made at his tomb the monks of Gloucester were in time
supplied with the funds that enabled them to recast their romanesque
choir in the newer "perpendicular" fashion of architecture, and
embellish their church with all the rich additions which contrast so
strangely with the grim impressiveness of the stately Norman nave.
There was only one impediment to the people's worship of the dead king.
The secrecy which enveloped his end led to rumours that he was still
alive, and the prevalence of these reports soon proved almost as great
a source of embarrassment to his supplanters, as his living presence
had been in the first months of their unhallowed power.

It was not easy for Isabella and Mortimer to restore the waning
fortunes of England at home and abroad. We shall see that it was only
by an almost complete surrender that they procured peace with France
and a partial restoration of Gascony. In Scotland they were even less