A Child's History of England.77

His turn of triumph came sooner than he expected. It arose out of an accidental circumstance. The beautiful Queen happening to be travelling, came one night to one of the royal castles, and demanded to be lodged and entertained [招待] there until morning. The governor of this castle, who was one of the enraged lords, was away, and in his absence, his wife refused admission to the Queen; a scuffle [扭打] took place among the common men [普通人] on either side, and some of the royal attendants were killed. The people, who cared nothing for the King, were very angry that their beautiful Queen should be thus rudely treated in her own dominions; and the King, taking advantage of this feeling, besieged the castle, took it, and then called the two Despensers [人名,前文那个宠臣和他爸] home. Upon this, the confederate [同盟的] lords and the Welshmen [威尔士人] went over to Bruce. The King encountered them at Boroughbridge, gained the victory, and took a number of distinguished [noble and respectable] prisoners; among them, the Earl of Lancaster, now an old man, upon whose destruction he was resolved [下决心]. This Earl was taken to his own castle of Pontefract, and there tried [审判] and found guilty by an unfair court appointed for the purpose; he was not even allowed to speak in his own defence. He was insulted, pelted [扔臭鸡蛋类], mounted on a starved pony without saddle or bridle [马勒], carried out, and beheaded [砍头]. Eight-and-twenty knights were hanged, drawn, and quartered [分成四块]. When the King had despatched [dispatch, finish] this bloody work, and had made a fresh and a long truce [休战协定] with Bruce, he took the Despensers into greater favour than ever, and made the father Earl of Winchester.

One prisoner, and an important one, who was taken at Boroughbridge, made his escape, however, and turned the tide against the King. This was Roger Mortimer, always resolutely opposed to him, who was sentenced to death, and placed for safe custody in the Tower of London. He treated his guards to a quantity of wine into which he had put a sleeping potion; and, when they were insensible, broke out of his dungeon, got into a kitchen, climbed up the chimney, let himself down from the roof of the building with a rope-ladder, passed the sentries [哨兵], got down to the river, and made away in a boat to where servants and horses were waiting for him. He finally escaped to France, where Charles le Bel, the brother of the beautiful Queen, was King. Charles sought to quarrel with the King of England, on pretence of his not having come to do him homage [敬意] at his coronation. It was proposed that the beautiful Queen should go over to arrange the dispute; she went, and wrote home to the King, that as he was sick and could not come to France himself, perhaps it would be better to send over the young Prince, their son, who was only twelve years old, who could do homage to her brother in his stead, and in whose company [陪伴] she would immediately return. The King sent him: but, both he and the Queen remained at the French Court, and Roger Mortimer became the Queen's lover.

in sb's stead: instead of sb. 我怀疑instead这个词是in和stead之间少了个空格。

When the King wrote, again and again, to the Queen to come home, she did not reply that she despised [鄙视] him too much to live with him any more (which was the truth), but said she was afraid of the two Despensers. In short, her design was to overthrow the favourites' power, and the King's power, such as it was, and invade England. Having obtained a French force of two thousand men, and being joined by all the English exiles [流放犯] then in France, she landed, within a year, at Orewell, in Suffolk, where she was immediately joined by the Earls of Kent and Norfolk, the King's two brothers; by other powerful noblemen; and lastly, by the first English general who was despatched [派遣] to check [阻止] her: who went over to her with all his men. The people of London, receiving these tidings [news], would do nothing for the King, but broke open the Tower, let out all his prisoners, and threw up their caps and hurrahed [叫好] for the beautiful Queen.

六级/考研单词: triumph, gorgeous, lodge, entertain, thereby, rude, besiege, encounter, resolve, guilt, insult, mount, starve, saddle, knight, dispatch, tide, custody, chimney, quarrel, princess, despise, overthrow, invade, exile, potent, noble

潮信的意思是潮水，以其涨落有定时故称。