Mortimer's vengeance was not confined to a few leading citizens. Lancaster's life was spared, but he was mulcted in a heavy fine. Many of his associates took refuge in flight. The Earl of Kent, the king's uncle, was shortly afterwards charged with treason, into which he had been drawn by the subtlety of Mortimer, and made to pay the penalty with his head. This, more than anything else, opened the king's eyes to Mortimer's true character, and at length (Oct., 1339,) he caused him to be privily seized in the castle of Nottingham.(458) Thence he was carried to London, and hanged at the Elms in Smithfield.
Queen Isabel, who witnessed the seizure of her favourite and whose prayers to spare the "gentle Mortimer" were of no avail, was made to disgorge much of the wealth she had acquired during her supremacy, and was put on an allowance. The rest of her life, a period of nearly thirty years, she spent in retirement. Before her death(459) she gave the sum of forty shillings to the Abbess and Minoresses of Aldgate of the Order of St. Clare, for the purpose of purchasing for themselves two pittances or doles on the anniversaries of the decease of her husband the late king and of Sir John de Eltham his son.(460) The removal of Mortimer corresponded very closely with the king's coming of age. He was now eighteen years old, and thenceforth he "ruled as well as reigned."
The king's marriage with Philippa of Hainault, which had taken place at York on the 30th January, 1328, had been popular with the city(461) as tending to open up trade with Flanders. Hitherto nearly all the wool produced by this country had been sent to Flanders for manufacture, the export trade being so large that the king is said to have received more than £30,000 in a single year from duties levied on this commodity alone.(462) We have already seen how, in order to punish the Countess of Flanders for injuries inflicted upon English merchants, the king's grandfather resorted, in 1270, to the expedient of forbidding all export of wool to her country.(463) The misery which her half-starved people were then compelled to suffer soon induced the Countess to come to terms. It was also in no small measure owing to the fear of a similar stoppage by the intervention of the French fleet, that the Flemings laid aside their neutrality in 1339, and openly assisted Edward in his war with France.