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THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
FROM THE INVASION OF JULIUS CAESAR
TO THE END OF THE REIGN OF JAMES THE SECOND,
BY DAVID HUME, ESQ.
1688
London: James S. Virtue, City Road and Ivy Lane
New York: 26 John Street
1860
And
Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott & Co.
March 17, 1901
In Three Volumes:
VOLUME ONE: The History Of England From The Invasion Of Julius Caesar To
The End Of The Reign Of James The Second............ By David Hume, Esq.
VOLUME TWO: Continued from the Reign of William and Mary to the Death of
George II........................................... by Tobias Smollett.
VOLUME THREE: From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year
of the Reign of Queen Victoria............... by E. Farr and E.H. Nolan.
VOLUME ONE
Part B.
HENRY III. TO RICHARD III.
CHAPTER XII.
[Illustration: 1_155_henry3.jpg HENRY III.]
HENRY III.
{1216.} Most sciences, in proportion as they increase and improve,
invent methods by which they facilitate their reasonings, and, employing
general theorems, are enabled to comprehend, in a few propositions,
a great number of inferences and conclusions. History, also, being a
collection of facts which are multiplying without end, is obliged to
adopt such arts of abridgment, to retain the more material events, and
to drop all the minute circumstances, which are only interesting during
the time, or to the persons engaged in the transactions. This truth is
nowhere more evident than with regard to the reign upon which we are
going to enter. What mortal could have the patience to write or read a
long detail of such frivolous events as those with which it is filled,
or attend to a tedious narrative which would follow, through a series
of fifty-six years, the caprices and weaknesses of so mean a prince as
Henry? The chief reason why Protestant writers have been so anxious
to spread out the incidents of this reign, is in order to expose the
rapacity, ambition, and artifices of the court of Rome, and to prove,
that the great dignitaries of the Catholic church, while they pretended
to have nothing in view but the salvation of souls, had bent all their
attention to the acquisition of riches, and were restrained by no sense
of justice or of honor in the pursuit of that great object.[*] But this
conclusion would readily be allowed them, though it were not illustrated
by such a detail of uninteresting incidents; and follows indeed, by
an evident necessity, from the very situation in which that church
was placed with regard to the rest of Europe. For, besides that
ecclesiastical power, as it can always cover its operations under a
cloak of sanctity, and attacks men on the side where they dare not
employ their reason, lies less under control than civil government;
besides this general cause, I say, the pope and his courtiers were
foreigners to most of the churches which they governed; they could not
possibly have any other object than to pillage the provinces for present
gain; and as they lived at a distance, they would be little awed by
shame or remorse in employing every lucrative expedient which was
suggested to them. England being one of the most remote provinces
attached to the Romish hierarchy, as well as the most prone to
superstition, felt severely, during this reign, while its patience was
not yet fully exhausted, the influence of these causes, and we shall
often have occasion to touch cursorily upon such incidents. But we shall
not attempt to comprehend every transaction transmitted to us: and till
the end of the reign, when the events become more memorable, we shall
not always observe an exact chronological order in our narration.
* M. Paris, p. 623.
The earl of Pembroke, who at the time of John's death, was mareschal
of England, was, by his office, at the head of the armies, and
consequently, during a state of civil wars and convulsions, at the head
of the government; and it happened, fortunately for the young monarch
and for the nation, that the power could not have been intrusted into
more able and more faithful hands. This nobleman, who had maintained
his loyalty unshaken to John during the lowest fortune of that monarch,
determined to support the authority of the infant prince; nor was he
dismayed at the number and violence of his enemies. Sensible that
Henry, agreeably to the prejudices of the times, would not be deemed
a sovereign till crowned and anointed by a churchman, he immediately
carried the young prince to Glocester, where the ceremony of coronation
was performed, in the presence of Gualo, the legate, and of a few
noblemen, by the bishops of Winchester and Bath.[*] As the concurrence
of the papal authority was requisite to support the tottering throne,
Henry was obliged to swear fealty to the pope, and renew that homage to
which his father had already subjected the kingdom:[**] and in order to
enlarge the authority of Pembroke, and to give him a more regular
and legal title to it, a general council of the barons was soon after
summoned at Bristol, where that nobleman was chosen protector of the
realm.
* M. Paris, p. 290. Hist Croyl. Cont. p. 474. W. Heming. p.
562. Privet, p. 168.
** M. Paris, p. 200.
Pembroke, that he might reconcile all men to the government of his
pupil, made him grant a new charter of liberties, which, though mostly
copied from the former concessions extorted from John, contains some
alterations which may be deemed remarkable.[*] The full privilege of
elections in the clergy, granted by the late king, was not confirmed,
nor the liberty of going out of the kingdom without the royal consent:
whence we may conclude, that Pembroke and the barons, jealous of the
ecclesiastical power, both were desirous of renewing the king's claim
to issue a conge d'elire to the monks and chapters, and thought it
requisite to put some check to the frequent appeals to Rome. But what
may chiefly surprise us is, that the obligation to which John had
subjected himself, of obtaining the consent of the great council before
he levied any aids or scutages upon the nation, was omitted; and this
article was even declared hard and severe, and was expressly left to
future deliberation. But we must consider, that, though this limitation
may perhaps appear to us the most momentous in the whole charter of
John, it was not regarded in that light by the ancient barons, who were
more jealous in guarding against particular acts of violence in the
crown than against such general impositions which, unless they were
evidently reasonable and necessary, could scarcely, without general
consent, be levied upon men who had arms in their hands, and who could
repel any act of oppression by which they were all immediately affected.
We accordingly find, that Henry, in the course of his reign, while he
gave frequent occasions for complaint with regard to his violations of
the Great Charter, never attempted, by his own will, to levy any aids
or scutages, though he was often reduced to great necessities, and was
refused supply by his people.
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 215.
So much easier was it for him to transgress the law, when individuals
alone were affected, than even to exert his acknowledged prerogatives,
where the interest of the whole body was concerned.
This charter was again confirmed by the king in the ensuing year, with
the addition of some articles to prevent the oppressions by sheriffs;
and also with an additional charter of forests, a circumstance of great
moment in those ages, when hunting was so much the occupation of the
nobility, and when the king comprehended so considerable a part of the
kingdom within his forests, which he governed by peculiar and arbitrary
laws. All the forests, which had been enclosed since the reign of Henry
II., were disafforested, and new perambulations were appointed for that
purpose; offences in the forests were declared to be no longer capital,
but punishable by fine, imprisonment, and more gentle penalties; and all
the proprietors of land recovered the power of cutting and using their
own wood at their pleasure.
Thus these famous charters were brought nearly to the shape in which
they have ever since stood; and they were, during many generations, the
peculiar favorites of the English nation, and esteemed the most sacred
rampart to national liberty and independence. As they secured the rights
of all orders of men, they were anxiously defended by all, and became
the basis, in a manner, of the English monarchy, and a kind of original
contract which both limited the authority of the king and insured the
conditional allegiance of his subjects. Though often violated, they
were still claimed by the nobility and people; and as no precedents
were supposed valid that infringed them, they rather acquired than lost
authority, from the frequent attempts made against them in several ages
by regal and arbitrary power.
While Pembroke, by renewing and confirming the Great Charter, gave so
much satisfaction and security to the nation in general, he also applied
himself successfully to individuals; he wrote letters, in the king's
name, to all the malcontent barons; in which he represented to them
that, whatever jealousy and animosity they might have entertained
against the late king, a young prince, the lineal heir of their ancient
monarchs, had now succeeded to the throne, without succeeding either
to the resentments or principles of his predecessor; that the desperate
expedient, which they had employed, of calling in a foreign potentate,
had, happily for them as well as for the nation, failed of entire
success, and it was still in their power, by a speedy return to their
duty, to restore the independence of the kingdom, and to secure that
liberty for which they so zealously contended; that as all past offences
of the barons were now buried in oblivion, they ought, on their part,
to forget their complaints against their late sovereign, who, if he had
been anywise blamable in his conduct had left to his son the salutary
warning, to avoid the paths which had led to such fatal extremities:
and that having now obtained a charter for their liberties, it was
their interest to show, by their conduct, that this acquisition was
not incompatible with their allegiance, and that the rights of king and
people, so far from being hostile and opposite, might mutually support
and sustain each other.[*]
These considerations, enforced by the character of honor and constancy
which Pembroke had ever maintained, had a mighty influence on the
barons; and most of them began secretly to negotiate with him, and
many of them openly returned to their duty. The diffidence which Lewis
discovered of their fidelity, forwarded this general propension towards
the king; and when the French prince refused the government of the
castle of Hertford to Robert Fitz-Walter, who had been so active against
the late king, and who claimed that fortress as his property, they
plainly saw that the English were excluded from every trust, and that
foreigners had engrossed all the confidence and affection of their new
sovereign.[**] The excommunication, too, denounced by the legate
against all the adherents of Lewis, failed not, in the turn which men's
dispositions had taken, to produce a mighty effect upon them; and they
were easily persuaded to consider a cause as impious, for which they had
already entertained an unsurmountable aversion.[***] Though Lewis made
a journey to France, and brought over succors from that kingdom [****]
he found, on his return, that his party was still more weakened by the
desertion of his English confederates, and that the death of John had,
contrary to his expectations, given an incurable wound to his cause.
The earls of Salisbury Arundel, and Warrenne, together with William
Mareschal, eldest son of the protector, had embraced Henry's party;
and every English nobleman was plainly watching for an opportunity of
returning to his allegiance.
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 215. Brady's App. No. 143.
** M. Paris, p. 200, 202.
*** Ibid. p. 200 M. West, p. 277
**** Chron. Dunst vol. i. p. 79.
Pembroke was so much strengthened by these accessions, that he ventured
to invest Mount Sorel; though, upon the approach of the count of Perche
with the French army, he desisted from his enterprise, and raised the
siege.[*] The count, elated with this success, marched to Lincoln; and
being admitted into the town, he began to attack the castle, which he
soon reduced to extremity. The protector summoned all his forces from
every quarter, in order to relieve a place of such importance; and he
appeared so much superior to the French, that they shut themselves up
within the city, and resolved to act upon the defensive.[**] But the
garrison of the castle, having received a strong reenforcement, made a
vigorous sally upon the besiegers; while the English army, by concert,
assaulted them in the same instant from without, mounted the walls by
scalade, and bearing down all resistance, entered the city sword in
hand. Lincoln was delivered over to be pillaged; the French army was
totally routed; the count de Perche, with only two persons more,
was killed, but many of the chief commanders, and about four hundred
knights, were made prisoners by the English.[***] So little blood was
shed in this important action, which decided the fate of one of the
most powerful kingdoms in Europe; and such wretched soldiers were those
ancient barons, who yet were unacquainted with every thing but arms!
* M. Paris, p. 203
** Chron. Dunst vol. i. p. 81.
*** M. Paris, p. 204, 205.
**** Chron. de Mailr. p. 195.
Prince Lewis was informed of this fatal event while employed in the
siege of Dover, which was still valiantly defended against him by Hubert
de Burgh. He immediately retreated to London, the centre and life of his
party; and he there received intelligence of a new disaster, which
put an end to all his hopes. A French fleet, bringing over a strong,
reenforcement, had appeared on the coast of Kent; where they were
attacked by the English under the command of Philip d'Albiney, and were
routed with considerable loss. D'Albiney employed a stratagem against
them, which is said to have contributed to the victory: having gained
the wind of the French, he came down upon them with violence; and
throwing in their faces a great quantity of quick lime, which he
purposely carried on board, he so blinded them, that they were disabled
from defending themselves.[*]
After this second misfortune of the French, the English barons
hastened every where to make peace with the protector, and, by an early
submission, to prevent those attainders to which they were exposed
on account of their rebellion. Lewis, whose cause was now totally
desperate, began to be anxious for the safety of his person, and was
glad, on any honorable conditions, to make his escape from a country
where he found every thing was now become hostile to him. He concluded
a peace with Pembroke, promised to evacuate the kingdom, and only
stipulated in return an indemnity to his adherents, and a restitution of
their honors and fortunes, together with the free and equal enjoyment
of those liberties which had been granted to the rest of the nation.[**]
Thus was happily ended a civil war which seemed to be founded on the
most incurable hatred and jealousy, and had threatened the kingdom with
the most fatal consequences.
The precautions which the king of France used in the conduct of this
whole affair are remarkable. He pretended that his son had accepted of
the offer from the English barons without his advice, and contrary to
his inclination: the armies sent to England were levied in Lewis's
name: when that prince came over to France for aid, his father publicly
refused to grant him any assistance, and would not so much as admit him
to his presence: even after Henry's party acquired the ascendant, and
Lewis was in danger of falling into the hands of his enemies, it was
Blanche of Castile his wife, not the king his father, who raised armies
and equipped fleets for his succor.[***]
*. M. Paris, p. 206. Ann. Waverl. p. 183. W. Heming. p. 563.
Trivet, p. 109. M. West. p. 277. Knyghton, p. 2428.
**. Rhymer, vol. i. p. 221. M. Paris, p. 207. Chron. Dunst.
vol. i. p. 83. M. West. p. 278. Knyghton, p. 2429.
*** M, Paris, p. 256. Chron. Dunst, vol. i. p. 82.
All these artifices were employed, not to satisfy the pope; for he had
too much penetration to be so easily imposed on: nor yet to deceive the
people; for they were too gross even for that purpose: they only served
for a coloring to Philip's cause; and in public affairs men are often
better pleased that the truth, though known to every body, should
be wrapped up under a decent cover, than if it were exposed in open
daylight to the eyes of all the world.
After the expulsion of the French, the prudence and equity of the
protector's subsequent conduct contributed to cure entirely those wounds
which had been made by intestine discord. He received the rebellious
barons into favor; observed strictly the terms of peace which he had
granted them; restored them to their possessions; and endeavored, by an
equal behavior, to bury all past animosities in perpetual oblivion.
The clergy alone, who had adhered to Lewis, were sufferers in this
revolution. As they had rebelled against their spiritual sovereign, by
disregarding the interdict and excommunication, it was not in Pembroke's
power to make any stipulations in their favor; and Gualo, the legate,
prepared to take vengeance on them for their disobedience.[*] Many of
them were deposed; many suspended; some banished; and all who escaped
punishment made atonement for their offence, by paying large sums to the
legate, who amassed an immense treasure by this expedient.
The earl of Pembroke did not long survive the pacification, which had
been chiefly owing to his wisdom and valor;[*] and he was succeeded in
the government by Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, and Hubert de
Burgh, the justiciary. The counsels of the latter were chiefly followed;
and had he possessed equal authority in the kingdom with Pembroke, he
seemed to be every way worthy of filling the place of that virtuous
nobleman. But the licentious and powerful barons, who had once broken
the reins of subjection to their prince, and had obtained by violence an
enlargement of their liberties and independence, could ill be restrained
by laws under a minority; and the people, no less than the king,
suffered from their outrages and disorders. They retained by force the
royal castles, which they had seized during the past convulsions, or
which had been committed to their custody by the protector;[**] they
usurped the king's demesnes;[***] they oppressed their vassals; they
infested their weaker neighbors; they invited all disorderly people to
enter in their retinue, and to live upon their lands; and they gave them
protection in all their robberies and extortions.
* Brady's App. No. 144. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 83.
** M. Paris, p. 210. * Trivet, p. 174
*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 276.
No one was more infamous for these violent and illegal practices than
the earl of Albemarle; who, though he had early returned to his duty,
and had been serviceable in expelling the French, augmented to the
utmost the general disorder, and committed outrages in all the counties
of the north. In order to reduce him to obedience, Hubert seized an
opportunity of getting possession of Rockingham Castle, which Albemarle
had garrisoned with his licentious retinue: but this nobleman, instead
of submitting, entered into a secret confederacy with Fawkes de Breaute,
Peter de Mauleon, and other barons, and both fortified the Gastle of
Biham for his defence, and made himself master by surprise of that of
Fotheringay. Pandulf, who was restored to his legateship, was active in
suppressing this rebellion; and with the concurrence of eleven bishops,
he pronounced the sentence of excommunication against Albemarle and his
adherents:[*] an army was levied: a scutage of ten shillings a knight's
fee was imposed on all the military tenants. Albemarle's associates
gradually deserted him; and he himself was obliged at last to sue for
mercy. He received a pardon, and was restored to his whole estate.
This impolitic lenity, too frequent in those times, was probably the
result of a secret combination among the barons, who never could endure
to see the total ruin of one of their own order: but it encouraged
Fawkes de Breaute, a man whom King John had raised from a low origin, to
persevere in the course of violence to which he had owed his fortune and
to set at nought all law and justice. When thirty-five verdicts were at
one time found against him, on account of his violent expulsion of so
many freeholders from their possessions, he came to the court of justice
with an armed force, seized the judge who had pronounced the verdicts,
and imprisoned him in Bedford Castle. He then levied open war against
the king; but being subdued and taken prisoner, his life was
granted him; but his estate was confiscated, and he was banished the
kingdom.[**]
* Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 102.
** Rymer, vol. i. p. 198. M. Paris, p. 221, 224. Ann. Waverl
p. 188, Chron. Dunst vol. i. p. 141, 146. M. West, p. 283.
{1222.} Justice was executed with greater severity against disorders
less premeditated, which broke out in London. A frivolous emulation in
a match of wrestling, between the Londoners on the one hand, and the
inhabitants of Westminster and those of the neighboring villages on the
other, occasioned this commotion. The former rose in a body, and pulled
down some houses belonging to the abbot of Westminster: but this riot,
which, considering the tumultuous disposition familiar to that capital,
would have been little regarded, seemed to become more serious by the
symptoms which then appeared of the former attachment of the citizens to
the French interest. The populace, in the tumult, made use of the cry
of war commonly employed by the French troops: "Mountjoy, Mountjoy,
God help us and our lord Lewis." The justiciary made inquiry into the
disorder; and finding one Constantine Fitz-Arnulf to have been the
ring-*leader, an insolent man, who justified his crime in Hubert's
presence, he proceeded against him by martial law, and ordered him
immediately to be hanged, without trial or form of process. He also cut
off the feet of some of Constantine's accomplices.[*]
This act of power was complained of as an infringement of the Great
Charter: yet the justiciary, in a parliament summoned at Oxford, (for
the great councils about this time began to receive that appellation,)
made no scruple to grant in the king's name a renewal and confirmation
of that charter. When the assembly made application to the crown for
this favor,--as a law in those times seemed to lose its validity if not
frequently renewed,--William de Briewere, one of the council of regency,
was so bold as to say openly, that those liberties were extorted by
force, and ought not to be observed: but he was reprimanded by the
archbishop of Canterbury, and was not countenanced by the king or his
chief ministers.[**] A new confirmation was demanded and granted two
years after; and an aid, amounting to a fifteenth of all movables, was
given by the parliament, in return for this indulgence. The king issued
writs anew to the sheriffs, enjoining the observance of the charter; but
he inserted a remarkable clause in the writs, that those who paid not
the fifteenth should not for the future be entitled to the benefit of
those liberties.[***]
* M. Paris, p. 217, 218, 259. Ann. Waverl. p. 187. Chron.
Dunst. vol. i. p. 129.
** M. West. p. 282.
*** Clause ix. H. 3, m. 9, and m. 6, d.
The low state into which the crown was fallen, made it requisite for a
good minister to be attentive to the preservation of the royal
prerogatives, as well as to the security of public liberty. Hubert
applied to the pope, who had always great authority in the kingdom, and
was now considered as its superior lord, and desired him to issue a
bull, declaring the king to be of full age, and entitled to exercise in
person all the acts of royalty.[*] In consequence of this declaration,
the justiciary resigned into Henry's hands the two important fortresses
of the Tower and Dover Castle, which had been intrusted to his custody;
and he required the other barons to imitate his example. They refused
compliance: the earls of Chester and Albemarle, John Constable of
Chester, John de Lacy, Brian de l'Isle, and William de Cantel, with some
others, even formed a conspiracy to surprise London, and met in arms at
Waltham with that intention: but finding the king prepared for defence,
they desisted from their enterprise. When summoned to court in order to
answer for their conduct, they scrupled not to appear, and to confess
the design: but they told the king that they had no bad intentions
against his person, but only against Hubert de Burgh, whom they were
determined to remove from his office.[**] They appeared too formidable
to be chastised; and they were so little discouraged by the failure of
their first enterprise, that they again met in arms at Leicester, in
order to seize the king, who then resided at Northampton: but Henry,
informed of their purpose, took care to be so well armed and attended,
that the barons found it dangerous to make the attempt; and they sat
down and kept Christmas in his neighborhood.[***] The archbishop and the
prelates, finding every thing tend towards a civil war, interposed with
their authority, and threatened the barons with the sentence of
excommunication, if they persisted in detaining the king's castles. This
menace at last prevailed: most of the fortresses were surrendered;
though the barons complained that Hubert's castles were soon after
restored to him, while the king still kept theirs in his own custody.
There are said to have been one thousand one hundred and fifteen castles
at that time in England.[****]
* M. Paris, p. 220.
** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 137.
*** M. Paris, p. 221. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 138.
**** Coke's Comment on Magna Charta, chap. 17.
It must be acknowledged that the influence of the prelates and the
clergy was often of great service to the public.
Though the religion of that age can merit no better name than that of
superstition, it served to unite together a body of men who had great
sway over the people, and who kept the community from falling to pieces,
by the factions and independent power of the nobles. And what was of
great importance, it threw a mighty authority into the hands of men, who
by their profession were averse to arms and violence, who tempered by
their mediation the general disposition towards military enterprises;
and who still maintained, even amidst the shock of arms, those secret
links, without which it is impossible for human society to subsist.
Notwithstanding these intestine commotions in England, and the
precarious authority of the crown, Henry was obliged to carry on war
in France; and he employed to that purpose the fifteenth which had been
granted him by parliament. Lewis VIII., who had succeeded to his father
Philip, instead of complying with Henry's claim, who demanded the
restitution of Normandy and the other provinces wrested from England,
made an irruption into Poictou, took Rochelle[*] after a long siege,
and seemed determined to expel the English from the few provinces
which still remained to them. Henry sent over his uncle, the earl of
Salisbury, together with his brother, Prince Richard, to whom he had
granted the earldom of Cornwall, which had escheated to the crown.
Salisbury stopped the progress of Lewis's arms, and retained the
Poictevin and Gascon vassals in their allegiance: but no military action
of any moment was performed on either side. The earl of Cornwall, after
two years' stay in Guienne, returned to England.
* Rymer, vol i. p. 269. Trivet, p. 179.
{1227.} This prince was nowise turbulent or factious in his disposition:
his ruling passion was to amass money, in which he succeeded so well as
to become the richest subject in Christendom: yet his attention to gain
threw him sometimes into acts of violence, and gave disturbance to
the government. There was a manor, which had formerly belonged to the
earldom of Cornwall but had been granted to Waleran de Ties, before
Richard had been invested with that dignity, and while the earldom
remained in the crown. Richard claimed this manor, and expelled the
proprietor by force: Waleran complained: the king ordered his brother to
do justice to the man, and restore him to his rights: the earl said that
he would not submit to these orders, till the cause should be decided
against him by the judgment of his peers: Henry replied, that it was
first necessary to reinstate Waleran in possession, before the cause
could be tried; and he reiterated his orders to the earl.[*] We may
judge of the state of the government, when this affair had nearly
produced a civil war The earl of Cornwall, finding Henry peremptory in
his commands, associated himself with the young earl of Pembroke who
had married his sister, and who was displeased on account of the
king's requiring him to deliver up some royal castles which were in his
custody. These two malecontents took into the confederacy the earls of
Chester, Warrenne, Glocester, Hereford, Warwick, and Ferrers, who were
all disgusted on a like account. [**] They assembled an army, which the
king had not the power or courage to resist; and he was obliged to give
his brother satisfaction, by grants of much greater importance than the
manor, which had been the first ground of the quarrel.[***]
The character of the king, as he grew to man's estate, became every
day better known; and he was found in every respect unqualified for
maintaining a proper sway among those turbulent barons, whom the feudal
constitution subjected to his authority. Gentle, humane, and merciful
even to a fault, he seems to have been steady in no other circumstance
of his character; but to have received every impression from those who
surrounded him, and whom he loved, for the time, with the most imprudent
and most unreserved affection. Without activity or vigor, he was unfit
to conduct war; without policy or art, he was ill fitted to maintain
peace: his resentments, though hasty and violent, were not dreaded,
while he was found to drop them with such facility; his friendships
were little valued, because they were neither derived from choice,
nor maintained with constancy: a proper pageant of state in a regular
monarchy, where his ministers could have conducted all affairs in his
name and by his authority; but too feeble in those disorderly times
to sway a sceptre, whose weight depended entirely on the firmness and
dexterity of the hand which held it.
* M. Paris, p. 233.
** M. Paris, p. 233.
*** M. Paris, p. 233.
The ablest and most virtuous minister that Henry ever possessed was
Hubert de Burgh;[*] a man who had been steady to the crown in the most
difficult and dangerous times, and who yet showed no disposition, in
the height of his power, to enslave or oppress the people. The only
exceptionable part of his conduct is that which is mentioned by Matthew
Paris,[**] if the fact be really true, and proceeded from Hubert's
advice, namely, the recalling publicly and the annulling of the charter
of forests, a concession so reasonable in itself, and so passionately
claimed both by the nobility and people: but it must be confessed that
this measure is so unlikely, both from the circumstances of the times
and character of the minister, that there is reason to doubt of its
reality, especially as it is mentioned by no other historian. Hubert,
while he enjoyed his authority, had an entire ascendant over Henry, and
was loaded with honors and favors beyond any other subject.
{1231.} Besides acquiring the property of many castles and manors, he
married the eldest sister of the king of Scots, was created earl of
Kent, and, by an unusual concession, was made chief justiciary of
England for life; yet Henry, in a sudden caprice, threw off his faithful
minister, and exposed him to the violent persecutions of his enemies.
Among other frivolous crimes objected to him, he was accused of gaining
the king's affections by enchantment, and of purloining from the royal
treasury a gem which had the virtue to render the wearer invulnerable,
and of sending this valuable curiosity to the prince of Wales.[***] The
nobility, who hated Hubert on account of his zeal in resuming the rights
and possessions of the crown, no sooner saw the opportunity favorable,
than they inflamed the king's animosity against him, and pushed him to
seek the total ruin of his minister. Hubert took sanctuary in a church:
the king ordered him to be dragged from thence: he recalled those
orders: he afterwards renewed them: he was obliged by the clergy to
restore him to the sanctuary: he constrained him soon after to surrender
himself prisoner, and he confined him in the castle of the Devizes.
Hubert made his escape, was expelled the kingdom, was again received
into favor, recovered a great share of the king's confidence, but
never showed any inclination to reinstate himself in power and
authority.[****]
* Ypod. Neust. p. 464.
** Page 232. M. West (p. 216) ascribes this counsel to
Peter, bishop of Winchester.
*** M. Paris, p. 259.
**** M. Paris, p. 259, 260, 261, 266. Chron. T. Wykes, p.
41, 47 Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 220, 221. M. West, p. 291,
301.
The man who succeeded him in the government of the king and kingdom, was
Peter, bishop of Winchester, a Poictevin by birth, who had been raised
by the late king, and who was no less distinguished by his arbitrary
principles and violent conduct, than by his courage and abilities. This
prelate had been left by King John justiciary and regent of the kingdom
during an expedition which that prince made into France; and his illegal
administration was one chief cause of that great combination among the
barons, which finally extorted from the crown the charter of liberties,
and laid the foundation of the English constitution. Henry, though
incapable, from his character, of pursuing the same violent maxims which
had governed his father, had imbibed the same arbitrary principles;
and in prosecution of Peter's advice, he invited over a great number of
Poictevins and other foreigners, who, he believed, could more safely be
trusted than the English, and who seemed useful to counterbalance the
great and independent power of the nobility.[*] Every office and command
was bestowed on these strangers; they exhausted the revenues of the
crown, already too much impoverished;[**] they invaded the rights of the
people; and their insolence, still more provoking than their power, drew
on them the hatred and envy of all orders of men in the kingdom.[***]
{1233.} The barons formed a combination against this odious ministry,
and withdrew from parliament, on pretence of the danger to which
they were exposed from the machinations of the Poictevins. When again
summoned to attend, they gave for answer, that the king should dismiss
his foreigners, otherwise they would drive both him and them out of
the kingdom, and put the crown on another head, more worthy to wear it:
[****] such was the style they used to their sovereign. They at
last came to parliament, but so well attended, that they seemed in a
condition to prescribe laws to the king and ministry.
* M. Paris, p. 263
** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 151.
*** M. Paris, p. 258
**** M. Paris, p 265.
Peter des Roches, however, had in the interval found means of sowing
dissension among them, and of bringing over to his party the earl of
Cornwall, as well as the earls of Lincoln and Chester. The confederates
were disconcerted in their measures: Richard, earl Mareschal, who had
succeeded to that dignity on the death of his brother William, was
chased into Wales; he thence withdrew into Ireland, where he
was treacherously murdered by the contrivance of the bishop of
Winchester.[*] The estates of the more obnoxious barons were
confiscated, without legal sentence or trial by their peers; [**] and
were bestowed with a profuse liberality on the Poictevins. Peter even
carried his insolence so far as to declare publicly, that the barons of
England must not pretend to put themselves on the same foot with those
of France, or assume the same liberties and privileges: the monarch in
the former country had a more absolute power than in the latter. It had
been more justifiable for him to have said, that men so unwilling to
submit to the authority of laws, could with the worst grace claim any
shelter or protection from them.
When the king at any time was checked in his illegal practices, and when
the authority of the Great Charter was objected to him, he was wont to
reply, "Why should I observe this charter, which is neglected by all my
grandees, both prelates and nobility?" It was very reasonably said to
him, "You ought, sir, to set them the example." [***]
So violent a ministry as that of the bishop of Winchester could not be
of long duration; but its fall proceeded at last from the influence of
the church, not from the efforts of the nobles. Edmond, the primate,
came to court, attended by many of the other prelates, and represented
to the king the pernicious measures embraced by Peter des Roches, the
discontents of his people, the ruin of his affairs; and after requiring
the dismission of the minister and his associates, threatened him
with excommunication in case of his refusal. Henry, who knew that an
excommunication so agreeable to the sense of the people could not
fail of producing the most dangerous effects, was obliged to submit:
foreigners were banished; the natives were restored to their place in
council;[****] the primate, who was a man of prudence, and who took care
to execute the laws and observe the charter of liberties, bore the chief
sway in the government.
{1236.} But the English in vain flattered themselves that they should be
long free from the dominion of foreigners. The king, having married
Eleanor, daughter of the count of Provence,[*****] was surrounded by a
great number of strangers from that country, whom he caressed with the
fondest affection, and enriched by an imprudent generosity.[******]
* Chron. Dunst. vol. i p. 219.
** M. Paris, p. 265.
*** M. Paris, p. 608.
**** M. Paris, p. 271, 272
***** Rymer, vol. i. p. 448.
****** M. Paris, p. 286.
The bishop of Valence, a prelate of the house of Savoy, and maternal
uncle to the queen, was his chief minister, and employed every art to
amass wealth for himself and his relations. Peter of Savoy, a brother of
the same family, was invested in the honor of Richmond, and received the
rich wardship of Earl Warrenne; Boniface of Savoy was promoted to the
see of Canterbury: many young ladies were invited over to Provence, and
married to the chief noblemen of England, who were the king's wards.
[*] And, as the source of Henry's bounty began to fail, his Savoyard
ministry applied to Rome, and obtained a bull, permitting him to resume
all past grants; absolving him from the oath which he had taken to
maintain them; even enjoining him to make such a resumption, and
representing those grants as invalid, on account of the prejudice which
ensued from them to the Roman pontiff, in whom the superiority of the
kingdom was vested.[**] The opposition made to the intended resumption
prevented it from taking place; but the nation saw the indignities to
which the king was willing to submit, in order to gratify the avidity of
his foreign favorites. About the same time he published in England the
sentence of excommunication, pronounced against the emperor Frederic,
his brother-in-law;[***] and said in excuse, that, being the pope's
vassal, he was obliged by his allegiance to obey all the commands of his
holiness. In this weak reign, when any neighboring potentate insulted
the king's dominions, instead of taking revenge for the injury, he
complained to the pope as his superior lord, and begged him to give
protection to his vassal.[****]
* M. Paris, p. 236, 301, 305, 316, 541.
**M. West. p. 302, 304.
*** M. Paris, p. 484.
****M. West.p. 338.
{1247.} The resentment of the English barons rose high at the preference
given to foreigners; but no remonstrance or complaint could ever prevail
on the king to abandon them, or even to moderate his attachment towards
them. After the Provencals and Savoyards might have been supposed pretty
well satiated with the dignities and riches which they had acquired, a
new set of hungry foreigners were invited over, and shared among them
those favors which the king ought in policy to have conferred on the
English nobility, by whom his government could have been supported and
defended. His mother Isabella, who had been unjustly taken by the late
king from the count de la Marche, to whom she was betrothed, was no
mistress of herself by the death of her husband, than she married that
nobleman;[*] and she had born him four sons, Guy, William, Geoffrey, and
Aymer, whom she sent over to England, in order to pay a visit to their
brother. The good-natured and affectionate disposition of Henry was
moved at the sight of such near relations; and he considered neither his
own circumstances, nor the inclinations of his people, in the honors and
riches which he conferred upon them.[**] Complaints rose as high against
the credit of the Gascon, as ever they had done against that of the
Poictevin and of the Savoyard favorites; and to a nation prejudiced
against them, all their measures appeared exceptionable and criminal.
Violations of the Great Charter were frequently mentioned; and it is
indeed more than probable, that foreigners, ignorant of the laws, and
relying on the boundless affections of a weak prince, would, in an
age when a regular administration was not any where known, pay more
attention to their present interest than to the liberties of the people.
It is reported that the Poictevins and other strangers, when the
laws were at any time appealed to in opposition to their oppressions,
scrupled not to reply, "What did the English laws signify to them? They
minded them not." And as words are often more offensive than actions,
this open contempt of the English tended much to aggravate the general
discontent, and made every act of violence committed by the foreigners
appear not only an injury, but an affront to them.[***]
I reckon not among the violations of the Great Charter some arbitrary
exertions of prerogative to which Henry's necessities pushed him, and
which, without producing any discontent, were uniformly continued by all
his successors, till the last century. As the parliament often refused
him supplies, and that in a manner somewhat rude and indecent,[****] he
obliged his opulent subjects, particularly the citizens of London, to
grant him loans of money; and it is natural to imagine that the same
want of economy which reduced him to the necessity of borrowing,
would prevent him from being very punctual in the repayment.[*****] He
demanded benevolences, or pretended voluntary contributions, from his
nobility and prelates.[******]
* Trivet, p. 174.
** M. Paris, p. 491. M. West. p. 338. Knyghton, p. 2436.
*** M. Paris, p. 566, 666. Ann. Waverl. p. 214. Chron.
Dunst. vol. i. p. 335.
**** M. Paris, p. 301
***** M. Paris, p. 406.
****** M. Paris, p. 507
He was the first king of England, since the conquest, that could fairly
be said to lie under the restraint of law; and he was also the first
that practised the dispensing power, and he employed the clause of "non
obstante" in his grants and patents. When objections were made to this
novelty, he replied that the pope exercised that authority, and why
might not he imitate the example? But the abuse which the pope made of
his dispensing power, in violating the canons of general councils, in
invading the privileges and customs of all particular churches, and
in usurping on the rights of patrons, was more likely to excite the
jealousy of the people than to reconcile them to a similar practice in
their civil government. Roger de Thurkesby, one of the king's justices,
was so displeased with the precedent, that he exclaimed, "Alas! what
times are we fallen into? Behold, the civil court is corrupted in
imitation of the ecclesiastical, and the river is poisoned from that
fountain."
The king's partiality and profuse bounty to his foreign relations, and
to their friends and favorites, would have appeared more tolerable to
the English, had any thing been done meanwhile for the honor of the
nation, or had Henry's enterprises in foreign countries been attended
with any success or glory to himself or to the public; at least, such
military talents in the king would have served to keep his barons in
awe, and have given weight and authority to his government. But though
he declared war against Lewis IX. in 1242, and made an expedition into
Guienne, upon the invitation of his father-in-law, the count de
la Marche, who promised to join him with all his forces, he was
unsuccessful in his attempts against that great monarch, was worsted at
Taillebourg, was deserted by his allies, lost what remained to him of
Poictou, and was obliged to return with loss of honor into England.[*]
{1253.} The Gascon nobility were attached to the English government,
because the distance of their sovereign allowed them to remain in a
state of almost total independence; and they claimed, some time after,
Henry's protection against an invasion which the king of Castile
made upon that territory. Henry returned into Guienne, and was more
successful in this expedition; but he thereby involved himself and his
nobility in an enormous debt, which both increased their discontents,
and exposed him to greater danger from their enterprises.[**]
* M. Paris, p. 393, 394, 398, 399, 405. W. Heming. p. 574.
Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 153.
** M. Paris, p. 414.
Want of economy and an ill-judged liberality were Henry's great defects;
and his debts, even before this expedition, had become so troublesome,
that he sold all his plate and jewels, in order to discharge them. When
this expedient was first proposed to him, he asked where he should find
purchasers. It was replied, the citizens of London. "On my word," said
he, "if the treasury of Augustus were brought to sale, the citizens are
able to be the purchasers: these clowns, who assume to themselves
the name of barons, abound in every thing, while we are reduced to
necessities."[*] And he was thenceforth observed to be more forward and
greedy in his exactions upon the citizens.[**]
But the grievances which the English during this reign had reason
to complain of in the civil government, seem to have been still less
burdensome than those which they suffered from the usurpations and
exactions of the court of Rome. On the death of Langton, in 1228, the
monks of Christ-church elected Walter de Hemesham, one of their own
body, for his successor: but as Henry refused to confirm the election,
the pope, at his desire, annulled it;[***] and immediately appointed
Richard, chancellor of Lincoln, for archbishop, without waiting for a
new election. On the death of Richard, in 1231, the monks elected Ralph
de Neville, bishop of Chichester; and though Henry was much pleased with
the election, the pope, who thought that prelate too much attached
to the crown, assumed the power of annulling his election.[****] He
rejected two clergymen more, whom the monks had successively chosen; and
he at last told them that, if they would elect Edmond, treasurer of the
church of Salisbury, he would confirm their choice; and his nomination
was complied with. The pope had the prudence to appoint both times very
worthy primates; but men could not forbear observing his intention of
thus drawing gradually to himself the right of bestowing that important
dignity.
* M. Paris, p. 501.
** M. Paris, p. 501, 507, 518, 578, 606, 625, 548.
*** M. Paris, p. 244.
**** M. Paris, p. 254.
The avarice, however, more than the ambition of the see of Rome, seems
to have been in this age the ground of general complaint. The papal
ministers, finding a vast stock of power amassed by their predecessors,
were desirous of turning it to immediate profit, which they enjoyed at
home, rather than of enlarging their authority in distant countries,
where they never intended to reside. Every thing was become venal in the
Romish tribunals: simony was openly practised; no favors, and even no
justice, could be obtained without a bribe; the highest bidder was
sure to have the preference, without regard either to the merits of the
person or of the cause; and besides the usual perversions of right in
the decision of controversies, the pope openly assumed an absolute
and uncontrolled authority of setting aside, by the plenitude of his
apostolic power, all particular rules, and all privileges of patrons,
churches, and convents. On pretence of remedying these abuses, Pope
Honorius, in 1226, complaining of the poverty of his see as the source
of all grievances, demanded from every cathedral two of the best
prebends, and from every convent two monks' portions, to be set apart
as a perpetual and settled revenue of the papal crown; but all men
being sensible that the revenue would continue forever, and the abuses
immediately return, his demand was unanimously rejected. About
three years after, the pope demanded and obtained the tenth of all
ecclesiastical revenues, which he levied in a very oppressive manner;
requiring payment before the clergy had drawn their rents or tithes,
and sending about usurers, who advanced them the money at exorbitant
interest. In the year 1240, Otho the legate, having in vain attempted
the clergy in a body, obtained separately, by intrigues and menaces,
large sums from the prelates and convents, and on his departure is said
to have carried more money out of the kingdom than he left in it This
experiment was renewed four years after with success by Martin the
nuncio, who brought from Rome powers of suspending and excommunicating
all clergymen that refused to comply with his demands. The king, who
relied on the pope for the support of his tottering authority, never
failed to countenance those exactions.
Meanwhile all the chief benefices of the kingdom were conferred on
Italians; great numbers of that nation were sent over at one time to be
provided for; non-residence and pluralities were carried to an enormous
height; Mansel, the king's chaplain, is computed to have held at once
seven hundred ecclesiastical livings; and the abuses became so evident,
as to be palpable to the blindness of superstition itself. The people,
entering into associations, rose against the Italian clergy; pillaged
their barns; wasted their lands; insulted the persons of such of them
as they found in the kingdom;[*] and when the justices made inquiry into
the authors of this disorder, the guilt was found to involve so many,
and those of such high rank, that it passed unpunished.
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 323. M. Paris, p. 255, 257.
At last, when Innocent IV., in 1245, called a general council at Lyons,
in order to excommunicate the emperor Frederic, the king and nobility
sent over agents to complain, before the council, of the rapacity of the
Romish church. They represented, among many other grievances, that the
benefices of the Italian clergy in England had been estimated, and were
found to amount to sixty thousand marks[*] a year, a sum which exceeded
the annual revenue of the crown itself.[**] They obtained only an
evasive answer from the pope; but as mention had been made, before the
council, of the feudal subjection of England to the see of Rome,
the English agents, at whose head was Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk,
exclaimed against the pretension, and insisted that King John had no
right, without the consent of his barons, to subject the kingdom to
so ignominious a servitude.[***] The popes, indeed, afraid of carrying
matters too far against England, seem thenceforth to have little
insisted on that pretension.
This check, received at the council of Lyons, was not able to stop the
court of Rome in its rapacity: Innocent exacted the revenues of all
vacant benefices, the twentieth of all ecclesiastical revenues without
exception; the third of such as were exceeded a hundred marks a year;
the half of such as were possessed by non-residents.[****] He claimed
the goods of all intestate clergymen;[*****] he pretended a title to
inherit all money gotten by usury: he levied benevolences upon the
people; and when the king, contrary to his usual practice, prohibited
these exactions, he threatened to pronounce against him the same
censures which he had emitted against the emperor Frederic.[******]
* Innocent's bull in Rymer, vol. i. p. 471, says only fifty
thousand marks a year.
** M. Paris, p. 451. The customs were part of Henry's
revenue, and amounted to six thousand pounds a year: they
were at first email sums paid by the merchants for the use
of the king's ware-houses, measures, weights, etc. See
Gilbert's History of the Exch p. 214.
*** M. Paris, p. 460.
**** M. Paris, p. 480. Ann. Burt. p. 305, 573.
***** M. Paris, p. 474.
****** M. Paris, p. 476.
{1255.} But the most oppressive expedient employed by the pope, was the
embarking of Henry in a project for the conquest of Naples, or Sicily
on this side the Fare, as it was called; an enterprise which threw
much dishonor on the king, and involved him, during some years, in great
trouble and expense. The Romish church, taking advantage of favorable
incidents, had reduced the kingdom of Sicily to the same state of feudal
vassalage which she pretended to extend over England; and which, by
reason of the distance, as well as high spirit of this latter kingdom,
she was not able to maintain. After the death of the emperor Frederic
II., the succession of Sicily devolved to Conradine, grandson of that
monarch; and Mainfroy, his natural son, under pretence of governing
the kingdom during the minority of the prince, had formed a scheme
of establishing his own authority. Pope Innocent, who had carried
on violent war against the emperor Frederic, and had endeavored to
dispossess him of his Italian dominions, still continued hostilities
against his grandson; but being disappointed in all his schemes by the
activity and artifices of Mainfroy, he found that his own force alone
was not sufficient to bring to a happy issue so great an enterprise.
He pretended to dispose of the Sicilian crown, both as superior lord of
that particular kingdom, and as vicar of Christ, to whom all kingdoms of
the earth were subjected; and he made a tender of it to Richard, earl of
Cornwall, whose immense riches, he flattered himself, would be able to
support the military operations against Mainfroy. As Richard had the
prudence to refuse the present,[*] he applied to the king, whose levity
and thoughtless disposition gave Innocent more hopes of success; and he
offered him the crown of Sicily for his second son, Edmond.[**]
Henry, allured by so magnificent a present, without reflecting on
the consequences, without consulting either with his brother or the
parliament, accepted of the insidious proposal, and gave the pope
unlimited credit to expend whatever sums he thought necessary for
completing the conquest of Sicily. Innocent, who was engaged by his
own interests to wage war with Mainfroy, was glad to carry on his
enterprises at the expense of his ally: Alexander IV., who succeeded him
in the papal throne, continued the same policy, and Henry was surprised
to find himself on a sudden involved in an immense debt, which he had
never been consulted in contracting. The sum already amounted to a
hundred and thirty-five thousand five hundred and forty-one marks,
beside interest;[***] and he had the prospect, if he answered this
demand, of being soon loaded with more exorbitant expenses if he refused
it, of both incurring the pope's displeasure, and losing the crown of
Sicily, which he hoped soon to have the glory of fixing on the head of
his son.
* M. Paris, p.650.
** Rymer, vol. i. p. 502, 512, 530. M. Paris, p. 599, 613
*** Rymer, vol i. p. 587. Chron. Dunst vol. i. p. 319.
He applied to the parliament for supplies; and that he might be sure not
to meet with opposition, he sent no writs to the more refractory barons:
but even those who were summoned, sensible of the ridiculous cheat
imposed by the pope, determined not to lavish their money on such
chimerical projects; and making a pretext of the absence of their
brethren, they refused to take the king's demands into consideration.[*]
In this extremity the clergy were his only resource; and as both their
temporal and spiritual sovereign concurred in loading them, they were
ill able to defend themselves against this united authority.
The pope published a crusade for the conquest of Sicily; and required
every one who had taken the cross against the infidels, or had vowed to
advance money for that service, to support the war against Mainfroy, a
more terrible enemy, as he pretended, to the Christian faith than
any Saracen.[**] He levied a tenth on all ecclesiastical benefices in
England for three years; and gave orders to excommunicate all bishops
who made not punctual payment. He granted to the king the goods of
intestate clergymen; the revenues of vacant benefices, the revenues of
all non-residents.[***] But these taxations, being levied by some rule,
were deemed less grievous than another imposition, which arose from the
suggestion of the bishop of Hereford, and which might have opened the
door to endless and intolerable abuses.
This prelate, who resided at the court of Rome by a deputation from
the English church, drew bills of different values but amounting on the
whole to a hundred and fifty thousand five hundred and forty marks on
all the bishops and abbots of the kingdom; and granted these bills to
Italian merchants, who, it was pretended, had advanced money for the
service of the war against Mainfroy.[****] As there was no likelihood
of the English prelates' submitting, without compulsion, to such an
extraordinary demand, Rustand the legate was charged with the commission
of employing authority to that purpose, and he summoned an assembly of
the bishops and abbots whom he acquainted with the pleasure of the pope
and of the king.
* M. Paris, p. 614
** Rymer, vol. i. p. 547, 548, etc.
*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 597, 598.
**** M. Paris, p. 612, 628. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 54.
Great were the surprise and indignation of the assembly: the bishop of
Worcester exclaimed, that he would lose his life rather than comply: the
bishop of London said, that the pope and king were more powerful than
he; but if his mitre were taken off his head, he would clap on a helmet
in its place.[*] The legate was no less violent on the other hand; and
he told the assembly, in plain terms, that all ecclesiastical benefices
were the property of the pope, and he might dispose of them, either
in whole or in part, as he saw proper.[**] In the end, the bishops and
abbots, being threatened with excommunication, which made all their
revenues fall into the king's hands, were obliged to submit to the
exaction; and the only mitigation which the legate allowed them was,
that the tenths already granted should be accepted as a partial payment
of the bills. But the money was still insufficient for the pope's
purpose: the conquest of Sicily was as remote as ever: the demands which
came from Rome were endless: Pope Alexander became so urgent a creditor,
that he sent over a legate to England, threatening the kingdom with an
interdict, and the king with excommunication, if the arrears, which he
pretended to be due to him, were not instantly remitted;[***] and at
last Henry, sensible of the cheat, began to think of breaking off the
agreement, and of resigning into the pope's hands that crown which
it was not intended by Alexander that he or his family should ever
enjoy.[****]
* M. Paris, p. 614.
** M. Paris, p. 619
*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 624. M. Paris, p. 648.
**** Rymer, vol. i. p. 630.
The earl of Cornwall had now reason to value himself on his foresight,
in refusing the fraudulent bargain with Rome, and in preferring the
solid honors of an opulent and powerful prince of the blood of England,
to the empty and precarious glory of a foreign dignity. But he had not
always firmness sufficient to adhere to this resolution: his vanity and
ambition prevailed at last over his prudence and his avarice; and he was
engaged in an enterprise no less expensive and vexatious than that of
his brother, and not attended with much greater probability of success.
The immense opulence of Richard having made the German princes cast
their eye on him as a candidate for the empire, he was tempted to expend
vast sums of money on his election; and he succeeded so far as to be
chosen king of the Romans, which seemed to render his succession
infallible to the imperial throne. He went over to Germany, and carried
out of the kingdom no less a sum than seven hundred thousand marks, if
we may credit the account given by some ancient authors,[*] which is
probably much exaggerated.[**] His money, while it lasted, procured him
friends and partisans; but it was soon drained from him by the avidity
of the German princes; and, having no personal or family connections in
that country, and no solid foundation of power, he found, at last, that
he had lavished away the frugality of a whole life in order to procure
a splendid title; and that his absence from England, joined to the
weakness of his brother's government, gave reins to the factious and
turbulent dispositions of the English barons, and involved his own
country and family in great calamities.
* M. Paris, p. 638. The same author, a few pages before,
makes Richard's treasures amount to little more than half
the sum, (p. 634.) The king's dissipations and expenses,
throughout this whole reign, according to the same author,
had amounted only to about nine hundred and forty thousand
marks, (p. 638.)
** The sums mentioned by ancient authors, who were almost all
monks, are often improbable, and never consistent. But we
know from an infallible authority, the public remonstrance
to the council of Lyons, that the king's revenues were below
sixty thousand marks a year: his brother, therefore, could
never have been master of seven hundred thousand marks;
especially as he did not sell his estates in England, as we
learn from the same author; and we hear afterwards of his
ordering all his woods to be cut, in order to satisfy the
rapacity of the German princes: his son succeeded to the
earldom of Cornwall and his other revenues.
The successful revolt of the nobility from King John, and their imposing
on him and his successors limitations of their royal power, had made
them feel their own weight and importance, had set a dangerous precedent
of resistance, and being followed by a long minority, had impoverished
as well as weakened that crown which they were at last induced, from the
fear of worse consequences, to replace on the head of young Henry. In
the king's situation, either great abilities and vigor were requisite
to overawe the barons, or great caution and reserve to give them no
pretence for complaints; and it must be confessed, that this prince was
possessed of neither of these talents. He had not prudence to choose
right measures; he wanted even that constancy which sometimes gives
weight to wrong ones; he was entirely devoted to his favorites, who
were always foreigners; he lavished on them, without discretion,
his diminished revenue; and finding that his barons indulged their
disposition towards tyranny, and observed not to their own vassals
the same rules which they had imposed on the crown, he was apt, in
his administration, to neglect all the salutary articles of the Great
Charter; which he remarked to be so little regarded by his nobility.
This conduct had extremely lessened his authority in the kingdom; had
multiplied complaints against him; and had frequently exposed him to
affronts, and even to dangerous attempts upon his prerogative. In
the year 1244, when he desired a supply from parliament, the barons,
complaining of the frequent breaches of the Great Charter, and of the
many fruitless applications which they had formerly made for the redress
of this and other grievances, demanded in return, that he should give
them the nomination of the great justiciary and of the chancellor, to
whose hands chiefly the administration of justice was committed: and,
if we may credit the historian,[*] they had formed the plan of other
limitations, as well as of associations to maintain them, which would
have reduced the king to be an absolute cipher, and have held the crown
in perpetual pupillage and dependence. The king, to satisfy them, would
agree to nothing but a renewal of the charter, and a general permission
to excommunicate all the violators of it; and he received no supply,
except a scutage of twenty shillings on each knight's fee for the
marriage of his eldest daughter to the king of Scotland; a burden which
was expressly annexed to their feudal tenures.
* M. Paris, p. 432.
Four years after, in a full parliament, when Henry demanded a new
supply, he was openly reproached with the breach of his word, and the
frequent violations of the charter. He was asked whether he did not
blush to desire any aid from his people, whom he professedly hated and
despised; to whom on all occasions he preferred aliens and foreigners,
and who groaned under the oppressions which he either permitted or
exercised over them. He was told that, besides disparaging his nobility
by forcing them to contract unequal and mean marriages with strangers,
no rank of men was so low as to escape vexations from him or his
ministers; that even the victuals consumed in his household, the clothes
which himself and his servants wore, still more the wine which they
used, were all taken by violence from the lawful owners, and no
compensation was ever made them for the injury; that foreign merchants,
to the great prejudice and infamy of the kingdom shunned the English
harbors as if they were possessed by pirates, and the commerce with all
nations was thus cut off by these acts of violence; that loss was
added to loss, and injury to injury, while the merchants, who had been
despoiled of their goods, were also obliged to carry them at their own
charge to whatever place the king was pleased to appoint them; that even
the poor fishermen on the coast could not escape his oppressions and
those of his courtiers; and finding that they had not full liberty to
dispose of their commodities in the English market, were frequently
constrained to carry them to foreign ports, and to hazard all the perils
of the ocean, rather than those which awaited them from his oppressive
emissaries; and that his very religion was a ground of complaint to his
subjects, while they observed, that the waxen tapers and splendid silks,
employed in so many useless processions, were the spoils which he had
forcibly ravished from the true owners.[*] Throughout this remonstrance,
in which the complaints derived from an abuse of the ancient right of
purveyance may be supposed to be somewhat exaggerated, there appears a
strange mixture of regal tyranny in the practices which gave rise to
it, and of aristocratical liberty, or rather licentiousness, in the
expressions employed by the parliament. But a mixture of this kind
is observable in all the ancient feudal governments, and both of them
proved equally hurtful to the people.
As the king, in answer to their remonstrance, gave the parliament only
good words and fair promises, attended with the most humble submissions,
which they had often found deceitful, he obtained at that time no
supply; and therefore, in the year 1253, when he found himself again
under the necessity of applying to parliament, he had provided a new
pretence, which he deemed infallible, and taking the vow of a crusade,
he demanded their assistance in that pious enterprise.[**] The
parliament, however, for some time hesitated to comply, and the
ecclesiastical order sent a deputation consisting of four prelates, the
primate and the bishops of Winchester Salisbury, and Carlisle, in order
to remonstrate with him on his frequent violations of their privileges,
the oppressions with which he had loaded them and all his subjects,[***]
and the uncanonical and forced elections which were made to vacant
dignities.
* M. Paris, p. 498. See further, p. 578. M. West. p. 348.
** M. Paris, p. 518, 558, 568. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 293.
*** M. Paris, p. 568.
"It is true," replied the king, "I have been somewhat faulty in this
particular: I obtruded you, my lord of Canterbury, upon your see; I was
obliged to employ both entreaties and menaces, my lord of Winchester,
to have, you elected; my proceedings, I confess, were very irregular,
my lords of Salisbury and Carlisle, when I raised you from the lowest
stations to your present dignities; I am determined henceforth to
correct these abuses; and it will also become you, in order to make a
thorough reformation, to resign your present benefices; and try to enter
again in a more regular and canonical manner."[*] The bishops, surprised
at these unexpected sarcasms, replied, that the question was not at
present how to correct past errors, but to avoid them for the future.
The king promised redress both of ecclesiastical and civil grievances;
and the parliament in return agreed to grant him a supply, a tenth
of the ecclesiastical benefices, and a scutage of three marks on
each knight's fee: but as they had experienced his frequent breach of
promise, they required that he should ratify the Great Charter in
a manner still more authentic and more solemn than any which he had
hitherto employed. All the prelates and abbots were assembled: they held
burning tapers in their hands: the Great Charter was read before them:
they denounced the sentence of excommunication against every one who
should thenceforth violate that fundamental law: they threw their tapers
on the ground, and exclaimed, "May the soul of every one who incurs this
sentence so stink and corrupt in hell!" The king bore a part in this
ceremony, and subjoined, "So help me God, I will keep all these articles
inviolate, as I am a man, as I am a Christian, as I am a knight, and as
I am a king crowned and anointed."[**] Yet was the tremendous ceremony
no sooner finished, than his favorites, abusing his weakness, made
him return to the same arbitrary and irregular administration; and the
reasonable expectations of his people were thus perpetually eluded and
disappointed.[***]
* M. Paris, p. 579.
** Ibid. p. 580. Ann. Burt. p. 323. Ann. Waverl. p. 210. W
Heming. p. 571. M. West. p. 353.
*** M. Paris, p. 597, 608.
{1258.} All these imprudent and illegal measures afforded a pretence to
Simon de Mountfort, earl of Leicester, to attempt an innovation in the
government, and to wrest the sceptre from the feeble and irresolute
hand which held it. This nobleman was a younger son of that Simon de
Mountfort who had conducted with such valor and renown the crusade
against the Albigenses, and who, though he tarnished his famous exploits
by cruelty and ambition, had left a name very precious to all the bigots
of that age, particularly to the ecclesiastics. A large inheritance
in England fell by succession to this family; but as the elder brother
enjoyed still more opulent possessions in France, and could not perform
fealty to two masters, he transferred his right to Simon, his younger
brother, who came over to England, did homage for his lands, and
was raised to the dignity of earl of Leicester. In the year 1238, he
espoused Eleanor, dowager of William, earl of Pembroke, and sister to
the king;[*] but the marriage of this princess with a subject and a
foreigner, though contracted with Henry's consent, was loudly complained
of by the earl of Cornwall and all the barons of England; and Leicester
was supported against their violence by the king's favor and authority
alone.[**] But he had no sooner established himself in his possessions
and dignities, than he acquired, by insinuation and address, a strong
interest with the nation, and gained equally the affections of all
orders of men. He lost, however, the friendship of Henry from the usual
levity and fickleness of that prince; he was banished the court; he was
recalled; he was intrusted with the command of Guienne,[***] where he
did good service and acquired honor; he was again disgraced by the king,
and his banishment from court seemed now final and irrevocable. Henry
called him traiter to his face; Leicester gave him the lie, and told
him that, if he were not his sovereign, he would soon make him repent
of that insult. Yet was this quarrel accommodated, either from the good
nature or timidity of the king, and Leicester was again admitted into
some degree of favor and authority. But as this nobleman was become too
great to preserve an entire complaisance to Henry's humors, and to
act in subserviency to his other minions, he found more advantage in
cultivating his interest with the public, and in inflaming the general
discontents which prevailed against the administration. He filled every
place with complaints against the infringement of the Great Charter, the
acts of violence committed on the people, the combination between the
pope and the king in their tyranny and extortions, Henry's neglect of
his native subjects and barons; and though himself a foreigner, he was
more loud than any in representing the indignity of submitting to the
dominion of foreigners.
* M. Paris, p. 314.
** Ibid, p. 315.
*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 459, 513.
By his hypocritical pretensions to devotion he gained the favor of the
zealots and clergy: by his seeming concern for public good he acquired
the affections of the public: and besides the private friendships which
he had cultivated with the barons, his animosity against the favorites
created a union of interests between him and that powerful order.
A recent quarrel which broke out between Leicester and William de
Valence, Henry's half brother and chief favorite, brought matters to
extremity,[*] and determined the former to give full scope to his bold
and unbounded ambition, which the laws and the king's authority had
hitherto with difficulty restrained. He secretly called a meeting of
the most considerable barons, particularly Humphrey de Bohun, high
constable, Roger Bigod, earl mareschal, and the earls of Warwick and
Glocester; men who by their family and possessions stood in the first
rank of the English nobility. He represented to this company the
necessity of reforming the state, and of putting the execution of the
laws into other hands than those which had hitherto appeared, from
repeated experience, so unfit for the charge with which they were
intrusted. He exaggerated the oppressions exercised against the lower
orders of the state, the violations of the barons' privileges, the
continued depredations made on the clergy; and in order to aggravate the
enormity of this conduct, he appealed to the Great Charter, which Henry
had so often ratified, and which was calculated to prevent forever the
return of those intolerable grievances. He magnified the generosity of
their ancestors, who, at a great expense of blood, had extorted that
famous concession from the crown; but lamented their own degeneracy,
who allowed so important an advantage, once obtained, to be wrested from
them by a weak prince and by insolent strangers. And he insisted that
the king's word, after so many submissions and fruitless promises on his
part, could no longer be relied on; and that nothing but his absolute
inability to violate national privileges could henceforth insure the
regular observance of them.
* M. Paris, p. 649.
These topics, which were founded in truth, and suited so well the
sentiments of the company, had the desired effect, and the barons
embraced a resolution of redressing the public grievances, by taking
into their own hands the administration of government. Henry having
summoned a parliament, in expectation of receiving supplies for his
Sicilian project, the barons appeared in the hall, clad in complete
armor, and with their swords by their side: the king, on his entry,
struck with the unusual appearance, asked them what was their purpose,
and whether they pretended to make him their prisoner.[*] Roger Bigod
replied in the name of the rest, that he was not their prisoner, but
their sovereign; that they even intended to grant him large supplies,
in order to fix his son on the throne of Sicily; that they only expected
some return for this expense and service; and that, as he had frequently
made submissions to the parliament, had acknowledged his past errors,
and had still allowed himself to be carried into the same path, which
gave them such just reason of complaint, he must now yield to more
strict regulations, and confer authority on those who were able and
willing to redress the national grievances. Henry, partly allured by the
hopes of supply, partly intimidated by the union and martial appearance
of the barons, agreed to their demand, and promised to summon another
parliament at Oxford, in order to digest the new plan of government, and
to elect the persons who were to be intrusted with the chief authority.
This parliament, which the royalists, and even the nation, from
experience of the confusions that attended its measures, afterwards
denominated the "mad parliament," met on the day appointed; and as all
the barons brought along with them their military vassals, and appeared
with an armed force, the king, who had taken no precautions against
them, was in reality a prisoner in their hands, and was obliged to
submit to all the terms which they were pleased to impose upon him.
Twelve barons were selected from among the king's ministers; twelve more
were chosen by parliament: to these twenty-four unlimited authority was
granted to reform the state; and the king himself took an oath, that he
would maintain whatever ordinances they should think proper to enact for
that purpose.[**] Leicester was at the head of this supreme council,
to which the legislative power was thus in reality transferred; and all
their measures were taken by his secret influence and direction.
* Annal. Theokesoury.
** Rymer, vol. i. p. 655. Chron. Dunst. vol.i. p. 334.
Knyghton p. 2445.
Their first step bore a specious appearance, and seemed well calculated
for the end which they professed to be the object of all these
innovations; they ordered that four knights should be chosen by each
county; that they should make inquiry into the grievances of which
their neighborhood had reason to complain, and should attend the ensuing
parliament, in order to give information to that assembly of the state
of their particular counties;[*] a nearer approach to our present
constitution than had been made by the barons in the reign of King John,
when the knights were only appointed to meet in their several counties,
and there to draw up a detail of their grievances. Meanwhile the
twenty-four barons proceeded to enact some regulations, as a redress
of such grievances as were supposed to be sufficiently notorious. They
ordered, that three sessions of parliament should be regularly held
every year, in the months of February, June, and October; "that a new
sheriff should be annually elected by the votes of the freeholders in
each county;[**] that the sheriffs should have no power of fining
the barons who did not attend their courts, or the circuits of the
justiciaries; that no heirs should be committed to the wardship of
foreigners, and no castles intrusted to their custody; and that no new
warrens or forests should be created, nor the revenues of any counties
or hundreds be let to farm." Such were the regulations which the
twenty-four barons established at Oxford, for the redress of public
grievances.
* M. Paris, p. 657. Addit. p. 140. Ann. Burt, p, 412.
** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 336.
But the earl of Leicester and his associates, having advanced so far
to satisfy the nation, instead of continuing in this popular course, or
granting the king that supply which they had promised him, immediately
provided for the extension and continuance of their own authority.
They roused anew the popular clamor which had long prevailed against
foreigners; and they fell with the utmost violence on the king's
half brothers, who were supposed to be the authors of, all national
grievances, and whom Henry had no longer any power to protect. The four
brothers, sensible of their danger, took to flight, with an intention of
making their escape out of the kingdom; they were eagerly pursued by the
barons; Aymer, one of the brothers, who had been elected to the see of
Winchester took shelter in his episcopal palace, and carried the others
along with him; they were surrounded in that place, and threatened to
be dragged out by force, and to be punished for their crimes and
misdemeanors; and the king, pleading the sacredness of an ecclesiastical
sanctuary, was glad to extricate them from this danger by banishing
them the kingdom. In this act of violence, as well as in the former
usurpations of the barons, the queen and her uncles were thought to
have secretly concurred; being jealous of the credit acquired by the
brothers, which, they found, had eclipsed and annihilated their own.
But the subsequent proceedings of the twenty-four barons were sufficient
to open the eyes of the nation, and to prove their intention of reducing
forever both the king and the people under the arbitrary power of a
very narrow aristocracy., which must at last have terminated either in
anarchy, or in a violent usurpation and tyranny. They pretended
that they had not yet digested all the regulations necessary for the
reformation of the state, and for the redress of grievances; and
that they must still retain their power, till that great purpose
were thoroughly effected: in other words, that they must be perpetual
governors, and must continue to reform, till they were pleased to
abdicate their authority. They formed an association among themselves,
and swore that they would stand by each other with their lives and
fortunes; they displaced all the chief officers of the crown, the
justiciary, the chancellor, the treasurer; and advanced either
themselves or their own creatures in their place: even the offices of
the king's household were disposed of at their pleasure: the government
of all the castles was put into hands in whom they found reason to
confide: and the whole power of the state being thus transferred to
them, they ventured to impose an oath, by which all the subjects were
obliged to swear, under the penalty of being declared public enemies,
that they would obey and execute all the regulations, both known and
unknown, of the twenty-four barons: and all this, for the greater
glory of God, the honor of the church, the service of the king, and the
advantage of the kingdom.[*]
* Chron. T. Wykes, p. 52.
No one dared to withstand this tyrannical authority: Prince Edward
himself, the king's eldest son, a youth of eighteen, who began to give
indications of that great and manly spirit which appeared throughout the
whole course of his life, was, after making some opposition, constrained
to take that oath, which really deposed his father and his family from
sovereign authority.[*] Earl Warrenne was the last person in the kingdom
that could be brought to give the confederated barons this mark of
submission.
But the twenty-four barons, not content with the usurpation of the royal
power, introduced an innovation in the constitution of parliament, which
was of the utmost importance. They ordained, that this assembly should
choose a committee of twelve persons, who should, in the intervals of
the sessions, possess the authority of the whole parliament, and should
attend, on a summons, the person of the king, in all his motions. But so
powerful were these barons, that this regulation was also submitted to;
the whole government was overthrown or fixed on new foundations; and the
monarchy was totally subverted, without its being possible for the king
to strike a single stroke in defence of the constitution against the
newly-erected oligarchy.
{1259.} The report that the king of the Romans intended to pay a visit
to England, gave alarm to the ruling barons, who dreaded lest the
extensive influence and established authority of that prince would be
employed to restore the prerogatives of his family, and overturn their
plan of government.[**] They sent over the bishop of Worcester, who met
him at St. Omars; asked him, in the name of the barons, the reason of
his journey, and how long he intended to stay in England; and insisted
that, before he entered the kingdom he should swear to observe the
regulations established at Oxford. On Richard's refusal to take this
oath, they prepared to resist him as a public enemy; they fitted out a
fleet, assembled an army, and exciting the inveterate prejudices of
the people against foreigners, from whom they had suffered so many
oppressions, spread the report that Richard, attended by a number
of strangers, meant to restore by force the authority of his exiled
brothers, and to violate all the securities provided for public liberty.
The king of the Romans was at last obliged to submit to the terms
required of him. [***]
* Ann. Burt. p. 411.
** M. Paris, p. 661.
*** Ibid p. 661, 662. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 53.
But the barons, in proportion to their continuance in power, began
gradually to lose that popularity which had assisted them in obtaining
it; and men repined, that regulations, which were occasionally
established for the reformation of the state, were likely to become
perpetual, and to subvert entirely the ancient constitution. They were
apprehensive lest the power of the nobles, always oppressive, should now
exert itself without control, by removing the counterpoise of the crown;
and their fears were increased by some new edicts of the barons, which
were plainly calculated to procure to themselves an impunity in all
their violences. They appointed that the circuits of the itinerant
justices, the sole check on their arbitrary conduct, should be held only
once in seven years, and men easily saw that a remedy which returned
after such long intervals, against an oppressive power which was
perpetual, would prove totally insignificant and useless.[*] The cry
became loud in the nation, that the barons should finish their intended
regulations. The knights of the shires, who seem now to have been
pretty regularly assembled, and sometimes in a separate house,
made remonstrances against the slowness of their proceedings. They
represented that, though the king had performed all the conditions
required of him, the barons had hitherto done nothing for the public
good, and had only been careful to promote their own private advantage,
and to make inroads on royal authority; and they even appealed to Prince
Edward, and claimed his interposition for the interests of the nation,
and the reformation of the government.[**] The prince replied that,
though it was from constraint, and contrary to his private sentiments,
he had sworn to maintain the provisions of Oxford, he was determined to
observe his oath: but he sent a message to the barons, requiring them
to bring their undertaking to a speedy conclusion, and fulfil their
engagements to the public: otherwise, he menaced them, that at the
expense of his life, he would oblige them to do their duty, and
would shed the last drop of his blood in promoting the interests and
satisfying the just wishes of the nation.[***]
The barons, urged by so pressing a necessity, published at last a new
code of ordinances for the reformation of the state: [****] but the
expectations of the people were extremely disappointed when they found
that these consisted only of some trivial alterations in the municipal
law; and still more, when the barons pretended that the task was not yet
finished and that they must further prolong their authority, in order to
bring the work of reformation to the desired period.
* M. Paris, p. 667. Trivet, p. 209.
** Ann. Burt. p. 427.
*** Ann Burt. p. 427.
**** Ann. Burt. p. 428, 439
The current of popularity was now much turned to the side of the crown;
and the barons had little, to rely on for their support besides the
private influence and power of their families, which, though exorbitant,
was likely to prove inferior to the combination of king and people. Even
this basis of power was daily weakened by their intestine jealousies and
animosities; their ancient and inveterate quarrels broke out when they
came to share the spoils of the crown; and the rivalship between the
earls of Leicester and Glocester, the chief leaders among them, began
to disjoint the whole confederacy. The latter, more moderate in his
pretensions, was desirous of stopping or retarding the career of the
barons' usurpations; but the former, enraged at the opposition which, he
met with in his own party, pretended to throw up all concern in English
affairs; and he retired into France.[*]
The kingdom of France, the only state with which England had any
considerable intercourse, was at this time governed by Lewis IX., a
prince of the most singular character that is to be met with in all
the records of history. This monarch united to the mean and abject
superstition of a monk all the courage and magnanimity of the greatest
hero; and, what may be deemed more extraordinary, the justice and
integrity of a disinterested patriot, the mildness and humanity of an
accomplished philosopher. So far from taking advantage of the divisions
among the English, or attempting to expel those dangerous rivals from
the provinces which they still possessed in France, he had entertained
many scruples with regard to the sentence of attainder pronounced
against the king's father, had even expressed some intention of
restoring the other provinces, and was only prevented from taking that
imprudent resolution by the united remonstrances of his own barons, who
represented the extreme danger of such a measure,[**] and, what had a
greater influence on Lewis, the justice of punishing by a legal sentence
the barbarity and felony of John. Whenever this prince interposed
in English affairs, it was always with an intention of composing the
differences between the king and his nobility: he recommended to both
parties every peaceable and reconciling measure; and he used all his
authority with the earl of Leicester, his native subject, to bend him to
a compliance with Henry.
* Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 348.
** M. Paris, p. 604.
He made a treaty with England at a time when the distractions of that
kingdom were at the greatest height, and when the king's authority was
totally annihilated; and the terms which he granted might, even in
a more prosperous state of their affairs, be deemed reasonable and
advantageous to the English. He yielded up some territories which
had been conquered from Poictou and Guienne; he insured the peaceable
possession of the latter province to Henry; he agreed to pay that prince
a large sum of money; and he only required that the king should, in
return, make a final cession of Normandy and the other provinces, which
he could never entertain any hopes of recovering by force of arms.[*]
This cession was ratified by Henry, by his two sons and two daughters,
and by the king of the Romans and his three sons: Leicester alone,
either moved by a vain arrogance, or desirous to ingratiate himself with
the English populace, protested against the deed, and insisted on the
right, however distant, which might accrue to his consort.[**] Lewis saw
in his obstinacy the unbounded ambition of the man; and as the barons
insisted that the money due by treaty should be at their disposal, not
at Henry's, he also saw, and probably with regret, the low condition to
which this monarch, who had more erred from weakness than from any bad
intentions, was reduced by the turbulence of his own subjects.
{1261.} But the situation of Henry soon after wore a more favorable
aspect. The twenty-four barons had now enjoyed the sovereign power near
three years; and had visibly employed it, not for the reformation of
the state, which was their first pretence, but for the aggrandizement
of themselves and of their families. The breach of trust was apparent to
all the world: every order of men felt it, and murmured against it: the
dissensions among the barons themselves, which increased the evil,
made also the remedy more obvious and easy: and the secret desertion
in particular of the earl of Glocester to the crown, seemed to promise
Henry certain success in any attempt to resume his authority. Yet durst
he not take that step, so reconcilable both to justice and policy,
without making a previous application to Rome, and desiring an
absolution from his oaths and engagements.[***]
* Rymer, vol. i. p 675. M. Paris, p. 566. Chron. T. Wykes,
p, 53. Trivet, p. 208 M. West. p. 371.
** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 53.
*** Ann. Burt. p. 389.
The pope was at this time much dissatisfied with the conduct of the
barons; who, in order to gain the favor of the people and clergy of
England, had expelled all the Italian ecclesiastics, had confiscated
their benefices, and seemed determined to maintain the liberties and
privileges of the English church, in which the rights of patronage
belonging to their own families were included. The extreme animosity of
the English clergy against the Italians was also a source of his disgust
to the order; and an attempt which had been made by them for further
liberty and greater independence on the civil power, was therefore less
acceptable to the court of Rome.[*] About the same time that the barons
at Oxford had annihilated the prerogatives of the monarchy, the clergy
met in a synod at Merton, and passed several ordinances, which were
no less calculated to promote their own grandeur at the expense of
the crown. They decreed, that it was unlawful to try ecclesiastics by
secular judges; that the clergy were not to regard any prohibitions
from civil courts; that lay patrons had no right to confer spiritual
benefices; that the magistrate was obliged, without further inquiry, to
imprison all excommunicated persons; and that ancient usage, without any
particular grant or charter, was a sufficient authority for any clerical
possessions or privileges.[**] About a century before, these claims
would have been supported by the court of Rome beyond the most
fundamental articles of faith: they were the chief points maintained
by the great martyr Becket; and his resolution in defending them had
exalted him to the high station which he held in the catalogue of Romish
saints. But principles were changed with the times: the pope was become
somewhat jealous of the great independence of the English clergy, which
made them stand less in need of his protection, and even imboldened them
to resist his authority, and to complain of the preference given to the
Italian courtiers, whose interests, it is natural to imagine, were the
chief object of his concern. He was ready, therefore, on the king's
application, to annul these new constitutions of the church of
England.[***] And, at the same time, he absolved the king and all his
subjects from the oath which they had taken to observe the provisions of
Oxford.[****]
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 755.
** Ann. Burt. p. 389.
*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 755.
**** Rymer, vol. i. p. 722. M. Paris, p. 666. W. Heming. p,
580. Ypod. Neust. p; 468. Knyghton, p. 2446.
Prince Edward, whose liberal mind, though in such early youth, had
taught him the great prejudice which his father had incurred by his
levity, inconstancy, and frequent breach of promise, refused for a
long time to take advantage of thus absolution; and declared that the
provisions of Oxford, how unreasonable soever in themselves, and how
much soever abused by the barons, ought still to be adhered to by those
who had sworn to observe them:[*] he himself had been constrained by
violence to take that oath; yet was he determined to keep it. By this
scrupulous fidelity the prince acquired the confidence of all parties,
and was afterwards enabled to recover fully the royal authority, and
to perform such great actions both during his own reign and that of his
father.
The situation of England, during this period, as well as that of most
European kingdoms, was somewhat peculiar. There was no regular military
force maintained in the nation: the sword, however, was not, properly
speaking, in the hands of the people; the barons were alone intrusted
with the defence of the community; and after any effort which they made,
either against their own prince or against foreigners, as the military
retainers departed home, the armies were disbanded, and could not
speedily be reassembled at pleasure. It was easy, therefore, for a
few barons, by a combination, to get the start of the other party, to
collect suddenly their troops, and to appear unexpectedly in the field
with an army, which their antagonists, though equal or even superior
in power and interest, would not dare to encounter. Hence the sudden
revolutions which often took place in those governments; hence the
frequent victories obtained without a blow by one faction over the
other; and hence it happened, that the seeming prevalence of a party was
seldom a prognostic of its long continuance in power and authority.
{1262.} The king, as soon as he received the pope's absolution from his
oath, accompanied with menaces of excommunication against all opponents,
trusting to the countenance of the church, to the support promised him
by many considerable barons, and to the returning favor of the people,
immediately took off the mask. After justifying his conduct by a
proclamation, in which he set forth the private ambition and the breach
of trust conspicuous in Leicester and his associates, be declared that
he had resumed the government, and was determined thenceforth to exert
the royal authority for the protection of his subjects.
* M. Paris. D. 667.
He removed Hugh le Despenser and Nicholas de Ely, the justiciary and
chancellor appointed by the barons; and put Philip Basset and Walter de
Merton in their place. He substituted new sheriffs in all the counties,
men of character and honor; he placed new governors in most of the
castles; he changed all the officers of his household; he summoned a
parliament, in which the resumption of his authority was ratified, with
only five dissenting voices; and the barons, after making one fruitless
effort to take the king by surprise at Winchester, were obliged to
acquiesce in those new regulations.[*]
The king, in order to cut off every objection to his conduct, offered
to refer all the differences between him and the earl of Leicester to
Margaret, queen of France.[**] The celebrated integrity of Lewis gave a
mighty influence to any decision which issued from his court; and Henry
probably hoped, that the gallantry on which all barons, as true knights,
valued themselves, would make them ashamed not to submit to the award
of that princess. Lewis merited the confidence reposed in him. By
an admirable conduct, probably as political as just, he continually
interposed his good offices to allay the civil discords ol the English:
he forwarded all healing measures which might give security to
both parties: and he still endeavored, though in vain, to soothe by
persuasion the fierce ambition of the earl of Leicester, and to convince
him how much it was his duty to submit peaceably to the authority of his
sovereign.
* M. Paris, p. 668. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 55.
** Rymer, vol. i. p. 724.
{1263.} That bold and artful conspirator was nowise discouraged by
the bad success of his past enterprises. The death of Richard, earl
of Glocester, who was his chief rival in power, and who, before his
decease, had joined the royal party seemed to open a new field to his
violence, and to expose the throne to fresh insults and injuries. It was
in vain that the king professed his intentions of observing strictly
the great charter, even of maintaining all the regulations made by the
reforming barons at Oxford or afterwards, except those with entirely
annihilated the royal authority; these powerful chieftains, now
obnoxious to the court, could not peaceably resign the hopes of entire
independence and uncontrolled power with which they had flattered
themselves, and which they had so long enjoyed. Many of them engaged
in Leicester's views, and among the rest, Gilbert, the young earl
of Glocester, who brought him a mighty accession of power, from the
extensive authority possessed by that opulent family. Even Henry, son
of the king of the Romans, commonly called Henry d'Allmaine, though a
prince of the blood, joined the party of the barons against the king,
the head of his own family Leicester himself, who still resided in
France, secretly formed the links of this great conspiracy, and planned
the whole scheme of operations.
The princes of Wales, notwithstanding the great power of the monarchs
both of the Saxon and Norman line, still preserved authority in their
own country. Though they had often been constrained to pay tribute
to the crown of England, they were with difficulty retained in
subordination or even in peace; and almost through every reign since
the conquest, they had infested the English frontiers with such petty
incursions and sudden inroads, as seldom merit to have place in a
general history. The English, still content with repelling their
invasions, and chasing them back into their mountains, had never pursued
the advantages obtained over them, nor been able, even under their
greatest and most active princes, to fix a total, or so much as a feudal
subjection on the country. This advantage was reserved to the present
king, the weakest and most indolent. In the year 1237, Lewellyn, prince
of Wales, declining in years and broken with infirmities, but still more
harassed with the rebellion and undutiful behavior of his youngest son
Griffin, had recourse to the protection of Henry; and consenting
to subject his principality, which had so long maintained, or soon
recovered, its independence to vassalage under the crown of England,
had purchased security and tranquillity on these dishonorable terms. His
eldest son and heir, David, renewed the homage to England; and having
taken his brother prisoner, delivered him into Henry's hands, who
committed him to custody in the Tower. That prince, endeavoring to make
his escape, lost his life in the attempt; and the prince of Wales, freed
from the apprehensions of so dangerous a rival, paid thenceforth less
regard to the English monarch, and even renewed those incursions by
which the Welsh, during so many ages, had been accustomed to infest the
English borders. Lewellyn, however, the foil of Griffin, who succeeded
to his uncle, had been obliged to renew the homage which was now claimed
by England as an established right; but he was well pleased to inflame
those civil discords, on which he rested his present security and
founded his hopes of future independence. He entered into a confederacy
with the earl of Leicester, and collecting all the force of his
principality, invaded England with an army of thirty thousand men.
He ravaged the lands of Roger de Mortimer, and of all the barons who
adhered to the crown;[*] he marched into Cheshire, and committed like
depredations on Prince Edward's territories; every place where his
disorderly troops appeared was laid waste with fire and sword; and
though Mortimer, a gallant and expert soldier, made stout resistance, it
was found necessary that the prince himself should head the army against
this invader. Edward repulsed Prince Lewellyn, and obliged him to take
shelter in the mountains of North Wales: but he was prevented from
making further progress against the enemy by the disorders which soon
after broke out in England.
The Welsh invasion was the appointed signal for the malecontent barons
to rise in arms; and Leicester, coming over secretly from France,
collected all the forces of his party, and commenced an open rebellion.
He seized the person of the bishop of Hereford, a prelate obnoxious to
all the inferior clergy, on account of his devoted attachment to the
court of Rome.[**] Simon, bishop of Norwich, and John Mansel, because
they had published the pope's bull, absolving the king and kingdom from
their oaths to observe the provisions of Oxford, were made prisoners,
and exposed to the rage of the party. The king's demesnes were ravaged
with unbounded fury,[***] and as it was Leicester's interest to allure
to his side, by the hopes of plunder, all the disorderly ruffians in
England he gave them a general license to pillage the barons of the
opposite party, and even all neutral persons.
* Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 354.
** Trivet, p. 211. M. West. p. 382, 392.
*** Trivet, p. 211. M. West. p. 382.
But one of the principal resources of his faction was the populace of
the cities, particularly of London; and as he had, by his hypocritical
pretensions to sanctity, and his zeal against Rome, engaged the monks
and lower ecclesiastics in his party, his dominion over the inferior
ranks of men became uncontrollable. Thomas Fitz-Richard, mayor of
London, a furious and licentious man, gave the countenance of authority
to these disorders in the capital; and having declared war against the
substantial citizens, he loosened all the bands of government, by which
that turbulent city was commonly but ill restrained. On the approach of
Easter, the zeal of superstition, the appetite for plunder, or what is
often as prevalent with the populace as either of these motives, the
pleasure of committing havoc and destruction, prompted them to attack
the unhappy Jews, who were first pillaged without resistance, then
massacred, to the number of five hundred persons.[*] The Lombard bankers
were next exposed to the rage of the people; and though, by taking
sanctuary in the churches, they escaped with their lives, all their
money and goods became a prey to the licentious multitude. Even the
houses of the rich citizens, though English, were attacked by night;
and way was made by sword and by fire to the pillage of their goods,
and often to the destruction of their persons. The queen, who, though
defended by the Tower, was terrified by the neighborhood of such
dangerous commotions, resolved to go by water to the Castle of Windsor;
but as she approached the bridge, the populace assembled against her:
the cry ran, "Drown the witch;" and besides abusing her with the most
opprobrious language, and pelting her with rotten eggs and dirt, they
had prepared large stones to sink her barge, when she should attempt to
shoot the bridge; and she was so frightened, that she returned to the
Tower[**]
The violence and fury of Leicester's faction had risen to such a height
in all parts of England, that the king, unable to resist their
power, was obliged to set on foot a treaty of peace, and to make an
accommodation with the barons on the most disadvantageous terms.[***]
* Chron T. Wykes, p. 59.
** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 57.
*** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 358. Trivet, p. 211.
He agreed to confirm anew the provisions of Oxford, even those which
entirely annihilated the royal authority; and the barons were again
reinstated in the sovereignty of the kingdom. They restored Hugh le
Despenser to the office of chief justiciary: they appointed their own
creatures sheriffs in every county of England; they took possession of
all the royal castles and fortresses; they even named all the officers
of the king's household; and they summoned a parliament to meet at
Westminster, in order to settle more fully their plan of government.
They here produced a new list of twenty-four barons, to whom they
proposed that the administration should be entirely committed; and
they insisted that the authority of this junto should continue not only
during the reign of the king, but also during that of Prince Edward.
This prince, the life and soul of the royal party, had unhappily,
before the king's accommodation with the barons, been taken prisoner by
Leicester in a parley at Windsor;[*] and that misfortune, more than
any other incident, had determined Henry to submit to the ignominious
conditions imposed upon him. But Edward, having recovered his liberty by
the treaty, employed his activity in defending the prerogatives of his
family; and he gained a great party even among-those who had at first
adhered to the cause of the barons. His cousin, Henry d'Allmaine, Roger
Bigod, earl mareschal, Earl Warrenne, Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford,
John Lord Basset, Ralph Basset, Hammond l'Estrange, Roger Mortimer, Henry
de Piercy, Robert de Brus, Roger de Leybourne, with almost all the lords
marchers, as they were called, on the borders of Wales and of Scotland,
the most warlike parts of the kingdom, declared in favor of the royal
cause; and hostilities, which were scarcely well composed, were again
renewed in every part of England. But the near balance of the parties,
joined to the universal clamor of the people, obliged the king and
barons to open anew the negotiations for peace; and it was agreed by
both sides to submit their differences to the arbitration of the king of
France.[**]
* M. Paris, p. 669. Trivet, p. 213.
** M. Paris, p. 668, Chron. T. Wykes, p. 58. W. Heming, p.
580. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 363.
{1264.} This virtuous prince, the only man, who, in like circumstances,
could safely have been intrusted with such an authority by a neighboring
nation, had never ceased to interpose his good, offices between the
English factions, and had, even, during the short interval of peace,
invited over to Paris both the king and the earl of Leicester, in order
to accommodate the differences between them, but found that the fears
and animosities on both sides, as well as the ambition of Leicester,
were so violent, as to render all his endeavors ineffectual. But when
this solemn appeal, ratified by the oaths and subscriptions of
the leaders in both factions, was made to his judgment, he was not
discouraged from pursuing his honorable purpose: he summoned the states
of France at Amiens; and there, in the presence of that assembly,
as well as in that of the king of England and Peter de Mountfort,
Leicester's son, he brought this great cause to a trial and examination.
It appeared to him, that the provisions of Oxford, even had they not
been extorted by force, had they not been so exorbitant in their nature
and subversive of the ancient constitution, were expressly established
as a temporary expedient, and could not, without breach of trust,
be rendered perpetual by the barons. He therefore annulled these
provisions; restored to the king the possession of his castles, and the
power of nomination to the great offices; allowed him to retain what
foreigners he pleased in his kingdom, and even to confer on them places
of trust and dignity; and, in a word, reestablished the royal power
in the same condition on which it stood before the meeting of
the parliament at Oxford. But while he thus suppressed dangerous
innovations, and preserved unimpaired the prerogatives of the English
crown, he was not negligent of the rights of the people; and besides
ordering that a general amnesty should be granted for all past offences,
he declared, that his award was not anywise meant to derogate from
the privileges and liberties which the nation enjoyed by any former
concessions or charters of the crown.[*]
This equitable sentence was no sooner known in England, than Leicester
and his confederates determined to reject it and to have recourse
to arms, in order to procure to themselves more safe and advantageous
conditions.[**]
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 776, 777, etc. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 58.
Knyghton, p. 2446.
** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 363.
Without regard to his oaths and subscriptions, that enterprising
conspirator directed his two sons, richard and Peter de Mountfort, in
conjunction with Robert de Ferrers, earl of Derby, to attack the city of
Worcester; while Henry and Simon de Mountfort, two others of his sons,
assisted by the prince of Wales, were ordered to lay waste the estate
of Roger de Mortimer. He himself resided at London; and employing as
his instrument Fitz-Richard, the seditious mayor, who had violently
and illegally prolonged his authority, he wrought up that city to the
highest ferment and agitation. The populace formed themselves into
bands and companies; chose leaders; practised all military exercises;
committed violence on the royalists; and to give them greater
countenance in their disorders, an association was entered into between
the city and eighteen great barons, never to make peace with the king
but by common consent and approbation. At the head of those who swore to
maintain this association, were the earls of Leicester, Glocester,
and Derby, with Le Despenser, the chief justiciary; men who had all
previously sworn to submit to the award of the French monarch. Their
only pretence for this breach of faith was, that the latter part of
Lewis's sentence was, as they affirmed, a contradiction to the former.
He ratified the charter of liberties, yet annulled the provisions of
Oxford, which were only calculated, as they maintained, to preserve that
charter; and without which, in their estimation, they had no security for
its observance.
The king and prince, finding a civil war inevitable, prepared themselves
for defence; and summoning the military vassals from all quarters, and
being reinforced by Baliol, lord of Galloway, Brus, lord of Annandale,
Henry Piercy, John Comyn,[*] and other barons of the north, they
composed an army, formidable as well from its numbers as its military
prowess and experience. The first enterprise of the royalists was the
attack of Northampton, which was defended by Simon de Mountfort, with
many of the principal barons of that party: and a breach being; made in
the walls by Philip Basset, the place was carried by assault, and both
the governor and the garrison were made prisoners. The royalists marched
thence to Leicester and Nottingham; both which places having opened
their gates to them, Prince Edward proceeded with a detachment into the
county of Derby, in order to ravage with fire and sword the lands of
the earl of that name, and take revenge on, him for his disloyalty.
Like maxims of war prevailed with both parties throughout England; and
the kingdom was thus exposed in a moment to greater devastation, from
the animosities of the rival barons, than it would have suffered from
many years of foreign or even domestic hostilities, conducted by more
humane and more generous principles.
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 772. M. West. p. 385. Ypod. Neust. p.
469.
The earl of Leicester, master of London, and of the counties in the
south-east of England, formed the siege of Rochester, which alone
declared for the king in those parts, and which, besides Earl Warrenne,
the governor, was garrisoned by many noble and powerful barons of the
royal party. The king and prince hastened from Nottingham, where they
were then quartered, to the relief of the place; and on their approach,
Leicester raised the siege and retreated to London, which, being the
centre of his power, he was afraid might, in his absence, fall into the
king's hands, either by force or by a correspondence with the principal
citizens, who were all secretly inclined to the royal cause. Reenforced
[**unusual spelling but that is what it looks like] by a great body
of Londoners, and having summoned his partisans from all quarters,
he thought himself strong enough to hazard a general battle with
the royalists, and to determine the fate of the nation in one great
engagement, which, if it proved successful, must be decisive against
the king, who had no retreat for his broken troops in those parts, while
Leicester himself, in case of any sinister accident, could easily
take shelter in the city. To give the better coloring to his cause, he
previously sent a message with conditions of peace to Henry, submissive
in the language, but exorbitant in the demands;[*] and when the
messenger returned with the lie and defiance from the king, the prince,
and the king of the Romans, he sent a new message, renouncing, in the
name of himself and of the associated barons, all fealty and allegiance
to Henry. He then marched out of the city with his army, divided into
four bodies: the first commanded by his two sons, Henry and Guy de
Mountfort, together with Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, who had
deserted to the barons; the second led by the earl of Glocester, with
William de Montchesney and John Fitz-John; the third, composed of
Londoners, under the command of Nicholas de Segrave; the fourth headed
by himself in person. The bishop of Chichester gave a general absolution
to the army, accompanied with assurances, that, if any of them fell in
the ensuing action, they would infallibly be received into heaven, as
the reward of their suffering in so meritorious a cause.
* M. Paris, p. 669. W. Heming. p. 583.
Leicester, who possessed great talents for war, conducted his march with
such skill and secrecy, that he had well nigh surprised the royalists
in their quarters at Lewes, in Sussex, but the vigilance and activity of
Prince Edward soon repaired this negligence; and he led out the king's
army to the field in three bodies. He himself conducted the van,
attended by Earl Warrenne and William de Valence; the main body was
commanded by the king of the Romans and his son Henry; the king himself
was placed in the rear at the head of his principal nobility. Prince
Edward rushed upon the Londoners who had demanded the post of honor in
leading the rebel army, but who, from their ignorance of discipline and
want of experience, were ill fitted to resist the gentry and military
men, of whom the prince's body was composed. They were broken in an
instant; were chased off the field; and Edward, transported by his
martial ardor, and eager to revenge the insolence of the Londoners
against his mother,[*] put them to the sword for the length of four
miles, without giving them any quarter, and without reflecting on the
fate which in the mean time attended the rest of the army. The earl of
Leicester, seeing the royalists thrown into confusion by their eagerness
in the pursuit, led on his remaining troops against the bodies commanded
by the two royal brothers: he defeated with great slaughter the forces
headed by the king of the Romans; and that prince was obliged to yield
himself prisoner to the earl of Glocester: he penetrated to the body
where the king himself was placed, threw it into disorder, pursued
his advantage, chased it into the town of Lewes, and obliged Henry to
surrender himself prisoner.[**]
Prince Edward, returning to the field of battle from his precipitate
pursuit of the Londoners, was astonished to find it covered with the
dead bodies of his friends, and still more to hear that his father and
uncle were defeated and taken prisoners, and that Arundel, Comyn, Brus,
Hamond l'Estrange, Roger Leybourne, and many considerable barons of his
party were in the hands of the victorious enemy. Earl Warrenne, Hugh
Bigod, and William de Valence, struck with despair at this event,
immediately took to flight, hurried to Pevencey, and made their escape
beyond sea:[***] but the prince, intrepid amidst the greatest disasters,
exhorted his troops to revenge the death of their friends, to relieve
the royal captives, and to snatch an easy conquest from an enemy
disordered by their own victory.[****] He found his followers
intimidated by their situation, while Leicester, afraid of a sudden and
violent blow from the prince, amused him by a feigned negotiation, till
he was able to recall his troops from the pursuit, and to bring them
into order.[*****]
* M. Paris, p. 670. Chron. T. Wykes, P 62
** W. Heming. p. 583 M. West p. 337. Ypod. Neust. p. 469.
*** Kynghton, p. 2450.
**** M. Paris, p. 670.
***** M. West, p., 387.
****** Chron. T. Wyke, p. 63. W. Heming. p. 584.
******* W. Heming. p. 581.
There now appeared no further resource to the royal party, surrounded
by the armies and garrisons of the enemy, destitute of forage and
provisions, and deprived of their sovereign, as well as of their
principal leaders, who could alone inspirit them to an obstinate
resistance. The prince, therefore, was obliged to submit to Leicester's
terms, which were short and severe, agreeably to the suddenness and
necessity of the situation. He stipulated that he and Henry d'Allmaine
should surrender themselves prisoners as pledges in lieu of the two
kings; that all other prisoners on both sides should be released;[*] and
that in order to settle fully the terms of agreement, application should
be made to the king of France, that he should name six Frenchmen, three
prelates and three noblemen; these six to choose two others of their
own country, and these two to choose one Englishman, who, in conjunction
with themselves, were to be invested by both parties with full powers
to make what regulations they thought proper for the settlement of the
kingdom. The prince and young Henry accordingly delivered themselves
into Leicester's hands, who sent them under a guard to Dover Castle.
Such are the terms of agreement, commonly called the Mise of Lewes, from
an obsolete French term of that meaning; for it appears that all the
gentry and nobility of England, who valued themselves on their Norman
extraction, and who disdained the language of their native country, made
familiar use of the French tongue till this period, and for some time
after.
Leicester had no sooner obtained this great advantage and gotten the
whole royal family in his power, than he openly violated every article
of the treaty, and acted as sole master, and even tyrant of the kingdom.
He still detained the king in effect a prisoner, and made use of that
prince's authority to purposes the most prejudicial to his interests,
and the most oppressive of his people.[**] He every where disarmed the
royalists, and kept all his own partisans in, a military posture:[***]
he observed the same partial conduct in the deliverance of the captives,
and even threw many of the royalists into prison, besides those who were
taken in the battle of Lewes; he carried the king from place to place,
and obliged all the royal castles, on pretence of Henry's commands, to
receive a governor and garrison of his own appointment.
* M. Paris, p. 671. Knyghton, p. 2451.
** Rymer, vol. i. p. 790, 791, etc.
*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 795. Brady's Appeals, No. 211, 212.
Chron. T. Wykes, p. 63.
All the officers of the crown and of the household were named by him,
and the whole authority, as well as arms of the state, was lodged in his
hands: he instituted in the counties a new kind of magistracy, endowed
with new and arbitrary powers, that of conservators of the peace;[*]
his avarice appeared bare-faced, and might induce us to question the
greatness of his ambition, at least the largeness of his mind, if we had
not reason to think that he intended to employ his acquisitions as the
instruments for attaining further power and grandeur. He seized the
estates of no less than eighteen barons as his share of the spoil gained
in the battle of Lewes: he engrossed to himself the ransom of all the
prisoners; and told his barons, with a wanton insolence, that it was
sufficient for them that he had saved them by that victory from the
forfeitures and attainders which hung over them:[**] he even treated the
earl of Glocester in the same injurious manner, and applied to his own
use the ransom of the king of the Romans, who in the field of battle had
yielded himself prisoner to that nobleman. Henry, his eldest son, made a
monopoly of all the wool in the kingdom, the only valuable commodity for
foreign markets which it at that time produced.[***] The inhabitants of
the cinque ports, during the present dissolution of government, betook
themselves to the most licentious piracy, preyed on the ships of all
nations, threw the mariners into the sea, and by these practices,
soon banished all merchants from the English coasts and harbors. Every
foreign commodity rose to an exorbitant price, and woollen cloth, which
the English had not then the art of dyeing, was worn by them white, and
without receiving the last hand of the manufacturer. In answer to the
complaints which arose on this occasion, Leicester replied that
the kingdom could well enough subsist within itself, and needed no
intercourse with foreigners. And it was found that he even combined with
the pirates of the cinque ports, and received as his share the third of
their prizes.[****]
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 792.
** Knyghton, p. 2451.
*** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 65.
**** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 6.
No further mention was made of the reference to the king of France, so
essential an article in the agreement of Lewes; and Leicester summoned a
parliament, composed altogether of his own partisans, in order to
rivet, by their authority, that power which he had acquired by so much
violence, and which he used with so much tyranny and injustice. An
ordinance was there passed, to which the king's consent had been
previously extorted, that every act of royal power should be exercised
by a council of nine persons, who were to be chosen and removed by the
majority of three, Leicester himself, the earl of Glocester, and the
bishop of Chichester.[*] By this intricate plan of government, the
sceptre was really put into Leicester's hands; as he had the entire
direction of the bishop of Chichester, and thereby commanded all the
resolutions of the council of three, who could appoint or discard at
pleasure every member of the supreme council.
But it was impossible that things could long remain in this strange
situation. It behoved Leicester either to descend with some peril
into the rank of a subject, or to mount up with no less into that of
a sovereign; and his ambition, unrestrained either by fear or by
principle, gave too much reason to suspect him of the latter intention.
Meanwhile he was exposed to anxiety from every quarter; and felt that
the smallest incident was capable of overturning that immense and
ill-cemented fabric which he had reared. The queen, whom her husband
had left abroad, had collected in foreign parts an army of desperate
adventurers, and had assembled a great number of ships, with a view of
invading the kingdom, and of bringing relief to her unfortunate family.
Lewis, detesting Leicester's usurpations and perjuries, and disgusted
at the English barons, who had refused to submit to his award, secretly
favored all her enterprises, and was generally believed to be making
preparations for the same purpose. An English army, by the pretended
authority of the captive king, was assembled on the sea-coast, to oppose
this projected invasion;[**] but Leicester owed his safety more to cross
winds, which long detained and at last dispersed and ruined the queen's
fleet, than to any resistance which, in their present situation, could
have been expected from the English.
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 793. Brady's Appeals, No. 213.
** Brady's Appeals, No. 216, 217. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p
373 M. West, p. 385.
Leicester found himself better able to resist the spiritual thunders
which were levelled against him. The pope, still adhering to the king's
cause against the barons, despatched Cardinal Guido as his legate
into England, with orders to excommunicate by name the three earls,
Leicester, Glocester, and Norfolk, and all others in general, who
concurred in the oppression and captivity of their sovereign.[*]
Leicester menaced the legate with death if he set foot within the
kingdom; but Guido, meeting in France the bishops of Winchester, London,
and Worcester, who had been sent thither on a negotiation, commanded
them, under the penalty of ecclesiastical censures, to carry his bull
into England, and to publish it against the barons. When the prelates
arrived off the coast, they were boarded by the piratical mariners of
the cinque ports, to whom probably they gave a hint of the cargo which
they brought along with them: the bull was torn and thrown into the
sea; which furnished the artful prelates with a plausible excuse for not
obeying the orders of the legate. Leicester appealed from Guido to the
pope in person; but before the ambassadors appointed to defend his cause
could reach Rome, the pope was dead; and they found the legate himself,
from whom they had appealed, seated on the papal throne, by the name of
Urban IV. That daring leader was nowise dismayed with this incident; and
as he found that a great part of his popularity in England was founded
on his opposition to the court of Rome, which was now become odious, he
persisted with the more obstinacy in the prosecution of his measures.
{1265.} That he might both increase and turn to advantage his
popularity, Leicester summoned a new parliament in London, where he
knew his power was uncontrollable; and he fixed this assembly on a
more democratical basis than any which had ever been summoned since the
foundation of the monarchy. Besides the barons of his own party, and
several ecclesiastics, who were not immediate tenants of the crown, he
ordered returns to be made of two knights from each shire, and, what is
more remarkable, of deputies from the boroughs, an order of men which,
in former ages, had always been regarded as too mean to enjoy a place in
the national councils.[**] This period is commonly esteemed the epoch of
the house of commons in England; and it is certainly the first time that
historians speak of any representatives sent to parliament by the
boroughs and even in the most particular narratives delivered of
parliamentary transactions, as in the trial of Thomas a Becket, where
the events of each day, and almost of each hour, are carefully recorded
by contemporary authors,[***] there is not, throughout the whole, the
least appearance of a house of commons.
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 798. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 373.
** Rymer, vol. i. p. 802.
*** Fitz-Stephen, Hist. Quadrip. Hoveden, etc.
In all the general accounts given in preceding times of those
assemblies, the prelates and barons only are mentioned as the
constituent members. But though that house derived its existence from so
precarious and even so invidious an origin as Leicester's usurpation, it
soon proved, when summoned by the legal princes, one of the most
useful, and, in process of time, one of the most powerful members of
the national constitution; and gradually rescued the kingdom from
aristocratical as well as from regal tyranny. But Leicester's policy, if
we must ascribe to him so great a blessing, only forwarded by some
years an institution, for which the general state of things had already
prepared the nation; and it is otherwise inconceivable, that a plant,
set by so inauspicious a hand, could have attained to so vigorous
a growth, and have flourished in the midst of such tempests and
convulsions. The feudal system, with which the liberty, much more the
power of the commons, was totally incompatible, began gradually
to decline; and both the king and the commonalty, who felt its
inconveniencies, contributed to favor this new power, which was more
submissive than the barons to the regular authority of the crown, and at
the same time afforded protection to the inferior orders of the state.
Leicester, having thus assembled a parliament of his own model, and
trusting to the attachment of the populace of London, seized the
opportunity of crushing his rivals among the powerful barons. Robert
de Ferrers, earl of Derby, was accused in the king's name, seized, and
committed to custody, without being brought to any legal trial.[*] John
Gifford, menaced with the same fate, fled from London, and took shelter
in the borders of Wales. Even the earl of Glocester, whose power and
influence had so much contributed to the success of the barons, but
who of late was extremely disgusted with Leicester's arbitrary conduct,
found himself in danger from the prevailing authority of his ancient
confederate; and he retired from parliament.[**] This known dissension
gave courage to all Leicester's enemies and to the king's friends; who
were now sure of protection from so potent a leader.
* Chron. T. Wykes, p. 66. Ann. Waverl. p. 216.
** M. Paris, p. 671. Ann. Waverl. p. 211.
Though Roger Mortimer, Hamond l'Estrange, and other powerful marchers
of Wales, had been obliged to leave the kingdom, their authority still
remained over the territories subjected to their jurisdiction; and
there were many others who were disposed to give disturbance to the new
government. The animosities inseparable from the feudal aristocracy,
broke out with fresh violence, and threatened the kingdom with new
convulsions and disorders.
The earl of Leicester, surrounded with these difficulties, embraced a
measure, from which he hoped to reap some present advantages, but which
proved in the end the source of all his future calamities. The active
and intrepid Prince Edward had anguished in prison ever since the fatal
battle of Lewes; and as he was extremely popular in the kingdom there
arose a general desire of seeing him again restored to liberty.[*]
Leicester, finding that he could with difficulty oppose the concurring
wishes of the nation, stipulated with the prince, that, in return,
he should order his adherents to deliver up to the barons all their
castles, particularly those on the borders of Wales; and should swear
neither to depart the kingdom during three years, nor introduce into it
any foreign forces.[**] The king took an oath to the same effect, and
he also passed a charter in which he confirmed the agreement or Mise of
Lewes; and even permitted his subjects to rise in arms against him, if
he should ever attempt to infringe it.[***] So little care did Leicester
take, though he constantly made use of the authority of this captive
prince, to preserve to him any appearance of royalty or kingly
prerogatives.
* Knyghton, p. 2451.
** Ann. Waverl. p. 216.
*** Blackstone's Mag. Chart. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 378.
In consequence of this treaty, Prince Edward was brought into
Westminster Hall, and was declared free by the barons: but instead of
really recovering his liberty, as he had vainly expected, he found that
the whole transaction was a fraud on the part of Leicester; that he
himself still continued a prisoner at large, and was guarded by the
emissaries of that nobleman; and that, while the faction reaped all the
benefit from the performance of his part of the treaty, care was taken
that he should enjoy no advantage by it. As Glocester, on his rupture
with the barons, had retired for safety to his estates on the borders
of Wales, Leicester followed him with an army to Hereford,[*] continued
still to menace ana negotiate, and that he might add authority to his
cause, he carried both the king and prince along with him. The earl of
Glocester here concerted with young Edward the manner of that prince's
escape. He found means to convey to him a horse of extraordinary
swiftness; and appointed Roger Mortimer who had returned into the
kingdom, to be ready at hand with a small party to receive the prince,
and to guard him to a place of safety. Edward pretended to take the
air with some of Leicester's retinue, who were his guards; and making
matches between their horses, after he thought he had tired and blown
them sufficiently, he suddenly mounted Glocester's horse, and called
to his attendants that he had long enough enjoyed the pleasure of
their company, and now bade them adieu. They followed him for some time
without being able to overtake him; and the appearance of Mortimer with
his company put an end to their pursuit.
* Chron. T. Wykes, p. 67. Ann. Waverl. p. 218. W. Heming, p.
585. Chron Durst. vil. i i. p. 383, 384.
The royalists, secretly prepared for this event, immediately flew to
arms; and the joy of this gallant prince's deliverance, the oppressions
under which the nation labored, the expectation of a new scene of
affairs, and the countenance of the earl of Glocester, procured Edward
an army which Leicester was utterly unable to withstand. This nobleman
found himself in a remote quarter of the kingdom; surrounded by his
enemies; barred from all communication with his friends by the Severn,
whose bridges Edward had broken down; and obliged to fight the cause
of his party under these multiplied disadvantages. In this extremity he
wrote to his son, Simon de Mountfort, to hasten from London with an army
for his relief; and Simon had advanced to Kenilworth with that view,
where, fancying that all Edward's force and attention were directed
against his father, he lay secure and unguarded. But the prince, making
a sudden and forced march, surprised him in his camp, dispersed his
army, and took the earl of Oxford and many other noblemen prisoners,
almost without resistance. Leicester, ignorant of his son's fate, passed
the Severn in boats during Edward's absence, and lay at Evesham, in
expectation of being every hour joined by his friends from London; when
the prince, who availed himself of every favorable moment, appeared in
the field before him. Edward made a body of his troops advance from
the road which led to Kenilworth, and ordered them to carry the banners
taken from Simon's army; while he himself, making a circuit with the
rest of his forces, purposed to attack the enemy on the other quarter.
Leicester was long deceived by this stratagem, and took one division of
Edward's army for his friends; but at last, perceiving his mistake,
and observing the great superiority and excellent disposition of the
royalists, he exclaimed, that they had learned from him the art of war;
adding, "The Lord have mercy on our souls, for I see our bodies are the
prince's!" The battle immediately began, though on very unequal terms.
Leicester's army, by living in the mountains of Wales without bread,
which was not then much used among the inhabitants, had been extremely
weakened by sickness and desertion, and was soon broken by the
victorious royalists; while his Welsh allies, accustomed only to a
desultory kind of war, immediately took to flight, and were pursued with
great slaughter. Leicester himself, asking for quarter, was slain in the
heat of the action, with his eldest son Henry, Hugh le Despenser, and
about one hundred and sixty knights, and many other gentlemen of his
party. The old king had been purposely placed by the rebels in the front
of the battle, and being clad in armor, and thereby not known by his
friends, he received a wound, and was in danger of his life; but crying
out, "I am Henry of Winchester, your king," he was saved, and put in a
place of safety by his son, who flew to his rescue.
The violence, ingratitude, tyranny, rapacity, and treachery of the earl
of Leicester, give a very bad idea of his moral character, and make us
regard his death as the most fortunate event which, in this conjuncture,
could have happened to the English nation: yet must we allow the man
to have possessed great abilities, and the appearance of great virtues,
who, though a stranger, could, at a time when strangers were the most
odious and the most universally decried, have acquired so extensive an
interest in the kingdom, and have so nearly paved his way to the throne
itself. His military capacity, and his political craft, were equally
eminent: he possessed the talents both of governing men and conducting
business; and though his ambition was boundless, it seems neither to
have exceeded his courage nor his genius; and he had the happiness
of making the low populace, as well as the haughty barons, cooeperate
towards the success of his selfish and dangerous purposes. A prince of
greater abilities and vigor than Henry might have directed the talents
of this nobleman either to the exaltation of his throne or to the good
of his people but the advantages given to Leicester, by the weak and
variable administration of the king, brought on the ruin of royal
authority, and produced great confusions in the kingdom which, however,
in the end, preserved and extremely improved national liberty and the
constitution. His popularity, even after his death, continued so great,
that, though he was excommunicated by Rome, the people believed him to
be a saint; and many miracles were said to be wrought upon his tomb.[*]
{1266.} The victory of Evesham, with the death of Leicester, proved
decisive in favor of the royalists, and made an equal though an opposite
impression on friends and enemies, in every part of England. The king of
the Romans recovered his liberty: the other prisoners of the royal party
were not only freed, but courted by their keepers; Fitz-Richard, the
seditious mayor of London, who had marked out forty of the most wealthy
citizens for slaughter, immediately stopped his hand on receiving
intelligence of this great event; and almost all the castles, garrisoned
by the barons, hastened to make their submissions, and to open their
gates to the king. The Isle of Axholme alone, and that of Ely, trusting
to the strength of their situation, ventured to make resistance; but
were at last reduced, as well as the Castle of Dover, by the valor and
activity of Prince Edward.[**] Adam de Gourdon, a courageous baron,
maintained himself during some time in the forests of Hampshire,
committed depredations in the neighborhood, and obliged the prince to
lead a body of troops into that country against him. Edward attacked the
camp of the rebels; and being transported by the ardor of battle, leaped
over the trench with a few followers, and encountered Gourdon in single
combat. The victory was long disputed between these valiant combatants;
but ended at last in the prince's favor, who wounded his antagonist,
threw him from his horse, and took him prisoner. He not only gave him
his life; but introduced him that very night to the queen at Guildford,
procured him his pardon, restored him to his estate, received him into
favor, and was ever after faithfully served by him.[***]
* Chron. de Mailr. p. 232.
** M. Paris p. 676. W. Heming. p. 588.
*** M. Paris, p 575
A total victory of the sovereign over so extensive a rebellion commonly
produces a revolution of government, and strengthens, as well as
enlarges, for some time, the prerogatives of the crown; yet no
sacrifices of national liberty were made on this occasion; the Great
Charter remained still inviolate; and the king, sensible that his own
barons, by whose assistance alone he had prevailed, were no less jealous
of their independence than the other party, seems thenceforth to have
more carefully abstained from all those exertions of power which had
afforded so plausible a pretence to the rebels. The clemency of this
victory is also remarkable; no blood was shed on the scaffold; no
attainders, except of the Mountfort family, were carried into execution;
and though a parliament, assembled at Winchester, attainted all those
who had borne arms against the king, easy compositions were made
with them for their lands;[*] and the highest sum levied on the most
obnoxious offenders exceeded not five years' rent of their estate. Even
the earl of Derby, who again rebelled, after having been pardoned and
restored to his fortune, was obliged to pay only seven years' rent, and
was a second time restored. The mild disposition of the king, and the
prudence of the prince, tempered the insolence of victory and gradually
restored order to the several members of the state, disjointed by so
long a continuance of civil wars and commotions.
The city of London, which had carried farthest the rage and animosity
against the king, and which seemed determined to stand upon its defence
after almost all the kingdom had submitted, was, after some interval,
restored to most of its liberties and privileges; and Fitz-Richard,
the mayor, who had been guilty of so much illegal violence, was only
punished by fine and imprisonment. The countess of Leicester, the king's
sister, who had been extremely forward in all attacks on the royal
family, was dismissed the kingdom with her two sons, Simon and Guy,
who proved very ungrateful for this lenity. Five years afterwards, they
assassinated, at Viterbo in Italy, their cousin Henry d'Allmaine, who at
that very time was endeavoring to make their peace with the king; and
by taking sanctuary in the church of the Franciscans, they escaped the
punishment due to so great an enormity.[**]
* M. Paris, p. 675.
** Rymer, vol. i. p. 879; vol. ii. p. 4, 6. Chron. T. Wykes,
p. 94 W. Heming. p. 589. Trivet, p. 240.
{1267.} The merits of the earl of Glocester, after he returned to his
allegiance, had been so great, in restoring the prince to his liberty,
and assisting him in his victories against the rebellious barons, that
it was almost impossible to content him in his demands; and his youth
and temerity as well as his great power, tempted him, on some new
disgust, to raise again the flames of rebellion in the kingdom. The
mutinous populace of London at his instigation took to arms; and the
prince was obliged to levy an army of thirty thousand men in order to
suppress them. Even this second rebellion did not provoke the king to
any act of cruelty; and the earl of Glocester himself escaped with total
impunity. He was only obliged to enter into a bond of twenty thousand
marks, that he should never again be guilty of rebellion; a strange
method of enforcing the laws, and a proof of the dangerous independence
of the barons in those ages! These potent nobles were, from the danger
of the precedent, averse to the execution of the laws of forfeiture and
felony against any of their fellows; though they could not, with a
good grace, refuse to concur in obliging them to fulfil any voluntary
contract and engagement into which they had entered.
{1270.} The prince, finding the state of the kingdom tolerably composed,
was seduced by his avidity for glory, and by the prejudices of the
age, as well as by the earnest solicitations of the king of France, to
undertake an expedition against the infidels in the Holy Land;[*] and he
endeavored previously to settle the state in such a manner, as to dread
no bad effects from his absence. As the formidable power and turbulent
disposition of the earl of Glocester gave him apprehensions, he insisted
on carrying him along with him, in consequence of a vow which that
nobleman had made to undertake the same voyage: in the mean time, he
obliged him to resign some of his castles, and to enter into a new bond
not to disturb the peace of the kingdom.[**]
* M. Paris, p. 677
** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 90.
He sailed from England with an army; and arrived in Lewis's camp before
Tunis in Africa, where he found that monarch already dead, from the
intemperance of the climate and the fatigues of his enterprise. The
great, if not only weakness of this prince, in his government, was
the imprudent passion for crusades; but it was this zeal chiefly that
procured him from the clergy the title of St. Lewis, by which he is
known in the French history and if that appellation had not been so
extremely prostituted as to become rather a term of reproach, he seems,
by his uniform probity and goodness, as well as his piety, to have fully
merited the title. He was succeeded by his son Philip, denominated
the Hardy; a prince of some merit, though much inferior to that of his
father.
{1271.} Prince Edward, not discouraged by this event, continued his
voyage to the Holy Land, where he signalized himself by acts of valor;
revived the glory of the English name in those parts; and struck such
terror into the Saracens, that they employed an assassin to murder him,
who wounded him in the arm, but perished in the attempt.[*] Meanwhile
his absence from England was attended with many of those pernicious
consequences which had been dreaded from it. The laws were not executed:
the barons oppressed the common people with impunity: they gave shelter
on their estates to bands of robbers, whom they employed in committing
ravages on the estates of their enemies: the populace of London returned
to their usual licentiousness: and the old king, unequal to the burden
of public affairs, called aloud for his gallant son to return,[**] and
to assist him in swaying that sceptre which was ready to drop from
his feeble and irresolute hands. At last, overcome by the cares of
government and the infirmities of age, he visibly declined, and he
expired at St. Edmondsbury in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and
fifty-sixth of his reign;[***] the longest reign that is to be met with
in the English annals.
* M. Paris, p. 678, 679. W. Heming, p. 520.
** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 404.
*** Kymer, vol. i. p. 869. M. Paris, p. 678.
{1272.} His brother, the king of the Romans, (for he never attained the
title of emperor,) died about seven months before him.
The most obvious circumstance of Henry's character is his incapacity for
government, which rendered him as much a prisoner in the hands of his
own ministers and favorites, and as little at his own disposal, as when
detained a captive in the hands of his enemies. From this source, rather
than from insincerity or treachery, arose his negligence in observing
his promises; and he was too easily induced, for the sake of present
convenience, to sacrifice the lasting advantages arising from the trust
and confidence of his people. Hence too were derived his profusion to
favorites, his attachment to strangers, the variableness of his
conduct, his hasty resentments, and his sudden forgiveness and return of
affection.
Instead of reducing the dangerous power of his nobles, by obliging
them to observe the laws towards their inferiors, and setting them the
salutary example in his own government, he was seduced to imitate
their conduct, and to make his arbitrary will, or rather that of his
ministers, the rule of his actions. Instead of accommodating himself,
by a strict frugality, to the embarrassed situation in which his
revenue had been left by the military expeditions of his uncle, the
dissipations of his father, and the usurpations of the barons, he was
tempted to levy money by irregular exactions, which, without enriching
himself, impoverished, at least disgusted, his people. Of all men,
nature seemed least to have fitted him for being a tyrant, yet are there
instances of oppression in his reign, which, though derived from the
precedents left him by his predecessors, had been carefully guarded
against by the Great Charter, and are inconsistent with all rules of
good government. And on the whole, we may say, that greater abilities,
with his good dispositions, would have prevented him from falling
into his faults, or with worse dispositions, would have enabled him to
maintain and defend them.
This prince was noted for his piety and devotion, and his regular
attendance on public worship; and a saying of his on that head is much
celebrated by ancient writers. He was engaged in a dispute with Lewis
IX. of France, concerning the preference between sermons and masses: he
maintained the superiority of the latter, and affirmed, that he would
rather have one hour's conversation with a friend, than hear twenty of
the most elaborate discourses pronounced in his praise.[*]
* Walsing. Edw. I. p. 43.
Henry left two sons, Edward, his successor, and Edmond earl of
Lancaster; and two daughters, Margaret, queen of Scotland, and Beatrix,
duchess of Brittany. He had five other children, who died in their
infancy.
The following are the most remarkable laws enacted during this reign.
There had been great disputes between the civil and ecclesiastical
courts concerning bastardy. The common law had deemed all those to
be bastards who were born before wedlock; by the canon law they were
legitimate: and when any dispute of inheritance arose, it had formerly
been usual for the civil courts to issue writs to the spiritual,
directing them to inquire into the legitimacy of the person. The bishop
always returned an answer agreeable to the canon law, though contrary to
the municipal law of the kingdom. For this reason, the civil courts had
changed the terms of their writ; and instead of requiring the spiritual
courts to make inquisition concerning the legitimacy of the person, they
only proposed the simple question of fact, whether he were born before
or after wedlock. The prelates complained of this practice to the
parliament assembled at Merton in the twentieth of this king, and
desired that the municipal law might be rendered conformable to the
canon; but received from all the nobility the memorable reply, "Nolumus
leges Angliae mutare." We will not change the laws of England.[*]
After the civil wars, the parliament summoned at Marlebridge gave their
approbation to most of the ordinances which had been established by the
reforming barons, and which though advantageous to the security of the
people, had not received the sanction of a legal authority. Among other
laws, it was there enacted, that all appeals from the courts of inferior
lords should be carried directly to the king's courts, without passing
through the courts of the lords immediately superior.[**] It was
ordained, that money should bear no interest during the minority of
the debtor.[***] This law was reasonable, as the estates of minors
were always in the hands of their lords, and the debtors could not pay
interest where they had no revenue. The charter of King John had granted
this indulgence: it was omitted in that of Henry III., for what reason
is not known; but it was renewed by the statute of Marlebridge. Most
of the other articles of this statute are calculated to restrain the
oppressions of sheriffs, and the violence and iniquities committed
in distraining cattle and other goods. Cattle and the instruments of
husbandry formed at that time the chief riches of the people.
In the thirty-fifth year of this king, an assize was fixed of bread, the
price of which was settled according to the different prices of corn,
from one shilling a quarter to seven shillings and sixpence,[****]
money of that age. These great variations are alone a proof of bad
tillage:[*****] yet did the prices often rise much higher than any taken
notice of by the statute.
* Statute of Merton, chap. 9.
** Statute of Marlb. chap. 20.
*** Ibid. chap. 16.
**** Statutes at large, p. 6.
***** We learn from Cicero's orations against Verres, (lib.
iii. cap. 81, 92,) that the price of corn in Sicily was,
during the preetorship of Sacerdos five denarii amodius;
during that of Verres, which immediately succeeded, only two
sesterces; that is, ten times lower; a presumption, or
rather a proof, of the very bad state of tillage in ancient
times.
The Chronicle of Dunstable tells us, that in this reign wheat was once
sold for a mark, nay, for a pound a quarter; that is, three pounds of
our present money.[*] The same law affords us a proof of the little
communication between the parts of the kingdom, from the very different
prices which the same commodity bore at the same time. A brewer, says
the statute, may sell two gallons of ale for a penny in cities, and
three or four gallons for the same price in the country. At present,
such commodities, by the great consumption of the people, and the great
stocks of the brewers, are rather cheapest in cities. The Chronicle
above mentioned observes, that wheat one year was sold in many places
for eight shillings a quarter, but never rose in Dunstable above a
crown.
* So also Knyghton, p. 2444.
Though commerce was still very low, it seems rather to have increased
since the conquest; at least, if we may judge of the increase of money
by the price of corn. The medium between the highest and lowest prices
of wheat, assigned by the statute, is four shillings and threepence a
quarter; that is, twelve shillings and ninepence of our present money.
This is near half of the middling price in our time. Yet the middling
price of cattle, so late as the reign of King Richard, we find to be
above eight, near ten times lower than the present. Is not this the true
inference, from comparing these facts, that, in all uncivilized nations,
cattle, which propagate of themselves, bear always a lower price than
corn, which requires more art and stock to render it plentiful than
those nations are possessed of? It is to be remarked, that Henry's
assize of corn was copied from a preceding assize established by King
John; consequently, the prices which we have here compared of corn and
cattle may be looked on as contemporary; and they were drawn, not from
one particular year, but from an estimation of the middling prices for
a series of years. It is true, the prices assigned by the assize of
Richard were meant as a standard for the accompts of sheriffs and
escheators and as considerable profits were allowed to these ministers,
we may naturally suppose that the common value of cattle was somewhat
higher: yet still, so great a difference between the prices of corn and
cattle as that of four to one, compared to the present rates, affords
important reflections concerning the very different state of industry
and tillage in the two periods.
Interest had in that age mounted to an enormous height, as might
be expected from the barbarism of the times and men's ignorance of
commerce. Instances occur of fifty per cent. paid for money.[*] There
is an edict of Philip Augustus, near this period, limiting the Jews in
France to forty-eight per cent.[**] Such profits tempted the Jews to
remain in the kingdom, notwithstanding the grievous oppressions to
which, from the prevalent bigotry and rapine of the age, they were
continually exposed. It is easy to imagine how precarious their state
must have been under an indigent prince, somewhat restrained in his
tyranny over his native subjects, but who possessed an unlimited
authority over the Jews, the sole proprietors of money in the kingdom,
and hated on account of their riches, their religion, and their usury;
yet will our ideas scarcely come up to the extortions which in fact we
find to have been practised upon them. In the year 1241, twenty thousand
marks were exacted from them;[***] two years after money was again
extorted; and one Jew alone, Aaron of York, was obliged to pay above
four thousand marks;[****] in 1250, Henry renewed his oppressions; and
the same Aaron was condemned to pay him thirty thousand marks upon an
accusation of forgery;[*****] the high penalty imposed upon him, and
which, it seems, he was thought able to pay, is rather a presumption of
his innocence than of his guilt.
* M. Paris, p. 586.
** Brussel, Traite des Fiefs, vol. i, p. 576.
*** M. Paris, p. 372.
**** M. Paris, p. 410.
***** M. Paris, p. 525.
In 1255, the king demanded eight thousand marks from the Jews, and
threatened to hang them if they refused compliance. They now lost all
patience, and desired leave to retire with their effects out of the
kingdom. But the king replied, "How can I remedy the oppressions you
complain of? I am myself a beggar. I am spoiled, I am stripped of all
my revenues; I owe above two hundred thousand marks; and if I had said
three hundred thousand, I should not exceed the truth; I am obliged to
pay my son, Prince Edward, fifteen thousand marks a year; I have not a
farthing; and I must have money from any hand, from any quarter, or by
any means." He then delivered over the Jews to the earl of Cornwall,
that those whom the one brother had flayed, the other might embowel, to
make use of the words of the historian.[*] King John, his father, once
demanded ten thousand marks from a Jew of Bristol; and on his refusal,
ordered one of his teeth to be drawn every day till he should comply.
The Jew lost seven teeth, and then paid the sum required of him.[**]
One talliage laid upon the Jews, in 1243, amounted to sixty thousand
marks;[***] a sum equal to the whole yearly revenue of the crown.
To give a better pretence for extortions, the improbable and absurd
accusation, which has been at different times advanced against that
nation, was revived in England, that they had crucified a child in
derision of the sufferings of Christ. Eighteen of them were hanged at
once for this crime;[****] though it is nowise credible that even the
antipathy borne them by the Christians, and the oppressions under which
they labored, would ever have pushed them to be guilty of that dangerous
enormity. But it is natural to imagine, that a race exposed to such
insults and indignities, both from king and people, and who had so
uncertain an enjoyment of their riches, would carry usury to the utmost
extremity, and by their great profits make themselves some compensation
for their continual perils.
Though these acts of violence against the Jews proceeded much from
bigotry, they were still more derived from avidity and rapine. So far
from desiring in that age to convert them, it was enacted by law in
France, that if any Jew embraced Christianity, he forfeited all his
goods, without exception, to the king or his superior lord. These
plunderers were careful lest the profits accruing from their dominion
over that unhappy race should be diminished by their conversion.[*****]
Commerce must be in a wretched condition where interest was so high, and
where the sole proprietors of money employed it in usury only, and
were exposed to such extortion and injustice. But the bad police of
the country was another obstacle to improvements, and rendered all
communication dangerous, and all property precarious. The Chronicle of
Dunstable says,[******] that men were never secure in their houses, and
that whole villages were often plundered by bands of robbers, though no
civil wars at that time prevailed in the kingdom.
*M. Paris, p. 606.
**M. Paris, p. 160.
***Madox, p. 152.
****M. Paris, p. 613.
*****Brussel, vol. i. p. 622. Du Cange, verbo Judaei.
******Vol. i. p. 155.
In 1249, some years before the insurrection of the barons, two merchants
of Brabant came to the king at Winchester, and told him that they had
been spoiled of all their goods by certain robbers, whom they knew,
because they saw their faces every day in his court; that like practices
prevailed all over England, and travellers were continually exposed to
the danger of being robbed, bound, wounded, and murdered; that
these crimes escaped with impunity, because the ministers of justice
themselves were in a confederacy with the robbers; and that they, for
their part, instead of bringing matters to a fruitless trial by law,
were willing, though merchants, to decide their cause with the robbers
by arms and a duel. The king, provoked at these abuses, ordered a jury
to be enclosed, and to try the robbers: the jury, though consisting
of twelve men of property in Hampshire, were found to be also in a
confederacy with the felons, and acquitted them. Henry, in a rage,
committed the jury to prison, threatened them with severe punishment,
and ordered a new jury to be enclosed, who, dreading the fate of their
fellows, at last found a verdict against the criminals. Many of the
king's own household were discovered to have participated in the guilt;
and they said for their excuse, that they received no wages from him,
and were obliged to rob for a maintenance.[*] "Knights and esquires,"
says the Dictum of Kenilworth, "Who were robbers, if they have no land,
shall pay the half of their goods, and find sufficient security to
keep henceforth the peace of the kingdom." Such were the manners of the
times!
One can the less repine, during the prevalence of such manners, at the
frauds and forgeries of the clergy; as it gives less disturbance to
society to take men's money from them with their own consent, though by
deceits and lies, than to ravish it by open force and violence. During
this reign the papal power was at its summit, and was even beginning
insensibly to decline, by reason of the immeasurable avarice and
extortions of the court of Rome, which disgusted the clergy as well as
laity in every kingdom of Europe. England itself, though sunk in the
deepest abyss of ignorance and superstition, had seriously entertained
thoughts of shaking off the papal yoke;[**] and the Roman pontiff was
obliged to think of new expedients for rivetting it faster upon the
Christian world.
* M. Paris, p. 509.
** M. Paris, p. 421.
For this purpose, Gregory IX. published his decretals,[*] which are a
collection of forgeries favorable to the court of Rome, and consist
of the supposed decrees of popes in the first centuries. But these
forgeries are so gross, and confound so palpably all language, history,
chronology, and antiquities,--matters more stubborn than any speculative
truths whatsoever,--that even that church, which is not startled at
the most monstrous contradictions and absurdities, has been obliged to
abandon them to the critics. But in the dark period of the thirteenth
century, they parsed for undisputed and authentic; and men, entangled
in the mazes of this false literature, joined to the philosophy, equally
false, of the times, had nothing wherewithal to defend themselves, but
some small remains of common sense, which passed for profaneness and
impiety, and the indelible regard to self-interest, which, as it was the
sole motive in the priests for framing these impostures, served also, in
some degree, to protect the laity against them.
* Trivet, p. 191.
Another expedient, devised by the church of Rome, in this period, for
securing her power, was the institution of new religious orders, chiefly
the Dominicans and Franciscans, who proceeded with all the zeal and
success that attend novelties; were better qualified to gain the
populace than the old orders, now become rich and indolent; maintained
a perpetual rivalship with each other in promoting their gainful
superstitions; and acquired a great dominion over the minds, and
consequently over the purses, of men, by pretending a desire of poverty
and a contempt for riches. The quarrels which arose between these
orders, lying still under the control of the sovereign pontiff, never
disturbed the peace of the church, and served only as a spur to their
industry in promoting the common cause; and though the Dominicans lost
some popularity by their denial of the immaculate conception,--a
point in which they unwarily engaged too far to be able to recede with
honor,--they counterbalanced this disadvantage by acquiring more solid
establishments, by gaining the confidence of kings and princes, and
by exercising the jurisdiction assigned them of ultimate judges and
punishers of heresy. Thus the several orders of monks became a kind
of regular troops or garrisons of the Romish church; and though the
temporal interests of society, still more the cause of true piety, were
hurt, by their various devices to captivate the populace, they proved
the chief supports of that mighty fabric of superstition, and, till the
revival of true learning, secured it from any dangerous invasion.
The trial by ordeal was abolished in this reign by order of council; a
faint mark of improvement in the age.[*]
Henry granted a charter to the town of Newcastle, in which he gave the
inhabitants a license to dig coal. This is the first mention of coal in
England.
We learn from Madox,[**] that this king gave at one time one hundred
shillings to Master Henry, his poet; also the same year he orders this
poet ten pounds.
It appears from Selden, that in the forty-seventh of this reign, a
hundred and fifty temporal and fifty spiritual barons were summoned to
perform the service, due by their tenures.[***] In the thirty-fifth of
the subsequent reign, eighty-six temporal barons, twenty bishops,
and forty-eight abbots, were summoned to a parliament convened at
Carlisle.[****]
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 228. Spelman, p. 326.
** Page 208.
*** Titles of Honor, part ii. chap. 3.
**** Parliamentary Hist. vol. i. p. 151.
1_178_carnaryon.jpg
CHAPTER XIII.
[Illustration: 1_176_edward1.jpg EDWARD I.]
{1272.} The English were as yet so little inured to obedience under
a regular government, that the death of almost every king, since the
conquest, had been attended with disorders, and the council, reflecting
on the recent civil wars, and on the animosities which naturally
remain after these great convulsions, had reason to apprehend dangerous
consequences from the absence of the son and successor of Henry. They
therefore hastened to proclaim Prince Edward, to swear allegiance to
him, and to summon the states of the kingdom, in order to provide for
the public peace in this important conjuncture.[*]
* Rymer, vol. ii. p. 1 Walsing, p. 43. Trivet, p. 239.
Walter Giffard, archbishop of York, the earl of Cornwall, son of
Richard, king of the Romans, and the earl of Glocester, were appointed
guardians of the realm, and proceeded peaceably to the exercise of
their authority, without either meeting with opposition from any of the
people, or being disturbed with emulation and faction among themselves.
The high character acquired by Edward during the late commotions, his
military genius, his success in subduing the rebels, his moderation
in settling the kingdom, had procured him great esteem, mixed with
affection, among all orders of men; and no one could reasonably
entertain hopes of making any advantage of his absence, or of raising
disturbance in the nation. The earl of Glocester himself, whose great
power and turbulent spirit had excited most jealousy, was forward
to give proofs of his allegiance; and the other malecontents, being
destitute of a leader, were obliged to remain in submission to the
government.
Prince Edward had reached Sicily in his return from the Holy Land, when
he received intelligence of the death of his father; and he discovered a
deep concern on the occasion. At the same time, he learned the death of
an infant son, John whom his princess, Eleanor of Castile, had born him
at Acre, in Palestine; and as he appeared much less affected with that
misfortune, the king of Sicily expressed a surprise at this difference
of sentiment; but was told by Edward, that the death of a son was a
loss which he might hope to repair; the death of a father was a loss
irreparable.[*]
Edward proceeded homeward; but as he soon learned the quiet settlement
of the kingdom, he was in no hurry to take possession of the throne, but
spent near a year in France, before he made his appearance in England.
{1273.} In his passage by Chalons, in Burgundy, he was challenged by
the prince of the country to a tournament which he was preparing; and as
Edward excelled in those martial and dangerous exercises, the true image
of war, he declined not the opportunity of acquiring honor in that
great assembly of the neighboring nobles. But the image of war was here
unfortunately turned into the thing itself. Edward and his retinue were
so successful in the jousts, that the French knights, provoked at their
superiority, made a serious attack upon them, which was repulsed, and
much blood was idly shed in the quarrel.[**] This rencounter received
the name of the petty battle of Chalons.
{1274.} Edward went from Chalons to Paris, and did homage to Philip for the
dominions which he held in France.[***] He thence returned to Guienne,
and settled that province, which was in some confusion. He made
his journey to London through France; in his passage, he accommodated at
Montreuil a difference with Margaret, countess of Flanders, heiress of
that territory;[****] he was received with joyful acclamations by his
people, and was solemnly crowned at Westminster by Robert, archbishop of
Canterbury.
* Walsing. p. 44. Trivet. p. 240.
** Walsing. p. 44. Trivet. p. 241. M. West. p. 402.
*** Walsing p. 45.
**** Rymer. vol. ii. p. 32, 33.
The king immediately applied himself to the reestablishment of his
kingdom, and to the correcting of those disorders which the civil
commotions and the loose administration of his father had introduced
into every part of government. The plan of his policy was equally
generous and prudent. He considered the great barons both as the
immediate rivals of the crown and oppressors of the people; and he
purposed, by an exact distribution of justice, and a rigid execution
of the laws, to give at once protection to the inferior orders of the
state, and to diminish the arbitrary power of the great, on which their
dangerous authority was chiefly founded. Making it a rule in his own
conduct to observe, except on extraordinary occasions, the privileges
secured to them by the Great Charter, he acquired a right to insist
upon their observance of the same charter towards their vassals and
inferiors; and he made the crown be regarded by all the gentry and
commonalty of the kingdom, as the fountain of justice, and the general
asylum against oppression.
{1275.} Besides enacting several useful statutes, in a parliament which
he summoned at Westminster, he took care to inspect the conduct of all
his magistrates and judges, to displace such as were either negligent
or corrupt, to provide them with sufficient force for the execution of
justice, to extirpate all bands and confederacies of robbers, and to
repress those more silent robberies which were committed either by the
power of the nobles or under the countenance of public authority. By
this rigid administration, the face of the kingdom was soon changed; and
order and justice took place of violence and oppression: but amidst the
excellent institutions and public-spirited plans of Edward, there still
appears somewhat both of the severity of his personal character and of
the prejudices of the times.
As the various kinds of malefactors, the murderers, robbers,
incendiaries, ravishers, and plunderers, had become so numerous and
powerful, that the ordinary ministers of justice, especially in the
western counties, were afraid to execute the laws against them, the king
found it necessary to provide an extraordinary remedy for the evil; and
he erected a new tribunal, which, however useful, would have been
deemed in times of more regular liberty, a great stretch of illegal and
arbitrary power. It consisted of commissioners, who were empowered
to inquire into disorders and crimes of all kinds, and to inflict the
proper punishments upon them. The officers charged with this unusual
commission, made their circuits throughout the counties of England most
infested with this evil, and carried terror into all those parts of
the kingdom. In their zeal to punish crimes, they did not sufficiently
distinguish between the innocent and guilty; the smallest suspicion
became a ground of accusation and trial; the slightest evidence was
received against criminals; prisons were crowded with malefactors, real
or pretended; severe fines were levied for small offences; and the king,
though his exhausted exchequer was supplied by this expedient, found it
necessary to stop the course of so great rigor, and after terrifying and
dissipating by this tribunal the gangs of disorderly people in England,
he prudently annulled the commission;[*] and never afterwards renewed
it.
Among the various disorders to which the kingdom was subject, no one was
more universally complained of than the adulteration of the coin; and as
this crime required more art than the English of that age, who chiefly
employed force and violence in their iniquities, were possessed of, the
imputation fell upon the Jews.[**] Edward also seems to have indulged a
strong prepossession against that nation; and this ill-judged zeal for
Christianity being naturally augmented by an expedition to the Holy
Land, he let loose the whole rigor of his justice against that unhappy
people. Two hundred and eighty of them were hanged at once for this
crime in London alone, besides those who suffered in other parts of the
kingdom.[***]
* Spel. Gloss, in verbo Trailbaston. But Spelman was either
mistaken in placing this commission in the fifth year of the
king, or it was renewed in 1305. See Rymer, vol. ii. p. 960.
Trivet, p. 838., M. West. p. 450.
** Walsing. p. 48 Heming. vol. i. p. 6.
*** T. Wykes, p. 107.
The houses and lands, (for the Jews had of late ventured to make
purchases of that kind,) as well as the goods of great multitudes, were
sold and confiscated; and the king, lest it should be suspected that the
riches of the sufferers were the chief part of their guilt, ordered a
moiety of the money raised by these confiscations to be set apart, and
bestowed upon such as were willing to be converted to Christianity. But
resentment was more prevalent with them than any temptation from their
poverty; and very few of them could be induced by interest to embrace
the religion of their persecutors. The miseries of this people did not
here terminate. Though the arbitrary talliages and exactions levied upon
them had yielded a constant and a considerable revenue to the crown,
Edward prompted by his zeal and his rapacity, resolved some time
after[*] to purge the kingdom entirely of that hated race, and to seize
to himself at once their whole property as the reward of his labor.[**]
He left them only money sufficient to bear their charges into foreign
countries, where new persecutions and extortions awaited them: but the
inhabitants of the cinque ports, imitating the bigotry and avidity of
their sovereign, despoiled most of them of this small pittance, and even
threw many of them into the sea; a crime for which the king, who was
determined to be the sole plunderer in his dominions, inflicted a
capital punishment upon them. No less than fifteen thousand Jews were at
this time robbed of their effects, and banished the kingdom: very few of
that nation have since lived in England: and as it is impossible for a
nation to subsist without lenders of money, and none will lend without
a compensation, the practice of usury, as it was then called,
was thenceforth exercised by the English themselves upon their
fellow-citizens, or by Lombards and other foreigners. It is very much
to be questioned, whether the dealings of these new usurers were equally
open and unexceptionable with those of the old. By a law of Richard, it
was enacted, that three copies should be made of every bond given to a
Jew; one to be put into the hands of a public magistrate, another
into those of a man of credit, and a third to remain with the Jew
himself.[***] But as the canon law, seconded by the municipal, permitted
no Christian to take interest, all transactions of this kind must, after
the banishment of the Jews, have become more secret and clandestine, and
the lender, of consequence, be paid both for the use of his money, and
for the infamy and danger which he incurred by lending it.
* In the year 1290.
** Walsing. p. 54. Heming. vol. i. p. 20. Trivet, p 266.
*** Trivet, p. 128.
The great poverty of the crown, though no excuse, was probably the cause
of this egregious tyranny exercised against the Jews; but Edward also
practised other more honorable means of remedying that evil. He employed
a strict frugality in the management and distribution of his revenue: he
engaged the parliament to vote him a fifteenth of all movables; the pope
to grant him the tenth of all ecclesiastical revenues for three years;
and the merchants to consent to a perpetual imposition of half a mark on
every sack of wool exported, and a mark on three hundred skins. He
also issued commissions to inquire into all encroachments on the royal
demesne; into the value of escheats, forfeitures, and Wardships; and
into the means of repairing or improving every branch of the revenue.[*]
The commissioners, in the execution of their office, began to carry
matters too far against the nobility, and to question titles to estates
which had been transmitted from father to son for several generations.
Earl Warrenne, who had done such eminent service in the late reign,
being required to show his titles, drew his sword; and subjoined, that
William the bastard had not conquered the kingdom for himself alone: his
ancestor was a joint adventurer in the enterprise; and he himself was
determined to maintain what had from that period remained unquestioned
in his family. The king, sensible of the danger, desisted from making
further inquiries of this nature.
{1276.} But the active spirit of Edward could not long remain without
employment. He soon after undertook an enterprise more prudent for
himself, and more advantageous to his people. Lewellyn, prince of Wales,
had been deeply engaged with the Mountfort faction; had entered into
all their conspiracies against the crown; had frequently fought on
their side; and, till the battle of Evesham, so fatal to that party, had
employed every expedient to depress the royal cause, and to promote
the success of the barons. In the general accommodation made with the
vanquished, Lewellyn had also obtained his pardon; but as he was the
most powerful, and therefore the most obnoxious vassal of the crown, he
had reason to entertain anxiety about his situation, and to dread the
future effects of resentment and jealousy in the English monarch. For
this reason he determined to provide for his security by maintaining a
secret correspondence with his former associates; and he even made his
addresses to a daughter of the earl of Leicester, who was sent to him
from beyond sea, but being intercepted in her passage near the Isles of
Scilly, was detained in the court of England.[**]
* Ann. Waverl.p. 235.
** Walsing. p. 46, 47. Heming. vol. i. p. 5. Trivet, p. 248
This incident increasing the mutual jealousy between Edward and
Lewellyn, the latter, when required to come to England, and do homage to
the new king, scrupled to put himself in the hands of an enemy, desired
a safe-conduct from Edward, insisted upon having the king's son and
other noblemen delivered to him as hostages, and demanded that his
consort should previously be set at liberty.[*] The king, having now
brought the state to a full settlement, was not displeased with
this occasion of exercising his authority, and subduing entirely the
principality of Wales. He refused all Lewellyn's demands, except that
of a safe-conduct; sent him repeated summons to perform the duty of a
vassal; levied an army to reduce him to obedience; obtained a new aid of
a fifteenth from parliament; and marched out with certain assurance of
success against the enemy.
{1277.} Besides the great disproportion of force between the kingdom
and the principality, the circumstances of the two states were entirely
reversed; and the same intestine dissensions which had formerly weakened
England, now prevailed in Wales, and had even taken place in the
reigning family. David and Roderic, brothers to Lewellyn, dispossessed
of their inheritance by that prince, had been obliged to have recourse
to the protection of Edward, and they seconded with all their interest,
which was extensive, his attempts to enslave their native country. The
Welsh prince had no resource but in the inaccessible situation of
his mountains, which had hitherto, through many ages, defended his
forefathers against all attempts of the Saxon and Norman conquerors; and
he retired among the hills of Snowdun, resolute to defend himself to the
last extremity. But Edward, equally vigorous and cautious, entering by
the north with a formidable army, pierced into the heart of the country;
and having carefully explored every road before him, and secured every
pass behind him, approached the Welsh army in its last retreat. He here
avoided the putting to trial the valor of a nation proud of its ancient
independence, and inflamed with animosity against its hereditary
enemies; and he trusted to the slow, but sure effects of famine, for
reducing that people to subjection. The rude and simple manners of the
natives, as well as the mountainous situation of their country, had made
them entirely neglect tillage, and trust to pasturage alone for their
subsistence; a method of life which had hitherto[*] secured them against
the irregular attempts of the English, out exposed them to certain ruin,
when the conquest of the country was steadily pursued, and prudently
planned by Edward. Destitute of magazines, cooped up in a narrow corner,
they, as well as their cattle, suffered all the rigors of famine; and
Lewellyn, without being able to strike a stroke for his independence,
was at last obliged to submit at discretion, and receive the terms
imposed upon him by the victor.[**] He bound himself to pay to Edward
fifty thousand pounds, as a reparation of damages; to do homage to the
crown of England; to permit all the other barons of Wales, except four
near Snowdun, to swear fealty to the same crown; to relinquish the
country between Cheshire and the River Conway; to settle on his brother
Roderic a thousand marks a year, and on David five hundred; and to
deliver ten hostages as security for his future submission.[***]
Edward, on the performance of the other articles, remitted to the prince
of Wales the payment of the fifty thousand pounds;[****] which were
stipulated by treaty, and which, it is probable, the poverty of
the country made it absolutely impossible for him to levy. But,
notwithstanding this indulgence, complaints of iniquities soon arose
on the side of the vanquished: the English, insolent on their easy and
bloodless victory, oppressed the inhabitants of the districts which were
yielded to them: the lords marchers committed with impunity all kinds
of violence on their Welsh neighbors: new and more severe terms were
imposed on Lewellyn himself; and Edward, when the prince attended him
at Worcester, exacted a promise that he would retain no person in his
principality who should be obnoxious to the English monarch.[****]
* Rymer, vol. ii. p. 68. Walsing, p. 46 Trivet, p. 247
** T. Wykes, p. 105.
*** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 88. Walsing. p. 47. Trivet, p. 251.
T. Wykes p. 106.
**** Rymer, p. 92.
***** Dr. Powell's Hist. of Wales, p.344, 345.
There were other personal insults which raised the indignation of the
Welsh, and made them determine rather to encounter a force which they
had already experienced to be so much superior, than to bear oppression
from the haughty victors. Prince David, seized with the national spirit,
made peace with his brother, and promised to concur in the defence of
public liberty. The Welsh flew to arms; and Edward, not displeased with
the occasion of making his conquest final and absolute, assembled all
his military tenants, and advanced into Wales with an army which the
inhabitants could not reasonably hope to resist. The situation of the
country gave the Welsh at first some advantage over Luke de Tany, one
of Edward's captains, who had passed the Menau with a detachment;[*]
but Lewelly, being surprised by Mortimer, was defeated and slain in an
action, and two thousand of his followers were put to the sword.[**]
David, who succeeded him in the principality, could never collect an
army sufficient to face the English; and being chased from hill to hill,
and hunted from one retreat to another, was obliged to conceal himself
under various disguises, and was at last betrayed in his lurking-place
to the enemy.
{1283.} Edward sent him in chains to Shrewsbury; and bringing him to
a formal trial before all the peers of England, ordered this sovereign
prince to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, as a traitor, for defending
by arms the liberties of his native country, together with his own
hereditary authority.[***] All the Welsh nobility submitted to the
conqueror; the laws of England, with the sheriffs and other ministers of
justice, were established in that principality; and though it was long
before national antipathies were extinguished, and a thorough union
attained between the people, yet this important conquest, which it had
required eight hundred years fully to effect, was at last, through the
abilities of Edward, completed by the English.
{1284} The king, sensible that nothing kept alive the ideas of military
valor and of ancient glory so much as the traditional poetry of the
people, which, assisted by the power of music and the jollity of
festivals, made deep impression on the minds of the youth, gathered
together all the Welsh bards, and from a barbarous, though not absurd
policy, ordered them to be put to death.[****]
* Walsing. p. 50. Heming. vol. i p. 9. Trivet, p. 258. T
Wykes, p. 110.
** Heming. vol. i. p. 11. Trivet, p. 257. Ann. Waverl. p.
235.
*** Heming. vol. i. p. 12. Trivet, p. 269. Ann Waverl. p.
288 T Wykes, p. 111. M. West. p. 411.
**** Sir J. Wynne, p. 15. crown; and henceforth gives a
title to the eldest son of the kings of England.
There prevails a vulgar story, which, as it well suits the capacity
of the monkish writers, is carefully recorded by them; that Edward,
assembling the Welsh, promised to give them a prince of unexceptionable
manners, a Welshman by birth, and one who could speak no other language.
On their acclamations of joy, and promise of obedience, he invested in
the principality his second son, Edward, then an infant, who had been
born at Carnarvon. The death of his eldest son Alphonso, soon after,
made young Edward heir of the monarchy; the principality of Wales was
fully annexed.
[Illustration: 1_178_carnaryon.jpg CARNARVON CASTLE]
{1286.} The settlement of Wales appeared so complete to Edward, that
in less than two years after, he went abroad, in order to make peace
between Alphonso, king of Arragon, and Philip the Fair, who had lately
succeeded his father, Philip the Hardy, on the throne of France.[*] The
difference between these two princes had arisen about the kingdom of
Sicily, which the pope, after his hopes from England failed him, had
bestowed on Charles, brother to St. Lewis, and which was claimed upon
other titles by Peter, king of Arragon, father to Alphonso. Edward had
powers from both princes to settle the terms of peace, and he succeeded
in his endeavors; but as the controversy nowise regards England, we
shall not enter into a detail of it. He staid abroad above three years;
and on his return found many disorders to have prevailed, both from open
violence and from the corruption of justice.
Thomas Chamberlain, a gentleman of some note, had assembled several of
his associates at Boston, in Lincolnshire, under pretence of holding
a tournament, an exercise practised by the gentry only; but in reality
with a view of plundering the rich fair of Boston, and robbing the
merchants. To facilitate his purpose, he privately set fire to the town;
and while the inhabitants were employed in quenching the flames,
the conspirators broke into the booths, and carried off the goods.
Chamberlain himself was detected and hanged; but maintained so steadily
the point of honor to his accomplices, that he could not be prevailed
on, by offers or promises, to discover any of them. Many other instances
of robbery and violence broke out in all parts of England; though the
singular circumstances attending this conspiracy have made it alone be
particularly recorded by historians.[**]
* Rymer, vol. ii. p. 149,150, 174.
** Heming vol. i. p. 16, 17.
{1289.} But the corruption of the judges, by which the fountains of
justice were poisoned, seemed of still more dangerous consequence.
Edward, in order to remedy this prevailing abuse, summoned a parliament,
and brought the judges to a trial; where all of them, except two, who
were clergymen, were convicted of this flagrant iniquity, were fined,
and deposed. The amount of the fines levied upon them is alone a
sufficient proof of their guilt; being above one hundred thousand marks,
an immense sum in those days, and sufficient to defray the charges of an
expensive war between two great kingdoms. The king afterwards made all
the new judges swear that they would take no bribes; but his expedient
of deposing and fining the old ones, was the more effectual remedy.
We now come to give an account of the state of affairs in Scotland,
which gave rise to the most interesting transactions of this reign, and
of some of the subsequent; though the intercourse of that kingdom with
England, either in peace or war, had hitherto produced so few events of
moment, that, to avoid tediousness, we have omitted many of them, and
have been very concise in relating the rest. If the Scots had, before
this period, any real history worthy of the name, except what they glean
from scattered passages in the English historians, those events, however
minute, yet being the only foreign transactions of the nation, might
deserve a place in it.
Though the government of Scotland had been continually exposed to those
factions and convulsions which are incident to all barbarous and to many
civilized nations; and though the successions of their kings, the
only part of their history which deserves any credit had often been
disordered by irregularities and usurpations; the true heir of the
royal family had still in the end prevailed, and Alexander III., who
had espoused the sister of Edward, probably inherited, after a period
of about eight hundred years, and through a succession of males, the
sceptre of all the Scottish princes who had governed the nation since
its first establishment in the island. This prince died in 1286, by a
fall from his horse at Kinghorn,[*] without leaving any male issue, and
without any descendant, except Margaret, born of Eric, king of Norway,
and of Margaret, daughter of the Scottish monarch. This princess,
commonly called the Maid of Norway, though a female, and an infant, and
a foreigner, yet being the lawful heir of the kingdom, had, through
her grandfather's care, been recognized successor by the states of
Scotland;[**] and on Alexander's death, the dispositions which had been
previously made against that event, appeared so just and prudent, that
no disorders, as might naturally be apprehended, ensued in the kingdom.
* Heming. vol. i. p. 29. Trivet, p. 267.
** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 266.
Margaret was acknowledged queen of Scotland; five guardians, the bishops
of St. Andrews and Glasgow, the earls of Fife and Buchan, and James,
steward of Scotland, entered peaceably upon the administration; and the
infant princess, under the protection of Edward, her great uncle, and
Eric, her father, who exerted themselves on this occasion, seemed firmly
seated on the throne of Scotland. The English monarch was naturally led
to build mighty projects on this incident; and having lately, by force
of arms, brought Wales under subjection, he attempted, by the marriage
of Margaret with his eldest son, Edward, to unite the whole island into
one monarchy, and thereby to give it security both against domestic
convulsions and foreign invasions.
{1290.} The amity which had of late prevailed between the two nations,
and which, even in former times, had never been interrupted by any
violent wars or injuries, facilitated extremely the execution of this
project, so favorable to the happiness and grandeur of both kingdoms;
and the states of Scotland readily gave their assent to the English
proposals, and even agreed that their young sovereign should be
educated in the court of Edward. Anxious, however, for the liberty
and independency of their country, they took care to stipulate very
equitable conditions, ere they intrusted themselves into the hands of so
great and so ambitious a monarch. It was agreed that they should enjoy
all their ancient laws, liberties, and customs; that in case young
Edward and Margaret should die without issue, the crown of Scotland
should revert to the next heir, and should be inherited by him free
and independent; that the military tenants of the crown should never be
obliged to go out of Scotland, in order to do homage to the sovereign
of the united kingdoms, nor the chapters of cathedral, collegiate, or
conventual churches, in order to make elections; that the parliaments
summoned for Scottish affairs should always be held within the bounds of
that kingdom; and that Edward should bind himself, under the penalty of
one hundred thousand marks, payable to the pope for the use of the holy
wars to observe all these articles.[*]
* Rymer, vol. ii. p. 482.
It is not easy to conceive that two nations could have treated more on
a footing of equality than Scotland and England maintained during the
whole course of this transaction; and though Edward gave his assent to
the article concerning the future independency of the Scottish crown,
with a "saving of his former rights," this reserve gave no alarm to the
nobility of Scotland, both because these rights, having hitherto been
little heard of had occasioned no disturbance, and because the Scots
had so near a prospect of seeing them entirely absorbed in the rights of
their sovereignty.
{1291.} But this project, so happily formed and so amicably conducted,
failed of success, by the sudden death of the Norwegian princess, who
expired on her passage to Scotland,[*] and left a very dismal prospect
to the kingdom. Though disorders were for the present obviated by the
authority of the regency formerly established, the succession itself of
the crown was now become an object of dispute; and the regents could not
expect that a controversy, which is not usually decided by reason and
argument alone, would be peaceably settled by them, or even by the
states of the kingdom, amidst so many powerful pretenders. The posterity
of William, king of Scotland, the prince taken prisoner by Henry II.,
being all extinct by the death of Margaret of Norway, the right to the
crown devolved on the issue of David, earl of Huntingdon brother to
William, whose male line being also extinct, left the succession open
to the posterity of his daughters. The earl of Huntingdon had three
daughters; Margaret, married to Alan, lord of Galloway, Isabella, wife
of Robert Brus or Bruce lord of Annandale, and Adama, who espoused
Henry, Lord Hastings. Margaret, the eldest of the sisters, left one
daughter, Devergilda, married to John Baliol, by whom she had a son of
the same name, one of the present competitors for the crown: Isabella
II. bore a son, Robert Bruce, who was now alive, and who also insisted
on his claim: Adama III. left a son, John Hastings, who pretended that
the kingdom of Scotland, like many other inheritances, was divisible
among the three daughters of the earl of Huntingdon, and that he, in
right of his mother, had a title to a third of it. Baliol and
Bruce united against Hastings, in maintaining that, the kingdom was
indivisible; but each of them, supported by plausible reasons, asserted
the preference of his own title. Baliol was sprung from the elder
branch: Bruce was one degree nearer the common stock: if the principle
of representation was regarded, the former had the better claim:
if propinquity was considered, the latter was entitled to the
preference.[**]
* Heming. vol. i. p. 30. Trivet, p. 268
** Heming. vol. i. p. 36.
The sentiments of men were divided: all the nobility had taken part on
one side or the other: the people followed implicitly their leaders:
the two claimants themselves had great power and numerous retainers in
Scotland: and it is no wonder that, among a rude people, more accustomed
to arms than inured to laws, a controversy of this nature, which could
not be decided by any former precedent among them, and which is
capable of exciting commotions in the most legal and best established
governments, should threaten the state with the most fatal convulsions.
Each century has its peculiar mode in conducting business; and men,
guided more by custom than by reason, follow, without inquiry, the
manners which are prevalent in their own time. The practice of that
age in controversies between states and princes, seems to have been to
choose a foreign prince as an equal arbiter, by whom the question
was decided, and whose sentence prevented those dismal confusions and
disorders, inseparable at all times from war, but which were multiplied
a hundred fold, and dispersed into every corner, by the nature of the
feudal governments. It was thus that the English king and barons, in
the preceding reign, had endeavored to compose their dissensions by a
reference to the king of France; and the celebrated integrity of that
monarch had prevented all the bad effects which might naturally have
been dreaded from so perilous an expedient. It was thus that the kings
of France and Arragon, and afterwards other princes, had submitted their
controversies to Edward's judgment; and the remoteness of their states,
the great power of the princes, and the little interest which he had
on either side, had induced him to acquit himself with honor in his
decisions. The parliament of Scotland, therefore, threatened with a
furious civil war, and allured by the great reputation of the English
monarch, as well as by the present amicable correspondence between the
kingdoms, agreed in making a reference to Edward; and Fraser, bishop
of St. Andrews, with other deputies, was sent to notify to him their
resolution, and to claim his good offices in the present dangers to
which they were exposed.[*]
* Heming, vol. i. p. 31.
His inclination, they flattered themselves, led him to prevent their
dissensions, and to interpose with a power which none of the competitors
would dare to withstand: when this expedient was proposed by one party,
the other deemed it dangerous to object to it: indifferent persons
thought that the imminent perils of a civil war would thereby be
prevented; and no one reflected on the ambitious character of Edward,
and the almost certain ruin which must attend a small state divided
by faction, when it thus implicitly submits itself to the will of so
powerful and encroaching a neighbor.
The temptation was too strong for the virtue of the English monarch to
resist. He purposed to lay hold of the present favorable opportunity,
and if not to create, at least to revive, his claim of a feudal
superiority over Scotland; a claim which had hitherto lain in the
deepest obscurity, and which, if ever it had been an object of
attention, or had been so much as suspected, would have effectually
prevented the Scottish barons from choosing him for an umpire. He well
knew that, if this pretension were once submitted to, as it seemed
difficult in the present situation of Scotland to oppose it, the
absolute sovereignty of that kingdom (which had been the case with
Wales) would soon follow; and that one great vassal, cooped up in
an island with his liege lord, without resource from foreign powers,
without aid from any fellow-vassals, could not long maintain his
dominions against the efforts of a mighty kingdom, assisted by all
the cavils which the feudal law afforded his superior against him. In
pursuit of this great object, very advantageous to England, perhaps
in the end no less beneficial to Scotland, but extremely unjust and
iniquitous in itself, Edward busied himself in searching for proofs
of his pretended superiority; and, instead of looking into his own
archives, which, if his claim had been real, must have afforded him
numerous records of the homages done by the Scottish princes, and could
alone yield him any authentic testimony, he made all the monasteries be
ransacked for old chronicles and histories written by Englishmen, and
he collected all the passages which seemed anywise to favor his
pretensions.[*] Yet even in this method of proceeding, which must have
discovered to himself the injustice of his claim, he was far from being
fortunate. He began his proofs from the time of Edward the Elder, and
continued them through all the subsequent Saxon and Norman times; but
produced nothing to his purpose.[**]
* Walsing. p. 55.
** Rymer, vol. ii. p, 559.
The whole amount of his authorities during the Saxon period, when
stripped of the bombast and inaccurate style of the monkish historians,
is, that the Scots had sometimes been defeated by the English, had
received peace on disadvantageous terms, had made submissions to the
English monarch, and had even perhaps fallen into some dependence on a
power which was so much superior, and which they had not at that time
sufficient force to resist. His authorities from the Norman period were,
if possible, still less conclusive: the historians indeed make frequent
mention of homage done by the northern potentate; but no one of them
says that it was done for his kingdom; and several of them declare, in
express terms that it was relative only to the fiefs which he enjoyed
south of the Tweed;[*] in the same manner, as the king of England
himself swore fealty to the French monarch, for the fiefs which he
inherited in France. And to such scandalous shifts was Edward reduced,
that he quotes a passage from Hoveden[**] where it is asserted that a
Scottish king had done homage to England; but he purposely omits the
latter part of the sentence, which expresses that this prince did homage
for the lands which he held in England.
When William, king of Scotland, was taken prisoner in the battle of
Alnwick, he was obliged, for the recovery of his liberty, to swear
fealty to the victor for his crown itself. The deed was performed
according to all the rites of the feudal law: the record was preserved
in the English archives, and is mentioned by all the historians: but
as it is the only one of the kind, and as historians speak of this
superiority as a great acquisition gained by the fortunate arms of Henry
II.,[***] there can remain no doubt that the kingdom of Scotland was,
in all former periods, entirely free and independent. Its subjection
continued a very few years: King Richard, desirous, before his departure
for the Holy Land, to conciliate the friendship of William, renounced
that homage, which, he says in express terms, had been extorted by his
father; and he only retained the usual homage which had been done by the
Scottish princes for the lands which they held in England.
* Hoveden, p. 492, 662. M. Paris, p. 109. M. West. p. 256.
** Page 662.
*** Neubr. lib. ii. cap. 4. Knyghton, p. 2392.
But though this transaction rendered the independence of Scotland
still more unquestionable, than if no fealty had ever been sworn to the
English crown, the Scottish kings, apprised of the point aimed at by
their powerful neighbors, seem for a long time to have retained some
jealousy on that head, and, in doing homage, to have anxiously obviated
all such pretensions. When William, in 1200, did homage to John at
Lincoln, he was careful to insert a salvo for his royal dignity;[*] when
Alexander III. sent assistance to his father-in-law, Henry III., during
the wars of the barons, he previously procured an acknowledgment, that
this aid was granted only from friendship, not from any right claimed by
the English monarch;[**] and when that same prince was invited to assist
at the coronation of this very Edward, he declined attendance till he
received a like acknowledgment.[***] [1]
But as all these reasons (and stronger could not be produced) were but a
feeble rampart against the power of the sword, Edward, carrying with
him a great army, which was to enforce his proofs, advanced to the
frontiers, and invited the Scottish parliament, and all the competitors,
to attend him in the Castle of Norham, a place situated on the southern
banks of the Tweed, in order to determine the cause which had been
referred to his arbitration. But though this deference seemed due to so
great a monarch, and was no more than what his father and the English
barons had, in similar circumstances, paid to Lewis IX., the king,
careful not to give umbrage, and determined never to produce his claim
till it should be too late to think of opposition, sent the Scottish
barons an acknowledgment, that, though at that time they passed the
frontiers, this step should never be drawn into precedent, or afford the
English kings a pretence for exacting a like submission in any future
transaction.[****] When the whole Scottish nation had thus unwarily put
themselves in his power, Edward opened the conferences at Norham: he
informed the parliament, by the mouth of Roger le Brabancon, his chief
justiciary, that he was come thither to determine the right among the
competitors to their crown; that he was determined to do strict justice
to all parties; and that he was entitled to this authority, not in
virtue of the reference made to him, but in quality of superior and
liege lord of the kingdom.[*****] [2]
* Hoveden, p. 811.
** Rymer, vol. ii p 844.
*** See note A. at the end of the volume.
**** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 539, 845. Walsing. p. 58.
***** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 543. See note B, at the end of the
volume.
He then produced his proofs of this superiority, which he pretended to
be unquestionable, and he required of them an acknowledgment of it; a
demand which was superfluous if the fact were already known and avowed,
and which plainly betrays Edward's consciousness of his lame and
defective title. The Scottish parliament was astonished at so new a
pretension, and answered only by their silence. But the king, in order
to maintain the appearance of free and regular proceedings, desired
them to remove into their own country, to deliberate upon his claim, to
examine his proofs, to propose all their objections, and to inform him
of their resolution; and he appointed a plain at Upsettleton, on the
northern banks of the Tweed, for that purpose.
When the Scottish barons assembled in this place, though moved with
indignation at the injustice of this unexpected claim, and at the fraud
with which it had been conducted, they found themselves betrayed into
a situation in which it was impossible for them to make any defence
for the ancient liberty and independence of their country. The king of
England, a martial and politic prince, at the head of a powerful army,
lay at a very small distance, and was only separated from them by a
river fordable in many places. Though, by a sudden flight, some of them
might themselves be, able to make their escape, what hopes could they
entertain of securing the kingdom against his future enterprises?
Without a head, without union among themselves, attached all of them
to different competitors, whose title they had rashly submitted to the
decision of this foreign usurper, and who were thereby reduced to an
absolute dependence upon him, they could only expect by resistance
to entail on themselves and their posterity a more grievous and more
destructive servitude. Yet even in this desperate state of their affairs
the Scottish barons, as we learn from Walsingham,[*] one of the best
historians of that period, had the courage to reply that, till they
had a king, they could take no resolution on so momentous a point: the
journal of King Edward says, that they made no answer at all;[**] that
is, perhaps, no particular answer or objection to Edward's claim: and
by this solution it is possible to reconcile the journal with the
historian. The king, therefore, interpreting their silence as consent,
addressed himself to the several competitors.
* Page 56. M. West. p. 436. It is said by Hemingford, vol.
i, p. 33, that the king menaced violently the Scotch barons,
and forced them to compliance, at least to silence.
** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 548. previously to his pronouncing
sentence, required their acknowledgment of his superiority.
It is evident from the genealogy of the royal family of Scotland, that
there could only be two questions about the succession--that between
Baliol and Bruce on the one hand, and Lord Hastings on the other,
concerning the partition of the crown: and that between Baliol and
Bruce themselves concerning the preference of their respective titles,
supposing the kingdom indivisible: yet there appeared on this occasion
no less than nine claimants besides; John Comyn or Cummin, lord of
Badenoch, Florence, earl of Holland, Patric Dunbar, earl of March,
William de Vescey, Robert de Pynkeni, Nicholas de Soules, Patric
Galythly, Roger de Mandeville, Robert de Ross; not to mention the king
of Norway, who claimed as heir to his daughter Margaret.[*] Some of
these competitors were descended from more remote branches of the royal
family; others were even sprung from illegitimate children; and as none
of them had the least pretence of right, it is natural to conjecture
that Edward had secretly encouraged them to appear in the list of
claimants, that he might sow the more division among the Scottish
nobility, make the cause appear the more intricate, and be able to
choose, among a great number, the most obsequious candidate.
But he found them all equally obsequious on this occasion.[**] Robert
Bruce was the first that acknowledged Edward's right of superiority over
Scotland; and he had so far foreseen the king's pretensions, that even
in his petition, where he set forth his claim to the crown, he had
previously applied to him as liege lord of the kingdom; a step which was
not taken by any of the other competitors.[***] They all, however, with
seeming willingness, made a like acknowledgment when required; though
Baliol, lest he should give offence to the Scottish nation, had taken
care to be absent during the first days; and he was the last that
recognized the king's title.[****]
* Walsing. p. 58.
** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 529, 545. Walsing. p. 56. Heming.
vol. i. 33, 34. Trivet, p. 260. M. West. p. 415.
*** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 577, 578, 579.
**** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 546.
Edward next deliberated concerning the method of proceeding in the
discussion of this great controversy. He gave orders that Baliol,
and such of the competitors as adhered to him should choose forty
commissioners; Bruce and his adherents forty more: to these the
king added twenty-four Englishmen: he ordered these hundred and four
commissioners to examine the cause deliberately among themselves, and
make their report to him:[*] and he promised in the ensuing year to give
his determination. Meanwhile he pretended that it was requisite to have
all the fortresses of Scotland delivered into his hands, in order to
enable him, without opposition, to put the true heir in possession of
the crown; and this exorbitant demand was complied with, both by the
states and by the claimants.[**] The governors also of all the castles
immediately resigned their command; except Umfreville, earl of Angus,
who refused, without a formal and particular acquittal from the
parliament and the several claimants, to surrender his fortresses to so
domineering an arbiter, who had given to Scotland so many just reasons
of suspicion.[***] Before this assembly broke up, which had fixed such
a mark of dishonor on the nation, all the prelates and barons there
present swore fealty to Edward; and that prince appointed commissioners
to receive a like oath from all the other barons and persons of
distinction in Scotland.[****]
* Rymer, vol. ii. p. 555, 556.
** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 529. Walsing. p. 56, 57.
*** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 531.
**** Rymer, vol. ii p. 573.
The king, having finally made, as he imagined, this important
acquisition, left the commissioners to sit at Berwick, and examine the
titles of the several competitors who claimed the precarious crown,
which Edward was willing for some time to allow the lawful heir to
enjoy. He went southwards, both in order to assist at the funeral of
his mother, Queen Eleanor, who died about this time, and to compose some
differences which had arisen among his principal nobility. Gilbert, earl
of Glocester, the greatest baron of the kingdom, had espoused the king's
daughter; and being elated by that alliance, and still more by his
own power, which, he thought, set him above the laws, he permitted his
bailiffs and vassals to commit violence on the lands of Humphrey Bohun,
earl of Hereford, who retaliated the injury by like violence. But
this was not a reign in which such illegal proceedings could pass with
impunity. Edward procured a sentence against the two earls, committed
them both to prison, and would not restore them to their liberty, till
he had exacted a fine of one thousand marks from Hereford, and one of
ten thousand from his son-in-law.
{1292.} During this interval, the titles of John Baliol and of
Robert Bruce, whose claims appeared to be the best founded among the
competitors for the crown of Scotland, were the subject of general
disquisition, as well as of debate among the commissioners. Edward, in
order to give greater authority to his intended decision, proposed this
general question both to the commissioners and to all the celebrated
lawyers in Europe, "Whether a person descended from the elder sister,
but farther removed by one degree, were preferable, in the succession
of kingdoms, fiefs, and other indivisible inheritances, to one descended
from the younger sister, but one degree nearer to the common stock?"
This was the true state of the case; and the principle of representation
had now gained such ground every where, that a uniform answer was
returned to the king in the affirmative. He therefore pronounced
sentence in favor of Balioi; and when Bruce, upon this disappointment,
joined afterwards Lord Hastings, and claimed a third of the kingdom,
which he now pretended to be divisible, Edward, though his interests
seemed more to require the partition of Scotland, again pronounced
sentence in favor of Baliol. That competitor, upon renewing his oath
of fealty to England, was put in possession of the kingdom;[*] all his
fortresses were restored to him;[**] and the conduct of Edward, both in
the deliberate solemnity of the proceedings, and in the justice of the
award, was so far unexceptionable.
{1293.} Had the king entertained no other view than that of establishing
his superiority over Scotland, though the iniquity of that claim was
apparent, and was aggravated by the most egregious breach of trust,
he might have fixed his pretensions, and have left that important
acquisition to his posterity: but he immediately proceeded in such a
manner as made it evident that, not content with this usurpation, he
aimed also at the absolute sovereignty and dominion of the kingdom.
Instead of gradually inuring the Scots to the yoke, and exerting his
rights of superiority with moderation, he encouraged all appeals to
England; required King John himself, by six different summons on
trivial occasions, to come to London;[***] refused him the privilege of
defending his cause by a procurator; and obliged him to appear at the
bar of his parliament as a private person.[****]
* Rymer vol. ii. p. 590, 591, 593, 600.
** Rymer, voL ii p. 599.
*** Rymer, p. 603, 605, 606, 608, 615, 616.
**** Ryley's Placit. Parl. p. 152, 153.
These humiliating demands were hitherto quite unknown to a king of
Scotland: they are, however, the necessary consequence of vassalage by
the feudal law; and as there was no preceding instance of such treatment
submitted to by a prince of that country, Edward must, from that
circumstance alone, had there remained any doubt, have been himself
convinced that his claim was altogether a usurpation.[*] [3] But his
intention plainly was to enrage Baliol by these indignities, to engage
him in rebellion, and to assume the dominion of the state as the
punishment of his treason and felony. Accordingly Baliol, though a
prince of a soft and gentle spirit, returned into Scotland highly
provoked at this usage, and determined at all hazards to vindicate
his liberty; and the war which soon after broke out between France and
England, gave him a favorable opportunity of executing his purpose.
The violence, robberies, and disorders, to which that age was so
subject, were not confined to the licentious barons and their retainers
at land: the sea was equally infested with piracy: the feeble execution
of the laws had given license to all orders of men: and a general
appetite for rapine and revenge, supported by a false point of honor,
had also infected the merchants and mariners; and it pushed them, on
any provocation, to seek redress by immediate retaliation upon the
aggressors. A Norman and an English vessel met off the coast near
Bayonne; and both of them having occasion for water, they sent their
boats to land, and the several crews came at the same time to the same
spring: there ensued a quarrel for the preference: a Norman, drawing his
dagger, attempted to stab an Englishman; who, grappling with him, threw
his adversary on the ground; and the Norman, as was pretended, falling
on his own dagger, was slain.[**] This scuffle between two seamen about
water, soon kindled a bloody war between the two nations, and involved
a great part of Europe in the quarrel. The mariners of the Norman ship
carried their complaints to the French king: Philip, without inquiring
into the fact, without demanding redress, bade them take revenge, and
trouble him no more about the matter.[***]
* See note C, at the end of the volume.
** Walsing. p. 58. Heming. vol. i. p. 39.
*** Walsing. p. 59.
The Normans, who had been more regular than usual in applying to the
crown, needed but this hint to proceed to immediate violence. They
seized an English ship in the channel; and hanging, along with some
dogs, several of the crew on the yard-arm, in presence of their
companions, dismissed the vessel; [*] and bade the mariners inform their
countrymen that vengeance was now taken for the blood of the Norman
killed at Bayonne. This injury, accompanied with so general and
deliberate an insult, was resented by the mariners of the cinque ports,
who, without carrying any complaint to the king, or waiting for redress,
retaliated by committing like barbarities on all French vessels without
distinction. The French, provoked by their losses, preyed on the ships
of all Edward's subjects, whether English or Gascon: the sea became
a scene of piracy between the nations: the sovereigns, without either
seconding or repressing the violence of their subjects, seemed to remain
indifferent spectators: the English made private associations with the
Irish and Dutch seamen; the French with the Flemish and Genoese;[**]
and the animosities of the people on both sides became every day more
violent and barbarous. A fleet of two hundred Norman vessels set sail
to the south for wine and other commodities; and in their passage seized
all the English ships which they met with, hanged the seamen, and seized
the goods. The inhabitants of the English seaports, informed of this
incident, fitted out a fleet of sixty sail, stronger and better manned
than the others, and awaited the enemy on their return. After an
obstinate battle, they put them to rout, and sunk, destroyed, or took
the greater part of them.[***] No quarter was given; and it is pretended
that the loss of the French amounted to fifteen thousand men; which is
accounted for by this circumstance, that the Norman fleet was employed
in transporting a considerable body of soldiers from the south.
The affair was now become too important to be any longer overlooked by
the sovereigns. On Philip's sending an envoy to demand reparation and
restitution, the king despatched the bishop of London to the French
court, in order to accommodate the quarrel. He first said, that the
English courts of justice were open to all men; and if any Frenchman
were injured, he might seek reparation by course of law.[****]
* Heming. vol. i. p. 40. M. West. p. 419.
** Heming. vol. i. p. 40.
*** Walsing. p. 60. Trivet, p 274. Chron. Dunst vol. ii. p
609.
**** Trivet, p. 275.
He next offered to adjust the matter by private arbiters, or by a
personal interview with the king of France, or by a reference either
to the pope, or the college of cardinals, or any particular cardinals,
agreed on by both parties.[*] The French, probably the more disgusted,
as they were hitherto losers in the quarrel, refused all these
expedients: the vessels and the goods of merchants were confiscated on
both sides: depredations were continued by the Gascons on the western
coast of France, as well as by the English in the Channel: Philip cited
the king, as duke of Guienne, to appear in his court at Paris, and
answer for these offences; and Edward, apprehensive of danger to that
province, sent John St. John, an experienced soldier, to Bordeaux, and
gave him directions to put Guienne in a posture of defence.[**]
{1294.} That he might, however, prevent a final rupture between the
nations, the king despatched his brother, Edmond, earl of Lancaster, to
Paris; and as this prince had espoused the queen of Navarre, mother to
Jane, queen of France, he seemed, on account of that alliance, the most
proper person for finding expedients to accommodate the difference. Jane
pretended to interpose with her good offices: Mary, the queen dowager,
feigned the same amicable disposition: and these two princesses told
Edmond, that the circumstance the most difficult to adjust was the point
of honor with Philip, who thought himself affronted by the injuries
committed against him by his sub-vassals in Guienne; but if Edward would
once consent to give him seizin and possession of that province, he
would think his honor fully repaired, would engage to restore Guienne
immediately, and would accept of a very easy satisfaction for all the
other injuries. The king was consulted on the occasion; and as he
then found himself in immediate danger of war with the Scots, which he
regarded as the more important concern, this politic prince, blinded
by his favorite passion for subduing that nation, allowed himself to
be deceived by so gross an artifice.[***] He sent his brother orders
to sign and execute the treaty with the two queens; Philip solemnly
promised to execute his part of it; and the king's citation to appear
in the court of France, was accordingly recalled; but the French monarch
was no sooner put in possession of Guienne, than the citation was
renewed; Edward was condemned for non-appearance; and Guienne, by
a formal sentence, was declared to be forfeited and annexed to the
crown.[****]
* Trivet, p. 275.
** Trivet, p. 276.
*** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 619, 620. Walsing. p. 61. Heming. vol.
i p. 42, 43. Trivet, p. 277.
**** Rymer vol. ii p. 620, 622. Walsing. p. 61. Trivet, p. 278.
Edward, fallen into a like snare with that which he himself had spread
for the Scots, was enraged; and the more so, as he was justly ashamed
of his own conduct, in being so egregiously overreached by the court of
France. Sensible of the extreme difficulties which he should encounter
in the recovery of Gascony, where he had not retained a single place in
his hands, he endeavored to compensate that loss by forming alliances
with several princes, who, he projected, should attack France on all
quarters, and make a diversion of her forces. Adolphus de Nassau, king
of the Romans, entered into a treaty with him for that purpose;[*] as
did also Amadaeus, count of Savoy, the archbishop of Cologne, the counts
of Gueldre and Luxembourg; the duke of Brabant and count of Barre, who
had married his two daughters, Margaret and Eleanor: but these alliances
were extremely burdensome to his narrow revenues, and proved in the
issue entirely ineffectual. More impression was made on Guienne by an
English army, which he completed by emptying the jails of many thousand
thieves and robbers, who had been confined there for their crimes. So
low had the profession of arms fallen, and so much had it degenerated
from the estimation in which it stood during the vigor of the feudal
system!
{1295.} The king himself was detained in England, first by contrary
winds,[**] then by his apprehensions of a Scottish invasion, and by
a rebellion of the Welsh, whom he repressed and brought again under
subjection.[***] The army which he sent to Guienne, was commanded by his
nephew, John de Bretagne, earl of Richmond, and under him by St. John,
Tibetot, De Vere, and other officers of reputation;[****] who made
themselves masters of the town of Bayonne, as well as of Bourg, Blaye,
Reole, St. Severe, and other places, which straitened Bordeaux, and cut
off its communication both by sea and land.
* Heming. vol, i. p. 51.
** Chron. Dunst. vol. ii. p. 622.
*** Walsing. p. 62. Heming. vol. i. p. 55. Trivet, p. 282.
Chron Dunst. vol. ii. p. 622.
**** Trivet, p. 279.
The favor which the Gascon nobility bore to the English government
facilitated these conquests, and seemed to promise still greater
successes; but this advantage was soon lost by the misconduct of some
of the officers. Philip's brother, Charles de Valois, who commanded
the French armies, having laid siege to Podensac, a small fortress near
Reole, obliged Giffard, the governor, to capitulate; and the articles
though favorable to the English, left all the Gascons prisoners at
discretion, of whom about fifty were hanged by Charles as rebels;
a policy by which he both intimidated that people, and produced
an irreparable breach between them and the English.[*] That prince
immediately attacked Reole, where the earl of Richmond himself
commanded; and as the place seemed not tenable, the English general drew
his troops to the water side, with an intention of embarking with the
greater part of the army. The enraged Gascons fell upon his rear, and
at the same time opened their gates to the French, who, besides making
themselves masters of the place, took many prisoners of distinction. St.
Severe was more vigorously defended by Hugh de Vere, son of the earl
of Oxford; but was at last obliged to capitulate. The French king, not
content with these successes in Gascony, threatened England with an
invasion; and, by a sudden attempt, his troops took and burnt Dover,[**]
but were obliged soon after to retire. And in order to make a greater
diversion of the English force, and engage Edward in dangerous and
important wars, he formed a secret alliance with John Baliol, king of
Scotland; the commencement of that strict union which, during so many
centuries, was maintained, by mutual interests and necessities, between
the French and Scottish nations. John confirmed this alliance by
stipulating a marriage between his eldest son and the daughter of
Charles de Valois.[***]
* Heming. vol. i. p. 49.
** Trivet, p. 284. Chron. Dunst. vol. ii. p. 642.
*** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 680, 681, 695, 697. Heming. vol. i. p.
76. Trivet, i, 285.
The expenses attending these multiplied wars of Edward, and his
preparations for war, joined to alterations which had insensibly taken
place in the general state of affairs, obliged him to have frequent
recourse to parliamentary supplies, introduced the lower orders of the
state into the public councils, and laid the foundations of great and
important changes in the government.
Though nothing could be worse calculated for cultivating the arts of
peace, or maintaining peace itself, than the long subordination of
vassalage from the king to the meanest gentleman, and the consequent
slavery of the lower people, evils inseparable from the feudal system,
that system was never able to fix the state in a proper warlike posture,
or give it the full exertion of its power for defence, and still less
for offence, against a public enemy. The military tenants, unacquainted
with obedience, unexperienced in war, held a rank in the troops by
their birth, not by their merits or services; composed a disorderly
and consequently a feeble army; and during the few days which they
were obliged by their tenures to remain in the field, were often more
formidable to their own prince than to foreign powers, against whom they
were assembled. The sovereigns came gradually to disuse this cumbersome
and dangerous machine, so apt to recoil upon the hand which held it; and
exchanging the military service for pecuniary supplies, enlisted forces
by means of a contract with particular officers, (such as those the
Italians denominate "condottieri,") whom they dismissed at the end of
the war.[*] The barons and knights themselves often entered into these
engagements with the prince; and were enabled to fill their bands, both
by the authority which they possessed over their vassals and tenants,
and from the great numbers of loose, disorderly people whom they
found on their estates, and who willingly embraced an opportunity of
gratifying their appetite for war and rapine.
Meanwhile the old Gothic fabric, being neglected, went gradually to
decay. Though the Conqueror had divided all the lands of England
into sixty thousand knights' fees, the number of these was insensibly
diminished by various artifices; and the king at last found that, by
putting the law in execution, he could assemble a small part only of the
ancient force of the kingdom. It was a usual expedient for men who held
of the king or great barons by military tenure, to transfer their
land to the church, and receive it back by another tenure, called
frankalmoigne, by which they were not bound to per form any service.[**]
A law was made against this practice; but the abuse had probably gone
far before it was attended to, and probably was not entirely corrected
by the new statute, which, like most laws of that age, we may conjecture
to have been but feebly executed by the magistrate against the perpetual
interest of so many individuals. The constable and mareschal, when
they mustered the armies, often in a hurry, and for want of better
information, received the service of a baron for fewer knights' fees
than were due by him; and one precedent of this kind was held good
against the king, and became ever after a reason for diminishing the
service.[***]
* Cotton's Abr. p. 11.
** Madox, Baronia Anglica, p. 114.
*** Madox, Bar. Ang. p 115.
The rolls of knights' fees were inaccurately kept; no care was taken to
correct them before the armies were summoned into the field,[*] it
was then too late to think of examining records and charters; and the
service was accepted on the footing which the vassal himself was pleased
to acknowledge, after all the various subdivisions and conjunctions
of property had thrown an obscurity on the nature and extent of his
tenure.[**] It is easy to judge of the intricacies which would attend
disputes of this kind with individuals; when even the number of military
fees belonging to the church, whose property way fixed and unalienable,
became the subject of controversy; and we find in particular, that when
the bishop of Durham was charged with seventy knights' fees for the aid
levied on occasion of the marriage of Henry II.'s daughter to the
duke of Saxony, the prelate acknowledged ten, and disowned the other
sixty.[***] It is not known in what mariner this difference was
terminated; but had the question been concerning an armament to defend
the kingdom, the bishop's service would probably have been received
without opposition for ten fees; and this rate must also have fixed all
his future payments. Pecuniary scutages, therefore, diminished as much
as military services;[****] other methods of filling the exchequer, as
well as the armies, must be devised: new situations produced new laws
and institutions; and the great alterations in the finances and military
power of the crown, as well as in private property, were the source of
equal innovations in every part of the legislature or civil government.
* We hear only of one king, Henry II., who took this pains;
and the record, called Liber Niger Scaccarii, was the result
of it.
** Madox, Bar. Ang. p. 116.
*** Madox, p. 122. Hist. of the Exch. p. 404.
**** In order to pay the sum of one hundred thousand marks, as
King Richard's ransom, twenty shillings were imposed on each
knight's fee. Had the fees remained on the original footing,
as settled by the Conqueror, this scutage would have
amounted to ninety thousand marks, which was nearly the sum
required; but we find that other grievous taxes were imposed
to complete it; a certain proof that many frauds and abuses
had prevailed in the roll of knights fees.
The exorbitant estates conferred by the Norman on his barons and
chieftains, remained not long entire and unimpaired. The landed property
was gradually shared out into more hands; and those immense baronies
were divided, either by provisions to younger children, by partitions
among co-heirs, by sale, or by escheating to the king, who gratified a
great number of his courtiers by dealing them out among them in smaller
portions. Such moderate estates, as they required economy, and confined
the proprietors to live at home, were better calculated for duration;
and the order of knights and small barons grew daily more numerous, and
began to form a very respectable rank or order in the state. As they
were all immediate vassals of the crown by military tenure, they were,
by the principles of the feudal law, equally entitled with the greatest
barons to a seat in the national or general councils; and this right,
though regarded as a privilege which the owners would not entirely
relinquish, was also considered as a burden which they desired to be
subjected to on extraordinary occasions only. Hence it was provided in
the charter of King John, that, while the great barons were summoned to
the national council by a particular writ, the small barons, under which
appellation the knights were also comprehended, should only be called
by a general summons of the sheriff. The distinction between great and
small barons, like that between rich and poor, was not exactly defined;
but, agreeably to the inaccurate genius of that age, and to the
simplicity of ancient government, was left very much to be determined
by the discretion of the king and his ministers. It was usual for the
prince to require, by a particular summons, the attendance of a baron
in one parliament, and to neglect him in future parliaments;[*] nor
was this uncertainty ever complained of as an injury. He attended when
required: he was better pleased on other occasions to be exempted from
the burden: and as he was acknowledged to be of the same order with the
greatest barons, it gave them no surprise to see him take his seat
in the great council, whether he appeared of his own accord, or by a
particular summons from the king. The barons by writ, therefore, began
gradually to intermix themselves with the barons by tenure; and, as
Camden tells us,[**] from an ancient manuscript now lost, that after the
battle of Evesham, a positive law was enacted, prohibiting every
baron from appearing in parliament, who was not invited thither by a
particular summons, the whole baronage of England held thenceforward
their seat by writ, and this important privilege of their tenures was in
effect abolished. Only where writs had been regularly continued for some
time in one great family, the omission of them would have been regarded
as an affront, and even as an injury.
* Chancellor West's Inquiry into the Manner of creating
Peers p. 43, 46, 47, 55.
** In Britain. p 122.
A like alteration gradually took place in the order of earls who were
the highest rank of barons. The dignity of an earl, like that of
a baron, was anciently territorial and official:[*] he exercised
jurisdiction within his county: he levied the third of the fines to his
own profit: he was at once a civil and a military magistrate: and though
his authority, from the time of the Norman conquest, was hereditary in
England, the title was so much connected with the office, that where the
king intended to create a new earl, he had no other expedient than to
erect a certain territory into a county or earldom, and to bestow it
upon the person and his family.[**] But as the sheriffs, who were the
vicegerents of the earls, were named by the king, and removable at
pleasure, he found them more dependent upon him; and endeavored to throw
the whole authority and jurisdiction of the office into their hands.
This magistrate was at the head of the finances, and levied all the
king's rents within the county: he assessed at pleasure the talliages
of the inhabitants in royal demesne: he had usually committed to him
the management of wards, and often of escheats: he presided in the lower
courts of judicature: and thus, though inferior to the earl in dignity,
he was soon considered, by this union of the judicial and fiscal powers,
and by the confidence reposed in him by the king, as much superior to
him in authority, and undermined his influence within his own
jurisdiction.[***] It became usual, in creating an earl, to give him a
fixed salary, commonly about twenty pounds a year, in lieu of his third
of the fines: the diminution of his power kept pace with the
retrenchment of his profit: and the dignity of earl, instead of being
territorial and official, dwindled into personal and titular. Such were
the mighty alterations which already had fully taken place, or were
gradually advancing, in the house of peers; that is, in the parliament:
for there seems anciently to have been no other house.
* Spel. Gloss, in voce Comes.
** Essays on British Antiquities. This practice, however,
seems to have been more familiar in Scotland and the
kingdoms on the continent, than in England.
*** There are instances of princes of the blood who accepted
of the office of sheriff. Spel. in voce Vicecomes.
But though the introduction of barons by writ, and of titular earls, had
given some increase to royal authority, there were other causes which
counterbalanced those innovations, and tended in a higher degree to
diminish the power of the sovereign. The disuse into which the feudal
militia had in a great measure fallen made the barons almost entirely
forget their dependence on the crown: by the diminution of the number
of knights' fees the king had no reasonable compensation when he levied
scutages, and exchanged their service for money: the alienations of the
crown lands had reduced him to poverty: and above all, the concession
of the Great Charter had set bounds to royal power, and had rendered it
more difficult and dangerous for the prince to exert any extraordinary
act of arbitrary authority. In this situation it was natural for the
king to court the friendship of the lesser barons and knights, whose
influence was no ways dangerous to him, and who, being exposed to
oppression from their powerful neighbors, sought a legal protection
under the shadow of the throne. He desired, therefore, to have their
presence in parliament, where they served to control the turbulent
resolutions of the great. To exact a regular attendance of the whole
body would have produced confusion, and would have imposed too heavy a
burden upon them. To summon only a few by writ, though it was practised
and had a good effect, served not entirely the king's purpose; because
these members had no further authority than attended their personal
character, and were eclipsed by the appearance of the more powerful
nobility, He therefore dispensed with the attendance of most of the
lesser barons in parliament; and in return for this indulgence (for such
it was then esteemed) required them to choose in each county a certain
number of their own body, whose charges they bore, and who, having
gained the confidence, carried with them, of course, the authority of
the whole order. This expedient had been practised at different times
in the reign of Henry III.,[*] and regularly during that of the present
king. The numbers sent up by each county varied at the will of the
prince:[**] they took their seat among the other peers; because by their
tenure they belonged to that order:[***] the introducing of them into
that house scarcely appeared an innovation: and though it was easily in
the king's power, by varying their number, to command the resolutions of
the whole parliament this circumstance was little attended to in an age
when force was more prevalent than laws, and when a resolution, though
taken by the majority of a legal assembly, could not be executed, if it
opposed the will of the more powerful minority.
*Rot. Glaus. 38. Hen. III. pp. 7. and 12. d.; as also Ret.
Claus 12 Hen. III. m. 1. d. Prynne's Pref. to Cotton's
Abridgment.
** Brady's Answer to Petyt, from the records, p 151.
*** Brady's Treatise of Boroughs, App. No. 13.
But there were other important consequences, which followed the
diminution and consequent disuse of the ancient feudal militia. The
king's expense in levying and maintaining a military force for every
enterprise, was increased beyond what his narrow revenues were able to
bear: as the scutages of his military tenants, which were accepted in
lieu of their personal service, had fallen to nothing, there were no
means of supply but from voluntary aids granted him by the parliament
and clergy, or from the talliages which he might levy upon the towns
and inhabitants in royal demesne. In the preceding year, Edward had been
obliged to exact no less than the sixth of all movables from the laity,
and a moiety of all ecclesiastical benefices[*] for his expedition
into Poictou, and the suppression of the Welsh: and this distressful
situation which was likely often to return upon him and his successors,
made him think of a new device, and summon the representatives of all
the boroughs to parliament. This period, which is the twenty-third of
his reign, seems to be the real and true epoch of the house of
commons, and the faint dawn of popular government in England. For the
representatives of the counties were only deputies from the smaller
barons and lesser nobility; and the former precedent of representatives
from the boroughs, who were summoned by the earl of Leicester, was
regarded as the act of a violent usurpation, had beer, discontinued in
all the subsequent parliaments; and if such a measure had not become
necessary on other accounts, that precedent was more likely to blast
than give credit to it.
* Brady's Treatise of Boroughs, p. 31, from the records.
Heming vol. i. p. 52. M. West. p. 422. Ryley, p. 462
During the course of several years, the kings of England, in imitation
of other European princes, had embraced the salutary policy of
encouraging and protecting the lower and more industrious orders of
the state; whom they found well disposed to obey the laws and civil
magistrate, and whose ingenuity and labor furnish commodities requisite
for the ornament of peace and support of war. Though the inhabitants of
the country were still left at the disposal of their imperious lords,
many attempts were made to give more security and liberty to citizens,
and make them enjoy unmolested the fruits of their industry. Boroughs
were erected by royal patent within the demesne lands; liberty of trade
was conferred upon them; the inhabitants were allowed to farm, at a
fixed rent, their own tolls and customs,[*] they were permitted to
elect their own magistrates; justice was administered to them by these
magistrates, without obliging them to attend the sheriff or county
court: and some shadow of independence, by means of these equitable
privileges, was gradually acquired by the people.[**] The king, however,
retained still the power of levying talliage or taxes upon them at
pleasure;[***] and though their poverty and the customs of the age made
these demands neither frequent or exorbitant, such unlimited authority
in the sovereign was a sensible check upon commerce, and was utterly
incompatible with all the principles of a free government. But when
the multiplied necessities of the crown produced a greater avidity for
supply, the king, whose prerogative entitled him to exact it, found
that he had not power sufficient to enforce his edicts, and that it was
necessary, before he imposed taxes, to smooth the way for his demand,
and to obtain the previous consent of the boroughs, by solicitations,
remonstrances, and authority. The inconvenience of transacting this
business with every particular borough was soon felt; and Edward became
sensible, that the most expeditious way of obtaining supply, was to
assemble the deputies of all the boroughs, to lay before them the
necessities of the state, to discuss the matter in their presence, and
to require their consent to the demands of their sovereign, For this
reason, he issued writs to the sheriffs, enjoining them to send to
parliament, along with two knights of the shire two deputies from each
borough within their county,[****] and these provided with sufficient
powers from their community to consent, in their name, to what he and
his council should require of them.
* Madox, Firma Burgi, p. 21.
** Brady of Boroughs, App. No. I, 2, 3.
*** The king had not only the power of talliating the
inhabitants within his own demosnes, but that of granting to
particular barons the power of talliating the inhabitants
within theirs. See Brady's Answer to Petyt, p. 118. Madox,
Hist, of the Exch. p. 518.
*** Writs were issued to about one hundred and twenty cities
and boroughs.
"As it is a most equitable rule," says he, in his preamble to this writ,
"that what concerns all should be approved of by all; and common dangers
be repelled by united efforts;"[*] a noble principle, which may seem to
indicate a liberal mind in the king, and which laid the foundation of a
free and an equitable government.
After the election of these deputies by the aldermen and common council,
they gave sureties for their attendance before the king and parliament:
their charges were respectively borne by the borough which sent them;
and they had so little idea of appearing as legislators,--a character
extremely wide of their low rank and condition,[**]--that no
intelligence could be more disagreeable to any borough, than to find
that they must elect, or to any individual than that he was elected, to
a trust from which no profit or honor could possibly be derived.[***]
They composed not, properly speaking, any essential part of the
parliament: they sat apart both from the barons and knights,[****] who
disdained to mix with such mean personages: after they had given
their consent to the taxes required of them, their business being then
finished, they separated, even though the parliament still continued
to sit, and to canvass the national business.[*****] And as they all
consisted of men who were real burgesses of the place from which they
were sent, the sheriff, when he found no person of abilities or wealth
sufficient for the office, often used the freedom of omitting particular
boroughs in his returns; and as he received the thanks of the people for
this indulgence, he gave no displeasure to the court, who levied on all
the boroughs, without distinction, the tax agreed to by the majority of
deputies.[******]
* Brady of Boroughs, p. 25, 33, from the records. The writs
of the parliament immediately preceding, remain: and the
return of knights is there required, but not a word of the
boroughs: a demonstration that this was the very year in
which they commenced. In the year immediately preceding, the
taxes were levied by a seeming free consent of each
particular borough, beginning with London. Brady of
Boroughs, p. 31, 32, 33, from the records. Also his Answer
to Petyt, p. 40, 41.
** Reiiquia Spel. p. 64. Prynne's Pref. to Cotton's Abridg.
and the Abridg. passim.
*** Brady of Boroughs, p. 59, 60.
**** Brady of Boroughs, p. 37, 38, from the records, and
Append. p. 19. Also his Append, to his Answer to Petyt,
Record. And his gloss. in verb. Communitas regn. p. 33.
***** Ryley's Placit. Parl. p. 241, 242, etc. Cotton's
Abridg. p. 14.
****** Bradv of Boroughs, p. 52, from the records. There is
even an instance in the reign of Edward III., when the king
named all the deputies. Brady's Answer to Petyt, p. 161. If
he fairly named the most considerable and creditable
burgesses, little exception would be taken; as their
business was not to check the king, but to reason with him,
and consent to his demands. It was not till the reign of
Richard II. that the sheriffs were deprived of the power of
omitting boroughs at pleasure. See Stat. at large, 5th
Richard II. cap. iv.
The union, however, of the representatives from the boroughs gave
gradually more weight to the whole order; and it became customary for
them, in return for the supplies which they granted, to prefer petitions
to the crown for the redress of any particular grievance, of which they
found reason to complain. The more the king's demands multiplied, the
faster these petitions increased both in number and authority; and the
prince found it difficult to refuse men whose grants had supported his
throne, and to whose assistance he might so soon be again obliged to
have recourse. The commons, however, were still much below the rank
of legislators.[*] [4] Their petitions, though they received a verbal
assent from the throne, were only the rudiments of laws: the judges were
afterwards intrusted with the power of putting them into form. and
the king, by adding to them the sanction of his authority, and that
sometimes without the assent of the nobles, bestowed validity upon
them. The age did not refine so much as to perceive the danger of these
irregularities. No man was displeased that the sovereign, at the desire
of any class of men, should issue an order which appeared only to
concern that class; and his predecessors were so near possessing the
whole legislative power, that he gave no disgust by assuming it in this
seemingly inoffensive manner. But time and further experience gradually
opened men's eyes, and corrected these abuses. It was found that no laws
could be fixed for one order of men without affecting the whole; and
that the force and efficacy of laws depended entirely on the terms
employed in wording them. The house of peers, therefore, the most
powerful order in the state, with reason, expected that their assent
should be expressly granted to all public ordinances:[**]
* See note D, at the end of the volume.
** In those instances found in Cotton's Abridgment, where
the king appears to answer of himself the petitions of the
commons, he probably exerted no more than that power, which
was long inherent in the crown, of regulating matters by
royal edicts or proclamations.
But no durable or general statute seems ever to have been made by the
king from the petition of the commons alone, without the assent of the
peers. It is more likely that the peers alone without the commons, would
enact statutes, and in the reign of Henry V., the commons required,
that no laws should be framed merely upon their petitions, unless the
statutes were worded by themselves, and had passed their house in the
form of a bill.[*]
But as the same causes which had produced a partition of property
continued still to operate, the number of knights and lesser barons, or
what the English call the gentry, perpetually increased, and they sunk
into a rank still more inferior to the great nobility. The equality of
tenure was lost in the great inferiority of power and property; and the
house of representatives from the counties was gradually separated from
that of the peers, and formed a distinct order in the state.[**]
The growth of commerce, meanwhile, augmented the private wealth and
consideration of the burgesses; the frequent demands of the crown
increased their public importance; and as they resembled the knights
of shires in one material circumstance, that of representing particular
bodies of men, it no longer appeared unsuitable to unite them together
in the same house, and to confound their rights and privileges.[***] [5]
Thus the third estate that of the commons, reached at last its present
form; and as the country gentlemen made thenceforwards no scruple of
appearing as deputies from the boroughs, the distinction between the
members was entirely lost, and the lower house acquired thence a great
accession of weight and importance in the kingdom. Still, however, the
office of this estate was very different from that which it has since
exercised with so much advantage to the public. Instead of checking and
controlling the authority of the king, they were naturally induced to
adhere to him, as the great fountain of law and justice, and to support
him against the power of the aristocracy, which at once was the source
of oppression to themselves, and disturbed him in the execution of the
laws. The king, in his turn, gave countenance to an order of men so
useful and so little dangerous: the peers also were obliged to pay them
some consideration: and by this means the third estate, formerly so
abject in England, as well as in all other European nations, rose by
slow degrees to their present importance; and in their progress made
arts and commerce, the necessary attendants of liberty and equality,
flourish in the kingdom.[****] [6]
* Brady's Answer to Petyt, p. 85, from the records.
** Cotton's Abridgment, p. 13.
*** See note E, at the end of the volume.
**** See note F, at the end of the volume.
What sufficiently proves that the commencement of the house of
burgesses, who are the true commons, was not an affair of chance, but
arose from the necessities of the present situation, is, that Edward,
at the very same time, summoned deputies from the inferior clergy, the
first that ever met in England,[*] and he required them to impose
taxes on their constituents for the public service. Formerly the
ecclesiastical benefices bore no part of the burdens of the state:
the pope indeed of late had often levied impositions upon them: he had
sometimes granted this power to the sovereign:[**] the king himself had
in the preceding year exacted, by menaces and violence, a very grievous
tax of half the revenues of the clergy: but as this precedent was
dangerous, and could not easily be repeated in a government which
required the consent of the subject to any extraordinary resolution,
Edward found it more prudent to assemble a lower house of convocation,
to lay before them his necessities, and to ask some supply. But on
this occasion he met with difficulties. Whether that the clergy thought
themselves the most independent body in the kingdom, or were disgusted
by the former exorbitant impositions, they absolutely refused their
assent to the king's demand of a fifth of their movables; and it was not
till a second meeting that, on their persisting in this refusal, he
was willing to accept of a tenth. The barons and knights granted him,
without hesitation, an eleventh; the burgesses, a seventh. But the
clergy still scrupled to meet on the king's writ, lest by such an
instance of obedience they should seem to acknowledge the authority of
the temporal power: and this compromise was at last fallen upon,
that the king should issue his writ to the archbishop; and that the
archbishop should, in consequence of it, summon the clergy, who, as they
then appeared to obey their spiritual superior, no longer hesitated
to meet in convocation. This expedient, however, was the cause why the
ecclesiastics were separated into two houses of convocation, under their
several archbishops, and formed not one estate, as in other countries of
Europe; which was at first the king's intention.[***] We now return to
the course of our narration.
* Archbishop Wake's State of the Church of England, p. 235
Brady of Burroughs, p. 34. Gilbert's Hist, of the Buch. p
46.
** Ann. Waverl. p. 227, 228. T. Wykes, p. 99, 120.
*** Gilbert's Hist, of the Buch. p 51, 54.
Edward, conscious of the reasons of disgust which he had given to
the king of Scots, informed of thu dispositions of that people, and
expecting the most violent effects of their resentment, which he knew he
had so well merited, employed the supplies granted him by his people in
making preparations against the hostilities of his northern neighbor.
When in this situation, he received intelligence of the treaty secretly
concluded between John and Philip; and though uneasy at this concurrence
of a French and Scottish war he resolved not to encourage his enemies by
a pusillanimous behavior, or by yielding to their united efforts.
{1296.} He summoned John to perform the duty of a vassal, and to send
him a supply of forces against an invasion from France, with which he
was then threatened: he next required that the fortresses of Berwick,
Jedburgh, and Roxburgh should be put into his hands as a security during
the war; he cited John to appear in an English parliament to be held at
Newcastle; and when none of these successive demands were complied with,
he marched northward with numerous forces, thirty thousand foot and four
thousand horse, to chastise his rebellious vassal. The Scottish nation,
who had little reliance on the vigor and abilities of their prince,
assigned him a council of twelve noblemen, in whose hands the
sovereignty was really lodged, and who put the country in the best
posture of which the present distractions would admit. A great army,
composed of forty thousand infantry, though supported only by five
hundred cavalry advanced to the frontiers; and after a fruitless attempt
upon Carlisle, marched eastwards to defend those provinces which Edward
was preparing to attack. But some of the most considerable of the
Scottish nobles, Robert Bruce, the father and son, the earls of
March and Angus, prognosticating the ruin of their country from the
concurrence of intestine divisions and a foreign invasion, endeavored
here to ingratiate themselves with Edward by an early submission; and
the king, encouraged by this favorable incident, led his army into the
enemy's country, and crossed the Tweed without opposition at Coldstream.
He then received a message from John, by which that prince, having now
procured for himself and his nation Pope Celestine's dispensation from
former oaths, renounced the homage which had been done to England,
and set Edward at defiance. This bravado was but ill supported by the
military operations of the Scots.
* Rymer, vol. ii. p. 692. Walsing. p. 64. Heming. vol. i. p.
84 Trivet, p. 286. t Heming. vol i. p. 75.
** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 607. Walsing. p. 66. Heming. vol. i.
p. 92.
Berwick was already taken by assault: Sir William Douglas, the governor,
was made prisoner: above seven thousand of the garrison were put to
the sword: and Edward, elated by this great advantage, despatched Earl
Warrenne with twelve thousand men to lay siege to Dunbar, which was
defended by the flower of the Scottish nobility.
The Scots, sensible of the importance of this place, which, if taken,
laid their whole country open to the enemy, advanced with their main
army, under the command of the earls of Buchan, Lenox, and Marre, in
order to relieve it. Warrenne, not dismayed at the great superiority
of their number, marched out to give them battle. He attacked them with
great vigor; and as undisciplined troops, when numerous, are but
the more exposed to a panic upon any alarm, he soon threw them into
confusion, and chased them off the field with great slaughter. The loss
of the Scots is said to have amounted to twenty thousand men: the Castle
of Dunbar, with all its garrison, surrendered next day to Edward, who,
after the battle, had brought up the main body of the English, and
who now proceeded with an assured confidence of success. The Castle of
Roxburgh was yielded by James, steward of Scotland; and that nobleman,
from whom is descended the royal family of Stuart, was again obliged
to swear fealty to Edward. After a feeble resistance, the Castles of
Edinburgh and Stirling opened their gates to the enemy. All the southern
parts were instantly subdued by the English; and to enable them the
better to reduce the northern, whose inaccessible situation seemed to
give them some more security, Edward sent for a strong reenforcement of
Welsh and Irish, who, being accustomed to a desultory kind of war, were
the best fitted to pursue the fugitive Scots into the recesses of their
lakes and mountains. But the spirit of the nation was already broken by
their misfortunes and the feeble and timid Baliol, discontented with his
own subjects, and overawed by the English, abandoned all those resources
which his people might yet have possessed in this extremity. He hastened
to make his submissions to Edward, he expressed the deepest penitence
for his disloyalty to his liege lord; and he made a solemn and
irrevocable resignation of his crown into the hands of that monarch.[*]
* Rymer, vol. ii. p. 718. Walsing. p. 67. Heming. vo. i p.
99 Trivet, p. 292.
Edward marched northwards to Aberdeen and Elgin, without meeting an
enemy: no Scotchman approached him but to pay him submission and do him
homage: even the turbulent Highlanders, ever refractory to their own
princes, and averse to the restraint of laws, endeavored to prevent the
devastation of their country, by giving him early proofs of obedience:
and Edward, having brought the whole kingdom to a seeming state of
tranquillity, returned to the south with his army. There was a stone to
which the popular superstition of the Scots paid the highest veneration:
all their kings were seated on it when they received the rite of
inauguration: an ancient tradition assured them that, wherever this
stone was placed, their nation should always govern: and it was
carefully preserved at Scone, as the true, palladium of their monarchy,
and their ultimate resource amidst all their misfortunes. Edward got
possession of it, and carried it with him to England.[*] He gave orders
to destroy the records, and all those monuments of antiquity which might
preserve the memory of the independence of the kingdom, and refute the
English claims of superiority. The Scots pretend that he also destroyed
all the annals preserved in their convents: but it is not probable that
a nation, so rude and unpolished, should be possessed of any history
which deserves much to be regretted. The great seal of Bailol was
broken; and that prince himself was carried prisoner to London, and
committed to custody in the Tower. Two years after he was restored
to liberty, and submitted to a voluntary banishment in France; where,
without making any further attempts for the recovery of his royalty,
he died in a private station. Earl Warrenne was left governor of
Scotland:[**] Englishmen were intrusted with the chief offices: and
Edward, flattering himself that he had attained the end of all his
wishes, and that the numerous acts of fraud and violence, which he had
practised against Scotland, had terminated in the final reduction of
that kingdom, returned with his victorious army into England.
* Walsing. p. 68. Trivet, p. 299.
** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 726. Trivet, p. 295.
An attempt, which he made about the same time, for the recovery of
Guienne, was not equally successful. He sent thither an army of seven
thousand men, under the command of his brother, the earl of Lancaster.
That prince gained at first some advantages over the French at Bordeaux:
but he was soon after seized with a distemper, of which he died at
Bayonne. The command devolved on the earl of Lincoln, who was not able
to perform any thing considerable during the rest of the campaign.[*]
But the active and ambitious spirit of Edward, while his conquests
brought such considerable accessions to the English monarchy, could not
be satisfied, so long as Guienne, the ancient patrimony of his family,
was wrested from him by the dishonest artifices of the French monarch.
Finding that the distance of that province rendered all his efforts
against it feeble and uncertain, he purposed to attack France in a
quarter where she appeared more vulnerable; and with this view he
married his daughter Elizabeth to John, earl of Holland, and at the same
time contracted an alliance with Guy, earl of Flanders, stipulated
to pay him the sum of seventy-five thousand pounds, and projected an
invasion with their united forces upon Philip, their common enemy.[**]
He hoped that, when he himself, at the head of the English, Flemish, and
Dutch armies, reenforced by his German allies, to whom he had promised
or remitted considerable sums, should enter die frontiers of France,
and threaten the capital itself, Philip would at last be obliged to
relinquish his acquisitions, and purchase peace by the restitution
of Guienne. But in order to set this great machine in movement,
considerable supplies were requisite from the parliament; and Edward,
without much difficulty, obtained from the barons and knights a new
grant of a twelfth of all their movables, and from the boroughs that
of an eighth. The great and almost unlimited power of the king over the
latter, enabled him to throw the heavier part of the burden on them;
and the prejudices which he seems always to have entertained against the
church, on account of the former zeal of the clergy for the Mountfort
faction, made him resolve to load them with still more considerable
impositions, and he required of them a fifth of their movables. But he
here met with an opposition, which for some time disconcerted all his
measures, and engaged him in enterprises that were somewhat dangerous to
him; and would have proved fatal to any of his predecessors.
* Homing, vol. i. p. 72, 73, 74.
** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 761. Walsing, p. 68.
Boniface VIII., who had succeeded Celestine in the papal throne, was a
man of the most lofty and enterprising spirit; and though not endowed
with that severity of manners which commonly accompanies ambition in men
of his order, he was determined to carry the authority of the tiara,
and his dominion over the temporal power, to as great a height as it
had ever attained in any former period. Sensible that his immediate
predecessors, by oppressing the church in every province of Christendom,
had extremely alienated the affections of the clergy, and had afforded
the civil magistrate a pretence for laying like impositions on
ecclesiastical revenues, he attempted to resume the former station of
the sovereign pontiff, and to establish himself as the common protector
of the spiritual order against all invaders. For this purpose he issued
very early in his pontificate a general bull, prohibiting all princes
from levying without his consent any taxes upon the clergy, and all
clergymen from submitting to such impositions; and he threatened both of
them with the penalties of excommunication in case of disobedience.[*]
This important edict is said to have been procured by the solicitation
of Robert de Win chelsey, archbishop of Canterbury, who intended to
employ it as a rampart against the violent extortions which the church
had felt from Edward, and the still greater, which that prince's
multiplied necessities gave them reason to apprehend. When a demand,
therefore, was made on the clergy of a fifth of their movables, a tax
which was probably much more grievous than a fifth of their revenue,
as their lands were mostly stocked with their cattle, and cultivated by
their villains, the clergy took shelter under the bull of Pope Boniface
and pleaded conscience in refusing compliance.[**] The king came not
immediately to extremities on this repulse; but after locking up all
their granaries and barns, and prohibiting all rent to be paid them, he
appointed a new synod, to confer with him upon his demand. The primate,
not dismayed by these proofs of Edward's resolution, here plainly told
him that the clergy owed obedience to two sovereigns, their spiritual
and their temporal; but their duty bound them to a much stricter
attachment to the former than to the latter: they could not comply with
his commands, (for such, in some measure, the requests of the crown
were then deemed,) in contradiction to the express prohibition of the
sovereign pontiff.[***]
* Rymer, vol. ii. p. 706. Heming. vol. i. p. 104.
** Heming, vol., i. p. 107. Trivet, p. 296. Chron. Dunst.
vol. ii p. 652
*** Hemming. vol. i. p. 107.
{1297.} The clergy had seen, in many instances, that Edward paid little
regard to those numerous privileges on which they set so high a value.
He had formerly seized, in an arbitrary manner, all the money and plate
belonging to the churches and convents, and had applied them to the
public service;[*] and they could not but expect more violent treatment
on this sharp refusal, grounded on such dangerous principles. Instead
of applying to the pope for a relaxation of his bull, he resolved
immediately to employ the power in his hands; and he told the
ecclesiastics that, since they refused to support the civil government,
they were unworthy to receive any benefit from it; and he would
accordingly put them out of the protection of the laws. This vigorous
measure was immediately carried into execution.[**] Orders were issued
to the judges to receive no cause brought before them by the clergy; to
hear and decide all causes in which they were defendants; to do every
man justice against them; to do them justice against nobody.[***] The
ecclesiastics soon found themselves in the most miserable situation
imaginable. They could not remain in their own houses or convents for
want of subsistence; if they went abroad in quest of maintenance, they
were dismounted, robbed of their horses and clothes, abused by every
ruffian, and no redress could be obtained by them for the most violent
injury. The primate himself was attacked on the highway, was stripped
of his equipage and furniture, and was at last reduced to board himself
with a single servant in the house of a country clergyman.[****]
The king, meanwhile, remained an indifferent spectator of all these
violences: and without employing his officers in committing any
immediate injury on the priests, which might have appeared invidious and
oppressive, he took ample vengeance on them for their obstinate refusal
of his demands. Though the archbishop issued a general sentence of
excommunication against all who attacked the persons or property
of ecclesiastics, it was not regarded; while Edward enjoyed the
satisfaction of seeing the people become the voluntary instruments of
his justice against them, and inure themselves to throw off that
respect for the sacred order by which they had so long been overawed and
governed.
* Walsing. p. 65. Heming. vol. i. p. 51.
** Walsing. p. 69. Heming. vol. i. p. 107.
*** M. West. p. 429.
**** Heming. vol. i. p. 109.
The spirits of the clergy were at last broken by this harsh treatment.
Besides that the whole province of York, which lay nearest the danger
that still hung over them from the Scots, voluntarily, from the first,
voted a fifth of their movables, the bishops of Salisbury, Ely, and some
others, made a composition for the secular clergy within their dioceses;
and they agreed not to pay the fifth, which would have been an act of
disobedience to Boniface's bull, but to deposit a sum equivalent in some
church appointed them, whence it was taken by the king's officers.[*]
Many particular convents and clergymen made payment of a like sum,
and received the king's protection.[**] Those who had not ready money,
entered into recognizances for the payment. And there was scarcely found
one ecclesiastic in the kingdom who seemed willing to suffer, for the
sake of religious privileges, this new species of martyrdom, the most
tedious and languishing of any, the most mortifying to spiritual pride,
and not rewarded by that crown of glory which the church holds up with
such ostentation to her devoted adherents.
But as the money granted by parliament, though considerable, was
not sufficient to supply the king's necessities, and that levied by
compositions with the clergy came in slowly, Edward was obliged, for the
obtaining of further supply, to exert his arbitrary power, and to lay
an oppressive hand on all orders of men in the kingdom. He limited the
merchants in the quantity of wool allowed to be exported; and at the
same time forced them to pay him a duty of forty shillings a sack, which
was computed to be above the third of the value.[***] He seized all the
rest of the wool, as well as all the leather of the kingdom, into his
hands, and disposed of these commodities for his own benefit;[****] he
required the sheriffs of each county to supply him with two thousand
quarters of wheat, and as many of oats, which he permitted them to
seize wherever they could find them: the cattle and other commodities
necessary for supplying his army, were laid hold of without the consent
of the owners;[*****] and though he promised to pay afterwards the
equivalent of all these goods, men saw but little probability that a
prince, who submitted so little to the limitations of law, could ever,
amidst his multiplied necessities, be reduced to a strict observance of
his engagements.
* Heming. vol. i. p. 108, 109. Chron. Dunst. p. 653.
** Chron. Dunst. vol. ii. p. 654.
*** Walsing. p. 69. Trivet, p. 296.
**** Heming, vol. i. p. 52, 110.
***** Heming. vol. i. p. 111.
He showed at the same time an equal disregard to the principles of the
feudal law, by which all the lands of his kingdom were held: in order to
increase his army, and enable him to support that great effort which
he intended to make against France, he required the attendance of every
proprietor of land possessed of twenty pounds a year, even though he
held not of the crown, and was not obliged by his tenure to perform any
such service.[*]
These acts of violence and of arbitrary power, notwithstanding the great
personal regard generally borne to the king, bred murmurs in every order
of men; and it was not long ere some of the great nobility, jealous of
their own privileges, as well as of national liberty, gave countenance
and authority to these complaints. Edward assembled on the sea-coast an
army which he purposed to send over to Gascony, while he himself should
in person make an impression on the side of Flanders; and he intended to
put these forces under the command of Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford,
the constable, and Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk, the mareschal of
England. But these two powerful earls refused to execute his commands,
and affirmed that they were only obliged by their office to attend his
person in the wars. A violent altercation ensued: and the king, in the
height of his passion, addressing himself to the constable, exclaimed,
"Sir Earl, by God, you shall either go or hang." "By God, Sir King,"
replied Hereford, "I will neither go nor hang."[**] And he immediately
departed with the mareschal and above thirty other considerable barons.
Upon this opposition, the king laid aside the project of an expedition
against Guienne, and assembled the forces which he himself purposed to
transport into Flanders. But the two earls, irritated in the contest
and elated by impunity, pretending that none of their ancestors had ever
served in that country, refused to perform the duty of their office in
mustering the army.[***] The king, now finding it advisable to proceed
with moderation, instead of attainting the earls, who possessed their
dignities by hereditary right, appointed Thomas de Berkeley and Geoffrey
de Geyneville to act in that emergence as constable and mareschal.[****]
* Walsing. p. 69.
** Heming. voL i. p. 112.
*** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 783. Walsing. p. 70.
**** M. West, p. 430.
He endeavored to reconcile himself with the church; took the primate
again into favor,[*] made him, in conjunction with Reginald de Grey,
tutor to the prince, whom he intended to appoint guardian of the kingdom
during his absence; and he even assembled a great number of the nobility
in Westminster Hall, to whom he deigned to make an apology for his past
conduct. He pleaded the urgent necessities of the crown; his extreme
want of money; his engagements from honor as well as interest to support
his foreign allies; and he promised, if ever he returned in safety, to
redress all their grievances, to restore the execution of the laws,
and to make all his subjects compensation for the losses which they had
sustained. Meanwhile, he begged them to suspend their animosities; to
judge of him by his future conduct, of which, he hoped, he should be
more master; to remain faithful to his government, or, if he perished
in the present war, to preserve their allegiance to his son and
successor.[**]
There were, certainly, from the concurrence of discontents among the
great, and grievances of the people, materials sufficient in any
other period to have kindled a civil war in England: but the vigor and
abilities of Edward kept every one in awe; and his dexterity in stopping
on the brink of danger, and retracting the measures to which he had been
pushed by his violent temper and arbitrary principles, saved the nation
from so great a calamity. The two great earls dared not to break
out into open violence: they proceeded no further than framing a
remonstrance, which was delivered to the king at Winchelsea, when he was
ready to embark for Flanders. They there complained of the violations
of the Great Charter, and that of forests; the violent seizure of
corn, leather, cattle, and, above all, of wool, a commodity which they
affirmed to be equal in value to half the lands of the kingdom; the
arbitrary imposition of forty shillings a sack on the small quantity
of wool allowed to be exported by the merchants; and they claimed an
immediate redress of all these grievances.[***] The king told them that
the greater part of his council were now at a distance, and without
their advice he could not deliberate on measures of so great
importance.[****]
* Heming. vol. i. p. 113.
** Heming. vol. i. p. 114. M. West. p. 430.
*** Walsing. p. 72. Heming. vol. i. p. 115. Trivet, p. 302.
**** Walsing. p. 72. Heming. vol. i. p. 117. Trivet, p. 304.
But the constable and mareschal, with the barons of their party resolved
to take advantage of Edward's absence and to obtain an explicit assent
to their demands. When summoned to attend the parliament at London, they
came with a great body of cavalry and infantry; and before they would
enter the city, required that the gates should be put into their
custody.[*] The primate, who secretly favored all their pretensions,
advised the council to comply; and thus they became masters both of
the young prince and of the resolutions of parliament. Their demands,
however, were moderate, and such as sufficiently justify the purity of
their intentions in all their past measures: they only required that the
two charters should receive a solemn confirmation; that a clause should
be added to secure the nation forever against all impositions and taxes
without consent of parliament; and that they themselves, and their
adherents, who had refused to attend the king into Flanders, should be
pardoned for the offence, and should be again received into favor.[**]
The prince of Wales and his council assented to these terms, and the
charters were sent over to the king in Flanders, to be there confirmed
by him. Edward felt the utmost reluctance to this measure, which, he
apprehended, would for the future impose fetters on his conduct, and set
limits to his lawless authority. On various pretences he delayed
three days giving any answer to the deputies; and when the pernicious
consequences of his refusal were represented to him, he was at last
obliged, after many internal struggles, to affix his seal to the
charters, as also to the clause that bereaved him of the power which he
had hitherto assumed, of imposing arbitrary taxes upon the people.
That we may finish at once this interesting transaction concerning the
settlement of the charters, we shall briefly mention the subsequent
events which relate to it. The constable and mareschal, informed of the
king's compliance, were satisfied, and not only ceased from disturbing
the government, but assisted the regency with their power against
the Scots, who had risen in arms, and had thrown off the yoke of
England.[***]
* Heming. vol. i. p. 138.
** Walsing, p. 73. Heming. vol. i. p. 138, 139 140, 141.
Trivet, p. 308.
*** Walsing, p. 74. Heming. vol. i. p. 143.
But being sensible that the smallest pretence would suffice to make
Edward retract these detested laws, which, though they had often
received the sanction both of king and parliament, and had been
acknowledged during three reigns, were never yet deemed to have
sufficient validity, they insisted that he should again confirm them
on his return to England, and should thereby renounce all plea which
he might derive from his residing in a foreign country when he formerly
affixed his seal to them.[*] It appeared that they judged aright of
Edward's character and intentions: he delayed this confirmation as long
as possible; and, when the fear of worse consequences obliged him
again to comply, he expressly added a salvo for his royal dignity
or prerogative, which in effect enervated the whole force of the
charters.[**] The two earls and their adherents left the parliament in
disgust; and the king was constrained on a future occasion to grant to
the people, without any subterfuge, a pure and absolute confirmation
of those laws[***] which were so much the object of their passionate
affection. Even further securities were then provided for the
establishment of national privileges. Three knights were appointed to be
chosen in each county, and were invested with the power of punishing,
by fine and imprisonment, every transgression or violation of the
charters;[****] a precaution which, though it was soon disused, as
encroaching too much on royal prerogative, proves the attachment
which the English in that age bore to liberty, and their well-grounded
jealousy of the arbitrary disposition of Edward.
The work, however, was not yet entirely finished and complete. In order
to execute the lesser charter, it was requisite, by new perambulations,
to set bounds to the royal forests, and to disafforest all land which
former encroachments had comprehended within their limits. Edward
discovered the same reluctance to comply with this equitable demand; and
it was not till after many delays on his part, and many solicitations
and requests, and even menaces of war and violence,[*****] on the part
of the barons, that the perambulations were made, and exact boundaries
fixed by a jury in each county to the extent of his forests.[******] Had
not his ambitious and active temper raised him so many foreign enemies,
and obliged him to have recourse so often to the assistance of his
subjects, it is not likely that those concessions could ever have been
extorted from him.
* Heming. vol. i. p. 159.
** Heming. vol. i. p. 167, 168.
*** Heming. vol. i. p. 168.
**** Heming. vol. i. p. 170.
***** Walsing. p. 80. We are told by Tyrrel, (vol. ii. p. 145,)
from the Chronicle of St. Albans, that the barons, not
content with the execution of the charter of forests,
demanded of Edward as high terms as had been imposed on his
father by the earl of Leicester; but no other historian
mentions this particular.
****** Heming. vol. i. p. 171. M. West. p. 431, 433.
But while the people, after so many successful struggles, deemed
themselves happy in the secure possession of their privileges, they were
surprised in 1305 to find that Edward had secretly applied to Rome, and
had procured from that mercenary court an absolution from all the oaths
and engagements, which he had so often reiterated, to observe both the
charters. There are some historians,[*] so credulous as to imagine, that
this perilous step was taken by him for no other purpose than to acquire
the merit of granting a new confirmation of the charters, as he did soon
after; and a confirmation so much the more unquestionable, as it could
never after be invalidated by his successors, on pretence of any force
or violence which had been imposed upon him. But, besides that this
might have been done with a better grace if he had never applied for any
such absolution, the whole tenor of his conduct proves him to be little
susceptible of such refinements in patriotism; and this very deed
itself, in which he anew confirmed the charters, carries on the face
of it a very opposite presumption. Though he ratified the charters
in general, he still took advantage of the papal bull so far as to
invalidate the late perambulations of the forests, which had been made
with such care and attention, and to reserve to himself the power,
in case of favorable incidents, to extend as much as formerly those
arbitrary jurisdictions. If the power was not in fact made use of, we
can only conclude that the favorable incidents did not offer.
Thus, after the contests of near a whole century, and these ever
accompanied with violent jealousies, often with public convulsions, the
Great Charter was finally established; and the English nation have the
honor of extorting, by their perseverance, this concession from
the ablest, the most warlike, and the most ambitious of all their
princes.[**] It is computed that above thirty confirmations of the
charter were done at different times.
* Brady, vol. ii. p. 84. Carte, vol. ii. p. 292.
** It must, however, be remarked, that the king never
forgave the chief actors in this transaction; and he found
means afterwards to oblige both the constable and mareschal
to resign their offices into his hands. The former received
a new grant of it; but the office of mareschal given to
Thomas of Brotherton, the king's second son times required
of several kings, and granted by them in full parliament; a
precaution which, while it discovers some ignorance of the
true nature of law and government, proves a laudable
jealousy of national privileges in the people, and an
extreme anxiety lest contrary precedents should ever be
pleaded as an authority for infringing them. Accordingly we
find that, though arbitrary practices often prevailed, and
were even able to establish themselves into settled customs,
the validity of the Great Charter was never afterwards
formally disputed; and that grant was still regarded as the
basis of English government, and the sure rule by which the
authority of every custom was to be tried and canvassed. The
jurisdiction of the star-chamber, martial law, imprisonment
by warrants from the privy-council, and other practices of a
like nature, though established for several centuries, were
scarcely ever allowed by the English to be parts of their
constitution: the affection of the nation for liberty still
prevailed over all precedent, and even all political
reasoning; the exercise of these powers, after being long
the source of secret murmurs among the people, was, in
fulness of time, solemnly abolished as illegal, at least as
oppressive, by the whole legislative authority.
To return to the period from which this account of the charters has led
us: though the king's impatience to appear at the head of his armies
in Flanders made him overlook all considerations, either of domestic
discontents or of commotions among the Scots, his embarkation had been
so long retarded by the various obstructions thrown in his way, that
he lost the proper season for action, and after his arrival made no
progress against the enemy. The king of France, taking advantage of his
absence, had broken into the Low Countries; had defeated the Flemings
in the battle of Furnes; had made himself master of Lisle, St. Omer,
Courtrai, and Ypres; and seemed in a situation to take full vengeance on
the earl of Flanders, his rebellious vassal. But Edward, seconded by an
English army of fifty thousand men, (for this is the number assigned
by historians,[*]) was able to stop the career of his victories; and
Philip, finding all the weak resources of his kingdom already exhausted,
began to dread a reverse of fortune, and to apprehend an invasion on
France itself.
* Helming, vol i. p 146.
The king of England, on the other hand, disappointed of assistance from
Adolph, king of the Romans, which he had purchased at a very high price,
and finding many urgent calls for his presence in England, was desirous
of ending, on any honorable terms, a war which served only to divert his
force from the execution of more important projects. This disposition
in both monarchs soon produced a cessation of hostilities for two years;
and engaged them to submit their differences to the arbitration of Pope
Boniface.
{1298.} Boniface was among the last of the sovereign pontiffs that
exercised an authority over the temporal jurisdiction of princes; and
these exorbitant pretensions, which he had been tempted to assume from
the successful example of his predecessors, but of which the season was
now past, involved him in so many calamities, and were attended with
so unfortunate a catastrophe, that they have been secretly abandoned,
though never openly relinquished, by his successors in the apostolic
chair. Edward and Philip, equally jealous of papal claims, took care
to insert in their reference, that Boniface was made judge of the
difference by their consent, as a private person, not by any right of
his pontificate; and the pope, without seeming to be offended at this
mortifying clause, proceeded to give a sentence between them, in which
they both acquiesced.[*] He brought them to agree, that their union
should be cemented by a double marriage; that of Edward himself, who was
now a widower, with Margaret, Philip's sister, and that of the prince of
Wales with Isabella, daughter of that monarch.[**]
* Rymer, vol. ii. p. 817. Heining. vol. i. p. 149. Trivet,
p. 310
** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 823
Philip was likewise willing to restore Guienne to the English, which he
had indeed no good pretence to detain; but he insisted that the Scots,
and their king, John Baliol, should, as his allies, be comprehended in
the treaty, and should be restored to their liberty. The difference.,
after several disputes, was compromised, by their making mutual
sacrifices to each other. Edward agreed to abandon his ally the earl of
Flanders, on condition that Philip should treat in like manner his ally
the king of Scots. The prospect of conquering these two countries,
whose situation made them so commodious an acquisition to the respective
kingdoms, prevailed over all other considerations; and though they
were both finally disappointed in their hopes, their conduct was very
reconcilable to the principles of an interested policy. This was the
first specimen which the Scots had of the French alliance, and which was
exactly conformable to what a smaller power must always expect, when
it blindly attaches itself to the will and fortunes of a greater. That
unhappy people now engaged in a brave though unequal contest for their
liberties, were totally abandoned, by the ally in whom they reposed
their final confidence, to the will of an imperious conqueror.
Though England, as well as other European countries, was, in its ancient
state, very ill qualified for making, and still worse for maintaining
conquests, Scotland was so much inferior in its internal force, and
was so ill situated for receiving foreign succors, that it is no wonder
Edward, an ambitious monarch, should have cast his eye on so tempting
an acquisition, which brought both security and greatness to his native
country. But the instruments whom he employed to maintain his dominion
over the northern kingdom were not happily chosen, and acted not with
the requisite prudence and moderation, in reconciling the Scottish
nation to a yoke which they bore with such extreme reluctance. Warrenne,
retiring into England on account of his bad state of health, left the
administration entirely in the hands of Ormesby, who was appointed
justiciary of Scotland, and Cressingham, who bore the office of
treasurer; and a small military force remained, to secure the precarious
authority of those ministers. The latter had no other object than the
amassing of money by rapine and injustice: the former distinguished
himself by the rigor and severity of his temper: and both of them,
treating the Scots as a conquered people, made them sensible, too early,
of the grievous servitude into which they had fallen. As Edward required
that all the proprietors of land should swear fealty to him, every one
who refused or delayed giving this testimony of submission, was outlawed
and imprisoned, and punished without mercy; and the bravest and most
generous spirits of the nation were thus exasperated to the highest
degree against the English government.[*]
* Walsing. p. 70. Heming, vol. i. p. 118. Trivet, p. 299.
There was one William Wallace, of a small fortune, but descended of an
ancient family in the west of Scotland, whose courage prompted him to
undertake, and enabled him finally to accomplish, the desperate attempt
of delivering his native country from the dominion of foreigners. This
man, whose valorous exploits are the object of just admiration, but
have been much exaggerated by the traditions of his countrymen, had been
provoked by the insolence of an English officer to put him to death;
and finding himself obnoxious on that account to the severity of the
administration, he fled into the woods, and offered himself as a leader
to all those whom their crimes, or bad fortune, or avowed hatred of the
English, had reduced to a like necessity. He was endowed with gigantic
force of body, with heroic courage of mind, with disinterested
magnanimity, with incredible patience, and ability to bear hunger,
fatigue, and all the severities of the seasons; and he soon acquired,
among those desperate fugitives, that authority to which his virtues
so justly entitled him. Beginning with small attempts, in which he was
always successful, he gradually proceeded to more momentous enterprises;
and he discovered equal caution in securing his followers, and valor in
annoying the enemy. By his knowledge of the country he was enabled,
when pursued, to insure a retreat among the morasses, or forests,
or mountains; and again collecting his dispersed associates, he
unexpectedly appeared in another quarter, and surprised, and routed, and
put to the sword the unwary English. Every day brought accounts of his
great actions, which were received with no less favor by his countrymen
than terror by the enemy: all those who thirsted after military fame
were desirous to partake of his renown: his successful valor seemed to
vindicate the nation from the ignominy into which it had fallen, by its
tame submission to the English; and though no nobleman of note ventured
as yet to join his party, he had gained a general confidence and
attachment, which birth and fortune are not alone able to confer.
Wallace, having, by many fortunate enterprises, brought the valor of his
followers to correspond to his own, resolved to strike a decisive blow
against the English government; and he concerted the plan of attacking
Ormesby at Scone; and of taking vengeance on him for all the violence
and tyranny of which he had been guilty. The justiciary, apprised of his
intentions, fled hastily into England: all the other officers of that
nation imitated his example: their terror added alacrity and courage to
the Scots, who betook themselves to arms in every quarter; many of the
principal barons, and among the rest Sir William Douglas,[*] openly
countenanced Wallace's party: Robert Bruce secretly favored and promoted
the same cause: and the Scots, shaking off their fetters, prepared
themselves to defend, by a united effort, that liberty which they had so
unexpectedly recovered from the hands of their oppressors.
* Walsing. p. 70. vol. i. p. 118.
But Warrenne, collecting an army of forty thousand men in the north of
England, determined to reestablish his authority; and he endeavored,
by the celerity of his armament and of his march, to compensate for his
past negligence, which had enabled the Scots to throw off the English
government. He suddenly entered Annandale, and came up with the enemy
at Irvine, before their forces were fully collected, and before they
had put themselves in a posture of defence. Many of the Scottish nobles,
alarmed with their dangerous situation, here submitted to the English,
renewed their oaths of fealty, promised to deliver hostages for their
good behavior, and received a pardon for past offences.[*] Others, who
had not yet declared themselves, such as the steward of Scotland and
the earl of Lenox, joined, though with reluctance, the English army,
and waited a favorable opportunity for embracing the cause of their
distressed countrymen. But Wallace, whose authority over his retainers
was more fully confirmed by the absence of the great nobles, persevered
obstinately in his purpose; and finding himself unable to give battle
to the enemy, he marched northwards, with an intention of prolonging the
war, and of turning to his advantage the situation of that mountainous
and barren country. When Warrenne advanced to Stirling, he found Wallace
encamped at Cambuskenneth, on the opposite banks of the Forth; and being
continually urged by the impatient Cressingham, who was actuated both by
personal and national animosities against the Scots,[**] he prepared
to attack them in that position, which Wallace, no less prudent than
courageous, had chosen for his army.[***]
* Heming. vol. i. p. 121, 22.
** Heming. vol. i. p. 127.
*** On the 11th of September, 1297.
In spite of the remonstrances of Sir Richard Lundy, a Scotchman of birth
and family, who sincerely adhered to the English, he ordered his army
to pass a bridge which lay over the Forth; but he was soon convinced,
by fatal experience, of the error of his conduct. Wallace, allowing
such numbers of the English to pass as he thought proper, attacked them
before they were fully formed, put them to rout, pushed part of them
into the river, destroyed the rest by the edge of the sword, and
gained a complete victory over them.[*] Among the slain was Cressingham
himself, whose memory was so extremely odious to the Scots, that they
flayed his dead body, and made saddles and girths of his skin.[**]
Warrenne, finding the remainder of his army much dismayed by this
misfortune, was obliged again to evacuate the kingdom, and retire into
England. The Castles of Roxburgh and Berwick, ill fortified and feebly
defended, fell soon after into the hands of the Scots.
Wallace, universally revered as the deliverer of his country, now
received, from the hands of his followers, the dignity of regent or
guardian under the captive Baliol; and finding that the disorders
of war, as well as the unfavorable seasons, had produced a famine in
Scotland, he urged his army to march into England, to subsist at the
expense of the enemy, and to revenge all past injuries, by retaliating
on that hostile nation. The Scots, who deemed everything possible under
such a leader, joyfully attended his call. Wallace, breaking into the
northern counties during the winter season, laid every place waste with
fire and sword; and after extending on all sides, without opposition,
the fury of his ravages as far as the bishopric of Durham, he returned,
loaded with spoils and crowned with glory, into his own country.[***]
The disorders which at that time prevailed in England, from the
refractory behavior of the constable and mareschal, made it impossible
to collect an army sufficient to resist the enemy, and exposed the
nation to this loss and dishonor.
* Walsing. p. 73. Heming. vol. i. p. 127, 128, 129. Trivet,
p. 807.
** Heming. vol. i. p. 130.
*** Heming. vol. i. p. 131, 132, 136.
But Edward, who received in Flanders intelligence of these events, and
had already concluded a truce with France, now hastened over to England,
in certain hopes, by his activity and valor, not only of wiping off this
disgrace, but of recovering the important conquest of Scotland, which
he always regarded as the chief glory and advantage of his reign. He
appeased the murmurs of his people by concessions and promises:
he restored to the citizens of London the election of their own
magistrates, of which they had been bereaved in the latter part of his
father's reign: he ordered strict inquiry to be made concerning the corn
and other goods which had been violently seized before his departure,
as if he intended to pay the value to the owners:[*] and making public
professions of confirming and observing the charters he regained the
confidence of the discontented nobles. Having by all these popular arts
rendered himself entirely master of his people, he collected the whole
military force of England, Wales, and Ireland, and marched with an army
of near a hundred thousand combatants to the northern frontiers.
Nothing could have enabled the Scots to resist, but for one season, so
mighty a power, except an entire union among themselves; but as they
were deprived of their king, whose personal qualities, even when he was
present, appeared so contemptible, and had left among his subjects no
principle of attachment to him or his family, factions, jealousies, and
animosities unavoidably arose among the great, and distracted all their
councils. The elevation of Wallace, though purchased by so great merit,
and such eminent services, was the object of envy to the nobility, who
repined to see a private gentleman raised above them by his rank, and
still more by his glory and reputation. Wallace himself, sensible of
their jealousy and dreading the ruin of his country from those intestine
discords, voluntarily resigned his authority, and retained only the
command over that body of his followers who, being accustomed to victory
under his standard, refused to follow into the field any other leader.
The chief power devolved on the steward of Scotland, and Cummin of
Badenoch; men of eminent birth, under whom the great chieftains were
more willing to serve in defence of their country. The two Scottish
commanders, collecting their several forces from every quarter, fixed
their station at Falkirk, and purposed there to abide the assault of the
English. Wallace was at the head of a third body, which acted under his
command. The Scottish army placed their pikemen along their front; lined
the intervals between the three bodies with archers; and dreading the
great superiority of the English in cavalry, endeavored to secure their
front by palisadoes, tied together by ropes.[**] In this disposition
they expected the approach of the enemy.
* Rymer, vol. ii. p. 813.
** Walsing. p. 75. Heming, vol. i. p. 163.
The king, when he arrived in sight of the Scots, was pleased with the
prospect of being able, by one decisive stroke, to determine the fortune
of the war; and dividing his army also into three bodies, he led them
to the attack. The English archers, who began about this time to surpass
those of other nations, first chased the Scottish bowmen off the field;
then pouring in their arrows among the pikemen, who were cooped up
within their intrenchments, threw them into disorder, and rendered the
assault of the English pikemen and cavalry more easy and successful.
The whole Scottish army was broken, and chased off the field with great
slaughter; which the historians, attending more to the exaggerated
relations of the populace than to the probability of things, make amount
to fifty or sixty thousand men.[*] It is only certain, that the Scots
never suffered a greater loss in any action, nor one which seemed to
threaten more inevitable ruin to their country.
* Walsing. p. 76. T. Wykes, p. 127. Heming vol. i. p. 163,
164, 165. Trivet (p. 313) says only twenty thousand. M.
West. (p. 431) says forty thousand.
In this general rout of the army, Wallace's military skill and presence
of mind enabled him to keep his troops entire and retiring behind the
Carron, he marched leisurely along the banks of that small river, which
protected him from the enemy. Young Bruce, who had already given many
proofs of his aspiring genius, but who served hitherto in the English
army, appeared on the opposite banks, and distinguishing the Scottish
chief, as well by his majestic port as by the intrepid activity of his
behavior, called out to him, and desired a short conference. He here
represented to Wallace the fruitless and ruinous enterprise in which he
was engaged; and endeavored to bend his inflexible spirit to submission
under superior power and superior fortune: he insisted on the unequal
contest between a weak state, deprived of its head and agitated by
intestine discord, and a mighty nation, conducted by the ablest and most
martial monarch of the age, and possessed of every resource either for
protracting the war, or for pushing it with vigor and activity; if the
love of his country were his motive for perseverence, his obstinacy
tended only to prolong her misery; if he carried his views to private
grandeur and ambition, he might reflect that, even if Edward should
withdraw his armies, it appeared from past experience, that so many
haughty nobles, proud of the preeminence of their families, would never
submit to personal merit, whose superiority they were less inclined
to regard as an object of admiration than as a reproach and injury
to themselves. To these exhortations Wallace replied that, if he had
hitherto acted alone, as the champion of his country, it was solely
because no second or competitor, or what he rather wished, no leader,
had yet appeared to place himself in that honorable station: that the
blame lay entirely on the nobility, and chiefly on Bruce himself, who,
uniting personal merit to dignity of family, had deserted the post which
both nature and fortune, by such powerful calls, invited him to assume:
that the Scots, possessed of such a head, would, by their unanimity
and concord, have surmounted the chief difficulty under which they now
labored, and might hope, notwithstanding their present losses, to oppose
successfully all the power and abilities of Edward: that heaven itself
could not set a more glorious prize before the eyes either of virtue or
ambition, than to join in one object, the acquisition of royalty with
the defence of national independence: and that as the interests of his
country, no more than those of a brave man, could never be sincerely
cultivated by a sacrifice of liberty, he himself was determined, as
far as possible, to prolong, not her misery, but her freedom, and was
desirous that his own life, as well as the existence of the nation,
might terminate when they could no otherwise be preserved than by
receiving the chains of a haughty victor. The gallantry of these
sentiments, though delivered by an armed enemy, struck the generous mind
of Bruce: the flame was conveyed from the breast of one hero to that
of another: he repented of his engagements with Edward; and opening
his eyes to the honorable path pointed out to him by Wallace, secretly
determined to seize the first opportunity of embracing the cause,
however desperate, of his oppressed country.[*]
* This story is told by all the Scotch writers; though it
must be owned that Trivet and Hemingford, authors of good
credit, both agree that Bruce was not at that time in
Edward's army.
{1299.} The subjection of Scotland, notwithstanding this great victory
of Edward, was not yet entirely completed. The English army, after
reducing the southern provinces, was obliged to retire for want of
provisions; and left the northern counties in the hands of the natives.
The Scots, no less enraged at their present defeat than elated by their
past victories, still maintained the contest for liberty; but being
fully sensible of the great inferiority of their force, they endeavored,
by applications to foreign courts, to procure to themselves some
assistance. The supplications of the Scottish ministers were rejected by
Philip; but were more successful with the court of Rome.
{1300.} Boniface, pleased with an occasion of exerting his authority,
wrote a letter to Edward, exhorting him to put a stop to his oppressions
in Scotland, and displaying all the proofs, such as they had probably
been furnished him by the Scots themselves, for the ancient independence
of that kingdom.[*] Among other arguments hinted at above, he mentioned
the treaty conducted and finished by Edward himself, for the marriage
of his son with the heiress of Scotland; a treaty which would have been
absurd, had he been superior lord of the kingdom, and had possessed
by the feudal law the right of disposing of his ward in marriage. He
mentioned several other striking facts, which fell within the compass of
Edward's own knowledge particularly that Alexander, when he did homage
to the king, openly and expressly declared in his presence, that he
swore fealty not for his crown, but for the lands which he held in
England: and the pope's letter might have passed for a reasonable one,
had he not subjoined his own claim to be liege lord of Scotland; a claim
which had not once been heard of, but which, with a singular confidence,
he asserted to be full, entire, and derived from the most remote
antiquity. The affirmative style, which had been so successful with
him and his predecessors in spiritual contests, was never before abused
after a more egregious manner in any civil controversy.
{1301.} The reply which Edward made to Boniface's letter, contains
particulars no less singular and remarkable.[**] He there proves the
superiority of England by historical facts, deduced from the period of
Brutus, the Trojan, who, he said, founded the British monarchy in the
age of Eli and Samuel: he supports his position by all the events which
passed in the island before the arrival of the Romans: and after laying
great stress on the extensive dominions and heroic victories of King
Arthur, he vouchsafes at last to descend to the time of Edward the
Elder, with which, in his speech to the states of Scotland, he had
chosen to begin his claim of superiority. He asserts it to be a fact,
"notorious and confirmed by the records of antiquity," that the English
monarchs had often conferred the kingdom of Scotland on their own
subjects, had dethroned these vassal kings when unfaithful to them; and
had substituted others in their stead.
* Rymer, vol. ii. p. 844.
** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 863.
He displays with great pomp the full and complete homage which William
had done to Henry II.; without mentioning the formal abolition of that
extorted deed by King Richard, and the renunciation of all future claims
of the same nature. Yet this paper he begins with a solemn appeal to
the Almighty, the searcher of hearts for his own firm persuasion of
the justice of his claim; and no less than a hundred and four barons,
assembled in parliament at Lincoln, concur in maintaining before the
pope, under their seals, the validity of these pretensions.[*] At the
same time, however, they take care to inform Boniface, that, though they
had justified their cause before him, they did not acknowledge him for
their judge: the crown of England was free and sovereign: they had sworn
to maintain all its royal prerogatives, and would never permit the king
himself, were he willing, to relinquish its independency.
* Rymer, vol. ii. p. 873. Walsing. p. 85. Heming. vol. i. p.
186. Trivet, p. 330, M. West, p 443.
{1302.} That neglect, almost total, of truth and justice, which
sovereign states discover in their transactions with each other, is
an evil universal and inveterate; is one great source of the misery
to which the human race is continually exposed; and it may be doubted
whether, in many instances, it be found in the end to contribute to
the interests of those princes themselves, who thus sacrifice their
integrity to their politics. As few monarchs have lain under stronger
temptations to violate the principles of equity than Edward in his
transactions with Scotland, so never were they violated with less
scruple and reserve: yet his advantages were hitherto precarious and
uncertain, and the Scots, once roused to arms and inured to war, began
to appear a formidable enemy, even to this military and ambitious
monarch. They chose John Cummin for their regent; and, not content
with maintaining their independence in the northern parts, they made
incursions into the southern counties, which Edward imagined he had
totally subdued. John de Segrave, whom he had left guardian of Scotland,
led an army to oppose them; and lying at Roslin, near Edinburgh, sent
out his forces in three divisions, to provide themselves with forage and
subsistence from the neighborhood.
{1303.} One party was suddenly attacked by the regent and Sir Simon
Fraser; and being unprepared, was immediately routed and pursued with
great slaughter. The few that escaped, flying to the second division,
gave warning of the approach of the enemy: the soldiers ran to their
arms; and were immediately led on to take revenge for the death of their
countrymen. The Scots, elated with the advantage already obtained made
a vigorous impression upon them: the English, animated with a thirst of
vengeance, maintained a stout resistance: the victory was long undecided
between them; but at last declared itself entirely in favor of the
former, who broke the English, and chased them to the third division,
now advancing with a hasty march to support their distressed companions.
Many of the Scots had fallen in the two first actions; most of them were
wounded, and all of them extremely fatigued by the long continuance of
the combat: yet were they so transported with success and military rage,
that, having suddenly recovered their order, and arming the followers
of their camp with the spoils of the slaughtered enemy, they drove
with fury upon the ranks of the dismayed English. The favorable
moment decided the battle; which the Scots, had they met with a steady
resistance, were not long able to maintain: the English were chased
off the field: three victories were thus gained in one day;[*] and the
renown of these great exploits, seconded by the favorable dispositions
of the people, soon made the regent master of all the fortresses in the
south; and it became necessary for Edward to begin anew the conquest of
the kingdom.
The king prepared himself for this enterprise with his usual vigor
and abilities. He assembled both a great fleet and a great army; and
entering the frontiers of Scotland, appeared with a force which the
enemy could not think of resisting in the open field: the English
navy, which sailed along the coast, secured the army from any danger
of famine: Edward's vigilance preserved it from surprises: and by this
prudent disposition they marched victorious from one extremity of
the kingdom to the other, ravaging the open country, reducing all the
castles,[**] and receiving the submissions of all the nobility, even
those of Cummin, the regent.
* Heming. vol. i. p. 197.
** Heming. vol. i. p. 205. the kingdom. Wallace, though he
attended the English army in their march, found but few
opportunities of signalizing that valor which had formerly
made him so terrible to his enemies.
The most obstinate resistance was made by the Castle of Brechin,
defended by Sir Thomas Maule; and the place opened not its gates, till
the death of the governor, by discouraging the garrison, obliged them to
submit to the fate which had overwhelmed the rest.
{1304.} Edward, having completed his conquest, which employed him during
the space of near two years, now undertook the more difficult work of
settling the country, of establishing a new form of government, and of
making his acquisition durable to the crown of England. He seems to have
carried matters to extremity against the natives: he abrogated all the
Scottish laws and customs:[*] he endeavored to substitute the English
in their place: he entirely razed or destroyed all the monuments of
antiquity: such records or histories as had escaped his former search
were now burnt or dispersed: and he hastened, by too precipitate steps,
to abolish entirely the Scottish name, and to sink it finally in the
English.
* Ryley, p. 506.
{1305.} Edward, however, still deemed his favorite conquest exposed to
some danger so long as Wallace was alive; and being prompted both by
revenge and policy, he employed every art to discover his retreat,
and become master of his person. At last that hardy warrior, who was
determined, amidst the universal slavery of his countrymen, still to
maintain his independency, was betrayed into Edward's hands by Sir John
Monteith, his friend, whom he had made acquainted with the place of his
concealment. The king, whose natural bravery and magnanimity should have
induced him to respect like qualities in an enemy, enraged at some acts
of violence committed by Wallace during the fury of war, resolved to
overawe the Scots by an example of severity: he ordered Wallace to be
carried in chains to London; to be tried as a rebel and traitor, though
he had never made submissions or sworn fealty to England; and to be
executed on Tower Hill. This was the unworthy fate of a hero, who,
through a course of many years, had, with signal conduct, intrepidity,
and perseverance, defended, against a public and oppressive enemy, the
liberties of his native country.
But the barbarous policy of Edward failed of the purpose to which it
was directed. The Scots, already disgusted at the great innovations
introduced by the sword of a conqueror into their laws and government,
were further enraged at the injustice and cruelty exercised upon
Wallace; and all the envy which, during his lifetime, had attended
that gallant chief, being now buried in his grave, he was universally
regarded as the champion of Scotland and the patron of her expiring
independency. The people, inflamed with resentment, were every where
disposed to rise against the English government; and it was not long ere
a new and more fortunate leader presented himself, who conducted them to
liberty, to victory, and to vengeance.
{1306.} Robert Bruce, grandson of that Robert who had been one of the
competitors for the crown, had succeeded, by his grandfather's and
father's death, to all their rights; and the demise of John Baliol,
together with the captivity of Edward, eldest son of that prince, seemed
to open a full career to the genius and ambition of this young nobleman.
He saw that the Scots, when the title to their crown had expired in
the males of their ancient royal family, had been divided into parties
nearly equal between the houses of Bruce and Baliol; and that every
incident which had since happened, had tended to wean them from any
attachment to the latter. The slender capacity of John had proved unable
to defend them against their enemies: he had meanly resigned his crown
into the hands of the conqueror: he had, before his deliverance from
captivity, reiterated that resignation in a manner seemingly voluntary;
and had in that deed thrown out many reflections extremely dishonorable
to his ancient subjects, whom he publicly called traitors, ruffians,
and rebels, and with whom, he declared, he was determined to maintain no
further correspondence;[*] he had, during the time of his exile, adhered
strictly to that resolution; and his son, being a prisoner, seemed ill
qualified to revive the rights, now fully abandoned, of his family.
* Brady's Hist. vol. ii. App. No. 27.
Bruce therefore hoped that the Scots, so long exposed, from the want of
a leader, to the oppressions of their enemies, would unanimously fly
to his standard, and would seat him on the vacant throne, to which he
brought such plausible pretensions. His aspiring spirit, inflamed by
the fervor of youth, and buoyed up by his natural courage, saw the glory
alone of the enterprise, or regarded the prodigious difficulties which
attended it as the source only of further glory. The miseries and
oppressions which he had beheld his countrymen suffer in their unequal
contest, the repeated defeats and misfortunes which they had undergone,
proved to him so many incentives to bring them relief, and conduct
them to vengeance against the haughty victor. The circumstances which
attended Bruce's first declaration are variously related; but we shall
rather follow the account given by the Scottish historians; not that
their authority is in general anywise comparable to that of the English,
but because they may be supposed sometimes better informed concerning
facts which so nearly interested their own nation.
Bruce, who had long harbored in his breast the design of freeing his
enslaved country, ventured at last to open his mind to John Cummin, a
powerful nobleman, with whom he lived in strict intimacy. He found his
friend, as he imagined, fully possessed with the same sentiments; and
he needed to employ no arts of persuasion to make him embrace the
resolution of throwing off, on the first favorable opportunity, the
usurped dominion of the English. But on the departure of Bruce, who
attended Edward to London, Cummin, who either had all along dissembled
with him, or began to reflect more coolly in his absence on the
desperate nature of the undertaking, resolved to atone for his crime in
assenting to this rebellion, by the merit of revealing the secret to
the king of England. Edward did not immediately commit Bruce to custody;
because he intended at the same time to seize his three brothers, who
resided in Scotland; and he contented himself with secretly setting
spies upon him, and ordering all his motions to be strictly watched. A
nobleman of Edward's court, Bruce's intimate friend, was apprised of
his danger; but not daring, amidst so many jealous eyes, to hold any
conversation with him, he fell on an expedient to give him warning, that
it was full time he should make his escape. He sent him by his servant
a pair of gilt spurs and a purse of gold, which he pretended to have
borrowed from him; and left it to the sagacity of his friend to discover
the meaning of the present. Bruce immediately contrived the means of his
escape; and as the ground was at that time covered with snow, he had the
precaution, it is said, to order his horses to be shod with their shoes
inverted, that he might deceive those who should track his path over
the open fields or cross roads, through which he purposed to travel. He
arrived in a few days at Dumfries, in Annandale, the chief seat of his
family interest; and he happily found a great number of the Scottish
nobility there assembled, and among the rest, John Cummin, his former
associate.
The noblemen were astonished at the appearance of Bruce among them; and
still more when he discovered to them the object of his journey. He
told them that he was come to live or die with them in defence of the
liberties of his country, and hoped, with their assistance, to redeem
the Scottish name from all the indignities which it had so long suffered
from the tyranny of their imperious masters: that the sacrifice of the
rights of his family was the first injury which had prepared the way for
their ensuing slavery; and by resuming them, which was his firm purpose,
he opened to them the joyful prospect of recovering from the fraudulent
usurper their ancient and hereditary independence: that all past
misfortunes had proceeded from their disunion; and they would soon
appear no less formidable than of old to their enemies, if they now
deigned to follow into the field their rightful prince, who knew no
medium between death and victory, that their mountains and their valor,
which had, during so many ages, protected their liberty from all the
efforts of the Roman empire, would still be sufficient, were they worthy
of their generous ancestors, to defend them against the utmost violence
of the English tyrant: that it was unbecoming men, born to the most
ancient independence known in Europe, to submit to the will of any
masters; but fatal to receive those who, being irritated by such
persevering resistance, and inflamed with the highest animosity,
would never deem themselves secure in their usurped dominion but
by exterminating all the ancient nobility, and even all the ancient
inhabitants: and that, being reduced to this desperate extremity, it
were better for them at once to perish like brave men, with swords in
their hands, than to dread long, and at last undergo, the fate of the
unfortunate Wallace, whose merits, in the brave and obstinate defence
of his country, were finally rewarded by the hands of an English
executioner.
The spirit with which this discourse was delivered, the bold sentiments
which it conveyed, the novelty of Bruce's declaration, assisted by the
graces of his youth and manly deportment, made deep impression on the
minds of his audience, and roused all those principles of indignation
and revenge, with which they had so long been secretly actuated. The
Scottish nobles declared their unanimous resolution to use the utmost
efforts in delivering their country from bondage, and to second the
courage of Bruce, in asserting his and their undoubted rights against
their common oppressors. Cummin alone who had secretly taken his
measures with the king, opposed this general determination; and by
representing the great power of England, governed by a prince of such
uncommon vigor and abilities, he endeavored to set before them the
certain destruction which they must expect, if they again violated
their oaths of fealty, and shook off their allegiance to the victorious
Edward.[*] Bruce, already apprised of his treachery, and foreseeing the
certain failure of all his own schemes of ambition and glory from the
opposition of so potent a leader, took immediately his resolution; and
moved partly by resentment, partly by policy, followed Cummin on the
dissolution of the assembly, attacked him in the cloisters of the Gray
Friars, through which he passed, and running him through the body, left
him for dead. Sir Thomas Kirkpatric, one of Bruce's friends, asking him
soon after if the traitor were slain, "I believe so," replied Bruce.
"And is that a matter," cried Kirkpatric, "to be left to conjecture?
I will secure him." Upon which he drew his dagger, ran to Cummin, and
stabbed him to the heart. This deed of Bruce and his associates, which
contains circumstances justly condemned by our present manners, was
regarded in that age as an effort of manly vigor and just policy. The
family of Kirkpatric took for the crest of their arms, which they still
wear, a hand with a bloody dagger; and chose for their motto these
words, "I will secure him;" the expression employed by their ancestor
when he executed that violent action.
* M. West. p. 453.
The murder of Cummin affixed the seal to the conspiracy of the Scottish
nobles: they had now no resource left but to shake off the yoke of
England, or to perish in the attempt: the genius of the nation roused
itself from its present dejection: and Bruce, flying to different
quarters, excited his partisans to arms, attacked with success the
dispersed bodies of the English, got possession of many of the castles,
and having made his authority be acknowledged in most parts of the
kingdom, was solemnly crowned and inaugurated in the abbey of Scone by
the bishop of St. Andrews, who had zealously embraced his cause. The
English were again chased out of the kingdom, except such as took
shelter in the fortresses that still remained in their hands; and Edward
found that the Scots, twice conquered in his reign, and often defeated,
must yet be anew subdued. Not discouraged with these unexpected
difficulties, he sent Aymer de Valence with a considerable force into
Scotland, to check the progress of the malecontents; and that nobleman,
falling unexpectedly upon Bruce, at Methven, in Perthshire, threw his
army into such disorder as ended in a total defeat.[*] Bruce fought with
the most heroic courage, was thrice dismounted in the action, and as
often recovered himself; but was at last obliged to yield to superior
fortune, and take shelter, with a few followers, in the Western Isles.
The earl of Athole, Sir Simon Fraser, and Sir Christopher Seton, who had
been taken prisoners, were ordered by Edward to be executed as rebels
and traitors.[**]
* Walsing. p. 91. Heming. vol. i. p. 222, 223. Trivet, p.
344.
** Heming. vol. i. p. 223. M. West. p. 456.
{1307.} Many other acts of rigor were exercised by him; and that
prince, vowing revenge against the whole Scottish nation, whom he deemed
incorrigible in their aversion to his government, assembled a great
army, and was preparing to enter the frontiers, secure of success, and
determined to make the defenceless Scots the victims of his severity,
when he unexpectedly sickened and died near Carlisle; enjoining with his
last breath his son and successor to prosecute the enterprise, and
never to desist till he had finally subdued the kingdom of Scotland. He
expired in the sixty-ninth year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his
reign, hated by his neighbors, but extremely respected and revered by
his own subjects.
The enterprises finished by this prince, and the projects which he
formed and brought near to a conclusion, were more prudent, more
regularly conducted, and more advantageous to the solid interests of his
kingdom, than those which were undertaken in any reign, either of his
ancestors or his successors. He restored authority to the government,
disordered by the weakness of his father; he maintained the laws against
all the efforts of his turbulent barons; he fully annexed to his crown
the principality of Wales; he took many wise and vigorous measures for
reducing Scotland to a like condition; and though the equity of this
latter enterprise may reasonably be questioned, the circumstances of
the two kingdoms promised such certain success, and the advantage was so
visible of uniting the whole island under one head, that those who give
great indulgence to reasons of state in the measures of princes, will
not be apt to regard this part of his conduct with much severity. But
Edward, however exceptionable his character may appear on the head
of justice, is the model of a politic and warlike king: he possessed
industry, penetration, courage, vigilance, and enterprise: he was frugal
in all expenses that were not necessary; he knew how to open the public
treasures on a proper occasion; he punished criminals with severity; he
was gracious and affable to his servants and courtiers; and being of a
majestic figure, expert in all military exercises, and in the main well
proportioned in his limbs, notwithstanding the great length and the
smallness of his legs, he was as well qualified to captivate the
populace by his exterior appearance, as to gain the approbation of men
of sense by his more solid virtues.
But the chief advantage which the people of England reaped, and
still continue to reap, from the reign of this great prince, was the
correction, extension, amendment, and establishment of the laws which
Edward maintained in great vigor, and left much improved to posterity;
for the acts of a wise legislator commonly remain, while the acquisition
of a conqueror often perish with him. This merit has justly gained to
Edward the appellation of the English Justinian. Not only the numerous
statutes passed in his reign touch the chief points of jurisprudence,
and, according to Sir Edward Coke,[*] truly deserve the name of
establishments, because they were more constant, standing, and durable
laws than any made since; but the regular order maintained in his
administration gave an opportunity to the common law to refine itself,
and brought the judges to a certainty in their determinations, and the
lawyers to a precision in their pleadings. Sir Matthew Hale has remarked
the sudden improvement of English law during this reign; and ventures
to assert, that till his own time it had never received any considerable
increase.[**] Edward settled the jurisdiction of the several courts;
first established the office of justice of peace; abstained from the
practice, too common before him, of interrupting justice by mandates
from the privy-council;[***] repressed robberies and Edward enacted a
law to this purpose; but it is doubtful whether he ever observed it. We
are sure that scarcely any of his successors did.
* Institute, p. 156.
** History of the English Law, p. 158, 163.
*** Articuli super Cart. cap. 6., Letters of protection were
the ground of a complaint by the commons in 3, Edward (See
Ryley, p. 525.) This practice is declared illegal.
The multitude of these disorders[*] encouraged trade, by giving
merchants an easy method of recovering their debts;[**] and, in
short, introduced a new face of things by the vigor and wisdom of his
administration. As law began now to be well established, the abuse
of that blessing began also to be remarked. Instead of their former
associations for robbery and violence, men entered into formal
combinations to support each other in lawsuits, and it was found
requisite to check this iniquity by act of parliament.[***]
There happened in this reign a considerable alteration in the execution
of the laws: the king abolished the office of chief justiciary,
which, he thought, possessed too much power, and was dangerous to the
crown;[****] he completed the division of the court of exchequer into
four distinct courts, which managed each its several branch, without
dependence on any one magistrate; and as the lawyers afterwards invented
a method, by means of their fictions, of carrying business from one
court to another, the several courts became rivals and checks to each
other; a circumstance which tended much to improve the practice of the
law in England.
* Statute of Winton.
** Statute of Acton Burnel
*** Statute of Conspirators.
**** Spel. Gloss, in verbo Justiciarius.
Gilbert's History of the Exchequer, p. 8: not bound to it by
his tenure; his visible reluctance to confirm the Great
Charter, as if that concession had no validity from the
deeds of his predecessors; the captious clause which he at
last annexed to his confirmation; his procuring of the
pope's dispensation from the oaths which he had taken to
observe that charter; and his levying of talliages at
discretion even after the statute, or rather charter, by
which he had renounced that prerogative; these are so many
demonstrations of his arbitrary disposition, and prove with
what exception and reserve we ought to celebrate his love of
justice. He took care that his subjects should do justice to
each other; but he desired always to have his own hands free
in all his transactions, both with them and with his
neighbors.
But though Edward appeared thus, throughout his whole reign, a friend
to law and justice, it cannot be said that he was an enemy to arbitrary
power; and in a government more regular and legal than was that of
England in his age, such practices as those which may be remarked in
his administration, would have given sufficient ground of complaint, and
sometimes were even in his age the object of general displeasure. The
violent plunder and banishment of the Jews; the putting of the whole
clergy at once, and by an arbitrary edict, out of the protection of law;
the seizing of all the wool and leather of the kingdom; the heightening
of the impositions on the former valuable commodity; the new and illegal
commission of Trailbaston; the taking of all the money and plate of
monasteries and churches, even before he had any quarrel with the
clergy; the subjecting of every man possessed of twenty pounds a year
to military service, though by the statute of Northampton, passed in the
second of Edward III.; but it still continued, like many other abuses.
There are instances of it so late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
The chief obstacle to the execution of justice in those times was the
power of the great barons; and Edward was perfectly qualified, by
his character and abilities, for keeping these tyrants in awe,
and restraining their illegal practices. This salutary purpose was
accordingly the great object of his attention; yet was he imprudently
led into a measure which tended to increase and confirm their dangerous
authority. He passed a statute which, by allowing them to entail their
estates, made it impracticable to diminish the property of the great
families, and left them every means of increase and acquisition.[*]
* Brady of Boroughs, p. 25, from the records
Edward observed a contrary policy with regard to the church: he seems to
have been the first Christian prince that passed a statute of mortmain;
and prevented by law the clergy from making new acquisitions of lands,
which by the ecclesiastical canons they were forever prohibited from
alienating. The opposition between his maxims with regard to the
nobility and to the ecclesiastics, leads us to conjecture, that it was
only by chance he passed the beneficial statute of mortmain, and that
his sole object was to maintain the number of knights' fees, and to
prevent the superiors from being defrauded of the profits of wardship,
marriage, livery, and other emoluments arising from the feudal tenures.
This is indeed, the reason assigned in the statute itself, and appears
to have been his real object in enacting it. The author of the Annals of
Waverley ascribes this act chiefly to the king's anxiety for maintaining
the military force of the kingdom but adds, that he was mistaken in his
purpose; for that the Amalekites were overcome more by the prayers of
Moses than by the sword of the Israelites.[*] The statute of mortmain
was often evaded afterwards by the invention of "uses."
Edward was active in restraining the usurpations of the church; and
excepting his ardor for crusades, which adhered to him during his
whole life, seems in other respects to have been little infected with
superstition, the vice chiefly of weak minds. But the passion for
crusades was really in that age the passion for glory. As the pope
now felt himself somewhat more restrained in his former practice of
pillaging the several churches in Europe by laying impositions upon
them, he permitted the generals of particular orders, who resided at
Rome, to levy taxes on the convents subjected to their jurisdiction; and
Edward was obliged to enact a law against this new abuse. It was
also become a practice of the court of Rome to provide successors to
benefices before they became vacant: Edward found it likewise necessary
to prevent by law this species of injustice.
The tribute of one thousand marks a year, to which King John, in doing
homage to the pope, had subjected the kingdom, had been pretty regularly
paid since his time, though the vassalage was constantly denied, and
indeed, for fear of giving offence, had been but little insisted on. The
payment was called by a new name of "census," not by that of tribute.
King Edward seems to have always paid this money with great reluctance;
and he suffered the arrears at one time to run on for six years,[**] at
another for eleven:[***] but as princes in that age stood continually in
need of the pope's good offices, for dispensations of marriage and
for other concessions, the court of Rome always found means, sooner or
later, to catch the money. The levying of first-fruits was also a new
device begun in this reign, by which his holiness thrust his fingers
very frequently into the purses of the faithful; and the king seems to
have unwarily given way to it.
* Page 234. See also M. West. p. 409.
** Rymer, vol. ii p. 77, 107.
*** Rymer, vol. ii p. 862.
In the former reign, the taxes had been partly scutages, partly such a
proportional part of the movables as was granted by parliament; in this,
scutages were entirely dropped, and the assessment on movables was the
chief method of taxation. Edward, in his fourth year, had a fifteenth
granted him; in his fifth year, a twelfth; in his eleventh year, a
thirtieth from the laity, a twentieth from the clergy; in his eighteenth
year, a fifteenth; in his twenty-second year, a tenth from the laity,
a sixth from London and other corporate towns, half of their benefices
from the clergy; in his twenty-third year, an eleventh from the barons
and others, a tenth from the clergy, a seventh from the burgesses; in
his twenty fourth year, a twelfth from the barons and others, an eighth
from the burgesses, from the clergy nothing, because of the pope's
inhibition; in his twenty-fifth year, an eighth from the laity, a
tenth from the clergy of Canterbury, a fifth from those of York; in
his twenty-ninth year, a fifteenth from the laity, on account of
his confirming the perambulations of the forests; the clergy granted
nothing; in his thirty-third year, first, a thirtieth from the barons
and others, and a twentieth from the burgesses, then a fifteenth from
all his subjects; in his thirty fourth year, a thirtieth from all his
subjects, for knighting his eldest son.
These taxes were moderate; but the king had also duties upon exportation
and importation granted him from time to time: the heaviest were
commonly upon wool. Poundage, or a shilling a pound, was not regularly
granted the kings for life till the reign of Henry V.
In 1296, the famous mercantile society, called the "merchant
adventurers," had its first origin: it was instituted for the
improvement of the woollen manufacture, and the vending of the cloth
abroad, particularly at Antwerp:[*] for the English at this time
scarcely thought of any more distant commerce.
This king granted a charter or declaration of protection and privileges
to foreign merchants, and also ascertained the customs or duties which
those merchants were in return to pay on merchandise imported and
exported. He promised them security; allowed them a jury on trials,
consisting half of natives, half of foreigners; and appointed them a
justiciary in London for their protection. But notwithstanding this
seeming attention to foreign merchants, Edward did not free them from
the cruel hardship of making one answerable for the debts, and even for
the crimes of another, that came from the same country.[**]
* Anderson's History of Commerce, vol. i. p. 137.
** Anderson's History of Commerce, vol. i. p. 146.
We read of such practices among the present barbarous nations. The
king also imposed on them a duty of two shillings on each tun of wine
imported, over and above the old duty; and forty pence on each sack of
wool exported besides half a mark, the former duty.[*]
In the year 1303, the exchequer was robbed, and of no less a sum than
one hundred thousand pounds, as is pretended.[**] The abbot and monks of
Westminster were indicted for this robbery, but acquitted. It does
not appear that the king ever discovered the criminals with certainty,
though his indignation fell on the society of Lombard merchants,
particularly the Frescobaldi, very opulent Florentines.
The pope having in 1307 collected much money in England, the king
enjoined the nuncio not to export it in specie but in bills of
exchange;[***] a proof that commerce was but ill understood at that
time.
* Rymer, vol. iv. p. 361. It is the charter of Edward I.
which is there confirmed by Edward III.
** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 930.
*** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 1092.
Edward had by his first wife, Eleanor of Castile, four sons; but Edward,
his heir and successor, was the only one that survived him. She also
bore him eleven daughters, most of whom died in their infancy: of the
surviving, Joan was married first to the earl of Glocester, and after
his death to Ralph de Monthermer: Margaret espoused John, duke of
Brabant: Elizabeth espoused first John, earl of Holland, and afterwards
the earl of Hereford: Mary was a nun at Ambresbury. He had by his second
wife, Margaret of France, two sons and a daughter; Thomas, created earl
of Norfolk and mareschal of England; and Edmund, who was created earl of
Kent by his brother when king. The princess died in her infancy.
CHAPTER XIV.
[Illustration: 1_197_edward2.jpg EDWARD II.]
EDWARD II.
{1307.} The prepossessions entertained in favor of young Edward, kept
the English from being fully sensible of the extreme loss which they had
sustained by the death of the great monarch who filled the throne; and
all men hastened with alacrity to take the oath of allegiance to his son
and successor. This prince was in the twenty-third year of his age, was
of an agreeable figure, of a mild and gentle disposition, and having
never discovered a propensity to any dangerous vice, it was natural to
prognosticate tranquillity and happiness from his government. But the
first act of his reign blasted all these hopes, and showed him to be
totally unqualified for that perilous situation in which every
English monarch during those ages had, from the unstable form of the
constitution, and the turbulent dispositions of the people derived from
it, the misfortune to be placed. The indefatigable Robert Bruce, though
his army had been dispersed, and he himself had been obliged to take
shelter in the Western Isles, remained not long inactive; but before
the death of the late king, had sallied from his retreat, had again
collected his followers, had appeared in the field, and had obtained by
surprise an important advantage over Aymer de Valence, who commanded the
English forces.[*]
* Trivet, p. 346.
He was now become so considerable as to have afforded the king of
England sufficient glory in subduing him, without incurring any danger
of seeing all those mighty preparations, made by his father, fail in the
enterprise. But Edward, instead of pursuing his advantages, marched but
a little way into Scotland; and having an utter incapacity, and equal
aversion, for all application or serious business, he immediately
returned upon his footsteps, and disbanded his army. His grandees
perceived, from this conduct, that the authority of the crown, fallen
into such feeble hands, was no longer to be dreaded, and that every
insolence might be practised by them with impunity.
The next measure taken by Edward gave them an inclination to attack
those prerogatives which no longer kept them in awe. There was one Piers
Gavaston, son of a Gascon knight of some distinction, who had honorably
served the late king and who, in reward of his merits, had obtained an
establishment for his son in the family of the prince of Wales. This
young man soon insinuated himself into the affections of his master,
by his agreeable behavior, and by supplying him with all those
innocent though frivolous amusements which suited his capacity and
his inclinations. He was endowed with 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 behoved the king to take a journey to France, both in order to do
homage for the duchy of Guienne, and to espouse the Princess Isabella,
to whom he had long been affianced, though unexpected accidents had
hitherto retarded the completion of the marriage.[**] Edward left
Gavaston guardian of the realm,[***] with more ample powers than had
usually been conferred;[****] and, on his return with his young queen,
renewed all the proofs of that fond attachment to the favorite of which
every one so loudly complained. This princess was of an imperious and
intriguing spirit; and finding that her husband's capacity required,
as his temper inclined, him to be governed, she thought herself best
entitled, on every account, to perform the office, and she contracted
a mortal hatred against the person who had disappointed her in these
expectations. She was well pleased, therefore, to see a combination of
the nobility forming against Gavaston, who, sensible of her hatred, had
wantonly provoked her by new insults and injuries.
* T. de la More, p. 593; Walsing. p. 97.
** T. de la More, p. 593. Trivet, Cont. p. 3.
*** Rymer vol. iii. p. 47. Ypod. Neust. p. 499.
**** Brady's App. No. 49.
{1308.} Thomas, earl of Lancaster, cousin-german to the king, and first
prince of the blood, was by far the most opulent and powerful subject in
England, and possessed in his own right, and soon after in that of his
wife, heiress of the family of Lincoln, no less than six earldoms, with
a proportionable estate in land, attended with all the jurisdictions and
power which commonly in that age were annexed to landed property. He was
turbulent and factious in his disposition; mortally hated the favorite,
whose influence over the king exceeded his own; and he soon became the
head of that party among the barons who desired the depression of this
insolent stranger. The confederated nobles bound themselves by oath to
expel Gavaston: both sides began already to put themselves in a warlike
posture: the licentiousness of the age broke out in robberies and other
disorders, the usual prelude of civil war, and the royal authority,
despised in the king's own hands, and hated in those of Gavaston, became
insufficient for the execution of the laws and the maintenance of peace
in the kingdom. A parliament being summoned at Westminster, Lancaster
and his party came thither with an armed retinue; and were there enabled
to impose their own terms on the sovereign. They required the banishment
of Gavaston, imposed an oath on him never to return, and engaged
the bishops, who never failed to interpose in all civil concerns,
to pronounce him excommunicated if he remained any longer in the
kingdom.[*] Edward was obliged to submit;[**] but even in his compliance
gave proofs of his fond attachment to his favorite. Instead of removing
all umbrage by sending him to his own country, as was expected, he
appointed him lord lieutenant of Ireland[***], attended him to Bristol
on his journey thither, and before his departure conferred on him new
lands and riches both in Gascony and England.[****] Gavaston, who did
not want bravery, and possessed talents for war,[*****] acted, during
his government, with vigor against some Irish rebels, whom he subdued.
* Trivet, Cont. p. 5.
** Rymer, vol. iii. p. 80.
*** Rymer, vol. iii. p. 92. Murimuth, p. 39.
**** Rymer, vol. iii. p. 87.
***** Heming. vol. i. p. 248. T. de la More, p. 593.
Meanwhile, the king, less shocked with the illegal violence which
had been imposed upon him, than unhappy in the absence of his minion,
employed every expedient to soften the opposition of the barons to
his return; as if success in that point were the chief object of his
government. The high office of hereditary steward was conferred on
Lancaster: his father-in-law, the earl of Lincoln, was bought off by
other concessions: Earl Warrenne was also mollified by civilities,
grants, or promises: the insolence of Gavaston, being no longer before
men's eyes, was less the object of general indignation; and Edward,
deeming matters sufficiently prepared for his purpose, applied to the
court of Rome, and obtained for Gavaston a dispensation from that oath
which the barons had compelled him to take, that he would forever
abjure the realm.[*] He went down to Chester to receive him on his first
landing from Ireland; flew into his arms with transports of joy; and
having obtained the formal consent of the barons in parliament to his
reestablishment, set no longer any bounds to his extravagant fondness
and affection. Gavaston himself, forgetting his past misfortunes, and
blind to their causes, resumed the same ostentation and insolence,
and became more than ever the object of general detestation among the
nobility.
The barons first discovered their animosity by absenting themselves from
parliament; and finding that this expedient had not been successful,
they began to think of employing sharper and more effectual remedies.
Though there had scarcely been any national ground of complaint,
except some dissipation of the public treasure: though all the acts of
mal-administration objected to the king and his favorite, seemed of a
nature more proper to excite heart-burnings in a ball or assembly, than
commotions in a great kingdom: yet such was the situation of the times,
that the barons were determined, and were able, to make them the reasons
of a total alteration in the constitution and civil government. Having
come to parliament, in defiance of the laws and the king's prohibition,
with a numerous retinue of armed followers, they found themselves
entirely masters; and they presented a petition which was equivalent
to a command, requiring Edward to devolve on a chosen junto the whole
authority, both of the crown and of the parliament. The king was obliged
to sign a commission, empowering the prelates and barons to elect twelve
persons, who should, till the term of Michaelmas in the year following,
have authority to enact ordinances for the government of the kingdom,
and regulation of the king's household; consenting that these ordinances
should, thenceforth and forever have the force of laws; allowing the
ordainers to form associations among themselves and their friends, for
their strict and regular observance; and all this for the greater glory
of God, the security of the church, and the honor and advantage of the
king and kingdom.[**]
* Rymer, vol. iii. p., 167.
** Brady's App. No. 50. Heming. vol. i. p. 247., Walsing. p.
97.,Ryley, p. 526.
The barons, in return signed a declaration, in which they acknowledged
that they owed these concessions merely to the king's free grace;
promised that this commission should never be drawn into precedent;
and engaged that the power of the ordainers should expire at the time
appointed.[*]
{1311.} The chosen junto accordingly framed their ordinances, and
presented them to the king and parliament, for their confirmation in the
ensuing year. Some of these ordinances were laudable, and tended to the
regular execution of justice; such as those requiring sheriffs to be
men of property, abolishing the practice of issuing privy seals for
the suspension of justice, restraining the practice of purveyance,
prohibiting the adulteration and alteration of the coin, excluding
foreigners from the farms of the revenue, ordering all payments to
be regularly made into the exchequer, revoking all late grants of
the crown, and giving the parties damages in the case of vexatious
prosecutions. But what chiefly grieved the king was the ordinance for
the removal of evil counsellors, by which a great number of persons
were by name excluded from every office of power and profit; and Piers
Gavaston himself was forever banished the king's dominions, under the
penalty, in case of disobedience, of being declared a public enemy.
Other persons, more agreeable to the barons, were substituted in all the
offices. And it was ordained that, for the future, all the considerable
dignities in the household, as well as by the law, revenue, and military
governments, should be appointed by the baronage in parliament; and
the power of making war, or assembling his military tenants, should
no longer be vested solely in the king, nor be exercised without the
consent of the nobility.
Edward, from the same weakness both in his temper and situation which
had engaged him to grant this unlimited commission to the barons, was
led to give a parliamentary sanction to their ordinances; but as a
consequence of the same character, he secretly made a protest against
them, and declared that, since the commission was granted only for the
making of ordinances to the advantage of king and kingdom, such articles
as should be found prejudicial to both, were to be held as not ratified
and confirmed.[**]
* Brady's App. No. 51.
** Ryley's Placit. Parl. p. 530, 541.
It is no wonder, indeed, that he retained a firm purpose to revoke
ordinances which had been imposed on him by violence, which entirely
annihilated the royal authority, and above all, which deprived him of
the company and society of a person whom, by an unusual infatuation, he
valued above all the world, and above every consideration of interest or
tranquillity.
As soon, therefore, as Edward, removing to York, had freed himself from
the immediate terror of the barons' power, he invited back Gavaston from
Flanders, which that favorite had made the place of his retreat; and
declaring his banishment to be illegal, and contrary to the laws and
customs of the kingdom,[*] openly reinstated him in his former credit
and authority.
{1312.} The barons, highly provoked at this disappointment, and
apprehensive of danger to themselves from the declared animosity of so
powerful a minion, saw that either his or their ruin was now inevitable;
and they renewed with redoubled zeal their former confederacies against
him. The earl of Lancaster was a dangerous head of this alliance; Guy,
earl of Warwick, entered into it with a furious and precipitate passion;
Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford, the constable, and Aymer de Valence,
earl of Pembroke, brought to it a great accession of power and interest;
even Earl Warrenne deserted the royal cause, which he had hitherto
supported, and was induced to embrace the side of the confederates;[**]
and as Robert de Winchelsey, archbishop of Canterbury, professed
himself of the same party, he determined the body of the clergy, and
consequently the people, to declare against the king and his minion. So
predominant at that time was the power of the great nobility, that the
combination of a few of them was always able to shake the throne; and
such a universal concurrence became irresistible. The earl of Lancaster
suddenly raised an army, and marched to York, where he found the king
already removed to Newcastle:[***] he flew thither in pursuit of him,
and Edward had just time to escape to Tinmouth, where he embarked,
and sailed with Gavaston to Scarborough. He left his favorite in that
fortress, which, had it been properly supplied with provisions, was
deemed impregnable, and he marched forward to York, in hopes of raising
an army which might be able to support him against his enemies.
* Brady's App. No. 53. Walsing. p. 98.
** Trivet, Cont. p. 4.
*** Walsing. p. 101.
Pembroke was sent by the confederates to besiege the Castle of
Scarborough, and Gavaston, sensible of the bad condition of his
garrison, was obliged to capitulate, and to surrender himself
prisoner.[*] He stipulated that he should remain in Pembroke's hands for
two months; that endeavors should, during that time, be mutually used
for a general accommodation; that if the terms proposed by the barons
were not accepted, the castle should be restored to him in the same
condition as when he surrendered it; and that the earl of Pembroke
and Henry Piercy should, by contract, pledge all their lands for the
fulfilling of these conditions.[**] Pembroke, now master of the person
of this public enemy, conducted him to the Castle of Dedington, near
Banbury, where, on pretence of other business, he left him, protected
by a feeble guard.[***] Warwick, probably in concert with Pembroke,
attacked the castle: the garrison refused to make any resistance;
Gavaston was yielded up to him, and conducted to Warwick Castle;
the earls of Lancaster, Hereford, and Arundel immediately repaired
thither;[****] and, without any regard either to the laws or the
military capitulation, they ordered the head of the obnoxious favorite
to be struck off by the hands of the executioner.[*****]
The king had retired northward to Berwick, when he heard of Gavaston's
murder; and his resentment was proportioned to the affection which he
had ever borne him while living. He threatened vengeance on all
the nobility who had been active in that bloody scene; and he made
preparations for war in all parts of England. But being less constant in
his enmities than in his friendships, he soon after hearkened to terms
of accommodation; granted the barons a pardon of all offences; and as
they stipulated to ask him publicly pardon on their knees,[******] he
was so pleased with these vain appearances of submission, that he seemed
to have sincerely forgiven them all past injuries. But as they still
pretended, notwithstanding their lawless conduct, a great anxiety for
the maintenance of law, and required the establishment of their former
ordinances, as a necessary security for that purpose, Edward told them
that he was willing to grant them a free and legal confirmation of such
of those ordinances as were not entirely derogatory to the prerogative
of the crown. This answer was received for the present as satisfactory.
The king's person, after the death of Gavaston, was now become less
obnoxious to the public; and as the ordinances insisted on appeared
to be nearly the same with those which had formerly been extorted from
Henry III. by Mountfort, and which had been attended with so many fatal
consequences, they were, on that account, demanded with less vehemence
by the nobility and people. The minds of all men seemed to be much
appeased; the animosities of faction no longer prevailed; and England,
now united under its head, would henceforth be able, it was hoped, to
take vengeance on all its enemies, particularly on the Scots, whose
progress was the object of general resentment and indignation.
* Walsing, p. 101.
** Rymer, vol ii. p. 324.
*** T de la More, p. 593.
**** Dugd. Baron, vol. ii. p. 44.
***** Walsing, p. 101. T. de la More, p. 593. Trivet, Cont. p.
9*
****** Ryley, p. 538. Rymer, vol. iii. p. 366.
Immediately after Edward's retreat from Scotland, Robert Bruce left his
fastnesses, in which he intended to have sheltered his feeble army; and
supplying his defect of strength by superior vigor and abilities, he
made deep impression on all his enemies, foreign and domestic. He chased
Lord Argyle and the chieftain of the Macdowals from their hills, and
made himself entirely master of the high country; he thence invaded
with success the Cummins in the low countries of the north: he took
the castles of Inverness, Forfar, and Brechin; he daily gained some new
accession of territory; and what was a more important acquisition, he
daily reconciled the minds of the nobility to his dominion, and enlisted
under his standard every bold leader, whom he enriched by the spoils
of his enemies. Sir James Douglas, in whom commenced the greatness and
renown of that warlike family, seconded him in all his enterprises:
Edward Bruce, Robert's own brother, distinguished himself by acts of
valor; and the terror of the English power being now abated by the
feeble conduct of the king, even the least sanguine of the Scots began
to entertain hopes of recovering their independence; and the whole
kingdom, except a few fortresses which he had not the means to attack,
had acknowledged the authority of Robert.
In this situation, Edward had found it necessary to grant a truce to
Scotland; and Robert successfully employed the interval in consolidating
his power, and introducing order into the civil government, disjointed
by a long continuance of wars and factions. The interval was very short;
the truce, ill observed on both sides, was at last openly violated, and
war recommenced with greater fury than ever. Robert, not content with
defending himself, had made successful inroads into England, subsisted
his needy followers by the plunder of that country, and taught them to
despise the military genius of a people who had long been the object of
their terror. Edward at last, roused from his lethargy, had marched an
army into Scotland, and Robert, determined not to risk too much against
an enemy so much superior, retired again into the mountains. The king
advanced beyond Edinburgh; but being destitute of provisions, and being
ill supported by the English nobility, who were then employed in framing
their ordinances, he was soon obliged to retreat, without gaining any
advantage over the enemy. But the appearing union of all the parties in
England, after the death of Gavaston, seemed to restore that kingdom to
its native force, opened again the prospect of reducing Scotland, and
promised a happy conclusion to a war, in which both the interests and
passions of the nation were so deeply engaged.
{1314.} Edward assembled forces from all quarters, with a view of
finishing at one blow this important enterprise. He summoned the most
warlike of his vassals from Gascony; he enlisted troops from Flanders
and other foreign countries; he invited over great numbers of the
disorderly Irish as to a certain prey; he joined to them a body of the
Welsh, who were actuated by like motives; and, assembling the whole
military force of England, he marched to the frontiers with an army
which, according to the Scotch writers, amounted to a hundred thousand
men.
The army collected by Robert exceeded not thirty thousand combatants;
but being composed of men who had distinguished themselves by many acts
of valor, who were rendered desperate by their situation, and who were
inured to all the varieties of fortune, they might justly, under such
a leader, be deemed formidable to the most numerous and best appointed
armies. The Castle of Stirling, which, with Berwick, was the only
fortress in Scotland that remained in the hands of the English, had long
been besieged by Edward Bruce: Philip de Mowbray, the governor, after
an obstinate defence, was at last obliged to capitulate, and to promise,
that if, before a certain day, which was now approaching, he were not
relieved, he should open his gates to the enemy.[*]
* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 481.
Robert, therefore, sensible that here was the ground on which he must
expect the English, chose the field of battle with all the skill and
prudence imaginable, and made the necessary preparations for their
reception. He posted himself at Bannockburn, about two miles from
Stirling, where he had a hill on his right flank, and a morass on his
left; and not content with having taken these precautions to prevent his
being surrounded by the more numerous army of the English, he foresaw
the superior strength of the enemy in cavalry, and made provision
against it. Having a rivulet in front, he commanded deep pits to be dug
along its banks, and sharp stakes to be planted in them; and he ordered
the whole to be carefully covered over with turf.[*] The English arrived
in sight on the evening, and a bloody conflict immediately ensued
between two bodies of cavalry; where Robert, who was at the head of the
Scots, engaged in single combat with Henry de Bohun, a gentleman of the
family of Hereford; and at one stroke cleft his adversary to the chin
with a battle-axe, in sight of the two armies. The English horse fled
with precipitation to their main body.
The Scots, encouraged by this favorable event, and glorying in the
valor of their prince, prognosticated a happy issue to the combat on the
ensuing day: the English, confident in their numbers, and elated with
former successes, longed for an opportunity of revenge; and the night,
though extremely short in that season and in that climate, appeared
tedious to the impatience of the several combatants. Early in the
morning, Edward drew out his army, and advanced towards the Scots.
The earl of Glocester, his nephew, who commanded the left wing of the
cavalry, impelled by the ardor of youth, rushed on to the attack without
precaution, and fell among the covered pits, which had been prepared
by Bruce for the reception of the enemy.[**] This body of horse was
disordered; Glocester himself was overthrown and slain: Sir James
Douglas, who commanded the Scottish cavalry, gave the enemy no leisure
to rally, but pushed them off the field with considerable loss, and
pursued them in sight of their whole line of infantry. While the English
army were alarmed with this unfortunate beginning of the action, which
commonly proves decisive, they observed an army on the heights towards
the left, which seemed to be marching leisurely in order to surround
them; and they were distracted by their multiplied fears. This was a
number of wagoners and sumpter boys, whom Robert had collected; and
having supplied them with military standards, gave them the appearance
at a distance of a formidable body.
* T. de la More, p. 594.
** T. de la More, p. 594.
The stratagem took effect: a panic seized the English: they threw down
their arms and fled: they were pursued with great slaughter for the
space of ninety miles, till they reached Berwick: and the Scots, besides
an inestimable booty, took many persons of quality prisoners, and above
four hundred gentlemen, whom Robert treated with great humanity,[*] and
whose ransom was a new accession of wealth to the victorious army. The
king himself narrowly escaped by taking shelter in Dunbar, whose gates
were opened to him by the earl of March; and he thence passed by sea to
Berwick.
* Ypod. Neust. p. 501.
Such was the great and decisive battle of Bannockburn, which secured the
independence of Scotland, fixed Bruce on the throne of that kingdom, and
may be deemed the greatest overthrow that the English nation, since the
conquest, has ever received. The number of slain on those occasions is
always uncertain, and is commonly much magnified by the victors: but
this defeat made a deep impression on the mind of the English; and it
was remarked that, for some years, the superiority of numbers could
encourage them to keep the field against the Scots. Robert, in order to
avail himself of his present success, entered England, and ravaged all
the northern counties without opposition: he besieged Carlisle; but that
place was saved by the valor of Sir Andrew Harcla, the governor: he
was more successful against Berwick, which he took by assault: and this
prince, elated by his continued prosperity, now entertained hopes of
making the most important conquests on the English.
{1315.} He sent over his brother Edward, with an army of six thousand
men, into Ireland; and that nobleman assumed the title of king of that
island; he himself followed soon after with more numerous forces: the
horrible and absurd oppressions which the Irish suffered under the
English government, made them, at first, fly to the standard of the
Scots, whom they regarded as their deliverers: but a grievous famine,
which at that time desolated both Ireland and Britain, reduced the
Scottish army to the greatest extremities; and Robert was obliged to
return, with his forces much diminished, into his own country. His
brother, after having experienced a variety or fortune, was defeated
and slain near Dundalk by the English, commanded by Lord Bermingham: and
these projects, too extensive for the force of the Scottish nation, thus
vanished into smoke.
Edward, besides suffering those disasters from the invasion of the Scots
and the insurrection of the Irish, was also infested with a rebellion
in Wales; and above all, by the factions of his own nobility, who took
advantage of the public calamities, insulted his fallen fortunes, and
endeavored to establish their own independence on the ruins of the
throne. Lancaster and the barons of his party, who had declined
attending him on his Scottish expedition, no sooner saw him return with
disgrace, than they insisted on the renewal of their ordinances, which,
they still pretended, had validity; and the king's unhappy situation
obliged him to submit to their demands. The ministry was new-modelled by
the direction of Lancaster:[*] that prince was placed at the head of the
council: it was declared, that all the offices should be filled, from
time to time, by the votes of parliament, or rather by the will of the
great barons:[**] and the nation, under this new model of government,
endeavored to put itself in a better posture of defence against the
Scots. But the factious nobles were far from being terrified with the
progress of these public enemies: on the contrary, they founded the
hopes of their own future grandeur on the weakness and distresses of the
crown: Lancaster himself was suspected, with great appearance of reason,
of holding a secret correspondence with the king of Scots: and though he
was intrusted with the command of the English armies, he took care that
every enterprise should be disappointed, and every plan of operations
prove unsuccessful.
* Ryley, p, 560. Rymer, vol. iii. p. 722.
** Brady vol. ii. p. 122, from the records, App. No. 61.
Ryley p. 560.
All the European kingdoms, especially that of England, were at this time
unacquainted with the office of a prime minister, so well understood
at present in all regular monarchies; and the people could form
no conception of a man who, though still in the rank of a subject,
possessed all the power of a sovereign, eased the prince of the burden
of affairs, supplied his want of experience or capacity, and maintained
all the rights of the crown, without degrading the greatest nobles
by their submission to his temporary authority. Edward was plainly by
nature unfit to hold himself the reins of government: he had no vices,
but was unhappy in a total incapacity for serious business: he was
sensible of his own defects, and necessarily sought to be governed:
yet every favorite whom he successively chose, was regarded as a
fellow-subject exalted above his rank and station: he was the object of
envy to the great nobility: his character and conduct were decried with
the people: his authority over the king and kingdom was considered as a
usurpation: and unless the prince had embraced the dangerous expedient
of devolving his power on the earl of Lancaster, or some mighty baron,
whose family interest was so extensive as to be able alone to maintain
his influence, he could expect no peace or tranquillity upon the throne.
The king's chief favorite, after the death of Gavaston, was Hugh le
Despenser, or Spenser, a young man of English birth, of high rank, and
of a noble family.[*] He possessed all the exterior accomplishments of
person and address which were fitted to engage the weak mind of Edward;
but was destitute of that moderation and prudence which might have
qualified him to mitigate the envy of the great, and conduct him through
all the perils of that dangerous station to which he was advanced. His
father, who was of the same name, and who, by means of his son, had also
attained great influence over the king, was a nobleman venerable from
his years, respected through all his past life for wisdom, valor, and
integrity, and well fitted by his talents and experience, could affairs
have admitted of any temperament, to have supplied the defects both of
the king and of his minion.[**] But no sooner was Edward's attachment
declared for young Spenser, than the turbulent Lancaster, and most of
the great barons, regarded him as their rival, made him the object of
their animosity, and formed violent plans for his ruin.[***] They first
declared their discontent by withdrawing from parliament; and it was
not long ere they found a pretence for proceeding to greater extremities
against him.
{1321.} The king, who set no limits to his bounty toward his minions,
had married the younger Spenser to his niece one of the coheirs of the
earl of Glocester, slain at Bannockburn. The favorite, by his succession
to that opulent family, had inherited great possessions in the marches
of Wales,[****] and being desirous of extending still farther his
influence in those quarters, he is accused of having committed injustice
on the barons of Audley and Ammori, who had also married two sisters of
the same family.
* Dugd. Baron, vol. i. p. 389.
** T. de la More, p. 594.
*** Walsing. p. 113. T. de la More, p. 595. Murimuth, p. 55.
**** Trivet, Cont. p. 25.
There was likewise a baron in that neighborhood, called William de
Braouse, lord of Gower, who had made a settlement of his estate on John
de Mowbray, his son-in-law; and in case of failure of that nobleman and
his issue, had substituted the earl of Hereford in the succession to the
barony of Gower. Mowbray, on the decease of his father-in-law, entered
immediately in possession of the estate, without the formality of taking
livery and seizin from the crown; but Spenser, who coveted that barony,
persuaded the king to put in execution the rigor of the feudal law, to
seize Gower as escheated to the crown, and to confer it upon him.[*]
This transaction, which was the proper subject of a lawsuit, immediately
excited a civil war in the kingdom. The earls of Lancaster and Hereford
flew to arms: Audle and Ammori joined them with all their forces:
the two Rogers de Mortimer and Roger de Clifford, with many others,
disgusted for private reasons at the Spensers, brought a considerable
accession to the party; and their army being now formidable, they sent a
message to the king, requiring him immediately to dismiss or confine the
younger Spenser; and menacing him, in case of refusal, with renouncing
their allegiance to him, and taking revenge on that minister by their
own authority. They scarcely waited for an answer; but immediately fell
upon the lands of young Spenser, which they pillaged and destroyed;
murdered his servants, drove off his cattle, and burned his houses.[**]
They thence proceeded to commit like devastations on the estates of
Spenser the father, whose character they had hitherto seemed to respect.
And having drawn and signed a formal association among themselves,[***]
they marched to London with all their forces, stationed themselves in
the neighborhood of that city, and demanded of the king the banishment
of both the Spensers.
* Monach. Malms.
** Murimuth, p. 55.
*** Tyrrel, vol. ii p. 280, from the register of C. C.
Canterbury.
These noblemen were then absent; the father abroad, the son at sea;
and both of them employed in different commissions: the king therefore
replied, that his coronation oath, by which he was bound to observe the
laws, restrained him from giving his assent to so illegal a demand,
or condemning noblemen who were accused of no crime, nor had any
opportunity afforded them of making answer.[*] Equity and reason were
but a feeble opposition to men who had arms in their hands, and who,
being already involved in guilt, saw no safety but in success and
victory. They entered London with their troops; and giving in to the
parliament, which was then sitting, a charge against the Spensers, of
which they attempted not to prove one article, they procured, by menaces
and violence, a sentence of attainder and perpetual exile against these
ministers.[**] This sentence was voted by the lay barons alone; for
the commons, though now an estate in parliament, were yet of so little
consideration, that their assent was not demanded; and even the votes
of the prelates were neglected amidst the present disorders. The only
symptom which these turbulent barons gave of their regard to law,
was their requiring from the king an indemnity for their illegal
proceedings;[***] after which they disbanded their army, and separated,
in security, as they imagined, to their several castles.
This act of violence, in which the king was obliged to acquiesce,
rendered his person and his authority so contemptible, that every one
thought himself entitled to treat him with neglect. The queen, having
occasion soon after to pass by the castle of Leeds in Kent, which
belonged to the lord Badlesmere, desired a night's lodging, but was
refused admittance; and some of her attendants, who presented themselves
at the gate, were killed.[****] The insult upon this princess, who had
always endeavored to live on good terms with the barons, and who joined
them heartily in their hatred of the young Spenser, was an action which
nobody pretended to justify; and the king thought that he might, without
giving general umbrage, assemble an army, and take vengeance on the
offender. No one came to the assistance of Badlesmere; and Edward
prevailed.[*****]
* Walsing. p. 114.
** Tottle's Collect, part ii p. 50. Walsing. p. 114.
*** Tottle's Collect, part ii. p. 54. Rymer, vol. iii. p. 891.
**** Rymer, vol. iii. p. 89. Walsing. p. 114, 115. T. de la
Mare, p. 595. Murimuth, p. 56.
***** Walsing. p. 115.
But having now some forces on foot, and having concerted measures with
his friends throughout England, he ventured to take off the mask, to
attack all his enemies, and to recall the two Spensers, whose sentence
he declared illegal, unjust, contrary to the tenor of the Great Charter,
passed without the assent of the prelates, and extorted by violence from
him and the estate of barons.[*] Still the commons were not mentioned by
either party.
{1322.} The king had now got the start of the barons, an advantage
which, in those times, was commonly decisive, and he hastened with
his army to the marches of Wales, the chief seat of the power of his
enemies, whom he found totally unprepared for resistance. Many of the
barons in those parts endeavored to appease him by submission:[**]
their castles were seized, and their persons committed to custody. But
Lancaster, in order to prevent the total ruin of his party, summoned
together his vassals and retainers; declared his alliance with Scotland,
which had long been suspected; received the promise of a reenforcement
from that country, under the command of Randolf, earl of Murray, and Sir
James Douglas;[***] and being joined by the earl of Hereford, advanced
with all his forces against the king, who had collected an army of
thirty thousand men, and was superior to his enemies. Lancaster posted
himself at Burton upon Trent, and endeavored to defend the passages of
the river:[****] but being disappointed in that plan of operations, this
prince, who had no military genius, and whose personal courage was even
suspected, fled with his army to the north, in expectation of being
there joined by his Scottish allies.[*****] He was pursued by the king,
and his army diminished daily, till he came to Boroughbridge, where he
found Sir Andrew Harcla posted with some forces on the opposite side of
the river, and ready to dispute the passage with him. He was repulsed
in an attempt which he made to force his way: the earl of Hereford was
killed; the whole army of the rebels was disconcerted: Lancaster
himself was become incapable of taking any measures either for flight or
defence; and he was seized without resistance by Harcla, and conducted
to the king.[******]
* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 907. T. de la More, p. 595.
** Walsing. p. 115. Murimuth, p. 57.
*** Rymer, vol. iii. p. 958.
**** Walsing. p. 115.
***** Ypod. Neust. p. 504.
****** T. de la More, p. 596. Walsing. p. 116.
In those violent times, the laws were so much neglected on both sides,
that, even where they might, without any sensible inconvenience, have
been observed, the conquerors deemed it unnecessary to pay any regard to
them. Lancaster, who was guilty of open rebellion, and was taken in
arms against his sovereign, instead of being tried by the laws of
his country, which pronounced the sentence of death against him, was
condemned by a court-martial,[*] and led to execution. Edward, however,
little vindictive in his natural temper, here indulged his revenge,
and employed against the prisoner the same indignities which had been
exercised by his orders against Gavaston. He was clothed in a mean
attire, placed on a lean jade without a bridle, a hood was put on his
head, and in this posture, attended by the acclamations of the people,
this prince was conducted to an eminence near Pomfret, one of his own
castles, and there beheaded.[**]
* Tyrrel, vol. 11. p. 291.
** Leland's Coll. vol. i. p. 668.
Thus perished Thomas, earl of Lancaster, prince of the blood, and one of
the most potent barons that had ever been in England. His public conduct
sufficiently discovers the violence and turbulence of his character:
his private deportment appears not to have been more innocent: and his
hypocritical devotion, by which he gained the favor of the monks and
populace, will rather be regarded as an aggravation than an alleviation
of his guilt. Badlesmere, Giffard, Barret, Cheyney, Fleming, and about
eighteen of the most notorious offenders, were afterwards condemned by
a legal trial, and were executed. Many were thrown into prison: others
made their escape beyond sea: some of the king's servants were rewarded
from the forfeitures: Harcla received for his services the earldom of
Carlisle, and a large estate, which he soon after forfeited with his
life, for a treasonable correspondence with the king of Scotland. But
the greater part of those vast escheats were seized by young Spenser,
whose rapacity was insatiable. Many of the barons of the king's party
were disgusted with this partial division of the spoils: the envy
against Spenser rose higher than ever: the usual insolence of his
temper, inflamed by success, impelled him to commit many acts of
violence: the people, who always hated him, made him still more the
object of aversion: all the relations of the attainted barons and
gentlemen secretly vowed revenge: and though tranquillity was in
appearance restored to the kingdom, the general contempt of the king,
and odium against Spenser, bred dangerous humors, the source of future
revolutions and convulsions.
In this situation, no success could be expected from foreign wars; and
Edward, after making one more fruitless attempt against Scotland, whence
he retreated with dishonor, found it necessary to terminate hostilities
with that kingdom, by a truce of thirteen years.[*] Robert, though his
title to the crown was not acknowledged in the treaty, was satisfied
with insuring his possession of it during so long a time. He had
repelled with gallantry all the attacks of England: he had carried war
both into that kingdom and into Ireland: he had rejected with disdain
the pope's authority, who pretended to impose his commands upon him,
and oblige him to make peace with his enemies: his throne was firmly
established, as well in the affections of his subjects, as by force of
arms: yet there naturally remained some inquietude in his mind, while at
war with a state which, however at present disordered by faction, was
of itself so much an overmatch for him both in riches and in numbers of
people. And this truce was, at the same time, the more seasonable
for England, because the nation was at that juncture threatened with
hostilities from France.
{1324.} Philip the Fair, king of France, who died in 1315, had left the
crown to his son Lewis Hutin, who, after a short reign, dying without
male issue, was succeeded by Philip the Long, his brother, whose death
soon after made way for Charles the Fair, the youngest brother of that
family. This monarch had some grounds of complaint against the king's
ministers in Guienne; and as there was no common or equitable judge in
that strange species of sovereignty established by the feudal law, he
seemed desirous to take advantage of Edward's weakness, and under that
pretence to confiscate all his foreign dominions.[**]
* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 1022. Murimuth, p. 60.
** Rymer, vol. iv. p. 74, 98.
After an embassy by the earl of Kent, the king's brother, had been tried
in vain, Queen Isabella obtained permission to go over to Paris, and
endeavor to adjust, in an amicable manner, the difference with her
brother: but while she was making some progress in this negotiation,
Charles started a new pretension, the justice of which could not be
disputed, that Edward himself should appear in his court, and do
homage for the fees which he held in France. But there occurred many
difficulties in complying with this demand. Young Spenser, by whom
the king was implicitly governed, had unavoidably been engaged in many
quarrels with the queen, who aspired to the same influence, and though
that artful princess, on her leaving England, had dissembled her
animosity, Spenser, well acquainted with her secret sentiments, was
unwilling to attend his master to Paris, and appear in a court where her
credit might expose him to insults, if not to danger. He hesitated no
less on allowing the king to make the journey alone; both fearing lest
that easy prince should in his absence fall under other influence, and
foreseeing the perils to which he himself should be exposed if, without
the protection of royal authority, he remained in England where he was
so generally hated.
{1325.} While these doubts occasioned delays and difficulties, Isabella
proposed that Edward should resign the dominion of Guienne to his son,
now thirteen years of age; and that the prince should come to Paris,
and do the homage which every vassal owed to his superior lord. This
expedient, which seemed so happily to remove all difficulties, was
immediately embraced: Spenser was charmed with the contrivance: young
Edward was sent to Paris: and the ruin covered under this fatal snare,
was never perceived or suspected by any of the English council.
The queen, on her arrival in France, had there found a great number of
English fugitives, the remains of the Lancastrian faction; and
their common hatred of Spenser soon begat a secret friendship and
correspondence between them and that princess. Among the rest was
young Roger Mortimer, a potent baron in the Welsh marches, who had been
obliged, with others, to make his submissions to the king, had been
condemned for high treason; but having received a pardon for his life,
was afterwards detained in the Tower, with an intention of rendering his
confinement perpetual, He was so fortunate as to make his escape into
France;[*] and being one of the most considerable persons now remaining
of the party, as well as distinguished by his violent animosity against
Spenser, he was easily admitted to pay his court to Queen Isabella. The
graces of his person and address advanced him quickly in her affections:
he became her confident and counsellor in all her measures; and gaining
ground daily upon her heart, he engaged her to sacrifice at last, to her
passion, all the sentiments of honor and of fidelity to her husband.[**]
* Rymer, vol. iv. p. 7, 8, 20. T. de la More, p. 596.
Walsing.[** unclear] p. 120. Ypoa. Neust. p. 506.
** T. de la More, p. 598. Murimuth, p. 65.
Hating now the man whom she had injured, and whom she never valued, she
entered ardently into all Mortimer's conspiracies; and having artfully
gotten into her hands the young prince, and heir of the monarchy, she
resolved on the utter ruin of the king, as well as of his favorite. She
engaged her brother to take part in the same criminal purpose: her court
was daily filled with the exiled barons: Mortimer lived in the most
declared intimacy with her: a correspondence was secretly carried on
with the malecontent party in England: and when Edward, informed of
those alarming circumstances, required her speedily to return with
the prince, she publicly replied, that she would never set foot in the
kingdom till Spenser was forever removed from his presence and councils;
a declaration which procured her great popularity in England, and threw
a decent veil over all her treasonable enterprises.
Edward endeavored to put himself in a posture of defence;[*] but,
besides the difficulties arising from his own indolence and slender
abilities, and the want of authority, which of consequence attended all
his resolutions, it was not easy for him, in the present state of the
kingdom and revenue, to maintain a constant force ready to repel an
invasion, which he knew not at what time or place he had reason to
expect.
* Rymer, vol. iv. p. 184, 188, 225.
All his efforts were unequal to the traitorous and hostile conspiracies
which, both at home and abroad, were forming against his authority,
and which were daily penetrating farther even into his own family. His
brother, the earl of Kent, a virtuous but weak prince, who was then at
Paris, was engaged by his sister-in-law, and by the king of France, who
was also his cousin-german, to give countenance to the invasion,
whose sole object, he believed, was the expulsion of the Spensers: he
prevailed on his elder brother, the earl of Norfolk, to enter secretly
into the same design: the earl of Leicester, brother and heir of
the earl of Lancaster, had too many reasons for his hatred of these
ministers to refuse his concurrence. Walter de Reynel, archbishop of
Canterbury, and many of the prelates, expressed their approbation of
the queen's measures: several of the most potent barons, envying the
authority of the favorite, were ready to fly to arms: the minds of
the people, by means of some truths and many calumnies, were strongly
disposed to the same party: and there needed but the appearance of the
queen and prince, with such a body of foreign troops as might protect
her against immediate violence, to turn all this tempest, so artfully
prepared, against the unhappy Edward.
{1326.} Charles, though he gave countenance and assistance to the
faction, was ashamed openly to support the queen and prince against the
authority of a husband and father; and Isabella was obliged to court the
alliance of some other foreign potentate, from whose dominions she might
set out on her intended enterprise. For this purpose, she affianced
young Edward, whose tender age made him incapable to judge of the
consequences, with Philippa, daughter of the count of Holland and
Hainault;[*] and having, by the open assistance of this prince, and the
secret protection of her brother, enlisted in her service near three
thousand men, she set sail from the harbor of Dort, and landed safely,
and without opposition, on the coast of Suffolk. The earl of Kent was in
her company: two other princes of the blood, the earl of Norfolk and
the earl of Leicester, joined her soon after her landing with all their
followers: three prelates, the bishops of Ely, Lincoln, and Hereford,
brought her both the force of their vassals and the authority of their
character:[**] even Robert de Watteville, who had been sent by the king
to oppose her progress in Suffolk, deserted to her with all his forces.
To render her cause more favorable, she renewed her declaration, that
the solo purpose of her enterprise was to free the king and kingdom
from the tyranny of the Spensers, and of Chancellor Baldoc, their
creature.[*] The populace were allured by her specious pretences: the
barons thought themselves secure against forfeitures by the appearance
of the prince in her army: and a weak, irresolute king, supported by
ministers generally odious, was unable to stem this torrent, which bore
with such irresistible violence against him.
Edward, after trying in vain to rouse the citizens of London to some
sense of duty,[****] departed for the west, where he hoped to meet with
a better reception; and he had no sooner discovered his weakness by
leaving the city, than the rage of the populace broke out without
control against him and his ministers.
* T. de la More, p. 598.
** Walsing. p. 123. Ypod. Neust, p. 507. T. de la More, p.
598., Murimuth, p. 66.
*** Ypod, Neust. p. 508.
**** Walsing. p. 123.
They first plundered, then murdered all those who were obnoxious to
them: they seized the bishop of Exeter, a virtuous and loyal prelate, as
he was passing through the streets; and having beheaded him, they threw
his body into the river.[*] They made themselves masters of the Tower
by surprise; then entered into a formal association to put to death,
without mercy, every one who should dare to oppose the enterprise
of Queen Isabella, and of the prince.[**] A like spirit was soon
communicated to all other parts of England; and threw the few servants
of the king, who still entertained thoughts of performing their duty,
into terror and astonishment.
Edward was hotly pursued to Bristol by the earl of Kent, seconded by the
foreign forces under John de Hainault. He found himself disappointed
in his expectations with regard to the loyalty of those parts; and he
passed over to Wales, where, he flattered himself, his name was more
popular, and which he hoped to find uninfected with the contagion of
general rage which had seized the English.[***] The elder Spenser,
created earl of Winchester, was left governor of the castle of Bristol;
but the garrison mutinied against him, and he was delivered into the
hands of his enemies. This venerable noble, who had nearly reached his
ninetieth year, was instantly without trial, or witness, or accusation,
or answer, condemned to death by the rebellious barons: he was hanged on
a gibbet; his body was cut in pieces, and thrown to the dogs;[****] and
his head was sent to Winchester, the place whose title he bore, and was
there set on a pole and exposed to the insults of the populace.
The king, disappointed anew in his expectations of succor from the
Welsh, took shipping for Ireland; but being driven back by contrary
winds, he endeavored to conceal himself in the mountains of Wales: he
was soon discovered, was put under the custody of the earl of Leicester,
and was confined in the castle of Kenilworth. The younger Spenser, his
favorite, who also fell into the hands of his enemies, was executed,
like his father, without any appearance of a legal trial.[*****]
* Walsing. p. 124. T. de la More, p. 599. Murimuth, p. 66.
** Walsing. p. 124.
*** Murimuth, p. 67.
**** Leland's Coll. vol. ii. p. 673. T. de la More, p. 599.
Walsing. p. 125. M. Froissard, liv. i. chap. 13.
***** Walsing. p. 125. Ypod. Neust. p, 508.
The earl of Arundel, almost the only man of his rank in England who
had maintained his loyalty, was, without any trial, put to death at the
instigation of Mortimer: Baldoc, the chancellor, being a priest, could
not with safety be so suddenly despatched; but being sent to the bishop
of Hereford's palace in London, he was there, as his enemies probably
foresaw, seized by the populace, was thrown into Newgate, and soon after
expired, from the cruel usage which he had received.[*] Even the usual
reverence paid to the sacerdotal character gave way, with every other
consideration, to the present rage of the people.
{1327.} The queen, to avail herself of the prevailing delusion,
summoned, in the king's name, a parliament at Westminster; where,
together with the power of her army, and the authority of her partisans
among the barons, who were concerned to secure their past treasons by
committing new acts of violence against their sovereign, she expected
to be seconded by the fury of the populace, the most dangerous of all
instruments, and the least answerable for their excesses. A charge was
drawn up against the king, in which, even though it was framed by his
inveterate enemies, nothing but his narrow genius, or his misfortunes,
were objected to him; for the greatest malice found no particular crime
with which it could reproach this unhappy prince. He was accused of
incapacity for government, of wasting his time in idle amusements, of
neglecting public business, of being swayed by evil counsellors, of
having lost, by his misconduct, the kingdom of Scotland, and part of
Guienne; and to swell the charge, even the death of some barons, and the
imprisonment of some prelates, convicted of treason, were laid to his
account.[**] It was in vain, amidst the violence of arms and tumult of
the people, to appeal either to law or to reason: the deposition of the
king, without any appearing opposition, was voted by parliament: the
prince, already declared regent by his party,[***] was placed on the
throne: and a deputation was sent to Edward at Kenilworth, to require
his resignation, which menaces and terror soon extorted from him.
* Walsing. p. 126. Murimuth, p. 68.
** Knyghton, p. 2765, 2766. Brady's App. No. 72.
*** Rymer, vol. iv. p. 137. Walsing, p. 125.
But it was impossible that the people, however corrupted by the
barbarity of the times, still further inflamed by faction, could
forever remain insensible to the voice of nature. Here a wife had first
deserted, next invaded, and then dethroned her husband; had made her
minor son an instrument in this unnatural treatment of his father; had,
by lying pretences, seduced the nation into a rebellion against
their sovereign had pushed them into violence and cruelties that had
dishonored them: all those circumstances were so odious in themselves,
and formed such a complicated scene of guilt, that the least reflection
sufficed to open men's eyes, and make them detest this flagrant
infringement of every public and private duty. The suspicions which soon
arose of Isabella's criminal commerce with Mortimer, the proofs which
daily broke out of this part of her guilt, increased the general
abhorrence against her; and her hypocrisy, in publicly bewailing with
tears the king's unhappy fate,[*] was not able to deceive even the most
stupid and most prejudiced of her adherents. In proportion as the queen
became the object of public hatred the dethroned monarch, who had been
the victim of her crimes and her ambition, was regarded with pity,
with friendship, with veneration: and men became sensible, that all his
misconduct, which faction had so much exaggerated, had been owing to the
unavoidable weakness, not to any voluntary depravity, of his character.
The earl of Leicester, now earl of Lancaster, to whose custody he had
been committed, was soon touched with those generous sentiments;
and besides using his prisoner with gentleness and humanity, he was
suspected to have entertained still more honorable intentions in his
favor. The king, therefore, was taken from his hands, and delivered
over to Lord Berkeley, and Mautravers, and Gournay, who were intrusted
alternately, each for a month, with the charge of guarding him. While he
was in the custody of Berkeley, he was still treated with the gentleness
due to his rank and his misfortunes; but when the turn of Mautravers and
Gournay came, every species of indignity was practised against him, as
if their intention had been to break entirely the prince's spirit, and
to employ his sorrows and afflictions, instead of more violent and
more dangerous expedients, for the instruments of his murder.[**] It is
reported, that one day, when Edward was to be shaved, they ordered cold
and dirty water to be brought from the ditch for that purpose; and when
he desired it to be changed, and was still denied his request, he burst
into tears which bedewed his cheeks; and he exclaimed, that in spite of
their insolence, he should be shaved with clean and warm water.[***]
* Walsing. p. 126
** Anonymi Hist. p. 838.
*** T. de la Mo'e, p. 602.
But as this method of laying Edward, in his grave appeared still too
slow to the impatient Mortimer, he secretly sent orders to the two
keepers, who were at his devotion instantly to despatch him: and
these ruffians contrived to make the manner of his death as cruel and
barbarous as possible. Taking advantage of Berkeley's sickness, in whose
custody he then was, and who was thereby incapacitated from attending
his charge,[*] they came to Berkeley Castle, and put themselves in
possession of the king's person. They threw him on a bed; held him
down violently with a table, which they flung over him; thrust into his
fundament a red-hot iron, which they inserted through a horn; and though
the outward marks of violence upon his person were prevented by
this expedient, the horrid deed was discovered to all the guards and
attendants by the screams with which the agonizing king filled the
castle while his bowels were consuming.
Gournay and Mautravers were held in general detestation, and when the
ensuing revolution in England threw their protectors from power, they
found it necessary to provide for their safety by flying the kingdom.
Gournay was afterwards seized at Marseilles, delivered over to the
seneschal of Guienne, put on board a ship with a view of carrying him to
England; but he was beheaded at sea, by secret orders, as was supposed,
from some nobles and prelates in England, anxious to prevent any
discovery which he might make of his accomplices. Mautravers concealed
himself for several years in Germany; but having found means of
rendering some service to Edward III., he ventured to approach his
person, threw himself on his knees before him, submitted to mercy, and
received a pardon.[**]
* Cotton's Abridg. p. 8.
** Cotton's Abridg. p. 66, 81. Rymer, vol. v. p. 600
It is not easy to imagine a man more innocent and inoffensive than the
unhappy king whose tragical death we have related; nor a prince less
fitted for governing that fierce and turbulent people subjected to his
authority. He was obliged to devolve on others the weight of government,
which he had neither ability nor inclination to bear: the same indolence
and want of penetration led him to make choice of ministers and
favorites who were not always the best qualified for the trust committed
to them: the seditious grandees, pleased with his weakness, yet
complaining of it, under pretence of attacking his ministers, insulted
his person and invaded his authority: and the impatient populace,
mistaking the source of their grievances, threw all the blame upon the
king, and increased the public disorders by their faction and violence.
It was in vain to look for protection from the laws, whose voice, always
feeble in those times, was not heard amidst the din of arms--what could
not defend the king, was less able to give shelter to any of the
people: the whole machine of government was torn in pieces with fury and
violence; and men, instead of regretting the manners of their age, and
the form of their constitution, which required the most steady and most
skilful hand to conduct them, imputed all errors to the person who had
the misfortune to be intrusted with the reins of empire.
But though such mistakes are natural and almost unavoidable while the
events are recent, it is a shameful delusion in modern historians,
to imagine that all the ancient princes who were unfortunate in
their government, were also tyrannical in their conduct; and that the
seditions of the people always proceeded from some invasion of their
privileges by the monarch. Even a great and a good king was not in that
age secure against faction and rebellion, as appears in the case of
Henry II.; but a great king had the best chance, as we learn from the
history of the same period, for quelling and subduing them. Compare
the reigns and characters of Edward I. and II. The father made several
violent attempts against the liberties of the people: his barons opposed
him: he was obliged, at least found it prudent, to submit: but as they
dreaded his valor and abilities, they were content with reasonable
satisfaction, and pushed no farther their advantages against him. The
facility and weakness of the son, not his violence, threw every thing
into confusion: the laws and government were overturned: an attempt
to reinstate them was an unpardonable crime: and no atonement but the
deposition and tragical death of the king himself could give those
barons contentment. It is easy to see, that a constitution which
depended so much on the personal character of the prince, must
necessarily, in many of its parts, be a government of will, not of laws.
But always to throw, without distinction, the blame of all disorders
upon the sovereign would introduce a fatal error in politics, and serve
as a perpetual apology for treason and rebellion: as if the turbulence
of the great, and madness of the people, were not, equally with the
tyranny of princes, evils incident to human society, and no less
carefully to be guarded against in every well-regulated constitution.
While these abominable scenes passed in England, the theatre of France
was stained with a wickedness equally barbarous, and still more public
and deliberate. The order of knights templars had arisen during the
first fervor of the crusades; and uniting the two qualities the most
popular in that age, devotion and valor, and exercising both in the most
popular of all enterprises, the defence of the Holy Land, they had made
rapid advances in credit and authority, and had acquired, from the
piety of the faithful, ample possessions in every country of Europe,
especially in France. Their great riches, joined to the course of time,
had, by degrees, relaxed the severity of these virtues; and the templars
had, in a great measure, lost that popularity which first raised them to
honor and distinction. Acquainted from experience with the fatigues and
dangers of those fruitless expeditions to the East, they rather chose
to enjoy in ease their opulent revenues in Europe: and being all men
of birth, educated, according to the custom of that age, without any
tincture of letters, they scorned the ignoble occupations of a monastic
life, and passed their time wholly in the fashionable amusements of
hunting, gallantry, and the pleasures of the table. Then rival order,
that of St. John of Jerusalem, whose poverty had as yet preserved
them from like corruptions, still distinguished themselves by their
enterprises against the infidels, and succeeded to all the popularity
which was lost by the indolence and luxury of the templars. But though
these reasons had weakened the foundations of this order, once so
celebrated and revered, the immediate cause of their destruction
proceeded from the cruel and vindictive spirit of Philip the Fair, who,
having entertained a private disgust against some eminent templars,
determined to gratify at once his avidity and revenge, by involving the
whole order in an undistinguished ruin. On no better information
than that of two knights, condemned by their superiors to perpetual
imprisonment for their vices and profligacy, he ordered on one day all
the templars in France to be committed to prison, and imputed to them
such enormous and absurd crimes as are sufficient of themselves
to destroy all the credit of the accusation. Besides their being
universally charged with murder, robbery, and vices the most shocking
to nature, every one, it was pretended, whom they received into their
order, was obliged to renounce his Savior, to spit upon the cross,[*]
and to join to this impiety the superstition of worshipping a gilded
head, which was secretly kept in one of their houses at Marseilles.
* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 31, 101.
They also initiated, it was said, every candidate by such infamous rites
as could serve to no other purpose than to degrade the order in his
eyes, and destroy forever the authority of all his superiors over
him.[*] Above a hundred of these unhappy gentlemen were put to the
question, in order to extort from them a confession of their guilt: the
more obstinate perished in the hands of their tormentors: several, to
procure immediate ease in the violence of their agonies, acknowledged
whatever was required of them: forged confessions were imputed to
others: and Philip, as if their guilt were now certain, proceeded to
a confiscation of all their treasures. But no sooner were the templars
relieved from their tortures, than, preferring the most cruel execution
to a life with infamy, they disavowed their confessions, exclaimed
against the forgeries, justified the innocence of their order, and
appealed to all the gallant actions performed by them in ancient or
later times, as a full apology for their conduct. The tyrant, enraged
at this disappointment, and thinking himself now engaged in honor to
proceed to extremities, ordered fifty-four of them, whom he branded as
relapsed heretics, to perish by the punishment of fire in his capital:
great numbers expired, after a like manner, in other parts of the
kingdom: and when he found that the perseverance of these unhappy
victims, in justifying to the last their innocence, had made deep
impression on the spectators, he endeavored to overcome the constancy of
the templars by new inhumanities. The grand master of the order, John de
Molay, and another great officer, brother to the sovereign of Dauphiny,
were conducted to a scaffold erected before the church of Notredame, at
Paris: a full pardon was offered them on the one hand; the fire destined
for their execution was shown them on the other: these gallant nobles
still persisted in the protestations of their own innocence and that
of their order; and were instantly hurried into the flames by the
executioner.[**]
* It was pretended that he kissed the knights who received
him on the mouth, navel, and breech. Dupuy, p. 15, 6.
Walsing, p. 99.
** Vertot, vol. ii. p. 142.
In all this barbarous injustice, Clement V., who was the creature
of Philip, and then resided in France, fully concurred; and without
examining a witness, or making any inquiry into the truth of facts, he
summarily, by the plenitude of his apostolic power, abolished the whole
order. The templars all over Europe were thrown into prison; their
conduct underwent a strict scrutiny; the power of their enemies still
pursued and oppressed them; but nowhere, except in France, were the
smallest traces of their guilt pretended to be found. England sent an
ample testimony of their piety and morals; but as the order was now
annihilated, the knights were distributed into several convents, and
their possessions were, by command of the pope, transferred to the
order of St. John.[*] We now proceed to relate some other detached
transactions of the present period.
The kingdom of England was afflicted with a grievous famine during
several years of this reign. Perpetual rains and cold weather not only
destroyed the harvest, but bred a mortality among the cattle, and raised
every kind of food to an enormous price.[**] The parliament in 1315
endeavored to fix more moderate rates to commodities! not sensible that
such an attempt was impracticable, and that, were it possible to reduce
the price of provisions by any other expedient than by introducing
plenty, nothing could be more pernicious and destructive to the public.
Where the produce of a year, for instance, falls so far short as to
afford full subsistence only for nine months, the only expedient for
making it last all the twelve, is to raise the prices, to put the people
by that means on short allowance, and oblige them to save their food
till a more plentiful season. But in reality the increase of prices is
a necessary consequence of scarcity; and laws, instead of preventing
it, only aggravate the evil, by cramping and restraining commerce. The
parliament accordingly, in the ensuing year, repealed their ordinance,
which they had found useless and burdensome.[***]
The prices affixed by the parliament are somewhat remarkable: three
pounds twelve shillings of our present money for the best stalled ox;
for other oxen, two pounds eight shillings; a fat hog of two years old,
ten shillings; a fat wether unshorn, a crown; if shorn, three shillings
and sixpence; a fat goose, sevenpence halfpenny; a fat capon, sixpence;
a fat hen, threepence; two chickens, threepence; four pigeons,
threepence; two dozen of eggs, threepence.[****]
* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 323, 956; vol. iv. p. 47. Ypod. Neust.
p. 606
** Trivet, Cont. p. 17, 18.
*** Walsing p. 107.
**** Rot. Parl. 7 Edw. II. n. 35, 36. Ypod. Neust. p. 502.
If we consider these prices, we shall find that butcher's meat, in this
time of great scarcity, must still have been sold, by the parliamentary
ordinance, three times cheaper than our middling prices at present;
poultry somewhat lower, because, being now considered as a delicacy, it
has risen beyond its proportion. In the country places of Ireland and
Scotland, where delicacies bear no price, poultry is at present as
cheap, if not cheaper than butcher's meat. But the inference I would
draw from the comparison of prices is still more considerable: I suppose
that the rates affixed by parliament were inferior to the usual market
prices in those years of famine and mortality of cattle; and that these
commodities, instead of a third, had really risen to a half of the
present value. But the famine at that time was so consuming, that wheat
was sometimes sold for above four pounds ten shillings a quarter,[*]
usually for three pounds;[**] that is, twice our middling prices:
a certain proof of the wretched state of tillage in those ages. We
formerly found, that the middling price of corn in that period was half
of the present price; while the middling price of cattle was only an
eighth part: we here find the same immense disproportion in years of
scarcity. It may thence be inferred with certainty, that the raising of
corn was a species of manufactory, which few in that age could practise
with advantage: and there is reason to think, that other manufactures,
more refined, were sold even beyond their present prices; at least,
there is a demonstration for it in the reign of Henry VII., from the
rates affixed to scarlet and other broadcloth by act of parliament.
During all those times it was usual for the princes and great nobility
to make settlements of their velvet beds and silken robes, in the same
manner as of their estates and manors.[***] In the list of jewels and
plate which had belonged to the ostentatious Gavaston, and which the
king recovered from the earl of Lancaster after the murder of that
favorite, we find some embroidered girdles, flowered shirts, and silk
waistcoats.[****]
* Murimuth, p. 48. Walsingham (p. 108) says it rose to six
pounds.
** Ypod. Neust. p. 502. Trivet Cont. p. 18.
*** Dugdale, passim.
**** Rymer, vol. iii. p. 288
It was afterwards one article of accusation against that potent and
opulent earl, when he was put to death, that he had purloined some of
that finery of Gavaston's. The ignorance of those ages in manufactures,
and still more their unskilful husbandry, seem a clear proof that the
country was then far from being populous.
All trade and manufactures, indeed, were then at a very low ebb. The
only country in the northern parts of Europe, where they seem to have
risen to any tolerable degree of improvement, was Flanders. When Robert,
earl of that country, was applied to by the king, and was desired to
break off commerce with the Scots, whom Edward called his rebels, and
represented as excommunicated on that account by the church, the earl
replied, that Flanders was always considered as common, and free and
open to all nations.[*]
The petition of the elder Spenser to parliament, complaining of the
devastation committed on his lands by the barons, contains several
particulars which are curious, and discover the manners of the age.[**]
* Rymer, vol. iii. p. 770.
** Brady's Hist. vol. ii. p. 143, from Claus. 15 Edw-II. M,
14 Dors. in cedula.
He affirms, that they had ravaged sixty-three manors belonging to him,
and he makes his losses amount to forty-six thousand pounds; that is, to
one hundred and thirty-eight thousand of our present money. Among other
particulars, he enumerates twenty-eight thousand sheep, one thousand
oxen and heifers, twelve hundred cows with their breed for two years,
five hundred and sixty cart-horses, two thousand hogs, together with six
hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef, and six hundred muttons in the
larder; ten tuns of cider, arms for two hundred men, and other warlike
engines and provisions. The plain inference is, that the greater part of
Spenser's vast estate, as well as the estates of the other nobility, was
farmed by the landlord himself, managed by his stewards or bailiffs,
and cultivated by his villains. Little or none of it was let on lease to
husbandmen: its produce was consumed in rustic hospitality by the
baron or his officers: a great number of idle retainers, ready for any
disorder or mischief, were maintained by him: all who lived upon his
estate were absolutely at his disposal: instead of applying to courts of
justice, he usually sought redress by open force and violence: the great
nobility were a kind of independent potentates, who, if they submitted
to any regulations at all, were less governed by the municipal law than
by a rude species of the law of nations. The method in which we find
they treated the king's favorites and ministers, is a proof of their
usual way of dealing with each other. A party which complains of the
arbitrary conduct of ministers, ought naturally to affect a great regard
for the laws and constitution, and maintain at least the appearance of
justice in their proceedings; yet those barons, when discontented, came
to parliament with an armed force, constrained the king to assent
to their measures, and without any trial, or witness, or conviction,
passed, from the pretended notoriety of facts, an act of banishment
or attainder against the minister, which, on the first revolution of
fortune, was reversed by like expedients. The parliament during factious
times was nothing but the organ of present power. Though the persons of
whom it was chiefly composed seemed to enjoy great independence, they
really possessed no true liberty; and the security of each individual
among them was not so much derived from the general protection of
law, as from his own private power and that of his confederates. The
authority of the monarch, though far from absolute, was irregular, and
might often reach him: the current of a faction might overwhelm him:
a hundred considerations of benefits and injuries, friendships and
animosities, hopes and fears, were able to influence his conduct; and
amidst these motives, a regard to equity, and law, and justice was
commonly, in those rude ages, of little moment. Nor did any man
entertain thoughts of opposing present power, who did not deem himself
strong enough to dispute the field with it by force, and was not
prepared to give battle to the sovereign or the ruling party.
Before I conclude this reign, I cannot forbear making another remark,
drawn from the detail of losses given in by the elder Spenser;
particularly the great quantity of salted meat which he had in his
larder, six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef, six hundred
muttons. We may observe, that the outrage of which he complained began
after the third of May, or the eleventh, new style, as we learn from the
same paper. It is easy, therefore, to conjecture what a vast store of
the same kind he must have laid up at the beginning of winter; and we
may draw a new conclusion with regard to the wretched state of ancient
husbandry, which could not provide subsistence for the cattle during
winter, even in such a temperate climate as the south of England; for
Spenser had but one manor so far north as Yorkshire. There being few or
no enclosures, except perhaps for deer, no sown grass, little hay, and
no other resource for feeding cattle, the barons, as well as the people,
were obliged to kill and salt their oxen and sheep in the beginning of
winter, before they became lean upon the common pasture; a precaution
still practised with regard to oxen in the least cultivated parts of
this island. The salting of mutton is a miserable expedient, which has
every where been long disused. From this circumstance, however trivial
in appearance, may be drawn important inferences with regard to the
domestic economy and manner of life in those ages.
The disorders of the times, from foreign wars and intestine dissensions,
but above all, the cruel famine, which obliged the nobility to dismiss
many of their retainers, increased the number of robbers in the kingdom;
and no place was secure from their incursions.[*] They met in troops
like armies, and over-ran the country. Two cardinals themselves, the
pope's legates, notwithstanding the numerous train which attended
them, were robbed and despoiled of their goods and equipage, when they
travelled on the highway.[**]
Among the other wild fancies of the age, it was imagined, that the
persons affected with leprosy (a disease at that time very common,
probably from bad diet) had conspired with the Saracens to poison all
the springs and fountains; and men, being glad of any pretence to get
rid of those who were a burden to them, many of those unhappy people
were burnt alive on this chimerical imputation. Several Jews, also, were
punished in their persons, and their goods were confiscated on the same
account.[***]
* Ypod. Neust. p. 502. Walsing. p. 107.
** Ypod Neust. p. 503. T. de la More, p. 594. Trivet, Cont.
p, 22. Murimuth, p. 51.
*** Ypod. Neust. p. 504.
Stowe, in his Survey of London, gives us a curious instance of the
hospitality of the ancient nobility in this period; it is taken from
the accounts of the cofferer or steward of Thomas earl of Lancaster, and
contains the expenses of that earl during the year 1313, which was not
a year of famine. For the pantry, buttery, and kitchen, three thousand
four hundred and five pounds. For three hundred and sixty-nine pipes of
red wine, and two of white, one hundred and four pounds, etc. The whole,
seven thousand three hundred and nine pounds; that is, near twenty-two
thousand pounds of our present money; and making allowance for the
cheapness of commodities, near a hundred thousand pounds.
I have seen a French manuscript, containing accounts of some private
disbursements of this king. There is an article, among others, of a
crown paid to one for making the king laugh. To judge by the events of
the reign, this ought not to have been an easy undertaking.
This king left four children, two sons and two daughters: Edward, his
eldest son and successor; John, created afterwards earl of Cornwall, who
died young at Perth; Jane, afterwards married to David Bruce, king of
Scotland; and Eleanor, married to Reginald, count of Gueldres.
CHAPTER XV.
[Illustration: 1_207_edward3.jpg EDWARD III.]
EDWARD III.
{1327.} The violent party which had taken arms against Edward II., and
finally deposed that unfortunate monarch, deemed it requisite for their
future security to pay so far an exterior obeisance to the law, as to
desire a parliamentary indemnity for all their illegal proceedings; on
account of the necessity which, it was pretended, they lay under, of
employing force against the Spensers and other evil counsellors, enemies
of the kingdom. All the attainders, also, which had passed against
the earl of Lancaster and his adherents, when the chance of war turned
against them, were easily reversed during the triumph of their
party;[*] and the Spensers, whose former attainder had been reversed by
parliament, were now again, in this change of fortune, condemned by the
votes of their enemies.
* Rymer, vol. iv. p. 245, 267, 258, etc.
A council of regency was likewise appointed by parliament, consisting of
twelve persons; five prelates, the archbishops of Canterbury and York,
the bishops of Winchester, Worcester, and Hereford; and seven lay peers,
the earls of Norfolk, Kent, and Surrey, and the lords Wake, Ingham,
Piercy, and Ross. The earl of Lancaster was appointed guardian and
protector of the king's person. But though it was reasonable to
expect that, as the weakness of the former king had given reins to the
licentiousness of the barons, great domestic tranquillity would not
prevail during the present minority; the first disturbance arose from an
invasion by foreign enemies.
The king of Scots, declining in years and health, but retaining still
that martial spirit which had raised his nation from the lowest ebb of
fortune, deemed the present opportunity favorable for infesting England.
He first made an attempt on the Castle of Norham, in which he was
disappointed; he then collected an army of twenty-five thousand men on
the frontiers, and having given the command to the earl of Murray and
Lord Douglas, threatened an incursion into the northern counties. The
English regency, after trying in vain every expedient to restore
peace with Scotland, made vigorous preparations for war; and besides
assembling an English army of near sixty thousand men, they invited back
John of Hainault, and some foreign cavalry whom they had dismissed, and
whose discipline and arms had appeared superior to those of their own
country. Young Edward himself, burning with a passion for military fame,
appeared at the head of these numerous forces; and marched from Durham,
the appointed place of rendezvous, in quest of the enemy, who had
already broken into the frontiers, and were laying every thing waste
around them.
Murray and Douglas were the two most celebrated warriors, bred in
the long hostilities between the Scots and English; and their forces,
trained in the same school, and inured to hardships, fatigues, and
dangers, were perfectly qualified, by their habits and manner of life,
for that desultory and destructive war which they carried into England.
Except a body of about four thousand cavalry, well armed, and fit
to make a steady impression in battle, the rest of the army were
light-armed troops, mounted on small horses, which found subsistence
every where, and carried them with rapid and unexpected marches, whether
they meant to commit depredations on the peaceable inhabitants, or to
attack an armed enemy, or to retreat into their own country. Their whole
equipage consisted of a bag of oatmeal, which, as a supply in case of
necessity, each soldier carried behind him; together with a light plate
of iron, on which he instantly baked the meal into a cake in the open
fields. But his chief subsistence was the cattle which he seized;
and his cookery was as expeditious as all his other operations. After
flaying the animal, he placed the skin, loose and hanging in the form of
a bag, upon some stakes; he poured water into it, kindled a fire below,
and thus made it serve as a caldron for the boiling of his victuals.[*]
* Froissard, liv. iv. chap. 18.
The chief difficulty which Edward met with, after composing some
dangerous frays which broke out between his foreign forces and the
English,[*] was to come up with an army so rapid in its marches, and so
little encumbered in its motions. Though the flame and smoke of burning
villages directed him sufficiently to the place of their encampment, he
found, upon hurrying thither, that they had already dislodged; and he
soon discovered, by new marks of devastation, that they had removed to
some distant quarter. After harassing his army during some time in this
fruitless chase, he advanced northwards, and crossed the Tyne, with
a resolution of awaiting them on their return homewards, and taking
vengeance for all their depredations.[**] But that whole country was
already so much wasted by their frequent incursions, that it could
not afford subsistence to his army; and he was obliged again to return
southwards, and change his plan of operations. He had now lost all track
of the enemy; and though he promised the reward of a hundred pounds a
year to any one who should bring him an account of their motions, he
remained inactive some days before he received any intelligence of
them.[***] He found at last that they had fixed their camp on the
southern banks of the Were, as if they intended to await a battle; but
their prudent leaders had chosen the ground with such judgment, that the
English, on their approach, saw it impracticable, without temerity,
to cross the river in their front, and attack them in their present
situation. Edward, impatient for revenge and glory, here sent them a
defiance, and challenged them, if they dared, to meet him in an equal
field, and try the fortune of arms. The bold spirit of Douglas could ill
brook this bravado, and he advised the acceptance of the challenge; but
he was overruled by Murray, who replied to Edward that he never took the
counsel of an enemy in any of his operations. The king, therefore,
kept still his position opposite to the Scots; and daily expected that
necessity would oblige them to change their quarters, and give him an
opportunity of overwhelming them with superior forces. After a few days,
they suddenly decamped, and marched farther up the river; but still
posted themselves in such a manner as to preserve the advantage of the
ground if the enemy should venture to attack them.[****]
* Froissard, liv. iv. chap. 17.
** Froissard, liv. iv. chap. 19.
*** Rymer, vol. iv. p. 312. Froissard, liv. iv. chap. 19.
**** Froissard, liv. iv. chap. 19.
Edward insisted that all hazards should be run, rather than allow these
ravagers to escape with impunity; but Mortimer's authority prevented the
attack, and opposed itself to the valor of the young monarch. While the
armies lay in this position, an incident happened which had well nigh
proved fatal to the English. Douglas, having gotten the word, and
surveyed exactly the situation of the English camp, entered it secretly
in the night-time, with a body of two hundred determined soldiers, and
advanced to the royal tent, with a view of killing or carrying off the
king in the midst of his army. But some of Edward's attendants, awaking
in that critical moment, made resistance; his chaplain and chamberlain
sacrificed their lives for his safety; the king himself, after making
a valorous defence, escaped in the dark; and Douglas, having lost the
greater part of his followers, was glad to make a hasty retreat with the
remainder.[*] Soon after, the Scottish army decamped without noise in
the dead of night; and having thus gotten the start of the English,
arrived without further loss in their own country. Edward, on entering
the place of the Scottish encampment, found only six Englishmen, whom
the enemy, after breaking their legs, had tied to trees, in order to
prevent their carrying any intelligence to their countrymen.[**]
* Froissard, liv. iv. chap. 19. Heming. p. 265. Ypod. Neust.
p. 509. Knyghton, p 2552.
** Froissard, liv. iv. chap. 19.
The king was highly incensed at the disappointment which he had met
with in his first enterprise, and at the head of so gallant an army.
The symptoms which he had discovered of bravery and spirit gave extreme
satisfaction, and were regarded as sure prognostics of an illustrious
reign: but the general displeasure fell violently on Mortimer, who was
already the object of public odium; and every measure which he pursued
tended to aggravate, beyond all bounds, the hatred of the nation both
against him and Queen Isabella.
When the council of regency was formed, Mortimer, though in the
plenitude of his power, had taken no care to insure a place in it; but
this semblance of moderation was only a cover to the most iniquitous and
most ambitious projects. He rendered that council entirely useless, by
usurping to himself the whole sovereign authority; he settled on the
queen dowager the greater part of the royal revenues; he never consulted
either the princes of the blood or the nobility in any public measure;
the king himself was so besieged by his creatures, that no access could
be procured to him; and all the envy which had attended Gavaston and
Spenser fell much more deservedly on the new favorite.
{1328.} Mortimer, sensible of the growing hatred of the people, thought
it requisite on any terms to secure peace abroad; and he entered into
a negotiation with Robert Bruce for that purpose. As the claim of
superiority in England, more than any other cause, had tended to inflame
the animosities between the two nations, Mortimer, besides stipulating a
marriage between Jane, sister of Edward, and David, the son and heir of
Robert, consented to resign absolutely this claim, to give up all the
homages done by the Scottish parliament and nobility, and to acknowledge
Robert as independent sovereign of Scotland.[*] In return for these
advantages, Robert stipulated the payment of thirty thousand marks
to England. This treaty was ratified by parliament;[**] but was
nevertheless the source of great discontent among the people, who,
having entered zealously into the pretensions of Edward I., and deeming
themselves disgraced by the successful resistance made by so inferior a
nation, were disappointed, by this treaty, in all future hopes both of
conquest and of vengeance.
The princes of the blood, Kent, Norfolk, and Lancaster, were much united
in their councils; and Mortimer entertained great suspicions of their
designs against him. In summoning them to parliament, he strictly
prohibited them, in the king's name, from coming attended by an armed
force; an illegal but usual practice in that age. The three earls, as
they approached to Salisbury, the place appointed for the meeting of
parliament, found, that though they themselves, in obedience to the
king's command, had brought only their usual retinue with them, Mortimer
and his party were attended by all their followers in arms; and they
began with some reason to apprehend a dangerous design against their
persons. They retreated, assembled their retainers, and were returning
with an army to take vengeance on Mortimer; when the weakness of Kent
and Norfolk, who deserted the common cause, obliged Lancaster also to
make his submissions.[***]
* Rymer, p. 837. Heming. p. 270. Anon. Hist p. 392.
** Ypod, Neust. p. 510.
*** Knyghton, p. 2554.
The quarrel by the interposition of the prelates, seemed for the present
to be appeased.
{1329.} But Mortimer, in order to intimidate the princes, determined to
have a victim; and the simplicity, with the good intentions of the earl
of Kent, afforded him soon after an opportunity of practising upon him.
By himself and his emissaries he endeavored to persuade that prince that
his brother, King Edward, was still alive, and detained in some secret
prison in England. The earl, whose remorses for the part which he had
acted against the late king probably inclined him to give credit to
this intelligence, entered into a design of restoring him to liberty, of
reinstating him on the throne, and of making thereby some atonement for
the injuries which he himself had unwarily done him.[*]
{1330.} After this harmless contrivance had been allowed to proceed a
certain length, the earl was seized by Mortimer, was accused before the
parliament, and condemned, by those slavish though turbulent barons, to
lose his life and fortune. The queen and Mortimer, apprehensive of young
Edward's lenity towards his uncle, hurried on the execution, and the
prisoner was beheaded next day: but so general was the affection borne
him, and such pity prevailed for his unhappy fate, that, though peers
had been easily found to condemn him, it was evening before his enemies
could find an executioner to perform the office.[**]
* Avesbury, p. 8. Anon. Hist. p. 395.
** Heming. p. 271. Ypod. Neust. p. 510. Knyghton, p. 2555.
The earl of Lancaster, on pretence of his having assented to this
conspiracy, was soon after thrown into prison: many of the prelates and
nobility were prosecuted: Mortimer employed this engine to crush all his
enemies, and to enrich himself and his family by the forfeitures. The
estate of the earl of Kent was seized for his younger son, Geoffrey:
the immense fortunes of the Spensers and their adherents were mostly
converted to his own use: he affected a state and dignity equal or
superior to the royal: his power became formidable to every one: his
illegal practices were daily complained of: and all parties, forgetting
past animosities, conspired in their hatred of Mortimer.
It was impossible that these abuses could long escape the observation of
a prince endowed with so much spirit and judgment as young Edward,
who, being now in his eighteenth year, and feeling himself capable of
governing, repined at being held in fetters by this insolent minister.
But so much was he surrounded by the emissaries of Mortimer, that it
behoved him to conduct the project for subverting him with the same
secrecy and precaution as if he had been forming a conspiracy against
his sovereign. He communicated his intentions to Lord Mountacute, who
engaged the Lords Molins and Clifford, Sir John Nevil of Hornby, Sir
Edward Bohun, Ufford, and others, to enter into their views; and the
Castle of Nottingham was chosen for the scene of the enterprise. The
queen dowager and Mortimer lodged in that fortress: the king also was
admitted, though with a few only of his attendants: and as the castle
was strictly guarded, the gates locked every evening, and the keys
carried to the queen, it became necessary to communicate the design to
Sir William Eland, the governor, who zealously took part in it. By his
direction, the king's associates were admitted through a subterraneous
passage, which had formerly been contrived for a secret outlet from the
castle, but was now buried in rubbish; and Mortimer, without having it
in his power to make resistance, was suddenly seized in an apartment
adjoining to the queen's.[*] A parliament was immediately summoned for
his condemnation. He was accused before that assembly of having usurped
regal power from the council of regency appointed by parliament; of
having procured the death of the late king; of having deceived the earl
of Kent into a conspiracy to restore that prince; of having solicited
and obtained exorbitant grants of the royal demesnes; of having
dissipated the public treasure; of secreting twenty thousand marks
of the money paid by the king of Scotland; and of other crimes and
misdemeanors.[**] The parliament condemned him from the supposed
notoriety of the facts, without trial, or hearing his answer, or
examining a witness; and he was hanged on a gibbet at the Elmes, in the
neighborhood of London. It is remarkable, that this sentence was near
twenty years after reversed by parliament, in favor of Mortimer's son;
and the reason assigned was, the illegal manner of proceeding.[***] The
principles of law and justice were established in England, not in such a
degree as to prevent any iniquitous sentence against a person obnoxious
to the ruling party; but sufficient, on the return of his credit, or
that of his friends, to serve as a reason or pretence for its reversal.
* Avesbury, p. 9.
** Brady's App. No. 83. Anon. Hist. p. 397, 398. Knyghton,
p. 2556.
*** Cotton's Abridg. p. 85, 86.
{1331.} Justice was also executed by a sentence of the house of peers on
some of the inferior criminals, particularly on Simon de Bereford: but
the barons, in that act of jurisdiction, entered a protest, that though
they had tried Bereford, who was none of their peers, they should not
for the future be obliged to receive any such indictment. The queen
was confined to her own house at Risings, near London: her revenue was
reduced to four thousand pounds a year:[*] and though the king, during
the remainder of her life, paid her a decent visit once or twice a year,
she never was able to reinstate herself in any credit or authority.
Edward, having now taken the reins of government into his own hands,
applied himself, with industry and judgment, to redress all those
grievances which had proceeded either from want of authority in the
crown, or from the late abuses of it. He issued writs to the judges,
enjoining them to administer justice, without paying any regard to
arbitrary orders from the ministers: and as the robbers, thieves,
murderers, and criminals of all kinds, had, during the course of public
convulsions, multiplied to an enormous degree, and were openly protected
by the great barons, who made use of them against their enemies, the
king, after exacting from the peers a solemn promise in parliament,
that they would break off all connections with such malefactors,[**] set
himself in earnest to remedy the evil. Many of these gangs had become so
numerous as to require his own presence to disperse them; and he
exerted both courage and industry in executing this salutary office. The
ministers of justice, from his example, employed the utmost diligence
in discovering, pursuing, and punishing the criminals; and this disorder
was by degrees corrected, at least palliated; the utmost that could be
expected with regard to a disease hitherto inherent in the constitution.
* Cotton's Abridg. p. 10
** Cotton's Abridg. p. 10.
In proportion as the government acquired authority at home, it became
formidable to the neighboring nations; and the ambitious spirit of
Edward sought, and soon found, an opportunity of exerting itself.
The wise and valiant Robert Bruce, who had recovered by arms the
independence of his country, and had fixed it by the last treaty of
peace with England, soon after died, and left David his son, a minor,
under the guardianship of Randolph, earl of Murray, the companion of
all his victories. It had been stipulated in this treaty, that both the
Scottish nobility who, before the commencement of the wars enjoyed lands
in England, and the English who inherited estates in Scotland, should be
restored to their respective possessions:[*] but though this article
had been executed pretty regularly on the part of Edward, Robert, who
observed that the estates claimed by Englishmen were much more numerous
and valuable than the others, either thought it dangerous to admit so
many secret enemies into the kingdom, or found it difficult to wrest
from his own followers the possessions bestowed on them as the reward
of former services; and he had protracted the performance of his part of
the stipulation. The English nobles, disappointed in their expectations,
began to think of a remedy; and as their influence was great in the
north, their enmity alone, even though unsupported by the King of
England, became dangerous to the minor prince who succeeded to the
Scottish throne.
{1332.} Edward Baliol, the son of that John who was crowned king of
Scotland, had been detained some time a prisoner in England after his
father was released; but having also obtained his liberty, he went over
to France, and resided in Normandy, on his patrimonial estate in that
country, without any thoughts of reviving the claims of his family to
the crown of Scotland. His pretensions, however plausible, had been so
strenuously abjured by the Scots and rejected by the English, that he
was universally regarded as a private person; and he had been thrown
into prison on account of some private offence of which he was accused.
Lord Beaumont, a great English baron, who, in the right of his wife,
claimed the earldom of Buchan in Scotland,[**] found him in this
situation; and deeming him a proper instrument for his purpose,
made such interest with the king of France, who was not aware of the
consequences, that he recovered him his liberty, and brought him over
with him to England.
* Rymer, vol. iv. p. 384.
** Rymer, vol. iv. p. 251.
The injured nobles, possessed of such a head, began to think of
vindicating their rights by force of arms; and they applied to Edward
for his concurrence and assistance. But there were several reasons which
deterred the king from openly avowing their enterprise. In his treaty
with Scotland he had entered into a bond of twenty thousand pounds,
payable to the pope, if within four years he violated the peace; and as
the term was not yet elapsed, he dreaded the exacting of that penalty by
the sovereign pontiff, who possessed so many means of forcing princes to
make payment. He was also afraid that violence and injustice would every
where be imputed to him, if he attacked with superior force a minor
king, and a brother-in-law, whose independent title had so lately been
acknowledged by a solemn treaty. And as the regent of Scotland, on every
demand which had been made of restitution to the English barons, had
always confessed the justice of their claim, and had only given an
evasive answer, grounded on plausible pretences, Edward resolved not to
proceed by open violence, but to employ like artifices against him. He
secretly encouraged Baliol in his enterprise; connived at his assembling
forces in the north; and gave countenance to the nobles who were
disposed to join in the attempt. A force of near two thousand five
hundred men was enlisted under Baliol, by Umfreville, earl of Angus,
the lords Beaumont, Ferrars, Fitz-warin, Wake, Stafford, Talbot, and
Moubray. As these adventurers apprehended that the frontiers would be
strongly armed and guarded, they resolved to make their attack by sea;
and having embarked at Ravenspur, they reached in a few days the coast
of Fife.
Scotland was at that time in a very different situation from that in
which it had appeared under the victorious Robert. Besides the loss
of that great monarch, whose genius and authority preserved entire the
whole political fabric, and maintained a union among the unruly barons,
Lord Douglas, impatient of rest, had gone over to Spain in a crusade
against the Moors, and had there perished in battle:[*] the earl of
Murray, who had long been declining through age and infirmities, had
lately died, and had been succeeded in the regency by Donald, earl of
Marre, a man of much inferior talents: the military spirit of the Scots,
though still unbroken, was left without a proper guidance and direction:
and a minor king seemed ill qualified to defend an inheritance, which
it had required all the consummate valor and abilities of his father to
acquire and maintain.
* Froissard, liv. i. chap. 21.
But as the Scots were apprised of the intended invasion, great numbers,
on the appearance of the English fleet, immediately ran to the shore,
in order to prevent the landing of the enemy. Baliol had valor and
activity, and he drove back the Scots with considerable loss.[*] He
marched westward into the heart of the country; flattering himself
that the ancient partisans of his family would declare for him. But
the fierce animosities which had been kindled between the two nations,
inspiring the Scots with a strong prejudice against a prince supported
by the English, he was regarded as a common enemy; and the regent found
no difficulty in assembling a great army to oppose him. It is pretended
that Marre had no less than forty thousand men under his banners; but
the same hurry and impatience that made him collect a force, which, from
its greatness, was so disproportioned to the occasion, rendered all
his motions unskilful and imprudent. The River Erne ran between the two
armies; and the Scots, confiding in that security, as well as in their
great superiority of numbers, kept no order in their encampment.
Baliol passed the river in the night-time; attacked the unguarded and
undisciplined Scots; threw them into confusion, which was increased by
the darkness, and by their very numbers, to which they trusted; and he
beat them off the field with great slaughter.[**] But in the morning,
when the Scots were at some distance, they were ashamed of having
yielded the victory to so weak a foe, and they hurried back to recover
the honor of the day. Their eager passions urged them precipitately to
battle, without regard to some broken ground which lay between them
and the enemy, and which disordered and confounded their ranks. Baliol
seized the favorable opportunity, advanced his troops upon them,
prevented them from rallying, and anew chased them off the field with
redoubled slaughter. There fell above twelve thousand Scots in this
action; and among these the flower of their nobility; the regent
himself, the earl of Carrick, a natural son of their late king, the
earls of Athole and Monteith, lord Hay of Errol, constable, and the
lords Keith and Lindsey. The loss of the English scarcely exceeded
thirty men; a strong proof, among many others, of the miserable state of
military discipline in those ages.[***]
* Heming. p. 272. Walsing. p. 131. Knyghton, p. 2560.
** Knyghton, p. 2561.
*** Heming. p. 273. Walsing. p. 131. Knyghton, p. 2561.
Baliol soon after made himself master of Perth; but still was not able
to bring over any of the Scots to his party. Patric Dunbar, earl of
Marche, and Sir Archibald Douglas, brother to the lord of that name,
appeared at the head of the Scottish armies, which amounted still to
near forty thousand men; and they purposed to reduce Baliol and the
English by famine. They blockaded Perth by land; they collected some
vessels with which they invested it by water; but Baliol's ships,
attacking the Scottish fleet, gained a complete victory, and opened the
communication between Perth and the sea.[*] The Scotch armies were then
obliged to disband for want of pay and subsistence: the nation was in
effect subdued by a handful of men: each nobleman who found himself most
exposed to danger, successively submitted to Baliol: that prince was
crowned at Scone: David, his competitor, was sent over to France with
his betrothed wife Jane, sister to Edward: and the heads of his party
sued to Baliol for a truce, which he granted them, in order to assemble
a parliament in tranquillity, and have his title recognized by the whole
Scottish nation.
* Heming p. 273. Knyghton, p. 2561.
{1333.} But Baliol's imprudence, or his necessities, making him dismiss
the greater part of his English followers, he was, notwithstanding the
truce, attacked of a sudden near Annan, by Sir Archibald Douglas and
other chieftains of that party; he was routed; his brother, John Baliol,
was slain; he himself was chased into England in a miserable condition;
and thus lost his kingdom by a revolution as sudden as that by which he
had acquired it.
While Baliol enjoyed his short-lived and precarious royalty, he had been
sensible that, without the protection of England, it would be impossible
for him to maintain possession of the throne; and he had secretly sent a
message to Edward, offering to acknowledge his superiority, to renew the
homage for his crown, and to espouse the princess Jane, if the pope's
consent could be obtained for dissolving her former marriage, which
was not yet consummated. Edward, ambitious of recovering that important
concession, made by Mortimer during his minority, threw off all
scruples, and willingly accepted the offer; but as the dethroning of
Baliol had rendered this stipulation of no effect, the king prepared to
reinstate him in possession of the crown; an enterprise which appeared
from late experience so easy and so little hazardous. As he possessed
many popular arts, he consulted his parliament on the occasion; but
that assembly, finding the resolution already taken, declined giving any
opinion, and only granted him, in order to support the enterprise, an
aid of a fifteenth from the personal estates of the nobility and gentry,
and a tenth of the movables of boroughs. And they added a petition, that
the king would thenceforth live on his own revenue, without grieving his
subjects by illegal taxes, or by the outrageous seizure of their goods
in the shape of purveyance.[*]
As the Scots expected that the chief brunt of the war would fall upon
Berwick, Douglas, the regent, threw a strong garrison into that place,
under the command of Sir William Keith, and he himself assembled a great
army on the frontiers, ready to penetrate into England as soon as Edward
should have invested that place. The English army was less numerous,
but better |
