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THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY III. TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD III.
(1216-1377)
BY T.F. TOUT, M.A.
Professor of Mediaeval and Modern History
in the University of Manchester.
THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN TWELVE VOLUMES
Seventy-six years have passed since Lingard completed his HISTORY OF
ENGLAND, which ends with the Revolution of 1688. During that period
historical study has made a great advance. Year after year the mass of
materials for a new History of England has increased; new lights have
been thrown on events and characters, and old errors have been
corrected. Many notable works have been written on various periods of
our history; some of them at such length as to appeal almost
exclusively to professed historical students. It is believed that the
time has come when the advance which has been made in the knowledge of
English history as a whole should be laid before the public in a single
work of fairly adequate size. Such a book should be founded on
independent thought and research, but should at the same time be
written with a full knowledge of the works of the best modern
historians and with a desire to take advantage of their teaching
wherever it appears sound.
The vast number of authorities, printed and in manuscript, on which a
History of England should be based, if it is to represent the existing
state of knowledge, renders co-operation almost necessary and certainly
advisable. The History, of which this volume is an instalment, is an
attempt to set forth in a readable form the results at present attained
by research. It will consist of twelve volumes by twelve different
writers, each of them chosen as being specialty capable of dealing with
the period which he undertakes, and the editors, while leaving to each
author as free a hand as possible, hope to insure a general similarity
in method of treatment, so that the twelve volumes may in their
contents, as well as in their outward appearance, form one History.
As its title imports, this History will primarily deal with politics,
with the History of England and, after the date of the union with
Scotland, Great Britain, as a state or body politic; but as the life of
a nation is complex, and its condition at any given time cannot be
understood without taking into account the various forces acting upon
it, notices of religious matters and of intellectual, social, and
economic progress will also find place in these volumes. The footnotes
will, so far as is possible, be confined to references to authorities,
and references will not be appended to statements which appear to be
matters of common knowledge and do not call for support. Each volume
will have an Appendix giving some account of the chief authorities,
original and secondary, which the author has used. This account will be
compiled with a view of helping students rather than of making long
lists of books without any notes as to their contents or value. That
the History will have faults both of its own and such as will always in
some measure attend co-operative work, must be expected, but no pains
have been spared to make it, so far as may be, not wholly unworthy of
the greatness of its subject.
Each volume, while forming part of a complete History, will also in
itself be a separate and complete book, will be sold separately, and
will have its own index, and two or more maps.
Vol. I. to 1066. By Thomas Hodgkin, D.C.L., Litt.D., Fellow of
University College, London; Fellow of the British Academy.
Vol. II. 1066 to 1216. By George Burton Adams, M.A., Professor of
History in Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
Vol. III. 1216 to 1377. By T.F. Tout, M.A., Professor of Medieval and
Modern History in the Victoria University of Manchester; formerly
Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford.
Vol. IV. 1377 to 1485. By C. Oman, M.A., Fellow of All Souls' College,
and Deputy Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford.
Vol. V. 1485 to 1547. By H.A.L. Fisher, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of New
College, Oxford.
Vol. VI. 1547 to 1603. By A.F. Pollard, M.A., Professor of
Constitutional History in University College, London.
Vol. VII. 1603 to 1660. By F.C. Montague, M.A., Professor of History in
University College, London; formerly Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford.
Vol. VIII. 1660 to 1702. By Richard Lodge, M.A., Professor of History
in the University of Edinburgh; formerly Fellow of Brasenose College,
Oxford.
Vol. IX. 1702 to 1760. By I.S. Leadam, M.A., formerly Fellow of
Brasenose College, Oxford.
Vol. X. 1760 to 1801. By the Rev. William Hunt, M.A., D. Litt, Trinity
College, Oxford.
Vol. XI. 1801 to 1837. By the Hon. George C. Brodrick, D.C.L., late
Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and J K. Fotheringham, M.A., Magdalen
College, Oxford, Lecturer in Classics at King's College, London.
Vol. XII. 1837 to 1901. By Sidney J Low, M.A., Balliol College, Oxford,
formerly Lecturer on History at King's College, London.
The Political History of England
IN TWELVE VOLUMES
EDITED BY WILLIAM HUNT, D. LITT., AND
REGINALD L. POOLE, M.A.
III.
THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY III. TO THE
DEATH OF EDWARD III.
1216-1377
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE REGENCY OF WILLIAM MARSHAL.
19 Oct., 1216. Death of King John
Position of parties
The Church on the king's side
28 Oct. Coronation of Henry III
11 Nov. Great council at Bristol
12 Nov. The first charter of Henry III
1216-17. Progress of the war
1217. Rising of Wilkin of the Weald
Louis' visit to France
22 April. Return of Louis from France
Sieges of Dover, Farnham, and Mount Sorrel
20 May. The fair of Lincoln
23 Aug. The sea-fight off Sandwich
11 Sept. Treaty of Lambeth
6 Nov. Reissue of the great charter
Restoration of order by William Marshal
14 May, 1219. Death of William Marshal
His character and career
CHAPTER II.
THE RULE OF HUBERT DE BURGH.
1219. Pandulf the real successor of William Marshal
July, 1221. Langton procures Pandulf's recall
Ascendency of Hubert de Burgh
Jan.-Feb., 1221. The rebellion of Albemarle
July, 1222. The sedition of Constantine FitzAthulf
1221-24. Marriage alliances
1219-23. War in Wales
April, 1223. Henry III. declared by the pope competent to govern
June, 1224. Revolt of Falkes de Breaute
20 June-14 Aug. Siege of Bedford
Fall of Falkes
Papal and royal taxation
April, 1227. End of the minority
Relations with France during the minority
The Lusignans and the Poitevin barons
1224. Louis VIII.'s conquest of Poitou
1225. Expedition of Richard of Cornwall and William
Longsword to Gascony
Nov., 1226. Accession of Louis IX. in France
1229-30. Henry III.'s campaign in Brittany and Poitou
21-30 July, 1230. Siege of Mirambeau
1228. The Kerry campaign
2 May, 1230. Death of William of Braose
1231. Henry III.'s second Welsh campaign
Aug. Death of Archbishop Richard le Grand
Gregory IX. and Henry III.
1232. Riots of Robert Twenge
29 July. Fall of Hubert de Burgh
1231. Death of William Marshal the Younger
1232. Death of Randolph of Blundeville, Earl of Chester
CHAPTER III.
THE ALIEN INVASION.
1232-34. Rule of Peter des Roches
Aug., 1233. Revolt of Richard Marshal
23 Nov. Fight near Monmouth
1234. Richard Marshal in Ireland
1 April. Defeat and death of the Earl Marshal near Kildare
2 April. Edmund Rich consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury
9 April. Fall of Peter des Roches
Beginning of Henry III.'s personal government
Character of Henry III.
The alien invasions
14 Jan., 1236. Henry's marriage to Eleanor of Provence
The Savoyards in England
Revival of Poitevin influence
1239. Simon of Montfort Earl of Leicester
1237. The legation of Cardinal Otto
1239. Quarrel of Gregory IX. and Frederick II.
1235. Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln
16 Nov., 1240. Death of Edmund Rich in exile
Henry III. and Frederick II.
Attempted reconquest of Poitou
May-Sept., 1242. The campaign of Taillebourg
1243. Truce with France
The Lusignans in England
The baronial opposition
Grosseteste's opposition to Henry III., and Innocent IV.
1243. Relations with Scotland and Wales
1240. Death of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth
1246. Death of David ap Llewelyn
CHAPTER IV.
POLITICAL RETROGRESSION and NATIONAL PROGRESS.
1248-58. Characteristics of the history of these ten years
Decay of Henry's power in Gascony
1248-52. Simon de Montfort, seneschal of Gascony
Aug., 1253. Henry III. in Gascony
1254. Marriage and establishment of Edward the king's son
Edward's position in Gascony
Edward's position in Cheshire
1254. Llewelyn ap Griffith sole Prince of North Wales
Edward in the four cantreds and in West Wales
1257. Welsh campaign of Henry and Edward
Revival of the baronial opposition
1255. Candidature of Edmund, the king's son, for Sicily
1257. Richard of Cornwall elected and crowned King of the Romans
Leicester as leader of the opposition
Progress in the age of Henry III
The cosmopolitan and the national ideals
French influence
The coming of the friars
1221. Gilbert of Freynet and the first Dominicans in England
1224. Arrival of Agnellus of Pisa and the first Franciscans
in England
Other mendicant orders in England
The influence of the friars
The universities
Prominent English schoolmen
Paris and Oxford
The mendicants at Oxford
Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus
Academic influence in public life
Beginnings of colleges
Intellectual characteristics of thirteenth century
Literature in Latin and French
Literature in English
Art
Gothic architecture
The towns and trade
CHAPTER V.
THE BARONS' WAR.
2 April, 1258. Parliament at London
11 June. The Mad Parliament
The Provisions of Oxford
22 June. Flight of the Lusignans
Appointment of the Fifteen
Working of the new Constitution
4 Dec., 1259. Treaty of Paris
Its unpopularity in England and France
1259. Dissensions among the baronial leaders
1259. Provisions of Westminster
1261. Henry III.'s repudiation of the Provisions
1263. Reconstitution of parties
The changed policy of the marchers
Outbreak of civil war
The appeal to Louis IX
23 Jan., 1264. Mise of Amiens
Renewal of the struggle
4 April. Sack of Northampton
The campaign in Kent and Sussex
14 May. Battle of Lewes
Personal triumph of Montfort
CHAPTER VI.
THE RULE OF MONTFORT AND THE ROYALIST RESTORATION.
15 May. Mise of Lewes
15 Dec. Provisions of Worcester
Jan.-Mar., 1265. The Parliament of 1265
Split up of the baronial party
Quarrel of Leicester and Gloucester
28 May. Edward's escape
22 June. Treaty of Pipton
Small results of the alliance of Llewelyn and the barons
The campaign in the Severn valley
4 Aug. Battle of Evesham
The royalist restoration
1266. The revolt of the Disinherited
15 May. Battle of Chesterfield
31 Oct. The _Dictum de Kenilworth_
Michaelmas. The Ely rebellion
April, 1267. Gloucester's support of the Disinherited
July. End of the rebellion
25 Sept. Treaty of Shrewsbury
1267. Statute of Marlborough
1270-72. Edward's Crusade
16 Nov., 1272. Death of Henry III
CHAPTER VII.
THE EARLY FOREIGN POLICY AND LEGISLATION OF EDWARD I.
Character of Edward I.
1272-74. Rule of the regency
Edward's doings in Italy and France
Edward's relations with Philip III.
1273-74. Wars of Bearn and Limoges
Edward I. and Gregory X.
May-July, 1274. Council of Lyons
Relations of Edward I. and Rudolf of Hapsburg
23 May, 1279. Treaty of Amiens
1281. League of Macon
1282. Sicilian vespers
1285. Deaths of Philip III., Charles of Anjou, Peter of
Aragon, and Martin IV.
Bishop Burnell
1275. Statute of Westminster, the first
1278. Statute of Gloucester
Hundred Rolls and _placita de quo warranto_
Archbishops Kilwardby and Peckham
1279. Statute of Mortmain
1285. _Circumspecte agatis_
1285. Statute of Westminster, the second (De _Donis_)
1285. Statute of Winchester
CHAPTER VIII.
THE CONQUEST OF NORTH WALES.
Execution of the Treaty of Shrewsbury
Llewelyn's refusal of homage
1277. Edward's first Welsh campaign
1277. Treaty of Aberconway
Edward's attempts to introduce English law into the
ceded districts
1282. The Welsh revolt
1282. Edward's second Welsh campaign
Llewelyn's escape to the Upper Wye
11 Dec. Battle of Orewyn Bridge
1283. Parliaments and financial expedients
Subjection of Gwynedd completed
3 Oct. Parliament of Shrewsbury and execution of David
The Edwardian castles
Mid-Lent, 1284. Statute of Wales
Effect of the conquest upon the march
Peckham and the ecclesiastical settlement of _Wales_
1287. Revolt of Rhys ap Meredith
CHAPTER IX.
THE SICILIAN AND THE SCOTTISH ARBITRATIONS.
Edward I. at the height of his fame
April, 1286-Aug 1289, Edward's long visit to France
1289. The Sicilian arbitration
1287. Treaty of Oloron
1288. Treaty of Canfranc
1291. Treaty of Tarascon
Maladministration during Edward's absence
Judicial and official scandals
1289. Special commission for the trial of offenders
1290. Statute of Westminster, the third (_Quia emptores_)
The feud between Gloucester and Hereford
1291. The courts at Ystradvellte and Abergavenny
Humiliation of the marcher earls
1290. Expulsion of the Jews
The rise of the Italian bankers
1272-86. Early relations of Edward to Scotland
1286. Death of Alexander III. of Scotland
1286-89. Regency in the name of the Maid of Norway
1289. Treaty of Salisbury
1290. Treaty of Brigham
Death of the Maid of Norway
The claimants to the Scottish throne
May, 1291. Parliament of Norham. Edward recognised as overlord
of Scotland
1291-92. The great suit for Scotland
17 Nov., 1292. John Balliol declared King of Scots
Edward's conduct in relation to Scotland
1290. Death of Eleanor of Castile
Transition to the later years of the reign
Edward's later ministers
CHAPTER X.
THE FRENCH AND SCOTTISH WARS AND THE CONFIRMATION OF
THE CHARTERS.
Commercial rivalry of English and French seamen
15 May, 1293. Battle off Saint-Mahe
1294. Edmund of Lancaster's failure to procure a settlement
with Philip IV.
The French occupation of Gascony
June, 1294. War with France
Preparations for a French campaign
1294. Revolts of Madog, Maelgwn, and Morgan
Edward's danger at Aberconway
22 Jan., 1293. Battle of Maes Madog
July. Welsh revolts suppressed
1295. Failure of the Gascon campaign
Failure of attempted coalition against France
Organisation of the English navy
Treason of Sir Thomas Turberville
The naval attack on England
Rupture between Edward and the Scots
5 July. Alliance between the French and Scots
Nov. The "Model Parliament"
1296. Gascon expedition and death of Edmund of Lancaster
Edward's invasion of Scotland
27 April. Battle of Dunbar
10 July. Submission of John Balliol
Conquest and administration of Scotland
The Ragman Roll
Sept., 1294. Consecration of Archbishop Winchelsea
29 Feb., 1296. Boniface VIII. issues _Clericis laicos_.
Conflict of Edward and Winchelsea
24 Feb., 1297. Parliament at Salisbury
Conflict of Edward with the earls
July. Break up of the clerical opposition
Increasing moderation of baronial opposition
24 Aug. Edward's departure for Flanders
May. Revolt of the Scots under William Wallace.
11 Sept. Battle of Stirling Bridge.
12 Oct. Confirmation of the charters with new clauses.
CHAPTER XI.
THE SCOTTISH FAILURE.
1297. Edward's unsuccessful campaign in Flanders
31 Jan., 1298. Truce of Tournai, and end of the French war
July. Edward's invasion of Scotland
22 July. Battle of Falkirk
Slowness of Edward's progress towards the conquest
of Scotland
19 June, 1299. Treaty of Montreuil
9 Sept. Marriage of Edward and Margaret of France
Mar., 1300. _Articuli super cartas_
July-Aug. Carlaverock campaign
20 Jan.-14 Feb., 1301. Parliament of Lincoln
The barons' letter to the pope
Edward of Carnarvon, Prince of Wales
1302. Philip IV.'s troubles with the Flemings and Boniface VIII
20 May, 1303. Peace of Paris between Edward and Philip
Increasing strength of Edward's position
The decay of the earldoms
Additions to the royal demesne
1303. Conquest of Scotland seriously undertaken
24 July, 1304. Capture of Stirling
Aug., 1305. Execution of Wallace and completion of the conquest
The settlement of the government of Scotland
1305. Disgrace of Winchelsea and Bek
Edward I. and Clement V.
1307. Statute of Carlisle
1305. Ordinance of Trailbaston
10 Jan., 1306. Murder of Comyn
Rising of Robert Bruce
25 Mar. Bruce crowned King of Scots
Preparations for a fresh conquest of Scotland
7 July, 1307. Death of Edward I.
CHAPTER XII.
GAVESTON, THE ORDAINERS, AND BANNOCKBURN.
Character of Edward II.
1307. Peter Gaveston Earl of Cornwall
25 Jan., 1308. Marriage of Edward with Isabella of France
25 Feb. Coronation of Edward II.
Power and unpopularity of Gaveston
8 May. Gaveston exiled
July 1309. Return of Gaveston condoned by Parliament at Stamford
1310. Renewal of the opposition of the barons to Gaveston
16 Mar. Appointment of the lords ordainers
Sept. Abortive campaign against the Scots
Character and policy of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster
1311. The ordinances
Nov., 1311, Jan., 1312. Gaveston's second exile and return
The earls at war against Edward and Gaveston
Gaveston's surrender at Scarborough
19 June, 1312. Murder of Gaveston
Consequent break up of the baronial party
Oct., 1313. Edward and Lancaster reconciled
May. Death of Archbishop Winchelsea
1312. Fall of the Templars
Walter Reynolds Archbishop of Canterbury
Complaints of papal abuses
Progress of Bruce's power in Scotland
1314. The siege of Stirling
An army collected for its relief
24 June, Battle of Bannockburn
The results of the battle
CHAPTER XIII.
LANCASTER, PEMBROKE, AND THE DESPENSERS.
Failure of the rule of Thomas of Lancaster
1315. Revolts of Llewelyn Bren
1315. Rising of Adam Banaster.
1316. The Bristol disturbances.
1315. Edward Bruce's attack on the English in Ireland.
1317. Roger Mortimer in Ireland.
1318. Death of Edward Bruce at Dundalk.
Lancaster's failure and the break up of his party.
Pembroke and the middle party.
9 Aug. Treaty of Leek and the supremacy of the middle party.
1314-18. Progress of Robert Bruce.
1319. Renewed attack on Scotland.
Battle of Myton.
Rise of the Despensers.
1317. The partition of the Gloucester inheritance.
1320. War between the husbands of the Gloucester heiresses
in South Wales.
June, 1321. Conferences at Pontefract and Sherburn.
July. The exile of the Despensers.
Break up of the opposition after their victory.
23-31 Oct., 1321. The siege of Leeds Castle.
Jan.-Feb., 1322. Edward's successful campaign in the march.
11 Feb. Recall of the Despensers.
The king's march against the northern barons.
16 Mar. Battle of Boroughbridge.
22 Mar. Execution of Lancaster.
2 May. Parliament at York and repeal of the ordinances.
The triumph of the Despensers.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE FALL OF EDWARD II. AND THE RULE OF ISABELLA AND MORTIMER.
Aug. Renewed attack on the Scots.
Oct. Edward II.'s narrow escape at Byland.
Mar., 1323. Treason and execution of Andrew Harclay.
Incapacity of the Despensers as administrators.
Their quarrels with the old nobles.
1324. Their breach with Queen Isabella.
Their chief helpers: Walter Stapledon and Ralph Baldock.
Reaction against the Despensers.
1303-14. Relations of England and France.
1314-22. Edward's dealings with Louis X. and Philip V.
1322. Accession of Charles IV.
1324. Affair of Saint-Sardos.
Renewal of war. Sequestration of Gascony. Charles
of Valois' conquest of the Agenais and La Reole.
Isabella's mission to Paris.
Edward of Aquitaine's homage to Charles IV.
1325. Treachery of Charles IV. and second sequestration of
Gascony.
1326. Relations of Mortimer and Isabella
The Hainault marriage
23 Sept. Landing of Isabella and Mortimer
Riots in London: murder of Stapledon
26 Oct. Execution of the elder Despenser
16 Nov. Capture of Edward and the younger Despenser
Triumph of the revolution
7 Jan., 1327. Parliament's recognition of Edward of Aquitaine as king
20 Jan. Edward II.'s resignation of the crown
24 Jan. Proclamation of Edward III.
22 Sept., 1328. Murder of Edward II.
1327-30. Rule of Isabella and Mortimer
1327. Abortive Scottish campaign
April, 1328. Treaty of Northampton; "the shameful peace"
Character and ambition of Mortimer
Oct. Mortimer Earl of the March of Wales
Henry of Lancaster's opposition to him
Mar., 1330. Execution of the Earl of Kent
Oct. Parliament at Nottingham
19 Oct. Arrest of Mortimer
29 Nov. His execution
1330-58. Later life of Isabella
CHAPTER XV.
THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.
Character and policy of Edward III.
1330-40. The rule of the Stratfords
1337. The new earldoms
Scotland during the minority of David Bruce
Edward Balliol and the Disinherited
6 Aug., 1332. The Disinherited in Scotland
Battle of Dupplin Moor
6 Aug.-16 Dec. Edward Balliol's brief reign and expulsion
Treaty of Roxburgh
1333. Attempt to procure his restoration
Siege of Berwick
19 July. Battle of Halidon Hill
Edward Balliol restored
12 June, 1334. Treaty of Newcastle, ceding to Edward south-eastern
Scotland
Failure of Edward Balliol
1334-36. Edward III.'s Scottish campaigns
1341. Return of David Bruce from France
1327-37. Relations of England and France
31 Mar., 1327. Treaty of Paris
Edward's lands in Gascony after the treaty of Paris
1328. Accession of Philip of Valois in France
Protests of the English regency
1328. The legal and political aspects of the succession
question
Edward III.'s claim to France
6 June, 1329. Edward's homage to Philip VI.
8 May, 1330. Convention of the Wood of Vincennes
9 Mar., 1331. Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye
April. Interview of Pont-Sainte-Maxence
Crusading projects of John XXII.
1336. Abandonment of the crusade by Benedict XII
Strained relations between England and France
1337. Mission of the Cardinals Peter and Bertrand
Edward and Robert of Artois
The _Vow_ of the Heron
Preparations for war
Breach with Flanders and stoppage of export of wool
Alliance with William I. and II. of Hainault
Edward's other Netherlandish allies
1337. Breach between France and England
Nov. Sir Walter Manny at Cadzand
Fruitless negotiations and further hostilities
July, 1338. Edward III.'s departure for Flanders
5 Sept. Interview of Edward and the Emperor Louis of
Bavaria at Coblenz
The Anglo-imperial alliance
Further fruitless negotiations
Renewal of Edward's claim to the French crown
The responsibility for the war
CHAPTER XVI.
THE EARLY CAMPAIGNS OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.
1339. Edward's invasion of France
Oct. Campaign of the Thierache
23 Oct. The failure at Buironfosse
Alliance between Edward and the Flemish cities
James van Artevelde
Jan., 1340. Edward III. at Ghent
His proclamation as King of France
20 Feb. His return to England
22 June. His re-embarkation for Flanders
Parallel naval development of England and France
The Norman navy and the projected invasion of
England
24 June. Battle of Sluys
Ineffective campaigns in Artois and the Tournaisis
25 Sept. Truce of Esplechin
30 Nov. Edward's return to London
The ministers displaced and a special commission
appointed to try them
30 Nov. Controversy between Edward and Archbishop Stratford.
23 April, 1341. Parliament at London supporting Stratford and forcing
Edward to choose ministers after consulting it.
1 Oct. Edward's repudiation of his concessions.
April, 1343. Repeal of the statutes of 1341.
John of Montfort and Charles of Blois claim the
duchy of Brittany.
War of the Breton succession.
June, 1342. The siege of Hennebont raised.
1343. Battle of Morlaix.
19 Jan., 1343. Edward III. in Brittany.
Truce of Malestroit.
Edward's financial and political troubles.
End of the Flemish alliance.
June, 1345. Henry of Derby in Gascony.
21 Oct. Battle of Auberoche.
1346. Siege of Aiguillon and raid in Poitou.
Preparations for Edward III.'s campaign.
July-Aug. The march through Normandy.
26 July. Capture of Caen.
Aug. The march up the Seine valley.
The retreat northwards.
The passage of the Somme at the _Blanche taque_.
26 Aug. Battle of Crecy.
17 Oct. Battle of Neville's Cross.
4 Sept. Siege of Calais.
3 Aug., 1347. Capture of Calais.
20 June. Battle of La Roche Derien.
28 Sept. Truce of Calais.
CHAPTER XVII.
FROM THE BLACK DEATH TO THE TREATY OF CALAIS.
1347-48. Prosperity of England after the truce.
1348-50. The Black Death and its results.
1351. Statute of labourers.
Social and economic unrest.
Religious unrest.
The Flagellants.
The anti-clerical movement.
1351. First statute of provisors.
1353. First statute of _praemunire_.
Richard Fitzralph and the attack on the mendicants.
1354. Ordinance Of the Staple.
1352. Statute of treasons.
1349. Foundation of the Order of the Garter.
Dagworth's administration of Brittany.
Hugh Calveley and Robert Knowles.
27 Mar., 1351. Battle of the Thirty.
1352. Battle of Mauron
Fighting round Calais
1352. Capture of Guines
29 Aug., 1350. Battle of the Spaniards-on-the-sea
6 April, 1354. Preliminaries of peace signed at Guines
1355. Failure of the negotiations and renewal of the war
Failure of John of Gaunt in Normandy
Sept.-Nov. Black Prince's raid in Languedoc
1356. Operations of John of Gaunt in Normandy in alliance
with Charles of Navarre and Geoffrey of Harcourt
9 Aug.-2 Oct. Black Prince's raid northwards to the Loire
19 Sept. Battle of Poitiers.
23 Mar., 1357. Truce of Bordeaux
Oct. Treaty of Berwick
1357-71. The last years of David II.
1371. Accession of Robert II. in Scotland
1358. Preliminaries of peace signed between Edward III.
and John
State of France after Poitiers
24 Mar., 1359. Treaty of London
The rejection of the treaty by the French
Nov., 1359-April, 1360. Edward III.'s invasion of Northern France
Champagne and Burgundy
11 Jan., 1360. Treaty of Guillon
7 April. Siege of Paris
8 May. Treaty of Bretigni
24 Oct. Treaty of Calais
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR FROM THE TREATY OF CALAIS TO THE TRUCE
OF BRUGES.
Difficulties in carrying out the treaty of Calais
Guerilla warfare: exploits of Calveley, Pipe, and
Jowel
16 May, 1364. Battle of Cocherel
29 Sept. Battle of Auray
1365. Treaty of Guerande
Exploits of the free companies: John Hawkwood
1361. The charters of renunciation not exchanged
1364. Death of King John: accession of Charles V.
1366. Expulsion of Peter the Cruel from Castile by Du
Guesclin and the free companies
Feb., 1367. The Black Prince's expedition to Spain
3 April. Battle of Najera
The Black Prince's rule in Aquitaine
His difficulties with the great nobles
Jan., 1368. The hearth tax imposed
Jan., 1369. Renewal of the war.
Changed military and political conditions.
Relations of England and Flanders.
1371. Battle in Bourgneuf Bay.
Successes of the French.
Sept., 1370. Sack of the _cite_ of Limoges.
1371. The Black Prince's return to England with shattered
health.
1370. Futile expeditions of Lancaster and Knowles.
Treason of Sir John Minsterworth.
Battle of Pontvallain.
1370-72. Exploits of Sir Owen of Wales.
23 June, 1370. Defeat of Pembroke at La Rochelle.
Aug. Defeat of Thomas Percy at Soubise.
1372. Edward III.'s last military expedition.
Expulsion of the English from Poitou and Brittany.
July-Dec., 1373. John of Gaunt's march from Calais to Bordeaux.
1374. Ruin of the English power in France.
27 June, 1375. Truce of Bruges.
CHAPTER XIX.
ENGLAND DURING THE LATTER YEARS OF EDWARD III.
Glories of the years succeeding the treaty of Calais.
1361-69. John Froissart in England.
His picture of the life of court and people.
The national spirit in English literature.
Gower and Minot.
Geoffrey Chaucer.
The standard English language.
Lowland Scottish.
The national spirit in art.
"Flowing decorated" and "perpendicular" architecture.
Contrast between England and Scotland.
The national spirit in popular English literature.
William Langland.
His picture of the condition of the poor.
The national spirit and the universities.
Early career of John Wycliffe.
Spread of cultivation among the laity.
The national spirit in English law.
The national spirit in commerce.
Edward III.'s family settlement.
Marriage of the Black Prince and Joan of Kent.
Marriages of Lionel of Antwerp with Elizabeth de
Burgh and Violante Visconti.
Lionel in Ireland.
Statute of Kilkenny.
1361-69. Philippa of Clarence's marriage with the Earl of
March.
John of Gaunt and the Duchy of Lancaster.
Continuation of ancient rivalries between houses now
represented by branches of the royal family.
The great prelates of the end of Edward III.'s reign.
Feb., 1371. Parliament: clerical ministers superseded by laymen.
Clerical and anti-clerical, constitutional and court
parties.
Edward III.'s dotage.
Alice Perrers.
Struggle of parties at court.
Increasing bitterness of the opposition to the courtiers.
April-July, 1376. The "Good Parliament".
Fall of the courtiers.
8 June. Death of the Black Prince.
John of Gaunt restored to power.
Jan., 1377. Packed parliament, and the reaction against the Good
Parliament.
Persistence of the clerical opposition.
The attack on John Wycliffe.
10 Feb. Wycliffe before Bishop Courtenay.
John of Gaunt's substantial triumph.
21 June. Death of Edward III.
Characteristics of his age.
APPENDIX.
ON AUTHORITIES.
(1216-1377.)
Comparative value of records and chronicles.
Record sources for the period.
Chancery Records:--
Patent Rolls
Close Rolls
Rolls of Parliament
Charter Rolls
Inquests Post-Mortem
Fine Rolls
Gascon Rolls
Hundred Rolls
Exchequer Records
Plea Rolls and records of the common law courts
Records of local courts
Scotch and Irish records
Ecclesiastical records
Bishops' registers
Monastic Cartularies
Papal records
Chroniclers of the period.
St. Alban's Abbey as a school of history.
Matthew Paris.
Later St. Alban's chroniclers.
Other chroniclers of Henry III.
Other monastic annals.
Chroniclers of Edward I.
Civic chronicles.
Chroniclers of Edward II.
Chroniclers of Edward III.
Scottish and Welsh chronicles.
French chronicles illustrating English history.
The three redactions of Froissart.
Other French chroniclers of the Hundred Years' War.
Legal literature.
Literary aids to history.
Modern works on the period.
Maps.
Bibliographies.
Note on authorities for battle of Poitiers.
INDEX.
MAPS.
(At the End of the Volume)
1. Map of Wales and the March at the end of the XIIIth century.
2. Map of Southern Scotland and Northern England in the XIIIth and
XIVth centuries.
3. Map of France in the XIIIth and XIVth centuries.
CHAPTER I.
THE REGENCY OF WILLIAM MARSHAL.
When John died, on October 19, 1216, the issue of the war between him
and the barons was still doubtful. The arrival of Louis of France,
eldest son of King Philip Augustus, had enabled the barons to win back
much of the ground lost after John's early triumphs had forced them to
call in the foreigner. Beyond the Humber the sturdy north-country
barons, who had wrested the Great Charter from John, remained true to
their principles, and had also the support of Alexander II., King of
Scots. The magnates of the eastern counties were as staunch as the
northerners, and the rich and populous southern shires were for the
most part in agreement with them. In the west, the barons had the aid
of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, the great Prince of North Wales. While ten
earls fought for Louis, the royal cause was only upheld by six. The
towns were mainly with the rebels, notably London and the Cinque Ports,
and cities so distant as Winchester and Lincoln, Worcester and
Carlisle. Yet the baronial cause excited little general sympathy. The
mass of the population stood aloof, and was impartially maltreated by
the rival armies.
John's son Henry had at his back the chief military resources of the
country; the two strongest of the earls, William Marshal, Earl of
Pembroke, and Randolph of Blundeville, Earl of Chester; the fierce
lords of the Welsh March, the Mortimers, the Cantilupes, the Cliffords,
the Braoses, and the Lacys; and the barons of the West Midlands, headed
by Henry of Neufbourg, Earl of Warwick, and William of Ferrars, Earl of
Derby. This powerful phalanx gave to the royalists a stronger hold in
the west than their opponents had in any one part of the much wider
territory within their sphere of influence. There was no baronial
counterpart to the successful raiding of the north and east, which John
had carried through in the last months of his life. A baronial centre,
like Worcester, could not hold its own long in the west. Moreover, John
had not entirely forfeited his hereditary advantages. The
administrative families, whose chief representative was the justiciar
Hubert de Burgh, held to their tradition of unswerving loyalty, and
joined with the followers of the old king, of whom William Marshal was
the chief survivor. All over England the royal castles were in safe
hands, and so long as they remained unsubdued, no part of Louis'
dominions was secure. The crown had used to the full its rights over
minors and vacant fiefs. The subjection of the south-west was assured
by the marriage of the mercenary leader, Falkes de Breaute, to the
mother of the infant Earl of Devon, and by the grant of Cornwall to the
bastard of the last of the Dunstanville earls. Though Isabella,
Countess of Gloucester, John's repudiated wife, was as zealous as her
new husband, the Earl of Essex, against John's son, Falkes kept a tight
hand over Glamorgan, on which the military power of the house of
Gloucester largely depended. Randolph of Chester was custodian of the
earldoms of Leicester and Richmond, of which the nominal earls, Simon
de Montfort and Peter Mauclerc, were far away, the one ruling Toulouse,
and the other Brittany. The band of foreign adventurers, the mainstay
of John's power, was still unbroken. Ruffians though these hirelings
were, they had experience, skill, and courage, and were the only
professional soldiers in the country.
The vital fact of the situation was that the immense moral and
spiritual forces of the Church remained on the side of the king.
Innocent III. had died some months before John, but his successor,
Honorius III., continued to uphold his policy. The papal legate, the
Cardinal Gualo, was the soul of the royalist cause. Louis and his
adherents had been excommunicated, and not a single English bishop
dared to join openly the foes of Holy Church. The most that the
clerical partisans of the barons could do was to disregard the
interdict and continue their ministrations to the excommunicated host.
The strongest English prelate, Stephen Langton, Archbishop of
Canterbury, was at Rome in disgrace. Walter Grey, Archbishop of York,
and Hugh of Wells, Bishop of Lincoln, were also abroad, while the
Bishop of London, William of Sainte-Mere-Eglise, was incapacitated by
illness. Several important sees, including Durham and Ely, were vacant.
The ablest resident bishop, Peter des Roches of Winchester, was an
accomplice in John's misgovernment.
The chief obstacle in the way of the royalists had been the character
of John, and the little Henry of Winchester could have had no share in
the crimes of his father. But the dead king had lately shown such rare
energy that there was a danger lest the accession of a boy of nine
might not weaken the cause of monarchy. The barons were largely out of
hand. The war was assuming the character of the civil war of Stephen's
days, and John's mercenaries were aspiring to play the part of feudal
potentates. It was significant that so many of John's principal
supporters were possessors of extensive franchises, like the lords of
the Welsh March, who might well desire to extend these feudal
immunities to their English estates. The triumph of the crown through
such help might easily have resolved the united England of Henry II.
into a series of lordships under a nominal king.
The situation was saved by the wisdom and moderation of the papal
legate, and the loyalty of William Marshal, who forgot his interests as
Earl of Pembroke in his devotion to the house of Anjou. From the moment
of John's death at Newark, the cardinal and the marshal took the lead.
They met at Worcester, where the tyrant was buried, and at once made
preparations for the coronation of Henry of Winchester. The ceremony
took place at St. Peter's Abbey, Gloucester, on October 28, from which
day the new reign was reckoned as beginning. The marshal, who had
forty-three years before dubbed the "young king" Henry a knight, then
for a second time admitted a young king Henry to the order of chivalry.
When the king had recited the coronation oath and performed homage to
the pope, Gualo anointed him and placed on his head the plain gold
circlet that perforce did duly for a crown.[1] Next day Henry's leading
supporters performed homage, and before November 1 the marshal was made
justiciar.
[1] There is some conflict of evidence on this point, and Dr.
Stubbs, following Wendover, iv., 2, makes Peter of Winchester
crown Henry. But the official account in _Faedera, i._, 145, is
confirmed by _Ann. Tewkesbury_, p. 62; _Histoire de G. le
Marechal_, lines 15329-32; _Hist. des ducs de Normandie, et des
rois d'Angleterre_, p. 181, and _Ann. Winchester_, p. 83.
Wykes, p. 60, and _Ann. Dunstable_, p. 48, which confirm
Wendover, are suspect by reason of other errors.
On November 2 a great council met at Bristol. Only four earls appeared,
and one of these, William of Fors, Earl of Albemarle, was a recent
convert. But the presence of eleven bishops showed that the Church had
espoused the cause of the little king, and a throng of western and
marcher magnates made a sufficient representation of the lay baronage.
The chief business was to provide for the government during the
minority. Gualo withstood the temptation to adopt the method by which
Innocent III. had ruled Sicily in the name of Frederick II. The king's
mother was too unpopular and incompetent to anticipate the part played
by Blanche of Castile during the minority of St. Louis. After the
precedents set by the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, the barons took the
matter into their own hands. Their work of selection was not an easy
one. Randolph of Chester was by far the most powerful of the royalist
lords, but his turbulence and purely personal policy, not less than his
excessive possessions and inordinate palatine jurisdictions, made him
unsuitable for the regency. Yet had he raised any sort of claim, it
would have been hardly possible to resist his pretensions.[1] Luckily,
Randolph stood aside, and his withdrawal gave the aged earl marshal the
position for which his nomination as justiciar at Gloucester had
already marked him out. The title of regent was as yet unknown, either
in England or France, but the style, "ruler of king and kingdom," which
the barons gave to the marshal, meant something more than the ordinary
position of a justiciar. William's friends had some difficulty in
persuading him to accept the office. He was over seventy years of age,
and felt it would be too great a burden. Induced at last by the legate
to undertake the charge, from that moment he shrank from none of its
responsibilities. The personal care of the king was comprised within
the marshal's duties, but he delegated that branch of his work to Peter
des Roches.[2] These two, with Gualo, controlled the whole policy of the
new reign. Next to them came Hubert de Burgh, John's justiciar, whom
the marshal very soon restored to that office. But Hubert at once went
back to the defence of Dover, and for some time took little part in
general politics.
[1] The fears and hopes of the marshal's friends are well
depicted in _Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal_, lines
15500-15708.
[2] The panegyrist of the marshal emphasises strongly the fact
that Peter's charge was a delegation, _ibid._, lines
17993-18018.
On November 12, the legate and the regent issued at Bristol a
confirmation of the Great Charter. Some of the most important articles
accepted by John in 1215 were omitted, including the "constitutional
clauses" requiring the consent of the council of barons for
extraordinary taxation. Other provisions, which tied the hands of the
government, were postponed for further consideration in more settled
times. But with all its mutilations the Bristol charter of 1216 marked a
more important moment than even the charter of Runnymede. The
condemnation of Innocent III. would in all probability have prevented
the temporary concession of John from becoming permanent. Love of
country and love of liberty were doubtless growing forces, but they were
still in their infancy, while the papal authority was something ultimate
against which few Christians dared appeal. Thus the adoption by the free
will of the papal legate, and the deliberate choice of the marshal of
the policy of the Great Charter, converted, as has well been said, "a
treaty won at the point of the sword into a manifesto of peace and sound
government".[1] This wise change of policy cut away the ground from under
the feet of the English supporters of Louis. The friends of the young
Henry could appeal to his innocence, to his sacred unction, and to his
recognition by Holy Church. They offered a programme of limited
monarchy, of the redress of grievances, of vested rights preserved, and
of adhesion to the good old traditions that all Englishmen respected.
From that moment the Charter became a new starting-point in our history.
[1] Stubbs, _Const. Hist._, ii., 21.
In strange contrast to this programme of reform, the aliens, who had
opposed the charter of Runnymede, were among the lords by whose counsel
and consent the charter of Bristol was issued. In its weakness the new
government sought to stimulate the zeal both of the foreign mercenaries
and of the loyal barons by grants and privileges which seriously
entrenched upon the royal authority. Falkes de Breaute was confirmed in
the custody of a compact group of six midland shires, besides the
earldom of Devon, and the "county of the Isle of Wight,"[1] which he
guarded in the interests of his wife and stepson. Savary de Mauleon, who
in despair of his old master's success had crossed over to Poitou before
John's death, was made warden of the castle of Bristol. Randolph of
Chester was consoled for the loss of the regency by the renewal of
John's recent grant of the Honour of Lancaster which was by this time
definitely recognised as a shire.[2]
[1] _Histoire des ducs de Normandie_, etc., p. 181.
[2] Tait, _Medieval Manchester and the Beginnings of
Lancashire_, p. 180.
The war assumed the character of a crusade. The royalist troops wore
white crosses on their garments, and were assured by the clergy of
certain salvation. The cruel and purposeless ravaging of the enemy's
country, which had occupied John's last months of life, became rare,
though partisans, such as Falkes de Breaute, still outvied the French
in plundering monasteries and churches. The real struggle became a war
of castles. Louis endeavoured to complete his conquest of the
south-east by the capture of the royal strongholds, which still limited
his power to the open country. At first the French prince had some
successes. In November he increased his hold on the Home counties by
capturing the Tower of London, by forcing Hertford to surrender, and by
pressing the siege of Berkhampsted. As Christmas approached the
royalists proposed a truce. Louis agreed on the condition that
Berkhampsted should be surrendered, and early in 1217 both parties held
councils, the royalists at Oxford and the barons at Cambridge. There
was vague talk of peace, but the war was renewed, and Louis captured
Hedingham and Orford in Essex, and besieged the castles of Colchester
and Norwich. Then another truce until April 26 was concluded, on the
condition that the royalists should surrender these two strongholds.
Both sides had need to pause. Louis, at the limit of his resources, was
anxious to obtain men and money from France. He was not getting on well
with his new subjects. The eastern counties grumbled at his taxes.
Dissensions arose between the English and French elements in his host.
The English lords resented the grants and appointments he gave to his
countrymen. The French nobles professed to despise the English as
traitors. When Hertford was taken, Robert FitzWalter demanded that its
custody should be restored to him. Louis roughly told him that
Englishmen, who had betrayed their natural lord, were not to be
entrusted with such charges. It was to little purpose that he promised
Robert that every man should have his rights when the war was over. The
prospects of ending the war grew more remote every day. The royalists
took advantage of the discouragement of their opponents. The regent was
lavish in promises. There should be no inquiry into bygones, and all
who submitted to the young king should be guaranteed all their existing
rights. The result was that a steady stream of converts began to flow
from the camp of Louis to the camp of the marshal. For the first time
signs of a national movement against Louis began to be manifest. It
became clear that his rule meant foreign conquest.
Louis wished to return to France, but despite the truce he could only
win his way to the coast by fighting. The Cinque Ports were changing
their allegiance. A popular revolt had broken out in the Weald, where a
warlike squire, William of Cassingham,[1] soon became a terror to the
French under his nickname of Wilkin of the Weald. As Louis traversed the
disaffected districts, Wilkin fell upon him near Lewes, and took
prisoners two nephews of the Count of Nevers. On his further march to
Winchelsea, the men of the Weald broke down the bridges behind him,
while on his approach the men of Winchelsea destroyed their mills, and
took to their ships as avowed partisans of King Henry. The French prince
entered the empty town, and had great difficulty in keeping his army
alive. "Wheat found they there," says a chronicler; "in great plenty,
but they knew not how to grind it. Long time were they in such a plight
that they had to crush by hand the corn of which they made their bread.
They could catch no fish. Great store of nuts found they in the town;
these were their finest food."[2] Louis was in fact besieged by the
insurgents, and was only released by a force of knights riding down from
London to help him. These troops dared not travel by the direct road
through the Weald, and made their way to Romney through Canterbury. Rye
was strongly held against them and the ships of the Cinque Ports
dominated the sea, so that Louis was still cut off from his friends at
Romney. A relieving fleet was despatched from Boulogne, but stress of
weather kept it for a fortnight at Dover, while Louis was starving at
Winchelsea. At last the French ships appeared off Winchelsea. Thereupon
the English withdrew, and Louis finding the way open to France returned
home.
[1] Mr. G.J. Turner has identified Cassingham with the modern
Kensham, between Rolvenden and Sandhurst, in Kent.
[2] _Histoire des ducs de Normandie_, etc., p. 183.
A crowd of waverers changed sides. At their head were William
Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, the bastard great-uncle of the little
king, and William, the young marshal, the eldest son of the Earl of
Pembroke. The regent wandered from town to town in Sussex, receiving
the submission of the peasantry, and venturing to approach as near
London as Dorking. The victorious Wilkin was made Warden of the Seven
Hundreds of the Weald. The greatest of the magnates of Sussex and
Surrey, William, Earl Warenne, followed the example of his tenantry,
and made his peace with the king. The royalists fell upon the few
castles held by the barons. While one corps captured Odiham, Farnham,
Chichester, and other southern strongholds, Falkes de Breaute overran
the Isle of Ely, and Randolph of Chester besieged the Leicestershire
fortress of Mount Sorrel. Enguerrand de Coucy, whom Louis had left in
command, remained helpless in London. His boldest act was to send a
force to Lincoln, which occupied the town, but failed to take the
castle. This stronghold, under its hereditary warden, the valiant old
lady, Nichola de Camville,[1] had already twice withstood a siege.
[1] On Nichola de Camville or de la Hay see M. Petit-Dutaillis
in _Melanges Julien Havet_, pp. 369-80.
Louis found no great encouragement in France, for Philip Augustus, too
prudent to offend the Church, gave but grudging support to his
excommunicated son. When, on the eve of the expiration of the truce,
Louis returned to England, his reinforcements comprised only 120
knights. Among them, however, were the Count of Brittany, Peter
Mauclerc, anxious to press in person his rights to the earldom of
Richmond, the Counts of Perche and Guines, and many lords of Picardy,
Artois and Ponthieu. Conscious that everything depended on the speedy
capture of the royal castles, Louis introduced for the first time into
England the _trebuchet_, a recently invented machine that cast great
missiles by means of heavy counterpoises. "Great was the talk about
this, for at that time few of them had been seen in France."[1] On April
22, Louis reached Dover, where the castle was still feebly beset by the
French. On his nearing the shore, Wilkin of the Weald and Oliver, a
bastard of King John's, burnt the huts of the French engaged in watching
the castle. Afraid to land in their presence, Louis disembarked at
Sandwich. Next day he went by land to Dover, but discouraged by tidings
of his losses, he gladly concluded a short truce with Hubert de Burgh.
He abandoned the siege of Dover, and hurried off towards Winchester,
where the two castles were being severely pressed by the royalists. But
his progress was impeded by his siege train, and Farnham castle blocked
his way.
[1] _Histoire des ducs de Normandie, etc._, p. 188; cf.
_English Hist. Review_, xviii. (1903), 263-64.
Saer de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, joined Louis outside the walls of
Farnham. Saer's motive was to persuade Louis to hasten to the relief of
his castle of Mount Sorrel. The French prince was not in a position to
resist pressure from a powerful supporter. He divided his army, and
while the Earl of Winchester, along with the Count of Perche and Robert
FitzWalter, made their way to Leicestershire, he completed his journey
to Winchester, threw a fresh force into the castles, and, leaving the
Count of Nevers in charge, hurried to London. There he learnt that
Hubert de Burgh at Dover had broken the truce, and he at once set off
to renew the siege of the stronghold which had so continually baulked
his plans. But little good came of his efforts, and the much-talked-of
_trebuchet_ proving powerless to effect a breach, Louis had to resign
himself to a weary blockade. While he was besieging Dover, Saer de
Quincy had relieved Mount Sorrel, whence he marched to the help of
Gilbert of Ghent, the only English baron whom Louis ventured to raise
to comital rank as Earl of Lincoln. Gilbert was still striving to
capture Lincoln Castle, but Nichola de Camville had resisted him from
February to May. With the help of the army from Mount Sorrel, the
castle and its _chatelaine_ were soon reduced to great straits.
The marshal saw that the time was come to take the offensive, and
resolved to raise the siege. Having no field army, he stripped his
castles of their garrisons, and gave rendezvous to his barons at
Newark. There the royalists rested three days, and received the
blessing of Gualo and the bishops. They then set out towards Lincoln,
commanded by the regent in person, the Earl of Chester, and the Bishop
of Winchester, whom the legate appointed as his representative. The
strong water defences of the rebel city on the south made it
unadvisable for them to take the direct route towards it. Their army
descended the Trent to Torksey, where it rested the night of May 19.
Early next day, the eve of Trinity Sunday, it marched in four "battles"
to relieve Lincoln Castle.
There were more than 600 knights besieging the castle and holding the
town, and the relieving army only numbered 400 knights and 300
cross-bowmen. But the barons dared not risk a combat that might have
involved them in the fate of Stephen in 1141. They retreated within the
city and allowed the marshal to open up communications with the castle.
The marshal's plan of battle was arranged by Peter des Roches, who was
more at home in the field than in the church. The cross-bowmen under
Falkes de Breaute were thrown into the castle, and joined with the
garrison in making a sally from its east gate into the streets of the
town. While the barons were thus distracted, the marshal burst through
the badly defended north gate. The barons taken in front and flank
fought desperately, but with no success. Falkes' cross-bowmen shot down
their horses, and the dismounted knights soon failed to hold their own
in the open ground about the cathedral. The Count of Perche was slain
by a sword-thrust through the eyehole of his helmet. The royalists
chased the barons down the steep lanes which connect the upper with the
lower town. When they reached level ground the baronial troops rallied,
and once more strove to reascend the hill. But the town was assailed on
every side, and its land defences yielded with little difficulty. The
Earl of Chester poured his vassals through one of the eastern gates,
and took the barons in flank. Once more they broke, and this time they
rallied not again, but fled through the Wigford suburb seeking any
means of escape. Some obstruction in the Bar-gate, the southern exit
from the city, retarded their flight, and many of the leaders were
captured. The remnant fled to London, thinking that "every bush was
full of marshals," and suffering severely from the hostility of the
peasantry. Only three persons were slain in the battle, but there was a
cruel massacre of the defenceless citizens after its close. So vast was
the booty won by the victors that in scorn they called the fight the
Fair of Lincoln![1]
[1] For a discussion of the battle, see _English Hist. Review_,
xviii. (1903), 240-65.
Louis' prospects were still not desperate. The victorious army
scattered, each man to his own house, so that the marshal was in no
position to press matters to extremities. But there was a great rush to
make terms with the victor, and Louis thought it prudent to abandon the
hopeless siege of Dover, and take refuge with his partisans, the
Londoners. Meanwhile the marshal hovered round London, hoping
eventually to shut up the enemy in the capital. On June 12, the
Archbishop of Tyre and three Cistercian abbots, who had come to England
to preach the Crusade, persuaded both parties to accept provisional
articles of peace. Louis stipulated for a complete amnesty to all his
partisans; but the legate declined to grant pardon to the rebellious
clerks who had refused to obey the interdict, conspicuous among whom
was the firebrand Simon Langton, brother of the archbishop. Finding no
compromise possible, Louis broke off the negotiations rather than
abandon his friends. Gualo urged a siege of London, but the marshal saw
that his resources were not adequate for such a step. Again many of his
followers went home, and the court abode first at Oxford and afterwards
at Gloucester. It seemed as if the war might go on for ever.
Blanche of Castile, Louis' wife, redoubled her efforts on his behalf. In
response to her entreaties a hundred knights and several hundred
men-at-arms took ship for England. Among the knights was the famous
William des Barres, one of the heroes of Bouvines, and Theobald, Count
of Blois. Eustace the Monk, a renegade clerk turned pirate, and a hero
of later romance, took command of the fleet. On the eve of St.
Bartholomew, August 23, Eustace sailed from Calais towards the mouth of
the Thames. Kent had become royalist; the marshal and Hubert de Burgh
held Sandwich, so that the long voyage up the Thames was the only way of
taking succour to Louis. Next day the old earl remained on shore, but
sent out Hubert with the fleet. The English let the French pass by,
and then, manoeuvring for the weather gage, tacked and assailed them
from behind.[1] The fight raged round the great ship of Eustace, on
which the chief French knights were embarked. Laden with stores, horses,
and a ponderous _trebuchet_, it was too low in the water to manoeuvre or
escape. Hubert easily laid his own vessel alongside it. The English, who
were better used to fighting at sea than the French, threw powdered lime
into the faces of the enemy, swept the decks with their crossbow bolts
and then boarded the ship, which was taken after a fierce fight. The
crowd of cargo boats could offer little resistance as they beat up
against the wind in their retreat to Calais; the ships containing the
soldiers were more fortunate in escaping. Eustace was beheaded, and his
head paraded on a pole through the streets of Canterbury.
[1] This successful attempt of the English fleet to manoeuvre
for the weather gage, that is to secure a position to the
windward of their opponents, is the first recorded instance of
what became the favourite tactics of British admirals. For the
legend of Eustace see _Witasse le Moine_, ed. Foerster (1891).
The battle of St. Bartholomew's Day, like that of Lincoln a triumph of
skill over numbers, proved decisive for the fortunes of Louis. The
English won absolute control of the narrow seas, and cut off from Louis
all hope of fighting his way back to France. As soon as he heard of the
defeat of Eustace, he reopened negotiations with the marshal. On the
29th there was a meeting between Louis and the Earl at the gates of
London. The regent had to check the ardour of his own partisans, and it
was only after anxious days of deliberation that the party of
moderation prevailed. On September 5 a formal conference was held on an
island of the Thames near Kingston. On the 11th a definitive treaty was
signed at the archbishop's house at Lambeth.
The Treaty of Lambeth repeated with little alteration the terms
rejected by Louis three months before. The French prince surrendered
his castles, released his partisans from their oaths to him, and
exhorted all his allies, including the King of Scots and the Prince of
Gwynedd, to lay down their arms. In return Henry promised that no
layman should lose his inheritance by reason of his adherence to Louis,
and that the baronial prisoners should be released without further
payment of ransom. London, despite its pertinacity in rebellion, was to
retain its ancient franchises. The marshal bound himself personally to
pay Louis 10,000 marks, nominally as expenses, really as a bribe to
accept these terms. A few days later Louis and his French barons
appeared before the legate, barefoot and in the white garb of
penitents, and were reconciled to the Church. They were then escorted
to Dover, whence they took ship for France. Only on the rebellious
clergy did Gualo's wrath fall. The canons of St. Paul's were turned out
in a body; ringleaders like Simon Langton were driven into exile, and
agents of the legate traversed the country punishing clerks who had
disregarded the interdict. But Honorius was more merciful than Gualo,
and within a year even Simon received his pardon. The laymen of both
camps forgot their differences, when Randolph of Chester and William of
Ferrars fought in the crusade of Damietta, side by side with Saer of
Winchester and Robert FitzWalter. The reconciliation of parties was
further shown in the marriage of Hubert de Burgh to John's divorced
wife, Isabella of Gloucester, a widow by the death of the Earl of
Essex, and still the foremost English heiress. On November 6 the
pacification was completed by the reissue of the Great Charter in what
was substantially its final form. The forest clauses of the earlier
issues were published in a much enlarged shape as a separate Forest
Charter, which laid down the great principle that no man was to lose
life or limb for hindering the king's hunting.
It is tempting to regard the defeat of Louis as a triumph of English
patriotism. But it is an anachronism to read the ideals of later ages
into the doings of the men of the early thirteenth century. So far as
there was national feeling in England, it was arrayed against Henry. To
the last the most fervently English of the barons were steadfast on the
French prince's side, and the triumph of the little king had largely
been procured by John's foreigners. To contemporary eyes the rebels
were factious assertors of class privileges and feudal immunities.
Their revolt against their natural lord brought them into conflict with
the sentiment of feudal duty which was still so strong in faithful
minds. And against them was a stronger force than feudal loyally. From
this religious standpoint the Canon of Barnwell best sums up the
situation: "It was a miracle that the heir of France, who had won so
large a part of the kingdom, was constrained to abandon the realm
without hope of recovering it. It was because the hand of God was not
with him. He came to England in spite of the prohibition of the Holy
Roman Church, and he remained there regardless of its anathema."
The young king never forgot that he owed his throne to the pope and his
legate. "When we were bereft of our father in tender years," he declared
long afterwards, "when our subjects were turned against us, it was our
mother, the Holy Roman Church, that brought back our realm under our
power, anointed us king, crowned us, and placed us on the throne."[1]
The papacy, which had secured a new hold over England by its alliance
with John, made its position permanent by its zeal for the rights of his
son. By identifying the monarchy with the charters, it skilfully
retraced the false step which it had taken. Under the aegis of the Roman
see the national spirit grew, and the next generation was to see the
temper fostered by Gualo in its turn grow impatient of the papal
supremacy. It was Gualo, then, who secured the confirmation of the
charters. Even Louis unconsciously worked in that direction, for, had he
not gained so strong a hold on the country, there would have been no
reason to adopt a policy of conciliation. We must not read the history
of this generation in the light of modern times, or even with the eyes
of Matthew Paris.
[1] Grosseteste, _Epistolae_, p. 339.
The marshal had before him a task essentially similar to that which
Henry II had undertaken after the anarchy of Stephen's reign. It was
with the utmost difficulty that the sum promised to Louis could be
extracted from the war-stricken and famished tillers of the soil. The
exchequer was so empty that the Christmas court of the young king was
celebrated at the expense of Falkes de Breaute. Those who had fought
for the king clamoured for grants and rewards, and it was necessary to
humour them. For example, Randolph of Blundeville, with the earldom of
Lincoln added to his Cheshire palatinate and his Lancashire Honour, had
acquired a position nearly as strong as that of the Randolph of the
reign of Stephen. "Adulterine castles" had grown up in such numbers
that the new issue of the Charter insisted upon their destruction. Even
the lawful castles were held by unauthorised custodians, who refused to
yield them up to the king's officers. Though Alexander, King of Scots,
purchased his reconciliation with Rome by abandoning Carlisle and
performing homage to Henry, the Welsh remained recalcitrant. One
chieftain, Morgan of Caerleon, waged war against the marshal in Gwent,
and was dislodged with difficulty. During the war Llewelyn ap Iorwerth
conquered Cardigan and Carmarthen from the marchers, and it was only
after receiving assurances that he might retain these districts so long
as the king's minority lasted that he condescended to do homage at
Worcester in March, 1218.
In the following May Stephen Langton came back from exile and threw the
weight of his judgment on the regent's side. Gradually the worst
difficulties were surmounted. The administrative machinery once more
became effective. A new seal was cast for the king, whose documents had
hitherto been stamped with the seal of the regent. Order was so far
restored that Gualo returned to Italy. He was a man of high character
and noble aims, caring little for personal advancement, and curbing his
hot zeal against "schismatics" in his desire to restore peace to
England. His memory is still commemorated in his great church of St.
Andrew, at Vercelli, erected, it may be, with the proceeds of his
English benefices, and still preserving the manuscript of legends of
its patron saint, which its founder had sent thither from his exile.
At Candlemas, 1219, the aged regent was smitten with a mortal illness.
His followers bore him up the Thames from London to his manor of
Caversham, where his last hours were disturbed by the intrigues of
Peter of Winchester for his succession, and the importunity of selfish
clerks, clamouring for grants to their churches. He died on May 14,
clad in the habit of the Knights of the Temple, in whose new church in
London his body was buried, and where his effigy may still be seen. The
landless younger son of a poor baron, he had supported himself in his
youth by the spoils of the knights he had vanquished in the
tournaments, where his successes gained him fame as the model of
chivalry. The favour of Henry, the "young king," gave him political
importance, and his marriage with Strongbow's daughter made him a
mighty man in England, Ireland, Wales, and Normandy. Strenuous and
upright, simple and dignified, the young soldier of fortune bore easily
the weight of office and honour which accrued to him before the death
of his first patron. Limited as was his outlook, he gave himself
entirely to his master-principle of loyally to the feudal lord whom he
had sworn to obey. This simple conception enabled him to subordinate
his interests as a marcher potentate to his duty to the English
monarchy. It guided him in his difficult work of serving with unbending
constancy a tyrant like John. It shone most clearly when in his old age
he saved John's son from the consequences of his father's misdeeds. A
happy accident has led to the discovery in our own days of the long
poem, drawn up in commemoration of his career[1] at the
instigation of his son. This important work has enabled us to enter
into the marshal's character and spirit in much the same way as
Joinville's _History of St. Louis_ has made us familiar with the
motives and attributes of the great French king. They are the two men
of the thirteenth century whom we know most intimately. It is well that
the two characters thus portrayed at length represent to us so much of
what is best in the chivalry, loyalty, statecraft, and piety of the
Middle Ages.
[1] _Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal_, published by P. Meyer
for the Soc. de l'histoire de France. Petit-Dutaillis, _Etude
sur Louis VIII._ (1894), and G.J. Turner, _Minority of Henry
III._, part i, in _Transactions of the Royal Hist. Soc._, new
ser., viii. (1904), 245-95, are the best modern commentaries on
the history of the marshal's regency.
CHAPTER II.
THE RULE OF HUBERT DE BURGH.
William Marshal had recognized that the regency must end with him.
"There is no land," he declared, "where the people are so divided as
they are in England. Were I to hand over the king to one noble, the
others would be jealous. For this reason I have determined to entrust
him to God and the pope. No one can blame me for this, for, if the land
is not defended by the pope, I know no one who can protect it." The
fortunate absence of Randolph of Chester on crusade made it easy to
carry out this plan. Accordingly the king of twelve years was supposed
to be capable of acting for himself. But the ultimate authority resided
with the new legate Pandulf, who, without any formal designation, was
the real successor of the marshal. This arrangement naturally left
great power to Peter des Roches, who continued to have the custody of
the king's person, and to Hubert the justiciar, who henceforth acted as
Pandulf's deputy. Next to them came the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Langton's share in the struggle for the charters was so conspicuous,
that we do not always remember that it was as a scholar and a
theologian that he acquired his chief reputation among his
contemporaries. On his return from exile he found such engrossing
occupation in the business of his see, that he took little part in
politics for several years. His self-effacement strengthened the
position of the legate.
Pandulf was no stranger to England. As subdeacon of the Roman Church he
received John's submission in 1213, and stood by his side during nearly
all his later troubles. He had been rewarded by his election to the
bishopric of Norwich, but was recalled to Rome before his consecration,
and only came back to England in the higher capacity of legate on
December 3, 1218, after the recall of Gualo. He had been the cause of
Langton's suspension, and there was probably no love lost between him
and the archbishop. It was in order to avoid troublesome questions of
jurisdiction that Pandulf, at the pope's suggestion, continued to
postpone his consecration as bishop, since that act would have
subordinated him to the Archbishop of Canterbury. But neither he nor
Langton was disposed to push matters to extremities. Just as Peter des
Roches balanced Hubert de Burgh, so the archbishop acted as a makeweight
to the legate. When power was thus nicely equipoised, there was a
natural tendency to avoid conflicting issues. In these circumstances the
truce between parties, which had marked the regency, continued for the
first years after Earl William's death. In all doubtful points the will
of the legate seems to have prevailed. Pandulf's correspondence shows
him interfering in every matter of state. He associated himself with the
justiciar in the appointment of royal officials; he invoked the papal
authority to put down "adulterine castles," and to prevent any baron
having more than one royal stronghold in his custody; he prolonged the
truce with France, and strove to pacify the Prince of North Wales; he
procured the resumption of the royal domain, and rebuked Bishop Peter
and the justiciar for remissness in dealing with Jewish usurers; he
filled up bishoprics at his own discretion. Nor did he neglect his own
interests; his kinsfolk found preferment in his English diocese, and he
appropriated certain livings for the payment of his debts, "so far as
could be done without offence". But in higher matters he pursued a wise
policy. In recognising that the great interest of the Church was peace,
he truly expressed the policy of the mild Honorius. For more than two
years he kept Englishmen from flying at each other's throats. If they
paid for peace by the continuance of foreign rule, it was better to be
governed by Pandulf than pillaged by Falkes. The principal events of
these years were due to papal initiative.[1] Honorius looked askance on
the maimed rites of the Gloucester coronation, and ordered a new
hallowing to take place at the accustomed place and with the accustomed
ceremonies. This supplementary rite was celebrated at Westminster on
Whitsunday, May 17, 1220. Though Pandulf was present, he discreetly
permitted the Archbishop of Canterbury to crown Henry with the diadem of
St. Edward. "This coronation," says the Canon of Barnwell, "was
celebrated with such good order and such splendour that the oldest
magnates who were present declared that they had seen none of the king's
predecessors crowned with so much goodwill and tranquillity." Nor was
this the only great ecclesiastical function of the year. On July 7
Langton celebrated at Canterbury the translation of the relics of St.
Thomas to a magnificent shrine at the back of the high altar. Again the
legate gave precedence to the archbishop, and the presence of the young
king, of the Archbishop of Reims, and the Primate of Hungary, gave
distinction to the solemnity. It was a grand time for English saints.
When Damietta was taken from the Mohammedans, the crusaders dedicated
two of its churches to St. Thomas of Canterbury and St. Edmund the King.
A new saint was added to the calendar, who, if not an Englishman, had
done good work for the country of his adoption. In 1220 Honorius III.
canonised Hugh of Avalon, the Carthusian Bishop of Lincoln, on the
report of a commission presided over by Langton himself.
[1]: H.R. Luard, _On the Relations between England and Rome
during the Earlier Portion of the Reign of Henry III._ (1877),
illustrates papal influence at this period.
No real unity of principle underlay the external tranquillity. As time
went on Peter des Roches bitterly resented the growing preponderance of
Hubert de Burgh. Not all the self-restraint of the legate could commend
him to Langton, whose obstinate insistence upon his metropolitical
authority forced Pandulf to procure bulls from Rome specifically
releasing him from the jurisdiction of the primate. In these
circumstances it was natural for Bishop Peter and the legate to join
together against the justiciar and the archbishop. Finding that the
legate was too strong for him, Langton betook himself to Rome, and
remained there nearly a year. Before he went home he persuaded Honorius
to promise not to confer the same benefice twice by papal provision,
and to send no further legate to England during his lifetime. Pandulf
was at once recalled, and left England in July, 1221, a month before
his rival's return. He was compensated for the slight put upon him by
receiving his long-deferred consecration to Norwich at the hands of the
pope. There is small reason for believing that he was exceptionally
greedy or unpopular. But his withdrawal removed an influence which had
done its work for good, and was becoming a national danger. Langton
henceforth could act as the real head of the English Church. In 1222,
he held an important provincial council at Oseney abbey, near Oxford,
where he issued constitutions, famous as the first provincial canons
still recognised as binding in our ecclesiastical courts. He began once
more to concern himself with affairs of state, and Hubert found him a
sure ally. Bishop Peter, disgusted with his declining influence,
welcomed his appointment as archbishop of the crusading Church at
Damietta. He took the cross, and left England with Falkes de Breaute as
his companion. Learning that the crescent had driven the cross out of
his new see, he contented himself with making the pilgrimage to
Compostella, and soon found his way back to England, where he sought
for opportunities to regain power.
Relieved of the opposition of Bishop Peter, Hubert insisted on
depriving barons of doubtful loyalty of the custody of royal castles,
and found his chief opponent in William Earl of Albemarle. In dignity
and possessions, Albemarle was not ill-qualified to be a feudal leader.
The son of William de Fors, of Oleron, a Poitevin adventurer of the
type of Falkes de Breaute, he represented, through his mother, the line
of the counts of Aumale, who had since the Conquest ruled over
Holderness from their castle at Skipsea. The family acquired the status
of English earls under Stephen, retaining their foreign title,
expressed in English in the form of Albemarle, being the first house of
comital rank abroad to hold an earldom with a French name unassociated
with any English shire. During the civil war Albemarle's
tergiversations, which rivalled those of the Geoffrey de Mandeville of
Stephen's time, had been rewarded by large grants from the victorious
party. Since 1219 he suffered slight upon slight, and in 1220 was
stripped of the custody of Rockingham Castle. Late in that year Hubert
resolved to enforce an order, promulgated in 1217, which directed
Albemarle to restore to his former subtenant Bytham Castle, in South
Kesteven, of which he was overlord, and of which he had resumed
possession on account of the treason of his vassal. The earl hurried
away in indignation from the king's Christmas court, and in January,
1221, threw himself into Bytham, eager to hold it by force against the
king. For a brief space he ruled over the country-side after the
fashion of a baron of Stephen's time. He plundered the neighbouring
towns and churches, and filled the dungeons of Castle Bytham with
captives. On the pretext of attending a council at Westminster he
marched southwards, but his real motive was disclosed when he suddenly
attacked the castle of Fotheringhay. His men crossed the moat on the
ice, and, burning down the great gate, easily overpowered the scanty
garrison. "As if he were the only ruler of the kingdom," says the Canon
of Barnwell, "he sent letters signed with his seal to the mayors of the
cities of England, granting his peace to all merchants engaged in
plying their trades, and allowing them free licence of going and coming
through his castles." Nothing in the annals of the time puts more
clearly this revival of the old feudal custom that each baron should
lord it as king over his own estates.
Albemarle's power did not last long. He incurred the wrath of the
Church, and both in Kesteven and in Northamptonshire set himself
against the interests of Randolph of Chester. Before January was over
Pandulf excommunicated him, and a great council granted a special
scutage, "the scutage of Bytham," to equip an army to crush the rebel.
Early in February a considerable force marched northwards against him.
The Earl of Chester took part in the campaign, and both the legate and
the king accompanied the army. Before the combined efforts of Church
and State, Albemarle dared not hold his ground, and fled to Fountains,
where he took sanctuary. His followers abandoned Fotheringhay, but
stood a siege at Bytham. After six days this castle was captured on
February 8. Even then secret sympathisers with Albemarle were able to
exercise influence on his behalf, and Pandulf himself was willing to
show mercy. The earl came out of sanctuary, and was pardoned on
condition of taking the crusader's vow. No effort was made to insist on
his going on crusade, and within a few months he was again in favour.
"Thus," says Roger of Wendover, "the king set the worst of examples,
and encouraged future rebellions." Randolph of Chester came out with
the spoils of victory. He secured as the price of his ostentatious
fidelity the custody of the Honour of Huntingdon, during the nonage of
the earl, his nephew, John the Scot.
A tumult in the capital soon taught Hubert that he had other foes to
fight against besides the feudal party. At a wrestling match, held on
July 25, 1222, between the city and the suburbs, the citizens won an
easy victory. The tenants of the Abbot of Westminster challenged the
conquerors to a fresh contest on August 1 at Westminster. But the
abbot's men were more anxious for revenge than good sport, and seeing
that the Londoners were likely to win, they violently broke up the
match. Suspecting no evil, the citizens had come without arms, and were
very severely handled by their rivals. Driven back behind their walls,
the Londoners clamoured for vengeance. Serlo the mercer, their mayor, a
prudent and peace-loving man, urged them to seek compensation of the
abbot. But the citizens preferred the advice of Constantine FitzAthulf,
who insisted upon an immediate attack on the men of Westminster. Next
day the abbey precincts were invaded, and much mischief was done. The
alarm was the greater because Constantine was a man of high position,
who had recently been a sheriff of London, and had once been a
strenuous supporter of Louis of France. It was rumoured that his
followers had raised the cry, "Montjoie! Saint Denis!" The quarrels of
neighbouring cities were as dangerous to sound rule as the feuds of
rival barons, and Hubert took instant measures to put down the
sedition. With the aid of Falkes de Breaute's mercenaries, order was
restored, and Constantine was led before the justiciar. Early next day
Falkes assembled his forces, and crossed the river to Southwark. He
took with him Constantine and two of his supporters, and hanged all
three, without form of trial, before the city knew anything about it.
Then Falkes and his soldiers rushed through the streets, capturing,
mutilating, and frightening away the citizens. Constantine's houses and
property were seized by the king. The weak Serlo was deposed from the
mayoralty, and the city taken into the king's hands. It was the last
time that Hubert and Falkes worked together, and something of the
violence of the _condottiere_ captain sullied the justiciar's
reputation. As the murderer of Constantine, Hubert was henceforth
pursued with the undying hatred of the Londoners.
During the next two years parties became clearly defined. Hubert more
and more controlled the royal policy, and strove to strengthen both his
master and himself by marriage alliances. Powerful husbands were sought
for the king's three sisters. On June 19, 1221, Joan, Henry's second
sister, was married to the young Alexander of Scotland, at York. At the
same time Hubert, a widower by Isabella of Gloucester's death, wedded
Alexander's elder sister, Margaret, a match which compensated the
justiciar for his loss of Isabella's lands. Four years later, Isabella,
the King of Scot's younger sister, was united with Roger Bigod, the
young Earl of Norfolk, a grandson of the great William Marshal, whose
eldest son and successor, William Marshal the younger, was in 1224
married to the king's third sister, Eleanor. The policy of
intermarriage between the royal family and the baronage was defended by
the example of Philip Augustus in France, and on the ground of the
danger to the royal interests if so strong a magnate as the earl
marshal were enticed away from his allegiance by an alliance with a
house unfriendly to Henry.[1]
[1] _Royal Letters_, i., 244-46.
The futility of marriage alliances in modifying policy was already made
clear by the attitude of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, the husband of Henry's
bastard sister Joan. This resourceful prince had already raised himself
to a high position by a statecraft which lacked neither strength nor
duplicity. Though fully conscious of his position as the champion of a
proud nation, and, posing as the peer of the King of Scots, Llewelyn
saw that it was his interest to continue the friendship with the
baronial opposition which had profited him so greatly in the days of
the French invasion. The pacification arranged in 1218 sat rightly upon
him, and he plunged into a war with William Marshal the younger that
desolated South Wales for several years. In 1219 Llewelyn devastated
Pembrokeshire so cruelly that the marshal's losses were currently,
though absurdly, reported to have exceeded the amount of the ransom of
King Richard. There was much more fighting, but Llewelyn's progress was
impeded by difficulties with his own son Griffith, and with the princes
of South Wales, who bore impatiently the growing hold of the lord of
Gwynedd upon the affections of southern Welshmen. There was war also in
the middle march, where in 1220 a royal army was assembled against
Llewelyn; but Pandulf negotiated a truce, and the only permanent result
of this effort was the fortification of the castle and town at
Montgomery, which had become royal demesne on the extinction of the
ancient house of Bollers a few years earlier. But peace never lasted
long west of the Severn, and in 1222 William Marshal drove Llewelyn out
of Cardigan and Carmarthen. Again there were threats of war. Llewelyn
was excommunicated, and his lands put under interdict. The marshal
complained bitterly of the poor support which Henry gave him against
the Welsh, but Hubert restored cordiality between him and the king. In
these circumstances the policy of marrying Eleanor to the indignant
marcher was a wise one. Llewelyn however could still look to the active
friendship of Randolph of Chester. While the storm of war raged in
South Wales, the march between Cheshire and Gwynedd enjoyed unwonted
peace, and in 1223 a truce was patched up through Randolph's mediation.
Earl Randolph needed the Welsh alliance the more because he definitely
threw in his lot with the enemies of Hubert de Burgh. In April, 1223, a
bull of Honorius III. declared Henry competent to govern in his own
name, a change which resulted in a further strengthening of Hubert's
power. Towards the end of the year Randolph joined with William of
Albemarle, the Bishop of Winchester and Falkes de Breaute, in an
attempt to overthrow the justiciar. The discontented barons took arms
and laid their grievances before the king. They wished, they said, no
ill to king or kingdom, but simply desired to remove the justiciar from
his counsels. Hot words passed between the indignant Hubert and Peter
des Roches, and the conference broke up in confusion. The barons still
remained mutinous, and, while the king held his Christmas court at
Northampton, they celebrated the feast at Leicester. At last Langton
persuaded both parties to come to an agreement on the basis of king's
friends and barons alike surrendering their castles and wardships. This
was a substantial victory for the party of order, and during the next
few months much was done to transfer the castles to loyal hands.
Randolph himself surrendered Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth.
Comparative peace having been restored, and the judicial bench purged
of feudal partisans, private persons ventured to complain of outrageous
acts of "novel disseisin", or unlawful appropriation of men's lands. In
the spring of 1224 the king's justices went throughout the country,
hearing and deciding pleas of this sort. Sixteen acts of novel
disseisin were proved against Falkes de Breaute. Despite all the
efforts of Langton and Hubert, that able adventurer, though stripped of
some of his castles, fully maintained the position which he first
acquired in the service of John. He was not the man to put up tamely
with the piecemeal destruction of his power by legal process, and,
backed up secretly by the feudal leaders, resolved to take the law into
his own hands. One of the most active of the judges in hearing
complaints against him was Henry of Braybrook. Falkes bade his brother,
William de Breaute fall upon the justice, who had been hearing suits at
Dunstable, and take him prisoner. William faithfully fulfilled his
brother's orders, and on June 17 the unlucky judge was safely shut up
in a dungeon of Bedford Castle, of which William had the custody, as
his brother's agent. So daring an outrage on the royal authority was
worse than the action of William of Albemarle four years before. Hubert
and the archbishop immediately took strong measures to enforce the
sanctity of the law. While Langton excommunicated Falkes and his
abettors, Hubert hastily turned against the traitor the forces which
were assembling at Northampton with the object of reconquering Poitou.
Braybrook was captured on Monday. On Thursday the royal troops besieged
Bedford.
The siege lasted from June 20 to August 14. The "noble castle of
Bedford" was new, large, and fortified with an inner and outer baily,
and two strong towers. Falkes trusted that it would hold out for a year,
and had amply provided it with provisions and munitions of war. In
effect, though William de Breaute and his followers showed a gallant
spirit, it resisted the justiciar for barely two months. When called
upon to surrender the garrison answered that they would only yield at
their lord's orders, and that the more as they were not bound to the
king by homage or fealty. Nothing was left but a fight to the death. The
royalists made strenuous efforts. A new scutage, the "scutage of
Bedford," was imposed on the realm. Meanwhile Falkes fled to his
accomplice, the Earl of Chester, and afterwards took refuge with
Llewelyn. But the adventurer found such cold comfort from the great men
who had lured him to his ruin that he perforce made his way back to
England, along with a motley band of followers, English and French,
Scottish and Welsh.[1] A hue and cry was raised after him, and, like
William of Albemarle, he was forced to throw himself into sanctuary,
while Randolph of Chester openly joined the besiegers of Bedford. In his
refuge in a church at Coventry, Falkes was persuaded to surrender to the
bishop of the diocese, who handed him over to Langton.
[1] The names of his _familia_ taken with him are in _Patent
Rolls of Henry III._, 1216-1227, pp. 461-62.
During Falkes's wanderings his brother had been struggling valiantly
against overwhelming odds. _Petrariae_ and mangonels threw huge stones
into the castle, and effected breaches in keep and curtain. Miners
undermined the walls, while over-against the stronghold two lofty
structures of wood were raised, from which the crossbowmen, who manned
them, were able to command the whole of the interior. At last the
castle was captured in four successive assaults. In the first the
barbican was taken; in the next the outer baily was stormed; in the
third the interior baily was won; and in the last the keep was split
asunder. The garrison then allowed the women and captives, including
the wife of Falkes and the unlucky Braybrook, to make their way to the
enemies' lines. Next day the defenders themselves surrendered. The only
mercy shown to these gallant men was that they were allowed to make
their peace with the Church before their execution. Of the eighty
prisoners, three Templars alone were spared.
Falkes threw himself upon the king's mercy, appealing to his former
services to Henry and his father. He surrendered to the King the large
sums of money which he had deposited with his bankers, the Templars of
London, and ordered his castellans in Plympton and the other
west-country castles of his wife to open their gates to the royal
officers. In return for these concessions he was released from
excommunication. His life was spared, but his property was confiscated,
and he was ordered to abjure the realm. Even his wife deserted him,
protesting that she had been forced to marry him against her will. On
October 26 he received letters of safe conduct to go beyond sea. As he
left England, he protested that he had been instigated by the English
magnates in all that he had done. On landing at Fecamp he was detained
by his old enemy Louis, then, by his father's death, King of France.
But Louis VIII. was the last man to bear old grudges against the Norman
adventurer, especially as Falkes's rising had enabled him to capture
the chief towns of Poitou.
Even in his exile Falkes was still able to do mischief. He obtained his
release from Louis' prison about Easter, 1225, on the pretence of going
on crusade. He then made his way to Rome where he strove to excite the
sympathy of Honorius III., by presenting an artful memorial, which
throws a flood of light upon his character, motives, and hopes.
Honorius earnestly pleaded for his restitution, but Hubert and Langton
stood firm against him. They urged that the pope had been misinformed,
and declined to recall the exile. Honorius sent his chaplain Otto to
England, but the nuncio found it impossible to modify the policy of the
advisers of the king. Falkes went back from Italy to Troyes, where he
waited for a year in the hope that his sentence would be reversed. At
last Otto gave up his cause in despair, and devoted himself to the more
profitable work of exacting money from the English clergy. Falkes died
in 1226. With him disappears from our history the lawless spirit which
had troubled the land since the war between John and his barons. The
foreign adventurers, of whom he was the chief, either went back in
disgust to their native lands, or, like Peter de Mauley, became loyal
subjects and the progenitors of a harmless stock of English barons. The
ten years of storm and stress were over. The administration was once
more in English hands, and Hubert enjoyed a few years of well-earned
power.
New difficulties at once arose. The defeat of the feudalists and their
Welsh allies involved heavy special taxation, and the king's honour
required that an effort should be made both to wrest Poitou from Louis
VIII., and to strengthen the English hold over Gascony. Besides
national obligations, clergy and laity alike were still called upon to
contribute towards the cost of crusading enterprises, and in 1226 the
papal nuncio, Otto, demanded that a large proportion of the revenues of
the English clergy should be contributed to the papal coffers. To the
Englishman of that age all extraordinary taxation was a grievance quite
irrespective of its necessity. The double incidence of the royal and
papal demands was met by protests which showed some tendency towards
the splitting up of the victorious side into parties. It was still easy
for all to unite against Otto, and the papal agent was forced to go
home empty handed, for councils both of clergy and barons agreed to
reject his demands. Whatever other nations might offer to the pope,
argued the magnates, the realms of England and Ireland at least had a
right to be freed from such impositions by reason of the tribute which
John had agreed to pay to Innocent III. The demand of the king's
ministers for a fifteenth to prosecute the war with France was
reluctantly conceded, but only on the condition of a fresh confirmation
of the charters in a form intended to bring home to the king his
personal obligation to observe them. Hubert de Burgh, however, was no
enthusiast for the charters. His standpoint was that of the officials
of the age of Henry II. To him the re-establishment of order meant the
restoration of the prerogative. There he parted company with the
archbishop, who was an eager upholder of the charters, for which he was
so largely responsible. The struggle against the foreigner was to be
succeeded by a struggle for the charters.
In January, 1227, a council met at Oxford. The king, then nearly twenty
years old, declared that he would govern the country himself, and
renounced the tutelage of the Bishop of Winchester. Henry gave himself
over completely to the justiciar, whom he rewarded for his faithful
service by making him Earl of Kent. In deep disgust Bishop Peter left
the court to carry out his long-deferred crusading vows. For four years
he was absent in Palestine, where his military talents had ample scope
as one of the leaders of Frederick II.'s army, while his diplomatic
skill sought, with less result, to preserve some sort of relations
between the excommunicated emperor and the new pope, Gregory IX., who
in this same year succeeded Honorius. In April Gregory renewed the bull
of 1223 in which his predecessor recognised Henry's competence to
govern.
Thus ended the first minority since the Conquest. The successful
restoration of law and order when the king was a child, showed that a
strong king was not absolutely necessary for good government. From the
exercise of royal authority by ministers without the personal
intervention of the monarch arose the ideas of limited monarchy, the
responsibility of the official, and the constitutional rights of the
baronial council to appoint ministers and control the administration.
We also discern, almost for the first time, the action of an inner
ministerial council which was ultimately to develop into the _consilium
ordinarium_ of a later age.
No sudden changes attended the royal majority. Those who had persuaded
Henry to dismiss Bishop Peter had no policy beyond getting rid of a
hated rival. The new Earl of Kent continued to hold office as justiciar
for five years, and his ascendency is even more marked in the years
1227 to 1232 than it had been between 1224 and 1227. Hubert still found
the task of ruling England by no means easy. With the mitigation of
home troubles foreign affairs assumed greater importance, and England's
difficulties with France, the efforts to establish cordial relations
with the empire, the ever-increasing aggressions of Llewelyn of Wales,
and the chronic troubles of Ireland, involved the country in large
expenses with little compensating advantage. Not less uneasy were the
results of the growing encroachments of the papacy and the increasing
inability of the English clergy to face them. Papal taxation, added to
the burden of national taxation, induced discontent that found a ready
scapegoat in the justiciar. The old and the new baronial opposition
combined to denounce Hubert as the true cause of all evils. The
increasing personal influence of the young king complicated the
situation. In his efforts to deal with all these problems Hubert became
involved in the storm of obloquy which finally brought about his fall.
At the accession of Henry III., the truce for five years concluded
between his father and Philip Augustus on September 18, 1214, had still
three years to run. The expedition of Louis to England might well seem
to have broken it, but the prudent disavowal by Philip II. of his son's
sacrilegious enterprise made it a point of policy for the French King
to regard it as still in force, and neither John nor the earl marshal
had a mind to face the enmity of the father as well as the invasion of
the son. Accordingly the truce ran out its full time, and in 1220
Honorius III., ever zealous for peace between Christian sovereigns,
procured its prolongation for four years. Before this had expired, the
accession of Louis VIII. in 1223 raised the old enemy of King Henry to
the throne of France. Louis still coveted the English throne, and
desired to complete the conquest of Henry's French dominions in France.
His accession soon involved England in a new struggle, luckily delayed
until the worst of the disorders at home had been overcome.
Peace was impossible because Louis, like Philip, regarded the
forfeiture of John as absolute, and as involving the right to deny to
Henry III. a legitimate title to any of his lands beyond sea. Henry, on
the other hand, was still styled Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou,
Count of Poitou, and Duke of Aquitaine. Claiming all that his father
had held, he refused homage to Philip or Louis for such French lands as
he actually possessed. For the first time since the Conquest, an
English king ruled over extensive French territories without any feudal
subjection to the King of France. However, Henry's French lands, though
still considerable, were but a shadow of those once ruled by his
father. Philip had conquered all Normandy, save the Channel Islands,
and also the whole of Anjou and Touraine. For a time he also gained
possession of Poitou, but before his death nearly the whole of that
region had slipped from his grasp. Poitiers, alone of its great towns,
remained in French hands. For the rest, both the barons and cities of
Poitou acknowledged the over-lordship of their English count. Too much
importance must not be ascribed to this revival of the English power.
Henry claimed very little domain in Poitou, which practically was
divided between the feudal nobles and the great communes. So long as
they maintained a virtual freedom, they were indifferent as to their
overlord. If they easily transferred their allegiance from Philip to
Henry, it was because the weakness of absentee counts was less to be
dreaded than the strength of a monarch near at hand. Meanwhile the
barons carried on their feuds one against the other, and all alike
joined in oppressing the townsmen.
During Henry's minority the crown was not strong enough to deal with
the unruly Foitevins. Seneschals quickly succeeded each other; the
barons expected the office to be filled by one of their own order, and
the towns, jealous of hostile neighbours, demanded the appointment of
an Englishman. At last, in 1221, Savary de Mauleon, one of King John's
mercenaries, a poet, and a crusader against infidels and Albigenses,
was made seneschal. His English estates ensured some measure of
fidelity, and his energy and experience were guarantees of his
competence, though, as a younger member of the great house of Thouars,
he belonged by birth to the inner circle of the Poitevin nobility,
whose treachery, levity, and self-seeking were proverbial. The powerful
Viscounts of Thouars were constantly kept in check by their traditional
enemies the Counts of La Marche, whose representative, Hugh of
Lusignan, was by far the strongest of the local barons. His cousin, and
sometime betrothed, Isabella, Countess of Angouleme, the widow of King
John, had left England to resume the administration of her dominions.
Early in 1220 she married Hugh, justifying herself to her son on the
ground that it would be dangerous to his interests if the Count of La
Marche should contract an alliance with the French party. But this was
mere excuse. The union of La Marche and Angouleme largely increased
Count Hugh's power, and he showed perfect impartiality in pursuing his
own interests by holding a balance between his stepson and the King of
France. Against him neither Savary nor the Poitevin communes could
contend with success. The anarchy of Poitou was an irresistible
temptation to Louis VII. "Know you," he wrote to the men of Limoges,
"that John, king of England, was deprived by the unanimous judgment of
his peers of all the lands which he held of our father Philip. We have
now received in inheritance all our father's rights, and require you to
perform the service that you owe us." While the English government
weakly negotiated for the prolongation of the truce, and for the pope's
intervention, Louis concluded treaties with the Poitevin barons, and
made ready an army to conquer his inheritance. Foremost among his local
partisans appeared Henry's stepfather.
The French army met at Tours on June 24, 1224, and marched through
Thouars to La Rochelle, the strongest of the Poitevin towns, and the
most devoted to England. On the way Louis forced Savary de Mauleon to
yield up Niort, and to promise to defend no other place than La
Rochelle, before which city he sat down on July 15. At first Savary
resisted vigorously. The siege of Bedford, however, prevented the
despatch of effective help from England, and Savary was perhaps already
secretly won over by Louis. Be this as it may, the town surrendered on
August 3, and with it went all Aquitaine north of the Dordogne. Savary
took service with the conqueror, and was made warden of La Rochelle and
of the adjacent coasts, while Lusignan received the reward of his
treachery in a grant of the Isle of Oleron. When Louis returned to the
north, the Count of La Marche undertook the conquest of Gascony. He
soon made himself master of St. Emilion, and of the whole of Perigord.
The surrender of La Reole opened up the passage of the Garonne, and the
capture of Bazas gave the French a foothold to the south of that river.
Only the people of Bordeaux showed any spirit in resisting Hugh. But
their resistance proved sufficient, and he withdrew baffled before
their walls.
The easiness of Louis' conquests showed their instability. "I am sure,"
wrote one of Henry's officers, "that you can easily recover all that you
have lost, if you send speedy succour to these regions." After the
capture of Bedford, Hubert undertook the recovery of Poitou and the
defence of Gascony. Henry's younger brother Richard, a youth of sixteen,
was appointed Earl of Cornwall and Count of Poitou, dubbed knight by his
brother, and put in nominal command of the expedition despatched to
Gascony in March, 1225. His experienced uncle, William Longsword, Earl
of Salisbury, and Philip of Aubigny, were sent with him as his chief
counsellors. Received with open arms by Bordeaux, he boasted on May 2
that he had conquered all Gascony, save La Reole, and had received the
allegiance of every Gascon noble, except Elie Rudel, the lord of
Bergerac. The siege of La Reole, the only serious military operation of
the campaign, occupied Richard all the summer and autumn, and it was not
until November 13 that the burgesses opened their gates. As soon as the
French had retired, the lord of Bergerac, "after the fashion of the
Poitevins," renounced Louis and professed himself the liegeman of Earl
Richard. Then the worst trouble was that Savary de Mauleon's ships
commanded the Bay of Biscay, and rendered communication between Bordeaux
and England very difficult.[1] Once more the men of the Cinque Ports
came to the king's aid, and there was severe fighting at sea, involving
much plunder of merchant vessels and dislocation of trade.
[1] The names of his _familia_ taken with him are in _Patent
Rolls of Henry III._, 1216-1227, pp. 461-62.
The English sought to supplement their military successes by diplomacy.
Richard of Cornwall made an alliance with the counts of Auvergne, and
the home administration negotiated with all possible enemies of the
French King. A proposal to affiance Henry's sister, Isabella, to Henry,
King of the Romans, the infant son of Frederick II., led to no results,
for the Archbishop of Cologne, the chief upholder of the scheme in
Germany, was murdered, and the young king found a bride in Austria. Yet
the project counteracted the negotiations set on foot by Louis to
secure Frederick II. for his own side, and induced the Emperor to take
up a position of neutrality. An impostor appeared in Flanders who gave
out that he was the old Count Baldwin, sometime Latin Emperor of the
East, who had died in prison in Bulgaria twenty years before. Baldwin's
daughter, Joan, appealed to Louis for support against the false
Baldwin, whereupon Henry recognised his claims and sought his alliance.
Nothing but the capture and execution of the impostor prevented Henry
from effecting a powerful diversion in Flanders. Peter Mauclerc, Count
of Brittany, was won over by an offer of restitution to his earldom of
Richmond, and by a promise that Henry would marry his daughter Iolande.
Intrigues were entered into with the discontented Norman nobles, and
the pope was importuned to save Henry from French assaults at the same
moment that the king made a treaty of alliance with his first cousin,
the heretical Raymond VII. of Toulouse. Honorius gave his ward little
save sympathy and good advice. His special wish was to induce Louis to
lead a French expedition into Languedoc against the Albigensian
heretics. As soon as Louis resolved on this, the pope sought to prevent
Henry from entering into unholy alliance with Raymond. It was the
crusade of 1226, not the good-will of the Pope or the fine-drawn
English negotiations, which gave Gascony a short respite. Louis VIII.
died on November 8 in the course of his expedition, and the Capetian
monarchy became less dangerous during the troubles of a minority, in
which his widow, Blanche, strove as regent to uphold the throne of
their little son, Louis IX.
The first months of Louis IX.'s reign showed how unstable was any
edifice built upon the support of the treacherous lords of Poitou.
Within six weeks of Louis VIII.'s death, Hugh of Lusignan, the viscount
of Thouars, Savary de Mauleon, and many other Poitevin barons,
concluded treaties with Richard of Cornwall, by which in return for
lavish concessions they went back to the English obedience. In the
spring of 1227, however, the appearance of a French army south of the
Loire caused these same lords to make fresh treaties with Blanche.
Peter of Brittany also became friendly with the French regent, and gave
up his daughter's English marriage. With allies so shifty, further
dealings seemed hopeless. Before Easter, Richard patched up a truce and
went home in disgust. The Capetians lost Poitou, but Henry failed to
take advantage of his rival's weakness, and the real masters of the
situation were the local barons. Fifteen more years were to elapse
before the definitive French conquest of Poitou.
During the next three years the good understanding between the Bretons,
the Poitevins, and the regent Blanche came to an end, and the progress
of the feudal reaction against the rule of the young King of France
once more excited hopes of improving Henry's position in south-western
France. Henry III. was eager to win back his inheritance, though Hubert
de Burgh had little faith in Poitevin promises, and, conscious of his
king's weakness, managed to prolong the truce, until July 22, 1229.
Three months before that, Blanche succeeded in forcing the unfortunate
Raymond VII. to accept the humiliating treaty of Meaux, which assured
the succession to his dominions to her second son Alfonse, who was to
marry his daughter and heiress, Joan. The barons of the north and west
were not yet defeated, and once more appealed to Henry to come to their
aid. Accordingly, the English king summoned his vassals to Portsmouth
on October 15 for a French campaign. When Henry went down to Portsmouth
he found that there were not enough ships to convey his troops over
sea. Thereupon he passionately denounced the justiciar as an "old
traitor," and accused him of being bribed by the French queen. Nothing
but the intervention of Randolph of Chester, Hubert's persistent enemy,
put an end to the undignified scene.
Count Peter of Brittany, who arrived at Portsmouth on the 9th, did
homage to Henry as King of France, and received the earldom of Richmond
and the title of Duke of Brittany which he had long coveted, but which
the French government refused to recognise. He persuaded Henry to
postpone the expedition until the following spring. When that time came
Henry appointed Ralph Neville, the chancellor, and Stephen Segrave, a
rising judge, as wardens of England, and on May 1, 1230, set sail from
Portsmouth. It was the first time since 1213 that an English king had
crossed the seas at the head of an army, and every effort was made to
equip a sufficient force. Hubert the justiciar, Randolph of Chester,
William the marshal, and most of the great barons personally shared in
the expedition, and the ports of the Channel, the North Sea, and the
Bay of Biscay were ransacked to provide adequate shipping. Many Norman
vessels served as transports, apparently of their owners' free-will.
On May 3 Henry landed at St. Malo, and thence proceeded to Dinan, the
meeting-place assigned for his army, the greater part of which landed at
Port Blanc, a little north of Treguier. Peter Mauclerc joined him, and a
plan of operations was discussed. The moment was favourable, for a great
number of the French magnates were engaged in war against Theobald, the
poet-count of Champagne, and the French army, which was assembled at
Angers, represented but a fraction of the military strength of the land.
Fulk Paynel, a Norman baron who wished to revive the independence of the
duchy, urged Henry to invade Normandy. Hubert successfully withstood
this rash proposal, and also Fulk's fatal suggestion that Henry should
divide his army and send two hundred knights for the invasion of
Normandy. Before long the English marched through Brittany to Nantes,
where they wasted six weeks. At last, on the advice of Hubert, they
journeyed south into Poitou. The innate Poitevin instability had again
brought round the Lusignans, the house of Thouars, and their kind to the
French side, and Henry found that his own mother did her best to
obstruct his progress. He was too strong to make open resistance safe,
and his long progress from Nantes to Bordeaux was only once checked by
the need to fight his way. This opposition came from the little town and
castle of Mirambeau, situated in Upper Saintonge, rather more than
half-way between Saintes and Blaye.[1] From July 21 to 30 Mirambeau
stoutly held out, but Henry's army was reinforced by the chivalry of
Gascony, and by a siege-train borrowed from Bordeaux and the loyal lords
of the Garonne. Against such appliances of warfare Mirambeau could not
long resist. On its capitulation Henry pushed on to Bordeaux.
[1] E. Berger, _Bibl. Ecole des Chartes_, 1893, _pp. 35-36_,
shows that Mirambeau, not Mirebeau, was besieged by Henry; see
also his _Blanche de Castille_ (1895).
Useless as the march through Poitou had been, it was then repeated in
the reverse way. With scarcely a week's rest, Henry left the Gascon
capital on August 10, and on September 15 ended his inglorious campaign
at Nantes. Although he was unable to assert himself against the
faithless Poitevins, the barons of the province were equally impotent
to make head against him. On reaching Brittany, Hubert once more
stopped further military efforts. After a few days' rest at Nantes,
Henry made his way by slow stages through the heart of Brittany. It was
said that his army had no better occupation than teaching the local
nobles to drink deep after the English fashion. The King had wasted all
his treasure, and the poorer knights were compelled to sell or pawn
their horses and arms to support themselves. The farce ended when the
King sailed from St. Pol de Leon, and late in October landed at
Portsmouth. He left a portion of his followers in Brittany, under the
Earls of Chester and Pembroke. Randolph himself, as a former husband of
Constance of Brittany, had claims to certain dower lands which
appertained to Count Peter's mother-in-law. He was put in possession of
St. James de Beuvron, and thence he raided Normandy and Anjou. By this
time the coalition against the count of Champagne had broken down, and
Blanche was again triumphant. It was useless to continue a struggle so
expensive and disastrous, and on July 4, 1231, a truce for three years
was concluded between France, Brittany, and England. Peter des Roches,
then returning through France from his crusade, took an active part in
negotiating the treaty. Just as the king was disposed to make the
justiciar the scapegoat of his failure, Hubert's old enemy appeared
once more upon the scene. The responsibility for blundering must be
divided among the English magnates, and not ascribed solely to their
monarch. If Hubert saved Henry from reckless adventures, he certainly
deserves a large share of the blame for the Poitevin fiasco.
The grave situation at home showed the folly of this untimely revival
of an active foreign policy. The same years that saw the collapse of
Henry's hopes in Normandy and Poitou, witnessed troubles both in
Ireland and in Wales. In both these regions the house of the Marshals
was a menace to the neighbouring chieftains, and Hugh de Lacy, Earl of
Ulster, and Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, made common cause against it and
vigorously attacked their rivals both in Leinster and in South Wales.
Nor was this the only disturbance. The summons of the Norman chieftains
of Ireland to Poitou gave the king of Connaught a chance of attacking
the justiciar of Ireland, Geoffrey Marsh, who ultimately drove the
Irish back with severe loss. Llewelyn was again as active and hostile
as ever. Irritated by the growing strength of the new royal castle of
Montgomery, he laid siege to it in 1228. Hubert de Burgh, then
castellan of Montgomery, could only save his castle by summoning the
levies of the kingdom. At their head Hubert went in person to hold the
field against Llewelyn, taking the king with him. The Welsh withdrew as
usual before a regular army, and Hubert and the king, late in
September, marched a few miles westwards of Montgomery to the vale of
Kerry, where they erected a castle. But Llewelyn soon made the English
position in Kerry untenable. Many of the English lords were secretly in
league with him, and the army suffered severely from lack of food. In
the fighting that ensued the Welsh got the better of the English,
taking prisoner William de Braose, the heir of Builth, and one of the
greatest of the marcher lords. At last king and justiciar were glad to
agree to demolish the new castle on receiving from Llewelyn the
expenses involved in the task. The dismantled ruin was called "Hubert's
folly". "And then," boasts the Welsh chronicler, "the king returned to
England with shame."
In 1230 Llewelyn inflicted another slight upon his overlord. William de
Braose long remained the Welsh prince's captive, and only purchased his
liberty by agreeing to wed his daughter to Llewelyn's son, and
surrendering Builth as her marriage portion. The captive had employed
his leisure in winning the love of Llewelyn's wife, Joan, Henry's
half-sister. At Easter, Llewelyn took a drastic revenge on the
adulterer. He seized William in his own castle at Builth, and on May 2
hanged him on a tree in open day in the presence of 900 witnesses.
Finding that neither the king nor the marchers moved a finger to avenge
the outrage done to sister and comrade, Llewelyn took the aggressive in
regions which had hitherto been comparatively exempt from his assaults.
In 1231 he laid his heavy hand on all South Wales, burning down
churches full of women, as the English believed, and signalling out for
special attack the marshal's lands in Gwent and Pembroke. Once more the
king penetrated with his barons into Mid Wales, while the pope and
archbishop excommunicated Llewelyn and put his lands under interdict.
Yet neither temporal nor spiritual arms were of avail against the
Welshman. Henry's only exploit in this, his second Welsh campaign, was
to rebuild Maud's Castle in stone. He withdrew, and in December agreed
to conclude a three years' truce, and procure Llewelyn's absolution.
Hubert once more bore the blame of his master's failure.
On July 9, 1228, Stephen Langton died. Despite their differences as to
the execution of the charters, his removal lost the justiciar a
much-needed friend. Affairs were made worse by the unteachable folly of
the monks of Christ Church. Regardless of the severe warning which they
had received in the storms that preceded the establishment of Langton's
authority, the chapter forthwith proceeded to the election of their
brother monk, Walter of Eynsham. The archbishop-elect was an ignorant
old monk of weak health and doubtful antecedents, and Gregory IX.
wisely refused to confirm the election. On the recommendation of the
king and the bishops, Gregory himself appointed as archbishop Richard,
chancellor of Lincoln, an eloquent and learned secular priest of
handsome person, whose nickname of "le Grand" was due to his tall
stature. The first Archbishop of Canterbury since the Conquest directly
nominated by the pope--for even in Langton's case there was a form of
election--Richard le Grand at once began to quarrel with the justiciar,
demanding that he should surrender the custody of Tunbridge castle on
the ground of some ancient claim of the see of Canterbury. Failing to
obtain redress in England, Richard betook himself to Rome in the spring
of 1231. There he regaled the pope's ears with the offences of Hubert,
and of the worldly bishops who were his tools. In August, Richard's
death in Italy left the Church of Canterbury for three years without a
pastor.
While Gregory IX. did more to help Henry against Louis than Honorius
III., the inflexible character and lofty hierarchical ideals of this
nephew of Innocent III. made his hand heavier on the English Church
than that of his predecessor. Above all, Gregory's expenses in pursuing
his quarrel with Frederick II. made the wealth of the English Church a
sore temptation to him. With his imposition of a tax of one-tenth on
all clerical property to defray the expenses of the crusade against the
emperor, papal taxation in England takes a newer and severer phase. The
rigour with which Master Stephen, the pope's collector, extorted the
tax was bitterly resented. Not less loud was the complaint against the
increasing numbers of foreign ecclesiastics forced into English
benefices by papal authority, and without regard for the rights of the
lawful patrons and electors. A league of aggrieved tax-payers and
patrons was formed against the Roman agents. At Eastertide, 1232, bands
of men, headed by a knight named Robert Twenge, who took the nickname
of William Wither, despoiled the Romans of their gains, and distributed
the proceeds to the poor. These doings were the more formidable from
their excellent organisation, and the strong sympathy everywhere
extended to them. Hubert, who hated foreign interference, did nothing
to stop Twenge and his followers. His inaction further precipitated his
ruin. Archbishop Richard had already poisoned the pope's mind against
him, and his suspected connivance with the anti-Roman movement
completed his disfavour. Bitter letters of complaint arrived in England
denouncing the outrages inflicted on the friends of the apostolic see.
It is hard to dissociate the pope's feeling in this matter from his
rejection of the nomination of the king's chancellor, Ralph Neville,
Bishop of Chichester, to the see of Canterbury, as an illiterate
politician.
The dislike of the taxes made necessary by the Welsh and French wars,
such as the "scutage of Poitou" and the "scutage of Kerry," swelled the
outcry against the justiciar. So far back as 1227 advantage had been
taken of Henry's majority to exact large sums of money for the
confirmation of all charters sealed during his nonage. The barons made
it a grievance that his brother Richard was ill-provided for, and a
rising in 1227 extorted a further provision for him from what was
regarded as the niggardliness of the justiciar. Nor did Hubert, with
all his rugged honesty, neglect his own interests. He secured for
himself lucrative wardships, such as the custody for the second time of
the great Gloucester earldom, and of several castles, including the not
very profitable charge of Montgomery, and the important governorship of
Dover. On the very eve of his downfall he was made justice of Ireland.
His brother was bishop of Ely, and other kinsmen were promoted to high
posts. He was satisfied that he spent all that he got in the King's
service, in promoting the interests of the kingdom, but his enemies
regarded him as unduly tenacious of wealth and office. All classes
alike grew disgusted with the justiciar. The restoration of the malign
influence of Peter of Winchester completed his ruin. The king greedily
listened to the complaints of his old guardian against the minister who
overshadowed the royal power. At last, on July 29, 1232, Henry plucked
up courage to dismiss him.
With Hubert's fall ends the second period of Henry's reign. William
Marshal expelled the armed foreigner. Hubert restored the
administration to English hands. Matthew Paris puts into the mouth of a
poor smith who refused to fasten fetters on the fallen minister words
which, though probably never spoken, describe with sufficient accuracy
Hubert's place in history: "Is he not that most faithful Hubert who so
often saved England from the devastation of the foreigners and restored
England to England?" Hubert was, as has been well said, perhaps the
first minister since the Conquest who made patriotism a principle of
policy, though it is easy in the light of later developments to read
into his doings more than he really intended. But whatever his motives,
the results of his action were clear. He drove away the mercenaries,
humbled the feudal lords, and set limits to the pope's interference. He
renewed respect for law and obedience to the law courts. Even in the
worst days of anarchy the administrative system did not break down, and
the records of royal orders and judicial judgments remain almost as
full in the midst of the civil war as in the more peaceful days of
Hubert's rule. But it was easy enough to issue proclamations and writs.
The difficulty was to get them obeyed, and the work of Hubert was to
ensure that the orders of king and ministers should really be respected
by his subjects. He made many mistakes. He must share the blame of the
failure of the Kerry campaign, and he was largely responsible for the
sorry collapse of the invasion of Poitou. He neither understood nor
sympathised with Stephen Langton's zeal for the charters. A
straightforward, limited, honourable man, he strove to carry out his
rather old-fashioned conception of duty in the teeth of a thousand
obstacles. He never had a free hand, and he never enjoyed the hearty
support of any one section of his countrymen. Hated by the barons whom
he kept away from power, he alienated the Londoners by his high-handed
violence, and the tax-payers by his heavy exactions. The pope disliked
him, the aliens plotted against him, and the king, for whom he
sacrificed so much, gave him but grudging support. But the reaction
which followed his retirement made many, who had rejoiced in his
humiliation, bitterly regret it.
Three notable enemies of Hubert went off the stage of history within a
few months of his fall. The death of Richard le Grand has already been
recorded. William Marshal, the brother-in-law of the king, the gallant
and successful soldier, the worthy successor of his great father, came
home from Brittany early in 1231. His last act was to marry his sister,
Isabella, to Richard of Cornwall. Within ten days of the wedding his
body was laid beside his father in the Temple Church at London. In
October, 1232, died Randolph of Blundeville, the last representative of
the male stock of the old line of the Earls of Chester, and long the
foremost champion of the feudal aristocracy against Hubert. The contest
between them had been fought with such chivalry that the last public act
of the old earl was to protect the fallen justiciar from the violence of
his foes. For more than fifty years Randolph had ruled like a king over
his palatine earldom; had, like his master, his struggles with his own
vassals, and had perforce to grant to his own barons and boroughs
liberties which he strove to wrest from his overlord for himself and his
fellow nobles. He was not a great statesman, and hardly even a
successful warrior. Yet his popular personal qualities, his energy, his
long duration of power, and his enormous possessions, give him a place
in history. His memory, living on long in the minds of the people,
inspired a series of ballads which vied in popularity with the cycle of
Robin Hood,[1] though, unfortunately, they have not come down to us. His
estates were divided among his four sisters. His nephew, John the Scot,
Earl of Huntingdon, received a re-grant of the Chester earldom; his
Lancashire lands had already gone to his brother-in-law, William of
Ferrars, Earl of Derby; other portions of his territories went to his
sister, the Countess of Arundel, and the Lincoln earldom, passing
through another sister, Hawise of Quincy, to her son-in-law, John of
Lacy, constable of Chester, raised the chief vassal of the palatinate to
comital rank. None of these heirs of a divided inheritance were true
successors to Randolph. With him died the last of the great Norman
houses, tenacious beyond its fellows, and surpassing in its two
centuries of unbroken male descent the usual duration of the medieval
baronial family. Its collapse made easier the alien invasion which
threatened to undo Hubert's work.
[1] "Ich can rymes of Robyn Hode, and of Randolf erl of
Chestre," _Vision of Piers Plowman_, i., 167; ii., 94.
CHAPTER III.
THE ALIEN INVASION.
With the dismissal of Hubert on July 29, 1232, Peter des Roches resumed
his authority over Henry III. Mindful of past failures, the bishop's
aim was to rule through dependants, so that he could pull the wires
without making himself too prominent. His chief agents in pursuing this
policy were Peter of Rivaux, Stephen Segrave, and Robert Passelewe. Of
these, Peter of Rivaux was a Poitevin clerk, officially described as
the bishop's nephew, but generally supposed to have been his son.
Stephen Segrave, the son of a small Leicestershire landholder, was a
lawyer who had held many judicial and administrative posts, including
the regency during the king's absence abroad in 1230. He abandoned his
original clerical profession, received knighthood, married nobly, and
was the founder of a baronial house in the midlands. His only political
principle was obedience to the powers that were in the ascendant.
Passelewe, a clerk who had acted as the agent of Randolph of Chester
and Falkes of Breaute at the Roman court, was, like Segrave, a mere
tool.
The Bishop of Winchester began to show his hand. Between June 26 and
July 11, nineteen of the thirty-five sheriffdoms were bestowed on Peter
of Rivaux for life. As Segrave was sheriff of five shires, and the
bishop himself had acquired the shrievalty of Hampshire, this involved
the transference of the administration of over two-thirds of the
counties to the bishop's dependants. On the downfall of Hubert, Segrave
became justiciar. He was not the equal of his predecessors either in
personal weight or in social position, and did not aspire to act as
chief minister. The appointment of a mere lawyer to the great Norman
office of state marks the first stage in the decline, which before long
degraded the justiciarship into a simple position of headship over the
judges, the chief justiceship of the next generation. Hubert's offices
and lands were divided among his supplanters. Peter of Rivaux became
keeper of wards and escheats, castellan of many castles on the Welsh
march, and the recipient of even more offices and wardships in Ireland
than in England. The custody of the Gloucester earldom went to the
Bishop of Winchester. The last steps of the ministerial revolution were
completed at the king's Christmas court at Worcester. There Rivaux, who
had yielded up before Michaelmas most of his shrievalties, was made
treasurer, with Passelewe as his deputy. Of the old ministers only the
chancellor, Ralph Neville, Bishop of Chichester, was suffered to remain
in office. Finally the king's new advisers imported a large company of
Poitevin and Breton mercenaries, hoping with their help to maintain
their newly won position. The worst days of John seemed renewed.
The Poitevin gang called upon Hubert to render complete accounts for
the whole period of his justiciarship. When he pleaded that King John
had given him a charter of quittance, he was told that its force had
ended with the death of the grantor. He was further required to answer
for the wrongs which Twenge's bands had inflicted on the servants of
the pope. He was accused of poisoning William Earl of Salisbury,
William Marshal, Falkes de Breaute, and Archbishop Richard. He had
prevented the king from contracting a marriage with a daughter of the
Duke of Austria; he had dissuaded the king from attempting to recover
Normandy; he had first seduced and then married the daughter of the
King of Scots; he had stolen from the treasury a talisman which made
its possessor invincible in war and had traitorously given it to
Llewelyn of Wales; he had induced Llewelyn to slay William de Braose;
he had won the royal favour by magic and witchcraft, and finally he had
murdered Constantine FitzAthulf.
Many of these accusations were so monstrous that they carried with them
their own refutation. It was too often the custom in the middle ages to
overwhelm an enemy with incredible charges for it to be fair to accuse
the enemies of Hubert of any excessive malignity. The substantial
innocence of Hubert is clear, for the only charges brought against him
were either errors of judgment and policy, or incredible crimes.
Nevertheless he was in such imminent danger that he took sanctuary with
the canons of Merton in Surrey. Thereupon the king called upon the
Londoners to march to Merton and bring their ancient foe, dead or
alive, to the city. Randolph of Chester interposed between his fallen
enemy and the royal vengeance. He persuaded Henry to countermand the
march to Merton and to suffer the fallen justiciar to leave his refuge
with some sort of safe conduct. But the king was irritated to hear that
Hubert had journeyed into Essex. Again he was pursued, and once more he
was forced to take sanctuary, this time in a chapel near Brentwood.
From this he was dragged by some of the king's household and brought to
London, where he was imprisoned in the Tower. The Bishop of London
complained to the king of this violation of the rights of the Church,
and Hubert was allowed to return to his chapel. However, the levies of
Essex surrounded the precincts, and he was soon forced by hunger to
surrender. He offered to submit himself to the king's will, and was for
a second time confined in the Tower. On November 10, he was brought
before a not unfriendly tribunal, in which the malice of the new
justiciar was tempered by the baronial instincts of the Earls of
Cornwall, Warenne, Pembroke, and Lincoln. He made no effort to defend
himself, and submitted absolutely to the judgment of the king. It was
finally agreed that he should be allowed to retain the lands which he
had inherited from his father, and that all his chattels and the lands
that he had acquired himself should be forfeited to the crown. Further,
he was to be kept in prison in the castle of Devizes under the charge
of the four earls who had tried him.
Peter des Roches was soon in difficulties. The earls who had saved
Hubert began to oppose the whole administration. Their leader was
Richard, Earl of Pembroke, the second son of the great regent, and
since his brother's death head of the house of Marshal. Richard was
bitterly prejudiced against the king and his courtiers by an attempt to
refuse him his brother's earldom. A gallant warrior, handsome and
eloquent, pious, upright, and well educated, Richard, the best of the
marshal's sons, stood for the rest of his short life at the head of the
opposition. He incited his friends to refuse to attend a council
summoned to meet at Oxford, on June 24, 1233. The king would have
sought to compel their presence, had not a Dominican friar, Robert
Bacon, when preaching before the court, warned him that there would be
no peace in England until Bishop Peter and his son were removed from
his counsels. The friar's boldness convinced him that disaffection was
widespread, and he promised the magnates at a later council at London
that he would, with their advice, correct whatever he found there was
need to reform. Meanwhile the Poitevins brought into England fresh
swarms of hirelings from their own land, and Peter des Roches urged
Henry to crush rebellion in the bud. As a warning to greater offenders,
Gilbert Basset was deprived of a manor which he had held since the
reign of King John, and an attempt was made to lay violent hands upon
his brother-in-law, Richard Siward. The two barons resisted, whereupon
all their estates were transferred to Peter of Rivaux. Yet Richard
Marshal still continued to hope for peace, and, after the failure of
earlier councils, set off to attend another assembly fixed for August
1, at Westminster. On his way he learnt from his sister Isabella, the
wife of Richard of Cornwall, that Peter des Roches was laying a trap
for him. In high indignation he took horse for his Welsh estates, and
prepared for rebellion.
The king summoned the military tenants to appear with horses and arms
at Gloucester on the 14th. There Richard Marshal was declared a traitor
and an invasion of his estates was ordered. But the king had not
sufficient resources to carry out his threats, and October saw the
barons once more wrangling with Henry at Westminster, and claiming that
the marshal should be tried by his peers. Peter of Winchester declared
that there were no peers in England as there were in France, and that
in consequence the king had power to condemn any disloyal subject
through his justices. This daringly unconstitutional doctrine provoked
a renewed outcry. The bishops joined the secular magnates, and
threatened their colleague with excommunication. A formidable civil war
broke out. Siward and Basset harried the lands of the Poitevins, while
the marshal made a close alliance with Llewelyn of Wales. The king
still had formidable forces on his side. Richard of Cornwall was
persuaded by Bishop Peter to take up arms for his brother, and the two
new earls, John the Scot of Chester, and John de Lacy of Lincoln,
joined the royal forces. Hubert de Burgh took advantage of the
increasing confusion to escape from Devizes castle to a church in the
town. Dragged back with violence to his prison, he was again, as at
Brentwood, restored to sanctuary through the exertions of the bishop of
the diocese. There he remained, closely watched by his foes, until
October 30, when Siward and Basset drove away the guard, and took him
off with them to the marshal's castle of Chepstow.
The tide of war flowed to the southern march of Wales. Llewelyn and
Richard Marshal devastated Glamorgan, which, as a part of the
Gloucester inheritance, was under the custody of the Bishop of
Winchester. They took nearly all its castles, including that of
Cardiff. Thence they subdued Usk, Abergavenny, and other neighbouring
strongholds, while an independent army, including the marshal's
Pembrokeshire vassals and the men of the princes of South Wales, wasted
months in a vain attack on Carmarthen. The king's vassals were again
summoned to Gloucester, whence Henry led them early in November towards
Chepstow, the centre of the marshal's estates in Gwent. Earl Richard
devastated his lands so effectively that the king could not support his
army on them, and was compelled to move up the Wye valley towards the
castles of Monmouth, Skenfrith, Whitecastle, and Grosmont, the strong
quadrilateral of Upper Gwent which still remained in the hands of the
king's friends. Marching to the most remote of these, Grosmont, on the
upper Monnow, Henry spent several days in the castle, while his army
lay around under canvas. On the night of November 11, the sleeping
soldiers were suddenly set upon by the barons and their Welsh allies;
they fled unarmed to the castle, or scattered in confusion. The
assailants seized their horses, harness, arms and provisions, but
refrained from slaying or capturing them. The royal forces never
rallied. Many gladly went home, giving as their excuse that they were
unable to fight since they had lost their equipment. Henry and his
ministers withdrew to Gloucester. More convinced than ever of the
treachery of Englishmen, the king entrusted the defence of the border
castles to mercenaries from Poitou.
The fighting centred round Monmouth, which Richard approached on the
25th with a small company. A sudden sortie almost overwhelmed the
little band. The marshal held his own heroically against twelve, until
at last Baldwin of Guines, the warden of the castle, took him prisoner.
Thereupon Baldwin fell to the ground, his armour pierced by a lucky
bolt from a crossbow. His followers, smitten with panic, abandoned the
marshal, and bore their leader home. By that time, however, the bulk of
the marshal's forces had come upon the scene. A general engagement
followed, in which the Anglo-Welsh army drove the enemy back into
Monmouth and took possession of the castle. This set the marshal free
to march northwards and join Llewelyn in a vigorous attack upon
Shrewsbury. In January, 1234, they burnt that town and retired to their
own lands loaded with booty. Meanwhile Siward devastated the estates of
the Poitevins and of Richard of Cornwall. Afraid to be cut off from his
retreat to England the king abandoned Gloucester, where he had kept his
melancholy Christmas court, and found a surer refuge in Bishop Peter's
cathedral city. Thereupon Gloucestershire suffered the fate of
Shropshire. "It was a wretched sight for travellers in that region to
see on the highways innumerable dead bodies lying naked and unburied,
to be devoured by birds of prey, and so polluting the air that they
infected healthy men with mortal sickness."[1]
[1] Wendover, iv., 291.
The king swore that he would never make peace with the marshal, unless
he threw himself on the royal mercy as a confessed traitor with a rope
round his neck. Having, however, exhausted all his military resources,
he cunningly strove to entice Richard from Wales to Ireland. The two
Peters wrote to Maurice Fitzgerald, then justiciar of Ireland, and to
the chief foes of the marshal, urging them to fall upon his Irish
estates and capture the traitor, dead or alive. Many of the most
powerful nobles of Ireland lent themselves to the conspiracy. The Lacys
of Meath, his old enemies, joined with Fitzgerald, Geoffrey Marsh, and
Richard de Burgh, the greatest of the Norman lords of Connaught, and
the nephew of Hubert, in carrying out the plot. The confederates fell
suddenly upon the marshal's estates and devastated them with fire and
sword. On hearing of this attack Richard immediately left Wales, and,
accompanied by only fifteen knights, took ship for Ireland. On his
arrival Geoffrey Marsh, the meanest of the conspirators, received him
with every profession of cordiality, and urged him to attack his
enemies without delay. Geoffrey was an old man; he had long held the
great post of justiciar of Ireland; and he was himself the liegeman of
the marshal. Richard therefore implicitly trusted him, and forthwith
took the field.
The first warlike operations of Earl Richard were successful. After a
short siege he obtained possession of Limerick, and his enemies were
fain to demand a truce. Richard proposed a conference to be held on
April 1, 1234, on the Curragh of Kildare. The conference proved
abortive, for Geoffrey Marsh cunningly persuaded the marshal to refuse
any offer of terms which the magnates would accept, and Richard found
that he had been duped into taking up a position that he was not strong
enough to maintain. Marsh withdrew from his side, on the ground that he
could not fight against Lacy, whose sister he had married. The marshal
foresaw the worst. "I know," he declared, "that this day I am delivered
over to death, but it is better to die honourably for the cause of
justice than to flee from the field and become a reproach to
knighthood."
The forsworn Irish knights slunk away to neighbouring places of
sanctuary or went over to the enemy. When the final struggle came, later
on the same April 1, Richard had few followers save the faithful fifteen
knights who had crossed over with him from Wales. The little band,
outnumbered by more than nine to one, struggled desperately to the end.
At last the marshal, unhorsed and severely wounded, fell into the hands
of his enemies. They bore him, more dead than alive, to his own castle
of Kilkenny, which had just been seized by the justiciar. After a few
days Richard's tough constitution began to get the better of his wounds.
Then his enemies, showing him the royal warranty for their acts, induced
him to admit them into his castles. An ignorant or treacherous surgeon,
called in by the justiciar, cauterised his wounds so severely that his
sufferings became intense. He died of fever on the 16th, and was buried,
as he himself had willed, in the Franciscan church at Kilkenny. No one
rejoiced at the death of the hero save the traitors who had lured him to
his doom and the Poitevins who had suborned them. Their victim, the weak
king, mourned for his friend as David had lamented Saul and Jonathan.[1]
The treachery of his enemies brought them little profit. While Richard
Marshal lay on his deathbed, a new Archbishop of Canterbury drove the
Poitevins from office.
[1] _Dunstable Ann._, p. 137.
In the heyday of the Poitevins' power the Church sounded a feeble but
clear note of alarm. The pope expostulated with Henry for his treatment
of Hubert de Burgh, and Agnellus of Pisa, the first English provincial
of the newly arrived Franciscan order, strove to reconcile Richard
Marshal with his sovereign in the course of the South-Welsh campaign.
More drastic action was necessary if vague remonstrance was to be
translated into fruitful action. The three years' vacancy of the see of
Canterbury, after the death of Richard le Grand, paralysed the action
of the Church. After the pope's rejection of the first choice of the
convent of Christ Church, the chancellor, Ralph Neville, the monks
elected their own prior, and him also Gregory refused as too old and
incompetent. Their third election fell upon John Blunt, a theologian
high in the favour of Peter des Roches, who sent him to Rome, well
provided with ready money, to secure his confirmation. Simon Langton,
again restored to England, and archdeacon of Canterbury, persuaded the
pope to veto Blunt's appointment on the ground of his having held two
benefices without a dispensation. His rejection was the first check
received by the Poitevin faction. It was promptly followed by a more
crushing blow. Weary of the long delay, Gregory persuaded the Christ
Church monks then present at Rome to elect Edmund Rich, treasurer of
Salisbury. Edmund, a scholar who had taught theology and arts with
great distinction at Paris and Oxford, was still more famous for his
mystical devotion, for his asceticism and holiness of life. He was
however an old man, inexperienced in affairs, and, with all his
gracious gifts, somewhat wanting in the tenacity and vigour which
leadership involved. Yet in sending so eminent a saint to Canterbury,
Rome conferred on England a service second only to that which she had
rendered when she secured the archbishopric for Stephen Langton.
Before his consecration as archbishop on April 2, 1234, Edmund had
already joined with his suffragans on February 2 in upholding the good
fame of the marshal and in warning the king of the disastrous results
of preferring the counsels of the Poitevins to those of his
natural-born subjects. A week after his consecration Edmund succeeded
in carrying out a radical change in the administration. On April 9 he
declared that unless Henry drove away the Poitevins, he would forthwith
pronounce him excommunicate. Yielding at once, Henry sent the Bishop of
Winchester back to his diocese, and deprived Peter of Rivaux of all his
offices. The followers of the two Peters shared their fate, and Henry,
despatching Edmund to Wales to make peace with Llewelyn and the
marshal, hurried to Gloucester in order to meet the archbishop on his
return. His good resolutions were further strengthened by the news of
Earl Richard's death. On arriving at Gloucester he held a council in
which the ruin of the Poitevins was completed. A truce, negotiated by
the archbishop with Llewelyn, was ratified. The partisans of the
marshal were pardoned, even Richard Siward being forgiven his long
career of plunder. Gilbert Marshal, the next brother of the childless
Earl Richard, was invested with his earldom and office, and Henry
himself dubbed him a knight. Hubert de Burgh was included in the
comprehensive pardon. Indignant that his name and seal should have been
used to cover his ex-ministers' treachery to Earl Richard, Henry
overwhelmed them with reproaches, and strove by his violence against
them to purge himself from complicity in their acts. The Poitevins
lurked in sanctuary, fearing for the worst. Segrave forgot his
knighthood, resumed the tonsure, and took refuge in a church in
Leicester. The king's worst indignation was reserved for Peter of
Rivaux. Peter protested that his orders entitled him to immunity from
arrest, but it was found that he wore a mail shirt under his clerical
garments, and, without a word of reproach from the archbishop, he was
immured in a lay prison on the pretext that no true clerk wore armour.
Of the old ministers Ralph Neville alone remained in office.
With Bishop Peter's fall disappeared the last of the influences that
had prevailed during the minority. The king, who felt his dignity
impaired by the Poitevin domination, resolved that henceforward he
would submit to no master. He soon framed a plan of government that
thoroughly satisfied his jealous and exacting nature. Henceforth no
magnates, either of Church or State, should stand between him and his
subjects. He would be his own chief minister, holding in his own hands
all the strings of policy, and acting through subordinates whose sole
duly was to carry out their master's orders. Under such a system the
justiciarship practically ceased to exist. The treasurership was held
for short periods by royal clerks of no personal distinction. Even the
chancellorship became overshadowed. Henry quarrelled with Ralph Neville
in 1238, and withdrew from him the custody of the great seal, though he
allowed him to retain the name and emoluments of chancellor. On
Neville's death the office fell into abeyance for nearly twenty years,
during which time the great seal was entrusted to seven successive
keepers. Like his grandfather, Henry wished to rule in person with the
help of faithful but unobtrusive subordinates. This system, which was
essentially that of the French monarchy, presupposed for success the
constant personal supervision of an industrious and strong-willed king.
Henry III was never a strenuous worker, and his character failed in the
robustness and self-reliance necessary for personal rule. The magnates,
who regarded themselves as the king's natural-born counsellors, were
bitterly incensed, and hated the royal clerks as fiercely as they had
disliked the ministers of his minority. Opposed by the barons,
distrusted by the people, liable to be thrown over by their master at
each fresh change of his caprice, the royal subordinates showed more
eagerness in prosecuting their own private fortunes than in consulting
the interests of the State. Thus the nominal government of Henry proved
extremely ineffective. Huge taxes were raised, but little good came
from them. The magnates held sullenly aloof; the people grumbled; the
Church lamented the evil days. Yet for five and twenty years the
wretched system went on, not so much by reason of its own strength as
because there was no one vigorous enough to overthrow it.
The author of all this mischief was a man of some noble and many
attractive qualities. Save when an occasional outburst of temper showed
him a true son of John, Henry was the kindest, mildest, most amiable of
men. He was the first king since William the Conqueror in whose private
life the austerest critics could find nothing blameworthy. His piety
stands high, even when estimated by the standards of the thirteenth
century. He was well educated and had a touch of the artist's
temperament, loving fair churches, beautiful sculpture, delicate
goldsmith's work, and richly illuminated books. He had a horror of
violence, and never wept more bitter tears than when he learned how
treacherously his name had been used to lure Richard Marshal to his
doom. But he was extraordinarily deficient in stability of purpose. For
the moment it was easy to influence him either for good or evil, but
even the ablest of his counsellors found it impossible to retain any
hold over him for long. One day he lavished all his affection on Hubert
de Burgh; the next he played into the hands of his enemies. In the same
way he got rid of Peter des Roches, the preceptor of his infancy, the
guide of his early manhood. Jealous, self-assertive, restless, and
timid, he failed in just those qualities that his subjects expected to
find in a king. Born and brought up in England, and never leaving it
save for short and infrequent visits to the continent, he was proud of
his English ancestors and devoted to English saints, more especially to
royal saints such as Edward the Confessor and Edmund of East Anglia.
Yet he showed less sympathy with English ways than many of his
foreign-born predecessors. Educated under alien influences, delighting
in the art, the refinement, the devotion, and the absolutist principles
of foreigners, he seldom trusted a man of English birth. Too weak to
act for himself, too suspicious to trust his natural counsellors, he
found the friendship and advice for which he yearned in foreign
favourites and kinsmen. Thus it was that the hopes excited by the fall
of the Poitevins were disappointed. The alien invasion, checked for a
few years, was renewed in a more dangerous shape.
During the ten years after the collapse of Peter des Roches, swarms of
foreigners came to England, and spoiled the land with the king's entire
good-will. Henry's marriage brought many Provencals and Savoyards to
England. The renewed troubles between pope and emperor led to a renewal
of Roman interference in a more exacting form. The continued
intercourse with foreign states resulted in fresh opportunities of
alien influence. A new attempt on Poitou brought as its only result the
importation of the king's Poitevin kinsmen. The continued close
relationship between the English and the French baronage involved the
frequent claim of English estates and titles by men of alien birth.
Even such beneficial movements as the establishment of the mendicant
orders in England, and the cosmopolitan outlook of the increasingly
important academic class contributed to the spread of outlandish ideas.
As wave after wave of foreigners swept over England, Englishmen
involved them in a common condemnation. And all saw in the weakness of
the king the very source of their power.
The first great influx of foreigners followed directly from Henry's
marriage. For several years active negotiations had been going on to
secure him a suitable bride. There had also at various times been talk
of his selecting a wife from Brittany, Austria, Bohemia, or Scotland,
and in the spring of 1235 a serious negotiation for his marriage with
Joan, daughter and heiress of the Count of Ponthieu, only broke down
through the opposition of the French court. Henry then sought the hand
of Eleanor, a girl twelve years old, and the second of the four
daughters of Raymond Berengar IV., Count of Provence, and his wife
Beatrice, sister of Amadeus III., Count of Savoy. The marriage contract
was signed in October. Before that time Eleanor had left Provence under
the escort of her mother's brother, William, bishop-elect of Valence.
On her way she spent a long period with her elder sister Margaret, who
had been married to Louis IX. of France in 1234. On January 14, 1236,
she was married to Henry at Canterbury by Archbishop Edmund, and
crowned at Westminster on the following Sunday.
The new queen's kinsfolk quickly acquired an almost unbounded
ascendency over her weak husband. With the exception of the reigning
Count Amadeus of Savoy, her eight maternal uncles were somewhat
scantily provided for. The prudence of the French government prevented
them from obtaining any advantage for themselves at the court of their
niece the Queen of France, and they gladly welcomed the opportunity of
establishing themselves at the expense of their English nephew.
Self-seeking and not over-scrupulous, able, energetic, and with the
vigour and resource of high-born soldiers of fortune, several of them
play honourable parts in the history of their own land, and are by no
means deserving of the complete condemnation meted out to them by the
English annalists.[1] The bishop-elect of Valence was an able and
accomplished warrior. He stayed on in England after accomplishing his
mission, and with him remained his clerk, the younger son of a house of
Alpine barons, Peter of Aigueblanche, whose cunning and dexterity were
as attractive to Henry as the more martial qualities of his master.
Weary of standing alone, the king eagerly welcomed a trustworthy
adviser who was outside the entanglements of English parties, and made
Bishop William his chief counsellor. It was believed that he was
associated with eleven others in a secret inner circle of royal
advisers, whose advice Henry pledged himself by oath to follow. Honours
and estates soon began to fall thickly on William and his friends. He
made himself the mouthpiece of Henry's foreign policy. When he
temporarily left England, he led a force sent by the king to help
Frederick II. in his war against the cities of northern Italy. His
influence with Henry did much to secure for his brother, Thomas of
Savoy, the hand of the elderly countess Joan of Flanders. With Thomas
as the successor of Ferdinand of Portugal, the rich Flemish county,
bound to England by so many political and economic ties, seemed in safe
hands, and preserved from French influence. In 1238 Thomas visited
England, and received a warm welcome and rich presents from the king.
[1] For Eleanor's countrymen see Mugnier, _Les Savoyards en
Angleterre au XIIIe siecle, et Pierre d'Aigueblanche, eveque
d'Hereford_ (1890).
Despite the establishment of the Savoyards, the Poitevin influence began
to revive. Peter des Roches, who had occupied himself after his fall by
fighting for Gregory IX. against the revolted Romans, returned to
England in broken health in 1236, and was reconciled to the king. Peter
of Rivaux was restored to favour, and made keeper of the royal wardrobe.
Segrave and Passelewe again became justices and ministers. England was
now the hunting-ground of any well-born Frenchmen anxious for a wider
career than they could obtain at home.[1] Among the foreigners attracted
to England to prosecute legal claims or to seek the royal bounty came
Simon of Montfort, the second son of the famous conqueror of the
Albigenses. Amice, the mother of the elder Simon, was the sister and
heiress of Robert of Beaumont, the last of his line to hold the earldom
of Leicester. After Amice's death her son used the title and claimed the
estates of that earldom. But these pretensions were but nominal, and
since 1215 Randolph of Chester had administered the Leicester lands as
if his complete property. However, Amaury of Montfort, the Count of
Toulouse's eldest son, ceded to his portionless younger brother his
claims to the Beaumont inheritance, and in 1230 Simon went to England to
push his fortunes. Young, brilliant, ambitious and attractive, he not
only easily won the favour of the king, but commended himself so well to
Earl Randolph that in 1231 the aged earl was induced to relax his grasp
on the Leicester estates. In 1239 the last formalities of investiture
were accomplished. Amaury renounced his claims, and after that Simon
became Earl of Leicester and steward of England. A year before that he
had secured the great marriage that he had long been seeking. In
January, 1238, he was wedded to the king's own sister, Eleanor, the
childless widow of the younger William Marshal. Simon was for the moment
high in the affection of his brother-in-law. To the English he was
simply another of the foreign favourites who turned the king's heart
against his born subjects.
[1] This is well illustrated by Philip de Beaumanoir's
well-known romance, _Jean de Dammartin et Blonde d'Oxford_ (ed.
by Suchier, Soc. des anciens Textes francais, and by Le Roux de
Lincy, Camden Soc.).
In 1238 Peter des Roches died. With all his faults the Poitevin was an
excellent administrator at Winchester,[1] and left his estates in
such a prosperous condition that Henry coveted the succession for the
bishop-elect of Valence, though William already had the prospect of the
prince-bishopric of liege. But the monks of St. Swithun's refused to
obey the royal order, and Henry sought to obtain his object from the
pope. Gregory gave William both Liege and Winchester, but in 1239 death
ended his restless plans. William's death left more room for his
kinsfolk and followers. His clerk, Peter of Aigueblanche, returned to
the land of promise, and in 1240 secured his consecration as Bishop of
Hereford. William's brother, Peter of Savoy, lord of Romont and
Faucigny, was invited to England in the same year. In 1241 he was
invested with the earldom of Richmond, which a final breach with Peter
of Brittany had left in the king's hands. Peter, the ablest member of
his house, thus became its chief representative in England.[2]
[1] See H. Hall, _Pipe Roll of the Bishop of Winchester_,
1207-8.
[2] For Peter see Wurstemberger, _Peter II., Graf von Savoyen_
(1856).
With the Provencals and Savoyards came a fresh swarm of Romans. In 1237
the first papal legates _a latere_ since the recall of Pandulf landed
in England. The deputy of Gregory IX. was the cardinal-deacon Otto, who
in 1226 had already discharged the humbler office of nuncio in England.
It was believed that the legate was sent at the special request of
Henry III., and despite the remonstrances of the Archbishop of
Canterbury. Those most unfriendly to the legate were won over by his
irreproachable conduct. He rejected nearly all gifts. He was unwearied
in preaching peace; travelled to the north to settle outstanding
differences between Henry and the King of Scots, and thence hurried to
the west to prolong the truce with Llewelyn. His zeal for the
reformation of abuses made the canons of the national council, held
under his presidency at St. Paul's on November 18, 1237, an epoch in
the history of our ecclesiastical jurisprudence.
Despite his efforts the legate remained unpopular. The pluralists and
nepotists, who feared his severity, joined with the foes of all
taxation and the enemies of all foreigners in denouncing the legate. To
avoid the danger of poison, he thought it prudent to make his own
brother his master cook. During the council of London it was necessary
to escort him from his lodgings and back again with a military force.
In the council itself the claim of high-born clerks to receive
benefices in plurality found a spokesman in so respectable a prelate as
Walter of Cantilupe, the son of a marcher baron, whom Otto had just
enthroned in his cathedral at Worcester, and the legate, "fearing for
his skin," was suspected of mitigating the severity of his principles
to win over the less greedy of the friends of vested interests. His
Roman followers knew and cared little about English susceptibilities,
and feeling was so strong against them that any mischance might excite
an explosion. Such an accident occurred on St. George's day, April 23,
1238, when the legate was staying with the Austin Canons of Oseney,
near Oxford, while the king was six miles off at Abingdon. Some of the
masters of the university went to Oseney to pay their respects to the
cardinal, and were rudely repulsed by the Italian porter. Irritated at
this discourtesy, they returned with a host of clerks, who forced their
way into the abbey. Amongst them was a poor Irish chaplain, who made
his way to the kitchen to beg for food. The chief cook, the legate's
brother, threw a pot of scalding broth into the Irishman's face. A
clerk from the march of Wales shot the cook dead with an arrow. A
fierce struggle followed, in the midst of which Otto, hastily donning
the garb of his hosts, took refuge in the tower of their church, where
he was besieged by the infuriated clerks, until the king sent soldiers
from Abingdon to release him. Otto thereupon laid Oxford under an
interdict, suspended all lectures, and put thirty masters into prison.
English opinion, voiced by the diocesan, Grosseteste, held that the
cardinal's servants had provoked the riot, and found little to blame in
the violence of the clerks.
In 1239 Gregory IX. began his final conflict with Frederick II., and
demanded the support of all Europe. As before, from 1227 to 1230, the
pressure of the papal necessity was at once felt in England. The legate
had to raise supplies at all costs. Crusaders were allowed to renounce
their vows for ready money. Every visitation or conference became an
excuse for procurations and fees. Presents were no longer rejected, but
rather greedily solicited. On the pretence that it was necessary to
reform the Scottish Church, "which does not recognise the Roman Church
as its sole mother and metropolitan," Otto excited the indignation of
Alexander II. by attempts to extend his jurisdiction to Scotland,
hitherto unvisited by legates. In England his claims soon grew beyond
all bearing. At last he demanded a fifth of all clerical goods to
enable the pope to finance the anti-imperial crusade. Even this was
more endurable than the order received from Rome that 300 clerks of
Roman families should be "provided" to benefices in England in order
that Gregory might obtain the support of their relatives against
Frederick. Both as feudal suzerain and as spiritual despot, the pope
lorded it over England as fully as his uncle Innocent III.
Weakness, piety, and self-interest combined to make Henry III.
acquiesce in the legate's exactions. "I neither wish nor dare," said
he, "to oppose the lord pope in anything." The union of king and legate
was irresistible. The lay opposition was slow and feeble. Gilbert
Marshal, though showing no lack of spirit, was not the man to play the
part which his brother Richard had filled so effectively. Richard, Earl
of Cornwall, who constituted himself the spokesman of the magnates,
made a special grievance of the marriage of Simon of Montfort with his
sister Eleanor. England, he said, was like a vineyard with a broken
hedge, so that all that went by could steal the grapes. He took arms,
and subscribed the first of the long series of plans of constitutional
reform that the reign was to witness, according to which the king was
to be guided by a chosen body of counsellors. But at the crisis of the
movement he held back, having accomplished nothing.
There was more vigour in the ecclesiastical opposition. Robert
Grosseteste,[1] a Suffolk man of humble birth, had already won for
himself a position of unique distinction at Oxford and Paris. A teacher
of rare force, a scholar of unexampled range, a thinker of daring
originality, and a writer who had touched upon almost every known
subject, he was at the height of his fame when, in 1235, his appointment
as Bishop of Lincoln gave the fullest opportunities for the employment
of his great gifts in the public service. He was convinced that the
preoccupation of the clergy in worldly employment and the constant
aggressions of the civil upon the ecclesiastical courts lay at the root
of the evils of the time. His conviction brought him into conflict with
the king rather than the legate, though for the moment his absorption in
the cares of his diocese distracted his attention from general
questions. The bishops generally had become so hostile that Otto shrank
from meeting them in another council, and strove to get money by
negotiating individually with the leading churchmen. The old foe of
papal usurpations, Robert Twenge, renewed his agitation on behalf of the
rights of patrons, and the clergy of Berkshire drew up a remonstrance
against Otto's extortions.
[1] For Grosseteste, see F.S. Stevenson, _Robert Grosseteste,
Bishop of Lincoln_ (1899).
Archbishop Edmund saw the need of opposing both legate and king; but he
was hampered by his ecclesiastical and political principles, and still
more, perhaps, by the magnitude of the rude task thrown upon him. He
had set before himself the ideal of St. Thomas, not only in the
asceticism of his private life, but in his zeal for his see and the
Church. But few men were more unlike the strong-willed and bellicose
martyr of Canterbury than the gentle and yielding saint of Abingdon. A
plentiful crop of quarrels, however, soon showed that Edmund had, in
one respect, copied only too faithfully the example of his predecessor.
He was engaged in a controversy of some acerbity with the Archbishop of
York, and he was involved in a long wrangle with the monks of his
cathedral, which took him to Rome soon after the legate's arrival. He
got little satisfaction there, and found a whole sea of troubles to
overwhelm him on his return. At last came the demand of the fifth from
Otto. Edmund joined in the opposition of his brethren to this exaction,
but his attitude was complicated by his other difficulties. Leaning in
his weakness on the pope, he found that Gregory was a taskmaster rather
than a director. At last he paid his fifth, but, broken in health and
spirits, he was of no mind to withstand the demands of the Roman clerks
for benefices. If he could not be another St. Thomas defending the
liberties of the Church, he could at least withdraw like his prototype
from the strife, and find a refuge in a foreign house of religion.
Seeking out St. Thomas's old haunt at Pontigny, he threw himself with
ardour into the austere Cistercian life. On the advice of his
physicians, he soon sought a healthier abode with the canons of Soisy,
in Brie, at whose house he died on November 16, 1240. His body was
buried at Pontigny in the still abiding minster which had witnessed the
devotions of Becket and Langton, and miracles were soon wrought at his
tomb. Within eight years of his death he was declared a saint; and
Henry, who had thwarted him in life, and even opposed his canonisation,
was among the first of the pilgrims who worshipped at his shrine. It
needed a tougher spirit and a stronger character than Edmund's to
grapple with the thorny problems of his age.
The retirement of the archbishop enabled Otto to carry through his
business, and withdraw from England on January 7, 1241. On August 21
Gregory IX. died, with his arch-enemy at the gates of Rome and all his
plans for the time frustrated. High-minded, able and devout, he wagered
the whole fortunes of the papacy on the result of his secular struggle
with the emperor. In Italy as in England, the spiritual hegemony of the
Roman see and the spiritual influence of the western Church were
compromised by his exaltation of ecclesiastical politics over religion.
The monks of Christ Church won court favour by electing as archbishop,
Boniface of Savoy, Bishop-elect of Belley, one of the queen's uncles.
There was no real resistance to the appointment, though a prolonged
vacancy in the papacy made it impossible for him to receive formal
confirmation until 1243, and it was not until 1244 that he condescended
to visit his new province. Meanwhile his kinsmen were carrying
everything before them. Richard of Cornwall lost his first wife,
Isabella, daughter of William Marshal, in 1240, an event which broke
almost the last link that bound him to the baronial opposition. He
withdrew himself from the troubles of English politics by going on
crusade, and with him went his former enemy, Simon of Leicester.
Richard was back in England early in 1242, and on November 23, 1243,
his marriage with Sanchia of Provence, the younger sister of the queens
of France and England, completed his conversion to the court party.
Henry III.'s cosmopolitan instincts led him to take as much part in
foreign politics as his resources allowed. In 1235 he married his
sister Isabella to Frederick II., and henceforth manifested a strong
interest in the affairs of his imperial brother-in-law. His relations
with France were still uneasy, and he hoped to find in Frederick's
support a counterpoise to the steady pressure of French hostility. All
England watched with interest the progress of the emperor's arms. Peter
of Savoy led an English contingent to fight for Frederick against the
Milanese, and Matthew Paris, the greatest of the English chroniclers,
narrates the campaign of Corte Nuova with a detail exceeding that which
he allows to the military enterprises of his own king. Frederick
constantly corresponded with both the king and Richard of Cornwall, and
it was nothing but solicitude for the safely of the heir to the throne
that led the English magnates to reject the emperor's request that
Richard should receive a high command under him. Even Frederick's
breach with the pope in 1239 did not destroy his friendship with Henry.
The situation became extremely complicated, since Innocent IV. derived
large financial support for his crusade from the unwilling English
clergy, while Henry still professed to be Frederick's friend. The king
allowed Otto to proclaim Frederick's excommunication in England, and
then urged the legate to quit the country because the emperor strongly
protested against the presence of an avowed enemy at his
brother-in-law's court. Neither pope nor emperor could rely upon the
support of so half-hearted a prince. Renewed trouble with France
explains in some measure the anxiety of Henry to remain in good
relations with the emperor despite Frederick's quarrel with the pope.
The position of the French monarchy was far stronger than it had been
when Henry first intervened in continental politics. Blanche of Castile
had broken the back of the feudal coalition, and even Peter Mauclerc had
made his peace with the monarchy at the price of his English earldom.
Louis IX. attained his majority in 1235, and his first care was to
strengthen his power in his newly won dominions. If Poitou were still in
the hands of the Count of La Marche and the Viscount of Thouars, the
royal seneschals of Beaucaire and Carcassonne after 1229 ruled over a
large part of the old dominions of Raymond of Toulouse. In 1237 the
treaty of Meaux was further carried out by the marriage of Raymond's
daughter and heiress, Joan, to Alfonse, the brother of the French king.
In 1241 Alfonse came of age, and Louis at once invested him with Poitou
and Auvergne. The lords of Poitou saw that the same process which had
destroyed the feudal liberties of Normandy now endangered their
disorderly independence. Hugh of Lusignan and his wife had been present
at Alfonse's investiture, and the widow of King John had gone away
highly indignant at the slights put upon her dignity.[1] She bitterly
reproached her husband with the ignominy involved in his submission.
Easily moved to new treasons, Hugh became the soul of a league of
Poitevin barons formed at Parthenay, which received the adhesion of
Henry's seneschal of Gascony, Rostand de Sollers, and even of Alfonse's
father-in-law, the depressed Raymond of Toulouse. At Christmas Hugh
openly showed his hand. He renounced his homage to Alfonse, declared his
adhesion to his step-son, Richard of Cornwall, the titular count of
Poitou, and ostentatiously withdrew from the court with his wife. The
rest of the winter was taken up with preparations for the forthcoming
struggle.
[1] See the graphic letter of a citizen of La Rochelle to
Blanche, published by M. Delisle in _Bibliotheque de l'Ecole
des Chartes_, serie ii., iv., 513-55 (1856).
Untaught by experience, Henry III. listened to the appeals of his
mother and her husband. Richard of Cornwall, who came back from his
crusade in January, 1242, was persuaded that he had another chance of
realising his vain title of Count of Poitou. But the king had neither
men nor money and the parliament of February 2 refused to grant him
sums adequate for his need, so that, despairing of dealing with his
barons in a body, Henry followed the legate's example of winning men
over individually. He made a strong protest against the King of
France's breach of the existing truce, and his step-father assured him
that Poitou and Gascony would provide him with sufficient soldiers if
he brought over enough money to pay them. Thereupon, leaving the
Archbishop of York as regent, Henry took ship on May 9 at Portsmouth
and landed on May 13 at Royan at the mouth of the Gironde. He was
accompanied by Richard of Cornwall, seven earls, and 300 knights.
Meanwhile Louis IX. marshalled a vast host at Chinon, which from April
to July overran the patrimony of the house of Lusignan, and forced many
of the confederate barons to submit. Peter of Savoy and John Mansel,
Henry's favourite clerk, then made seneschal of Gascony, assembled the
Aquitanian levies, while Peter of Aigueblanche, the Savoyard Bishop of
Hereford, went to Provence to negotiate the union between Earl Richard
and Sanchia, and, if possible, to add Raymond Berengar to the coalition
against the husband of his eldest daughter. Henry hoped to win tactical
advantages by provoking Louis to break the truce, and mendaciously
protested his surprise at being forced into an unexpected conflict with
his brother-in-law. Towards the end of July, Louis, who had conquered
all Poitou, advanced to the Charente, and occupied Taillebourg. If the
Charente were once crossed, Saintonge would assuredly follow the
destinies of Poitou; and the Anglo-Gascon army advanced from Saintes to
dispute the passage of the river. On July 21 the two armies were in
presence of each other, separated only by the Charente. Besides the
stone bridge at Taillebourg, the French had erected a temporary wooden
structure higher up the stream, and had collected a large number of
boats to facilitate their passage. Seeing with dismay the oriflamme
waving over the sea of tents which, "like a great and populous city,"
covered the right bank, the soldiers of Henry retreated precipitately
to Saintes. There was imminent danger of their retreat being cut off,
but Richard of Cornwall went to the French camp, and obtained an
armistice of a few hours, which gave his brother time to reach the
town.
Next day Louis advanced at his ease to the capital of Saintonge. The
Anglo-Gascons went out to meet him, and, despite their inferior numbers,
fought bravely amidst the vineyards and hollow lanes to the west of the
city. But the English king was the first to flee, and victory soon
attended the arms of the French. Immediately after the battle, the lords
of Poitou abandoned Richard for Alfonse. Henry fled from Saintes to
Pons, from Pons to Barbezieux, and thence sought a more secure refuge at
Blaye, leaving his tent, the ornaments of his chapel, and the beer
provided for his English soldiers as booty for the enemy. The outbreak
of an epidemic in the French army alone prevented a siege of Bordeaux,
by necessitating the return of St. Louis to the healthier north. Henry
lingered at Bordeaux until September, when he returned to England.[1]
Meanwhile the French dictated peace to the remaining allies of Henry. On
the death of Raymond of Toulouse, in 1249, Alfonse quietly succeeded to
his dominions. The next twenty years saw the gradual extension of the
French administrative system to Poitou, Auvergne, and the Toulousain.
English Gascony was reduced to little more than the districts round
Bordeaux and Bayonne. Even a show of hostility was no longer useful, and
on April 7, 1243, a five years' truce between Henry and Louis was signed
at Bordeaux. The marriage of Beatrice of Provence, the youngest of the
daughters of Raymond Berengar, to Charles of Anjou, Louis' younger
brother, removed Provence from the sphere of English influence. On his
father-in-law's death in 1245, Charles of Anjou succeeded to his
dominions to the prejudice of his two English brothers-in-law, and
became the founder of a Capetian line of counts of Provence, which
brought the great fief of the empire under the same northern French
influences which Alfonse of Poitiers was diffusing over the lost
inheritances of Eleanor of Aquitaine and the house of Saint-Gilles.
[1] The only good modern account of this expedition is that by
M. Charles Bemont, _La campagne de Poitou, 1242-3_, in _Annales
du Midi_, v., 389-314 (1893). For the Lusignans see Boissonade,
_Quomodo comites Engolismenses erga reges Angliae et Franciae
se gesserint_, 1152-1328 (1893).
A minor result of Louis' triumph was the well-deserved ruin of Hugh of
Lusignan and Isabella of Angouleme. The proud spirit of Isabella did
not long tolerate her humiliation. She retired to Fontevraud and died
there in 1246. Hugh X. followed her to the tomb in 1248. Their eldest
son, Hugh XI., succeeded him, but the rest of their numerous family
turned for support to the inexhaustible charity of the King of England.
Thus in 1247 a Poitevin invasion of the king's half-brothers and
sisters recalled to his much-tried subjects the Savoyard invasion of
ten years earlier. In that single year three of the king's brothers and
one of his sisters accepted his invitation to make a home in England.
Of these, Guy, lord of Cognac, became proprietor of many estates.
William, called from the Cistercian abbey in which he was born William
of Valence, secured, with the hand of Joan of Munchensi, a claim to the
great inheritance that was soon to be scattered by the extinction of
the male line of the house of Marshal. Aymer of Valence, a very
unclerical churchman, obtained in 1250 his election as bishop of
Winchester, though his youth and the hostility of his chapter delayed
his consecration for ten years. Alice their sister found a husband of
high rank in the young John of Warenne, Earl of Warenne or Surrey,
while a daughter of Hugh XI. married Robert of Ferrars, Earl of Ferrars
or Derby. Others of their kindred flocked to the land of promise. Any
Poitevin was welcome, even if not a member of the house of Lusignan.
Thus the noble adventurer John du Plessis, came over to England,
married the heiress of the Neufbourg Earls of Warwick, and in 1247 was
created Earl of Warwick. The alien invasion took a newer and more
grievous shape.
The expenses of the war were still to be paid; and in 1244 Henry
assembled a council, declaring that, as he had gone to Gascony on the
advice of his barons, they were bound to make him a liberal grant
towards freeing him from the debts which he had incurred beyond sea.
Prelates, earls, and barons each deliberated apart, and a joint
committee, composed of four members of each order, drew up an
uncompromising reply. The king had not observed the charters; previous
grants had been misapplied, and the abeyance of the great offices of
state made justice difficult and good administration impossible. The
committee insisted that a justiciar, a chancellor, and a treasurer
should forthwith be appointed. This was the last thing that the jealous
king desired. Helpless against a united council, he strove to break up
the solidarity between its lay and clerical elements by laying a papal
order before the prelates to furnish him an adequate subsidy. The leader
of the bishops was now Grosseteste, who from this time until his death
in 1253 was the pillar of the opposition. "We must not," he declared,
"be divided from the common counsel, for it is written that if we be
divided we shall all die forthwith." At last a committee of twelve
magnates was appointed to draw up a plan of reform. The unanimity of all
orders was shown by the co-operation on this body of prelates such as
Boniface of Savoy with patriots of the stamp of Grosseteste and Walter
of Cantilupe, while among the secular lords, Richard of Cornwall and
'Simon of Leicester worked together with baronial leaders like Norfolk
and Richard of Montfichet, a survivor of the twenty-five executors of
Magna Carta. The obstinacy of the king may well have driven the estates
into drawing up the remarkable paper constitution preserved for us by
Matthew Paris.[1] By it the execution of the charters and the
supervision of the administration were to be entrusted to four
councillors, chosen from among the magnates, and irremovable except with
their consent. It is unlikely that the scheme was ever carried out; but
its conception shows an advance in the claims of the opposition, and
anticipates the policy of restraining an incompetent ruler by a
committee responsible to the estates, which, for the next two centuries,
was the popular specific for royal maladministration. For the moment
neither side gained a decided victory. Though the barons persisted in
their refusal of an extraordinary grant, they agreed to pay an aid to
marry the king's eldest daughter to the son of Frederick II.
[1] _Chron. Maj_., iv., 366-68.
Further demands arose from the quarrel between Innocent IV.' and the
emperor. A new papal envoy, Master Martin, came to England to extort
from the clergy money to enable Innocent to carry on his war against
Frederick. The lords told Martin that if he did not quit the realm
forthwith he would be torn in pieces. In terror he prayed for a safe
conduct. "May the devil give you a safe conduct to hell," was the only
reply that the angry Henry vouchsafed. Even his complaisance was
exhausted by Master Martin.
On July 26, 1245, a few weeks before Martin's expulsion, Innocent IV.
opened a general council at Lyons, in which Frederick was deposed from
the imperial dignity. Grosseteste, the chief English prelate to attend
the gathering, was drawn in conflicting directions by his zeal for pope
against emperor and by his dislike of curialist exactions. This
attitude of the bishop is reflected in the remonstrance, in the name of
the English people, laid before Innocent, declaring the faithfulness of
England to the Holy See and the wrongs with which her fidelity had been
requited. The increasing demands for money, the intrusion of aliens
into English cures, and Martin's exactions were set forth at length.
Innocent refused to entertain the petition, forced all the bishops at
Lyons to join in the deprivation of the emperor, and required every
English bishop to seal with his own seal the document by which John had
pledged the nation to a yearly tribute. No one could venture to stand
up against the successor of St. Peter, and so, despite futile
remonstrance, Innocent still had it all his own way. In 1250
Grosseteste again met Innocent face to face at Lyons, and urged him to
"put to flight the evils and purge the abominations" which the Roman
see had done so much to foster. But this outspoken declaration was
equally without result. Bold as were Grosseteste's words, he fully
accepted the curialist theory which regarded the pope as the universal
bishop, the divinely appointed source of all ecclesiastical
jurisdiction. He could therefore do no more than protest. If the pope
chose to disregard him, there was nothing to be done but wait patiently
for better times. The plague of foreign ecclesiastics was still to
torment the English Church for many a year.
The king's difficulties were increased by fresh troubles in Scotland
and Wales. The friendship between Henry and his brother-in-law,
Alexander II., was weakened by the death of the Queen of Scots and by
Alexander's marriage to a French lady in 1239. At last, in 1244,
relations were so threatening that the English levies were mustered for
a campaign at Newcastle. However, on the mediation of Richard of
Cornwall, Alexander bound himself not to make alliances with England's
enemies, and the trouble passed away. In Wales the difficulties were
more complicated. Llewelyn ap Iorwerth died in 1240, full of years and
honour. In the last years of his reign broken health and the revolts of
his eldest son Griffith made the old chieftain anxious for peace with
England, as the best way of securing the succession to all his
dominions of David, his son by Joan of Anjou. Henry III., anxious that
David as his nephew should inherit the principality, granted a
temporary cessation of hostilities. After Llewelyn's death David was
accepted as Prince of Snowdon, and made his way to Gloucester, where he
performed homage, and was dubbed knight by his uncle. Next year,
however, hostilities broke out, and Henry, disgusted with his nephew,
made a treaty with the wife of Griffith, Griffith himself being David's
prisoner. In 1241 Henry led an expedition from Chester into North
Wales, and forced David to submit. He surrendered Griffith to his
uncle's safe keeping and promised to yield his principality to Henry if
he died without a son. Three years later Griffith broke his neck in an
attempt to escape from the Tower. The death of his rival emboldened
David to take up a stronger line against his uncle. A fresh Welsh
expedition was necessary for the summer of 1245, in which the English
advanced to the Conway, but were speedily forced to retire. David held
his own until his death, without issue, in March, 1246, threw open the
question of the Welsh succession.
CHAPTER IV.
POLITICAL RETROGRESSION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
The ten years from 1248 to 1258 saw the continuance of the
misgovernment, discontent, and futile opposition which have already
been sufficiently illustrated. The history of those years must be
sought not so much in the relations of the king and his English
subjects as in Gascony, in Wales, in the crusading revival, and in the
culmination of the struggle of papacy and empire. In each of these
fields the course of events reacted sharply upon the domestic affairs
of England, until at last the failures of Henry's foreign policy gave
unity and determination to the party of opposition whose first
organised success, in 1258, ushered in the Barons' War.
The relations between England and France remained anomalous. Formal
peace was impossible, since France would yield nothing, and the English
king still claimed Normandy and Aquitaine. Yet neither Henry nor Louis
had any wish for war. They had married sisters: they were personally
friendly, and were both lovers of peace. In such circumstances it was
not hard to arrange truces from time to time, so that from 1243 to the
end of the reign there were no open hostilities. In 1248 the friendly
feeling of the two courts was particularly strong. Louis was on the eve
of departure for the crusade and many English nobles had taken the
cross. Henry, who was himself contemplating a crusade, was of no mind
to avail himself of his kinsman's absence to disturb his realm.
The French could afford to pass over Henry's neglect to do homage, for
Gascony seemed likely to emancipate itself from the yoke of its English
dukes without any prompting from Paris. After the failure of 1243, a
limited amount of territory between the Dordogne and the Pyrenees alone
acknowledged Henry. This narrower Gascony was a thoroughly feudalised
land: the absentee dukes had little authority, domain, or revenue: and
the chief lordships were held by magnates, whose relations to their
overlord were almost formal, and by municipalities almost as free as
the cities of Flanders or the empire. The disastrous campaign of
Taiilebourg lessened the prestige of the duke, and Henry quitted
Gascony without so much as attempting to settle its affairs. In the
following years weak seneschals, with insufficient powers and quickly
succeeding each other, were unable to grapple with ever-increasing
troubles. The feudal lords dominated the countryside, pillaged traders,
waged internal war and defied the authority of the duke. In the
autonomous towns factions had arisen as fierce as those of the cities
of Italy. Bordeaux was torn asunder by the feuds of the Rosteins and
Colons. Bayonne was the scene of a struggle between a few privileged
families, which sought to monopolise municipal office, and a popular
opposition based upon the seafaring class. The neighbouring princes
cast greedy eyes on a land so rich, divided, and helpless. Theobald
IV., the poet, Count of Champagne and King of Navarre, coveted the
valley of the Adour. Gaston, Viscount of Bearn, the cousin of Queen
Eleanor, plundered and destroyed the town of Dax. Ferdinand the Saint
of Castile and James I. of Aragon severally claimed all Gascony. Behind
all these loomed the agents of the King of France. Either Gascony must
fall away altogether, or stronger measures must be taken to preserve
it.
In this extremity Henry made Simon of Montfort seneschal or governor of
Gascony, with exceptionally full powers and an assured duration of
office for seven years. Simon had taken the crusader's vow, but was
persuaded by the king to abandon his intention of following Louis to
Egypt. He at once threw himself into his rude task with an energy that
showed him to be a true son of the Albigensian crusader. In the first
three months he traversed the duchy from end to end; rallied the royal
partisans; defeated rebels; kept external foes in check, and
administered the law without concern for the privileges of the great.
In 1249 he crushed the Rostein faction at Bordeaux. The same fate was
meted out to their partisans in the country districts. Order was
restored, but the seneschal utterly disregarded impartiality or
justice. He sought to rule Gascony by terrorism and by backing up one
faction against the other. It was the same with minor cities, like
Bazas and Bayonne, and with the tyrants of the countryside. The
Viscount of Fronsac saw his castle razed and his estates seized. Gaston
of Bearn, tricked by the seneschal out of the succession of Bigorre,
was captured, sent to England, and only allowed to return to his home,
humiliated and powerless to work further evil. The lesser barons had to
acknowledge Simon their master. On the death of Raymond of Toulouse in
1249, his son-in-law and successor, Alfonse of Poitiers, had all he
could do to secure his inheritance, and was too closely bound by the
pacific policy of his brother to give Simon much trouble. The truce
with France was easily renewed by reason of St. Louis' absence on a
crusade. The differences between Gascony and Theobald of Navarre were
mitigated in 1248 at a personal interview between Leicester and the
poet-king.
Gascony for the moment was so quiet that the rebellious hordes called
the _Pastoureaux_, who had desolated the royal domain, withdrew from
Bordeaux in terror of Simon's threats. But the expense of maintaining
order pressed heavily on the seneschal's resources, and his master
showed little disposition to assist him. Moreover Gascony could not
long keep quiet. There were threats of fresh insurrections, and the
whole land was burning with indignation against its governor.
Complaints from the Gascon estates soon flowed with great abundance
into Westminster. For the moment Henry paid little attention to them.
His son Edward was ten years of age, and he was thinking of providing
him with an appanage, sufficient to support a separate household and so
placed as to train the young prince in the duties of statecraft. Before
November, 1249, he granted to Edward all Gascony, along with the
profits of the government of Ireland, which were set aside to put
Gascony in a good state of defence. Simon's strong hand was now more
than ever necessary to keep the boy's unruly subjects under control.
The King therefore continued Simon as seneschal of Gascony, though
henceforth the earl acted as Edward's minister. "Complete happily,"
Henry wrote to the seneschal, "all our affairs in Gascony and you shall
receive from us and our heirs a recompense worthy of your services."
For the moment Leicester's triumph seemed complete, but the Gascons,
who had hoped that Edward's establishment meant the removal of their
masterful governor, were bitterly disappointed at the continuance of
his rule. Profiting by Simon's momentary absence in England, they once
more rose in revolt. Henry wavered for the moment. "Bravely," declared
he to his brother-in-law, "hast thou fought for me, and I will not deny
thee help. But complaints pour in against thee. They say that thou hast
thrown into prison, and condemned to death, folk who have been summoned
to thy court under pledge of thy good faith." In the end Simon was sent
back to Gascony, and by May, 1251, the rebels were subdued.
Next year Gaston of Bearn stirred up another revolt, and, while Simon
was in England, deputies from the Aquitanian cities crossed the sea and
laid new complaints before Henry. A stormy scene ensued between the
king and his brother-in-law. Threatened with the loss of his office,
Simon insisted that he had been appointed for seven years, and that he
could not be removed without his own consent. Henry answered that he
would keep no compacts with traitors. "That word is a lie," cried
Simon; "were you not my king it would be an ill hour for you when you
dared to utter it." The sympathy of the magnates saved Leicester from
the king's wrath, and before long he returned to Gascony, still
seneschal, but with authority impaired by the want of his sovereign's
confidence. Though the king henceforth sided with the rebels, Simon
remained strong enough to make headway against the lord of Bearn.
Before long, however, Leicester unwillingly agreed to vacate his office
on receiving from Henry a sum of money. In September, 1252, he laid
down the seneschalship and retired into France. While shabbily treated
by the king, he had certainly shown an utter absence of tact or
scruple. But the tumults of Gascony raged with more violence than ever
now that his strong hand was withdrawn. Those who had professed to rise
against the seneschal remained in arms against the king. Once more the
neighbouring princes cast greedy eyes on the defenceless duchy. In
particular, Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile, who succeeded his father
Ferdinand in 1252, renewed his father's claims to Gascony.
The only way to save the duchy was for Henry to go there in person.
Long delays ensued before the royal visit took place, and it was not
until August, 1253, that Bordeaux saw her hereditary duke sail up the
Gironde to her quays. The Gascon capital remained faithful, but within
a few miles of her walls the rebels were everywhere triumphant. It
required a long siege to reduce Benauge to submission, and months
elapsed before the towns and castles of the lower Garonne and Dordogne
opened their gates. Even then La Reole, whither all the worst enemies
of Montfort had fled, held out obstinately. Despairing of military
success, Henry fell back upon diplomacy. The strength of the Gascon
revolt did not lie in the power of the rebels themselves but in the
support of the neighbouring princes and the French crown. By renewing
the truce with the representatives of Louis, Henry protected himself
from the danger of French intervention, and at the same time he cut off
a more direct source of support to the rebels by negotiating treaties
with such magnates as the lord of Albret, the Counts of Comminges and
Armagnac, and the Viscount of Bearn. His master-stroke was the
conclusion, in April, 1254, of a peace with Alfonso of Castile, whereby
the Spanish king abandoned his Gascon allies and renounced his claims
on the duchy. In return it was agreed that the lord Edward should marry
Alfonso's half-sister, Eleanor, heiress of the county of Ponthieu
through her mother, Joan, whom Henry had once sought for his queen. As
Edward's appanage included Aquitaine, Alfonso, in renouncing his
personal claims, might seem to be but transferring them to his sister.
In May, 1254, Queen Eleanor joined Henry at Bordeaux. With her went her
two sons, Edward and Edmund, her uncle, Archbishop Boniface, and a great
crowd of magnates. In August Edward went with his mother to Alfonso's
court at Burgos, where he was welcomed with all honour and dubbed to
knighthood by the King of Castile, and in October he and Eleanor were
married at the Cistercian monastery of Las Huelgas. His appanage
included all Ireland, the earldom of Chester, the king's lands in Wales,
the Channel Islands, the whole of Gascony, and whatsoever rights his
father still had over the lands taken from him and King John by the
Kings of France. Thus he became the ruler of all the outlying
dependencies of the English crown, and the representative of all the
claims on the Aquitanian inheritance of Eleanor and the Norman
inheritance of William the Conqueror. The caustic St. Alban's chronicler
declared that Henry left to himself such scanty possessions that he
became a "mutilated kinglet".[1] But Henry was too jealous of power
utterly to renounce so large a share of his dominions. His grants to his
son were for purposes of revenue and support, and the government of
these regions was still strictly under the royal control. Yet from this
moment writs ran in Edward's name, and under his father's direction the
young prince was free to buy his experience as he would. Soon after his
son's return with his bride, Henry III. quitted Gascony, making his way
home through France, where he visited his mother's tomb at Fontevraud
and made atonement at Pontigny before the shrine of Archbishop Edmund.
Of more importance was his visit to King Louis, recently returned from
his Egyptian captivity. The cordial relations established by personal
intercourse between the two kings prepared the way for peace two years
later.
[1] Matthew Paris, _Chron. Maj._, v., 450.
Edward remained in Gascony about a year after his father. He checked
with a stern hand the disorders of his duchy, strove to make peace
between the Rosteins and Colons, and failing to do so, took in 1261 the
decisive step of putting an end to the tumultuous municipal
independence of the Gascon capital by depriving the jurats of the right
of choosing their mayor.[1] Thenceforth Bordeaux was ruled by a
mayor nominated by the duke or his lieutenant. Edward's rule in Gascony
has its importance as the first experiment in government by the boy of
fifteen who was later to become so great a king. Returning to London in
November, 1255, he still forwarded the interests of his Gascon
subjects, and an attempt to protect the Bordeaux wine-merchants from
the exactions of the royal officers aroused the jealousy of Henry, who
declared that the days of Henry II. had come again, when the king's
sons rose in revolt against their father. Despite this characteristic
wail, Edward gained his point. Yet his efforts to secure the well-being
of Gascony had not produced much result. The hold of the English duke
on Aquitaine was as precarious under Edward as it had been in the days
of Henry's direct rule.
[1] See Bemont, _Roles Gascons_, i., supplement, pp.
cxvi.-cxviii.
The affairs of Wales and Cheshire involved Edward in responsibilities
even more pressing than those of Gascony. On the death of John the Scot
without heirs in 1237, the palatinate of Randolph of Blundeville became
a royal escheat. Its grant to Edward made him the natural head of the
marcher barons. The Cheshire earldom became the more important since
the Welsh power had been driven beyond the Conway. Since the death of
David ap Llewelyn in 1246, divisions in the reigning house of Gwynedd
had continued to weaken the Welsh. Llewelyn and Owen the Red, the two
elder sons of the Griffith ap Llewelyn who had perished in attempting
to escape from the Tower, took upon themselves the government of
Gwynedd, dividing the land, by the advice of the "good men," into two
equal halves. The English seneschal at Carmarthen took advantage of
their weakness to seize the outlying dependencies of Gwynedd south of
the Dovey. War ensued, for the brothers resisted this aggression. But
in April, 1247, they were forced to do homage at Woodstock for Gwynedd
and Snowdon. Henry retained not only Cardigan and Carmarthen, but the
debatable lands between the eastern boundary of Cheshire and the river
Clwyd, the four cantreds of the middle country or Perveddwlad, so long
the scene of the fiercest warfare between the Celt and the Saxon. Thus
the work of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth was completely undone, and his
grandsons were confined to Snowdon and Anglesey, the ancient cradles of
their house.
It suited English policy that even, the barren lands of Snowdon should
be divided. As time went on, other sons of Griffith ap Llewelyn began
to clamour for a share of their grandfather's inheritance. Owen, the
weaker of the two princes, made common cause with them, and David,
another brother, succeeded in obtaining his portion of the common
stock. Llewelyn showed himself so much the most resourceful and
energetic of the brethren that, when open war broke out between them in
1254, he easily obtained the victory. Owen was taken prisoner, and
David was deprived of his lands. Llewelyn, thus sole ruler of Gwynedd,
at once aspired to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather. He
overran Merioneth, and frightened the native chieftains beyond the
Dovey into the English camp. His ambitions were, however, rudely
checked by the grant of Cheshire and the English lands in Wales to
Edward.
Besides the border palatinate, Edward's Welsh lands included the four
cantreds of Perveddwlad, and the districts of Cardigan and Carmarthen.
Young as he was, he had competent advisers, and, while he was still in
Aquitaine, designs were formed of setting up the English shire system
in his Welsh lands, so as to supersede the traditional Celtic methods
of government by feudal and monarchical centralisation. Efforts were
made to subject the four cantreds to the shire courts at Chester; and
Geoffrey of Langley, Edward's agent in the south, set up shire-moots at
Cardigan and Carmarthen, from which originated the first beginnings of
those counties. The bitterest indignation animated Edward's Welsh
tenants, whether on the Clwyd or on the Teivi and Towy. They rose in
revolt against the alien innovators, and called upon Llewelyn to
champion their grievances. Llewelyn saw the chance of extending his
tribal power into a national principality over all Wales by posing as
the upholder of the Welsh people. He overran the four cantreds in a
week, finding no resistance save before the two castles of Deganwy and
Diserth. He conquered Cardigan with equal ease, and prudently granted
out his acquisition to the local chieftain Meredith ap Owen. Nor were
Edward's lands alone exposed to his assaults. In central Wales Roger
Mortimer was stripped of his marches on the upper Wye, and Griffith ap
Gwenwynwyn, the lord of upper Powys, driven from the regions of the
upper Severn. In the spring of 1257 the lord of Gwynedd appeared in
regions untraversed by the men of Snowdon since the days of his
grandfather. He devastated the lands of the marchers on the Bristol
Channel and slew Edward's deputy in battle. "In those days," says
Matthew Paris, "the Welsh saw that their lives were at stake, so that
those of the north joined together in indissoluble alliance with those
of the south. Such a union had never before been, since north and south
had always been opposed." The lord of Snowdon assumed the title of
Prince of Wales.
Edward was forced to defend his inheritance. Henry III. paid little
heed to his misfortunes, and answered his appeal for help by saying:
"What have I to do with the matter? I have given you the land; you must
defend it with your own resources. I have plenty of other business to
do." Nevertheless, Henry accompanied his son on a Welsh campaign in
August, 1257. The English army got no further than Deganwy, and
therefore did not really invade Llewelyn's dominions at all. After
waiting idly on the banks of the Conway for some weeks, it retired
home, leaving the open country to be ruled by Llewelyn as he would, and
having done nothing but revictual the castles of the four cantreds.
Next year a truce was made, which left Llewelyn in possession of the
disputed districts. Troubles at home were calling off both father and
son from the Welsh war, and thus Llewelyn secured his virtual triumph.
Though fear of the progress of the lord of Gwynedd filled every marcher
with alarm, yet the dread of the power of Edward was even more nearly
present before them. The marcher lords deliberately stood aside, and
the result was inevitable disaster. Edward found that the territories
handed over to him by his father had to be conquered before they could
be administered, and Henry III.'s methods of government made it a
hopeless business to find either the men or the money for the task.
England still resounded with complaints of misgovernment, and demands
for the execution of the charters. Before going to Bordeaux in 1253,
Henry obtained from the reluctant parliament a considerable subsidy,
and pledged himself as "a man, a Christian, a knight, and a crowned and
anointed king," to uphold the charters. During his absence a
parliament, summoned by the regents, Queen Eleanor and Richard of
Cornwall, for January, 1254, showed such unwillingness to grant a
supply that a fresh assembly was convened in April, to which knights of
the shire, for the first time since the reign of John, and
representatives of the diocesan clergy, for the first occasion on
record, were summoned, as well as the baronial and clerical grandees.
Nothing came of the meeting save fresh complaints. The Earl of
Leicester became the spokesman of the opposition. Hurrying back from
France he warned the parliament not to fall into the "mouse-traps" laid
for them by the king. In default of English money, enough to meet the
king's necessities was extorted from the Jews, recently handed over to
the custody of Richard of Cornwall. After his return from France at the
end of 1254, Henry's renewed requests for money gave coherence to the
opposition. Between 1254 and 1258 the king's exactions, and an
effective organisation for withstanding them, developed on parallel
lines. To the old sources of discontent were added grievances
proceeding from enterprises of so costly a nature that they at last
brought about a crisis.
The foremost grievance against the king was still his co-operation with
the papacy in spoiling the Church of England. Though the death of the
excommunicated Frederick II. in 1250 was a great gain for Innocent IV.,
the contest of the papacy against the Hohenstaufen raged as fiercely as
ever. Both in Germany and in Italy Innocent had to carry on his
struggle against Conrad, Frederick's son. After Conrad's death, in
1254, there was still Frederick's strenuous bastard, Manfred, to be
reckoned with in Naples and Sicily. Innocent IV. died in 1254, but his
successor, Alexander IV., continued his policy. A papalist King of
Naples was wanted to withstand Manfred, and also a papalist successor
to the pope's phantom King of the Romans, William of Holland, who died
in 1256.
Candidates to both crowns were sought for in England. Since 1250
Innocent IV. had been sounding Richard, Earl of Cornwall, as to his
willingness to accept Sicily. The honourable scruple against hostility
to his kinsman, which Richard shared with the king, prevented him from
setting up his claims against Conrad. But the deaths both of Conrad and
of Frederick II.'s son by Isabella of England weakened the ties between
the English royal house and the Hohenstaufen, and Henry was tempted by
Innocent's offer of the Sicilian throne for his younger son, Edmund, a
boy of nine, along with a proposal to release him from his vow of
crusade to Syria, if he would prosecute on his son's behalf a crusading
campaign against the enemies of the Church in Naples. Innocent died
before the negotiations were completed, but Alexander IV. renewed the
offer, and in April, 1255, Peter of Aigueblanche, Bishop of Hereford,
accepted the preferred kingdom in Edmund's name. Sicily was to be held
by a tribute of money and service, as a fief of the holy see, and was
never to be united with the empire. Henry was to do homage to the pope
on his son's behalf, to go to Italy in person or send thither a
competent force, and to reimburse the pope for the large sums expended
by him in the prosecution of the war. In return the English and
Scottish proceeds of the crusading tenth, imposed on the clergy at
Lyons, were to be paid to Henry. On October 18, 1255, a cardinal
invested Edmund with a ring that symbolised his appointment. Henry
stood before the altar and swore by St. Edward that he would himself go
to Apulia, as soon as he could safely pass through France.
The treaty remained a dead letter. Henry found it quite impossible to
raise either the men or the money promised, and abandoned any idea of
visiting Sicily in person. Meanwhile Naples and Sicily were united in
support of Manfred, and discomfited the feeble forces of the papal
legates who acted against him in Edmund's name. At last the Archbishop
of Messina came from the pope with an urgent request for payment of the
promised sums. It was in vain that Henry led forth his son, clothed in
Apulian dress, before the Lenten parliament of 1257, and begged the
magnates to enable him to redeem his bond. When they heard the king's
speech "the ears of all men tingled". Nothing could be got save from
the clergy, so that Henry was quite unable to meet his obligations. He
besought Alexander to give him time, to make terms with Manfred, to
release Edmund from his debts on condition of ceding a large part of
Apulia to the Church,--to do anything in short save insist upon the
original contract. The pope deferred the payment, but the respite did
Henry no good. Edmund's Sicilian monarchy vanished into nothing, when,
early in 1258, Manfred was crowned king at Palermo. Before the end of
the year, Alexander cancelled the grant of Sicily to Edmund. Yet his
demands for the discharge of Henry's obligations had contributed not a
little towards focussing the gathering discontent.[1]
[1] For Edmund's Sicilian claims, see W.E. Rhodes' article on
_Edmund, Earl of Lancaster_, in the _English Historical
Review_, x. (1895), 20-27.
While Henry was seeking the Sicilian crown for his son, his brother
Richard was elected to the German throne. Since William of Holland's
death in January, 1256, the German magnates, divided between the
Hohenstaufen and the papalist parties, had hesitated for nearly a year
as to the choice of his successor. As neither party was able to secure
the election of its own partisan, a compromise was mooted. At last the
name of Richard of Cornwall was brought definitely forward. He was of
high rank and unblemished reputation; a friend of the pope yet a kinsman
of the Hohenstaufen; he was moderate and conciliatory; he had enough
money to bribe the electors handsomely, and he was never likely to be so
deeply rooted in Germany as to stand in the way of the princes of the
empire. The Archbishop of Cologne became his paid partisan, and the
Count Palatine of the Rhine accepted his candidature on conditions. The
French party set up as his rival Alfonso X. of Castile, who, despite his
newly formed English alliance, was quite willing to stand against
Richard. At last, in January, 1257, the votes of three electors,
Cologne, Mainz, and the Palatine, were cast for Richard, who also
obtained the support of Ottocar, King of Bohemia. However, in April,
Trier, Saxony, and Brandenburg voted for Alfonso. The double election of
two foreigners perpetuated the Great Interregnum for some sixteen years.
Alfonso's title was only an empty show, but Richard took his appointment
seriously. He made his way to Germany, and was crowned King of the
Romans on May 17, 1257, at Aachen. He remained in the country nearly
eighteen months, and succeeded in establishing his authority in the
Rhineland, though beyond that region he never so much as showed his
face.[1] The elevation of his brother to the highest dignity in
Christendom was some consolation to Henry for the Sicilian failure.
[1] See for Richard's career, Koch's _Richard von Cornwallis_,
1209-1257, and the article on _Richard, King of the Romans_, in
the _Dictionary of National Biography_.
The nation was disgusted to see maladministration grow worse and worse;
the nobles were indignant at the ever-increasing sway of the
foreigners; and several years of bad harvests, high prices, rain,
flood, and murrain sharpened the chronic misery of the poor. The
withdrawal of Earl Richard to his new kingdom deprived the king and
nation of an honourable if timid counsellor, though a more capable
leader was at last provided in the disgraced governor of Gascony. Simon
still deeply resented the king's ingratitude for his services, and had
become enough of an Englishman to sympathise with the national
feelings. Since his dismissal in 1253 he had held somewhat aloof from
politics. He knew so well that his interests centred in England that he
declined the offer of the French regency on the death of Blanche of
Castile. He prosecuted his rights over Bigorre with characteristic
pertinacity, and lawsuits about his wife's jointure from her first
husband exacerbated his relations with Henry. It cannot, however, be
said that the two were as yet fiercely hostile. Simon went to Henry's
help in Gascony in 1254, served on various missions and was nominated
on others from which he withdrew. His chosen occupations during these
years of self-effacement were religious rather than political; his
dearest comrades were clerks rather than barons.
Among Montfort's closer intimates, Bishop Grosseteste was removed by
death in 1253. But others of like stamp still remained, such as Adam
Marsh, the Franciscan mystic, whose election to the see of Ely was
quashed by the malevolence of the court; Eudes Rigaud, the famous
Archbishop of Rouen, and Walter of Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, who
formed a connecting link between the aristocracy and the Church.
Despite the ineffectiveness of the clerical opposition to the papacy,
the spirit of independence expressed in Grosseteste's protests had not
yet deserted the churchmen. Clerks had felt the pinch of the papal
exactions, had been bled to the uttermost to support the Sicilian
candidature, and had seen aliens and non-residents usurping their
revenues and their functions. More timid and less cohesive than the
barons, they had quicker brains, more ideas, deeper grievances, and
better means of reaching the masses. If resentment of the Sicilian
candidature was the spark that fired the train, the clerical opposition
showed the barons the method of successful resistance. The rejection of
Henry's demands for money in the assemblies of 1257 started the
movement that spread to the baronage in the parliaments of 1258. In the
two memorable gatherings of that year the discontent, which had
smouldered for a generation, at last burst into flame. In the next
chapter we shall see in what fashion the fire kindled.
The futility of the political history of the weary middle period of the
reign suggests, to those who make the history of the state the
criterion of every aspect of the national fortunes, a corresponding
barrenness and lack of interest in other aspects of national life. Yet
a remedy for Henry's misrule was only found because the age of
political retrogression was in all other fields of action an epoch of
unexampled progress. The years during which the strong centralised
government of the Angevin kings was breaking down under Henry's weak
rule were years which, to the historian of civilisation, are among the
most fruitful in our annals. In vivid contrast to the tale of misrule,
the historian can turn to the revival of religious and intellectual
life, the growing delight in ideas and knowledge, the consummation of
the best period of art, and the spread of a nobler civilisation which
make the middle portion of the thirteenth century the flowering time of
English medieval life. It is part of this strange contrast that Henry,
the obstacle to all political progress, was himself a chief supporter
of the religious and intellectual movements which were so deeply
influencing the age.
Much has been said of the alien invasion, and of the strong national
opposition it excited. But insularity is not a good thing in itself,
and the natural English attitude to the foreigners tended to confound
good and bad alike in a general condemnation. Even the Savoyards were
by no means as evil as the English thought them, and Henry in welcoming
his kinsmen was not merely moved by selfish and unworthy motives; he
believed that he was showing his openness to ideas and his welcome to
all good things from whencesoever they came. There were, in fact, two
tendencies, antagonistic yet closely related, which were operative, not
only in England but all over western Europe, during this period.
Nations, becoming conscious and proud of their unity, dwelt, often
unreasonably, on the points wherein they differed from other peoples,
and strongly resented alien interference. At the same time the closer
relations between states, the result of improved government, better
communications, increased commercial and social intercourse, the
strengthening of common ideals, and the development of cosmopolitan
types of the knight, the scholar, and the priest, were deepening the
union of western Christendom on common lines. Neither the political nor
the military nor the ecclesiastical ideals of the early middle ages
were based upon nationality, but rather on that ecumenical community of
tradition which still made the rule of Rome, whether in Church or
State, a living reality. In the thirteenth century the papal tradition
was still at its height. The jurisdiction of the papal _curia_ implied
a universal Christian commonwealth. World-wide religious orders united
alien lands together by ties more spiritual than obedience to the papal
lawyers. The academic ideal was another and a fresh link that connected
the nations together. To the ancient reasons for union--symbolised by
the living Latin speech of all clerks, of all scholars, of all engaged
in serious affairs-were added the newer bonds of connexion involved in
the common knightly and social ideals, in the general spread of a
common art and a common vernacular language and literature.
As Latin expressed the one series of ties, so did French represent the
other. The France of St. Louis meant two things. It meant, of course,
the French state and the French nationality, but it meant a great deal
more than that. The influence of the French tongue and French ideals
was wider than the political influence of the French monarchy. French
was the common language of knighthood, of policy, of the literature
that entertained lords and ladies, of the lighter and less technical
sides of the cosmopolitan culture which had its more serious
embodiments in Latin. To the Englishman of the thirteenth century the
French state was the enemy; but the English baron denounced France in
the French tongue, and leant a ready ear to those aspects of life
which, cosmopolitan in reality, found their fullest exposition in
France and among French-speaking peoples. In the age which saw
hostility to Frenchmen become a passion, a Frenchman like Montfort
could become the champion of English patriotism, English scholars could
readily quit their native land to study at Paris, the French vernacular
literature was the common property of the two peoples, and French words
began to force their way into the stubborn vocabulary of the English
language, which for two centuries had almost entirely rejected these
alien elements. In dwelling, however briefly, on the new features which
were transforming English civilisation during this memorable period, we
shall constantly see how England gained by her ever-increasing
intercourse with the continent, by necessarily sharing in the new
movements which had extended from the continent to the island, no
longer, as in the eleventh century, to be described as a world apart.
Neither the coming of the friars, nor the development of university
life and academic schools of philosophy, theology, and natural science,
nor the triumph of gothic art, nor the spread of vernacular literature,
not even the scholarly study of English law nor the course of English
political development-not one of these movements could have been what
it was without the close interconnexion of the various parts of the
European commonwealth, which was becoming more homogeneous at the same
time that its units were acquiring for themselves sped characteristics
of their own.
In the early days of Henry III.'s reign, a modest alien invasion
anticipated the more noisy coming of the Poitevin or the Provencal. The
most remarkable development of the "religious" life that the later
middle age was to witness had just been worked out in Italy. St.
Francis of Assisi had taught the cult of absolute poverty, and his
example held up to his followers the ideal of the thorough and literal
imitation of Christ's life. Thus arose the early beginnings of the
Minorite or Franciscan rule. St. Dominic yielded to the fascination of
the Umbrian enthusiast, and inculcated on his Order of Preachers a
complete renunciation of worldly goods which made a society, originally
little more than a new type of canons regular, a mendicant order like
the Franciscans, bound to interpret the monastic vow of poverty with
such literalness as to include corporate as well as individual
renunciation of possessions, so that the order might not own lands or
goods, and no member of it could live otherwise than by labour or by
alms. In the second chapter of the Dominican order, at Whitsuntide,
1221, an organisation into provinces was carried out; and among the
eight provinces, each with its prior, then instituted, was the province
of England, where no preaching friar had hitherto set foot, and over it
Gilbert of Freynet was appointed prior. Then Dominic withdrew to
Bologna, where he died on August 6. Within a few days of the saint's
death, Friar Gilbert with thirteen companions made his way to England.
In the company of Peter des Roches the Dominican pioneers went to
Canterbury, where Archbishop Langton was then residing. At the
archbishop's request Gilbert preached in a Canterbury church, and
Langton was so much delighted by his teaching that henceforth he had a
special affection for the new order. From Canterbury the friars
journeyed to London and Oxford. Mindful of the work of their leaders at
Paris and Bologna, they built their first English chapel, house, and
schools in the university town. Soon these proved too small for them,
and they had to seek ampler quarters outside the walls. From these
beginnings the Dominicans spread over England.
The Franciscans quickly followed the Dominicans. On September 10, 1224,
there landed at Dover a little band of four clerks and five laymen,
sent by St. Francis himself to extend the new teaching into England. At
their head was the Italian, Agnellus of Pisa, a deacon, formerly warden
of the Parisian convent, who was appointed provincial minister in
England. His three clerical companions were all Englishmen, though the
five laymen were Italians or Frenchmen. Like the Dominican pioneers,
the Franciscan missionaries first went to Canterbury, where the favour
of Simon Langton, the archdeacon, did for them what the goodwill of his
brother Stephen had done for their precursors. Leaving some of their
number at Canterbury, four of the Franciscans went on to London, and
thence a little later two of them set out for Oxford. Alike at London
and at Oxford, they found a cordial welcome from the Dominicans, eating
in their refectories, and sleeping in their dormitories, until they
were able to erect modest quarters in both places. The brethren of the
new order excited unbounded enthusiasm. Necessity and choice combined
to compel them to interpret their vow of poverty as St. Francis would
have wished. They laboured with their own hands at the construction of
their humble churches. The friars at Oxford knew the pangs of debt and
hunger, rejected pillows as a vain luxury, and limited the use of boots
and shoes to the sick and infirm. The faithful saw the brethren singing
songs as they picked their way over the frozen mud or hard snow, blood
marking the track of their naked feet, without their being conscious of
it. The joyous radiance of Francis himself illuminated the lives of his
followers. "The friars," writes their chronicler, "were so full of fun
among themselves that a deaf mute could hardly refrain from laughter at
seeing them." With the same glad spirit they laboured for the salvation
of souls, the cure of sickness, and the relief of distress. The
emotional feeling of the age quickly responded to their zeal. Within a
few years other houses had arisen at Gloucester, at Nottingham, at
Stamford, at Worcester, at Northampton, at Cambridge, at Lincoln, at
Shrewsbury. In a generation there was hardly a town of importance in
England that had not its Franciscan convent, and over against it a
rival Dominican house.
The esteem felt for the followers of Francis and Dominic led to an
extraordinary extension of the mendicant type. New orders of friars
arose, preserving the essential attribute of absolute poverty, though
differing from each other and from the two prototypes in various
particulars. Some of these lesser orders found their way to England. In
the same year as Agnellus, there came to England the Trinitarian
friars, called also the Maturins, from the situation of their first
house in Paris, an order whose special function was the redemption of
captives. In 1240 returning crusaders brought back with them the first
Carmelite friars, for whom safer quarters had to be found than in their
original abodes in Syria. This society spread widely, and in 1287, to
the disgust of the older monks, it laid aside the party-coloured habit,
forced upon it in derision by the infidels, and adopted the white robe,
which gave them their popular name of White Friars. Hard upon these, in
1244, came also the Crutched Friars, so called from the red cross set
upon their backs or breasts; but these were never deeply rooted in
England. The multiplication of orders of friars became an abuse, so
that, at the Council of Lyons of 1245, Innocent IV abolished all save
four. Besides Dominicans and Franciscans the pope only continued the
Carmelites, and an order first seen in England a few years later, the
Austin friars or the hermits of the order of St. Augustine. These made
up the traditional four orders of friars of later history. Yet even the
decree of a council could not stay the growth of new mendicant types.
In 1257 the Friars of the Penance of Jesus Christ, popularly styled
Friars of the Sack, from their coarse sackcloth garb, settled down in
London, exempted by papal dispensation from the fate of suppression;
and even later than this King Richard's son, Edmund of Cornwall,
established a community of Bonhommes at Ashridge in Buckinghamshire.
The friars were not recluses, like the older orders, but active
preachers and teachers of the people. The parish clergy seldom held a
strong position in medieval life. The estimation in which the monastic
ideal was held limited their influence. They were, as a rule, not much
raised above the people among whom they laboured. If the parish priest
were a man of rank or education, he was too often a non-resident and a
pluralist, bestowing little personal attention on his parishioners. Nor
were the numerous parishes served by monks in much better plight. The
monastery took the tithes and somehow provided for the services; but the
efforts of Grosseteste to secure the establishment of permanent
stipendiary vicarages in his diocese exemplify the reluctance of the
religious to give their appropriations the benefit of permanent pastors,
paid on an adequate scale. It was an exceptional thing for the parish
clergymen to do more than discharge perfunctorily the routine duties of
their office, and preaching was almost unknown among them. The friars
threw themselves into pastoral work with such devotion as to compel the
reluctant admiration of their natural rivals, the monks. "At first,"
says Matthew Paris,[1] "the Preachers and the Minorites lived a life of
poverty and extreme sanctity. They busied themselves in preaching,
hearing confessions, the recital of divine service, in teaching and
study. They embraced voluntary poverty for God's sake, abandoning all
their worldly goods and not even reserving for themselves their food for
to-morrow." A special field of labour was in the crowded suburbs of the
larger towns, where so often they chose to erect their first convents.
The care of the sick and of lepers was their peculiar function. Their
sympathy and charity carried everything before them, and they remained
the chief teachers of the poor down to the Reformation. They ingratiated
themselves with the rich as much as with the poor. Henry III. and Edward
selected mendicants as their confessors. The strongest and holiest of
the bishops, Grosseteste, became their most active friend. Simon of
Montfort sought the advice and friendship of a friar like Adam Marsh.
The mere fact that Stephen Langton and Peter des Roches were their first
patrons in England shows how they appealed alike to the best and worst
clerical types of the time.
[1] _Chron. Maj._, v., 194.
Men and women of all ranks, while still living in the world and
fulfilling their ordinary occupations, associated themselves to the
mendicant brotherhoods. Besides these _tertiaries_, as they were
called, still wider circles sought the friars' direction in all
spiritual matters and showed eagerness to be buried within their
sanctuaries. Nor did the friars limit themselves to pastoral care. They
won a unique place in the intellectual history of the time. They made
themselves the spokesmen of all the movements of the age. They were
eager to make peace, and Agnellus himself mediated between Henry III.
and the earl marshal. They were the strenuous preachers of the
crusades, whether against the infidel or against Frederick II. The
Franciscans taught a new and more methodical devotion to the Virgin
Mother. The friars upheld the highest papal claims, were constantly
selected as papal agents and tax-gatherers, and yet even this did not
deprive them of their influence over Englishmen. Their zeal for truth
often made them defenders of unpopular causes, and it was much to their
honour that they did not hesitate to incur the displeasure of the
Londoners by their anxiety to save innocent Jews accused of the murder
of Christian children. The parish clergy hated and envied them as
successful rivals, and bitterly resented the privilege which they
received from Alexander IV of hearing confessions throughout the world.
Not less strong was the hostility of the monastic orders which is often
expressed in Matthew Paris's free-spoken abuse of them. They were
accused of terrorising dying men out of their possessions, of laxity in
the confessional, of absolving their friends too easily, of overweening
ambition and restless meddlesomeness. They were violent against
heretics and enemies of the Church. They answered hate with hate. They
despised the seculars as drones and the monks as lazy and corrupt. The
dissensions between the various orders of friars, and particularly
between the sober and intellectual Dominicans and the radical and
mystic Franciscans, were soon as bitter as those between monks and
friars, or monks and seculars. But when all allowances have been made,
the good that they wrought far outbalanced the evil, and in England at
least, the mendicant orders exhibited a nobler conception of religion,
and of men's duly to their fellowmen than had as yet been set before
the people. If the main result of their influence was to strengthen
that cosmopolitan conception of Christendom of which the papacy was the
head and the friars the agents, their zeal for righteousness often led
them beyond their own rigid platform, and Englishmen honoured the
wandering friar as the champion of the nation's cause.
Like the religious orders, the universities were part of the world
system and only indirectly represented the struggling national life.
The ferment of the twelfth century revival crystallised groups of
masters or doctors into guilds called universities, with a strong class
tradition, rigid codes of rules, and intense corporate spirit. The
schools at Oxford, whose continuous history can be traced from the days
of Henry II., had acquired a considerable reputation by the time that
his grandson had ascended the throne. Oxford university, with an
autonomous constitution of its own since _1214_, was presided over by a
chancellor who, though in a sense the representative of the distant
diocesan at Lincoln, was even in the earliest times the head of the
scholars, and no mere delegate of the bishop. Five years earlier the
Oxford schools were sufficiently vigorous to provoke a secession, from
which the first faint beginnings of a university at Cambridge arose. A
generation later there were other secessions to Salisbury and
Northampton, but neither of these schools succeeded in maintaining
themselves. Cambridge itself had a somewhat languid existence
throughout the whole of the thirteenth century, and was scarcely
recognised as a _studium generale_ until the bull of John XXII. in 1318
made its future position secure. In early days the university owed
nothing to endowments, buildings, social prestige, or tradition. The
two essentials was the living voice of the graduate teacher and the
concourse of students desirous to be taught. Hence migrations were
common and stability only gradually established. When, late in Henry
III.'s reign, the chancellor, Walter of Merton, desired to set up a
permanent institution for the encouragement of poor students, he
hesitated whether to establish it at Oxford, or Cambridge, or in his
own Surrey village. Oxford, though patriots coupled it with Paris and
Bologna, only gradually rose into repute. But before the end of Henry
III.'s reign it had won an assured place among the great universities
of western Europe, though lagging far behind that of the supreme
schools of Paris.
The growing fame of the university of Oxford was a matter of national
importance. Down to the early years of the thirteenth century a young
English clerk who was anxious to study found his only career abroad,
and was too often cut off altogether from his mother country. Among the
last of this type were the Paris mathematician, John of Holywood or
Halifax, Robert Curzon, cardinal, legate, theologian, and crusader, and
Alexander of Hales. Stephen Langton, who did important work in revising
the text of the Vulgate, might well have been one of those lost to
England but for the wisdom of Innocent III who restored him, in the
fulness of his reputation and powers, to the service of the English
Church. Not many years younger than Langton was his successor Edmund of
Abingdon, but the difference was enough to make the younger primate a
student of the Oxford schools in early life. Though he left Oxford for
Paris, Edmund returned to an active career in England, when experience
convinced him of the vanity of scholastic success. Bishop Grosseteste,
another early Oxford teacher of eminence, probably studied at Paris,
for so late as 1240 he held up to the Oxford masters of theology the
example of their Paris brethren for their imitation. The double
allegiance of Edmund and Grosseteste was typical. A long catalogue of
eminent names adorned the annals of Oxford in the thirteenth century,
but the most distinguished of her earlier sons were drawn away from her
by the superior attractions of Paris. England furnished at least her
share of the great names of thirteenth century scholasticism, but of
very few of these could it be said that their main obligation was to
the English university. It was at Paris that the academic organisation
developed which Oxford adopted. At Paris the great intellectual
conflicts of the century were fought. There the ferment seethed round
that introduction of Aristotle's teaching from Moorish sources which
led to the outspoken pantheism of an Amaury of Bene. There also was the
reconciliation effected between the new teacher and the old faith which
made Aristotle the pillar of the new scholasticism that was to justify
by reason the ways of God to man. In Paris also was fought the contest
between the aggressive mendicant friars and the secular doctors whom
they wished to supplant in the divinity schools.
There is little evidence of even a pale reflection of these struggles
in contemporary Oxford. English scholars bore their full share in the
fight. It was the Englishman Curzon who condemned the heresies of
Amaury of Bene. Another Englishman, Alexander of Hales, issued in his
_Summa Theologiae_ the first effective reconciliation of Aristotelian
metaphysic with Christian doctrine which his Paris pupils, Thomas
Aquinas, the Italian, and Albert the Great, the German, were to work
out in detail in the next generation. Hales was the first secular
doctor in Europe who in 1222, in the full pride of his powers,
abandoned his position in the university to embrace the voluntary
poverty of the Franciscans and resume his teaching, not in the regular
schools but in a Minorite convent. And at the same time another English
doctor at Paris, John of St. Giles, notable as a physician as well as a
theologian, dramatically marked his conversion to the Dominican order
by assuming its habit in the midst of a sermon on the virtues of
poverty. All these famous Englishmen worked and taught at Paris, and it
was only a generation later that their successors could establish on
the Thames the traditions so long upheld on the banks of the Seine.
The establishment of the Dominicans and Franciscans at Oxford gave an
immense impetus to the activity of the university. The Franciscans
appointed as the first _lector_ of their Oxford convent the famous
secular teacher Grosseteste, who ever after held the Minorites in the
closest estimation. Grosseteste was the greatest scholar of his day,
knowing Greek and Hebrew as well as the accustomed studies of the
period. A clear and independent thinker, he was not, like so many of
his contemporaries, overborne by the weight of authority, but appealed
to observation and experience in terms which make him the precursor of
Roger Bacon. Grosseteste's successor as _lector_ was himself a
Minorite, Adam Marsh, whose reputation was so great that Grosseteste
was afraid to leave him when sick in a French town, lest the Paris
masters should persuade him to teach in their schools. Adam's loyalty
to his native university withstood any such temptation, and from that
time Oxford began to hold up its head against Paris. Even before this,
Grosseteste persuaded John of St. Giles to transfer his teaching from
Paris to Oxford, where he remained for the rest of his life.
The intense intellectual activity of the thirteenth century flowed in
more than one channel, and Englishmen took their full share both in
building up and in destroying. Two Englishmen of the next generation
mark in different ways the reaction against the moderate
Aristotelianism and orthodox rationalism which their countryman Hales
first brought into vogue. These were the Franciscan friars, Roger Bacon
and Duns Scotus. Bacon, though he studied at Paris as well as at
Oxford, is much more closely identified with England than with the
Continent. His sceptical, practical intellect led him to heap scorn on
Hales and his followers and to plunge into audacities of speculation
which cost him long seclusions in his convent and enforced abstinence
from writing and study. In his war against the Aristotelians, the
intrepid friar upheld recourse to experiment and observation as
superior to deference to authority, in language which stands in strange
contrast to the traditions of the thirteenth century. Grosseteste, who
also had preferred the teachings of experience to the appeal to the
sages of the past, was the only academic leader that escaped Bacon's
scathing censure. When his order kept him silent, Roger was bidden to
resume his pen by Pope Clement IV. A generation still later, Duns
Scotus, probably a Lowland Scot, who taught at Paris and died at
Cologne in 1308, emphasised, sharply enough, but in less drastic
fashion, the reaction against the teaching of Hales and Aquinas, by
accepting a dualism between reason and authority that broke away from
the Thomist tradition of the thirteenth century and prepared the way
for the scholastic decadence of the fourteenth. After France, England
took a leading part in all these movements; and even in France English
scholars had a large share in making that land the special home of the
_Studium_, as Italy was of the _Sacerdotium_ and Germany of the
_Imperium_.
This intellectual ferment had its results on practical life. Though the
university was cosmopolitan, the individual members of it were not the
less good citizens. A patriot like Grosseteste strove to his uttermost
to keep Englishmen for Oxford or to win them back from Paris. Oxford
clerks fought the battle of England against the legate Otto, and we
shall see them siding with Montfort. The eminently practical temper of
the academic class could not neglect the world of action for the
abstract pursuit of science. Eager as men were to know, to prove, and
to inquire, the age had little of the mystical temperament about it.
The studies which made for worldly success, such as civil and canon
law, attracted the thousands for whom philosophy or theology had little
attraction. Never before was there a career so fully opened to talent.
The academic teacher's fame took him from the lecture-room to the
court, from the university to the episcopal throne, and so it was that
the university influenced action almost as profoundly as it influenced
thought, and affected all classes of society alike. The struggles of
poor students like Edmund of Abingdon or Grosseteste must not make us
think that the universities of this period were exclusively frequented
by humble scholars. The academic career of a rich baron's son like
Thomas of Cantilupe, living in his own hired house at Paris with a
train of chaplains and tutors, receiving the visits of the French king,
and feeding poor scholars with the remnants from his table, is as
characteristic as the more common picture of the student begging his
way from one seat of learning to another, and suffering the severest
privations rather than desert his studies. Yet the function of the
_studium_ as promoting a healthy circulation between the various orders
of medieval society, must not be ignored.
Partly to help on the poor, partly to encourage men to devote
themselves to the pursuit of knowledge, endowments began to arise which
soon enhanced the splendour of universities though they lessened their
mobility and their freedom. The mendicant convents at Paris and Oxford
prepared the way for secular foundations, at first small and
insignificant, like that which, in the days of Henry III., John Balliol
established at Oxford for the maintenance of poor scholars, but soon
increasing in magnitude and distinction. The great college set up by
St. Louis' confessor at Paris for the endowment of scholars, desirous
of studying the unlucrative but vital subject of theology, was soon
imitated by the chancellor of Henry III. Side by side with Robert of
Sorbon's college of 1257, arose Walter of Merton's foundation of 1263,
and twenty years later Bishop Balsham's college of Peterhouse extended
the "rule of Merton" to Cambridge.
The academic movement was not all clear gain. The humanism, of the
twelfth century was crushed beneath the weight of the specialised
science and encyclopaedic learning of the thirteenth. We should seek in
vain among most theologians or the philosophers of our period for any
spark of literary art; and the tendency dominant in them affected for
evil all works written in Latin. Even the historians show a falling
away from the example of William of Malmesbury or of Roger of Hoveden.
The one English chronicler of the thirteenth century who is a
considerable man of letters, Matthew Paris, belongs to the early half
of it, before the academic tradition was fully established, and even
with him prolixity impairs the art without injuring the colour of his
work. The age of Edward I., the great time of triumphant scholasticism,
is recorded in chronicles so dreary that it is hard to make the dry
bones live. Walter of Hemingburgh, the most attractive historian of the
time, belongs to the next generation: and his excellencies are only
great in comparison with his fellows. Something of this decadence may
be attributed to the falling away of the elder monastic types, whose
higher life withered up from want of able recruits, for the secular and
mendicant careers offered opportunities so stimulating that few men of
purpose, or earnest spiritual character, cared to enter a Benedictine
or a Cistercian house of religion. Something more may be assigned to
the growing claims of the vulgar tongue on literary aspirants. But the
chief cause of the literary defects of thirteenth century writers must
be set down to the doctrine that the study of "arts"--of grammar,
rhetoric and the rest--was only worthy of schoolboys and novices, and
was only a preliminary to the specialised faculties which left little
room for artistic presentation. Science in short nearly killed
literature.
It was the same with the vulgar tongues as with Latin. French remained
the common language of the higher classes of English society, and the
history of French literature belongs to the history of the western
world rather than to that of England. The share taken in it by
English-born writers is less important than in the great age of romance
when the contact of Celt and Norman on British soil added the Arthurian
legend to the world's stock of poetic material. The practical motive,
which destroyed the art of so many Latin writers, impaired the literary
value of much written in the vernacular. We have technical works in
French and even in English, such as Walter of Henley's treatise on
_Husbandry_, composed in French for the guidance of stewards of manors,
and translated, it is said by Grosseteste, into English for the benefit
of a wider public. Grosseteste is also said to have drawn up in French
a handbook of rules for the management of a great estate, and he
certainly wrote French poetry. The legal literature, written in Latin
or French, and illustrated by such names as Bracton, Britton, and
"Fleta," shows that there was growing up a school of earnest students
of English law who, though anxious, like Bracton, to bring their
conclusions under the rules of Roman jurisprudence, began to treat
their science with an independence which secured for English custom the
opportunity of independent development. Of more literary interest than
such technicalities were the rhyming chronicles, handed on from the
previous age, of which one of the best, the recently discovered history
of the great William Marshal, has already been noticed. The spontaneity
of this poem proves that its language was still the natural speech of
the writer, and impels its French editor to claim for it a French
origin. As the century grew older there was no difficulty in deciding
whether French works were written by Englishmen or Frenchmen. The
Yorkshire French of Peter Langtoft's _Chronicle_, and the jargon of the
_Year Books_, attest how the political separation of the two lands, and
the preponderance in northern France of the dialect of Paris, placed
the insular French speech in strong contrast to the language of polite
society beyond the Channel. Yet barbarous as Anglo-French became, it
retained the freshness of a living tongue, and gained some ground at
the expense of Latin, notably in the law courts and in official
documents.
English was slowly making its way upwards. There was a public ready to
read vernacular books, and not at home with French. For their sake a
great literature of translations and adaptations was made, beginning
with Layamon's English version of Wace's _Brut_, which by the end of
the century made the cycle of French romance accessible to the English
reader. Many works of edification and devotion were written in English;
and Robert of Gloucester's rhyming history appealed to a larger public
than the Yorkshire French of Langtoft. It is significant of the trend
of events that the early fourteenth century saw Langtoft himself done
into English by Robert Mannyng, of Bourne. While as yet no continuous
works of high merit were written in English, there was no lack of
experiments, of novelties, and of adaptations. Much evidence of depth
of feeling, power of expression, and careful art lies hidden away in
half-forgotten anonymous lyrics, satires, and romances. The language in
which these works were written was steadily becoming more like our
modern English. The dialectical differences become less acute; the
inflections begin to drop away; the vocabulary gradually absorbs a
larger romance element, and the prosody drops from the forms of the
West Saxon period into measures and modes that reflect a living
connexion with the contemporary poetry of France. Thus, even in the
literature of a not too literary age, we find abundant tokens of that
strenuous national life which was manifesting itself in so many
different ways.
Art rather than literature reflected the deeper currents of the
thirteenth century. Architecture, the great art of the middle age, was
in its perfection. The inchoate gothic which the Cistercians brought
from Burgundy to the Yorkshire dales, and William of Sens transplanted
from his birthplace to Canterbury, was superseded by the more developed
art of St. Hugh's choir at Lincoln. In the next generation the new
style, imported from northern France, struck out ways of its own, less
soaring, less rigidly logical, yet of unequalled grace and
picturesqueness, such as we see in Salisbury cathedral, which
altogether dates from the reign of Henry III. Here also, as in
literature, foreign models stood side by side with native products.
Henry III.'s favourite foundation at Westminster reproduced on English
soil the towering loftiness, the vaulted roofs, the short choir, and
the ring of apsidal chapels, of the great French minsters. This was
even more emphatically the case with the decorations, the goldsmith's
and metal work, the sculpture, painting, and glass, which the best
artists of France set up in honour of the English king's favourite
saint. In these crafts English work would not as yet bear a comparison
with foreign, and even the glories of the statuary of the facade of
Wells cannot approach the sculptured porches of Amiens or Paris. As the
century advanced some of the fashions of the French builders, notably
as regards window tracery, were taken up in the early "Decorated" of
the reign of Edward I.; and here the claims of English to essential
equality with French building can perhaps be better substantiated than
in the infancy of the art. But all these comparisons are misleading.
The impulse to gothic art came to England from France, like the impulse
to many other things. Its working out was conducted on English local
lines, ever becoming more divergent from those of the prototype, though
not seldom stimulated by the constant intercourse of the two lands.
The new gothic art enriched the medieval town with a splendour of
buildings hitherto unknown, which symbolised the growth of material
prosperity as well as of a keener artistic appreciation. In the greater
towns the four orders of friars erected their large and plain churches,
designed as halls for preaching to great congregations. The development
of domestic architecture is even more significant than the growth of
ecclesiastical and military buildings. Stone houses were no longer the
rare luxuries of Jews or nobles. Never were the towns more prosperous
and more energetic. They were now winning for themselves both economic
and administrative independence. Magnates, such as Randolph of Chester,
followed the king's example by granting charters to the smaller towns.
Even the lesser boroughs became not merely the abodes of agriculturists
but the homes of organised trading communities. It was the time when
the merchant class first began to manifest itself in politics, and the
power of capital to make itself felt. Capital was almost monopolised by
Jews, Lombards, or Tuscans, and the fierce English hatred of the
foreigner found a fresh expression in the persecution of the Hebrew
money-lenders and in the increasing dislike felt for the alien bankers
and merchants who throve at Englishmen's expense. The fact that so much
of English trade with the continent was still in the hands of Germans,
Frenchmen, and Italians made this feeling the more intense. But there
were limits even to the ill-will towards aliens. The foreigner could
make himself at home in England, and the rapid naturalisation of a
Montfort in the higher walks of life is paralleled by the absorption
into the civic community of many a Gascon or German merchant, like that
Arnold Fitz Thedmar,[1] a Bremen trader's son, who became alderman
of London and probably chronicler of its history. Yet even the greatest
English towns did not become strong enough to cut themselves off from
the general life of the people. They were rather a new element in that
rich and purposeful nation that had so long been enduring the rule of
Henry of Winchester. The national energy spurned the feebleness of the
court, and the time was at hand when the nation, through its natural
leaders, was to overthrow the wretched system of misgovernment under
which it had suffered. Political retrogression was no longer to bar
national progress.
[1] See for Arnold the _Chronica majorum et vicecomitum
Londoniarum_ in _Liber de antiquis legibus_, and Riley's
introduction to his translation of _Chronicles of the Mayors
and Sheriffs of London_ (1863).
CHAPTER V.
THE BARONS' WAR.
During the early months of 1258, the aliens ruled the king and realm,
added estate to estate, and defied all attempts to dislodge them. Papal
agents traversed the country, extorting money from prelates and
churches. The Welsh, in secret relations with the lords of the march,
threatened the borders, and made a confederacy with the Scots. The
French were hostile, and the barons disunited, without leaders, and
helpless. A wretched harvest made corn scarce and dear. A wild winter,
followed by a long late frost, cut off the lambs and destroyed the
farmers' hopes for the summer. A murrain of cattle followed, and the
poor were dying of hunger and pestilence. Henry III. was in almost as
bad a plight as his people. He had utterly failed to subdue Llewelyn. A
papal agent threatened him with excommunication and the resumption of
the grant of Sicily. He could not control his foreign kinsfolk, and the
rivalry of Savoyards and Poitevins added a new element of turmoil to
the distracted relations of the magnates. His son had been forced to
pawn his best estates to William of Valence, and the royal exchequer
was absolutely empty. Money must be had at all risks, and the only way
to get it was to assemble the magnates.
On April 2 the chief men of Church and State gathered together at
London. For more than a month the stormy debates went on. The king's
demands were contemptuously waved aside. His exceptional misdeeds, it
was declared, were to be met by exceptional measures. Hot words were
spoken, and William of Valence called Leicester a traitor. "No, no,
William," the earl replied, "I am not a traitor, nor the son of a
traitor; your father and mine were men of a different stamp," An
opposition party formed itself under the Earls of Gloucester,
Leicester, Hereford, and Norfolk. Even the Savoyards partially fell
away from the court, and a convocation of clergy at Merton, presided
over by Archbishop Boniface, drew up canons in the spirit of
Grosseteste. In parliament all that Henry could get was a promise to
adjourn the question of supply until a commission had drafted a
programme of reform. On May 2 Henry and his son Edward announced their
acceptance of this proposal; parliament was forthwith prorogued, and
the barons set to work to mature their scheme.
On June 11 the magnates once more assembled, this time at Oxford. A
summons to fight the Welsh gave them an excuse to appear attended with
their followers in arms. The royalist partisans nicknamed the gathering
the Mad Parliament, but its proceedings were singularly business-like.
A petition of twenty-nine articles was presented, in which the abuses
of the administration were laid bare in detail. A commission of
twenty-four was appointed who were to redress the grievances of the
nation, and to draw up a new scheme of government. According to the
compact Henry himself selected half this body. It was significant of
the falling away of the mass of the ruling families from the monarchy,
that six of Henry's twelve commissioners were churchmen, four were
aliens, three were his brothers, one his brother-in-law, one his
nephew, one his wife's uncle. The only earls that accepted his
nomination were the Poitevin adventurer, John du Plessis, Earl of
Warwick, and John of Warenne, who was pledged to a royalist policy by
his marriage to Henry's half-sister, Alice of Lusignan. The only
bishops were, the queen's uncle, Boniface of Canterbury, and Fulk
Basset of London, the richest and noblest born of English prelates,
who, though well meaning, was too weak in character for continued
opposition. Yet these two were the most independent names on Henry's
list. The rest included the three Lusignan brothers, Guy, William, and
Aymer, still eight years after his election only elect of Winchester;
Henry of Almaine, the young son of the King of the Romans; the
pluralist official John Mansel; the chancellor, Henry Wingham; the
Dominican friar John of Darlington, distinguished as a biblical critic,
the king's confessor and the pope's agent; and the Abbot of
Westminster, an old man pledged by long years of dependence to do the
will of the second founder of his house. In strong contrast to these
creatures of court favour were the twelve nominees of the barons. The
only ecclesiastic was Walter of Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, and the
only alien was Earl Simon of Leicester. With him were three other
earls, Richard of Clare, Earl of Gloucester, Roger Bigod, earl marshal
and Earl of Norfolk, and Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford. Those of
baronial rank were Roger Mortimer, the strongest of the marchers, Hugh
Bigod, the brother of the earl marshal, John FitzGeoffrey, Richard
Grey, William Bardolf, Peter Montfort, and Hugh Despenser.
The twenty-four drew up a plan of reform which left little to be
desired in thoroughness. The Provisions of Oxford, as the new
constitution was styled, were speedily laid before the barons and
adopted. By it a standing council of fifteen was established, with
whose advice and consent Henry was henceforth to exercise all his
authority. Even this council was not to be without supervision. Thrice
in the year another committee of twelve was to treat with the fifteen
on the common affairs of the realm. This rather narrow body was
created, we are told, to save the expense involved in too frequent
meetings of the magnates. A third aristocratic junto of twenty-four was
appointed to make grants of money to the crown. All aliens were to be
expelled from office and from the custody of royal castles. New
ministers, castellans, and escheators were appointed under stringent
conditions and under the safeguard of new oaths. The original
twenty-four were not yet discharged from office. They had still to draw
up schemes for the reform of the household of king and queen, and for
the amendment of the exchange of London. Moreover, "Be it remembered,"
ran one of the articles, "that the estate of Holy Church be amended by
the twenty-four elected to reform the realm, when they shall find time
and place".
For the first time in our history the king was forced to stand aside
from the discharge of his undoubted functions, and suffer them to be
exercised by a committee of magnates. The conception of limited
monarchy, which had been foreshadowed in the early struggles of Henry's
long reign, was triumphantly vindicated, and, after weary years of
waiting, the baronial victors demanded more than had ever been
suggested by the most free interpretation of the Great Charter. The
body that controlled the crown was, it is true, a narrow one. But
whatever was lost by its limitation, was more than gained by the
absolute freedom of the whole movement from any suspicion of the
separatist tendencies of the earlier feudalism. The barons tacitly
accepted the principle that England was a unity, and that it must be
ruled as a single whole. The triumph of the national movement of the
thirteenth century was assured when the most feudal class of the
community thus frankly abandoned the ancient baronial contention that
each baron should rule in isolation over his own estates, a tradition
which, when carried out for a brief period under Stephen, had set up
"as many kings or rather tyrants as lords of castles". The feudal
period was over: the national idea was triumphant. This victory becomes
specially significant when we remember how large a share the barons of
the Welsh march, the only purely feudal region in the country, took in
the movement against the King.
The unity of the national government being recognised, it was another
sign of the times that its control should be transferred from the
monarch to a committee of barons. At this point the rigid conceptions
of the triumphant oligarchy stood in the way of a wide national policy.
Since the reign of John the custom had arisen of consulting the
representatives of the shire-courts on matters of politics and finance.
In 1258 there is not the least trace of a suggestion that parliament
could ever include a more popular element than the barons and prelates.
On the contrary, the Provisions diminished the need even for those
periodical assemblies of the magnates which had been in existence since
the earliest dawn of our history. For all practical purposes small
baronial committees were to perform the work of magnates and people as
well as of the crown. Yet it must be recognised that the barons showed
self-control, as well as practical wisdom, in handing over functions
discharged by the baronage as a whole to the various committees of
their selection. The danger of general control by the magnates was that
a large assembly, more skilled in opposition than in constructive work,
was almost sure to become infected by faction. By strictly limiting and
defining who the new rulers of England were to be, the barons
approached a combination of aristocratic control with the stability and
continuity resulting from limited numbers and defined functions. It is
likely, however, that in bestowing such extensive powers on their
nominees, they were influenced by the well-grounded belief that the new
constitution could only be established by main force, and that, even
when abandoned by the king, the aliens would make a good fight before
they gave up all that they had so long held in England. The success of
the new scheme largely depended upon the immediate execution of the
ordinance for the expulsion of the foreigners.
The first step taken to carry out the Provisions was the appointment of
the new ministers. The barons insisted on the revival of the office of
justiciar, and a strenuous and capable chief minister was found in Hugh
Bigod. It was advisable to go cautiously, and some of the king's
ministers were allowed to continue in office. An appeal to force was
necessary before the new constitution could be set up in detail. The
Savoyards bought their safety by accepting it; but the Poitevins,
seeing that flight or resistance were the only alternatives before
them, were spirited enough to prefer the bolder course. They were
specially dangerous because Edward and his cousin, Henry of Almaine,
the son of the King of the Romans, were much under their influence. In
the Dominican convent at Oxford the baronial leaders formed a sworn
confederacy not to desist from their purpose until the foreigners had
been expelled. There were more hot words between Leicester and William,
the most capable of the Lusignans. The Poitevins soon found that they
could not maintain themselves in the face of the general hatred. On
June 22 they fled from Oxford in the company of their ally, Earl
Warenne. They rode straight for the coast, but failing to reach it,
occupied Winchester, where they sought to maintain themselves in
Aymer's castle of Wolvesey. The magnates of the parliament then turned
against them the arms they professed to have prepared against the
Welsh. Headed by the new justiciar, Hugh Bigod, they besieged Wolvesey.
Warenne abandoned the aliens, and they gladly accepted the terms
offered to them by their foes. They were allowed to retain their lands
and some of their ready money, on condition of withdrawing from the
realm and surrendering their castles. By the middle of July they had
crossed over to France. With them disappeared the whole of the
organised opposition to the new government. Edward, deprived of their
support, swore to observe the Provisions.
Immediately on the flight of the Lusignans the council of Fifteen was
chosen after a fashion which seemed to give the king's friends an equal
voice with the champions of the aristocracy. Four electors appointed
it, and of these two were the nominees of the baronial section, and two
of the royalist section of the original twenty-four. The result of
their work showed that there was only one party left after the Wolvesey
fiasco. While only three of the king's twelve had places on the
permanent council, no less that nine of the fifteen were chosen from
the baronial twelve. It was useless for Archbishop Boniface, John
Mansel, and the Earl of Warwick to stand up against the Bishop of
Worcester, the Earls of Leicester, Norfolk, Hereford, and Gloucester,
against John FitzGeoffrey, Peter Montfort, Richard Grey, and Roger
Mortimer. Moreover, of the three, John Mansel alone could still be
regarded as a royalist partisan. There were three of the fifteen chosen
from outside the twenty-four. Of these, Peter of Savoy, Earl of
Richmond, might, like his brother Boniface, be regarded as an alien,
though hatred of the Poitevins had by this time made Englishmen of the
Savoyards. The other two, the marcher-lord James of Audley and William
of Fors, Earl of Albemarle, were of baronial sympathies. It was the
same with the other councils.
Inquiry was made as to abuses. Gradually the royal officials were
replaced by men of popular leanings. The sheriffs were changed and were
strictly controlled, and four knights from each shire assembled in
October to present to the king the grievances of the people against the
out-going sheriffs. The custody of the castles was put into trusty and,
for the most part, into English hands. Finally the king was forced to
issue a proclamation, in which he commanded all true men "steadfastly
to hold and to defend the statutes that be made or are to be made by
our counsellors". This document was issued in English as well as in
French and Latin. A copy of the English version was sent to every
sheriff, with instructions to read it several times a year in the
county court, so that a knowledge of its contents might be attained by
every man. It is perhaps the first important proclamation issued in
English since the coming of the Normans. Early in 1259 Richard, King of
the Romans, set out to revisit England. He was met at Saint Omer by a
deputation of magnates, who told him that he could only be allowed to
land after taking an oath to observe the Provisions. Richard blustered,
but soon gave in his submission. His adhesion to the reforms marks the
last step in the revolution.
The new constitution worked without interruption until the end of 1259.
Throughout that period domestic affairs were uneventful, and the
efforts of the ministry were chiefly concerned in securing peace
abroad. In 1258 Wales had been in revolt, Scotland unfriendly, and
France threatening. A truce, ill observed, was made with Llewelyn, who
found it worth while to be cautious, seeing that his natural enemies,
but sometime associates, the marchers, had a preponderant share in the
government. The Scots were easier to satisfy, for there was at the time
no real hostility between either kings or peoples. The chief event of
this period is the conclusion of the first peace with France since the
wars of John and Philip Augustus. The protracted negotiations which
preceded it took the king and his chief councillors abroad, and that
made it easier to carry on the new domestic system without friction.
Since the friendly personal intercourse held between Henry and Louis
IX. in 1254, the relations between England and France had become less
cordial. The revival of the English power in Gascony, the
Anglo-Castilian alliance, and the election of Richard of Cornwall to
the German kingship irritated the French, to whom the persistent
English claim to Normandy and Anjou, and the repudiation of the
Aquitanian homage, were perpetual sources of annoyance. The French
championship of Alfonso against Richard achieved the double end of
checking English pretensions, and cooling the friendship between
England and Castile. St. Louis, however, was always ready to treat for
peace, while the revolution of 1258 made all parties in England anxious
to put a speedy end to the unsettled relations between the two realms.
Negotiations were begun as early as 1257, and made some progress; but
the decisive step was taken immediately after the prorogation of the
reforming parliament in the spring of 1258. During May a strangely
constituted embassy treated for peace at Paris, where Montfort and Hugh
Bigod worked side by side with two of the Lusignans and Peter of Savoy.
They concluded a provisional treaty in time for the negotiators to take
their part in the Mad Parliament. The unsettled state of affairs in
England, however, delayed the ratification of the treaty. Arrangements
had been made for its publication at Cambrai, but the fifteen dared not
allow Henry to escape from their tutelage, and Louis refused to treat
save with the king himself. There were difficulties as to the relation
of the pope and the King of the Romans to the treaty, while Earl
Simon's wife Eleanor and her children refused to waive their very
remote claims to a share in the Norman and Angevin inheritances, which
her brother was prepared to renounce. As ever, Montfort held to his
personal rights with the utmost tenacity, and the self-seeking
obstinacy of the chief negotiator of the treaty caused both bad blood
and delay. At last he was bought off by the promise of a money payment,
and the preliminary ratifications were exchanged in the summer of 1259.
On November 14 Henry left England for Paris for the formal conclusion
of the treaty. There were great festivities on the occasion of the
meeting of the two kings, but once more Montfort and his wife blocked
the way. Not until the very morning of the day fixed for the final
ceremony were they satisfied by Henry's promise to deposit on their
behalf a large sum in the hands of the French. Immediately afterwards
Henry did homage to Louis for Gascony.
The chief condition of the treaty of Paris was Henry's definitive
renunciation of all his claims on Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and
Poitou, and his agreement to hold Gascony as a fief of the French
crown. In return for this, Louis not only recognised him as Duke of
Aquitaine, but added to his actual possessions there by ceding to him
all that he held, whether in fief or in demesne, in the three dioceses
of Limoges, Cahors, and Perigueux. Besides these immediate cessions,
the French king promised to hand over to Henry certain districts then
held by his brother, Alfonse of Poitiers, and his brother's wife Joan
of Toulouse, in the event of their dominions escheating to the crown by
their death without heirs. These regions included Agen and the Agenais,
Saintonge to the south of the Charente, and in addition the whole of
Quercy, if it could be proved by inquest that it had been given by
Richard I. to his sister Joan, grandmother of Joan of Poitiers, as her
marriage portion. Moreover the French king promised to pay to Henry the
sums necessary to maintain for two years five hundred knights to be
employed "for the service of God, or the Church, or the kingdom of
England."[1]
[1] For the treaty and its execution see M. Gavrilovitch,
_Etude sur le traite de Paris de 1259_ (1899).
The treaty was unpopular both in France and England. The French
strongly objected to the surrender of territory, and were but little
convinced of the advantage gained by making the English king once more
the vassal of France. English opinion was hostile to the abandonment of
large pretensions in return for so small an equivalent. On the French
side it is true that Louis sacrificed something to his sense of justice
and love of peace. But the territory he ceded was less in reality than
in appearance. The French king's demesnes in Quercy, Perigord, and
Limousin were not large, and the transference of the homage of the
chief vassals meant only a nominal change of overlordship, and was
further limited by a provision that certain "privileged fiefs" were
still to be retained under the direct suzerainty of the French crown.
As to the eventual cessions, Alfonse and his wife were still alive and
likely to live many years. Even the cession of Gascony was hampered by
a stipulation that the towns should take an "oath of security," by
which they pledged themselves to aid France against England in the
event of the English king breaking the provisions of the treaty.
Perhaps the most solid advantage Henry gained by the treaty was
financial, for he spent the sums granted to enable him to redeem his
crusading vow in preparing for war against his own subjects. It was,
however, an immense advantage for England to be able during the
critical years which followed to be free from French hostility. If,
therefore, the French complaints against the treaty were exaggerated,
the English dissatisfaction was unreasonable. The real difficulty for
the future lay in the fact that the possession of Gascony by the king
of a hostile nation was incompatible with the proper development of the
French monarchy. For fifty years, however, a chronic state of war had
not given Gascony to the French; and Louis IX. was, perhaps, politic as
well as scrupulous in abandoning the way of force and beginning a new
method of gradual absorption, that in the end gained the Gascon fief
for France more effectively than any conquest. The treaty of Paris was
not a final settlement. It left a score of questions still open, and
the problems of its gradual execution involved the two courts in
constant disputes down to the beginning of the Hundred Years' War. For
seventy years the whole history of the relations between the two
nations is but a commentary on the treaty of Paris.
During his visit to Paris Henry arranged a marriage between his
daughter Beatrice and John of Brittany, the son of the reigning duke.
In no hurry to get back to the tutelage of the fifteen, he prolonged
his stay on the continent till the end of April, 1260. Yet, abroad as
at home, he could not be said to act as a free man. It was not the king
so much as Simon of Montfort who was the real author of the French
treaty. Indeed, it is from the conclusion of the Peace of Paris that
Simon's preponderance becomes evident. He was at all stages the chief
negotiator of the peace and, save when his personal interests stood in
the way, he controlled every step of the proceedings. If in 1258 he was
but one of several leaders of the baronial party in England, he came
back from France in 1260 assured of supremacy. During his absence
abroad, events had taken place in England which called for his
presence.
After their triumph in 1258, the baronial leaders relaxed their efforts.
Contented with their position as arbiters of the national destinies,
they made little effort to carry out the reforms contemplated at Oxford.
The ranks of the victors were broken up by private dissensions. Before
leaving for France, Earl Simon violently quarrelled with Richard, Earl
of Gloucester. It was currently believed that Gloucester had grown
slack, and Simon rose in popular estimation as a thorough-going reformer
who had no mind to substitute the rule of a baronial oligarchy for the
tyranny of the king. His position was strengthened by his personal
qualities which made him the hero of the younger generation; and his
influence began to modify the policy of Edward the king's son, who,
since the flight of his Poitevin kinsmen, was gradually arriving at
broader views of national policy. Even before his father's journey to
France, Edward took up a line of his own. In the October parliament of
1259, he listened to a petition presented to the council by the younger
nobles[1] who complained that, though the king had performed all his
promises, the barons had not fulfilled any of theirs. Edward thereupon
stirred up the oligarchy to issue an instalment of the promised reforms
in the document known as the Provisions of Westminster. During Henry's
absence in France the situation became strained. The oligarchic party,
headed by Gloucester, was breaking away from Montfort; and Edward was
forming a liberal royalist party which was not far removed from
Montfort's principles. Profiting by these discords, the Lusignans
prepared to invade England. The papacy was about to declare against the
reformers. When the monks of Winchester elected an Englishman as their
bishop in the hope of getting rid of the queen's uncle, Alexander IV.
summoned Aymer to his court and consecrated him bishop with his own
hands.
[1] "Communitas bacheleriae Angliae," _Burton Ann_., p. 471.
_See on_ this, _Engl. Hist. Review_, xvii. (1902), 89-94.
Early in 1260, Montfort went back to England and made common cause with
Edward. Despite the king's order that no parliament should be held
during his absence abroad, Montfort insisted that the Easter parliament
should meet as usual at London. The discussions were hot. Montfort
demanded the expulsion of Peter of Savoy from the council, and Edward
and Gloucester almost came to blows. The Londoners closed their gates on
both parties, but the mediation of the King of the Romans prevented a
collision. Henry hurried home, convinced that Edward was conspiring
against him. The king threw himself into the city of London, and with
Gloucester's help collected an army. Meanwhile Montfort and Edward, with
their armed followers, were lodged at Clerkenwell, ready for war. Again
the situation became extremely critical, and again King Richard proved
the best peacemaker. Henry held out against his son for a fortnight, but
such estrangement was hard for him to endure. "Do not let my son appear
before me," he cried, "for if I see him, I shall not be able to refrain
from kissing him." A reconciliation was speedily effected, and nothing
remained of the short-lived alliance of Edward with Montfort save that
his feud with Gloucester continued until the earl's death.
The dissensions among the barons encouraged Henry to shake off the
tutelage of the fifteen. As soon as he was reconciled with his son, he
charged Leicester with treason.[1] "But, thanks _be_ to God, the earl
answered to all these points with such force that the king could do
nothing against him." Unable to break down his enemy by direct attack,
Henry followed one of the worst precedents of his father's reign by
beseeching Alexander IV. to relieve him of his oath to observe the
Provisions. On April 13, 1261, a bull was issued annulling the whole of
the legislation of 1258 and 1259, and freeing the king from his sworn
promise.
[1] Bemont, _Simon de Montfort_, Appendix xxxvii., pp. 343-53.
William of Valence was already back in England, and restored to his old
dignities. His return was the easier because his brother, Aymer, the
most hated of the Poitevins, had died soon after his consecration to
Winchester. On June 14, 1261, the papal bull was read before the
assembled parliament at Winchester. There Henry removed the baronial
ministers and replaced them by his own friends. Chief among the
sufferers was Hugh Despenser, who had succeeded Hugh Bigod as
justiciar; and Bigod himself was expelled from the custody of Dover
Castle. In the summer Henry issued a proclamation, declaring that the
right of choosing his council and garrisoning his castles was among the
inalienable attributes of the crown. England was little inclined to
rebel, for the return of prosperity and good harvests made men more
contented.
The repudiation of the Provisions restored unity to the baronage. The
defections had been serious, and it was said that only five of the
twenty-four still adhered to the opposition. But the crisis forced
Leicester and Gloucester to forget their recent feuds, and co-operate
once more against the king. They saw that their salvation from Henry's
growing strength lay in appealing to a wider public than that which
they had hitherto addressed. Still posing as the heads of the
government established by the Provisions, they summoned three knights
from each shire to attend an assembly at St. Alban's. This appeal to
the landed gentry alarmed the king so much that he issued counter-writs
to the sheriffs ordering them to send the knights, not to the baronial
camp at St. Alban's, but to his own court at Windsor. Neither party was
as yet prepared for battle. The death of Alexander IV, soon after the
publication of his bull tied the hands of the king. At the same time
the renewed dissensions of Leicester and Gloucester paralysed the
baronage. Before long Simon withdrew to the continent, leaving
everything in Gloucester's hands. At last, on December 7, a treaty of
pacification was patched up, and the king announced that he was ready
to pardon those who accepted its conditions. But there was no
permanence in the settlement, and the king, the chief gainer by it, was
soon pressing the new pope, Urban IV., to confirm the bull of
Alexander. On February 25, 1262, Urban renewed Henry's absolution from
his oath in a bull which was at once promulgated in England. Montfort
then came back from abroad and rallied the baronial party. In January,
1263, Henry once more confirmed the Provisions, and peace seemed
restored. The death of Richard of Gloucester during 1262 increased
Montfort's power. His son, the young Earl Gilbert, was Simon's devoted
disciple, but he was still a minor and the custody of his lands was
handed over to the Earl of Hereford. Montfort's personal charm
succeeded in like fashion in winning over Henry of Almaine.
The events of 1263 are as bewildering and as indecisive as those of the
two previous years. Amidst the confusion of details and the violent
clashing of personal and territorial interests, a few main principles
can be discerned. First of all the royalist party was becoming
decidedly stronger, and fresh secessions of the barons constantly
strengthened its ranks. Conspicuous among these were the lords of the
march of Wales, who in 1258 had been almost as one man on the side of
the opposition, but who by the end of 1263 had with almost equal
unanimity rallied to the crown.[1] The causes of this change of
front are to be found partly in public and partly in personal reasons.
In 1258 Henry III., like Charles I. in 1640, had alienated every class
of his subjects, and was therefore entirely at the mercy of his
enemies. By 1263 his concessions had procured for him a following, so
that he now stood in the same position as Charles after his concessions
to the Long Parliament made it possible for him to begin the Civil War
in 1642. A new royalist party was growing up with a wider policy and
greater efficiency than the old coterie of courtiers and aliens. Of
this new party Edward was the soul. He had dissociated himself from
Earl Simon, but he carried into his father's camp something of Simon's
breadth of vision and force of will. He set to work to win over
individually the remnant that adhered to Leicester. What persuasion and
policy could not effect was accomplished by bribes and promises. Edward
won over the Earl of Hereford, whose importance was doubled by his
custody of the Gloucester lands, the ex-justiciar Roger Bigod, and
above all Roger Mortimer.
[1] On this, and the whole marcher and Welsh aspect of the
period, 1258-1267, see my essay on Wales and _the March during
the Barons' Wars_ in _Owens College Historical Essays_, pp.
76-136 (1902).
The change of policy of the marchers was partly at least brought about
by their constant difficulties with the Prince of Wales. During the
period immediately succeeding the Provisions of Oxford, Llewelyn ceased
to devastate the marches. A series of truces was arranged which, if
seldom well kept, at least avoided war on a grand scale. Within Wales
Llewelyn fully availed himself of the respite from English war.
Triumphant over the minor chiefs, he could reckon upon the support of
every Welsh tenant of a marcher lord, and at last grew strong enough to
disregard the truces and wage open war against the marchers. It was in
vain that Edward, the greatest of the marcher lords, persuaded David,
the Welsh prince's brother, to rise in revolt against him. Llewelyn
devastated the four cantreds to the gates of Chester, and at last,
after long sieges, forced the war-worn defenders of Deganwy and Diserth
to surrender the two strong castles through which alone Edward had
retained some hold over his Welsh lands. It was the same in the middle
march, where Llewelyn turned his arms against the Mortimers, and robbed
them of their castles. Even in the south the lord of Gwynedd carried
everything before him. "If the Welsh are not stopped," wrote a southern
marcher, "they will destroy all the lands of the king as far as the
Severn and the Wye, and they ask for nothing less than the whole of
Gwent." Up to this point the war had been a war of Welsh against
English, but Montfort sought compensation for his losses in England by
establishing relations with the Welsh. The alliance between Montfort
and their enemy had a large share in bringing about the secession of
the marchers. Their alliance with Edward neutralised the action of
Montfort, and once more enabled Henry to repudiate the Provisions.
In the summer of 1263, Edward and Montfort both raised armies.
Leicester made himself master of Hereford, Gloucester, and Bristol, and
when Edward threw himself into Windsor Castle, he occupied Isleworth,
hoping to cut his enemy off from London, where the king and queen had
taken refuge in the Tower. But the hostility of the Londoners made the
Tower an uneasy refuge for them. On one occasion, when the queen
attempted to make her way up the Thames in the hope of joining her son
at Windsor, the citizens assailed her barge so fiercely from London
Bridge that she was forced to return to the Tower. The foul insults
which the rabble poured upon his mother deeply incensed Edward and he
became a bitter foe of the city for the rest of his life. For the
moment the hostility of London was decisive against Henry. Once more
the king was forced to confirm the Provisions, agree to a fresh
banishment of the aliens, and restore Hugh Despenser to the
justiciarship. This was the last baronial triumph. In a few weeks
Edward again took up arms, and was joined by many of Montfort's
associates, including his cousin, Henry of Almaine. Even the Earl of
Gloucester was wavering. The barons feared the appeal to arms, and
entered into negotiations. Neither side was strong enough to obtain
mastery over the other, and a recourse to arbitration seemed the best
way out of an impossible situation. Accordingly, on December, 1263, the
two parties agreed to submit the question of the validity of the
Provisions to the judgment of Louis IX.
The king and his son at once crossed the channel to Amiens, where the
French king was to hear both sides. A fall from his horse prevented
Leicester attending the arbitration, and the barons were represented by
Peter Montfort, lord of Beaudesert castle in Warwickshire, and
representative of an ancient Anglo-Norman house that was not akin to
the family of Earl Simon. Louis did not waste time, and on January 23,
1264, issued his decision in a document called the "Mise of Amiens,"
which pronounced the Provisions invalid, largely on the ground of the
papal sentence. Henry was declared free to select his own wardens of
castles and ministers, and Louis expressly annulled "the statute that
the realm of England should henceforth be governed by native-born
Englishmen". "We ordain," he added, "that the king shall have full
power and free jurisdiction over his realm as in the days before the
Provisions." The only consolation to the barons was that Louis declared
that he did not intend to derogate from the ancient liberties of the
realm, as established by charter or custom, and that he urged a general
amnesty on both parties. In all essential points Louis decided in
favour of Henry. Though the justest of kings, he was after all a king,
and the limitation of the royal authority by a baronial committee
seemed to him to be against the fundamental idea of monarchy. The pious
son of the Church was biassed by the authority of two successive popes,
and he was not unmoved by the indignation of his wife, the sister of
Queen Eleanor. A few weeks later Urban IV. confirmed the award.
The Mise of Amiens was too one-sided to be accepted. The decision to
refer matters to St. Louis had been made hastily, and many enemies of
the king had taken no part in it. They, at least, were free to
repudiate the judgment and they included the Londoners, the Cinque
Ports, and nearly the whole of the lesser folk of England. The
Londoners set the example of rebellion. They elected a constable and a
marshal, and joining forces with Hugh Despenser, the baronial
justiciar, who still held the Tower, marched out to Isleworth, where
they burnt the manor of the King of the Romans. "And this," wrote the
London Chronicler, "was the beginning of trouble and the origin of the
deadly war by which so many thousand men perished." The Londoners did
not act alone. Leicester refused to be bound by the award, though
definitely pledged to obey it. It was, he maintained, as much perjury
to abandon the Provisions as to be false to the promise to accept the
Mise of Amiens. After a last attempt at negotiation at a parliament at
Oxford, he withdrew with his followers and prepared for resistance.
"Though all men quit me," he cried, "I will remain with my four sons
and fight for the good cause which I have sworn to defend--the honour
of Holy Church and the good of the realm." This was no mere boast. The
more his associates fell away, the more the Montfort family took the
lead. While Leicester organised resistance in the south, he sent his
elder sons, Simon and Henry, to head the revolt in the midlands and the
west.
There was already war in the march of Wales when Henry Montfort crossed
the Severn and strove to make common cause with Llewelyn. But the Welsh
prince held aloof from him, and Edward himself soon made his way to the
march. At first all went well for young Montfort. Edward, unable to
capture Gloucester and its bridge, was forced to beg for a truce.
Before long he found himself strong enough to repudiate the armistice
and take possession of Gloucester. Master of the chief passage over the
lower Severn, Edward abandoned the western campaign and went with his
marchers to join his father at Oxford, where he at once stirred up the
king to activity. The masters of the university, who were strong
partisans of Montfort, were chased away from the town. Then the royal
army marched against Northampton, the headquarters of the younger
Simon, who was resting there, and, on April 4, the king and his son
burst upon the place. Their first assault was unsuccessful, but next
day the walls were scaled, the town captured, and many leading barons,
including young Simon, taken prisoner. The victors thereupon marched
northwards, devastated Montfort's Leicestershire estates, and thence
proceeded to Nottingham, which opened its gates in a panic.
Leicester himself had not been idle. While his sons were courting
disaster in the west and midlands, he threw himself into London, where
he was rapturously welcomed. The Londoners, however, became very
unruly, committed all sorts of excesses against the wealthy royalists,
and cruelly plundered and murdered the Jews. Montfort himself did not
disdain to share in the spoils of the Jewry, though he soon turned to
nobler work. He was anxious to open up communications with his allies
in the Cinque Ports. But Earl Warenne, in Rochester castle, blocked the
passage of the Dover road over the Medway. Accordingly Montfort marched
with a large following of Londoners to Rochester, captured the town,
and assaulted the castle with such energy that it was on the verge of
surrendering. The news of Warenne's peril reached Henry in the
midlands. In five days the royalists made their way from Nottingham to
Rochester, a distance of over 160 miles. On their approach Montfort
withdrew into London.
Flushed with their successes at Northampton and Rochester, the
royalists marched through Kent and Sussex, plundering and devastating
the lands of their enemies. Though masters of the open country, they
had to encounter the resistance of the Clare castles, and the solid
opposition of the Cinque Ports. Their presence on the south coast was
specially necessary, for Queen Eleanor, who had gone abroad, was
waiting, with an army of foreign mercenaries, on the Flemish coast, for
an opportunity of sailing to her husband's succour. The royal army was
hampered by want of provisions, and was only master of the ground on
which it was camped. As a first fruit of the alliance with Llewelyn,
Welsh soldiers lurked behind every hedge and hill, cut off stragglers,
intercepted convoys, and necessitated perpetual watchfulness. At last
the weary and hungry troops found secure quarters in Lewes, the centre
of the estates of Earl Warenne.
Montfort then marched southwards from the capital. Besides the baronial
retinues, a swarm of Londoners, eager for the fray, though unaccustomed
to military restraints, accompanied him. On May 13 he encamped at
Fletching, a village hidden among the dense oak woods of the Weald,
some nine miles north of Lewes. A last effort of diplomacy was
attempted by Bishop Cantilupe of Worcester who, despite papal censures,
still accompanied the baronial forces. But the royalists would not
listen to the mediation of so pronounced a partisan. Nothing therefore
was left but the appeal to the sword.
The royal army was the more numerous, and included the greater names.
Of the heroes of the struggle of 1258 the majority was in the king's
camp, including most of the lords of the Welsh march, and the hardly
less fierce barons of the north, whose grandfathers had wrested the
Great Charter from John. The returned Poitevins with their followers
mustered strongly, and the confidence of the royalists was so great
that they neglected all military preparations. The poverty of
Montfort's host in historic families attested the complete
disintegration of the party since 1263. Its strength lay in the young
enthusiasts, who were still dominated by the strong personality and
generous ideals of Leicester, such as the Earl of Gloucester, or
Humphrey Bohun of Brecon, whose father, the Earl of Hereford, was
fighting upon the king's side. Early on the morning of May 14 Montfort
arrayed his troops and marched southward in the direction of Lewes.
Dawn had hardly broken when the troops were massed on the summit of the
South Downs, overlooking Lewes from the north-west.
Lewes is situated on the right bank of a great curve of the river Ouse,
which almost encircles the town. To the south are the low-lying marshes
through which the river meanders towards the sea, while to the north,
east, and west are the bare slopes of the South Downs, through which
the river forces its way past the gap in which the town is situated. To
the north of the town lies the strong castle of the Warennes, wherein
Edward had taken up his quarters, while in the southern suburb the
Cluniac priory of St. Pancras, the chief foundation of the Warennes,
afforded lodgings for King Henry and the King of the Romans. When Simon
reached the summit of the downs, his movements were visible from the
walls. But the royal army was still sleeping and its sentinels kept
such bad watch that the earl was able to array his troops at his
leisure.
From the summit of the hills two great spurs, separated by a waterless
valley, slope down towards the north and west sides of the town. The
more northerly led straight to the castle, and the more southerly to
the priory. Montfort's plan was to throw his main strength on the
attack on the priory, while deluding the enemy into the belief that his
chief object was to attack the castle. He was not yet fully recovered
from his fall from his horse, and it was known that he generally
travelled in a closed car or horse-litter. This vehicle he posted in a
conspicuous place on the northerly spur, and planted over it his
standard. In front of it were massed the London militia, mainly
infantry and the least effective element in his host. Meanwhile the
knights and men-at-arms were mustered on the southerly spur under the
personal direction of Montfort, who held himself in the rear with the
reserve, while the foremost files were commanded by the young Earl of
Gloucester, whom Simon solemnly dubbed to knighthood before the
assembled squadrons. Then the two divisions of the army advanced
towards Lewes, hoping to find their enemies still in their beds.
At the last moment the alarm was given, and before the barons
approached the town, the royalists, pouring out of castle, town, and
priory, hastily took up their position face to face to the enemy. All
turned out as Montfort had foreseen. Edward, emerging from the castle
with his cousin Henry of Almaine, his Poitevin uncles, and the warriors
of the march, observed the standard of Montfort on the hill, and
supposing that the earl was with his banner, dashed impetuously against
the left wing of Leicester's troops. He soon found himself engaged with
the Londoners, who broke and fled in confusion before his impetuous
charge. Eager to revenge on the flying citizens the insults they had
directed against his parents, he pursued the beaten militia for many a
mile, inflicting terrible damage upon them. On his way he captured
Simon's standard and horse-litter, and slew its occupants, though they
were three royalist members of the city aristocracy detained there for
sure keeping. When the king's son drew rein he was many miles from
Lewes, whither he returned, triumphant but exhausted.
The removal of Edward and the marchers from the field enabled Montfort
to profit by his sacrifice of the Londoners. The followers of the two
kings on the left of the royalist lines could not withstand the weight
of the squadrons of Leicester and Gloucester. The King of the Romans
was driven to take refuge in a mill, where he soon made an ignominious
surrender. Henry himself lost his horse under him and was forced to
yield himself prisoner to Gilbert of Gloucester. The mass of the army
was forced back on to the town and priory, which were occupied by the
victors. Scarcely was their victory assured when Edward and the
marchers came back from the pursuit of the Londoners. Thereupon the
battle was renewed in the streets of the town. It was, however, too
late for the weary followers of the king's son to reverse the fortunes
of the day. Some threw themselves into the castle, where the king's
standard still floated; Edward himself took sanctuary in the church of
the Franciscans; many strove to escape eastwards over the Ouse bridge
or by swimming over the river. The majority of the latter perished by
drowning or by the sword: but two compact bands of mail-clad horsemen
managed to cut their way through to safety. One of these, a force of
some two hundred, headed by Earl Warenne himself, and his
brothers-in-law, Guy of Lusignan and William of Valence, secured their
retreat to the spacious castle of Pevensey, of which Warenne was
constable, and from which the possibility of continuing their flight by
sea remained open. Of greater military consequence was the successful
escape of the lords of the Welsh march, whose followers were next day
the only section of the royalist army which was still a fighting force.
This was the only immediate limitation to the fulness of Montfort's
victory. After seven weary years, the judgment of battle secured the
triumph of the "good cause," which had so long been delayed by the
weakness of his confederates and the treachery of his enemies. Not the
barons of 1258, but Simon and his personal following _were_ the real
conquerors at Lewes.
CHAPTER VI.
THE RULE OF MONTFORT AND THE ROYALIST RESTORATION.
On the day after the battle, Henry III. accepted the terms imposed upon
him by Montfort in a treaty called the "Mise of Lewes," by which he
promised to uphold the Great Charter, the Charter of the Forests, and
the Provisions of Oxford. A body of arbitrators was constituted, in
which the Bishop of London was the only Englishman, but which included
Montfort's friend, Archbishop Eudes Rigaud of Rouen; the new papal
legate, Guy Foulquois, cardinal-bishop of Sabina; and Peter the
chamberlain, Louis IX.'s most trusted counsellor, with the Duke of
Burgundy or Charles of Anjou, to act as umpire. These arbitrators were,
however, to be sworn to choose none save English councillors, and Henry
took oath to follow the advice of his native-born council in all
matters of state. An amnesty was secured to Leicester and Gloucester;
and Edward and Henry of Almaine surrendered as hostages for the good
behaviour of the marchers, who still remained under arms. By the
establishment of baronial partisans as governors of the castles,
ministers, sheriffs, and conservators of the peace, the administration
passed at once into the hands of the victorious party. Three weeks
later writs were issued for a parliament which included four knights
from every shire. In this assembly the final conditions of peace were
drawn up, and arrangements made for keeping Henry under control for the
rest of his life, and Edward after him, for a term of years to be
determined in due course. Leicester and Gloucester were associated with
Stephen Berkstead, the Bishop of Chichester, to form a body of three
electors. By these three a Council of Nine was appointed, three of whom
were to be in constant attendance at court; and without their advice
the king was to do nothing. Hugh Despenser was continued as justiciar,
while the chancery went to the Bishop of Worcester's nephew, Thomas of
Cantilupe, a Paris doctor of canon law, and chancellor of the
University of Oxford.
Once more a baronial committee put the royal authority into commission,
and ruled England through ministers of its own choice. While agreeing
in this essential feature, the settlement of 1264 did not merely
reproduce the constitution of 1258. It was simpler than its forerunner,
since there was no longer any need of the cumbrous temporary machinery
for the revision of the whole system of government, nor for the
numerous committees and commissions to which previously so many
functions had been assigned. The main tasks before the new rulers were
not constitution-making but administration and defence. Moreover, the
later constitution shows some recognition of the place due to the
knights of the shire and their constituents. It is less closely
oligarchical than the previous scheme. This may partly be due to the
continued divisions of the greater barons, but it is probably also in
large measure owing to the preponderance of Simon of Montfort. The
young Earl of Gloucester and the simple and saintly Bishop of
Chichester were but puppets in his hands. He was the real elector who
nominated the council, and thus controlled the government. Every act of
the new administration reflects the boldness and largeness of his
spirit.
The pacification after Lewes was more apparent than real, and there
were many restless spirits that scorned to accept the settlement which
Henry had so meekly adopted. The marchers were in arms in the west, and
were specially formidable because they detained in their custody the
numerous prisoners captured at the sack of Northampton. The fugitives
from Lewes were holding their own behind the walls of Pevensey, though
Earl Warenne and other leaders had made their escape to France, where
they joined the army which Queen Eleanor had collected on the north
coast for the purpose of invading England and restoring her husband to
power. The papacy and the whole official forces of the Church were in
bitter hostility to the new system. The collapse of Henry's rule had
ruined the papal plans in Sicily, where Manfred easily maintained his
ground against so strong a successor of the unlucky Edmund as Charles
of Anjou. The papal legate, Guy Foulquois, was waiting at Boulogne for
admission into England, and, far from being conciliated by his
appointment as an arbitrator, was dexterously striving to make the
arbitration ineffective, by summoning the bishops adhering to Montfort
to appear before him, and sending them back with orders to
excommunicate Earl Simon and all his supporters. The only gleam of hope
was to be found in the unwillingness of the King of France to interfere
actively in the domestic disputes of England. The death of Urban IV.
for the moment brought relief, but, after a long vacancy, the new pope
proved to be none other than the legate Guy, who in February, 1265,
mounted the papal throne as Clement IV. It was to no purpose that
Walter of Cantilupe assembled the patriotic bishops and appealed to a
general council, or that radical friars like the author of the _Song of
Lewes_ formulated the popular policy in spirited verse. The greatest
forces of the time were steadily opposed to the revolutionary
government, and rare strength and boldness were necessary to make head
against them.
Before the end of 1264 the vigour of Earl Simon triumphed over some of
his immediate difficulties. In August he summoned the military forces
of the realm to meet the threatened invasion. Adverse storms, however,
dispersed Queen Eleanor's fleet, and her mercenaries, weary of the long
delays that had exhausted her resources, went home in disgust. This
left Simon free to betake himself to the west, and on December 15 he
forced the marcher lords to accept a pacification called the Provisions
of Worcester, by which they agreed to withdraw for a year and a day to
Ireland, leaving their families and estates in the hands of the ruling
faction.
On the day after the signature of the treaty, Henry, who accompanied
Simon to the west, issued from Worcester the writs for a parliament
that sat in London from January to March in 1265. From the
circumstances of the case this famous assembly could only be a meeting
of the supporters of the existing government. So scanty was its
following among the magnates that writs of summons were only issued to
five earls and eighteen barons, though the strong muster of bishops,
abbots, and priors showed that the papal anathema had done little to
shake the fidelity of the clergy to Montfort's cause. The special
feature of the gathering, however, was the summoning of two knights
from every shire, side by side with the barons of the faithful Cinque
Ports and two representatives from every city and borough, convened by
writs sent, not to the sheriff, after later custom, but to the cities
and boroughs directly. It was the presence of this strong popular
element which long caused this parliament to be regarded as the first
really representative assembly in our history, and gained for Earl
Simon the fame of being the creator of the House of Commons. Modern
research has shown that neither of these views can be substantiated. It
was no novelty for the crown to strengthen the baronial parliaments by
the representatives of the shire-moots, and there were earlier
precedents for the holding meetings of the spokesmen of the cities and
boroughs. What was new was the combination of these two types of
representatives in a single assembly, which was convoked, not merely
for a particular administrative purpose, but for a great political
object. The real novelty and originality of Earl Simon's action lay in
his giving a fresh proof of his disposition to fall back upon the
support of the ordinary citizen against the hostility or indifference
of the magnates, to whom the men of 1258 wished to limit all political
deliberation. This is in itself a sufficient indication of policy to
give Leicester an almost unique position among the statesmen to whom
the development of our representative institutions are due. But just as
his parliament was not in any sense our first representative assembly,
so it did not include in any complete sense a House of Commons at all.
We must still wait for a generation before the rival and disciple of
Montfort, Edward, the king's son, established the popular element in
our parliament on a permanent basis. Yet in the links which connect the
early baronial councils with the assemblies of the three estates of the
fourteenth century, not one is more important than Montfort's
parliament of January, 1265.
The chief business of parliament was to complete the settlement of the
country. Simon won a new triumph in making terms with the king's son.
Edward had witnessed the failure of his mother's attempts at invasion,
the futility of the legatine anathema, and the collapse of the marchers
at Worcester. He saw it was useless to hold out any longer, and
unwillingly bought his freedom at the high price that Simon exacted. He
transferred to his uncle the earldom of Chester, including all the
lands in Wales that might still be regarded as appertaining to it. This
measure put Simon in that strong position as regards Wales and the west
which Edward had enjoyed since the days of his marriage. It involved a
breach in the alliance between Edward and the marchers, and the
subjection of the most dangerous district of the kingdom to Simon's
personal authority. It was safe to set free the king's son, when his
territorial position and his political alliances were thus weakened.
At the moment of his apparent triumph, Montfort's authority began to
decline. It was something to have the commons on his side: but the
magnates were still the greatest power in England, and in pressing his
own policy to the uttermost, Simon had fatally alienated the few great
lords who still adhered to him. There was a fierce quarrel in
parliament between Leicester and the shifty Robert Ferrars, Earl of
Derby. For the moment Leicester prevailed, and Derby was stripped of
his lands and was thrown into prison. But his fate was a warning to
others, and the settlement between Montfort and Edward aroused the
suspicions of the Earl of Gloucester. Gilbert of Clare was now old
enough to think for himself, and his close personal devotion to
Montfort could not blind him to the antagonism of interests between
himself and his friend. He was gallant, strenuous, and high-minded, but
quarrelsome, proud, and unruly, and his strong character was balanced
by very ordinary ability. His outlook was limited, and his ideals were
those of his class; such a man could neither understand nor sympathise
with the broader vision and wider designs of Leicester. Moreover, with
all Simon's greatness, there was in him a fierce masterfulness and an
inordinate ambition which made co-operation with him excessively
difficult for all such as were not disposed to stand to him in the
relation of disciple to master. And behind the earl were his
self-seeking and turbulent sons, set upon building up a family interest
that stood directly in the way of the magnates' claim to control the
state. Thus personal rivalries and political antagonisms combined to
lead Earl Gilbert on in the same course that his father, Earl Richard,
had traversed. The closest ally of Leicester became his bitterest
rival. The victorious party split up in 1265, as it had split up in
1263. And the dissolution of the dominant faction once more gave Edward
a better chance of regaining the upper hand than was to be hoped for
from foreign mercenaries and from papal support.
Gloucester was the natural leader of the lords of the Welsh march. He
was not only the hereditary lord of Glamorgan, but had received the
custody of William of Valence's forfeited palatinate of Pembroke. He
had shown self-control in separating himself so long from the marcher
policy; and his growing suspicion of the Montforts threw him back into
his natural alliance with them. Even after the treaty of Worcester, the
marchers remained under arms. They had obtained from the weakness of
the government repeated prolongations of the period fixed for their
withdrawal into Ireland. It was soon rumoured that they were sure of a
refuge in Gloucester's Welsh estates, and Leicester, never afraid of
making enemies, bitterly reproached Earl Gilbert with receiving the
fugitives into his lands. Shortly after the breaking up of parliament,
Gloucester fled to the march, and a little later William of Valence and
Earl Warenne landed in Pembrokeshire with a small force of men-at-arms
and crossbowmen. There was no longer any hope of carrying out the
Provisions of Worcester, and once more Montfort was forced to proceed
to the west to put down rebellion.
By the end of April Montfort was at Gloucester, accompanied by the king
and Edward, who, despite his submission, remained virtually a prisoner.
Earl Gilbert was master of all South Wales, and closely watched his
rival's movements from the neighbouring Forest of Dean. It was with
difficulty that Earl Simon and his royal captives advanced from
Gloucester to Hereford, but Earl Gilbert preferred to negotiate rather
than to push matters to extremities. He went in person to Hereford and
renewed his homage to the king. Arbitrators were appointed to settle
the disputes between the two earls, and a proclamation was issued
declaring that the rumour of dissension between them was "vain, lying,
and fraudulently invented". For the next few days harmony seemed
restored.
Gloucester's submission lured Leicester into relaxing his precautions.
His enemies took advantage of his remissness to hatch an audacious plot
which soon enabled them to renew the struggle under more favourable
conditions. Since his nominal release, Edward had been allowed the
diversions of riding and hunting, and on May 28 he was suffered to go
out for a ride under negligent or corrupt guard. Once well away from
Hereford, the king's son fled from his lax custodians and joined Roger
Mortimer, who was waiting for him in a neighbouring wood. On the next
day he was safe behind the walls of Mortimer's castle of Wigmore, and,
the day after, met Earl Gilbert at Ludlow, where he promised to uphold
the charters and expel the foreigners. Valence and Warenne hurried from
Pembrokeshire and made common cause with Edward and Gilbert. Edward
then took the lead in the councils of the marchers, who, from that
moment, obtained a unity of purpose and policy that they had hitherto
lacked. He and his allies could claim to be the true champions of the
Charters and the Provisions of Oxford against the grasping foreigner
who strove to rule over king and barons alike.
Montfort's small force was cut off from its base by the rapidity of the
marchers' movements. It was in vain that all the supporters of the
existing government were summoned to the assistance of the hard-pressed
army at Hereford. Before the end of June, Edward completed the conquest
of the Severn valley by the capture of the town and castle of
Gloucester. A broad river and a strong army stood between Montfort and
succour from England. Leicester then turned to Llewelyn of Wales, who
took up his quarters at Pipton, near Hay. There, on June 22, a treaty
was signed between the Welsh prince and the English king by which Henry
was forced to make huge concessions to Llewelyn in order to secure his
alliance. Llewelyn was recognised as prince of all Wales. The
overlordship over all the barons of Wales was granted to him, and the
numerous conquests, which he had made at the expense of the marchers,
were ceded to him in full possession.
Thus Llewelyn, like his grandfather in the days of the Great Charter,
profited by the dissensions of the English to obtain the recognition of
his claims which had invariably been refused when England was united.
The Welsh prince gained a unique opportunity of making his weight felt
in general English politics, but with all his ability he hardly rose to
the occasion. Montfort had pressing need of his help. A few days after
the treaty of Pipton, Gloucester Castle opened its gates to Edward, and
the marchers advanced westwards to seek out Earl Simon at Hereford.
Leicester fled in alarm before their overwhelming forces. He was driven
from the Wye to the Usk, and, beaten in a sharp fight on Newport
bridge, found refuge only by retreating up the Usk valley, whence he
escaped northwards into the hilly region where Llewelyn ruled over the
lands once dominated by the Mortimers. Before long Montfort's English
followers grew weary of the hard conditions of mountain warfare. With
their heavy armour and barbed horses it was difficult for them to
emulate the tactics of the Welsh, and they revolted against the simple
diet of milk and meat that contented their Celtic allies. They could
not get on without bread, and, as bread was not to be found among the
hills, they forced their leader to return to the richer regions of the
east. Llewelyn did little to help them in their need, and did not
accompany them in their march back to the Severn valley, though a large
but disorderly force of Welsh infantry still remained with Simon as the
fruit of the alliance with their prince.
By the end of July, Simon was once more in the Severn valley, seeking
for a passage over the river. On August 2 he found a ford over the
stream some miles south of Worcester. There he crossed with all his
forces and encamped for the night at Kempsey, one of Bishop Cantilupe's
manors on the left bank. His skill as a general had extricated him from
a position of the utmost peril. All might yet be regained if he could
join forces with an army of relief which his son Simon had slowly
levied in the south and midlands. But his quarrel with Gloucester and
his alliance with the Welsh had done much to undermine Montfort's
popularity, and the younger Simon had no appreciation of the necessity
for decisive action. Summoned from the long siege of Pevensey by his
father's danger, he wasted time in plundering the lands of the
royalists, and only left London on July 8, whence he led his men by
slow stages to Kenilworth. On July 31 young Simon's troops took up
their quarters for the night in the open country round Kenilworth
castle. They had no notion that the enemy was at hand and troubled
neither to defend themselves nor to keep watch. Edward, warned by spies
of their approach, abandoned his close guard of the Severn fords, and
in the early morning of August 1 fell suddenly upon the sleeping host
and scattered it with little difficulty. The younger Simon and a few of
his followers took refuge in the castle. As a fighting force the army
of relief ceased to exist.
Leicester, knowing nothing of his son's disaster, made his way, on
August 3, from Kempsey to Evesham, where he rested for the night. Next
morning, after mass and breakfast, the army was about to continue its
march, when scouts descried troops advancing upon the town. At first it
was hoped that they were the followers of young Simon, but their near
approach revealed them to be the army of the marchers. With
extraordinary rapidity Edward led his troops back to Worcester as soon
as he had won the fight at Kenilworth. Learning there that Simon had
crossed the river in his absence, he at once turned back to meet him,
seeking to elude his vigilance by a long night march by circuitous
routes. The result was that for the second time he caught his enemy in
a trap.
Evesham, like Lewes, stands on a peninsula. It is situated on the right
bank of a wide curve of the Avon, and approachable only by crossing
over the river, or by way of the sort of isthmus between the two bends
of the Avon a little to the north of the town. Edward occupied this
isthmus with his best troops, and thus cut off all prospect of escape
by land. The other means of exit from the town was over the bridge
which connects it with its south-eastern suburb of Bengeworth, on the
left bank of the river. Edward, however, took the precaution to detach
Gloucester with a strong force to hold Bengeworth, and thus prevent
Simon's escape over the bridge. The weary and war-worn host of
Montfort, then, was out-generalled in such fashion that effective
resistance to a superior force, flushed by recent victory, was
impossible. Simon himself saw that his last hour was come; yet he could
not but admire the skilful plan which had so easily discomfited him.
"By the arm of St. James," he declared, "they come on cunningly. Yet
they have not taught themselves that order of battle; they have learnt
it from me. God have mercy upon our souls, for our bodies are theirs."
Edward and Gloucester both advanced simultaneously to the attack. A
storm broke at the moment of the encounter, and the battle was fought
in a darkness that obscured the brightness of an August day.
Leicester's Welsh infantry broke at once before the charge of the
mail-clad horsemen, and took refuge behind hedges and walls, where they
were hunted out and butchered after the main fight was over. But the
men-at-arms struggled valiantly against Edward's superior forces,
though they were soon borne down by sheer numbers. Simon fought like a
hero and met a soldier's death. With him were slain his son Henry, his
faithful comrade Peter Montfort, the baronial justiciar Hugh Despenser,
and many other men of mark. A large number of prisoners fell into the
victor's hands, and King Henry, who unwillingly followed Simon in all
his wanderings, was wounded in the shoulder by his son's followers, and
only escaped a worse fate by revealing his identity with the cry: "Slay
me not! I am Henry of Winchester, your King." The marchers gratified
their rage by massacring helpless fugitives, and by mutilating the
bodies of the slain. Earl Simon's head was sent as a present to the
wife of Roger Mortimer; and it was with difficulty that the mangled
corpse found its last rest in the church of Evesham Abbey. His memory
long lived in the hearts of his adopted countrymen, and especially
among monks and friars, who despite the ban of the Church, hailed him
as another St. Thomas, for he too had lain down his life for the cause
of justice and religion. Miracles were worked at his tomb; liturgies
composed in his honour, and an informal popular canonisation, which no
papal censures could prevent, kept his memory green. His faults were
forgotten in the pathos of his end. His work survived the field of
Evesham and the reaction which succeeded it. His victorious nephew
learnt well the lesson of his career, and the true successor of the
martyred earl was the future Edward I.
No thoughts of policy disturbed the fierce passion of revenge which
possessed the victorious marchers. On August 7 Henry issued a
proclamation announcing that he had resumed the personal exercise of
the royal power. The baronial ministers and sheriffs were replaced by
royalist partisans. The acts of the revolutionary government were
denounced as invalid. The faithful city of London was cruelly
humiliated for its zeal for Earl Simon. The exiles, headed by Queen
Eleanor and Archbishop Boniface, returned from their long sojourn
beyond sea. With them came to England a new legate, the Cardinal
Ottobon, specially sent from the papal court to punish the bishops and
clergy that had persisted in their adherence to the popular cause. Four
prelates were excommunicated and suspended from their functions,
including Berkstead of Chichester and Cantilupe of Worcester. But the
aged Bishop of Worcester was delivered from persecution by death;
"snatched away," as a kindly foe says, "lest he should see evil days".
His nephew, Thomas of Cantilupe, the baronial chancellor, fled to
Paris, where he forsook politics for the study of theology. The widowed
Countess of Leicester was not saved by her near kindred to the king
from lifelong banishment. At last a general sentence of forfeiture was
pronounced against all who had fought against Edward, either at
Kenilworth or Evesham. There was a greedy scramble for the spoils of
victory. The greatest of these, Montfort's forfeited earldom of
Leicester, went to Edmund, the king's younger son. Edward took back the
earldom of Chester and all his old possessions. Roger Mortimer was
rewarded by grants of land and franchises which raised the house of
Wigmore to a position only surpassed by that of the strongest of the
earldoms.
At first the Montfort party showed an inclination to accept the defeat
at Evesham as decisive. Even young Simon of Montfort, who still held
out at Kenilworth, considered it prudent to restore his prisoner, the
King of the Romans, to liberty. But the victors' resolve to deprive all
their beaten foes of their estates, drove the vanquished into fresh
risings. The first centre of the revolt of the disinherited was at
Kenilworth, but before long the younger Simon abandoned the castle to
join a numerous band which had found a more secure retreat in the isle
of Axholme, amidst the marshes of the lower Trent. There they held
their own until the winter, when they were persuaded by Edward to
accept terms. A little later, Simon again revolted and joined the
mariners of the Cinque Ports, whose towns still held out against the
king, save Dover, which Edward had captured after a siege. Under
Simon's leadership the Cinque Ports played the part of pirates on all
merchants going to and from England. At last in March, 1266, Edward
forced Winchelsea to open its gates to him. He next turned his arms
against a valiant freebooter, Adam Gordon, who lurked with his band of
outlaws in the dense beech woods of the Chilterns. With the capture of
Adam Gordon, after a hand-to-hand tussle with Edward in which the
king's son narrowly escaped with his life, the resistance in the south
was at an end.
As one centre of rebellion was pacified other disturbances arose. In
the spring of 1266, Robert Ferrars, Earl of Derby, newly released from
the prison into which Earl Simon had thrown him, raised a revolt in his
own county. On May 15, 1266, Derby was defeated by Henry of Almaine at
Chesterfield. His earldom was transferred to Edmund, the king's son,
already Montfort's successor as Earl of Leicester, and in 1267 also
Earl of Lancaster, a new earldom, deriving its name from the youngest
of the shires.[1] Reduced to the Staffordshire estate of
Chartley, the house of Ferrars fell back into the minor baronage.
Kenilworth was still unconquered. Its walls were impregnable except to
famine, and before his flight to Axholme young Simon had procured
provisions adequate for a long resistance. The garrison harried the
neighbourhood with such energy that the whole levies of the realm were
assembled to subdue it. After a fruitless assault, the royalists
settled down to a blockade which lasted from midsummer to Christmas.
The legate, Ottobon, appearing in the besiegers' camp to excommunicate
the defenders, they in derision dressed up their surgeon in the red
robes of a cardinal, in which disguise he answered Ottobon's curses by
a travesty of the censures of the Church.
[1] For Edmund's estates and whole career, see W.E. Rhodes'
_Edmund, Earl of Lancaster_, in _Engl. Hist. Review_, x.
(1895), 19-40 and 209-37.
The blockade soon tried the patience of the barons. It was hard to keep
any medieval army long together, and the lords, anxious to go back to
their homes, complained of the harsh policy that compelled their long
attendance. The royalist host split up into two parties, led
respectively by Roger Mortimer and Earl Gilbert of Gloucester. The
cruel lord of Wigmore was the type of the extreme reaction. Intent only
on vengeance, booty, and ambition, Mortimer clamoured for violent
measures, and was eager to reject all compromises. Gloucester, on the
other hand, posed as the mediator, and urged the need of pacifying the
disinherited by mitigating the sentence of forfeiture which had driven
them into prolonged resistance. In the first flush of victory, Edward
had been altogether on Mortimer's side, but gradually statecraft and
humanity turned him from the reckless policy of the marcher. Edward's
adhesion to counsels of moderation changed the situation. While
Mortimer pressed the siege of Kenilworth, Edward and Gloucester met a
parliament at Northampton which agreed to uphold the policy of 1258 and
mitigate the hard lot of the disinherited. A document drawn up in the
camp at Kenilworth received the approval of parliament and was
published on October 31. The _Dictum de Kenilworth_, as it was called,
was largely taken up with assertions of the authority of the crown, and
denunciations of the memory of Earl Simon. More essential points were
the re-enactment of the Charters and the redress of some of the
grievances against which the Provisions of 1258 were directed. The
vital article, however, laid down that the stern sentence of forfeiture
against adherents of the fallen cause was to be remitted, and allowed
rebels to redeem their estates by paying a fine, which in most cases
was to be assessed at five years' value of their lands. Hard as were
these terms, they were milder than those which had previously been
offered to the insurgents. Yet the defenders of Kenilworth could not
bring themselves to accept them until December, when disease and famine
caused them to surrender. Despite their long-deferred submission, the
garrison was admitted to the terms of the _Dictum_.
Even then resistance was not yet over. A forlorn hope of the
disinherited, headed by John d'Eyville, established themselves about
Michaelmas in the isle of Ely, where they made themselves the terror of
all East Anglia, plundering towns so far apart as Norwich and
Cambridge, maltreating the Jews, and holding the rich citizens to
ransom. Early in 1267 the north-country baron, John of Vescy, rose in
Northumberland, and violently resumed possession of his forfeited
castle of Alnwick. While Henry tarried at Cambridge, Edward went north
and soon won over Vescy by the clemency which made the lord of Alnwick
henceforth one of his most devoted servants.
More formidable than the revolt of Eyville or Vescy was the ambiguous
attitude of Earl Gilbert of Gloucester. Roger Mortimer was once more
intriguing against him, and striving to upset the Kenilworth
compromise. After a violent scene between the two enemies in the
parliament at Bury, Gloucester withdrew to the march of Wales, where he
waged war against Mortimer. In April, 1267, he made his way with a
great following to London, professing that he wished to hold a
conference with the legate. It was a critical moment. Edward was still
in the north; Henry was wasting his time at Cambridge; the Londoners
welcomed Earl Gilbert as a champion of the good old cause; the legate
took refuge in the Tower, and the earl did not hesitate to lay siege to
the stronghold. Before long Gloucester was joined by Eyville and many
of the Ely fugitives. It seemed as if Gloucester was in as strong
position as Montfort had ever won, and that after two years of warfare
the verdict of Evesham was about to be reversed.
Edward marched south and joined forces with his father, who had moved
from Cambridge to Stratford, near London. Everything seemed to suggest
that the eastern suburbs of London would witness a fight as stubborn as
Lewes or Evesham. But Gloucester was not the man to press things to
extremities, and Edward though firm was conciliatory. He delivered
Ottobon from the hands of the rebels,[1] and then arranged a peace upon
terms which secured Gloucester's chief object of procuring better
conditions for the disinherited. Not only Earl Gilbert but Eyville and
his associates were admitted to the royal favour. A few desperadoes
still held out until July in the isle of Ely, and Edward devoted himself
to tracking them to their lairs. He built causeways of wattles over the
fens, which protected the disinherited in their last refuge. When he had
clearly shown his superiority, he offered the garrison of Ely the terms
of the _Dictum de Kenilworth_. With their acceptance of these conditions
the English struggle ended, in July, 1267, nearly two years after the
battle of Evesham.
[1] _Engl. Hist. Review_, xvii. (1902), 522.
Llewelyn still remained under arms. He had profited by the two years of
strife to deal deadly blows against the marchers. He conquered the
Mid-Welsh lands which had been granted to Mortimer, and devastated
Edward's Cheshire earldom. When Gloucester grew discontented with the
course of events, the old friend of Montfort became the close ally of
the man who had ruined Montfort's cause. A Welsh chronicler treats
Gloucester's march to London as a movement which naturally followed the
alliance of Gloucester and Llewelyn. On Gloucester's submission,
Llewelyn was left to his own resources. Edward had it in his power to
avenge past injuries by turning all his forces against his old enemy.
But the country was weary of war, and Edward preferred to end the
struggle. The legate Ottobon urged both Edward and the Welsh prince to
make peace, and in September, 1267, Henry and his son went down to
Shrewsbury, accompanied by Ottobon, who received from the king full
powers to treat with Llewelyn, and a promise that Henry would accept any
terms that he thought fit to conclude. Llewelyn thereupon sent
ambassadors to Shrewsbury, and the negotiations went on so smoothly that
on September 25 a definite treaty of peace was signed. On Michaelmas day
Henry met Llewelyn at Montgomery, received his homage, and witnessed the
formal ratification of the treaty.
By the treaty of Shrewsbury Llewelyn was recognised as Prince of Wales,
and as overlord of all the Welsh magnates, save the representative of
the old line of the princes of South Wales. The four cantreds, Edward's
old patrimony, were ceded to him; and though he promised to surrender
many of his conquests, he was allowed to remain in possession of great
tracts of land in Mid and South Wales, in the heart of the marcher
region.[1] Substantially the Welsh prince was recognised as holding the
position which he claimed from Montfort in the days of the treaty of
Pipton. Alone of Montfort's friends, Llewelyn came out of an
unsuccessful struggle upon terms such as are seldom obtained even by
victory in the field. The triumph of the Welsh prince is the more
remarkable because Edward and his ally, Mortimer, were the chief
sufferers by the treaty. But Edward had learnt wisdom during his
apprenticeship. He recognised that the exhaustion of the country
demanded peace at any price, and he dreaded the possibility of the
alliance of Llewelyn and Earl Gilbert. But whatever Edward's motives
may have been in concluding the treaty, it left Llewelyn in so strong a
position that he was encouraged to those fresh aggressions which in the
next reign proved the ruin of his power. The Welsh wars of Edward I.
are the best elucidation of the importance of the treaty of Shrewsbury.
The Welsh principality, which Edward as king was to destroy, was as
much the creation of the Barons' War as the outcome of the fierce
Celtic enthusiasm which found its bravest champion in the son of
Griffith.
[1] For the growth of Llewelyn's power see the maps of Wales in
1247 and 1267 in Owens College _Historical Essays_, pp. 76 and
135.
It was time to redeem the promises by which the moderate party had been
won over to the royalist cause. The statute of Marlborough of 1267
re-enacted in a more formal fashion the chief of the Provisions of
Westminster of 1259, and thus prevented the undoing of all the progress
attained during the years of struggle. Ottobon in 1268 held a famous
council at London, in which important canons were enacted with a view
to the reformation of the Church. A little later the Londoners received
back their forfeited charters and the disinherited were restored to
their estates. After these last measures of reparation, England sank
into a profound repose that lasted for the rest of the reign of Henry
III. A happy beginning of the years of peace was the dedication of the
new abbey of Westminster, and the translation of the body of St. Edward
to the new shrine, whose completion had long been the dearest object of
the old king's life.
At this time Louis IX. was meditating his second crusade, and in every
country in Europe the friars were preaching the duty of fighting the
infidel. Nowhere save in France did the Holy War win more powerful
recruits than in England. In 1268 Edward himself took the cross, [1] and
with him his brother Edmund of Lancaster, his cousin Henry of Almaine,
and many leading lords of both factions. Financial difficulties delayed
the departure of the crusaders, and it was not until 1270 that Edward
and Henry were able to start. On reaching Provence, they learnt that
Louis had turned his arms against Tunis, whither they followed him with
all speed. On Edward's arrival off Tunis, he found that Louis was dead
and that Philip III., the new French king, had concluded a truce with
the misbelievers. Profoundly mortified by this treason to Christendom,
Edward set forth with his little squadron to Acre, the chief town of
Palestine that still remained in Christian hands. Henry of Almaine
preferred to return home at once, but on his way through Italy was
murdered at Viterbo by the sons of Earl Simon of Montfort, a deed of
blood which revived the bitterest memories of the Barons' War. Edward
remained in Palestine until August, 1272, and threw all his wonted fire
and courage into the hopeless task of upholding the fast-decaying Latin
kingdom. At last alarming news of his father's health brought him back
to Europe.
[1] For Edward's crusade see Riant's article in _Archives de
l'Orient Latin_, i., 617-32 (1881).
On November 16, 1272, Henry III., then in his sixty-sixth year, died at
Westminster. His remains were laid at rest in the neighbouring abbey
church, hard by the shrine of St. Edward. With him died the last of his
generation. St. Louis' death in August, 1270, has already been recorded.
The death of Clement IV. in 1268 was followed by a three years' vacancy
in the papacy. This was scarcely over when Richard, King of the Romans,
prostrated by the tragedy of Viterbo, preceded his brother to the tomb.
Still earlier, Boniface of Canterbury had ended his tenure of the chair
of St. Augustine. The new reign begins with fresh actors and fresh
motives of action.
CHAPTER VII.
THE EARLY FOREIGN POLICY AND LEGISLATION OF EDWARD I.
The Dominican chronicler, Nicholas Trivet, thus describes the
personality of Edward I.: "He was of elegant build and lofty stature,
exceeding the height of the ordinary man by a head and shoulders. His
abundant hair was yellow in childhood, black in manhood, and snowy white
in age. His brow was broad, and his features regular, save that his left
eyelid drooped somewhat, like that of his father, and hid part of the
pupil. He spoke with a stammer, which did not, however, detract from the
persuasiveness of his eloquence. His sinewy, muscular arms were those of
the consummate swordsman, and his long legs gave him a firm hold in the
saddle when riding the most spirited of steeds. His chief delight was in
war and tournaments, but he derived great pleasure from hawking and
hunting, and had a special joy in chasing down stags on a fleet horse
and slaying them with a sword instead of a hunting spear. His
disposition was magnanimous, but he was intolerant of injuries, and
reckless of dangers when seeking revenge, though easily won over by a
humble submission."[1] The defects of his youth are well brought out by
the radical friar who wrote the _Song of Lewes_. Even to the partisan of
Earl Simon, Edward was "a valiant lion, quick to attack the strongest,
and fearing the onslaught of none. But if a lion in pride and
fierceness, he was a panther in inconstancy and mutability, changing his
word and promise, cloaking himself by pleasant speech. When he is in a
strait he promises whatever you wish, but as soon as he has escaped he
forgets his promise. The treachery or falsehood, whereby he is advanced,
he calls prudence; the way whereby he arrives whither he will, crooked
though it be, he regards as straight; whatever he likes he says is
lawful, and he thinks he is released from the law, as though he were
greater than a king."[2]
[1] _Annals_, pp. 181-82.
[2] _Song_ of _Lewes_, pp. 14-15, ed. Kingsford.
Hot and impulsive in disposition, easily persuaded that his own cause
was right, and with a full share in the pride of caste, Edward
committed many deeds of violence in his youth, and never got over his
deeply rooted habit of keeping the letter of his promise while
violating its spirit. Yet he learnt to curb his impetuous temper, and
few medieval kings had a higher idea of justice or a more strict regard
to his plighted word. "Keep troth" was inscribed upon his tomb, and his
reign signally falsified the prediction of evil which the Lewes
song-writer ventured to utter. A true sympathy bound him closely to his
nobles and people. His unstained family life, his piety and religious
zeal, his devotion to friends and kinsfolk, his keen interest in the
best movements of his time, showed him a true son of Henry III. But his
strength of will and seriousness of purpose stand in strong contrast to
his father's weakness and levity. A hard-working, clear-headed,
practical, and sober temperament made him the most capable king of all
his line. He may have been wanting in originality or deep insight, yet
it is impossible to dispute the verdict that has declared him to be the
greatest of all the Plantagenets.
The broad lines of Edward's policy during the thirty-five years of his
kingship had already been laid down for him during his rude schooling.
The ineffectiveness of his father's government inspired him with a love
of strong rule, and this enabled him to grapple with the chronic
maladministration which made even a well-ordered medieval kingdom a
hot-bed of disorder. The age of Earl Simon had been fertile in new
ideals and principles of government. Edward held to the best of the
traditions of his youth, and his task was not one of creation so much
as of selection. His age was an age of definition. The series of great
laws, which he made during the earlier half of his reign, represented a
long effort to appropriate what was best in the age that had gone
before, and to combine it in orderly sequence. The same ideals mark the
constitutional policy of his later years. The materials for the future
constitution of England were already at his hand. It was a task well
within Edward's capacity to strengthen the authority of the crown by
associating the loyal nobles and clergy in the work of ruling the
state, and to build up a body politic in which every class of the
nation should have its part. Yet he never willingly surrendered the
most insignificant of his prerogatives, and if he took the people into
partnership with him, he did so with the firm belief that he would be a
more powerful king if his subjects loved and trusted him. Though
closely associated with his nobles by many ties of kinship and
affection, he was the uncompromising foe of feudal separatism, and
hotly resented even the constitutional control which the barons
regarded as their right. In the same way the unlimited franchises of
the lords of the Welsh march, the almost regal authority which the
treaty of Shrewsbury gave to the Prince of Wales, the rejection of his
claims as feudal overlord of Scotland, were abhorrent to his autocratic
disposition. True son of the Church though he was, he was the bitter
foe of ecclesiastical claims which, constantly encroaching beyond their
own sphere, denied kings the fulness of their authority.
Edward's policy was thoroughly comprehensive. He is not only the
"English Justinian" and the creator of our later constitution; he has
rightly been praised for his clear conception of the ideal of a united
Britain which brought him into collision with Welsh and Scots. His
foreign policy lay as near to his heart as the conquest of Wales or
Scotland, or the subjection of priests and nobles. He was eager to make
Gascony obey him, anxious to keep in check the French king, and to
establish a sort of European balance of power, of which England, as in
Wolsey's later dreams, was to be the tongue of the balance. Yet,
despite his severe schooling in self-control, he undertook more than he
could accomplish, and his failure was the more signal because he found
the utmost difficulty in discovering trustworthy subordinates.
Moreover, the limited resources of a medieval state, and the even more
limited control which a medieval ruler had over these resources, were
fatal obstacles in the way of too ambitious a policy. Edward had
inherited his father's load of debt, and could only accomplish great
things by further pledging his credit to foreign financiers, against
whom his subjects raised unending complaints. Yet, if his methods of
attaining his objects were sometimes mean and often violent, there was
a rare nobility about his general purpose.
Every precaution was taken to secure Edward's succession and the
establishment of the provisional administration which was to rule until
his return. Before leaving England in 1270, Edward had appointed as his
agents Walter Giffard, Archbishop of York, Roger Mortimer, and Robert
Burnell, his favourite clerk. The vacancy of the see of Canterbury
after Boniface's death placed Giffard in a position of peculiar
eminence. Appointed first lord of the council, he virtually became
regent; and he associated with himself in the administration of the
realm his two colleagues in the management of the new king's private
affairs. Early in 1273 a parliament of magnates and representatives of
shires and boroughs took oaths of allegiance to the king and continued
the authority of the three regents. By the double title of Edward's
personal delegation and the recognition of the estates, Giffard,
Mortimer, and Burnell ruled the country for the two years which were to
elapse before the sovereign's return. Their government was just,
economical, and peaceful. Even Gilbert of Gloucester remained quiet,
and, save for the refusal of the Prince of Wales to perform his feudal
obligations, the calm of the last years of the old reign continued. It
is evidence of constitutional progress that the administration was
carried on with so little friction in the absence of the monarch. Roger
Mortimer, the most formidable of the feudal baronage, was himself one
of the agents of this salutary change. The marcher chieftain put down
with promptitude an attempted revolt of north-country knights which
threatened public tranquillity.
Edward first heard of his father's death in Sicily, but the tidings of
the maintenance of peace rendered it unnecessary for him to hasten his
return, and he made his way slowly through Italy. In Sicily he was
entertained by his uncle, Charles of Anjou. Thence he went to Orvieto,
where the new pope, Gregory X., who, as archdeacon of Liege, had been
the comrade of his crusade, was then residing. From king and pope alike
Edward earnestly sought vengeance for the murder of Henry of Almaine.
Proceeding northwards, he was received with great pomp by the cities of
Lombardy, and made personal acquaintance with Savoy and its count,
Philip, his aged great-uncle. Crossing the Mont Cenis, he was welcomed
by bands of English magnates who had gone forth to meet him. He was
soon at the head of a little army, and in the true spirit of a hero of
romance halted to receive the challenge of the boastful Count of
Chalon. The tournament between the best knights of England and Burgundy
was fought out with such desperation that it became a serious battle.
At last Edward unhorsed the count in a personal encounter, which added
greatly to his fame. This "Little Battle of Chalon" was the last
victory of his irresponsible youth.
The serious business of kingcraft began when Edward met his cousin,
Philip III., at Paris. The news from England was still so good that
Edward resolved to remain in France with the twofold object of settling
his relations with the French monarchy and of receiving the homage and
regulating the affairs of Aquitaine. Despite the treaty of Paris of
1259, there were so many subjects of dispute between the English and
French kings that, beneath the warm protestations of affection between
the kinsmen, there was, as a French chronicler said, but a cat-and-dog
love between them.[1] The treaty had not been properly executed, and the
English had long complained that the French had not yielded up to
England their king's rights over the three bishoprics of Limoges,
Cahors, and Perigueux, which St. Louis had ceded. New complications
arose after the death of Alfonse of Poitiers in the course of the
Tunisian crusade. By the treaty of Paris the English king should then
have entered into possession of Saintonge south of the Charente, the
Agenais, and lower Quercy. But the ministers of Philip III. laid hands
upon the whole of Alfonse's inheritance and refused to surrender these
districts to the English. The welcome which Edward received from his
cousin at Paris could not blind him to the incompatibility of their
interests, nor to the impossibility of obtaining at the moment the
cession of the promised lands. He did not choose to tarry at Paris while
the diplomatists unravelled the tangled web of statecraft. Nor would he
tender an unconditional homage to the prince who withheld from him his
inheritance. Already a stickler for legal rights, even when used to his
own detriment, Edward was unable to deny his subjection to the overlord
of Aquitaine. He therefore performed homage, but he phrased his
submission in terms which left him free to urge his claims at a more
convenient season. "Lord king," he said to Philip, "I do you homage for
all the lands which I ought to hold of you." The vagueness of this
language suggested that, if Edward could not get Saintonge, he might
revive his claim to Normandy. The king appointed a commission to
continue the negotiations with the French court, and then betook himself
to Aquitaine.[2]
[1] "Hic amor dici potest amor cati et canis," _Chron. Limov._,
in _Recueil des Hist. de la France_, xxi., 784.
[2] C.V. Langlois' _Le Regne de Philippe le Hardi_ (1887), and
Gavrilovitch's _Le Traite de Paris_, give the best modern
accounts of Edward's early dealings with the French crown.
It was nearly ten years since the presence of the monarch had
restrained the turbulence of the Gascon duchy. Edward had before him
the task of watching over its internal administration, and checking the
subtle policy whereby the agents of the French crown were gradually
undermining his authority. Two wars, the war of Bearn and the war of
Limoges, desolated Gascony from the Pyrenees to the Vienne. It was
Edward's first task to bring these troubles to an end. Age and
experience had not diminished the ardour which had so long made Gaston
of Bearn the focus of every trouble in the Pyrenean lands. He defied a
sentence of the ducal court of Saint Sever, and was already at war with
the seneschal, Luke of Tany, when Edward's appearance brought matters
to a crisis. During the autumn and winter of 1273-74, Edward hunted out
Gaston from his mountain strongholds, and at last the Bearnais,
despairing of open resistance, appealed to the French king. Philip
accepted the appeal, and ordered Edward to desist from molesting Gaston
during its hearing. The English king, anxious not to quarrel openly
with the French court, granted a truce. The suit of Gaston long
occupied the parliament of Paris, but the good-will of the French
lawyers could not palliate the wanton violence of the Viscount of
Bearn. The French, like the English, were sticklers for formal right,
and were unwilling to push matters to extremities. Edward had the
reward of his forbearance, for Philip advised Gaston to go to England
and make his submission. Gratified by his restoration to Bearn in 1279,
Gaston remained faithful for the next few years. Edward was less
successful in dealing with Limoges. There had been for many years a
struggle between the commune of the castle, or _bourg_, of Limoges and
Margaret the viscountess. It was to no purpose that the townsfolk had
invoked the treaty of Paris, whereby, as they maintained, the French
king transferred to the King of England his ancient jurisdiction over
them. They were answered by a decree of the parliament of Paris that
the homage of the commune of Limoges belonged not to the crown but to
the viscountess, and that therefore the treaty involved no change in
their allegiance. Edward threw himself with ardour on to the side of
the burgesses. Guy of Lusignan, still the agent of his brother abroad,
though prudently excluded from England, was sent to Limoges, where he
incited the commune to resist the viscountess. In May, 1274, Edward
himself took up his quarters in Limoges, and for a month ruled there as
sovereign. But the French court reiterated the decree which made the
commune the vassal of the viscountess. To persevere in upholding the
rebels meant an open breach with the French court in circumstances more
unfavourable than in the case of Gaston of Bearn. Once more Edward
refused to allow his ambition to prevail over his sense of legal
obligation. With rare self-restraint he renounced the fealty of
Limoges, and abandoned his would-be subjects to the wrath of the
viscountess. This was an act of loyalty to feudal duty worthy of St.
Louis. If Edward, on later occasions, pressed his own legal claims
against his vassals, he set in his own case a pattern of strict
obedience to his overlord.
While Edward was still abroad, his friend Gregory X. held from May to
July, 1274, the second general council at Lyons, wherein there was much
talk of a new crusade, and an effort was made, which came very near
temporary success, towards healing the schism of the Eastern and
Western Churches. At Gregory's request Edward put off his coronation,
lest the celebration might call away English prelates from Lyons. When
the council was over, he at last turned towards his kingdom. At Paris
he was met by the mayor of London, Henry le Waleis, and other leading
citizens, who set before him the grievous results of the long disputes
with Flanders, which had broken off the commercial relations between
the two countries, and had inflicted serious losses on English trade.
Edward strove to bring the Flemings to their senses by prohibiting the
export of wool from England to the weaving towns of Flanders. The looms
of Ghent and Bruges were stopped by reason of the withholding of the
raw material, and the distress of his subjects made Count Guy of
Flanders anxious to end so costly a quarrel. On July 28 Edward met Guy
at Montreuil and signed a treaty which re-established the old
friendship between lands which stood in constant economic need of each
other. There was no longer any occasion for further delay, and on
August 2 Edward and his queen crossed over to Dover. Received with open
arms by his subjects, he was crowned at Westminster on August 19 by the
new Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Kilwardby, philosopher,
theologian, and Dominican friar, whom Gregory X. had placed over the
church of Canterbury, despite the vigorous efforts which Edward made to
secure the primacy for Robert Burnell. He had been absent from England
for four years.
Edward's sojourn in France was fruitful of results which he was unable
to reap for the moment. Conscious of the inveterate hostility of the
French king, he strove to establish relations with foreign powers to
counterbalance the preponderance of his rival. When the death of
Richard of Cornwall reopened the question of the imperial succession,
Charles of Anjou had been anxious to obtain the prize for his nephew,
Philip III., on the specious pretext that the headship of Christendom
would enable the King of France to "collect chivalry from all the
world" and institute the crusade which both Gregory X. and Edward so
ardently desired. But the most zealous enthusiast for the holy war
could hardly be deceived by the false zeal with which the Angevin
cloaked his overweening ambition. It was a veritable triumph for
Edward, when Gregory X., though attracted for a moment by the prospect
of a strong emperor capable of landing a crusade, accepted the choice
of the German magnates who, in terror of France, elected as King of the
Romans the strenuous but not overmighty Swabian count, Rudolf of
Hapsburg. As Alfonso of Castile's pretensions were purely nominal, this
election ended the Great Interregnum by restoring the empire on a
narrower but more practical basis. Though Gregory strove to reconcile
the French to Rudolf's accession, common suspicion of France bound
Edward and the new King of the Romans in a common friendship.
Family disputes soon destroyed the unity of policy of the Capetian
house. Philip III., well meaning but weak, was drifting into complete
dependence on Charles of Anjou, whom Edward distrusted, alike as the
protector of the murderers of Henry of Almaine and as the supplanter of
his mother in the Provencal heritage. Margaret of Provence, the widow
of St. Louis, had a common grievance with Edward and his mother against
Charles of Anjou. She hated him the more inasmuch as he was depriving
her of all influence over her son, King Philip. It was easy in such
circumstances for the two widowed queens of France and England to form
grandiose schemes for ousting Charles from Provence. Rudolf lent
himself to their plans by investing Margaret with the county. Edward's
filial piety and political interests made him a willing partner in
these designs. In 1278 he betrothed his daughter Joan of Acre to
Hartmann, the son of the King of the Romans. The plan of Edward and
Rudolf was to revive in some fashion the kingdom of Arles[1] in favour
of the young couple. Though Rudolf was unfaithful to this policy, and
abandoned the proposed English marriage in favour of a match between
his daughter and the son of the King of Sicily, the two queens
persisted in their plans, and new combinations against Charles and
Philip for some years threatened the peace of Europe.
[1] Fournier's _Le Royaume d'Arles et de Vienne_ (1891) gives
the best modern account of Edward's relations to the Middle
Kingdom.
It is unlikely that Edward hoped for serious results from schemes so
incoherent and backed with such slender resources. Besides his alliance
with the emperor, he strove to injure the French king by establishing
close relations with his brother-in-law, Alfonso of Castile, who since
1276 was at war with the French. Earlier than this, he made himself the
champion of Blanche of Artois, the widow of Henry III. of Navarre and
Champagne. He wished that Joan, their only child, should bring her
father's lands to one of his own sons, and, though disappointed in this
ambition, he managed to marry his younger brother, Edmund of Lancaster,
to Blanche. Though the French took possession of Navarre, whereby they
alike threatened Gascony and Castile, they suffered Blanche to rule in
Champagne in her daughter's name, and Edmund was associated with her in
the government of that county. The tenure of a great French fief by the
brother of the English king was a fresh security against the
aggressions of the kings of France and Sicily. It probably facilitated
the conclusion of the long negotiations as to the interpretation of the
treaty of Paris, and the partition of the inheritance of Alfonse of
Poitiers. Edward's position against France was further strengthened in
1279 by the death of his wife's mother, Joan of Castile, the widow of
Ferdinand the Saint and the stepmother of Alfonso the Wise, whereupon
he took possession of Ponthieu in Eleanor's name. Scarcely had he
established himself at Abbeville, the capital of the Picard county,
than the negotiations at Paris were so far ripened that Philip III.
went to Amiens, where Edward joined him. On May 23 both kings agreed to
accept the treaty of Amiens by which the more important of the
outstanding difficulties between the two nations were amicably
regulated. By it Philip recognised Eleanor as Countess of Ponthieu, and
handed over a portion of the inheritance of Alfonse of Poitiers to
Edward. Agen and the Agenais were ceded at once, and a commission was
appointed to investigate Edward's claims over lower Quercy. In return
for this Edward yielded up his illusory rights over the three
bishoprics of Limoges, Perigueux, and Cahors. It was a real triumph for
English diplomacy.
No lasting peace could arise from acts which emphasised the essential
incompatibility of French and English interests by enlarging the
territory of the English kings in France. The undercurrent of hostility
still continued; and the proposal of Pope Nicholas III. that Edward
should act as mediator between Philip III. and Alfonso of Castile led
to difficulties that deeply incensed Edward, and embroiled him once
more both with France and Spain. Under Angevin influence, both Philip
and Alfonso rejected Edward's mediation in favour of that of the Prince
of Salerno, Charles of Anjou's eldest son. Disgust at this
unfriendliness made Edward again support the plans of Margaret of
Provence against the Angevins. In 1281 Margaret's intrigues formed a
combination of feudal magnates called the League of Macon, with the
object of prosecuting her claims over Provence by force of arms. Edward
and his mother, Eleanor, his Savoyard kinsfolk, and Edmund of Lancaster
all entered into the league. But it was hopeless for a disorderly crowd
of lesser chieftains, with the nominal support of a distant prince like
Edward, to conquer Provence in the teeth of the hostility of the
strongest and the ablest princes of the age. The League of Macon came
to nothing, like so many other ambitious combinations of a time in
which men's capacity to form plans transcended their capacity to
execute them. Margaret herself soon despaired of the way of arms and
was bought off by a money compensation. The league mainly served to
keep alive the troubles that still separated England and France. In
1284 Philip gained a new success in winning the hand of Joan of
Champagne, Count Edmund's step-daughter, for his son, the future Philip
the Fair. When Joan attained her majority, Edmund lost the custody of
Champagne, which went to the King of France as the natural protector of
his son and his son's bride. With his brother's withdrawal from Provins
to Lancaster, Edward lost one of his means of influencing the course of
French politics.
A compensation for these failures was found in 1282 when the Sicilian
vespers rang the knell of the Angevin power in Sicily. When the
revolted islanders chose Peter, King of Aragon, as their sovereign,
Charles, seeking to divert him from Sicily by attacking him at home,
inspired his partisan, Pope Martin IV., to preach a crusade against
Aragon. It was in vain that Edward strove to mediate between the two
kings.
The only response made to his efforts was a fantastic proposal that
they should fight out their differences in a tournament at Bordeaux
with him as umpire, but Edward refused to have anything to do with the
pseudo-chivalrous venture. At last, in 1285, Philip III. lent himself
to his uncle's purpose so far as to lead a papalist crusade over the
Pyrenees. The movement was a failure. Philip lost his army and his life
in Aragon, and his son and successor, Philip IV., at once withdrew from
the undertaking. In the year of the crusade of Aragon, Charles of
Anjou, Peter of Aragon, and Martin IV. died. With them the struggles,
which had begun with the attack on Frederick II, reached their
culminating point. Their successors continued the quarrel with
diminished forces and less frantic zeal, and so gave Edward his best
chance to pose as the arbiter of Europe. Though Edward's continental
policy lay so near his heart that it can hardly be passed over, it was
fuller of vain schemes than of great results. Yet it was not altogether
fruitless, since twelve years of resolute and moderate action raised
England, which under Henry III. was of no account in European affairs,
to a position only second to that of France, and that under conditions
more nearly approaching the modern conception of a political balance
and a European state system than feudalism, imperialism, and papalism
had hitherto rendered possible.
In domestic policy, seven years of monotonous administration had in a
way prepared for vigorous reforms. Edward's return to England in 1274
was quickly followed by the dismissal of Walter of Merton, the
chancellor of the years of quiescence. He was succeeded by Robert
Burnell, who, though foiled in his quest of Canterbury, obtained an
adequate standing by his preferment to the bishopric of Bath and Wells.
For the eighteen years of life which still remained to him, Bishop
Burnell held the chancery and possessed the chief place in Edward's
counsels. The whole of this period was marked by a constant legislative
activity which ceased so soon after Burnell's death that it is tempting
to assign at least as large a part of the law-making of the reign to
the minister as to the sovereign. A consummate lawyer and diplomatist,
Burnell served Edward faithfully. Nor was his fidelity impaired either
by the laxity which debarred him from higher ecclesiastical preferment
or by his ambitious endeavours to raise the house of Shropshire squires
from which he sprang into a great territorial family. Edward gave him
his absolute confidence and was blind even to his defects.
The first general parliament of the reign to which the king summoned
the commons was held at Westminster in the spring of 1275. Its work was
the statute of Westminster the First, a comprehensive measure of many
articles which covered almost the whole field of legislation, and is
especially noteworthy for the care which its compilers took to uphold
sound administration and put down abuses. Not less important was the
provision of an adequate revenue for the debt-burdened king. The same
parliament made Edward a permanent grant of a custom on wool,
wool-fells, and leather, which remained henceforth a chief source of
the regular income of the crown. The later imposition of further duties
soon caused men to describe the customs of 1275 as the "Great and
Ancient Custom". It was significant of the economic condition of
England that the great custom was a tax on exports, not imports, and
that, with the exception of leather, it was a tax on raw materials.
Granted the more willingly since the main incidence of it was upon the
foreign merchants, who bought up English wool for the looms of Flanders
and Brabant, the custom proved a source of revenue which could easily
be manipulated, increased, and assigned in advance to the Italian
financiers, willing to lend money to a necessitous king. A new step in
our financial history was attained when this tax on trade steps into
the place so long held by the taxes on land, from which the Normans and
Angevins had derived their enormous revenue.
The statute of Westminster the First had a long series of fellows. Next
year came the statute of Rageman, which supplemented an earlier inquest
into abuses by instituting a special inquiry in cases of trespass. In
1277 the first Welsh war interrupted the current of legislation. The
break was compensated for in 1278 by the passing of the important
statute of Gloucester, the consummation of a policy which Edward had
adopted as soon as he set foot on English soil. The troubles of Edward's
youth had made clear to him the obstacles thrown in the path of orderly
government by the great territorial franchises. He had been forced to
modify his policy to gratify the lord of Glamorgan, and win over the
house of Mortimer by the erection of a new franchise that was a
palatinate in all but name. But such great "regalities" were, after all,
exceptional. Much more irritating to an orderly mind were the
innumerable petty immunities which made half the hundreds in England the
appendages of baronial estates, and such common privileges as "return of
writs," which prevented the sheriff's officers from executing his
mandates on numerous manors where the lords claimed that the execution
of writs must be entrusted to their bailiffs.[1] These widespread powers
in private hands were the more annoying to the king since they were
commonly exercised with no better warrant than long custom, and without
direct grant from him.
[1] See on "return of writs" and a host of similar immunities,
Pollock and Maitland's _History of English Law_, i., 558-82.
Bracton had already laid down the doctrine that no prescription can
avail against the rights of the crown, and it was a commonplace with the
lawyers of the age that nothing less than a clear grant by royal charter
could justify such delegation of the sovereign's powers into private
hands. Within a few months of his landing, Edward sent out commissioners
to inquire into the baronial immunities. The returns of these inquests,
which were carried out hundred by hundred, are embodied in the precious
documents called the Hundred Rolls. The study of these reports inspired
the procedure of the statute of Gloucester, by which royal officers were
empowered to traverse the land demanding by what warrant the lords of
franchises exercised their powers. The demand of the crown for
documentary proof of royal delegation would have destroyed more than
half the existing liberties. But aristocratic opinion deserted Edward
when he strove to carry out so violent a revolution. The irritation of
the whole baronage is well expressed in the story of how Earl Warenne,
unsheathing a rusty sword, declared to the commissioners: "Here is my
warrant. My ancestors won their lands with the sword. With my sword I
will defend them against all usurpers." Nor was this mere boasting. The
return of the king's officers tells us that Warenne would not say of
whom, or by what services, he held his Yorkshire stronghold of
Conisborough, and that his bailiffs refused them entrance into his
liberties and would not suffer his tenants to answer or appear before
them.[1] Edward found it prudent not to press his claims. He disturbed
few men in their franchises, and was content to have collected the mass
of evidence embodied in the _placita de quo warranto_, and thus to have
stopped the possibility of any further growth of the franchises. A few
years later he accepted the compromise that continuous possession since
the coronation of Richard I. was a sufficient answer to a writ of _quo
warranto_. In this lies the whole essence of Edward's policy in relation
to feudalism, a policy very similar to that of St. Louis. Every man is
to have his own, and the king is not to inquire too curiously what a
man's own was. But no extension of any private right was to be
tolerated. Thus feudalism as a principle of political jurisdiction
gradually withered away, because it was no longer suffered to take fresh
root. The later land legislation of Edward's reign pushed the idea still
further.
[1] _Kirkby's Quest for Yorkshire_, pp. 3, 227, 231, Surtees
Soc.
In 1278 it had been the turn of the barons to suffer. Next came the
turn of the Church. Though Edward was a true son of the Church, he saw
as clearly as William the Conqueror and Henry II. the essential
incompatibility between the royal supremacy and the pretensions of the
extreme ecclesiastics. The limits of Church and State, the growth of
clerical wealth and immunities, and the relations of the world-power of
the pope to the local authority of the king, were problems which no
strong king could afford to neglect, and perhaps were incapable of
solution on medieval lines. Edward saw that the most practical way of
dealing with clerical claims was for him to stand in good personal
relations to the chief dispensers of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. With
a pope like Gregory X. it was easy for Edward to be on friendly terms;
but it was more difficult to feel any cordiality for the dogmatic
canonists or the furious Guelfic partisans who too often occupied the
chair of St. Peter. Yet Edward was shrewd enough to see that it was
worth while making sacrifices to keep on his side the power which,
alike under Innocent III. and Clement IV., had given valuable
assistance to his grandfather and father in their struggle against
domestic enemies. Moreover the enormous growth of the system of papal
provisions had given the papacy the preponderating authority in the
selection of the bishops of the English Church. It was only by yielding
to the popes, whenever it was possible, that Edward could secure the
nomination of his own candidates to the chief ecclesiastical posts in
his own realm.
In the earlier years of his reign Edward was luckier in his relations
to the popes than to his own archbishops. But he found that his power
at Rome broke down just where he wanted to exercise it most. He was
disgusted to find how little influence he had in the selection of the
Archbishops of Canterbury. Gregory X. sent to Canterbury the Dominican
Robert Kilwardby, the first mendicant to hold high place in the English
Church. Kilwardby was translated in 1278 to the cardinal bishopric of
Porto, a post of greater dignity but less emolument and power than the
English archbishopric. A cardinal bishop was bound to reside at Rome,
and the real motive for this doubtful promotion was the desire to
remove Kilwardby from England and to send a more active man in his
place. Edward's indiscreet devotion to Bishop Burnell led him again to
press his friend's claims, but, though he persuaded the monks of Christ
Church to elect him, Nicholas III. quashed the appointment, and
selected the Franciscan friar, John Peckham, as archbishop. Peckham, a
famous theologian and physicist, had been a distinguished professor at
Paris, Oxford, and Rome. He was high-minded, honourable and zealous, a
saint as well as a scholar, an enthusiast for Church reform and a
vigorous upholder of the extremest hierarchical pretensions. Fussy,
energetic, tactless, he was the true type of the academic ecclesiastic,
and alike in his personal qualities and his wonderful grasp of detail,
he may be compared to Archbishop Laud. Though received by Edward with a
rare magnanimity, Friar John allowed no personal considerations of
gratitude to interpose between him and his duty. Reaching England in
June, 1279, he presided, within six weeks of his landing, at a
provincial council at Reading. In this gathering canons were passed
against pluralities which frightened every benefice hunter among the
clerks of the royal household. Orders were also issued for the
periodical denunciation of ecclesiastical penalties against all
violators of the Great Charter in a fashion that suggested that the
king was an habitual offender against the fundamental laws of his
realm.
Edward wrathfully laid the usurpations of the new primate before
parliament, and forced Peckham to withdraw all the canons dealing with
secular matters, and particularly those which concerned the Great
Charter. The king set up the counter-claims of the State against the
pretensions of the Church, and the estates passed the statute of
Mortmain of 1279 as the layman's answer to the canons of Reading. Like
most of Edward's laws the statute of Mortmain was based on earlier
precedents. The wealth of the Church had long inspired statesmen with
alarm, and a true follower of St. Francis like Peckham was specially
convinced of the need of reducing the clergy to apostolic poverty. By
the new law all grants of land to ecclesiastical corporations were
expressly prohibited, under the penalty of the land being forfeited to
its supreme lord. The statute was not a mere political weapon of the
moment. It had a wider importance as a step in the development of
Edward's anti-feudal policy, and may be regarded as a counterpart of
the inquest into franchises, and as a means of protecting the State as
well as of disciplining the Church. A corporation never died, and never
paid reliefs or wardships. Its property never escheated for want of
heirs, and, as scutages were passing out of fashion, ecclesiastics were
less valuable to the king in times of war than lay lords. The recent
exigencies of the Welsh war had emphasised the need of strengthening
the military defences of the crown, and the new statute secured this by
preventing the further devolution of lands into the dead hand of the
Church. But all medieval laws were rather enunciations of an ideal than
measures which practical statesmen aimed at carrying out in detail. The
statute of Mortmain hardly stayed the creation of fresh monasteries and
colleges, or the further endowment of old ones. All that was necessary
for the pious founder was to obtain a royal dispensation from the
operation of the statute. There was little need to fear that the new
law would stand in the way of the power of the ecclesiastical estate.
A more distinct challenge to the Church was provoked by a further
aggression of Peckham in 1281. In that year the primate summoned a
council at Lambeth, wherein he sought to withdraw from the cognisance of
the civil courts all suits concerning patronage and the disposition of
the personal effects of ecclesiastics. To extend the jurisdiction of the
_forum ecclesiasticum_ was the surest way of exciting the hostility of
the common lawyers and the king. Once more Edward annulled the
proceedings of a council, and once more the submission of Peckham saved
the land from a conflict which might have assumed the proportions of
Becket's struggle against Henry II. Four years later Edward pressed his
advantage still further by the royal ordinance of 1285, called
_Circumspecte agatis_, which, though accepting the supremacy of the
Church courts within their own sphere, narrowly defined the limits of
their power in matters involving a temporal element. Again Peckham was
fain to acquiesce. His policy had not only irritated the king, but
alienated his fellow bishops. He visited his province with pertinacity
and minuteness, and he was the less able to stand up against the king as
he was engaged in violent quarrels with all his own suffragans. The
leader of the bishops in resisting his claims was Thomas of Cantilupe.
Restored to England by the liberal policy of Edward, Montfort's
chancellor after Lewes had been raised to the see of Hereford, where his
sanctity and devotion won him the universal love of his flock. Involved
in costly lawsuits with the litigious primate, Thomas was forced to
leave his diocese to plead his cause before the papal _curia_. He died
in Italy in 1282, and his relics, carried back by his followers to his
own cathedral, won the reputation of working miracles. A demand arose
for his canonisation, and Edward before his death had secured the
appointment of the papal commission, which, a few years later, added St.
Thomas of Hereford to the list of saints.[1] Thus the chancellor of
Montfort obtained the honour of sanctity through the action of the
victor of Evesham.
[1] The _processus canonisationis_ of Cantilupe, printed in the
Bollandist _Acta Sanctorum_, Oct. 1, 539-705, illustrates many
aspects of this period.
The second Welsh war interrupted both the conflict between Edward and
the archbishop, and the course of domestic legislation. Yet even in the
midst of his campaigns Edward issued the statute of Acton Burnell of
1283, which provided a better way of recovering merchants' debts, and
the statute of Rhuddlan of 1284 for the regulation of the king's
exchequer. The king's full activity as a lawgiver was renewed after the
settlement of his conquest by the statute of Wales of 1284, and the
legislation of his early years culminated in the two great acts of
1285, the statute of Westminster the Second, and the statute of
Winchester. That year, which also witnessed the passing of the
_Circumspecte agatis_, stands out as the most fruitful in lawmaking in
the whole of Edward's reign.
The second statute of Westminster, passed in the spring parliament,
partook of the comprehensive character of the first statute of that
name. There were clauses by which, as the Canon of Oseney puts it,
"Edward revived the ancient laws which had slumbered through the
disturbance of the realm: some corrupted by abuse he restored to their
proper form: some less evident and apparent he declared: some new ones,
useful and honourable, he added". Among the more conspicuous
innovations of the second statute of Westminster was the famous clause
De _donis conditionalibus_, which forms a landmark in the law of real
property. It facilitated the creation of entailed estates by providing
that the rights of an heir of an estate, granted upon conditions, were
not to be barred on account of the alienation of such an estate by its
previous tenant. Thus arose those estates for life, which in later ages
became a special feature of the English land system, and which, by
restricting the control of the actual possessor of a property over his
land, did much to perpetuate the worst features of medieval
land-holding. It is a modern error to regard the legitimation of
estates in tail as a triumph of reactionary feudalism over the will of
Edward. Apart from the fact that there is not a tittle of contemporary
evidence to justify such a view, it is manifest that the interest of
the king was in this case exactly the same as that of each individual
lord of a manor. The greater prospect of reversion to the donor, and
the other features of the system of entails, which commended them to
the petty baron, were still more attractive to the king, the greatest
proprietor as well as the ultimate landlord of all the realm. Other
articles of the Westminster statute were only less important than the
clause _De donis_, notable among them being the institution of justices
of _nisi prius_, appointed to travel through the shires three times a
year to hear civil causes. This was part of the simplification and
concentration of judicial machinery, whereby Edward made tolerable the
circuit system which under Henry III. had been a prolific source of
grievances.
While in the statute of Westminster Edward prepared for the future, the
companion statute of Winchester, the work of the autumn parliament,
revived the jurisdiction of the local courts; reformed the ancient
system of watch and ward, and brought the ancient system of popular
courts into harmony with the jurisdiction emanating from the crown,
which had gone so far towards superseding it. This measure marks the
culmination of Edward's activity as a lawgiver. During the five next
years there were no more important statutes.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE CONQUEST OF NORTH WALES.
The treaty of Shrewsbury of 1267 had not brought enduring peace to
Wales and the march. The pacification was in essentials a simple
recognition of accomplished facts, but, so far as it involved promises
of restitution and future good behaviour, its provisions were barely
carried out, even in the scanty measure in which any medieval treaty
was executed. Moreover, the treaty by no means covered the whole ground
of variance between the English and the Welsh. like the treaty of Paris
of 1259, it was as much the starting-point of new difficulties as the
solution of old ones. Many troublesome questions of detail had been
postponed for later settlement, and no serious effort was made to
grapple with them. Even during the life of the old king, there had been
war in the south between the Earl of Gloucester and Llewelyn. However,
the Welsh prince paid, with fair regularity, the instalments of the
indemnity to which he had been bound, and there was no disposition on
the part of the English authorities to question the basis of the
settlement. Even the marchers maintained an unwonted tranquillity. They
had lost so much during the recent war that they had no great desire to
take up arms again. Llewelyn himself was the chief obstacle to peace.
The brilliant success of his arms and diplomacy seems somewhat to have
turned his brain. Visions of a wider authority constantly floated
before him. His bards prophesied the expulsion of the Saxon, and he had
done such great deeds in the first twenty years of his reign, that a
man of more practical temperament might have been forgiven for
indulging in dreams of future success. Three obstacles stood in the way
of the development of his power. These were his vassalage to the
English crown, the hostility of the marcher barons, and the impatience
with which the minor Welsh chieftains submitted to his authority. For
five years he impatiently endured these restraints. He then took
advantage of the absence of the new king to rid himself of them.
Five days after the accession of Edward I., the lieutenants of the king
received the last payment of the indemnity which Llewelyn condescended
to make. Their demand that the Welsh prince should take an oath of
fealty to his new sovereign was answered by evasive delays. Arrears of
the indemnity accumulated, and the state of the march became more
disturbed. The regents showed moderation, though one of them, Roger
Mortimer, had himself been the greatest sufferer from the treaty of
Shrewsbury. In the south, Humphrey Bohun, grandson of the old Earl of
Hereford and earl himself in 1275 by his grandfather's death, was
engaged in private war with Llewelyn. In direct defiance of the terms
of 1267, Humphrey strove to maintain himself in the march of Brecon,
which had been definitely ceded to Llewelyn. It was to the credit of
the regents that they refused to countenance this glaring violation of
the treaty. Meanwhile Llewelyn busied himself with erecting a new
stronghold on the upper Severn, which was a menace alike to the royal
castle of Montgomery and to his own vassal, Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn, the
tributary lord of Powys. Yet the regents were content to remonstrate,
and to urge on all parties the need of strict adherence to the terms of
the treaty. The Earl of Warwick was appointed in the spring of 1274 as
head of a commission, empowered to do justice on all transgressions of
the peace, and Llewelyn was ordered to meet him at Montgomery Ford. But
Llewelyn was busy at home, where his brother David had joined hands
with Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn in a plot against him. Llewelyn easily
crushed the conspiracy; David, after a feeble attempt to maintain
himself in his own patrimony, took flight to England, and Griffith of
Powys, driven from his dominions, was also obliged to seek the
protection of Edward. Henceforth Llewelyn ruled directly over Powys as
well as Gwynedd. His success encouraged him to persevere in defying his
overlord.
Rash as he was, Llewelyn recognised that he was not strong enough to
stand up single-handed against England. Former experience, however,
suggested that it was an easy matter to make a party with the barons
against the crown. But times had changed since the Great Charter and
the Barons' War; and a policy, which could obtain concessions from John
or Henry III., was powerless against a king who commanded the
allegiance of all his subjects. Yet there was enough friction between
the new king and his feudatories to make the attempt seem feasible, and
Llewelyn revived the Montfort tradition, by claiming the hand of
Eleanor, Earl Simon's daughter, which had been promised to him since
1265. The alarm created by this shows that Edward perceived the danger
that it might involve. But his policy of conciliation had now restored
to their estates the last of the "disinherited," and, since the murder
of Henry of Almaine, the name of Montfort was no longer one to conjure
with. The exiled sons of Earl Simon welcomed Llewelyn's advances, and,
in 1275, Eleanor was despatched from France to Wales under the escort
of her clerical brother Amaury. On their way, Eleanor and Amaury were
captured by English sailors. Edward detained the lady at the queen's
court, and gave some scandal to the stricter clergy by shutting up
Amaury in Corfe castle. He had foiled the Welsh prince's game, but he
had given him a new grievance.
During these transactions negotiations had been proceeding between the
English court and Llewelyn. In November, 1274, Edward went to
Shrewsbury in the hope of receiving the prince, but he was delayed by
illness, and Llewelyn made this an excuse for non-appearance. Next year
the king journeyed to Chester with the same object, but his mission was
equally fruitless. Summons after summons was despatched to the
recalcitrant vassal. Llewelyn heeded them no more than requests to pay
up the arrears which he owed the English crown. After two years of
hesitation Edward lost all patience. Irritated to the quick by
Llewelyn's offer to perform homage in a border town on conditions
altogether impossible of acceptance, the king summoned a council of
magnates for November 12, 1276, and laid the whole case before them. It
was agreed that the king should go against Llewelyn as a rebel and
disturber of the peace; and the feudal levies were summoned to meet at
Worcester on June 24, 1277. As a preliminary to the great effort,
Warwick was sent to Chester, Roger Mortimer to Montgomery, and Payne of
Chaworth to Carmarthen. All the available marcher forces and every
trooper of the royal household were despatched to enable them to
operate during the winter and spring. Their movements were brilliantly
successful. On the reappearance of its ancient lord, the middle march
threw off the yoke of Llewelyn and went back to its obedience to
Mortimer. Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn was restored to upper Powys; the sons
of Griffith of Bromfield cast off their allegiance to Llewelyn and were
received back as direct vassals of the king. A Tony was once more
ruling in Elvael, a Gifford in Llandovery, and a Bohun in Brecon. Rhys
ap Meredith yielded up Dynevor, and was content to be recognised as
lord of the humbler stronghold of Drysllwyn. Chaworth's bands conquered
all Cardiganshire. Thus the wider "principality" of Llewelyn was
shattered at the first assault, and when the decisive moment came,
Llewelyn was thrown back upon his hereditary clansmen of Gwynedd. Of
all the acquisitions of the treaty of Shrewsbury, the four cantreds
alone still held for their prince.[1]
[1] On the whole subject of this chapter Mr. J.E. Morris's
_Welsh Wars of Edward I._ throws a flood of new light,
especially on the military history, the organisation of the
Edwardian army, and the political condition of the march.
When the baronial levies mustered at Worcester, the work was already
half accomplished. Of the thousand lances that there assembled, small
forces were detached to help Mortimer in mid Wales and to reinforce the
marcher army in west Wales, which was now commanded by Edmund of
Lancaster, the king's brother. The mass of the troops followed Edward
to Chester, whence the main attack was to be made. Edward's plan of
operations was simplicity itself. He knew that the Welsh desired no
pitched battle, and he was indisposed to lose his soldiers in
unnecessary conflict. Swarms of workmen cleared a wide road through the
dense forests of the four cantreds. The route chosen was as near as
possible to the coast, where a strong fleet, mainly from the Cinque
Ports, kept up communications with the land forces. The advance was
cautious and slow, with long halts at Flint and at Rhuddlan, where
hastily erected forts secured the king's base and safe-guarded a
possible retreat. By the end of August the king was at Deganwy, and the
four cantreds were conquered. During all this time fresh forces were
hurried up. Some 15,000 infantry, largely drawn from southern and
central Wales, swelled the king's host.
Llewelyn was closely shut up in the Snowdon country. His position was
safe enough from a direct assault, and his only fear was want of
provisions. He trusted, however, that supplies would come in from
Anglesea, whose rich cornfields were yellowing for the harvest. But the
fleet of the Cinque Ports cut off communications between Anglesea and
the mainland, and ferried over a strong detachment of Edward's troops,
which occupied the island. English harvest-men gathered for Edward the
crops of Welsh corn, and left Llewelyn to face the beginnings of a
mountain-winter without the means of feeding his followers. By
September the real fight was over. Edward withdrew to Rhuddlan and
dismissed the greater part of his followers. Enough were left to block
the approaches to Snowdon, and Llewelyn, seeing no gain in further
delay, made his submission on November 9.
The treaty of Aberconway, which Edward dictated, reduced Llewelyn to
the position of a petty North Welsh chieftain, which he had held thirty
years before. He gave up the homage of the greater Welsh magnates, and
resigned all his former conquests. The four cantreds thus passed away
from his power, and even Anglesea was only allowed to him for life and
subject to a yearly tribute. He was compelled to do homage, and ordered
to pay a crushing indemnity, twice as much as the expenses of the war.
But Edward was in a generous mood. After Llewelyn's personal submission
at Rhuddlan, the king remitted the indemnity and the rent for Anglesea.
It was a boon to Llewelyn that the treacherous David received his
reward not' in Gwynedd itself but in Duffryn Clwyd and Rhuvoniog, two
of the four cantreds of the Perveddwlad. Llewelyn's humiliation was
completed by his enforced attendance at Edward's Christmas court at
Westminster. Next year, however, he received a further sign of royal
favour. He was allowed to marry Eleanor Montfort, and Edward himself
was present at their wedding. But on the morning of the ceremony,
Llewelyn was forced to make a promise not to entertain the king's
fugitives and outlaws.
The treaty of Aberconway left Edward free to revive in the rest of Wales
the policy which, when originally begun in 1254,[1] had, like a rising
flood, floated Llewelyn into his wider principality. The lords marchers
resumed their ancient limits. Princes like Griffith of Powys and Rhys of
Drysllwyn sank into a position which is indistinguishable from that of
their Anglo-Norman neighbours. David, in the vale of Clwyd had no better
prospects. The heirs of lower Powys were put under the guardianship of
Roger Mortimer's younger son, another Roger, who, on the death of his
wards by drowning, received possession of their lands, and henceforth,
as Roger Mortimer of Chirk, became a new marcher baron. Meanwhile Edward
busied himself with schemes for establishing settled government in the
conquered territories. To a man of his training and temperament, this
meant the establishment of English law and administration. He could see
no merits in the archaic Welsh customs which regarded all crimes as
capable of atonement by a money payment, treated a wrecked ship as the
lawful perquisite of the local proprietor, and hardly distinguished
legitimate from illegitimate children in determining the descent of
property. He convinced himself that the land laws of Wales were already
those of Anglo-Norman feudalism. He subjected the cantreds of Rhos and
Englefield to the Cheshire county court, and breathed a new life into
the decayed shire organisation of Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire.
Flint and Rhuddlan dominated the two former, Aberystwyth and Carmarthen
the latter. Round the king's castles grew up petty boroughs of English
traders, who would, it was believed, teach the Welsh to love commerce
and peaceful ways.
[1] See page 76.
For five years all seemed to go well, though underneath the apparent
calm a storm was gradually gathering. The Welsh of the ceded districts
bitterly resented the imposition of a strange yoke and complained that
the king had broken his promise to respect their laws. "Are the Welsh
worse than Jews?" was their cry, "and yet the king allows the Jews to
follow their own laws in England." But Edward coldly answered that,
though it would be a breach of his coronation oath to maintain customs
of Howel the Good, which were contrary to the Decalogue, he was willing
to listen to specific complaints. It was, however, a very difficult
matter to persuade Edward's bailiffs and agents to carry out his
commands, and many acts of oppression were wrought for which there was
no redress. Nobles like David and Rhys found their franchises
threatened by the encroachments of the neighbouring shire-courts.
Lesser Welshmen were liable to be robbed and insulted by the workmen
who were building Edward's castles, or by the soldiers who were
garrisoning them. At last even the Welsh who had helped Edward to put
down Llewelyn saw that they had been preparing their own ruin, and
turned to their former enemy for the redress refused them at
Westminster. David himself made common cause with his brother, and the
spirit of resistance spread among the half-hearted Cymry of the south.
Edward's oppression did more than Llewelyn's triumphs to weld together
the Welsh clans into a single people. A rising was planned in the
strictest secrecy; and on the eve of Palm Sunday, March 21, 1282, David
swooped down on Hawarden, a weak castle in private hands, and captured
it. Llewelyn promptly crossed the Conway and turned his arms against
the royal strongholds of Flint and Rhuddlan, which withstood him,
though he devastated the countryside in every direction. Meanwhile
David hurried south and found the local lords in Cardigan and the vale
of Towy already in arms. With their help he captured the castles of the
upper Towy, but lower down the river Rhys remained staunch to the king,
whereupon David hurried over the hills to Cardiganshire and took
Aberystwyth. North and south were in full revolt.
Edward, taken unawares, prepared to reassert his authority. Certain
faithful barons were "affectionately requested" to serve the king for
pay, and a fairly large army was gathered together, though the
scattered character of the rebellion necessitated its acting in small
bands. Meanwhile the military tenants and the Cinque Ports were
summoned to join in an attack on Llewelyn on the lines of the campaign
of 1277. Edward's task was more difficult than on the previous
occasion. Though Rhuddlan, not Chester as in 1277, had become his
starting-point against Gwynedd, he dared not advance so long as David
threatened his left flank from Denbigh, and the rising in the south was
far more formidable than that of five years before. A considerable part
of the levies had to be despatched to the help of Earl Gilbert of
Gloucester, who was charged with the reconquest of the vale of Towy. On
June 17 as the earl's soldiers were returning, laden with plunder, to
their headquarters at Dynevor, they were suddenly attacked by the Welsh
at Llandilo, and were driven back on their base. Gloucester hastily
retreated to Carmarthen. He was superseded by William of Valence, whose
activity against the Welsh had been quickened by the loss of his son at
Llandilo. Llewelyn then came south, and pressed the English so hard
that for several weeks nothing of moment was accomplished.
The advance against Gwynedd was delayed until the late summer. Edward
still tarried at Rhuddlan, with a host constantly varying in numbers,
for his soldiers had long overpassed the period of feudal service.
Every effort was made to bring fresh troops to the field, and Luke de
Tany, seneschal of Gascony, came upon the scene with a small levy of
the chivalry of Aquitaine. To Tany was assigned the task of conquering
Anglesey, but it was not until September that he was able to occupy the
island. In the same month a strenuous effort was made to dislodge the
hostile Welsh in the vale of Clwyd; the Earl of Lincoln at last took
Denbigh from David; Reginald Grey, justice of Chester, captured Ruthin,
higher up the valley, and Earl Warenne seized Bromfield and Yale. Each
noble fought for his own hand, and Edward was forced to reward their
services by immediately granting to them their conquests, and thus
created a new marcher interest which, later on, stood in the way of an
effective settlement. But things were getting desperate, and it was
well for Edward that the security of his left flank at last enabled him
to advance to the Conway. Thereupon Llewelyn returned to Snowdon, where
he was joined by the homeless David. Meanwhile Tany, then master of
Anglesey, opened up communications with the coast of Arvon by a bridge
of boats over the Menai Straits. Winter was already at hand when
Llewelyn and his brother were at last shut up amidst the fastnesses of
Snowdon.
Late in October Archbishop Peckham appeared on the scene. He had
excommunicated Llewelyn at the beginning of the war, but was still
anxious to negotiate a peace. Edward did his best to put him off, but
Peckham's importunity extorted from him a short truce, during which the
primate visited Snowdon, taking with him an offer of an ample estate in
England if the prince would surrender his patrimony. Llewelyn furnished
Peckham with long catalogues of grievances. He was quite willing to
gain time by discussing his wrongs.
Edward's army shared his irritation at Peckham's interference, and,
while the archbishop was still in Snowdon, a breach of the truce
destroyed any hopes of peace. On November 6 Tany led his troops over
the bridge of boats at low water and marched inland. But his operations
were ill-planned, and the Welsh came down from the hills and easily put
him to flight. Meanwhile the tide had risen and the flood cut off
access to the bridge over the Menai. In their panic the soldiers rushed
into the water rather than face the enemy. Many leading men were
drowned, including Tany himself, the author of the treachery. Flushed
with this success Llewelyn rejected Peckham's terms. In great disgust
the archbishop went back to England, bitterly denouncing the Welsh. But
defeat only strengthened the iron resolution of Edward. He issued fresh
summonses for men and money. Contrary to all precedent, he determined
to continue the campaign through the winter.
Llewelyn was probably ignorant of the perilous plight into which the
king had fallen. With the approach of bad weather he became afraid that
he would be starved out in Snowdon. Any risk was better than being
caught like a rat in a trap, and, fearing lest a cordon should be drawn
round the mountains, he made his way southwards, leaving David in
command. His enemy, Roger Mortimer, was just dead, and Mortimer's
eldest son Edmund, a youth brought up for the clerical profession, was
not likely to hold the middle marches with the same strong grasp as his
father. Thither accordingly Llewelyn made his way, hoping that on his
approach the tribesmen of the upper Wye, over whom he had ruled so
long, would abandon their English lord for their Cymric chieftain. A
force gathered round him, and he occupied a strong position on a hill
overlooking the river Yrvon, which flows into the right bank of the
Wye, just above Builth. The right bank of the Yrvon was held by the
English of Builth. But the only way over the stream was by Orewyn
bridge, which was held by a detachment of the Welsh. Their position
seemed so secure that, on December 11, Llewelyn left his troops to
confer with some of the local chieftains. The English were, however,
shown a ford over the river; a band crossed in safety, and, taking the
defenders of Orewyn bridge in the rear, opened up the passage over it
to their comrades. The English ascended the hill, their mail-clad
squadrons interlaced with archers, in order that the Welsh infantry
might be assailed by missiles before they were exposed to the shock of
a cavalry charge. In the absence of their leader, the Welsh were a
helpless mass of sheep, and were easily put to flight. Meanwhile
Llewelyn, hearing the din of battle, hurried back to direct his
followers. On the way he was slain by Stephen of Frankton, a Shropshire
veteran of the Barons' War, who fought under the banner of Roger
l'Estrange. The discovery of important papers on the body first told
the conquerors the rank of their victim.
Thus perished the able and strenuous chief, who had struggled so long
to win for himself in Wales a position similar to that occupied by the
King of Scots in the north. His death did not end, but it much
simplified, the struggle. The south and midland districts were entirely
subdued, and the interest of the war again shifted to the mountains of
Snowdon, where David strove to maintain himself as Prince of Wales. His
best chance lay in the exhaustion of his enemy, but Edward stuck grimly
to his task. His coffers were exhausted, and his army for the most part
went home. Yet Edward tarried at Rhuddlan for over six months, dividing
his energy between watching the Welsh and replenishing his treasure and
troops. His treasurer, John Kirkby, wandered from shire to shire
soliciting voluntary contributions. Then in January, 1283, an anomalous
parliament was summoned, consisting mainly of ecclesiastics, knights of
the shire, and burgesses, and meeting in two divisions, at York and at
Northampton, according as the members came from the northern or
southern ecclesiastical provinces. The grant of a thirtieth so little
satisfied the king that he laid violent hands on the crusading-tenth,
which was deposited in the Temple. Meanwhile the chivalry of Gascony
and Ponthieu were tempted by high wages to supply the void left by the
retirement of the English.
Early in 1283 a gallant force from beyond sea, among which figured the
Counts of Armagnac and Bigorre, reached Rhuddlan. After their arrival
the king took the offensive, crossed the Conway and transferred his
headquarters to the Cistercian abbey of Aberconway. Fearful once more
of being enclosed in the mountains, David sought a new hiding-place
among the heights of Cader Idris. He shifted his quarters to the castle
of Bere, hidden away in a remote valley sloping down from the mountain
to the sea. The unwearied Edward once more issued summonses for a fresh
campaign. David was at the extremity of his resources. Before the new
arrivals enabled Edward to move, William of Valence marched up from the
south, and in April forced Bere to surrender. David fled before the
siege began; but he was a fugitive without an army, and the campaign
was reduced to a weary tracking out of the last little bands that still
scorned to surrender. In June David was betrayed by men of his own
tongue, and Edward summoned for Michaelmas at Shrewsbury a parliament
whose chief business was the trial of David. On October 3 the last
Cymric Prince of Wales suffered the ignominious doom of a traitor, a
murderer, and a blasphemer. The magnates then adjourned to the
chancellor's neighbouring seat of Acton Burnell, where the rejoicings
incident to the king's visit to his friend's new mansion were combined
with passing the statute of Merchants.
Edward's love of thoroughness made him linger in Wales to settle the
government of the newly won lands. His first care was to hold Snowdon
with the ring of fortresses which, in their ruin, still bear abiding
witness to the solidity of the conqueror's work. Round each castle
arose a new town, created as artificially as were the _bastides_ of
Aquitaine, within whose walls English traders and settlers were tempted
by high privileges to take up their abodes, and whose strictly military
character was emphasised by the general provision that the constable of
the castle was to be _ex officio_ the mayor of the municipality. Chief
among these was Aberconway, whose strategic importance Edward
understood so fully that he forced the Cistercian monks to take up new
quarters at Maenan, higher up the valley, in order that there might be
room for the castle and town which were henceforth to guard the
entrance to Snowdon. Equally important was the future capital of
Gwynedd, Carnarvon, where on April 25, 1284, a son was born to Edward
and Eleanor, who seventeen years later was to become the first English
Prince of Wales. Elsewhere fortresses of Welsh origin were rebuilt and
enlarged to complete the stone circuit round the mountains. Such were
Criccieth, the key of Lleyn; Dolwyddelen, which dominated the upper
Conway; and Harlech and Bere, the two strongholds that curbed the
mountaineers of Merioneth. In the south the same policy was carried
out. Alike in Gwynedd and in the vale of Towy, both in his castle
building and in his town foundations, Edward was simply carrying on the
traditions of earlier ages, and applying to his new lands those
principles of government which, since the Norman Conquest, had become
the tradition of the marcher lords. Even in his architectural schemes
there was nothing novel in Edward's policy. Gilbert of Gloucester at
Caerphilly, and Payne of Chaworth at Kidwelly, had already worked out
the pattern of "concentric" defences that were to find their fullest
expression in the new castles of the principality. In each of these
strongholds an adequate garrison of highly trained and well-paid troops
kept the Welsh in check.
The civil government of the Edwardian conquests was provided for by the
statute of Wales, issued on Mid-Lent Sunday, 1284, at Rhuddlan,
Edward's usual headquarters. It declared that the land of Wales,
heretofore subject to the crown in feudal right, was entirely
transferred to the king's dominion. To the whole of the annexed
districts the English system of shire government was extended, though
such local customs as appealed to Edward's sense of justice were
suffered to be continued. Gwynedd and its appurtenances were divided
into the three shires of Anglesey, Carnarvon, and Merioneth, and were
collectively put under the justice of Snowdon, whose seat was to be at
Carnarvon, where courts of chancery and exchequer for north Wales were
set up. The shires of Cardigan and Carmarthen were re-organised so as
to include the southern districts which had been subject to Llewelyn,
or to the Welsh lords who had fallen with him. These were put under the
justice of west Wales, whose chancery and exchequer were established at
Carmarthen. It is significant that Edward prepared the way for making
these districts into shires by persuading his brother Edmund, to whom
they had been granted, to abandon his claims over them in return for
ample compensation elsewhere. Without this step the new shires would
only have been palatinates of the Glamorgan or Pembroke type, and the
creation of such franchises was directly contrary to Edward's policy.
It was different in the vale of Clwyd, where it would have been natural
for Edward to have extended the shire system to the four cantreds.
Military exigences had, however, already erected most of these lands
into new marcher lordships, and Edward was perforce content with the
union of some fragments of Rhos to the shire of Carnarvon, and with
joining together Englefield and some adjoining districts in the new
county of Flint. This arrangement secured the strongholds of Flint and
Rhuddlan for the king. But the district was too small to make it worth
while to set up a separate organisation for it, and Flintshire was put
under the justice and courts of Chester, so that it became a dependency
of the neighbouring palatinate.[1]
[1] For the shires of Walessee my paper on _The Welsh Shires_
in _Y Cymmrodor_, ix. (1888), 201-26.
The lordships of the march were not directly influenced by this
legislation. They continued to hold their position as franchises until
the reign of Henry VIII., and under Edward III. were declared by
statute to be no part of the principality but directly subject to the
English crown. Yet the removal of the pressure of a native principality
profoundly affected these districts. The policy of definition made its
mark even here. The liberties of each marcher were defined and
circumscribed, and, while scrupulously respected, were incapable of
further extension. The vague jurisdictions of the sheriffs of the
border shires were cleared up, and if this process involved some
limitation of the royal authority in districts like Clun and Oswestry,
which virtually ceased to be parts of Shropshire, there was a
compensating advantage in the increased clearness with which the border
line was drawn and the royal authority consolidated. Gradually the
marcher lordships passed by lapse into the royal hands, and even from
the beginning there were regions, such as Montgomery and Builth, which
knew no lord but the king. All this was, however, an indirect result of
the Edwardian conquest. Strictly speaking it was no conquest of all
Wales but merely of the principality, the ancient dominions of
Llewelyn, to which most of the crown lands in Wales were joined.
Ecclesiastical settlement followed the political reorganisation.
Peckham was as zealous as Edward in compelling the conquered to follow
the law-abiding traditions of the king's ancient inheritance. He
laboured strenuously for the rebuilding of churches, the preservation
and extension of ecclesiastical property, the education of the clergy,
and the extirpation of clerical matrimony and simony. Despite his
unsympathetic attitude, he did good work for the Welsh Church by his
manful resistance to all attempts of Edward and his subordinates to
encroach upon her liberties. He quaintly thought it would promote the
civilisation of Wales if the people were forced to "learn civility" by
living in towns and sending their children to school in England. His
assiduous visitation of the Welsh dioceses in 1284 did something to
kindle zeal, and win the Welsh clergy from the idleness wherein, he
believed, lay the root of all their shortcomings.
In the autumn of 1284 Edward went on an extended progress in Wales. He
passed through the four cantreds into Gwynedd, and thence worked his
way southwards through Cardigan and Carmarthen, ending his tour by
visits to the marcher lords of the south. He crossed over from
Glamorgan, where he had been entertained by Gilbert of Clare, to
Bristol, where he held his Christmas court. Wales was to see no more of
its new ruler for seven years. During that time the principality gave
Edward little trouble, though the marchers, as will be seen, were a
constant anxiety to him. In 1287, while Edward was in Gascony, the
regent, Edmund of Cornwall, was called upon to deal with a revolt of
Rhys, son of Meredith, the loyalist lord of the vale of Towy, who
resented the authority of the justice of Carmarthen over his patrimony.
His grievances were those of a marcher rather than those of a Welshman.
Yet his rising in 1287 was formidable enough to require the raising of
a great army for its suppression. The Welsh chieftain could not long
hold out against the odds brought against him, and the confiscation of
his lands swelled the district directly depending on the sheriff of
Carmarthen. The support of the countryside enabled Rhys to evade his
pursuers for nearly three years. At last he was captured, and with the
execution of the last of the lords of Dynevor, the triumph of Edward
became complete.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SICILIAN AND THE SCOTTISH ARBITRATIONS.
Edward I. had now attained the height of his fame. He had conquered
Llewelyn; he had reformed the administration; he had put himself as a
lawmaker in the same rank as St. Louis or Frederick II.; and he had
restored England to a leading position in the councils of Europe.
Moreover, he had won a character for justice and fairness which did him
even greater service, since the several deaths of prominent sovereigns
during 1285 left him almost alone of his generation among princes of a
lesser stature. Of the chief rulers of Europe in the early years of
Edward's reign, Rudolf of Hapsburg alone survived; and the King of the
Romans had little weight outside Germany many. Edward had outlived his
brother-in-law Alfonso of Castile, his cousin Philip the Bold, his
uncle Charles of Anjou, and Peter of Aragon. But the conflicts, in
which these kings had been engaged, were continued by their successors.
Above all, the contest for Sicily still raged. The successors of Martin
IV., though deprived of the active support of France, would not abandon
the claims of the captive Charles of Salerno; and James of Aragon,
Peter's second son, maintained himself in Sicily, despite papal
censures and despite the virtual desertion of his cause by his elder
brother, Alfonso III., the new king of Aragon. Each side was at a
standstill, though each side struggled on. The personal hatreds, which
made it impossible to reconcile the older generation, were dying out,
and the chief obstacle in the way of a settlement was the stubbornness
of the papacy. If any one could reconcile the quarrel, it was the King
of England; and to him Charles' sons and the nobles of his dominions
appealed to procure his release.
Edward was anxious to proffer his services as a peacemaker, dream of a
Europe, united for the liberation of the holy places, had not been
expelled from his mind by his schemes for the advancement of his
kingdom. If he could inspire his neighbour kings with something of his
spirit, the crusade might still be possible. Other matters also called
Edward's attention to the continent. He had to do homage to the new
French king; he had to press for the execution of the treaty of Amiens,
and his presence was again necessary in Gascony. His realm was in such
profound peace that he could safely leave it. Accordingly in May, 1286,
he took ship for France. With him went his wife Eleanor of Castile, his
chancellor Bishop Burnell, and a large number of his nobles. He
entrusted the regency to his cousin, Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, the son
and successor of Earl Richard; and England saw him no more until
August, 1289. Edward first made his way to Amiens, where he met the new
King of France, Philip the Fair. The two kings went together to Paris,
where Edward spent two months. There he performed homage for Gascony,
and made a new agreement as to the execution of the treaty of Amiens,
by which he renounced his claims over Quercy for a money payment, and
was put in possession of Saintonge, south of the Charente. The
settlement was the easier as for the moment neither king had his
supreme interest in Gascony. Edward's real business was to make peace
between Anjou and Aragon, and Philip IV. showed every desire to help
him. Before Edward left Paris, he had negotiated a truce between the
Kings of France and Aragon. Soon afterwards he went to Bordeaux. He
made Gascony his headquarters for three years, and strove with all his
might to convert the truce into a peace.
Grave obstacles arose, chief among which was the determination of the
papacy to make no terms with the King of Aragon so long as his brother
still reigned over Sicily. Honorius IV., in approving Edward's
preliminary action, and exhorting him to obtain the liberation of the
Prince of Salerno, carefully guarded himself against recognising the
schismatic Aragonese. Edward himself was no partisan of either side. He
was heartily anxious for peace and desirous to free his kinsman from
the rigours of his long imprisonment. His wish for a close alliance
between England and Aragon was unacceptable to the partisanship both of
Honorius IV. and his successor Nicholas IV. Papal coldness, however,
did not turn Edward from his course. In the summer of 1287 he met
Alfonso at Oloron in Bearn, where a treaty was drawn up by which the
Aragonese king agreed to release Charles of Salerno on condition that
he would either, within three years, procure from the pope the
recognition of James in Sicily, or return to captivity and forfeit
Provence. Besides this, an alliance between England and Aragon was to
be cemented by the marriage of one of Edward's daughters to Alfonso.
Delighted with the success of his undertaking, Edward, on his return to
Bordeaux, again took the cross and prepared to embark on the crusade.
Nicholas IV. interposed between Edward and his vows by denouncing the
treaty of Oloron.[1] Though well-meaning, he was not strong enough to
shake himself free from partisan traditions, and though honestly anxious
to bring about a crusade, he could not see that he made the holy war
impossible by interposing obstacles in the way of the one prince who
seriously intended to take the cross. While denouncing Edward's treaty,
Nicholas encouraged his crusading zeal by granting him a new
ecclesiastical tenth for six years, a tax made memorable by the fact
that it occasioned the stringent valuation of benefices, called the
taxation of Pope Nicholas, which was the standard clerical rate-book
until the reign of Henry VIII. Despite the pope, Edward still persevered
in his mediation, and in October, 1288, a new treaty for Charles'
liberation was signed at Canfranc, in Aragon, which only varied in
details from the agreement of 1287. Charles was released, but he
straightway made his way to Rome, where Nicholas absolved him from his
oath and crowned him King of Sicily. Edward was bitterly disappointed.
He tarried in the south until July, 1289, usefully employed in promoting
the prosperity of his duchy, crushing conspiracies, furthering the
commerce of Bordeaux, and founding new _bastides_. At last tidings of
disorder at home called him back to his kingdom before the purpose of
his continental sojourn had been accomplished. But he still pressed on
his thankless task, and in 1291 peace was made at Tarascon, between
Aragon and the Roman see, on the hard condition of Alfonso abandoning
his brother's cause. On Alfonso's death soon afterwards the war was
renewed, for James then united the Sicilian and Aragonese thrones and
would not yield up either. It was not until 1295 that Boniface VIII., a
stronger pope than Nicholas, ended the struggle on terms which left the
stubborn Aragonese masters of Sicily.
[1] For his policy, see O. Schiff, _Studien zur Geschichte P.
Nikolaus IV._ (1897).
Things had not gone well in England during Edward's absence. Edmund of
Cornwall had shown vigour in putting down the revolt of Rhys, but he
was not strong enough to control either the greater barons or the
officers of the crown. Grave troubles were already brewing in Scotland.
A fierce quarrel between the Earls of Gloucester and Hereford broke out
with regard to the boundaries of Glamorgan and Brecon, and the private
war between the two marchers proved more formidable to the peace of the
realm than the revolt of the Welsh prince. Even more disastrous to the
country was the scandalous conduct of the judges and royal officials,
who profited by the king's absence to pile up fortunes at the expense
of his subjects. The highest judges of the land forged charters,
condoned homicides, sold judgments, and practised extortion and
violence. A great cry arose for the king's return. In the Candlemas
parliament of 1289 Earl Gilbert of Gloucester met a request for a
general aid by urging that nothing should be granted until Englishmen
once more saw the king's face. Alarmed at this threat, Edward returned,
and landed at Dover on August 12, 1289.
The whole situation was changed by the king's arrival. Edward met the
innumerable complaints against his subordinates by dismissing nearly all
the judges from office, and appointing a special commission to
investigate the charges brought against royal officials of every rank.
Thomas Weyland, chief justice of the common pleas, anticipated inquiry
by taking sanctuary with the Franciscan friars of Bury St. Edmunds. A
knight and a married man, he had taken subdeacon's orders in early life
and sought to little purpose to be protected by his clergy. His refuge
was watched by the local sheriffs; finally, he was starved into
surrender, and suffered to abjure the realm.[1] He fled to France,
whence he never returned. For some years the commission investigated the
offences of the ministers of the crown. Though much that was irregular
was proved against them, many charges broke down under inquiry, and, as
time went on, the official class saw that their interest lay in
condoning rather than in punishing scandals. Some of the worst
offenders, such as the greedy and corrupt Adam of Stratton, were never
restored to office;[2] but Hengham, the chief justice of the King's
Bench, was soon reinstated. There were not enough good lawyers in
England to make it prudent for Edward to dispense with the services of
such a man. A rigorous maintenance of a high standard of official
morality meant getting rid of nearly all the king's ministers, and any
successors would have been inferior in experience and not superior in
honesty. Edward had to work with such material as he had, and on the
whole he made the best of it. Scandalous as were the proceedings of his
agents, their iniquities are but trifles as compared with the offences
of the counsellors of Philip the Fair.
[1] For the _abjuratio regni_ see A. Reville in the _Revue
Historique_, 1. (1892), 1-42.
[2] For Adam of Stratton see Hall, _Red Book of the Exchequer_,
iii., cccxv.-cccxxxi. Extracts from the Assize rolls recording
the proceedings of the special commission will soon be
published by the Royal Historical Society.
Fear of Edward drove nobles into obedience as well as ministers into
honesty. Gloucester desisted unwillingly from his attacks on Brecon,
and was constrained to divorce his wife and marry the king's daughter,
Joan of Acre. In becoming the king's son-in-law, he was forced to
surrender his estates to the crown, receiving them back entailed on the
heirs of the marriage or, in their default, on the heirs of Joan. Thus
the system of entails made possible by the statute _De donis_ was used
by Edward to strengthen his hold over the most powerful of his
feudatories and increase the prospect of his estates escheating to the
crown. Considered in this light, Gilbert's marriage with the king's
daughter seems less a reward of loyalty than a punishment for
lawlessness. In the same year as this marriage, Edward passed another
law directed against the baronage. This was the statute of Westminster
the Third, called from its opening words, _Quia emptores_. It enacted
that, when part of an estate was alienated by its lord, the grantee
should not be permitted to become the subtenant of the grantor, but
should stand to the ultimate lord of the fief in the same feudal
relation as the grantor himself. This prohibition of further
subinfeudation stopped the creation of new manors and prevented the
rivetting of new links in the feudal chain, which were the necessary
condition of its strength. Though passed at the request of the barons,
it was a measure much more helpful to the king than to his vassals. It
stood to the barons as the statute of Mortmain stood to the Church.
Edward was bent on showing that he was master, and his new son-in-law
and the Earl of Hereford became the victims of his policy. He forced the
reluctant Gloucester to admit that the pretensions of the lord of
Glamorgan to be the overlord of the bishop of LLandaff and the guardian
of the temporalities of the see during a vacancy were usurpations.
Seeing that his marcher prerogatives were thus rapidly becoming
undermined, Gloucester put the most cherished marcher right to the test
by renewing the private war with the Earl of Hereford which had
disturbed the realm during Edward's absence. The king issued peremptory
orders for the immediate cessation of hostilities. These mandates
Hereford obeyed, but Gloucester did not. Resolved that law not force was
henceforth to settle disputes in the march, Edward summoned a novel
court at Ystradvellte, in Brecon, wherein a jury from the neighbouring
shires and liberties was to decide the case between the two earls in the
presence of the chief marchers. Gloucester refused to appear, and the
marchers declined to take part in the trial, pleading that it was
against their liberties. The case was adjourned to give the
recalcitrants every chance, and after a preliminary report by the
judges, Edward resolved to hear the suit in person. In October, 1291, he
presided at Abergavenny over the court before which the earls were
arraigned. They were condemned to imprisonment and forfeiture. Content
with humbling their pride and annihilating their privileges, Edward
suffered them to redeem themselves from captivity by the payment of
heavy fines, and before long gave them back their lands. The king's
victory was so complete that neither of the earls could forgive it. In
1295, Gloucester died, without opportunity of revenge; but Hereford
lived on, brooding over his wrongs, and in later years signally avenged
the trial at Abergavenny. Meanwhile the conqueror of the principality
had shown unmistakably that the liberties of the march were an
anachronism, since the marchers had no longer the work of defending
English interests against the Welsh nation.[1]
[1] Mr. J.E. Morris in chap. vi. of his _Welsh Wars of Edward
I._ has admirably summarised this suit. See also G.T. Clark's
_Land of Morgan_.
Another measure that followed Edward's home-coming was the expulsion of
the Jews. Despite constant odium and intermittent persecution, the
Jewish financiers who had settled in England after the Norman conquest
steadily improved their position down to the reign of Henry III. The
personal dependants of the crown, they were well able to afford to share
their gains from usury with their protectors. They lived in luxury,
built stone houses, set up an organisation of their own, and even
purchased lands. Henry III.'s financial embarrassments forced him to
rely upon them, and the alliance of the Jews and the crown stimulated
the religious bigotry of the popular party to ill-treat the Jews during
the Barons' War. Stories of Jews murdering Christian children were
eagerly believed; and the cult of St. Hugh of Lincoln and St. William of
Norwich,[1] two pretended victims of Hebrew cruelty, testified to the
hatred which Englishmen bore to the race.
[1] See for this saint, Thomas of Monmouth, _Life and Miracles
of St. William of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp and James (1896).
Under Edward I. the condition of the Jews became more precarious. The
king hated them alike on religious and economical grounds. He rigorously
insisted that they should wear a distinctive dress, and at last
altogether prohibited usury. Driven from their chief means of earning
their living, the Jews had recourse to clipping and sweating the coin.
Indiscriminate severities did little to abate these evils. Meanwhile
active missionary efforts were made to win over the Jews to the
Christian faith. They were compelled to listen to long sermons from
mendicant friars, and their obstinacy in adhering to their own creed was
denounced as a deliberate offence against the light. Peckham shut up
their synagogues, and Eleanor of Provence, who had entered a convent,
joined with the archbishop in urging her son to take severe measures
against them. There was a similar movement in France, and Edward, during
his long stay abroad, had expelled the Jews from Aquitaine. In 1290 he
applied the same policy to England, and their exile was so popular an
act that parliament made him a special grant as a thankoffering. But
though Edward thus drove the Jews to seek new homes beyond sea, he
allowed them to carry their property with them, and punished the
mariners who took advantage of the helplessness of their passengers to
rob and murder them. Though individual Jews were found from time to time
in England during the later middle ages, their official re-establishment
was only allowed in the seventeenth century.[1]
[1] For the Jews see J. Jacobs, _Jews in Angevin England_;
Tovey, _Anglia Judaica_; J.M. Rigg, _Select Pleas of the Jewish
Exchequer_; and for their exile B.L. Abrahams, _Expulsion of
the Jews from England in 1290_.
Two generations at least before their expulsion, the Jews had been
outrivalled in their financial operations by societies of Italian
bankers, whose admirable organisation and developed system of credit
enabled them to undertake banking operations of a magnitude quite beyond
the means of the Hebrews. First brought into England as papal agents for
remitting to Rome the spoils of the Church, they found means of evading
the canonical prohibitions of usury, and became the loanmongers of
prince and subject alike. To the crown the Italians were more useful
than the Jews had been. The value of the Jews to the monarch had been in
the special facilities enjoyed by him in taxing them. The utility of the
Italian societies was in their power of advancing sums of money that
enabled the king to embark on enterprises hitherto beyond the limited
resources of the medieval state. The Italians financed all Edward's
enterprises from the crusade of 1270 to his Welsh and Scottish
campaigns. From them Edward and his son borrowed at various times sums
amounting to almost half a million of the money of the time. In return
the Italians, chief among whom was the Florentine Society of the
Frescobaldi, obtained privileges which made them as deeply hated as ever
the Hebrews had been.[1]
[1] See on this subject E.A. Bond's article in _Archaeologia_,
vol. xxviii., pp. 207-326; W.E. Rhodes, _Italian Bankers in
England under Edward I. and II._ in _Owens Coll. Historical
Essays_, pp. 137-68; and R.J. Whitwell, _Italian Bankers and
the English Crown_ in _Transactions of Royal Hist. Soc._, N.S.,
xvii. (1903), pp. 175-234.
Among the troubles which had called Edward back from Gascony was the
condition of Scotland, where a long period of prosperity had ended with
the death of Edward's brother-in-law, Alexander III., in 1286. Alexander
III. attended his brother-in-law's coronation in 1274, and the
irritation excited by his limiting his homage to his English lordships
of Tynedale and Penrith did not cause any great amount of friction. But
the homage question was only postponed, and at Michaelmas, 1278,
Alexander was constrained to perform unconditionally this unwelcome act.
"I, Alexander King of Scotland," were his words, "become the liege man
of the lord Edward, King of England, against all men." But by carefully
refraining from specifying for what he became Edward's vassal, Alexander
still suggested that it was for his English lordships. Edward with equal
caution declared that he received the homage, "saving his right and
claim to the homage of Scotland when he may wish to speak concerning
it". Both parties were content with mutual protestations. Edward was so
friendly to Alexander that he allowed him to appoint Robert Bruce, Earl
of Carrick, his proxy in professing fealty, so as to minimise the king's
feeling of humiliation. The King of Scots went home loaded with
presents, and for the rest of his life his relations with Edward
remained cordial.
The closing years of Alexander's reign were overshadowed by domestic
misfortunes and the prospects of difficulties about the succession. His
wife, Margaret of England, had died in 1275, and was followed to the
tomb by their two sons, Alexander and David. A delicate girl, Margaret,
then alone represented the direct line of the descendants of William the
Lion. Margaret was married, when still young, to Eric, King of Norway,
and died in 1283 in giving birth to her only child, a daughter named
Margaret. No children were born of Alexander's second marriage; and in
March, 1286, the king broke his neck, when riding by night along the
cliffs of the coast of Fife. Before his death, however, he persuaded the
magnates of Scotland to recognise his granddaughter as his successor.
The Maid of Norway, as Margaret was called, was proclaimed queen, and
the administration was put into the hands of six guardians, who from
1286 to 1289 carried on the government with fair success. As time went
on, the baronage got out of hand and a feud between the rival
south-western houses of Balliol and Bruce foreshadowed worse troubles.
William Eraser, Bishop of St. Andrews, the chief of the regents, visited
Edward in Gascony and urged the necessity of action. The best solution
of all problems was that the young Queen of Scots should be married to
Edward of Carnarvon, a boy a few months her junior. But both the Scots
nobles and the King of Norway were jealous and suspicious, and any
attempt to hurry forward such a proposal would have been fatal to its
accomplishment. However, negotiations were entered into between England,
Scotland, and Norway. In 1289 the guardians of Scotland agreed to
nominate representatives to treat on the matter. Edward took up his
quarters at Clarendon, while his agents, conspicuous among whom was
Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham, negotiated with the envoys of Norway and
Scotland. On November 6 the three powers concluded the treaty of
Salisbury, by which they agreed that Margaret should be sent to England
or Scotland before All Saints' Day, 1290, "free and quit of all contract
of marriage or espousals". Edward promised that if Margaret came into
his custody he would, as soon as Scotland was tranquil, hand her over to
the Scots as "free and quit" as when she came to him; and the "good folk
of Scotland" engaged that, if they received their queen thus free, they
would not marry her "save with the ordinance, will, and counsel of
Edward and with the agreement of the King of Norway". In March, 1290, a
parliament of Scots magnates met at Brigham, near Kelso, and ratified
the treaty. Fresh negotiations were begun for the marriage of Edward of
Carnarvon and the Queen of Scots, resulting in the treaty of Brigham of
July 18, which Edward confirmed a month later at Northampton. By this
Edward agreed that, in the event of the marriage taking place, the laws
and customs of Scotland should be perpetually maintained. Should
Margaret die without issue, Scotland was to go to its natural heir, and
in any case was to remain "separate and divided from the realm of
England".
The treaty of Brigham was as wise a scheme as could have been devised
for bringing about the unity of Britain. In the care taken to meet the
natural scruples of the smaller nation we are reminded of the treaty of
Union of 1707. But a nearer parallel is to be found in the conditions
under which the union between France and Brittany was gradually
accomplished after the marriage of Anne of Brittany. In both cases
alike, in France and in England, the stronger party was content with
securing the personal union of the two crowns, and strove to reconcile
the weaker party by providing safeguards against violent or over-rapid
amalgamation. It was left for the future to decide whether the habit of
co-operation, continued for generations, might not ultimately involve a
more organic union. Unluckily for this island, the policy which
ultimately made the stubborn Celts of Brittany content with union with
France, never had a chance of being carried out here. Edward made every
preparation for bringing over the Maid of Norway to her kingdom and her
husband, and neither the Scots nor the Norwegians grudged his leading
share in accomplishing their common wishes. But the child's health gave
way before the hardships of the journey. Before All Saints' day had come
round, she died in one of the Orkneys, where the ship which conveyed her
had put in.
The death of the queen threatened Scotland with revolution. The regents'
commission became of doubtful legality, and a swarm of claimants for the
vacant throne arose, whose resources, if not their rights, were
sufficiently evenly balanced to make civil strife inevitable. Since
southern Scotland had become a wholly feudal, largely Norman, and partly
English state, there had been no grave difficulties with regard to the
succession. Now that they arose, there was doubt as to the principles on
which claims to the throne should be settled. There was no legitimate
representative left of the stock of William the Lion. The male line of
his brother David, Earl of Huntingdon, had died out with John the Scot,
the last independent Earl of Chester. The nearest claimants to the
succession were therefore to be found in the descendants of David's
three daughters. But there was no certainty that any rights could be
transmitted through the female line. Moreover there was a doubt whether,
allowing that a woman could transmit the right to rule, the succession
should proceed according to primogeniture or in accordance with the
nearness of the claimant to the source of his claim. If the former view
were held then John of Balliol, lord of Barnard castle in Durham and of
Galloway in Scotland, had the best right as the grandson of Earl David's
eldest daughter. Yet less than a century before, the passing over of
Arthur of Brittany in favour of his uncle John, had recalled to men's
mind the ancient doctrine that a younger son is nearer to the parent
stock than a grandson sprung from his elder brother; and if the view,
then expressed in the _History of William the Marshal_,[1] was still to
hold good, Robert Bruce, lord of Skelton in Yorkshire, and of Annandale
in the northern kingdom, was the nearest in blood to David of Huntingdon
as the son of his second daughter. Beyond this there was the further
question of the divisibility of the kingdom. So fully was southern
Scotland feudalised that it seemed arguable that the monarchy, or at
least its demesne lands, might be divided among all the representatives
of the coheiresses, after the fashion in which the Huntingdon estates
had been allotted to all the representatives of Earl David. In that case
John of Hastings, lord of Abergavenny, put in a claim as the grandson of
Earl David's youngest daughter.
[1] _Hist. de Guillaume le Marechal_, ii., _64_, II. 11899-902.
Oil, sire, quer c'est raison
Quer plus pres est sanz achaison
Le filz de la terre son pere
Que le nies: dreiz est qu'il i pere.
When so much was uncertain, every noble who boasted any connexion with
the royal house safeguarded his interests, or advertised his pedigree,
by enrolling himself among the claimants. Five or six of the competitors
had no better ground of right than descent from bastards of the royal
house, especially from the numerous illegitimate offspring of William
the Lion. The others went back to more remote ancestors. A foreign
prince, Florence, Count of Holland, demanded the succession as a
descendant of a sister of Earl David, declaring that David had forfeited
his rights by rebellion. John Comyn, lord of Badenoch, brought forward
his descent from Donaldbane, brother of Malcolm Canmore. One claim reads
like a fairy tale, with stories of an unknown king dying, leaving a son
to be murdered by a wicked uncle, and a daughter to escape to obscurity
in Ireland, where she married and transmitted her rights to her
children. There was no authority in Scotland strong enough to decide
these claims. Once more Robert Bruce raised the standard of disorder,
and the appeal of Bishop Fraser to Edward to undertake the settlement of
the question showed that the English king's mediation was the readiest
way of restoring order.
In 1291 Edward summoned the magnates of both realms, along with certain
popular representatives, to meet at Norham, Bishop Bek's border castle
on the Tweed. Trained civilians and canonists also attended, while
abbeys and churches contributed extracts from chronicles, carefully
compiled by royal order, with a view of illustrating the king's claims.
On May 10 Edward met the assembly in Norham parish church. Roger
Brabazon, the chief justice, declared in the French tongue that Edward
was prepared to do justice to the claimants as "superior and direct lord
of Scotland". Before, however, he could act, his master required that
his overlordship should be recognised by the Scots. It is likely that
this demand was not unexpected. Even in the treaty of Brigham Edward had
been careful not to withdraw his claim of superiority, and his action
with relation to Alexander III.'s homage was well known. But the
sensitiveness which their late king had shown in the face of Edward's
earlier claims was shared by the Scots lords, and shrinking from
recognising facts which they ought to have faced before they solicited
his intervention, they begged for delay and drew up remonstrances.
Edward granted them, a respite for three weeks, though he swore by St.
Edward that he would rather die than diminish the rights due to the
Confessor's crown. He had already summoned the northern levies, and was
prepared to enforce his claim by force. His uncompromising attitude put
the Scots in an awkward position. But they had gone to Norham to get his
help, and they were not prepared to run the risk of an English invasion
as well as civil war. Most of the claimants had as many interests in
England as in Scotland, and a breach with Edward would involve the
forfeiture of their southern lands as well as the loss of a possible
kingdom in the north. When the magnates reassembled, the competitors set
the example of acknowledging Edward as overlord. Fresh demands followed
their submission, and were at once conceded. Edward was to have seisin
of Scotland and its royal castles, though he pledged himself to return
both land and fortresses to him who should be chosen king.
Edward then undertook the examination of the suit. He delegated the
hearing of the claims to a commission, of whom the great majority,
eighty, were Scotsmen, nominated in equal numbers by Bruce and Balliol,
the two senior competitors, while the remaining twenty-four consisted of
Englishmen, and included many of Edward's wisest counsellors. In
deference to Scottish feeling, Edward ordered the court to meet on
Scottish territory, at Berwick, and appointed August 2 for the opening
day. Meanwhile the full consequences of the Scottish submission were
carried out. On Edward's taking seisin of Scotland, the regency came to
an end. The nomination of the provisional government resting with
Edward, he reappointed the former regents, and allowed the Scots barons
to elect their chancellor. But with the regents Edward associated a
northern baron, Brian Fitzalan of Bedale, and the Scottish bishop, who
was appointed chancellor, had to act jointly with one of Edward's
clerks. Edward then made a short progress, reaching as far as Stirling
and St. Andrews. He was back at Berwick for the meeting of the
commissioners on August 2.
The first session of the court was a brief one. The twelve competitors
put in their claims, and Bruce and Balliol supported theirs by argument.
However, on August 12, the trial was adjourned for nearly a year, until
June 2, 1292. On its resumption in Edward's presence, the more difficult
issues were carefully worked out. A new and fantastic claim, sent in by
Eric of Norway, as the nearest of kin to his daughter, did not delay
matters. The judges were instructed to settle in the first instance the
relative claims of Bruce and Balliol, and also to decide by what law
these should be determined. On October 14, they declared their first
judgment. They rejected Bruce's plea that the decision should follow the
"natural law by which kings rule," and accepted Balliol's contention
that they should follow the laws of England and Scotland. They further
laid down that the law of succession to the throne was that of other
earldoms and dignities. They pronounced in favour of primogeniture as
against proximity of blood.
These decisions practically settled the case, but a further adjournment
was resolved upon, and upon the reassembling of the court on November 6
the only question still open, that of whether the kingdom could be
divided, was taken up. John of Hastings came on the scene with the
contention that the monarchy should be divided among the representatives
of Earl David's daughters. Bruce had the effrontery to associate himself
with Hastings' demand. A short adjournment was arranged to settle this
issue, and on November 17 the final scene took place in the hall of
Berwick castle. Besides the commissioners, the king was there in full
parliament, and eleven claimants, who still persevered, were present or
represented by proxy. Nine of these were severally told that they would
obtain nothing by their petitions. Bruce was informed that his claim to
the whole was incompatible with his present claim for a third. It was
laid down that the kingdom of Scotland was indivisible, and that the
right of Balliol had been established.
The seal of the regency was broken: Edward handed over the seisin of
Scotland to John Balliol, who three days later took the oath of fealty
as King of Scots, promising that he would perform all the service due to
Edward from his kingdom, Balliol hurried to his kingdom, and was crowned
at Scone on St. Andrew's day. He then returned to England, and kept
Christmas with his overlord at Newcastle, where, on December 26, he did
homage to Edward in the castle hall. But within a few days a difficulty
arose. John resented Edward's retaining the jurisdiction over a law-suit
in which a Berwick merchant, a Scotsman, was a party. He was reassured
by Edward that he only did so, because the case had arisen during the
vacancy, when Edward was admittedly ruling Scotland. But Edward
significantly added a reservation of his right of hearing appeals, even
in England; and when the King of Scots went back to his realm, early in
January, he must have already foreseen that there was trouble to come.
Edward never lost sight of his own interests, and it is clear that he
took full advantage of the needs of the Scots to establish a close
supremacy over the northern kingdom. Making allowance for this sinister
element, his general policy in dealing with the great suit had been
singularly prudent and correct. He was anxious to ascertain the right
heir; he gave the Scots a preponderating voice in the tribunal; he
rejected the temptation which Bruce and Hastings dangled before him of
splitting up the realm into three parts, and he restored the land and
its castles as soon as the suit was settled. There is nothing to show
that up to this point his action had produced any resentment in
Scotland, and little evidence that there was any strong national feeling
involved. Scottish chroniclers, who wrote after the war of independence,
have given a colour to Edward's policy which contemporary evidence does
not justify. From the point of his generation, his action was just and
legal. He had, in fact, performed a signal service to Scotland in
vindicating its unity; and by maintaining the rigid doctrines of
Anglo-Norman jurisprudence, he rescued it from the vague philosophy
which Bruce called natural law, and the recrudescence of Celtic custom
that gave even bastards a hope of the succession. The real temptation
came when, after his triumph, Edward sought to extract from the
submission of the Scots consequences which had no warranty in custom,
and made Scottish resistance inevitable.
The expulsion of the Jews, the reform of the administration, the statute
_Quia emptores_, the treaty of Tarascon, the humiliation of Gloucester,
and the successful issue of the Scottish arbitration, mark the
culminating point in the reign of Edward I. The king had ruled twenty
years with almost uniform success, and his only serious disappointment
had been the failure of the crusade. The last hope of the Latin East
faded when, in 1291, Acre, so long the bulwark of the crusaders against
the Turks, opened its gates to the infidel. With the fall of Acre went
the last chance of the holy war. Before long the peace of Europe, which
Edward thought that he had established, was once more rudely disturbed.
Difficulties soon arose with Scotland, with France, with the Church, and
with the barons. These troubles bore the more severely on the king
because this period saw also the removal of nearly all of those in whom
he had placed special trust. The gracious Eleanor of Castile died in
1290, at Harby, in Nottinghamshire, near Lincoln,[1] and the devotion of
the king to the partner of his youth found a striking expression in the
sculptured crosses, which marked the successive resting-places of her
corpse on its last journey from Harby to Westminster Abbey. A few months
later Edward's mother, Eleanor of Castile, ended her long life in the
convent of Amesbury, in Wiltshire. The ministers of Edward's early reign
were also removed by death. Bishop Kirkby, the treasurer, died in 1290,
and Burnell, the chancellor, in 1292, soon after he had performed his
last public act in the declaration of the king's judgment as to the
Scottish succession. Archbishop Peckham died in the same year. New
domestic ties were formed, and fresh ministers were found, but the
ageing king became more and more lonely, as he was compelled to rely
upon a younger and a less faithful generation. Of his old comrades the
chief remaining was Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, while the removal of
Burnell brought forward to the first rank prelates whose position had
hitherto been somewhat obscured by his predominance. Prominent among
these were the brothers Thomas Bek, Bishop of St. David's, and Anthony
Bek, Bishop of Durham, members of a conspicuous Lincolnshire baronial
family. Both of these for a time strikingly combined devotion to the
royal service with loyalty to those clerical and aristocratic traditions
which, strictly interpreted, were almost incompatible with faithful
service to a secular monarch. Even more important henceforth was the
king's treasurer, Walter Langton, Bishop of Lichfield, the most trusted
minister of Edward's later life, a faithful but not too scrupulous
prelate of the ministerial type, who stood to the second half of the
reign in almost the same close relation as that in which Burnell stood
to the years which we have now traversed.
[1] See for this W.H. Stevenson, _Death of Eleanor of Castile_,
in _English Hist. Review_, iii. (1888), pp. 315-318.
CHAPTER X.
THE FRENCH AND SCOTTISH WARS AND THE CONFIRMATION OF THE CHARTERS.
Troubles arose between France and England soon after Edward had settled
the Scottish succession. Neither Edward nor Philip the Fair sought a
conflict. Edward was satisfied with his diplomatic successes, and
Philip's designs upon Gascony were better pursued by chicane than by
warfare. But questions arose of a different kind from the disputes as to
feudal right, which had been hitherto the principal matters in debate
between the two crowns.
There had long been keen commerc |
