printed virtually in duplicate on pages 613, 717, though dated by the
editor in the former instance ‘1211–12’ throughout, and in the latter,
‘1261–2,’ and even ‘_Temp._ Edw. I.’ (pp. 721–2). The first of these,
from internal evidence, is probably the right date; the remaining list
(pp. 706 _et seq._), though headed in the MS. 46 Hen. III., is merely
this old list rearranged, with a money payment substituted for the
military service. I mention this because, as printed, these lists are
most misleading to any one unacquainted with their real date.
The ‘Constable’s Honour,’ for which, alone, we have six or seven
slightly varying returns, is one of the most interesting in the whole
Book, and leads me to say something on this important subject, on which
a wholly erroneous belief has hitherto prevailed.
The first point to which I desire to direct attention is that the
nine wards (_custodiæ_), named in the ‘Red Book’ lists--The
Constable’s, ‘Abrincis,’ Foubert de Dover,[564] Arsic, Peverel,
Maminot, Port, Crevequer, and Adam Fitz William[565]--are all
reproduced in the names still attached to towers, including even
Fulbert’s Christian name. This coincidence of testimony leads one to
believe that these names must have become fixed at a very early period,
and to enquire what that period was. Looking at the history of the
families named, it seems probable that this period was not later, at
least, than the reign of Henry II.
But it is in the Constable’s “Ward” that the interest centres. For the
time-honoured belief, preserved by Lyon, and reproduced by Mr. Clark,
is that “three barons of the house of Fiennes held the office under the
Conqueror, Rufus, and Henry I.” After stating that these barons “held
the office of constable” under Henry II., Mr. Clark informs us that “of
these lords, the last, James Fiennes, was constable at the accession
of Richard I., and in 1191 received, as a prisoner in the castle,
Geoffrey, Henry II.’s natural son.”[566] Professor Burrows repeats,
though guardedly, the old story:
William (I.) is now said to have conferred the guardianship of
the coast, as an hereditary fief on a certain John de Fiennes,
whose name, however, does not appear in any contemporary record.
John was to do service for his lands as Constable of the Castle
and Warden of the Ports.... The office of Constable and Warden
ceased to be hereditary in the reign of Richard I.[567]
Mr. Hall has now revived the old legend in full:
In the valuable register formerly belonging to the Priory
of Merton ... a similar but shorter list is found, with an
interesting description of these services, which will be
presently referred to (p. ccxxxvii.).
The constitutional significance of the tenure itself has not
been perfectly realised. The Merton Register mentioned above
informs us, under the heading “De Wardis Castri Dovorræ,”
that the Conqueror granted the constableship of the castle
there to the Lord of Fienes, with the service of fifty-six
knights, who kept guard each month in turn, some four or
five at once. Besides these, other knights were assigned
to that constableship, for so many weeks in the year, by
the neighbouring Lords of Chilham and Folkestone, and other
barons mentioned in the later returns. Thus the Castle-ward
was performed down to the reign of John, when it was thought
advisable that such an important fortress should be committed to
the keeping of a royal constable and a permanent garrison....
Hubert de Burgh was appointed constable during pleasure, and the
office has continued to the present day in the patronage of the
Crown (p. ccxxxviii.).
[NOTE.] William de Fesnes, the last baronial Constable,
appears to have received the honour of Wendover by way of
compensation (‘Testa,’ ii. 158).
Now, how much truth is there in this story? Fifty-six knights, we see,
are assigned to John de Fiennes, as first Constable, and fifty-six
knights’ fees (plus or minus 1/10 fee) are assigned in the ‘Liber
Rubeus’ to the “Warda Constabularii.” But the history of these fees,
the “Honor Constabularii,” can be traced with absolute certainty. They
are those which had last been held by Henry de Essex, “the Constable,”
whose tragic fate is familiar, which had been previously held by Robert
de Ver “the Constable,” in right of his wife, a Montfort, and the
possession of which can be traced back by Domesday to no other than
Hugh de Montfort.[568] We learn then that “the Honour of the Constable”
(which we should not otherwise have known) was connected with the
custody of Dover Castle, the “clavis et repagulum Angliæ”; and we learn
more. For when we turn to the story of the attack on Dover Castle
in 1067, we find Hugh de Montfort “the immediate commander of the
castle”;[569] and are thus able to trace the “Warda Constabularii” back
to the Conquest itself.
Thus the legend of John de Fiennes and his heirs, constables of the
castle, together with its “constitutional significance,” is blown, as
it were, into space, and should never, henceforth, be heard.
The “Honour of the Constable” passed to the Crown on the forfeiture
of Henry of Essex (1163); and as for the alleged action of “James
Fienes” as constable in 1191, it is well known that the constable at
the time was a brother-in-law of Longchamp, the king’s representative.
I have suggested in a paper on “Faramus of Boulogne”[570] a possible
origin for the Fiennes story in the castle being held by Faramus
at the close of Stephen’s reign, a fact which may account for the
late tradition about “quodam comite Boloniæ qui erat ejusdem Castri
Constabularius.”[571] For the Fienes family were his heirs, through his
daughter; and it was through him, and not on the ground suggested by
Mr. Hall, that they obtained Wendover. To Faramus himself, however, it
may have been given in compensation.
* * * * *
Thus far I have been dealing with a question of castle-ward. I now pass
to the ‘cornage rents’ and to the new theory of their origin. This
theory is one of the features of Mr. Hall’s Introduction, in which he
devotes to it ten pages; and it follows immediately on his remarks upon
“the constableship of Dover.”
As difficult a subject as ‘Scutage,’ and one on which less has been
written, the origin and character of “cornage” are problems as yet
unsolved. The brilliant pen of Professor Maitland has attacked them in
a paper on “Northumbrian tenures”;[572] but he cannot tell us more,
virtually, than we know already, namely, that the term points to
cattle, and is not derived, as Littleton in his ‘Tenures’ and the older
antiquaries held, from the service of blowing a horn.
Mr. Hall, however, “hazards” the new and startling theory that the
payment known by this name represents a commutation of castle-ward
previously due from the drengs and thegns of the Northern marches. For
this, it would seem, his only ground is the entry in the ‘Red Book’ of
a list of Northumbrian cornage payments in close proximity to lists of
castle-ward services. On this slender foundation is built an edifice
of guesses, such as distinguishes this strange work from any other in
the Rolls Series. They are prefaced, in their order, as usual, thus:
if we might venture to disregard ... we may suspect that ... the
impression remains that ... May we not then conjecture that ...
it will now be possible to hazard some theory ... It is at least
conceivable that ... will perhaps suggest the theory, etc.,
etc.... (pp. ccxlii.-ccxlviii.).
Rejecting “the accepted definition of cornage as a mere seignorial
due in respect of the pasturage of cattle,” Mr. Hall explains that
it rests on “a radical misconception,” namely, on “the argument that
the references to military service performed by” the Cumberland
cornage “tenants are later interpolations in the reign of Edward I.,”
whereas, as he observes, they are mentioned in a list of about the end
of John’s reign. The criticism is curiously characteristic. For, on
turning to Professor Maitland’s paper (p. 629), we find not a hint of
“interpolation”; he has merely--misled, no doubt, by the title page of
the printed ‘Testa’--mistaken a list of John’s reign for one of “Edward
I.’s time.” And, so far from assigning to that period the first mention
of this service, he refers us, in the same passage, to its mention in
1238, when, as he actually observes, it “looks like an ancient trait.”
The misconception, therefore, is not his, but Mr. Hall’s.
In the manuscript itself we find the ward service of Newcastle and the
details of the Northumberland cornage occupying a single page (fo.
195 _d_). But this circumstance, for which I shall account fully
below, in no way connects the two. On the contrary, we find eleven
territorial units here entered as paying “cornage” in addition to
their payments for castle-ward. The two payments, it will be observed,
could not both be commutations of the same thing.[573] It is quite
clear that, in Cumberland, all who held “per cornagium” were bound,
apart from the payment of that due, to march respectively in the van
and in the rear when the king was invading or retreating from Scotland,
a duty for which they were, obviously, qualified by their local
knowledge; but this had absolutely nothing to do with castle-ward, nor
is even this special service mentioned in the case of Northumberland.
Cornage, from the time we first meet with it, appears in our records as
a money payment, not as a military service, and even Mr. Hall admits
that the name is derived from horned beasts, unlike the ‘ward penny’ of
the south, in which he would seek its parallel, and of which the name
leaves us in no doubt as to its nature. The institution of cornage,
therefore, is, we shall find, as obscure as ever, although there is
some evidence, unknown, it seems, to Professor Maitland as it is to Mr.
Hall. Its historical importance is beyond question.
Of the cornage of Northumberland, as recorded in the ‘Red Book,’ the
editor writes that “it is of the highest importance to trace its
earlier history in the records of the Exchequer.” It can, as he says,
be traced back to 1164; but I cannot accept his suggestion as to why it
then made its appearance. One must turn, for comparison, to that of
Cumberland, concerning which we read as follows:
In each succeeding year-roll, from the beginning of the reign of
Henry II., the sheriff of Cumberland had rendered his account
for the Neatgild of the county. The amount of this tribute was
fixed at £80.... But we have no means of showing how the £80 was
made up, because the sheriff answered for it in a lump sum, and
no particulars of his account have survived as in the case of
the Northumberland list happily preserved in the Red Book.
But this Neatgild (or cornage) can be traced back much further, namely,
to the year-roll of 1130, and even earlier. It was £85 8_s._ 8_d._
under Henry I., and over £80 under Henry II.; and details of sums
paid in respect of it are duly found, not only in the ‘Red Book’ (pp.
493–4),[574] but also in the ‘Testa de Nevill.’ Moreover, the cornage
of Northumberland as well was answered for “in a lump sum,” and this
leads me to explain the entry of the Northumbrian lists. Mr. Hall has
failed to observe that his manuscript adds up the cornage wrongly, and
is even guilty of a further error in asserting that this erroneous
total is “xxii den. plus quam alii solebant respondere,” its real
excess being £1 1_s._ 10_d._[575] Apart from its obvious bearing on the
character and value of the manuscript, this error has misled the editor
into stating that the sums entered, “less the pardons of the Prior
of Tynemouth and the King of Scots, make up the charge of £20 for the
county.” On the contrary, the grand total is £21 3_s._ 10_d._, although
the sheriffs were only liable for the “lump sum” of £20. Why is this?
It is because Robert “de Insula,” to whom we owe the list, held the
shire “ut custos.” This most important Exchequer phrase, which the
editor must have overlooked on the roll, can be traced back, at least,
as far as 1130. It means that the Crown had put its own man in office,
and was thus able to get at the details of the payment, for which
the normal sheriff was only liable in a “lump sum.” This is why the
opportunity was taken to set these details on record. This explanation
applies also to the details of Newcastle ward service immediately
preceding the cornage payments. The editor might have learnt from the
Pipe Rolls that the sheriff was normally charged, in respect of this
payment, with £32 4_s._ 5_d._ gross, and £28 14_s._ 5_d._ net, which
latter sum he was entitled to retain for his wardenship of the castle.
But Robert, as “custos,” recorded the receipts as amounting to £33, and
was consequently called upon in 1267 to account for £4 5_s._ 7_d._(the
difference between £33 and £28 14_s._ 5_d._) “de cremento wardarum
Novi Castri de anno xlix° sicut recepit.” The entry, therefore, of
both lists can be traced to Robert’s position “ut custos” in 49 Hen.
III. Lastly, the statement that “the cornage of Westmoreland can also
be traced on the rolls, but it was of very trifling value,” seems
unfortunate in view of the fact that it was, when it first appears,
nearly thrice as large as the whole cornage of Northumberland.
That I may not close with a negative result, I append two remarkable
charters from the MS. cartulary of St. Bees, which show us the Cumbrian
Noutegeld being actually paid in cows to William earl of Albemarle,
as lord of Coupland, which barony was exempt from its payment to the
Crown.[576]
Willelmus comes Albemarlie archiepiscopo Ebor[acensi] et
capitulo et omnibus matricis ecclesie filiis salutem. Noverit
paternitas vestra me dedisse et concessisse deo et sancte Marie
et sancte Bege in Copelandia et omnibus (_sic_) vi vaccas
in perpetuam elemosinam reddendas anno omni quo meum Noutegeld
debuerit fieri. Hanc autem donacionem feci pro animabus omnium
antecessorum meorum et antecessorum uxoris mee Cecilie.
Testibus, etc....
* * * * *
Willelmus comes Albemarlie omnibus hominibus suis tam futuris
quam presentibus salutem. Sciatis quod dedi et presenti carta
confirmavi Deo et sancte Marie et sancte Bege et monachis de
sancta Bega vi vaccas de meo Nautegeld (_sic_) unoquoque anno,
quando accipio Nautegeld in Copuland, etc.[577] ...
Now it is a most interesting fact that in Durham also we find, as in
Coupland, a payment in cows (“vaccas de metride”) made by townships
in connection with their payment of “cornage.”[578] From the above
important charters, it would seem that the two dues went together.
In Durham there is a classical passage for the “cornage” proper,
quoted by those who have dealt with “cornage,” but not by Mr. Hall.
In a charter of Henry I., which I assign to 1128–9, he speaks of
“cornagium de Bortona ... _scilicet de unoquoque animali_ ij _d._”[579]
This is precisely the source of “cornage” which Mr. Hall desires to
“disregard.” And if further proof were needed of the non-identity
of “cornage” with castle-ward, it is found in the fact that, as in
Northumberland, both dues existed simultaneously in Durham, vills
which paid cornage being also liable to provide men for castle-ward
(“castlemanni”).[580]
XIV
Bannockburn
As Sir Henry Howorth has so truly observed, in a presidential address
to the members of the Archæological Institute, the transition from the
chronicle to the record as a source of mediæval history is one of the
most striking and hopeful features in recent historical research. And
in no respect, perhaps, has the study of original records modified
more profoundly the statements of mediæval chroniclers than in the
matter of the figures they contain. Dealing with the introduction
of knight-service into England, I was led to give some instances
in point,[581] and specially to urge that “sixty thousand” occurs
repeatedly as a conventional number ludicrously remote from the truth.
It is now, I believe, generally accepted that my estimate of about five
thousand for the number of knights’ fees in England[582] is nearer
the truth than the “sixty thousand” which, in his History, Mr. Green
accepted. But we still read in ‘Social England’ (i. 373) that William
I. “is believed to have landed ... with at least 60,000 men”; nor
did Mr. Freeman himself reject the statement of Orderic that “sixty
thousand” men were gathered on Salisbury Plain for the “Mickle Gemót”
of August 1, 1086. We who saw, only last summer, the difficulty of
there assembling a force scarcely so large, even with all the modern
facilities of transport and organization, can realize, more forcibly
than ever, the incredibility of the fact.
“Stephen Segrave,” Dr. Stubbs reminds us, “the minister of Henry III.,
reckoned 32,000 as the number” of knights’ fees; and even so late as
1371, ministers allowed a parliamentary grant to be calculated on the
belief that there were 40,000 parishes in England, when there were, as
a fact, less than 9,000.[583] So too, as is well known, Fitz Ralph,
archbishop of Armagh, declared at Avignon, that at Oxford, in his
early days, there were 30,000 students, although it is probable that
they cannot have exceeded 3,000 in number.[584] It is even said that
Wycliffe doubled Fitz Ralph’s estimate.
There is nothing, therefore, strange in the fact that two centuries and
a half after the Norman Conquest, we still find absurd numbers assigned
to armies in the field and accepted with thoughtless readiness, even by
modern historians. This, we shall see, has been the case, among many
other battles, with that of Bannockburn (1314).
The ultimate “authority” for the numbers engaged at this ever memorable
fight is Barbour’s Brus. Of Edward that romancer wrote:
He had of fechtaris with hym tha
Ane hundreth thousand men and ma
And fourty thousand war of tha
Armyt on hors, bath hede and hand
And zeit of thai war thre thousand
With helit hors in-till playn male
Till mak the front of the battale
And fifty thousand of archerys
He had, forouten the hoblerys;
With men on fut and small rangale.
In accordance with this statement we read further of the king, that
His folk he delt in battalis ten
In ilkane war weill ten thousand.
Of the Scots we are told that:
Of fectand men I trow thai ware
Thretty thousand, and sum deill mare
* * * * *
Weill thretty thousand men and ma
Mak we four battalis of all thai.
* * * * *
The quethir thai war thretty thousand.
On the English side we have a statement in the ‘Vita Edwardi Secundi.’
It is there asserted, of the host marching on Stirling, that
Erant autem armatorum amplius quam duo milia, excepta peditum
turba copiosa.[585]
The same authority states that Bruce
Circiter quadraginta milia hominum secum produxit.... Ibant
etiam quasi sepes densa conserti, nec leviter potuit talis turba
penetrari.[586]
Let us now see how modern writers have dealt with the numbers present,
remembering that the character and issue of the battle turn largely on
the vast numbers assigned to the English host.
In the ‘Dictionary of National Biography’ (1886) Dr. Æneas Mackay
adopts the traditional view of the English numbers, following Barbour,
indeed, blindly:
On 11 June the whole available forces of England, with a
contingent from Ireland, numbering in all about 100,000 men, of
whom 50,000 were archers, and 40,000 cavalry, were mustered at
Berwick.[587]
A far abler and more cautious writer, Mr. Joseph Bain, F.S.A. Scot., in
his ‘Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland’ (1887), reckoned that
“the whole English army probably did not exceed 50,000.”[588] Against
Hailes on the Scottish side, he supports Hume, who, he writes:
founded on the writs enrolled in the _Foedera_, addressed to the
sheriffs of twelve English counties, two earls, and five barons
for the foot, who numbered in all 21,540. This is undoubtedly
good authority, for ... the Patent Rolls of the time are not
defective. Contingents from all the English shires were not
invariably summoned. In the writs in question the men of the
northern and midland counties, which incurred most danger from
the Scots, were summoned (p. xx.).
From Mr. Bain I turn to our latest authority, Mr. Oman’s ‘History of
the Art of War.’
To the memorable Scottish victory Mr. Oman, as we might expect, devotes
special attention (pp. 570–579). He attributes “the most lamentable
defeat which an English army ever suffered” to two fatal errors, of
which one “was the crowding such a vast army on to a front of no more
than two thousand yards” (p. 579). His argument, in detail, is this:
Two thousand yards of frontage only affords comfortable space
for 1,500 horsemen or 3,000 foot-soldiers abreast. This was well
enough for the main line of the Scottish host, formed in three
battles of perhaps 25,000 men in all, _i.e._ eight or nine deep
in continuous line. But, allowing for the greater space required
for the cavalry, the English were far too many for such a front,
with the ten thousand horse and 50,000 or 60,000 foot which they
may have mustered.
The result of this fact was that from the very beginning of the
battle the English were crowded and crushed together and wholly
unable to manœuvre (p. 575).
In his first work (1885) Mr. Oman had adopted “100,000 men” as the
number of Edward’s host; in 1895 it had become “an army that is rated
at nearly 100,000 men by the chronicler.”[589] In 1898 we learn that
“the estimate of a hundred thousand men, which the Scottish chroniclers
give, is no doubt exaggerated, but that the force was very large is
shown by the genuine details which have come down to us” (p. 573).
These “genuine details” prove to be the figures in the ‘Foedera,’ on
which Mr. Bain relied. Mr. Oman arrives at his figures thus:
Edward II. had brought a vast host with him.... There have been
preserved of the orders which Edward sent out for the raising of
this army only those addressed to the sheriffs of twelve English
counties, seven Marcher barons, and the Justices of North and
South Wales. Yet these account for twenty-one thousand five
hundred men, though they do not include the figures of any of
the more populous shires, such as Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, or
Middlesex. The whole must have amounted to more than 50,000 men
(p. 573).
To the numbers of Edward’s host he attaches so great an importance that
he gives the details, from Rymer, in a note. I make the total, myself,
to be 21,540.[590] It is Mr. Oman’s extraordinary delusion that the
other English counties were similarly called on for troops, but that
the orders have not been “preserved.” On the strength of this illusion
alone he adds some 30,000 men to the English host! A glance at Rymer’s
list, as given in his own pages, is sufficient to dispel that illusion.
As Mr. Bain correctly implies, the counties called on for troops form
a compact group, of which Warwick was the southernmost. Moreover, even
within that group, the southern counties were evidently called on for
much less than the northernmost, Warwick and Leicester only sending 500
men, while Northumberland and Durham were called on to supply 4,000, as
was also Yorkshire. We have only to turn to the ‘Rotuli Scotiæ’[591]
for 1314 to learn that the writs originally issued (_i.e._ in March)
for the Bannockburn campaign summoned no more than 6,500 men, and these
from the counties “beyond Trent” alone.[592] As the peril increased
subsequent writs called for a further 6,000 men from these counties,
and extended the net so as to obtain 3,000 from Lincolnshire, 500 from
Warwickshire and Leicestershire, and 500 from Lancashire (previously
omitted); this, with 4,940 men from Wales and its marches, made up the
total.