THE REGENCY OF WILLIAM THE MARSHAL
1216–1219
He was a verray perfight gentil knight.
[Sidenote: 1216]
The coronation of Henry III had brought England face to face with a
problem which was practically new in her history: the problem of a
royal minority. In the days before the Norman Conquest, indeed, three
English kings had been crowned before they reached the age which for
men of lower degree was counted as that of legal majority; and the
last of these three, Æthelred the Redeless, had come to his throne
at almost the same age as Henry. But these cases were all too remote
to furnish precedents for the guidance of the statesmen into whose
hands the task of carrying on the government of England was thrown by
the death of John. They could not even furnish a precedent for the
choice of a regent; and the choice actually made was the result of
circumstances which may without exaggeration be called unique. None
of the known rules of English law concerning wardship were altogether
applicable to the case of the Crown. As the law of England then stood,
the wardship of a free tenement held by other than military tenure,
and of its infant heir, belonged to the infant’s next-of-kin who was
not capable of inheriting the tenement; the wardship of an infant
tenant in chivalry, and of his land, belonged to his overlord. If the
analogy of the former case were to be followed, the regency would
have fallen to the King’s mother, Isabel of Angoulême. Not only,
however, was the task, in the circumstances then existing, far too
weighty to be laid upon a woman and a foreigner, but it was obviously
impossible to treat the crown and realm of England as a mere ordinary
socage tenement. Wardship in chivalry, on the other hand, would until
little more than three years before Henry’s accession have supplied no
analogy at all; for the King and kingdom of England had no overlord
upon earth before John’s homage to the Pope in May, 1213. By virtue of
that homage England became a fief of the Roman see, and consequently
on John’s death the wardship of his youthful heir and his distracted
realm vested legally in Pope Honorius III. It might therefore have
been expected that the regency would be at once assumed by the Pope’s
representative in England, the Legate Gualo. But Gualo was an Italian
who had been scarcely fifteen months in the land, and he was a priest.
The needs of the time imperatively demanded that the acting head of
the state, whose first task must be to drive out an alien invader
and bring back rebels to allegiance, should be an Englishman and a
warrior; and Gualo’s conduct showed that neither he nor Honorius ever
contemplated any other arrangement. In all the transactions connected
with the crowning of the new King and the organization of the new
government the Legate seems to have purposely kept himself as much as
possible in the background, guarding the rights of the Pope and the
interests of the Pope’s ward not by direct intervention but rather by
his mere presence, and putting forth his official powers only when
their exercise was required to confirm, by the Papal sanction given
through him, the measures agreed upon by the great men of the land, on
whom the actual responsibility of appointing a regent thus devolved. If
in undertaking that responsibility they were guided by any precedent
or analogy at all, it must have been one drawn from a land far remote
from England, but probably better known to many Englishmen in the days
of Richard Cœur-de-Lion’s nephew than most of the countries nearer
home; a land, too, which for fifty years in the preceding century had
been ruled by kings of the same blood as Richard and Henry themselves.
The “Assizes of Jerusalem” in which the jurisconsults of Cyprus,
towards the end of the thirteenth century, embodied the traditions of
law and custom said to be derived from a code originally compiled by
the first King of the Latins in Jerusalem, Godfrey of Bouillon, and
modified by his successors down to Saladin’s capture of the Holy City
in 1187, contain an ordinance about minor heirs which runs thus: “If
he” (the minor) “is a lord of land”--that is, a sovereign or suzerain
lord--“his body and his fortresses ought to be guarded as shall be
agreed by the community of his men.”[327] This provision had been acted
upon in the case of King Baldwin III, on whose accession, at the age
of thirteen, the princes and barons of the realm claimed and exercised
the right to elect a regent.[328] What the magnates of Palestine thus
did in 1174 the magnates of England did as freely in 1216. Not only did
Gualo make no claim to the regency for himself, but he did not even
attempt to dictate their choice. If indeed that choice was influenced
by any one outside their own circle, that one was the late King. John’s
commendation, however, could scarcely have been needed to point out the
man for the office.
Yet that man was one who had not only passed the age of three score
years and ten,[329] but had passed it without ever having held any
office, in court, camp, or administration, of sufficient importance to
give scope for the display of any special capacities for generalship or
government, or for the acquisition of special knowledge and experience
in the conduct of politics or of war. Neither by birth nor by origin
was William the Marshal a magnate of the highest rank. The founder
of the Marshal family, one Gilbert, who seems to have been either a
cadet or a connexion by marriage of the Norman house of Tancarville,
was marshal to Henry I; that office became hereditary in his family,
and furnished a surname to all his race. The office of the King’s
Marshal was in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a grand serjeanty
and nothing more; the military duties and responsibilities originally
involved in it had long since passed into other hands, and the
material advantages attached to it seem to have been of small extent
and importance; it gave to its holder little more than a position of
honour and dignity in the royal household, the right of carrying the
sword of state on certain public occasions, and, possibly, a sort of
inchoate right to the custody of the royal castle of Marlborough.
William was a younger son; at the age of twelve years or thereabouts
{c. 1155} he was sent, with a companion and a serving-lad, to seek
his fortune abroad, in the household of his father’s cousin William
of Tancarville, the chamberlain of Normandy. There he shewed so
little promise of distinction that the other young squires declared
“William Waste-meat”[330] to be good for nothing but eating, drinking,
and sleeping. The chamberlain, however, had a better opinion of his
young kinsman. He knighted him at a moment when Henry II and Louis
VII were at strife and some partisans of Louis were threatening the
Norman Vexin: and Sir William in his first fight--in defence of the
castle of Drincourt--proved himself well worthy of his spurs.[331] But
immediately afterwards the two Kings made peace; and it was not in
war, but in the tournaments which on the Continent (they were as yet
unknown in England) furnished at once a school of arms and a means of
subsistence for the younger members of the baronial houses in time of
peace, that William first made himself a name.[332]
By 1170 William had acquired such a reputation that he was chosen
by Henry II not only to be a member of the household of the “young
King”--Henry’s eldest son--but was specially appointed to watch over
and direct the lad’s military training.[333] Three years later {1173}
young Henry himself, when offered knighthood at the hands of some of
the noblest and most illustrious among the chivalry of France, declared
that he would receive it only from “the best knight that ever was or
will be,” and handed his sword to William the Marshal.[334] After
nearly twelve years of close companionship {1182} slanderous tongues
parted William from the young King, shortly before the latter’s final
revolt against his father.[335] The slander was, however, detected
and William was recalled[336] in time to watch over his young lord’s
death-bed {1183} and receive his dying charge to fulfil in his stead a
vow which he had made of pilgrimage to the Holy Land.[337] On William’s
return to Europe, early in 1187, Henry II took him into his own service
as a knight of his household;[338] and thenceforth till the hour of
Henry’s death he was the King’s best counsellor and closest friend.[339]
[Sidenote: 1189]
The first act of Henry’s successor was to confirm a grant which Henry
had promised to William, of the hand of the greatest heiress in his
realm, Isabel de Clare.[340] Her heritage included the English earldom
of Pembroke or Striguil, the Norman barony of Longueville, and a fief
in Ireland comprising nearly the whole of the ancient kingdom of
Leinster. William’s marriage suddenly raised him from the position
of a portionless younger son, “without a furrow of land, and with no
fortune but his knighthood,” to that of a magnate of high rank, great
wealth, and considerable territorial importance, and thus gave him,
as a matter of course, a permanent and definite place in the royal
council; but he showed no disposition to take a prominent part in
politics. As one of the subordinate justiciars appointed by Richard
to assist in the government of the realm during the King’s absence on
Crusade, he at first supported John against William of Longchamp, and
afterwards, when John’s treason was made manifest, supported the new
justiciar, Walter of Coutances, against John. After Richard’s return
William was almost constantly with him in Normandy, taking his full
share in the warfare with Philip Augustus which occupied the last five
years of Richard’s life; but his share was that of a devoted follower
and a brave knight, not of a great noble holding an independent
command. It was only at Cœur-de-Lion’s death {1199} that William the
Marshal came to the front of affairs. The dying King had appointed him
constable of the castle of Rouen, which contained the ducal treasure;
it was he who won for Richard’s chosen successor, John, the support of
the Norman primate, and thus largely contributed to secure for John
acceptance in Normandy as duke.[341] The FitzGilbert patrimony had come
to him in 1194, on the death of his elder brother.[342] The earldom of
Pembroke or Striguil, which he had held by courtesy since his marriage
with the young countess, was granted to him by formal investiture on
John’s coronation day;[343] a few months later the office of Marshal
was conferred by royal charter on him and his heirs for ever.[344]
Throughout the greater part of John’s reign {1200–1216} he was sheriff
of Sussex and Gloucestershire, and he was also an assistant justice and
baron of the Exchequer. For some years after John’s accession he seems
to have been in almost constant attendance on the King; during the
Interdict he resided chiefly on his Irish lands. From 1213 onwards he
was again John’s constant companion and his most trusted counsellor;
and in that capacity his name stands in the preamble of the Great
Charter first among the lay magnates in the list of the persons by
whose advice the Charter was granted. Throughout the troubles of the
succeeding year he adhered quietly but steadily to the King, whose
dying testimony has been quoted already--“He has always served me
loyally; in his loyalty, above that of any other man, I put my trust.”
Fifteen years earlier, Richard Cœur-de-Lion had repelled in similar
words a charge of treason insinuated against the Marshal: “God’s Feet!
I have always held him for the most loyal knight in all my realm. I
do not believe he has ever been false.”[345] Three years later, when
the death of the aged regent of England was announced at the court
of France, the flower of the French chivalry vied with each other
in extolling the knightly virtues of their dead enemy, and Philip
Augustus spoke the crowning word of praise: “You have well said--but
what I say is that he was the most loyal man I ever knew in any
place where I have been.”[346] In the epithet unanimously chosen by
three men so unlike each other as Richard, John, and Philip, to sum
up their opinion of William the Marshal, lies the key to his whole
career, and to the peculiar place which he held in the estimation of
his contemporaries. What they admired and reverenced in him was not
genius but character; the character, as a modern French critic has
truly said, of the typical knight without fear and without reproach.
One of William’s friends, Aimeric de Ste.-Maure, the Master of the
Temple, expressed the general verdict in another way; when he and
William were both on their death-beds, he said: “Bury me beside William
the Marshal, the Good Knight, who has won that surname by his probity
on earth and will carry it with him to Heaven.”[347] To be thus
known as pre-eminently “The Good Knight” was to have won the highest
title of honour that the medieval world could bestow. The “probity,”
or “prowess,” which constituted the essence of the ideal knightly
character, was a complex quality, hardly to be expressed by any single
word of modern speech; it included valour and skill in arms; and it
also included, above all else, what the men of the Middle Ages called
“loyalty.” Primarily, to them, loyalty meant the faithful discharge of
the obligations legally involved in the relation between vassal and
lord; obligations, indeed, often disregarded and violated in practice,
but theoretically acknowledged as sacred no less in the days of John
Lackland and Philip Augustus than in the days when they inspired one
of the noblest outbursts of feeling in the noblest epic of ancient
France.[348] This principle of “loyalty” in the medieval sense was
the rule by which the Marshal walked, with a rare steadfastness and
consistency, throughout his life. The very passages in his career which
seem at first glance most difficult to reconcile with modern ideas on
the subject are in reality illustrations of the simple and literal
way in which he followed his rule, and were thoroughly understood as
such by the sovereigns against whom they brought him temporarily into
opposition.[349] He never concerned himself with abstract politics; in
any given circumstances, his sole concern was to do his own duty to his
own lord, whoever that lord might be. He knew neither doubt nor fear.
He was, indeed, constitutionally fearless; personal danger of any kind
was a thing of which he seems to have remained through life almost
as unconscious as when in early childhood, a hostage in the power of
Stephen and condemned to be hurled like a stone from a mangonel into
the castle which his father was defending for the Empress Maud, he
had disarmed the King’s wrath by running up to the deadly engine and
begging for a “swing” in it. But his courage never degenerated into
rashness; he was never eager to fight (except in a tournament) merely
for fighting’s sake, nor willing to countenance violent measures unless
they were imperatively called for by necessity or honour. His temper
was cool and practical. He was no pioneer of reform or of revolution;
he accepted without question the ordinary standards of public opinion
in his day.[350] His ideal was strictly the ideal of his own time; an
ideal, therefore, which all his contemporaries could understand and
appreciate, and which they could see to be fulfilled in his person more
completely than in that of any other man then living, at any rate in
England. As he was true and just in the fulfilment of his duty as a
vassal, so he was true and just in all his dealing. When he was but a
landless knight, living by the ransoms of the prisoners and the sale
of the horses captured by him in tournaments, men already knew that
his word was his bond. His lord the “young King,” Henry II’s son,
habitually “spent so much in every place where he went, that when
the hour of departure came, he knew not how to get away” from his
creditors. “Counts, barons, vavassours” vainly offered to stand surety
for the payment of his debts; the shrewd tradesmen would accept no
such security; but when the Marshal pledged his word that the accounts
should be settled within a month, they exclaimed, “If the Marshal
warrant us, we are as good as paid.”[351] Even so Louis of France,
when from the treasury of England, exhausted by years of confusion
and war, an indemnity was promised him for his losses and expenses in
the invasion, suffered this important item in the terms of peace to
be left without mention in the written treaty, and trusted for its
fulfilment solely to the regent’s plighted word. Jealousy, suspicion,
party-spirit, could find no occasion against a character so simple,
so unpretending, so honest and straightforward as that of William the
Marshal. Thrice in his long life--once by some dastardly comrades who
envied the esteem in which he was held by the two Henrys, twice by King
John--an attempt was made to cast aspersions on his honour. Each time
he met the calumny in the same way; he offered to disprove it by ordeal
of battle. Each time his challenge, uttered in the King’s presence and
in the midst of the court, was answered by a general silence more
significant than words. No man dared encounter William the Marshal in
the ordeal, because every man believed it impossible for the “judgement
of God” to go against the Good Knight who was without fear because his
conscience was without reproach.
In point of fact, the Legate and the magnates at Gloucester in October,
1216, had set up what we now call a regency; but the idea which that
word conveys to us was to them so entirely new and strange that they
seem to have been at first unable to find a name for it. Immediately
after the coronation Earl William the Marshal began to exercise the
functions of a regent, and among them that of issuing letters patent
and close in the King’s name. In these letters he, at first, sometimes
styles himself simply “William Marshal Earl of Pembroke”; but on six
occasions he calls himself “Justiciar.”[352] His assumption of this
title is puzzling in more ways than one. The chief justiciarship of
England was not vacant; it had been given by John in 1215 to Hubert de
Burgh, whose fidelity to John and to his heir is as unquestionable as
that of the Marshal himself, and was being demonstrated by his defence
of Dover against Louis at the very time of the Marshal’s appointment
to the regency. In the thirteenth century an office granted, as was
that of the Justiciar, by letters patent,[353] to be held during the
King’s pleasure, was not vacated by the King’s death, but belonged
of right to the grantee until he was superseded by means of a new
appointment.[354] Twenty years later Hubert himself declared that he
had been Justiciar “without contradiction” ever since his appointment
by John;[355] it is clear, therefore, that the Marshal’s assumption of
the title was not regarded by Hubert as implying any design of ousting
him from his office. There was indeed one precedent, dating from the
time of Richard, for the appointment of two chief Justiciars at once.
But Earl William’s position was from the outset not that of a Justiciar
at all. The Justiciar was the King’s second in command--the foremost
minister of the Crown when the sovereign was present, his lieutenant
and vicegerent when he was absent from the realm; in either case, his
delegate and nothing more. Earl William was not the King’s delegate;
he had not been appointed by the King and was not removable at the
King’s pleasure; he had been called by the Legate and the magnates to
govern the realm during the King’s minority, as guardian of the King
himself. He was, in modern phraseology, not Viceroy but Regent. Still,
there was just sufficient analogy between his functions and those
which, under certain circumstances, appertained to the Justiciar, to
suggest his adoption of that title, in a tentative sort of way, until
a better one could be devised.[356] In a word, as his office was a
novelty and an experiment, so its earliest appellation seems to have
been a makeshift. Before the end of November, 1216, that appellation
was replaced by a loftier and more comprehensive one--“Governor of
the king and of the kingdom.”[357] No attempt seems to have been made
at any further definition either of the limits of his powers, or of
his relation to the royal Council; there was in fact no means of
defining either, nor any authority capable of so doing. In one sense
he was above the council; but in another sense he was merely its most
important member; its other members acted in subordination to him, but
he was not independent of them; they were the King’s councillors, not
his; nay, more--it was from them that he had received his authority,
and he was thus in some sense responsible to them for his exercise
of it. He was also, and above all, in theory at least, responsible
to the Legate and, through the Legate, to the Pope.[358] It is thus
impossible to determine precisely how much of the credit of the policy
which freed England from her invaders and restored peace and order to
the distracted country and the ruined administration is due to the
Marshal himself, and how much to his colleagues, Gualo, Hubert, Peter
des Roches, and the other ministers of the late King. A large share
of credit must in any case belong to them for a steady, faithful, and
intelligent co-operation without which the Marshal obviously could not
have carried on either war or government at all. But it is certain
that for two years and a half after the coronation no act was done in
the King’s name without the Marshal’s consent; for, except on a very
few special occasions, all the royal letters during that period were
attested by him and sealed with his seal.[359] It may therefore fairly
be said that whatsoever they did in England, he was the doer of it.
[Sidenote: 1216–1217]
One thing there was which, it was clearly understood from the outset,
could not be done at all during the King’s minority. No grant in
perpetuity made by, or in the name of, a person under age was valid
by English law. The application of this rule to the case of an infant
King seems not to have been expressed till more than two years after
Henry’s coronation, but it was effectually secured during that time
by an expedient whose simplicity and practicality are eminently
characteristic of the Marshal. A grant in perpetuity on the part of the
Crown was invalid unless sealed with the King’s seal. No great seal was
made for Henry till two years after he was crowned; the seal of the
regent served in its stead.[360] On several occasions during the first
year of the regency grants were made in the King’s name to hold good
“till the fourteenth completed year of our age.”[361] {1216–1217} There
was as yet no fixed rule for the determination of a King’s majority;
but the reigning King of France, Philip Augustus, had been crowned as
his father’s colleague shortly after his fourteenth birthday, and had
exercised the functions of royalty from that time forth. This was the
origin of the rule which fixed the coming of age of later Kings of
France at fourteen years; and Henry’s guardians seem at first to have
contemplated taking Philip’s case as a precedent for that of their own
boy-sovereign.[362] There was no English precedent to guide them. Nine
years later it was asserted that one castellan--Peter de Maulay--had
bound himself by an oath to John not to give back the castles of which
he had charge till Henry should be of legal age.[363] It is possible
that John may have demanded and received such an oath from more than
one of the wardens of the royal castles; but evidently neither they,
the Marshal, nor any of the council knew what was John’s idea--if he
even had one--of what should constitute legal age in the case of his
successor; the definition tentatively suggested at the beginning of
the reign was clearly not based upon any direction left by him. At the
close of 1217 it was abandoned, and its place was taken by a vaguer
formula--“till our coming of age.”[364] The question of when that
was to be could not become urgent for three years at least; it was
therefore wisely put aside for solution at a more convenient season.
[Sidenote: 1215–1216]
Some indications seem to point to another possible restriction on
the powers of the king’s guardians, in the shape of a theory that
their “pleasure” was not legally equivalent to “the King’s pleasure”;
in other words, that appointments made by the late King were not
revocable (except for some special reason) during the minority of his
successor. There is however no evidence that this theory was ever put
into explicit words or formally recognized;[365] and nothing of the
kind is needed to account for the fact that the great majority of the
Crown officers appointed by John were left undisturbed by the Earl
Marshal in their several bailiwicks.[366] Thirteen counties were at
John’s death under sheriffs of foreign birth. Falkes de Bréauté was
sheriff of Northamptonshire, Rutland, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire,
Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire; Peter de Maulay of
Dorset and Somerset; Savaric de Mauléon of Hampshire; Philip Marc of
Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire; Engelard de Cigogné (or d’Athée) of
Surrey. The two last named were members of a family on which “the
Barons” of 1215 had conferred a signal mark of distinction, by making
it the subject of a separate article (the fiftieth) in the Great
Charter, whereby John was pledged “to remove altogether from their
bailiwicks the relations of Gerard of Athée,” several of whom, among
them Engelard of Cigogné and Philip Marc, are mentioned by name, “and
all their following, so that they may never more hold any bailiwick
in England.” The reason for this remarkable enactment was, so far as
can be made out from existing evidence, simply this: that when, after
a struggle in which Gerard of Athée fought gallantly for his country
and his Count,[367] the old Angevin lands were conquered by Philip
Augustus, these kinsmen--sprung from a group of little villages between
Tours and Loches--instead of settling down under the new ruler of
Touraine, crossed the sea to seek employment in the service of their
natural-born sovereign and make homes for themselves in his island
realm; that he entrusted them with offices of considerable importance
as well as (in some cases at least) of considerable pecuniary
value, and especially with the command of some of the chief royal
castles;[368] that they fulfilled the duties thus entrusted to them
with fidelity and efficiency, and that they had under their control a
numerous following of dependents who had accompanied or rejoined them
from beyond the sea, and who were, like them, faithful soldiers and
servants of the King. We need seek no further for the grounds on which
the “Barons of the Charter” desired to get rid of Gerard d’Athée and
his kindred;[369] nor for the grounds on which the fiftieth article
of the Great Charter was omitted in the revised version issued by
Gualo and the Marshal in Henry’s name. The only puzzle in the matter
is why the baronial party should have singled out the members of this
particular family by name[370] to be made victims of their jealousy
and fear, and not included the other “alien” officers in the same
condemnation (or commendation); for two at least of those others were
men who by origin, class, and character differed little from Gerard
of Athée and his kinsmen. The third, indeed--Savaric de Mauléon--was
a noble by birth, the head of an illustrious family of baronial rank
in Poitou, and a man of personal distinction in other pursuits besides
that of arms; it is needless to say more of him at present, for, as
he returned to his native land shortly after the council at Bristol,
the military and administrative offices held by him in England were
of necessity transferred to other hands. But Falkes de Bréauté and
Peter de Maulay were simply soldiers of fortune from the continental
dominions of the house of Anjou.[371] Together with the sheriffdom
of Dorset, Peter de Maulay had been entrusted by the late king with
the castle of Corfe, and in it not only the royal treasury and some
important State prisoners, but also the child Richard who was, after
Henry, the next and indeed the only male heir to the Crown. Since
John had deemed Peter a fit person to have such a charge as this,
the darkest hour of the struggle with the enemies of John’s heir
was obviously not the time for removing him from his post. As to
Falkes--called by Matthew Paris “the rod of the Lord’s fury”--he was a
man after John’s own heart, as ruthless and reckless as John himself;
but his fierceness was equalled by his daring valour, his consummate
skill in military affairs, and his zeal in the royal cause. A glance
at the map of England is enough to shew why John had chosen such a man
as this to have charge of the particular group of counties and castles
which he placed under the command of Falkes; and the story of the war
is enough to justify the wisdom of his choice.[372]
[Sidenote: 1217]
The treaty of Kingston was no sooner concluded than both parties set
to work conscientiously to carry its provisions into effect. “Reverted
perverts” came crowding in to the King’s allegiance, and as fast
as they came their lands were ordered to be restored to them.[373]
On 23rd September Louis and Henry joined in summoning Alexander of
Scotland to make restitution of the English lands which he had seized
during the war.[374] Orders were promptly issued for the delivery of
prisoners and the payment of ransoms and other moneys due according
to the terms of the treaty.[375] Only two classes of men suffered any
real punishment for their share in the war. The one class consisted of
men of Norman birth who held or claimed lands in England, and who had
taken the side of Louis; concerning these the sheriffs were warned that
“no seisin is adjudged to them, till the English shall have recovered
their lands in Normandy.”[376] The other class was that of the clergy
who had disobeyed the bishops and the Pope by supporting Louis; and
their punishment came solely from the Legate. On 27th October he went
to London[377] and there meted out condign punishment to the clergy
who had set his excommunication at naught. He “went to the church of
S. Paul, and caused all the altars and all the chalices to be broken
up, and all the vestments to be burnt, and new ones to be put in their
place; and he put in new canons; and the old ones who had chanted the
service in defiance of him he deprived of all their benefices; and
he made the beneficed clergy of the town exchange their parishes for
upland ones.”[378] “Some of the clergy he degraded; some he sent,
still excommunicate, to the threshold of the Apostles.”[379] Thirteen
clerks “who used threatening language to him and his” he put in ward
at Westminster.[380] What ultimately became of them we are not told;
but on 18th February next year {1218} all clerks under sentence of
excommunication for adherence to Louis were, in the king’s name, bidden
to leave England before Mid-Lent (22nd March), and warned that if found
there after that date, they would be kept in ward “till the king should
give further orders concerning them.”[381]
On Sunday, 29th October, 1217--a year and a day after his
coronation--the young King entered his capital.[382] “He was received
with glory, and fealty and homage were done to him,” no doubt by the
citizens and by many other “reverted perverts.” During the ensuing week
“many discussions were held by the King’s guardians and the leading men
of the kingdom concerning the ordering of the realm, the establishment
of peace, and the abolition of evil customs.”[383] The outcome of
these deliberations was a new issue of the Charter,[384] or what seems
to have been meant to be regarded as the issue of a new Charter; for
the preamble (which, except for the names, is a copy of the preamble
of Magna Charta) ignores all earlier documents. As a matter of fact,
however, this Charter is a revised edition of the Charter of 1216,
from which it differs only in the following particulars: In the
article concerning widows, the amount of legal dowry is, for the
first time, defined: it is fixed at a third part of all the husband’s
lands, “unless she have been dowered with a less amount at the church
door.”[385] The article relating to the judicial eyres and the three
recognitions is modified. Recognitions of mort d’ancester and novel
disseisin are to be taken in the several shires before justices who
are to be sent thither once (instead of four times) a year, and who
are to hold the assizes “with the knights of the shires”[386]--not, it
seems, as in 1215 and 1216, with four knights specially elected for the
purpose; if these assizes cannot be completed on the day fixed, the
cases are to be dealt with, not as in 1215 and 1216 by a sufficient
number of knights and freeholders who are to remain on the spot for
that intent, but by the judges “elsewhere on their eyre,” or if the
cases are too difficult they are to be referred to and settled by
the judges of the Bench;[387] and the assizes of darrein presentment
are to be always held and settled by these last-named judges.[388]
In the article regulating the imposition of amercements the king’s
villeins are excepted from the safeguard given to the villeins of other
lords.[389] The article concerning the requisition of corn or cattle
is modified by the extension of the limit of time for payment from
twenty-one days to forty.[390] On the other hand, carts belonging to
an ecclesiastical person, a knight, or a lady, are henceforth not to
be requisitioned at all.[391] The unsupported accusation of a Crown
bailiff is henceforth to be insufficient not only for sending a man
to the ordeal, but also for compelling him to make compurgation.[392]
The King’s promise to take no unfair advantage of his possession of
escheats is made still more definite.[393] Of the six matters spoken
of in John’s Charter which were expressly mentioned in clause 42 of
the Charter of 1216 as being postponed for future consideration--the
assessment of scutages and aids, the rights of Jewish and other
creditors against the heirs of deceased debtors, liberty of ingress
into and egress from the realm, the regulation of forests and warrens,
the customs of the shires, and the river-enclosures and their
keepers--the fourth was left to be dealt with in a separate Charter
of the Forest; to three others as many new articles were devoted. No
river-enclosures are henceforth to be kept up save those which were
in existence in the time of Henry II.[394] Respecting the “customs
of the shires,” the provision in the twenty-fifth chapter of Magna
Charta (to which the words on that subject in the closing paragraph
of Henry’s first Charter must refer), that all shires and other local
jurisdictions except those on the royal domains shall be at their “old
ferm” without increment, is not renewed; but in its stead there is a
clause regulating the holding of the county courts and the sheriff’s
tourn. The shire court is to be held not oftener than once a month, and
at longer intervals where such have been customary. No sheriff or his
bailiff is to make his tourn in the hundred except twice a year--after
Easter and after Michaelmas--and only in the proper and accustomed
place. View of frankpledge is to be made at Michaelmas term, in such
a manner “that every man shall have the liberties which he used to
have in the time of our grandfather King Henry, or which he has since
acquired, and so that our peace shall be kept, and the tithing shall be
complete as it was wont to be; and the sheriff is to seek no occasions,
and is to be content with what the sheriff used to have for holding his
view in King Henry’s time.”[395] Concerning the once crucial question
which had furnished the original pretext for the rising of the barons
against John, the guardians could now venture to reassert the rights
of the Crown; and they did so, but in terms carefully chosen so as
to avoid all reference to the late troubles: “Scutage shall be taken
henceforth as it used to be taken in the time of our grandfather King
Henry.”[396] Two other new articles were added, whose connexion with
the scutage clause is not difficult to see. The one enacted that
henceforth no free man should either give away or sell so much of his
land as that the residue should be insufficient to furnish the service
due to the lord of the fief;[397] the other forbade that any man should
give his land to a religious house for the purpose of receiving it
back again to hold of that house, and enacted that if any man were
convicted of so doing, his donation should be void, and his land
forfeited to the lord.[398] The other omissions were disposed of, for
the moment, by a general saving clause: “Reserving to the archbishops,
bishops, abbots, priors, Templars, Hospitallers, earls, barons, and
all other persons both ecclesiastical and secular, the liberties and
free customs which they had before.”[399] Lastly, it was ordained also
“by common consent of the whole realm” that all adulterine castles,
that is, castles which had been built or rebuilt since the beginning
of the war between the late King and his barons, should be immediately
destroyed.[400] This Charter has no date. It was, doubtless issued
in the early days of November; probably on the 6th, for on that day
there was issued a Charter of the Forest which dealt amply with the
grievances connected with the abuse of Forest law.[401]
The article concerning scutage was inserted in the Charter for an
immediate and important purpose; it was the ratification of a tax
which the Council had imposed a few days before the Charters were
issued. Of the many problems with which the Marshal and his colleagues
had to grapple one of the most urgent and most difficult was that of
finance. The confused entries on the Pipe Rolls of John’s later years
indicate that the financial administration of the realm had been
gradually drifting towards chaos from 1212 onwards; in 1215 chaos was
reached, and the machinery of the Exchequer came to a standstill.
After Michaelmas, 1214, no session of the Exchequer was held, no
accounts were rendered by any of the sheriffs or other bailiffs of
the Crown, for more than three years. John had met the expenses of
the war partly by payments out of the treasury, partly by means of
writs addressed to various fiscal officers throughout the country,
directing them to make on his behalf certain payments out of the ferms
for which they were accountable at the Exchequer.[402] As, however,
“no one”--as a chronicler says--“would pay any money to the King” or
his representatives, and as a considerable part of the kingdom was in
the possession of the enemy, both of these resources must have been
well-nigh exhausted before the death of John, who was in fact reduced
at last to sheer plunder to provide for the maintenance of his troops.
The Marshal at the outset of his regency seems to have sought help
towards providing the sinews of war in the levy of a hidage, carucage,
and “aid,” this last word probably representing a tallage from the
towns. Of the time and circumstances of their imposition there is no
record, but it is most probable that the matter was decided in the
council at Bristol immediately after the coronation, in November,
1216.[403] Of course none of these taxes could be collected in the
districts which were under the control of Louis or his partisans. In
July, 1217, the Pope ordered the prelates to contribute an aid to
the King’s necessities.[404] Meanwhile wages, allowances, and other
payments were made by means of jewels from the royal treasury, and in
cloth of silk, samite, and baldaquin from the royal wardrobe.[405]
At the earliest possible moment an effort was made to revive the
working of the Exchequer. Its records were for some time previous
to the end of the war in the possession of Louis, and were restored
only on the conclusion of peace in the middle of September;[406] the
session seems therefore to have been appointed for Martinmas,[407]
instead of Michaelmas which was the customary date. Before Martinmas
came, however, it was found, apparently, that some of the sheriffs
could not get their accounts ready by the appointed day; and ultimately
they seem to have been allowed to bring them up at various times
from November, 1217, till a fortnight after Easter, 1218.[408] The
accounts thus rendered were those for the first half of the seventeenth
(fiscal) year of King John, from Michaelmas, 1214, to Easter, 1215; in
other words, the last fiscal half-year completed before the outbreak
of war between the barons and the King.[409] For the second half
of that year, and for the whole of the two succeeding years up to
Michaelmas, 1217, no accounts were ever rendered or demanded; the
first Pipe Roll of Henry III is the roll of his second year, from
Michaelmas, 1217, to Michaelmas, 1218, and it contains no mention of
arrears.[410] This arrangement was both practical and equitable. The
accounts for 1215–1217 must in many cases, through no fault of the
persons responsible for them, have been in a confusion impossible to
disentangle; some of the shires had been entirely in the possession of
the King’s enemies; to many of the sheriffs and other Crown bailiffs
the King must have been really more in debt than they were to him. With
a budget thus restricted and a treasury thus exhausted the Marshal had
to carry on the King’s government and pay the indemnity which he had
promised to Louis.
“Our faithful Earl William the Marshal has bound himself to the Lord
Louis on our behalf, under no small penalty, to the payment of ten
thousand marks, for the boon of peace between Louis and ourself”--such
is the official statement made, a year later, in a letter written in
Henry’s name to the Pope.[411] This amount was independent of the
sums due to Louis, according to the terms of the treaty, from towns
and individuals who had made agreement with him on condition of a
financial aid or tribute which they had not yet paid; the aggregate of
these latter sums appears to have been reckoned at something between
five and seven thousand marks.[412] On 23rd September letters patent
were issued ordering that these debts should be paid without delay
to Louis’s Marshal, William de Beaumont.[413] For the receipt of
the indemnity Louis appointed as his attorneys two merchants of S.
Omer, Florence (or Florentinus) “the Rich” and his son William. This
appointment seems to have been made for the joint convenience of Louis
and Henry. Louis apparently wanted six thousand marks sterling paid
down, and received them from Florence and William, who themselves
supplied the amount on a promise made to them on 23rd September in
Henry’s name that half the sum thus advanced should be repaid to them
on All Saints’ day and the rest at Candlemas; a part of the first
instalment of repayment was to be made in fells and wool; if these
were not duly delivered Henry was to pay Florence and William an
additional sum of five hundred marks sterling “for the profit of that
merchandise.” If the whole debt to the two merchants were not paid at
the term appointed, Count Peter of Brittany and Robert of Arène were
authorized by the King, the Earl Marshal, and the royal Council to
seize and hold on behalf of Louis “any goods belonging to the King and
his realm that they could get, to the value of the amount due,” until
it was paid.[414] A letter from the Marshal in his own name to the
King of France at once illustrates the scrupulous honesty for which he
had long been renowned, and shews that he doubted the possibility of
fulfilling these promises to Florence. “If,” he writes, “our agreement
with Florence be not kept, we desire and grant that you assign all
the land which we hold of you to Florence and his son till the whole
debt and interest due to them shall be discharged, saving only our
service to you for the said lands.”[415] His doubts were justified;
eleven months later the debt to Florence and William still amounted to
no less than two thousand one hundred and fifty marks.[416] To bring
it down to this he had had to borrow more than five hundred marks in
the King’s name from various merchants of Ireland, Wales, and England,
and several hundred more from other individuals, and to lend nine
hundred marks out of his own purse;[417] and the financial straits of
the Crown are further illustrated by the fact that the total of wool
required for the first instalment of repayment to Florence had had to
be made up by seizing several sacks belonging to individual merchants
at Northampton fair, one of whom did not receive compensation till the
end of November, 1218, while another had to wait for it till the middle
of February, 1219.[418] It seems to have been originally proposed that
the whole indemnity should be paid by S. Andrew’s day, 1217;[419] but
this was manifestly impracticable. The account with Louis was in fact
not closed till 1219 at the earliest, for the last five hundred marks
needed to wipe out the debt were lent to Henry by Gualo’s successor in
the legation, Pandulf.[420]
The very first thing, therefore, to be laid before and sanctioned by
the Great Council of the realm when at the end of October, 1217, it
was once more gathered round the sovereign in his capital city, was
a scheme of taxation for the year. This consisted of a scutage of
the ordinary amount--two shillings on the knight’s fee--a tallage,
a hidage, and a carucage. These taxes were imposed, as had been
the practice in the time of Henry II, in the full council of the
barons.[421] The formal imposition of the scutage must have taken
place on the very day of Henry’s entry into London, 29th October, or at
latest on the following morning. This tax was avowedly destined for the
payment of the indemnity.[422] It was obviously for purposes connected
with finance that an inquisition concerning the King’s demesne lands
had been ordered in September;[423] and on 9th November, commissioners
were despatched to assess the tallage on these demesnes, and to make
searching inquiries about escheats and about all lands “into which
there is no entry except through the sheriffs or bailiffs and without
due warrant,”[424] and to seize all such into the King’s hand.[425]
At the same time the King’s justiciars in Ireland were directed to
lay a “tallage and efficacious aid” upon the cities, towns, and royal
demesnes in that country, and to “beg of the Kings of Connaught and
Thomond and the other kings in Ireland, and of the barons and knights
who held in chief of the King, such an efficient aid that the King
should evermore be thankful to them”; and they were further exhorted to
send the money thus collected to England with all possible speed.[426]
The first judicial eyre of the new reign seems to have been held very
soon after the second issue of the Charter, and to have had for one
of its objects the administering of the oath of fealty to the King’s
subjects in general. To one district, at least, there went six justices
itinerant before whom the knights and other free men swore that they
would keep the peace of the Church, the King, and the realm, and would
help and defend all persons who were willing to keep it likewise; that
they would obey all “reasonable” commands of the King, and uphold the
royal rights, and hold the good laws and customs of the realm; that
if any man should presume to contravene the same, they would at the
bidding of the King and his council come together faithfully in force
and amend the matter to the utmost of their power; that “neither for
hatred, nor favour, nor fear” would they fail to keep their fealty;
that they would do and receive justice according to the reasonable
customs and laws of England; that no previous or subsequent oath should
hinder their observance of all these things; and that “in all these
things they would support the Marshal.”[427]
The various dependencies of the English Crown had next to be secured.
Alexander of Scotland had taken advantage of the troubles in England
to seize the town and castle of Carlisle. As early as 23rd September,
1217, the Marshal peremptorily demanded restitution of these and of the
other lands and the prisoners taken by Alexander during the war; and
at the same time he bade the prelates and magnates of the North, if
Alexander did not immediately comply with the demand, give the sheriff
of Cumberland their “efficient aid and counsel” in forcing him to do
so.[428] Alexander seems to have yielded at once. The Marshal had a
hold over him; the English honour of Huntingdon, which the Scot Kings
had held since 1136 and which they dearly prized, was in the hand of
King Henry. On 6th November an escort was ordered to meet Alexander at
Berwick on S. Andrew’s day and bring him “to speak with us and do to
us what he ought to do.”[429] The meeting seems to have taken place
on 17th or 18th December at Northampton;[430] on the 19th Alexander,
having done his homage, received seisin of his English lands,[431] and
a safe-conduct till Candlemas Day for his journey home.[432]
Far more troublesome and dangerous vassals than the Scot king were the
native princes of Wales. In ancient times Wales had been divided into
three kingdoms: Gwynedd, answering roughly to the modern counties of
Flint, part of Denbigh, Carnarvon, Anglesey, and the western part
of Merioneth; Powys, stretching from the mouth of the Dee to the
river Wye, and including, besides the southern part of what is now
Denbighshire and the eastern part of Merioneth, the present shires of
Montgomery and Radnor; and Deheubarth, which included, besides the
remaining shires of the modern South Wales, the district of Monmouth
as far east as the Wye. These three kingdoms had been separate and
independent, although a sort of overlordship or primacy seems to have
been recognized as appertaining to the Kings of Gwynedd. By the end
of the twelfth century Gwynedd was the only one of these three States
which remained purely Welsh in population and government. The whole of
Deheubarth and the greater part of Powys were dotted over with Norman
castles, every one of which was the capital of a lordship held by a
baron of Norman or English race, owning allegiance to no one save the
English King.[433] Neither these “marcher lords” nor their sovereign,
however, had made any real progress towards conquering the country or
its people; they were, so to say, detachments of a feudal host encamped
here and there in a foreign land, and surrounded by a native population
which still maintained its own customs and laws and recognized no
authority except that of its own hereditary chieftains. Between the two
peoples there was a bitter racial and national feud; but the relations
between the Norman lords marchers and the Welsh princes varied greatly.
It was not for the interest of the former to quarrel unnecessarily with
their Welsh neighbours at any time; and when they themselves chanced to
be in rebellion against their own sovereign--as was the case with some
of them, notably with the great house of Breuse in south-eastern Wales,
in the latter years of John’s reign--they naturally found it convenient
to make alliance with the native rulers of the land. These, on the
other hand, were often at feud among themselves, and did not scruple to
make use of the marchers’ aid against one another when it suited them,
though at other times they were ready to make common cause against the
common enemy.
[Sidenote: 1216]
At the opening of Henry’s reign the native element in Wales was
very distinctly in the ascendent. The old superiority, or primacy,
of Gwynedd had once more become a living thing. Llywelyn ap Iorwerth
had been for more than twenty years {1194–1216} extending his power
over the southern and eastern principalities. He had in 1206 accepted
the hand of John’s elder daughter Joan--the child, seemingly, of
John’s early dissolved marriage with Isabel of Gloucester[434]--but
throughout the civil war his sympathies were openly and actively
with John’s enemies. In 1215 he “and the Welsh princes in general”
attacked Caermarthen and destroyed the castle, and also took and
destroyed most of the other castles in South Wales.[435] On the other
hand, his chief rival, Gwenwynwyn, the prince of southern Powys,
offered his service to John; whereupon Llywelyn, with “most of the
princes,” marched into Powys and “took possession of Gwenwynwyn’s
whole territory to himself” in 1216.[436] At the close of 1215 the
Bishop of Hereford had died.[437] He was Giles de Breuse, the head of
a family whose patrimony--comprising Radnor, Brecon, and Abergavenny
in Wales, besides Totnes and Barnstaple in Devonshire and Bramber in
Sussex--had been forfeited to the Crown in 1210 under circumstances
which made it well-nigh impossible that confidence should ever be
restored between the house of Breuse and King John. Giles had indeed,
only a few weeks before his death, fined with the King for restitution
of all the lands which had been his father’s;[438] but his next
brother, Reginald, on succeeding to his hereditary claims, set himself
to prosecute them by making common cause with the King’s enemies in
Wales. Llywelyn was now at the height of his triumph, not only in
Powys, but also in Deheubarth; in 1216, at Aberdovey, in his presence
and obviously under his dictation, South Wales was portioned out
between the four rival representatives of its sovereign house, Maelgwn
and Rhys “the Hoarse” and their nephews “Young Rhys” and Owen.[439]
These latter were cousins to Reginald de Breuse.[440] With Llywelyn
Reginald formed a closer connexion by taking one of his daughters to
wife.[441] In August, 1216, John visited the Welsh border and sought
to win the support of some of the princes, and also of Reginald de
Breuse, but it “did not avail him anything.”[442] Evidently they all
saw in John’s extremity, and after his death in his successor’s youth
and helplessness, their long-desired opportunity for revenge; and we
can hardly doubt that it was a combination of Welshmen and followers
of Reginald de Breuse who attacked Goodrich on the eve of Henry’s
coronation. Gualo’s interdict published a fortnight later shows how
clearly it was understood that Wales as a whole “held with the barons.”
Early in 1217 the Earl Marshal wrote in the young King’s name to
Reginald de Breuse, urging him to return to his allegiance and
promising that if he did so, the whole of his patrimony should be
restored to him.[443] Reginald however continued obstinate till the
Royalist victory at Lincoln. Then he, like many others, seems to have
realized that the tide had turned, and that it was time for him to turn
likewise. Before Midsummer he had submitted, and he was soon reinstated
in the Irish and English possessions of his father.[444] His Welsh
kinsfolk promptly punished his desertion of their party; Rhys and Owen
wrested from him “the whole of Builth except the castles”; Llywelyn
marched upon Brecknock. Reginald however succeeded in patching up some
kind of peace with his father-in-law, who thereupon turned his arms
against the Flemings of Pembrokeshire, and compelled {Sept.} them all
to promise him tribute and submission.[445]
[Sidenote: 1217]
To Llywelyn, as to King Alexander, the treaty of Kingston was duly
notified by Louis.[446] The new Bishop of Hereford and the Bishop
of Coventry were, it seems, empowered by the Legate to receive
the submission of all the Welsh princes and absolve them from
excommunication at Hereford on 18th November; when this was done,
Hugh de Mortimer[447] and some other barons were to escort them to
Northampton for a meeting with the King.[448] Henry and the Marshal
were at Northampton on 17th and 18th December;[449] but evidently
the Welsh princes did not come. It may have been to keep guard on
the Welsh border that the Marshal took his young sovereign to keep
Christmas at Gloucester,[450] and lingered with him in the west of
England throughout the first four months of the new year {1218}. In
February, 1218, a safe-conduct was issued to Llywelyn that he might
come and do homage to the King at Worcester.[451] No date is fixed in
the letter, and no record of the homage appears to exist; but there can
be no doubt that it was performed at the appointed place on or before
17th March, for on that day, at Worcester, the castles of Cardigan and
Caermarthen with the lands appertaining to them were committed by the
King and his council to his “beloved brother-in-law Llywelyn, Prince of
North Wales,” that he might hold them till the King’s coming of age,
maintaining them out of their own revenues, and administering justice
within their territories in the King’s name.[452]
[Sidenote: 1218]
Two days before, a safe-conduct had been issued to all the magnates
of both North and South Wales to come and do homage at Worcester at
the close of Easter (22nd April).[453] It does not appear whether
any of them came, except Llywelyn, who seems to have come for a
special purpose. Morgan, the lord of Caerleon-upon-Usk, had taken
no notice of repeated admonitions from Louis to observe the treaty
of Kingston, and had deliberately broken truce by slaying in one
day no less than ten Anglo-Normans of gentle birth, and also burning
twenty-two churches.[454] The Marshal had put an effectual stop to
such proceedings on Morgan’s part; he “fought against Caerleon and
took it”[455]--that is, according to his own biographer, his bailiff
“called up his men and his friends and besieged Caerleon, and it was
taken.” At the “parliament” at Worcester Llywelyn asked that Morgan
should, like the other allies of Louis, be formally reinstated in
the right to hold his land “according to the terms of the treaty,”
that is, as he had held it before the war. The regent, acting on the
advice of “his council”--defined as “all those who were in fealty to
him”[456]--refused, on the ground of Morgan’s flagrant infraction of
the peace; and the “parliament” adjudged Caerleon and its appurtenances
to its conqueror.[457] The general homage of Welsh magnates seems to
have been postponed from the close of Easter to the morrow of Ascension
day, 25th May.[458] On that or the following day, at Woodstock,[459] it
at last took place, so far at least as concerned Deheubarth; the Welsh
chronicles themselves tell us that “young Rhys went himself, and all
the princes, by the advice of Llywelyn, to the court of the king, from
South Wales, to do him homage.”[460]
The homage of King Ragnald “of the Isles”--that is, the Isle of Man and
the Orkneys--took longer to win, probably because he was geographically
more difficult to reach. On 16th January, 1218, he was summoned to come
over and do homage “and make amends for the excesses committed by his
men against King Henry’s men, both in England and in Ireland,” and a
safe-conduct was given him, to last till 30th April,[461] but he did
not come; on 1st May another safe-conduct was issued to him, till 1st
August,[462] again with no result; and it was not till September, 1219,
that he actually came.[463] Neither his personal contumacy nor the
piratical “excesses” of his seafaring subjects, however, constituted a
real danger to the peace of the realm.
[Sidenote: 1217]
In the Irish dominions of the English Crown the first trouble that
arose under the new reign came neither from the barons nor from the
people, but from the Justiciar. Geoffrey de Marsh, who had held that
office in Ireland since 1215, no sooner heard of the death of King
John {1216} than he despatched to Henry, or to his guardians, letters
in which he assured his young sovereign of his fidelity, and asked
for instructions how to act for the furtherance of his interests in
Ireland. He seems to have suggested that the Queen-mother, or the
heir-presumptive, little Richard, should be sent thither to represent
the Crown.[464] The Marshal sent him in reply a letter in the King’s
name, informing him of the coronation and the proceedings of the
council of Bristol, and requesting him to receive for Henry the
homage of the magnates and the King’s other subjects in Ireland; also
promising to send them in return a confirmation of the same liberties
which had just been granted to their fellow-subjects in England.
The suggestion about the Queen and Richard was politely waived with
an assurance that it should be duly considered. Geoffrey was warmly
thanked for his past and present loyalty, and entreated to redouble
his efforts in behalf of a King whose tender years made him the more
in need of his liegemen’s counsel and aid.[465] On 6th February,
1217, a copy of the Charter was sent to Ireland with a letter in the
King’s name addressed to all the King’s faithful subjects in Ireland,
expressing his desire that as a reward for their fidelity to his
father and a motive for its continuance towards himself they and their
heirs for ever should, of his grace and gift, enjoy the same liberties
which his father and he had granted to the realm of England.[466]
The Marshal’s policy was to bind the English March in Ireland as
closely as possible to the Crown; he had already issued letters patent
forbidding the election of Irishmen to cathedral dignities within the
King’s land in Ireland, “because by such elections the peace of that
land has frequently been disturbed,” and commanding that when such
dignities fell vacant, clerks of the King and other “honest Englishmen
useful to us” (the King) “and our realm” should be elected and promoted
thereto by the joint counsel of the Archbishop of Dublin and the
Justiciar.[467] The Archbishop of Dublin, Henry of London, was at that
time in England; but on 16th April, “although,” writes the King to the
barons in Ireland, “we feel his presence here is most necessary to us
and our realm, and we can hardly do without his counsel,” he was sent
to “visit and console” his diocese, and also expressly to assist the
Justiciar with his counsel and support in ordering and amending the
condition of the King’s Irish territory; while the Justiciar was bidden
to “acquiesce in all things” in the counsel of the Archbishop, and to
be guided by it in his expenditure of the money received at the Dublin
Exchequer, “forasmuch as the King wills that nothing be done without
his assent.”[468]
The position of the Justiciar of the Irish March at this time was very
much more independent than that of the Chief Justiciar of England. The
Justiciar in Ireland seems to have practically had the entire control
of the whole machinery of government, administration, and finance,
throughout the King’s Irish domains. The revenues due to the Crown,
whether derived from demesne lands, or from taxes, or tolls, or from
the proceeds of escheats, fines, wardships, reliefs, and the like, seem
to have all passed through his hands. The fixed revenue of the Crown
lands was assigned to him for the necessary expenses of government and
for maintaining the defence of the land and the garrisons of the royal
castles, and in remuneration of his own services; the residue he was
supposed to pay into the Exchequer in Dublin, for transmission to the
King when required. Moreover, it seems to have been he who appointed
the wardens of the King’s castles throughout the March.[469] Such a
system offered facilities for almost unlimited embezzlement on the part
of a dishonest Justiciar, or mismanagement and waste on the part of an
incompetent one; while it left to the English government scarcely any
means of proving a charge of either dishonesty or incompetence against
an officer at once so remote and invested with so much independent
authority. It seems clear that the reports, and the results, of
Geoffrey’s financial administration which reached England were not
satisfactory to the regent, and that the Archbishop of Dublin was
really sent not so much to “assist” the Justiciar as to hold him in
check and keep a watch on his proceedings. Eight months later Geoffrey
had to be reprimanded[470] for not having yet executed a royal order
issued on Midsummer day for the restoration of Limerick to Reginald de
Breuse[471]; and on 12th February, 1218, a long letter of remonstrance
was written to him in the King’s name. He had been bidden to come over
and do his homage, and certify the King as to the state of the Crown’s
Irish lands; the King is “greatly surprised” that he has not yet come,
and again bids him come without fail before Easter next, and bring with
him all the money that the King’s subjects and bailiffs in Ireland can
be induced to furnish, for the payment of the debt to Louis, and of six
hundred marks owed to the Pope, being two years’ arrears of the tribute
due to him from Ireland.[472] Whether Geoffrey sent any money does not
appear; he certainly did not come over in person; probably, however, he
made some excuse which gave the Marshal no grounds for questioning his
loyalty, for his homage was left in abeyance till after the Marshal’s
death.
[Sidenote: 1218]
In England itself every effort was made by the government to carry out
loyally the terms of the treaty of Kingston and the provisions of the
Charter. On 22nd February the two Charters--the Charter of Liberties
and that of the Forest--were sent certainly to one, probably to all of
the sheriffs, with instructions to publish them in the shire-courts,
and to make all the men of the shire swear to the observance of
them, as well as to take an oath of fealty to the King; especial
stress was laid on the execution of the last clause in the Charter of
Liberties, which enjoined the destruction of adulterine castles.[473]
In July the chief Justiciar of the Forest, John Marshal, the regent’s
nephew, was despatched on a Forest circuit to make arrangements
for deafforestations to be carried out according to the Forest
Charter.[474] Such of the prisoners taken during the war, and of their
captors, as were dissatisfied with regard to questions of ransom were
by public proclamation, made through the sheriffs each in his shire,
invited or summoned to shew their complaints on 6th May before the
King’s council at Westminster, for the settlement of their respective
claims and the composing of their mutual differences.[475]
[Sidenote: 1217]
As a chronicler says, “it was difficult speedily to satisfy the
desires of all men, and to allay in a moment the rancour of so many
dissidents”; and it was also, after the turmoil of the last few years,
difficult for men of the fighting classes to settle down to a life
of peace. Some of them “found an outlet for the relics of discord”
in tournaments.[476] The real war was no sooner ended {1217} than
Englishmen became possessed by a rage for these military exercises,
which until the time of King Richard had never been permitted in
England, and were everywhere and always discountenanced by the
Church. Their revival at a moment when the embers of war were still
smouldering was obviously a matter of grave peril, requiring to be
dealt with promptly and firmly. It was a curious turn of fate that
compelled the Earl Marshal, who had spent his youth and acquired
his knightly repute in the lists of France and Flanders, to use his
power for the suppression of this mimic warfare in his native land;
and the first letter patent in which a tournament was forbidden by
him--on 4th October, 1217, little more than a week after the departure
of Louis--reveals with characteristic simplicity his reluctance to
commit his young sovereign to a condemnation of tournaments in general;
“Know ye,” the King is made to say, “that we will and ordain that this
tournament be not held, for no other reason than this, that we fear a
disturbance of our realm; which may God avert.”[477] Ten months later
the young King’s uncle, Earl William of Salisbury, was forbidden to
hold a tournament for which he was making preparations at Northampton,
“till by God’s help and the counsel of our faithful men, and of
yourself” (Salisbury), “the state of peace in our realm shall be made
firmer and more secure.”[478] Similar prohibitions occur again and
again;[479] but they were ineffectual, by 1220 the condemned practice
had become so general that, according to one monastic chronicler,
“tourneyers, their aiders and abettors, and those who carried
merchandise or victuals to tournaments were ordered to be all together
excommunicated every Sunday.”[480]
[Sidenote: 1218]
Other restless spirits seem to have found occupation in persecuting
the Jews. In March, 1218, the Jews of Gloucester, Lincoln, Oxford,
and Bristol were placed under the special charge of twenty-four
citizens in each city, whose names were to be enrolled, and who were
to guard the Jews against molestation from any one, “especially from
Crusaders”;[481] and it was probably to facilitate the duties of these
guardians, by rendering the persons under their charge distinguishable
at a glance, that the Jews were all ordered to wear, when out of
doors, two white “tablets” of linen or parchment on the front of their
upper garment.[482] These ordinances were no doubt called forth by
some unrecorded outrages whose origin we may, from the words about
“Crusaders,” gather to have been closely connected with a matter which
was now beginning to engage more worthily the militant spirits of the
time. In November, 1215, a General Council assembled at Rome under
Innocent III had decreed a new Crusade, in response to an appeal for
succour which the King of the Latins in Holy Land, John de Brienne, had
made three years before. Some English barons and knights had taken the
Cross, but they had been too much occupied with the troubles in their
own land to attempt the fulfilment of their vow till the civil war was
ended. Whenever and wherever a Crusade was preached, the ruder and more
ignorant among the votaries of the Cross, in their impatience to attack
its enemies, were too apt to begin with those who were nearest at
hand, and who were also most unpopular on other grounds than religious
ones--the Jews. It is, however, highly probable that the general
peace of the realm was the more easily preserved during the next year
or two because several of the leading barons of both parties in the
civil war now took themselves out of the country altogether, and went
to sink their differences, for a while at least, in the common cause
of Christendom against Islam. The first of the magnates who actually
set out, it seems, were two steady loyalists, the Earls of Chester
and Ferrers, who with Brian de Lisle, John de Lacy the constable of
Chester, William de Harcourt, “and many others,” started at the end
of May or beginning of June 1218.[483] Within a few months the Earl
of Arundel,[484] Baldwin de Vere, Geoffrey de Lucy, Odonel the son
of William d’Aubigny,[485] and the king’s half-brother Oliver,[486]
all took the Cross, and so did two of the leaders of the other
party--Robert FitzWalter and Saer de Quincy, Earl of Winchester.[487]
Saer died {1219} in Holy Land,[488] and so did Baldwin de Vere; Robert
FitzWalter came home in broken health,[489] and seems thenceforth to
have withdrawn from public life.
[Sidenote: 1217]
Still there remained men of both parties whom it was hard to bring
or keep under control. Throughout Henry’s minority his guardians
found themselves at intervals in difficulties with certain men who
“presumed to keep in their hands, contrary to the King’s prohibition
and the will of the owners, castles and lands belonging to some of
the bishops and magnates”[490]--and, the chronicler might have added,
to the King himself. The earliest case of flagrant insubordination
in this respect was that of Robert de Gouy. In 1215 Bishop Hugh of
Lincoln had delivered to King John the castles belonging to his see, to
be garrisoned for and by the King during his struggle with the rebel
barons. One of these castles, Newark, was given in charge by John
to Robert de Gouy, on condition of an oath sworn by Robert that in
case of John’s death he would surrender the place to no one save the
bishop.[491] Two months later John died in that very castle. On 10th
June, 1217, Robert was by letters patent ordered to deliver Newark
to its rightful owner.[492] It seems to have been anticipated that he
might plead his oath to John as binding him to surrender the place only
to the bishop in person; Henry de Coleville, a knight holding land
under the see of Lincoln, was sent by the bishop to Newark, accredited
by letters under the bishop’s seal authorizing him to receive the
castle in the bishop’s stead, and also carrying letters from the Legate
certifying that he, Gualo, was responsible for the bishop’s detention
in London on business of state. Robert, however, refused to deliver
Newark to Henry de Coleville, partly, it seems, on the ground of his
oath, partly on the plea that the Crown owed him some money. On 23rd
June the Council in the King’s name promised that if this latter plea
should prove to be just, Robert’s claims should be satisfied, provided
that he delivered Newark to Coleville without further delay.[493]
This second summons had to be followed up by a third, on 23rd July,
insisting that Robert should either at once obey, or come before the
King’s Court at Oxford on 5th August, to hear and do what the Council
should determine.[494] The Council’s decision appears to have simply
confirmed the mandate of 23rd June; on 13th August De Gouy is told that
he has made himself liable to a very severe sentence by his contempt of
the judgement of the King’s Court in still retaining Newark, but, in
consideration of his long service to the late King and the present one,
his claim shall be satisfied if he will without fail come and stand to
the judgement of the King’s Court concerning the castle on 31st August
at Oxford.[495] It was, however, not till 26th October that Robert made
a formal surrender of Newark into the hands of the King himself, for
the Bishop of Lincoln, and took an oath that within forty days he would
clear the place of himself and his men and deliver it bodily to the
bishop in person or to whomsoever the bishop should delegate for that
purpose; and also that in the meantime he would do no harm or damage
to any of the bishop’s men, lands, or goods. The constables of Lincoln
and Nottingham (the two nearest royal castles) were bidden to enforce
full amends for any infraction of this last promise;[496] a detail
which seems to imply that Robert was suspected of being actuated by
personal ill-will towards the bishop. Three months passed {1218}, and
Newark was still occupied by Robert and his men. Then, on 27th January,
1218, the temporalities of the see of Lincoln were committed--having
apparently been placed in the King’s hand by the bishop specially to
that intent--to two laymen, and the constables of its castles, Banbury,
Sleaford, and Newark, were ordered to resign their respective charges
to the new custodians.[497] Again Robert de Gouy disobeyed the royal
order; and on 14th March the sheriff of Nottingham (Philip Marc) was
bidden to join the Bishop of Lincoln in driving him out of Newark by
force.[498] Either their joint attempt failed, or the bishop shrank
from this extreme measure; at last, on 4th July, the Earl Marshal took
upon himself to subdue the obstinate rebel, and summoned thirty miners
from Gloucestershire to meet him at Stamford, where the royal forces
were to muster for the siege of Newark.[499] He and the King left
London on July 8th; on the 20th they reached Newark, and next day they
wrote to the mayor of Lincoln for materials needed for the siege.[500]
The Marshal apparently saw no occasion for superintending its conduct
in person; on the 23rd he and the King withdrew to Leicester, and by
the 26th they were in Oxfordshire.[501] Probably before they left
Newark their military demonstration had done its work in frightening
Robert sufficiently to make him offer terms, not indeed to the
government, but to the Bishop of Lincoln. Some friends of Robert’s made
overtures of peace to Hugh; Hugh agreed to pay Robert a hundred pounds
for the provisions in the castle, and Robert apparently evacuated it
forthwith.[502] On 27th July he made formal surrender of it into the
hand of the King in person, at Wallingford, and the King committed
it to the custody of the Bishop of Winchester, who was to do with it
whatever the Legate should direct.[503] No doubt it was restored to
the Bishop of Lincoln. Robert de Gouy was struck dead by lightning at
S. Neot’s before the year was out.[504]
[Sidenote: 1218]
As the second year of little Henry’s reign drew to a close, his
guardians seem to have felt it time to make arrangements for securing
that the validity of acts done and orders issued in his name should
no longer be dependent on any individual, even though that individual
were the Governor of King and Kingdom or the Legate. It is probable
that a change in the legation was known to be impending,[505] and
also that the physical strength of the aged Marshal was beginning to
give way under the strain of his great labours and responsibilities,
when the making of a new royal seal was entrusted to a goldsmith
named Walter “of the Hithe.” The seal was of silver, of the weight
of five marks.[506] It was first used on 3rd or 4th November, 1218,
to authenticate an ordinance specially designed to guard against a
possible misuse of it during the King’s minority. Letters patent were
issued warning all men that no grant in perpetuity was to be sealed
with it till the King’s coming of age, and that any such grant found
thus sealed should be null and void.[507] It was probably on the same
occasion that the Bishop of Winchester, the Chancellor, the Justiciar,
and “the King’s common council” made oath in the Legate’s presence
that they would “keep and hold the King in seisin of all the lands
which were in the hand of his father, King John, on the day when war
was first begun between him and his barons of England, and that nothing
should be done in the way of granting or alienating any land so that
it should be ceded to any man in perpetuity so long as the King was
under age.”[508] The letter patent concerning the use of the seal was
attested by the Legate, the Archbishops Stephen of Canterbury--who had
returned from Rome in May[509]--and Walter of York, the Justiciar, and
a number of other prelates and nobles.[510] Its attestation must have
been almost the last of Gualo’s public acts in England. His work there
was done, and well done; he wished to resign his office; and the Pope,
who had other work for him elsewhere, had accepted his resignation. In
the last week of November he set out on his homeward journey.[511] A
few days later a new Legate came to take his place.[512]
[Sidenote: 1219]
At Candlemas, 1219, the Marshal fell sick. The court was then in
London; but he seems to have been absent from it for a few days
when he was taken ill, for his biographer says he “rode to London
in pain.”[513] There, with his wife, he lodged in the Tower--still,
despite increasing illness, attending to the duties of his office--till
the middle of March, when, feeling that the end was drawing near, he
sent for his son and his men and “spoke comfortable words to them, as
he well knew how.” By the advice of “several who loved him heartily,”
he made his will, deliberately and carefully. Then he asked his son
and Henry FitzGerold to carry him to his manor of Caversham, “for
he thought he could bear his sickness more easily in his own house,
and if he were to die, it were better that he should be at home than
elsewhere.” They carried him thither in a boat, his wife accompanying
him in another boat.[514] The court seems to have immediately removed
from London to Reading, probably as the most convenient place where
the Council could all assemble within such a distance of Caversham as
enabled them to keep in constant communication with him.[515] To the
King and the Council at Reading he sent a message, asking that they
would all come to speak with him; and they came. “Simply they sat
around him” while he spoke to the King: “Fair sweet sir, in presence
of these barons I wish to tell you that when your father died and you
were crowned, it was arranged that you should be given into my charge,
and so you were, that I should defend your land, which is not easy to
hold. I have served you, I can truly say, loyally and to the uttermost
of my power; and I would serve you yet, if it pleased God to enable me;
but every one can see it is not His Will that I should abide longer in
this world. Wherefore it is fitting, so please you, that our baronage
choose some one who shall guard you and the realm in such a way, if he
can, as to please both God and men. And may God grant you to have such
a master as may be to our honour!” Up rose the Bishop of Winchester
and spoke: “Hearken now! Marshal, the land was given you to hold and
the realm to maintain, I grant it; but the King was given to me.” “Out
upon you!” said the Marshal, “Lord Bishop, that saying is wrong; you
should have held your peace. You were never concerned in this matter.
The time is not very long since you and the good Earl of Chester
besought me with tears that I would be guardian and master of the King
and the kingdom both together; your memory is short, meseems; and the
Legate was at great pains about the matter, and begged and commanded
me, till from you all, together with him, I received the King and the
kingdom. And when I had received the King, it was well seen and heard,
I assure you, that I gave the King into your hand, for he could not go
travelling about; therefore I gave him to you to take care of him.”
Here, seized with sudden pain, he turned to the Legate: “Go now, and
take the King with you; and to-morrow, if you please, be good enough to
return. I will take counsel with my son and my people, and provide some
one to undertake the business; and may God guide our counsels aright!”
Next morning he called his son, his wife, his nephew John, and his most
trusted advisers, and told them his project: that the King “should be
committed to God and the Pope, and to the Legate.” “For in no land are
the folk of so many different minds as in England; and if I committed
him to one, the others, you may be sure, would be envious.” “If the
land be not defended by the Pope at the present juncture, then I know
not who should defend it.” To this they all agreed. So when the King,
the Legate and the great men came again, “the Marshal raised himself
on his side, and called the King, and took him by the hand, and said to
the Legate: ‘Sir, I have thought long and carefully about what we spoke
of yesterday. I will commit my lord here into the Hand of God, and into
the hand of the Pope, and into yours, you being here in the Pope’s
stead.’ Then he said to the King: ‘Sir, I pray the Lord God that, if
I have ever done anything that pleased Him, He may grant you to be a
brave and good man; and if you should go astray in the footsteps of
any evil ancestor and become like to such, then I pray God, the Son of
Mary, that He give you not long life, but grant you to die at once.’
‘Amen,’ answered the King.” Another attack of pain seems to have
compelled the Marshal again hurriedly to dismiss the assembly: but he
at once sent his eldest son after them, that he might formally deliver
the King, “in the sight of the baronage,” to the Legate, in order that
no man should be able to say this thing was done in a corner. The young
Marshal fulfilled his commission; taking the King by the hand, “in the
sight of all he offered him to the Legate. But the Bishop of Winchester
sprang up and took the child by the head. ‘Let be, my Lord Bishop!’
said the young Marshal, ‘concern yourself not with this matter; I wish
it to be seen that I fulfill all my father’s command.’” The Legate rose
up to receive the King, and sternly rebuked Peter.[516]
The old Marshal, feeling, as he said “delivered from a great burden,”
lingered for some weeks longer, and died on 14th May, conscious to the
last, in the act of making the sign of the cross.[517] Earls, barons,
bishops, abbots, joined the funeral train as it passed from Caversham
to London; and with every imaginable token of honour and reverence
from clerks and laymen alike, the Marshal was laid to rest, as he had
desired, in the church of the Knights of the Temple; Archbishop Stephen
of Canterbury taking the chief part in the burial service and paying
the last honours to the man whom he too, as he stood by the open grave,
declared to have been “the best knight of all the world that has lived
in our time.”[518]
FOOTNOTES:
[327] “Se il est seignor de terre, par acort dou commun de ces homes
deit estre garde son corps e ces forteresces.” _Assises de Jérusalem_,
ed. Beugnot, vol. i. p. 261.
[328] William of Tyre, lib. xxi. cc. 3, 5.
[329] His biographer represents him as stating in October, 1216, that
he was “over eighty,” see above, p. 6; but this seems to be an error
on the part of either the writer or the Marshal himself; see _Hist. G.
le Mar._, vol. iii. p. xxiv. and p. 8, note 2. His parents were, it
seems, married in 1141 or 1142, and in all likelihood he--their second
son--was born in 1143 or 1144.
[330] “Gaste-viande.”
[331] _Hist. G. le Mar._, ll. 815–1106. I am compelled to differ from
the illustrious editor of the _Histoire_ respecting this “affair
of Drincourt,” which he regards as a fantastic version of what the
_Gesta Henrici_ and Robert of Torigny relate as having taken place
there in 1173. To my mind, the divergences pointed out in M. Meyer’s
own footnote to _Hist. G. le Mar._, vol. iii. p. 16, and in his
introduction, _ib._ p. xxviii., indicate plainly that the poet and the
prose writers are speaking of two distinct events; and this indication
is confirmed by the fact that the poet brings his story of Drincourt
into immediate connexion with the knighting of the Marshal (cf. M.
Meyer’s note 3, vol. iii. p. xxvi.). This “most puzzling passage in
the whole poem” need not puzzle us at all, if we will but accept it
literally; _i.e._, as relating to an otherwise unrecorded episode in
the strife between Henry and Louis, about the Vexin and other matters,
which went on--intermittently indeed and with long intervals of peace,
but still never wholly laid to rest--through fully ten years prior to
the crowning of the “young king.” The episode was obviously one of no
great consequence, except to the Marshal, who probably cherished its
memory as that of the first real fight in which he was privileged to
take a share. Its non-appearance in the other records of the time is
therefore no proof of its unreality. The names of the chief actors
on the French side--the Count of Flanders and his brother Matthew,
Count of Boulogne--are no doubt an “anachronism,” dragged in, by a
very natural confusion of memory on the part of the poet’s informants,
from the later “affair of Drincourt” in 1173. For the incident itself,
apart from this error as to some of the persons concerned in it, more
than one possible date might be suggested which would fit in well
enough with the place given to the affair in the string of the poet’s
narrative.
[332] _Hist. G. le Mar._, ll. 1163–1526.
[333] _Ib._ ll. 1939–46.
[334] ll. 2071–2150.
[335] ll. 5127–5636.
[336] ll. 6415–6606.
[337] ll. 6865–6905.
[338] ll. 7302–7309.
[339] ll. 7529–9223.
[340] ll. 9364–9371.
[341] _Hist. G. le Mar._, ll. 11877–908.
[342] _Ib._ ll. 10012–10076.
[343] R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 90.
[344] _Charter Rolls_, p. 46 b; date, 20th April, 1200.
[345] _Hist. G. le Mar._, ll. 9845–58.
[346] _Ib._ ll. 19125–52.
[347] _Ib._ ll. 18407–20.
[348] _Chanson de Roland_, ll. 1117–1123.
[349] _E.g._, his adhesion to the “young king” when the latter was in
rebellion against Henry II., his refusal to do homage to Richard for
his Irish lands (which he held under John) in 1194, and his refusal
to fight for John against Philip Augustus (to whom he had done homage
for his Norman lands) in 1205. In this last instance John pretended to
regard William’s action as treasonable, but his after-conduct showed
that he had been only pretending.
[350] See his answer to a remonstrance about the gains he had won by
tourneying, _Hist. G. le Mar._, ll. 18469–96, and his forcible seizure
of money whose owner destined it to an evil use, ll. 6677–6834.
[351] _Ib._ ll. 5088–5104.
[352] _Justiciarius noster_, 1st November, 1216 (_Pat. Rolls_, vol. i.
p. 1), 2nd November twice (_ib._ p. 2, _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 293);
_justiciarius Angliae_, 13th November twice (_ll. cc._); _justiciarius
noster Angliae_, 6th November twice, 12th November, 14th November
(_Pat. Rolls_, pp. 2, 3).
[353] The letter patent by which Hubert was appointed is unfortunately
not enrolled; but the appointment was so clearly recognized by all
parties as valid that we cannot doubt its having been made in the usual
way.
[354] Turner, “Minority of Henry III.”, part I, _Trans. Roy. Hist.
Soc._, 2nd ser. vol. xviii. p. 271.
[355] _Responsiones pro Huberto_ (M. Paris, _Chron. Maj._, vol. vi.),
p. 64.
[356] It may even have been given to him purposely, by consent of
the real Justiciar, in order to enable him to undertake certain
administrative functions specially attached to the chief Justiciar’s
office, while Hubert was--as he said himself in 1239--so busy at
Dover that “a castro non potuit recedere _nec officium justiciarii
exercere_”; _Responsiones_, p. 65.
[357] “Rector nostri et regni nostri.” This title appears on the Rolls
for the first time on 19th November, 1216 (_Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 3),
and continues thenceforth in regular use.
[358] This fact is too self-evident to need illustration, but it is
well illustrated by an incident of the late spring or early summer of
1217. Some person or persons unnamed “urgently entreated” Honorius
to take measures for the appointment of Earl Ranulf of Chester as
colleague to the Earl Marshal, whom they represented as being too old
to fulfil the duties of his office, “especially in these times.” The
proposal did not commend itself to the Pope; but he remitted the matter
to Gualo’s judgment (_Roy. Letters_, vol. i. p. 532, Honorius to Gualo,
8th July, 1217), and it seems to have been heard of no more. How or
with whom the suggestion originated there is nothing to show. That it
had not come from the Legate is clear from the wording of the Pope’s
letter to him. It evidently did not come from the Marshal himself,
although, as has been seen, he had originally proposed that the regency
should be given to Chester. There is no sign that it was the outcome of
any intrigue on the part of Chester, whose conduct seems never to have
in any way belied the assurance of loyal support which he had given to
the Marshal in October, 1216.
[359] In the very rare cases which form an exception to this rule it is
the Legate whose seal takes the place of the Marshal’s. One of these
exceptional cases is so interesting as to deserve special notice. It
consists of two letters patent, both dated Bristol, 2nd December, 1216,
attested by the King himself, and sealed with the seals of the Legate
and the Bishop of Winchester (_Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 9, 10). One of
these letters is addressed to the Justiciar of Ireland, Geoffrey de
Marsh, the other to Meiler FitzHenry; the purpose of both is to secure
for the Marshal his rights in Ireland as lord of Leinster, especially
the service due to him from Meiler, which the late King had (in one of
his fits of suspiciousness) taken into his own hand as security for
the Marshal’s fidelity. The reason why these letters were not attested
by the Marshal himself is obvious; but the interesting point in the
matter is that the Legate and the Bishop, or the boy-King, or all three
together, seem to have seized upon the occasion as an opportunity for
putting on record the estimation in which they held him. Each letter
contains a sort of parenthesis, quite unnecessary to its main purport,
in praise of Earl William. “Qui” writes Henry to Geoffrey “patri
nostro viventi semper fideliter astitit, et nobis assistit, et cujus
fidelitatem plurimum commendamus”; while in the letter to Meiler there
is a yet more unconventional and emphatic outburst of feeling--“Ipse
enim W. semper patri nostro viventi fideliter astitit, et devote et
nobis constanter adheret et assistit, et ipsius obsequium pre cunctis
regni nostri magnatibus habemus plurimum commendatum, quoniam tamquam
aurum in fornace, sic se in necessitate probavit.”
[360] See the _Rolls_, 1216--November, 1218, _passim_.
[361] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 1, 23, 72, 100; _Close Rolls_, vol. i.
p. 299 b.
[362] The King of Jerusalem seems to have come of age at fifteen, like
his subjects. _Assises de Jérusalem_, ed. Beugnot, vol. i, p. 262.
[363] _Querimonia Falcasii_, W. Cov., vol. ii. p. 60.
[364] “Usque ad etatem nostram,” _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 123, &c. This
formula was used as late as August, 1226; _ib._ vol. ii. p. 57.
[365] See Note VI.
[366] For the changes of sheriffs in Henry’s first year see Turner,
_Minority_, pt. I. pp. 273–4.
[367] He was made Seneschal of Touraine in 1202, defended Loches
against Philip in 1204, was captured with the castle, and ransomed by
John for a thousand marks. See Turner, pt. I. p. 249.
[368] Gloucester, Bristol, Hereford, Nottingham, Odiham, Windsor. See
Turner, pt. I. pp. 249–251. It was Engelard who defended Windsor so
long and so successfully against the French. He had previously made a
splendid defence of Odiham; R. Wend., vol. iii. p. 371.
[369] There is not a particle of evidence that these men had ever given
just cause for resentment to any English party or person. “They cannot
be described as royal favourites, for not one of them received a grant
of land in perpetuity by royal charter. Nor can they be included among
the King’s political advisers; for if they had been such they would
certainly have witnessed his charters occasionally. Yet not one of them
witnessed a royal charter except Engelard de Cigogné; and he witnessed
but one before the issue of the Great Charter at Runnymede, and but two
afterwards. They were neither courtiers nor politicians, but soldiers
of experience, whom the barons feared with good cause.” Turner, pt. I.
pp. 253, 254.
[370] A grotesque comment on the whole affair is furnished by the fact
that the drafters of the article seem to have neither known nor cared
what the names of their intended victims really were; see Turner, pt.
I. pp. 248, 252.
[371] Bréauté is in Normandy, Maulay in Gascony. Of Falkes we shall
have to speak at length later on. Peter de Maulay is (like Falkes) said
to have begun life as an usher or doorkeeper: “Chil Pieres de Maulay
ot este huissiers le roi, mais puis crut tant ses afaires que il fu
chevaliers,” &c. _Hist. Ducs_, p. 180.
[372] As Mr. Turner truly says (pt. I. pp. 276, 277):--“The confidence
which King John and the advisers of his son Henry reposed in these
so-called alien sheriffs rested on experience. Not one of them could
boast of illustrious ancestry” (Savaric is not included among those of
whom Mr. Turner is here speaking) “or inherited wealth; not one of them
can fairly be described as a royal favourite. Men of action, soldiers
brought from France to defend their King and his kingdom, they owed
their positions to their military talents. These men from the King’s
dominions across the sea helped in no small measure to place the heir
of the Angevin house safely on the throne of England.”
[373] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 322 _et seq._; _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p.
92.
[374] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 93.
[375] _Ib._ pp. 94–97.
[376] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. 329; date, 12th October.
[377] _Chron. Merton_, Petit-Dutaillis, p. 515.
[378] _Hist. Ducs_, p. 206.
[379] W. Cov., vol. ii. p. 239; cf. _ib._ p. 240, and R. Wend., vol.
iv. p. 33.
[380] _Ann. Dunst._, p. 52.
[381] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 377.
[382] _Chron. Merton_, Petit-Dutaillis, p. 515.
[383] W. Cov., vol. ii. p. 240.
[384] _Statutes of the Realm, Charters of Liberties_, pp. 17–19. On
this Charter see Professor Powicke’s article, “The Chancery during the
minority of Henry III,” _Eng. Hist. Rev._, vol. xxiii. pp. 232, 233.
[385] Second Charter of Henry III, c. 7.
[386] c. 13.
[387] c. 14.
[388] c. 15.
[389] 2nd Ch. Hen. III, c. 16; cf. 1st Ch. Hen. III, c. 15, M. C., c.
20.
[390] 2nd Ch. Hen. III, c. 23; cf. 1st Ch., c. 21.
[391] 2nd Ch., c. 26.
[392] 2nd Ch., c. 34; cf. 1st Ch., c. 31.
[393] 2nd Ch., c. 38; cf. 1st Ch., c. 35.
[394] 2nd Ch. Hen. III, c. 20.
[395] c. 42.
[396] c. 44.
[397] c. 39.
[398] 2nd Ch. Hen. III, c. 43.
[399] c. 46.
[400] c. 47.
[401] _Statutes of the Realm, Charters of Liberties_, pp. 20, 21.
[402] See Turner, pt. I. p. 285.
[403] Hidage, carucage, and aid are mentioned on 7th June, 1217, as
having been assessed “de precepto nostro,” _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p.
310; and the two former seem to have been in process of collection in
some of the Midland shires in the middle of April of that year; _ib._
pp. 306, 306 b, _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 56.
[404] _Roy. Letters_, vol. i. p. 532.
[405] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 602, 603.
[406] See above, footnote 315.
[407] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 328.
[408] _Ib._ pp. 343, 340 b, 376 b.
[409] Turner, pt. I. p. 288.
[410] _Ib._ p. 284.
[411] _Roy. Lett._, vol. i. pp. 7, 8; date, 6th November. Dr. Shirley
made the year 1217, but he must have overlooked the closing words
of the letter--“De praemissis autem novi sigilli nostri sanctae
paternitati vestrae reverentiam merito duximus exhibendam”--which
clearly shew that it is 1218.
[412] The various accounts of the money paid (or promised) to Louis
are extremely puzzling. The Chronicle of Melrose, a. 1217, p. 131,
gives the total as ten thousand pounds. The Dunstable Annals, p. 51,
say that Louis left his Marshal in England “pro quindecim millibus
marcarum recipiendo, quas pro reragiis tenseriarum et expensis quas
fecerat promiserunt”--this verb has no nominative, but the king’s
guardians seem to be meant. The _Hist. Ducs_, p. 204, after summarizing
the treaty, says Louis was to have “deseure tout chou, x m. marcs
d’estrelins por l’arierage de ses rentes que il n’ot pas euues, et
pour la desconfiture de Nicole vii m. mars; che fu xvii m. mars par
tout.” (For the first _marcs_ the MS. followed in the printed text
has _livres_, but the other has _marcs_, which is obviously the right
reading; see the editor’s note 1, _l.c._). M. Petit-Dutaillis, _Vie de
Louis VIII_, p. 176, note 2, takes the marks promised to Louis as marks
sterling. But the document on which he relies for this interpretation
of the sum (_ib._ p. 512) is a statement of the king’s debt to Florence
of S. Omer, not of his debt to Louis. The letter of 6th November,
1218, which does specify the sum due to Louis, says nothing about
marks sterling; it calls them simply “marks.” Reading the Dunstable
Annals and the _Hist. Ducs_ by the light of the king’s letter, one is
led to think that the monk’s “fifteen thousand marks” are made up of
the king’s ten thousand marks “pro bono pacis” (= “pro expensis quas
fecerat [Ludovicus]” = “pour la desconfiture de Nicole”), and five
(instead of seven) thousand “pro reragiis,” “pour l’arierage de ses
rentes,” the amounts given for the indemnity and for the arrears having
been reversed (and the latter perhaps exaggerated) by the Flemish
historian.
[413] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 94.
[414] _Ib._ p. 114.
[415] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 115.
[416] _Ib._ p. 168, 30th August, 1218.
[417] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 369 b.
[418] _Ib._ pp. 383, 388 b.
[419] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 125.
[420] _Ib._ p. 284.
[421] “Scutagium positum de novo per consilium commune comitum et
baronum nostrorum Angliæ,” 10th November, 1217, _Pat. Rolls_, vol.
i. p. 125; “per commune consilium regni nostri,” 30th October, 1217,
_Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 371: “de carrucagio et hydagio quod assisum
fuit per consilium regni nostri,” 9th January, 1218, _ib._ p. 348 b.
Tallage to be taken from the towns and from the royal demesnes, _ib._
pp. 349, 359, 364, 370; _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 170, 171.
[422] Its proceeds are enrolled in the Pipe Rolls 2 and 3 Hen. III
under the title of “Compotus de Scutagio assiso ... ad Angliam
deliberandam de Francis”; see Petit-Dutaillis, p. 177, note 5. It did
not, however, all go to Louis; _e.g._, the whole scutage of Kent, as
well as a share of the tallage from some of the towns in that county,
was allotted to Hubert de Burgh for the repair and fortification of
Dover Castle, 11th February, 1218, _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 352.
[423] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 336.
[424] “In quas ingressus non habetur nisi per vicecomites vel ballivos
et absque debito waranto.”
[425] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 170, 171.
[426] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 375.
[427] _Ann. Dunst._, p. 53.
[428] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 93. On Alexander’s occupation of
Carlisle and the ecclesiastical feud there, see _ib._ p. 111.
[429] _Ib._ p. 122.
[430] Henry was at Northampton those two days, _ib._ pp. 130, 172.
[431] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 348, Northampton.
[432] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 132.
[433] Even in Gwynedd there were encroachments in the north-east,
_e.g._, Rhuddlan.
[434] After careful consideration I can see no other possible
interpretation of the decree (Bliss, _Calendar of Papal Documents_,
vol. i. p. 109) whereby Pope Honorius in 1226 declared Joan legitimate,
but without prejudice to King Henry.
[435] _Brut y Tywysogion_, pp. 287–289.
[436] _Ib._ p. 291.
[437] About 11th November, _ib._ pp. 285–287; certainly between 2nd
October and 20th November, _Close Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 232 b, 237 b.
[438] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 232 b.
[439] _Brut_, pp. 289, 291.
[440] Sons of his father’s sister Maud by her marriage with Gruffudd ap
Rhys, who died in 1201. Maelgwn and Rhys Gryg, _i.e._, “the Hoarse,”
were Gruffudd’s brothers.
[441] _Brut_, p. 287.
[442] _Ib._ p. 293.
[443] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 335, _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 109, 110.
[444] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 72–75, 112.
[445] _Brut_, pp. 299, 301.
[446] _Hist. G. le Mar._, ll. 17738–45.
[447] Husband of Reginald de Breuse’s sister Annora.
[448] _Foedera_, I. i. p. 149.
[449] Above, footnote 430.
[450] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 132; cf. _Close Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 348,
376.
[451] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 136.
[452] _Ib._ vol. i. p. 143, _Close Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 378 b, 379. Cf.
_Brut_, p. 303: “Christianity was restored to the men of the south,
and Caermarthen and Aberteivi” [_i.e._, Cardigan] “were put under the
custody of Llywelyn.” These two castles and the whole land of Gower had
been since January, 1214, under the charge of the Earl Marshal; see
_Pat. Rolls Joh._, p. 109 b.
[453] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 142.
[454] _Hist. G. le Mar._, ll. 17748–17859.
[455] _Brut_, p. 303.
[456] _Hist. G. le Mar._, l. 17818.
[457] _Ib._ ll. 17860–17871; the story is told confusedly, but with the
help of the _Brut_ and the dates furnished by the Rolls the sequence
of events can be made out. The Worcester _parlement_ in which this
discussion took place is doubtless not the first meeting with Llewelyn,
in March, but the later meeting, at the close of Easter, when the court
would be gathered round the king for the festival.
[458] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 149.
[459] _Ib._ pp. 155, 156.
[460] _Brut_, p. 305.
[461] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 133.
[462] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 150.
[463] _Ib._ p. 204.
[464] Geoffrey’s letter does not seem to be extant; we only know its
contents from the reply.
[465] _Foedera_, I. i. p. 145.
[466] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 31.
[467] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 22, 23, 14th and 17th January, 1217.
[468] _Ib._ p. 57; cf. _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 306.
[469] These things appear from the agreement made between the king and
Geoffrey de Marsh in 1220, _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 263–264.
[470] _Ib._ p. 132, 18th December, 1217.
[471] _Ib._ p. 72.
[472] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 376 b, 377.
[473] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 377.
[474] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 162, 15th April, 1218.
[475] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 358 b.
[476] W. Cov., vol. ii. p. 240; cf. _Hist. Ducs_, p. 207, and _Ann.
Dunst._, p. 51.
[477] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 116.
[478] _Ib._ p. 174.
[479] _Ib._ pp. 194, 195, 198, &c.
[480] _Ann. Dunst._, a. 1220, p. 60.
[481] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 354 b, 357, 359 b.
[482] _Ib._ p. 378 b.
[483] The _Ann. Dunst._, a. 1218, p. 54, say all these started in
May. The _Ann. Wav._, a. 1218, say Chester and Ferrers started at
Whitsuntide (Whit Sunday was 3rd June), and place Harcourt’s departure
in the following year. Cf. W. Cov., vol. ii. pp. 240, 241.
[484] R. Wend., vol. iv. p. 44; _Ann. Wav._ and _Dunst._, a. 1219.
[485] _Ann. Dunst._, a. 1219.
[486] R. Wend., _l.c._
[487] R. Wend., _l.c._; _Ann. Dunst._ and _Wav._, a. 1219. In a letter
patent dated 20th January, 1219, the king takes under his protection
until June 24th a ship which Saer “sibi parari fecit in partibus
Galweiae ad eundum in partes Bristoll, pro victualibus et armis et
aliis sibi necessariis ad iter peregrinacionis suae quod facere
disponit in terram Jerosolymitanam.” _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 185.
[488] _Ann. Wav._, a. 1219.
[489] _Ann. Dunst._, a. 1219, p. 56.
[490] The story of the siege of Newark in 1218 is prefaced by Roger
of Wendover, vol. iv. pp. 34, 35, as follows: “Erant autem his diebus
multi in Anglia quibus tempore belli praeteriti dulcissimum fuerat de
rapinis vixisse, unde nunc post pacem denuntiatam et omnibus concessam
non potuerunt manus a praeda cohibere; horum autem principales fuerunt
incentores Willelmus comes Albemarliae, Falcasius cum suis castellanis,
Robertus de Veteriponte, Brienus de Insula, Hugo de Baillul, Philippus
Marci, et Robertus de Gaugi, cum aliis multis, qui castella quorundam
episcoporum ac magnatum cum terris et possessionibus contra regis
prohibitionem et illorum voluntatem detinere praesumpserunt eisdem;
inter quos Robertus de Gaugi, post multas regis admonitiones, castellum
de Newerc cum villa tota et pertinentiis, quae ad jus Hugonis
Lincolniensis episcopi spectabant, ei reddere contradixit.” Mr. Turner
(“Minority,” part II., _Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc._, 3rd ser. vol. i. pp.
221–222) has shown that not only up to this date, but for several years
after, there is no evidence on this subject against Falkes, and that
there is none whatever, at any date, against Brian de Lisle, Philip
Marc, and Robert de Vipont. Hugh de Balliol really was contumacious,
and so too, though as yet in a much lesser degree, was William of
Aumale (_ib._ pp. 223, 237). It is quite clear that, as Mr. Turner
says (p. 222), Roger’s account of the Newark affair was written some
years after the occurrence, and that Roger “had in mind the events of
the years 1224 and 1225 when he was writing of 1218.” A hint of this
confusion lurks in a detail which seems to have escaped Mr. Turner’s
notice. Roger, immediately before the passage quoted above, says that
Henry kept Christmas, 1217 (1218, in Roger’s reckoning), at Northampton
with Falkes. But as a matter of fact Henry kept that Christmas at
Gloucester; see above, p. 91. Obviously Roger was confusing the
Christmas of 1217 with that of 1223, the one which immediately preceded
the redistribution of royal castles in 1224, and which Henry really did
spend at Northampton, though not as Falkes’s guest.
[491] _Pat. Rolls Joh._, p. 193 b. See details in Turner, pt. II. pp.
222–225.
[492] _Pat. Rolls Hen. III_, vol. i. p. 68.
[493] _Ib._ p. 71.
[494] _Ib._ p. 81.
[495] _Ib._ p. 85.
[496] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 121.
[497] _Ib._ pp. 134, 135.
[498] _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 378.
[499] _Ib._ p. 365.
[500] _Ib._ p. 365 b.
[501] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 162, 163.
[502] R. Wend., vol. iv. pp. 35, 36.
[503] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 164.
[504] _Ann. Dunst._, a. 1218.
[505] Gualo had certainly sent in his resignation to the Pope; it
was on 12th September, 1218, that Honorius appointed Pandulf legate
to England, Gualo having resigned that office: Bliss, _Calendar of
Documents_, vol. i. p. 58.
[506] “Liberate de thesauro nostro Waltero aurifabro qui fecit sigillum
nostrum v marcas pro argento sigilli nostro ponderante v marcas; et pro
opere mercedem suam ita reddatis quod de jure contentus esse debeat,”
_Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 381 b, 7th November 1218. The sum finally
decided upon as that “wherewith he ought by rights to be content” was
forty shillings, which another writ addressed to the treasurer and
chamberlains on 2nd December authorised them to pay “Waltero de Ripa
aurifabro in mercedem operis sigilli nostri quod fecit”; _ib._ p. 383.
[507] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 177. This letter has no date; but it
heads the Roll of 3 Hen. III, and is entitled, “Primae litterae novi
sigilli domini regis, de cartis vel litteris patentibus non faciendis;
et hic incepit sigillum domini regis currere.” In the Close Roll of
the same year (vol. i. p. 381) there is a note, “Hic incepit sigillum
domini regis currere,” inserted between the abstract of a letter dated
3rd November and that of a letter dated 5th November. The earliest
dated document expressly stated in the Rolls to be “sealed with our
seal” is a patent of 4th November, _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 207.
[508] On 3rd September, 1220, Henry writes to Almeric of Limoges:
“Sciatis quod cum dominus Gualo titulo S. Martini presbyter cardinalis
Legatus esset in Anglia, juratum fuit in praesentia ipsius per dominum
Wintoniensem episcopum, et cancellarium nostrum, et Hubertum de Burgo
justiciarium nostrum, necnon et per commune concilium nostrum, quod
ipsi nos custodient et tenebunt in seisina omnium terrarum quae fuerunt
in manu domini Johannis Regis patris nostri die qua guerra primo mota
fuit inter ipsum et barones suos Angliae, et quod nec aliquid fiet de
terra aliqua conferenda vel alienanda, quamdiu infra aetatem fuerimus,
quod cedere possit alicui ad perpetuitatem,” _Foedera_, I. i. p. 163.
It is possible that this transaction, of which I have found no other
mention, may have taken place at the council of Bristol in November,
1217; but if it had we should have expected the Marshal to be named
among those who took the oath. The date which I have suggested for it
seems therefore more probable.
[509] _Chron. Melrose_, a. 1218, p. 134.
[510] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 177. The statement of the Waverley
Annals, a. 1218, that the Charter was again re-issued after Michaelmas,
is clearly erroneous; this supposed confirmation is, as Professor
Powicke says (“Chancery,” _Eng. Hist. Rev._, vol. xxiii. p. 234),
“obviously that of 1217.”
[511] “Circa festum S. Clementis,” _Ann. Wav._, a. 1218; “circa festum
B. Andreae,” R. Coggeshall, p. 186, and M. Paris, _Chron. Maj._, vol.
iii. pp. 42, 43. He seems to have carried with him a part, but still
only a part, of the arrears of tribute due from England and Ireland to
the Pope: “Soluta est vicesima pars trium annorum ab Anglis Ecclesiae
Romanae,” say the _Ann. Winton._, a. 1219; on the debt for Ireland,
see above, p. 95. The Barnwell Annalist says Gualo went “cum infinita
pecunia, quocumque modo adquisita” (W. Cov., vol. ii. p. 241); but the
insinuation here implied, and the charges of avarice and extortion
brought against Gualo by some modern writers, are groundless. See
Turner, pt. I., pp. 225, 256, note 1.
[512] R. Coggeshall, p. 186.
[513] _Hist. G. le Mar._, ll. 17881–86.
[514] _Ib._ ll. 17886–17936. The poet says the Marshal stayed in London
till after the beginning of Lent; and this is confirmed by the Rolls.
We have no attestations of the Marshal between 15th March (Mid-Lent)
and 20th March, but on the 20th he attests a letter at Caversham, _Pat.
Rolls_, vol. i. p. 189. On the attestations of royal letters during the
last few weeks of his life see Turner, pt. I. p. 291.
[515] This seems to be the meaning of _Hist. G. le Mar._, ll. 17941–48,
compared with the letters attested by the Marshal on 24th and 28th
March and 4th April, two of them “in the presence of Bishop Peter”
(_Close Rolls_, vol. i. pp. 389 b, 390), and those attested by Peter at
Caversham on 2nd April (_Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 190), and by Pandulf
and Peter at Reading on 10th and 11th April (_Close Rolls_, vol. i. p.
390).
[516] _Hist. G. le Mar._, ll. 17949–18114. Cf. the statement made on
the King’s behalf in the indictment against Hubert de Burgh in 1239,
that the Legate (by a clerical error or a slip of memory miscalled
“Gwalla”) “de commune consilio et provisione totius regni post mortem
Marescalli fuit primus consiliarius et principalis totius regni
Angliae,” _Responsiones pro Huberto_, M. Paris, _Chron. Maj._, vol. vi.
p. 64.
[517] See the extremely interesting account of his last days and death,
_Hist. G. le Mar._, ll. 18121–18973. The date--14th May, Tuesday before
Ascension Day--is given in _Ann. Wav._, a. 1219.
[518] _Hist. G. le Mar._, ll. 18983–19073.