CHAPTER V

THE YOUNG KING

1223–1227

Aetatem habet; ipse de se loquatur.

[Sidenote: 1223]

The recognition of Henry’s partial coming of age (if such a phrase may

be allowed) in December, 1223, re-introduced into English politics and

into the government of England a factor which had been absent from them

for seven years, but which until John’s death had always been, and was

again to be for many generations, a factor of great, perhaps we should

rather say of the very greatest importance: the character and will of

the King. Thenceforth neither the Council as a body, nor any member

of it, could do any act in the King’s name without consulting him and

obtaining his sanction; nor could they, if the King desired anything

to be done which lay within the limits of his regal powers as defined

in October, 1223, prevent him from doing it, except by persuading him

to give up his desire in deference to their advice. The circumstances

by which such abnormal authority had become connected with the

justiciarship had ceased to exist; that office was once more reduced

within its proper limits; and if Hubert now aspired to rule England in

Henry’s name, the only way in which he could do so was by acquiring and

keeping complete personal ascendency over Henry himself. If, however,

the papal mandates which brought about this altered condition of things

had really been procured by Peter des Roches, in the hope that when

Hubert’s official importance was thus diminished he himself might

regain the foremost place in his old pupil’s confidence and become

the chief adviser of the Crown in Hubert’s stead, he was doomed to

wait a long time for the fulfilment of his hope. Until Henry’s final

coming of age and for many years after, so far as the King’s policy

was dictated by any one, it was dictated by Hubert de Burgh. But even

during the years which were still to elapse before Henry attained his

complete majority, Hubert’s dictatorship was very far from absolute.

In October, 1223, the King was sixteen years old; he was universally

esteemed an intelligent, serious-minded lad; and he had been carefully

educated. In later life he did not prove a man of lofty mental capacity

or great force of character; but he did prove to possess a will of his

own, though it was too often a fitful and a wayward will--precisely

the kind of will which may be only too easily influenced, but never

entirely directed or controlled, by another person. If Henry’s will, at

the opening of his seventeenth year and in the first flush of his newly

acquired regal independence, had been so utterly dormant as to move

only at Hubert’s impulsion, he would indeed have been a marvellously

degenerate descendant of his Angevin and Norman ancestors. For such

an unnatural supposition there is no ground whatever. There is every

reason to believe that from December, 1223, onwards Henry, within the

limits defined in October, and with the assistance of his Council,

although relying mainly on the advice of one member of it, actually

governed as well as reigned.

On the breaking up of the council in London the Earl of Chester and

his party went to Northampton to concert their plans and muster

their forces pending the expiration of the “truce” at the octave of

S. Hilary. They removed to Leicester on hearing that the King was

coming to hold his Christmas court at Northampton.[941] Sumptuous

preparations were made for the festival; the majority of the magnates,

as well as the Primate and other bishops, rallied round the King, and

there came together “so many earls and barons and knights in arms

that neither in the days of the King’s father, nor since, was such

a festival remembered to have been celebrated in England.”[942] On

the day after Christmas {26 Dec.} the Archbishop and his suffragans

put on their albs, lighted their candles, and excommunicated all

“disturbers of the King, the realm, and the Church, and invaders of

ecclesiastical property.”[943] Stephen then sent a message to the

discontented barons at Leicester, bidding them come to speak with the

King, and warning them that a refusal would place them within the

scope of the excommunication just published {26–28 Dec.}. Alarmed by

this threat, and conscious of the inferiority of their forces, they

obeyed the summons.[944] They were brought into the presence of the

King, the Primate, and some of the bishops, and the Pope’s order for

the restitution of the King’s property was exhibited to them there.

Then the King himself called upon them all to obey it by immediately

surrendering the castles and other wardenships which they held for him.

For a while they hesitated whether to yield or appeal to the Pope; but

another word of warning from the Archbishop decided them, and they

agreed to do what was required of them, on condition that the Justiciar

and all other holders of royal property should at once do likewise.

Stephen answered eagerly, “It is meet that there be such a distribution

of castles as shall make all parties equal without scandal.”[945] On

this a universal surrender was made in legal form by the delivery of

a glove or a hat from every individual both of Chester’s party and of

Hubert’s, the two leaders themselves included.[946]

Next day (30th December) new custodians were appointed to twenty-five

royal castles. The former castellans thus displaced were thirteen

in number. One of them had, before the general surrender, resigned

on account of ill-health. Of the remaining twelve, five had been

concerned in the recent attempt to oust the Justiciar--Ranulf of

Chester, William de Cantelupe, Engelard de Cigogné, Brian de Lisle,

and Falkes; the other seven were either neutral, or distinctly of the

opposite party--Ralf de Gernon, John Russell, Stephen de Sedgrave,

William Brewer, the Bishop of Norwich, the Earl of Salisbury, and

the Justiciar himself. Out of the seven royal castles which Hubert

had in his charge the only one not transferred to other keeping was

the Tower of London, of which the custody was traditionally attached

to the justiciarship.[947] On 7th January {1224} orders were given

for the transfer of three more castles--Winchester, Porchester, and

Southampton, all in the custody of Bishop Peter; and on 2nd February

the lands of the young heir to the earldom of Devon, and the castles

which formed part of them, were committed to a new warden in place

of the boy’s stepfather, Falkes.[948] The actual displacement of

castellans consequent on the surrender of 29th December, 1223, seems

to have ended here. By that surrender several royal castles which

make no appearance in the Rolls at this time must have been, like

the others, placed legally in the King’s hands; but he seems to have

neither appointed new wardens to them, nor re-committed them to their

existing wardens; these latter were simply left in possession, as they

had originally been appointed, during the King’s pleasure. Even members

of the party opposed to Hubert were in this informal way suffered to

retain some of their wardenships; Falkes lost--at that moment--only

three of the many royal castles which he held;[949] Gloucester, which

though assigned to Hubert by Ralf Musard under compulsion in the autumn

of 1223 had never passed actually into Hubert’s custody, was not taken

from Ralf till November, 1225.[950] On the other hand, although only

five sheriffs were displaced, their displacement involved the transfer

of thirteen shires to other hands, and four of the five men were

opponents of Hubert; the fifth, John Russell, was merely removed from

Somerset to the joint sheriffdom of Leicestershire and Warwickshire,

taken from William de Cantelupe. On the same day--30th December,

1223--the Earl of Chester lost the shrievalties of Lancashire,

Shropshire, and Staffordshire, and Falkes lost two out of his seven

shires; on 18th January {1224} he was deprived of four more, Rutland

alone being left to him; and in the interval, on 7th January, Bishop

Peter was deprived of the sheriffdom of Hampshire. Considering the

recent political alliance between Chester, Cantelupe, and Falkes,

and the geographical relation to one another (and also, in the case

of Chester’s shires, to his own Palatine county and to the Welsh

border) of the shires thus taken from them, their dispossession was a

reasonable precaution. Bishop Peter’s deprivation of his sheriffdom and

wardenships may have been likewise dictated by prudence or suspicion;

but suspicion, if it existed, was veiled beneath an appearance of

courtesy; it was not till a week after the letters had been issued

for the displacement of the other sheriffs and castellans that he was

called upon to hand over Hampshire and its castles to a brother bishop,

Richard of Salisbury.

Fifteen of the other twenty-five redistributed castles were committed

to prelates {1223}. Bristol was transferred to its diocesan bishop,

Jocelyn of Bath, from Bishop Pandulf of Norwich; the other fourteen had

been in the charge of laymen. Jocelyn of Bath was also entrusted with

one of these castles, Sherborne; eleven were committed to the bishops

(in one case the archbishop) of the dioceses in which they respectively

stood; the other two--Windsor and Odiham--to Archbishop Stephen.[951]

These appointments, all made on 30th December, 1223, were evidently not

meant to be of long duration; their object was to give the King and his

advisers time for considering more fully how best to dispose of the

castles, of which the greater number would meanwhile be in the keeping

of guardians whose neutral position afforded the deprived castellans

no ground for jealousy or suspicion. The arrangement seems however

to have worked so well that very little modification of it was found

necessary for several years. Its author was probably the Archbishop

of Canterbury. Throughout the proceedings at Northampton he seems to

have acted as spokesman on the King’s side; as head of the commission

charged with the execution of the papal mandate on which those

proceedings were based, he was most likely entrusted by Henry with the

conduct of them. Falkes says that immediately after the surrender “the

Archbishop, distributing the castles by word of mouth, deprived all the

barons alike of their possessions.” The letters patent issued next day

were no doubt drawn up according to this verbal distribution; but, as

we have seen, the actual results were far less sweeping than the words

of Falkes imply. A charge of unfair dealing which is brought by Falkes

and by another writer of the time against the King and his advisers on

this occasion has met with a more ready acceptance than, perhaps, it

deserved. “While,” says Falkes, “the Earl of Chester and his friends

made a real bodily restitution of their castles, the Justiciar and his

party held theirs as before.”[952] “When the castles were surrendered,”

says Ralf of Coggeshall, “the King gave back to Hubert his wardenships,

the other castellans being deprived of theirs.”[953] The evidence of

the Rolls on this point is unfortunately very meagre and incomplete;

they contain scarcely any information about the royal castles during

the next eight years and more. We find, however, in the list of castles

held by Hubert at his fall in 1232 only four out of the seven which he

had held in 1223: the Tower, Dover, Rochester, and Canterbury.[954]

The first seems never to have been taken from him.[955] Rochester was

re-committed to him on 26th March, 1225,[956] and Dover not much later,

perhaps even earlier.[957] The delivery of Canterbury to the Archbishop

may never have been enforced; but it is equally possible that Hubert

may not have regained the custody of this castle till after Stephen’s

death, in 1228.[958] This evidence, though not sufficient to determine

precisely how much of truth or of error is contained either in Falkes’s

assertion or in Ralf’s, does suffice to show that neither the baron’s

version of the matter nor the chronicler’s is altogether exact.

[Sidenote: 1224]

Some at least of the deprived castellans, however, who had probably

hoped for speedy re-instatement, were disappointed at not getting

it,[959] and not less disappointed at the failure of the attempt to

oust Hubert from the justiciarship. The nobler spirits among the

malcontents seem to have fallen back, almost immediately after the

surrender at Northampton, upon a more pacific and legitimate expedient

for curbing his masterfulness and guarding themselves against the

danger of government by “unjust laws.” On the octave of Epiphany,

when the court reassembled in London, the King “was requested by the

Archbishop of Canterbury and other magnates to confirm the liberties

and free customs for which war had been waged against his father.”[960]

The King’s _quasi_-majority afforded an obvious occasion for such a

request. The Great Charter had been twice renewed in his name, but at

a time when he was too young to understand the responsibilities to

which it pledged him. Now that he was recognized as “a man in wisdom

and understanding,” personally answerable for “the disposition of his

realm,” he might fairly be asked to grant a new confirmation of the

Charter, which those who asked for it doubtless hoped would be an end

of all strife. It was only natural that on this matter Stephen de

Langton should be spokesman; and he spoke urgently, pleading that the

King “could not evade doing this, since at the departure of Louis he

and all the nobility of the realm with him had sworn that they would

all observe, and cause to be observed by all others, the liberties

written down aforetime.” William Brewer took upon himself to answer

for the King: “The liberties which ye ask for ought rightly not to be

observed, because they were extorted by violence.” “William,” exclaimed

the Archbishop, “if you loved the King, you would not thus stand in the

way of the peace of his realm.” Then, says the chronicler, “the King,

seeing the Archbishop moved to anger, said: ‘These liberties we have

all sworn, and what we have sworn we are all bound to observe.’”[961]

With a boy’s simplicity the young King had unconsciously passed

judgement on the demand which had just been made to him and on the

repeated demands for confirmation of the Charters which resound through

the history of the next seventy years. He had sworn to maintain the

liberties which he was asked to confirm; he was bound by his oath;

no amount of repetitions could make that oath any more binding than

it was already, and no amount of confirmations could really give any

additional security for its observance. But behind the question of

confirmation lay, probably, a question of definition. One article, at

least, of the Charter as republished in 1217 left a wide field open for

contention: the forty-sixth article, which reserved to all the King’s

subjects “the liberties and free customs which they formerly had.” This

clause had replaced the one in the Charter of 1216 which reserved for

future consideration certain important articles in the Great Charter

of 1215.[962] It is probable that what Stephen and the magnates with

whom he was acting--whoever these may have been--really wanted was a

revision of the Charter, to include the substitution of some definite

provisions on these reserved points for the vague saving clause of

1217. If so, William Brewer’s attitude must have shewn them that the

cleavage of political opinion within the royal Council was too sharp

for agreement on the subject to be possible at that moment. For the

observance of the Charter as it stood they had the word of the King,

and there was no reason to expect that the King would be worse than his

word.[963]

Still Chester and his friends persevered in their efforts to undermine

the position of the Justiciar; and some of them were equally desirous

of undermining that of the Primate. These now despatched two messengers

to Rome, ostensibly to report to the Pope on the state of affairs in

England. The Archbishop, suspecting mischief, compelled these envoys

before they sailed to swear to him and some of his suffragans that they

“would attempt nothing prejudicial to the King and the realm”--the

actual meaning of the oath being, they were given to understand, that

they were not to ask for a legate.[964] This, however, was precisely

what they did. Urged one way by their entreaties and another by

Stephen’s protests and his assurances that no legatine intervention was

needed to preserve peace in the land, Honorius at last decided to send

not a legate, but merely commissioners; further tidings from England

induced him to abandon even this project.[965] At a council in London

on 21st–23rd April,[966] the Archbishop with tears implored the barons

to agree together in peace for the public good.[967] Chester and

all others who had been at strife with the Justiciar yielded to this

appeal; the kiss of peace was given and accepted on both sides, and the

King, “willing to forget past injuries,” received into his peace and

favour all who had offended against him, “hoping,” as he wrote to the

Pope, “to receive from all and singular such effectual counsel and aid

as they in their necessities are entitled to expect from us.”[968]

There was urgent need of peace at home; for strife was raging in

Ireland, and grave danger was hanging over Poitou. Geoffrey de Marsh

had, as we have seen, formally resigned the Justiciarship of the

Irish March in October, 1221;[969] but he had contrived to hamper his

successor, Archbishop Henry of Dublin, by retaining some at least of

the rolls and other records necessary for the Justiciar’s official work

in his own hands till July, 1222, if not later still.[970] Some months

before this the return of Hugh de Lacy gave token of trouble to come.

In John’s reign Hugh had been Earl of Ulster, and his brother Walter

Lord of Meath; both had incurred forfeiture and exile in 1214. Walter’s

reinstatement had been ordered by John on 6th July, 1215,[971] but

Geoffrey de Marsh--who was appointed Justiciar on the same day--never

carried out the order; in November, 1221, Archbishop Henry was bidden

to do so without further delay.[972] Hugh, driven by the Albigensians

from his place of refuge on the Continent, had then recently come under

a safe-conduct to England.[973] Thence he seems to have gone into

Wales. Some lands which he had held under his brother, and those which

formed the dower of his wife, were restored to him on 27th December,

1222.[974] In the spring of 1223 he went to Ireland without the King’s

leave.[975] There he stirred up so much mischief that in June the

English government, after an ineffectual attempt to induce his brother

Walter and the Earls of Chester, Salisbury, and Gloucester to undertake

the custody of his lands for five years,[976] deemed it advisable to

establish throughout the English dominions in Ireland a new system of

provincial government by seneschals who, under the supreme authority of

the chief Justiciar, should be “both willing and able to guard against

the King’s damage, and manfully make war against his enemies when

necessity should arise.”[977] John Marshal, who in February had been

sent as assistant justiciar to help the Archbishop,[978] now received

the custody of the territories of Cork, Des, and Desmond, with their

castles;[979] Richard de Burgh (Hubert’s brother), who already held

the honour of Limerick, was named seneschal of Munster and constable

of Limerick castle;[980] William de Serland was appointed seneschal of

Ulster.[981] Walter de Lacy, who since 1215 had been steadily loyal to

the English Crown, was in England; but his men in Ireland gave shelter

and support to his rebel brother, under whose command they committed

grievous “excesses” on the King’s land, harrying and burning, and

slaying or putting to ransom the men of the King.[982] In one of his

raids Hugh nearly reached Dublin, and the Justiciar-Archbishop, taken

at unawares, was forced to buy of him a truce till next summer.[983]

Before it expired, a singular compact was made, in the early spring

of 1224, between the King and Walter de Lacy. In consideration, on

the one hand, of Walter’s faithful service, and on the other, of his

legal responsibility for the misdoings of the men of Meath, it was

agreed that the King should hold one of Walter’s English castles and

one of his Irish ones--Ludlow and Trim--for two years from Easter (14th

April); that Walter should go to Ireland “and fight to the uttermost

of his power, with the King’s help, against the men who had done these

things”; that when he should have thus won back control over his own

lands, the King should hold them for a year and a day, “and after that

there shall be done to Walter concerning them whatever the King’s court

shall decide.” Meanwhile Walter was to have free use of Trim castle for

the purposes of this war against his own men.[984] The trouble which

Hugh had stirred up, however, was evidently felt to require, above all

things, the presence in Ireland of a military leader, instead of an

ecclesiastic, as the chief representative of the Crown. On 23rd April

Earl William of Pembroke and Leinster was married to his promised

bride, the King’s nine years old sister Eleanor;[985] within a month

he sailed for Ireland to enter upon his duties as chief Justiciar in

Archbishop Henry’s stead.[986]

A yet graver peril than that which disturbed the King’s “land of

Ireland” was that which threatened his “land of Poitou.” The truce with

France had just expired on Easter day, 14th April.[987] Ever since the

previous October the English government had known, from the lips of

Louis himself, that he was only awaiting its expiration to assemble his

host for the conquest of Henry’s remaining continental territories;

yet to meet his attack they seem to have made no preparation, except a

final effort to secure the support of Hugh of Lusignan. On 15th January

it was proposed to satisfy the claims of Hugh and Isabel by granting

to them, in compensation for Isabel’s lost dower-lands in Normandy,

the Stannaries in Devonshire and the revenues of Aylesbury for four

years from the ensuing Easter; for the arrears due to Isabel since

her second marriage, three thousand pounds of money of Touraine, to

be paid within three years from Easter; and for their claim to Niort,

one hundred marks annually (“although Niort is not worth that sum a

year,” adds her royal son or his minister) to Isabel for life. If the

King of France should invade Poitou within the four years, Hugh was to

have “a reasonable aid” for the defence of Henry’s land; and in case

of Isabel’s death Hugh was to keep for the same period the lands which

he already held, except what he had “taken in the King’s service”[988]

and the custody of the castle of Mausy, which had been for some time

past in dispute between Henry and Hugh, and which Henry reserved to

himself.[989] A modified form of these proposals was accepted by Hugh

at the end of March. The annual sum promised in compensation for Niort

was doubled; the three thousand pounds Tournois for arrears were to be

all paid up at Whitsuntide of the current year; there was no express

mention of Mausy, but it was conceded that Hugh and his wife, or the

survivor of them, should keep for four years from Easter whatever they

were seised of on S. Andrew’s day last past; whether this definition

would or would not include Mausy does not appear.[990] Hugh was to

swear that he would serve the King faithfully; and the Pope was to be

requested to enforce, if necessary, the keeping of this agreement.[991]

In accordance with it, Hugh was on 8th April asked to seize for Henry,

as soon as the truce should be ended, the lands of a certain man “who

was with the King of France.”[992] About the same time the sheriffs

throughout England seem to have been ordered to seize into the King’s

hand all lands held by Normans and Bretons--meaning, probably, such

as had lands on both sides of the sea and were by reason of their

continental possessions subjects of the French King. To this order,

however, it was soon found advisable to make some considerable

exceptions.[993] At the eleventh hour Louis suddenly offered to

prolong the truce for ten years.[994] On 28th April--a fortnight

after Easter--three envoys were sent from England to speak with him

about prolonging it for four years.[995] He seems to have given them

an audience, in presence of his Council, on 5th May;[996] but the

negotiations were unsuccessful. Louis’s proposal had been prompted by a

desire to free his hands for another expedition against Toulouse, where

the Albigensians were again in the ascendent, and the Pope was anxious

for the intervention of the French King.[997] The reason for the

English counter-proposal is plain. In a little over four years Henry

must needs be acknowledged as of full age in every respect; it was not

right that after that time his hands should be tied by an engagement

of such importance made while he was still in some sense a minor;

if the truce was to be renewed, it must be only until his coming of

age. Louis, however, insisted upon ten years or nothing.[998] On 15th

May, therefore, Henry by letters patent announced that his truce with

France was ended, and bade the chief English seaport towns make their

ships ready for service at call, detain all vessels which should enter

their harbours, and suffer none which were there to go out without his

special leave.[999]

It was scarcely conceivable that Louis would make any attempt upon

England before he had secured Poitou; we should therefore naturally

have supposed that the ships thus collected were required for the

transport of troops to assist Savaric de Mauléon in the defence of

that country. The only troops actually sent, however, consisted of

about a hundred knights and an unspecified number of men-at-arms[1000]

commanded by Richard de Gray and Geoffrey de Neville,[1001] and

destined to reinforce the garrison of La Rochelle.[1002] This force

appears to have sailed at the end of May or in the first days of

June.[1003] It was despatched “by the advice of the magnates of

England”[1004]--that is, of the council which had been assembled in

London for the reconciliation of Hubert and his opponents. That council

then dispersed under orders to meet again at Northampton,[1005] on

the octave of Trinity Sunday,[1006] 16th June, “for the purpose”--so

Henry himself wrote to the Pope--“of giving us (the King) counsel and

rendering us aid for the defence of our land in Poitou.”[1007] The

nature of the proposed “aid” cannot be determined with certainty from

the King’s words; they might stand either for personal assistance

in the field, or monetary aid instead of service, or for both. The

question about the obligation of military service beyond sea was still

unsettled; and from the expressions used by some writers of the time

we should gather that the ostensible purpose for which the barons

were summoned to Northampton was merely to concert measures for the

preservation of the King’s transmarine dominions.[1008] It is however

scarcely credible that if the King and his ministers really desired to

consult further with the barons about this most urgent business, the

council actually assembled in London should not have been detained

there for that purpose, instead of being dismissed for seven weeks and

then reassembled elsewhere in the middle of June to discuss a matter

which ought in fact to have passed from the stage of consultation

to that of action by the middle of May. According to Falkes, on the

other hand, the summons was for a muster of the host in arms.[1009] A

statement made some years later by Hubert seems to confirm this version

of the story,[1010] and we shall see from the sequel that the majority,

if not all, of the barons went to Northampton attended by their

followers in arms. There is, however, reason to believe that, if not

in the mind of the young King himself, at least in that of his chief

adviser, Poitou was not the real or at any rate the first destination

of the host.

The changes in the custody of royal castles and wardenships ordered

early in the year seem to have been effected without serious difficulty

or delay, except with regard to one castle,[1011] Plympton. The King

claimed the custody of Plympton on the ground that it formed part

of the honour of Devon, which had belonged to the late Earl William

of Devon, or “of the Isle” (of Wight), as he was sometimes called,

father of Baldwin de Rivers, whose widow, Margaret, was the wife of

Falkes de Bréauté. Falkes and Margaret had been married during Earl

William’s lifetime, in 1215;[1012] but William {1215–1218} was very

unwilling to give his daughter-in-law and her new husband seisin of

the dower-lands to which she was entitled as Baldwin’s widow, and her

claims were still unsettled when he died in September, 1217.[1013]

They were settled at last by the regent Earl Marshal, on 30th March,

1218, when “the honour of Plympton, with the castle of Plympton, and

all the land which belonged to the Earl of the Isle in Devonshire,”

was by royal letter patent granted to Falkes and Margaret “as the same

Margaret’s dower.”[1014] On 16th February, 1224, Henry transferred the

custody of the Earl’s castles in Hampshire and of all the lands which

had been his, “except his lands in Devon and the castle of Plympton,”

to Waleran the German.[1015] So far as we know, Falkes complied with

this order. On 13th March he was informed by letter patent that the

King had committed Plympton castle (“which,” wrote Henry, “was given

into your keeping by the elder William Marshal when he was governor of

ourself and our realm”) to Walter de Falkenberg, and if Falkes were

unwilling to deliver it to Walter, he must come to London at Mid-Lent

(21st March), and deliver it there to the King in person.[1016] Falkes

seemingly declined to deliver it at all, on the plea--for which, as has

been seen, he had an excellent warrant--that he held it not in custody

for the Crown, but as part of his wife’s dower. On 21st March the King

wrote again, expressing his astonishment that Falkes had not made the

expected delivery, and bidding him make it to Walter at once; “for,”

wrote the King, “we are certain that that castle is the head of the

Earl of Devon’s honour in Devonshire, and for that reason your wife

neither can nor ought to have it in dower. If, however, she has less

than she ought to have in dower of the land of her former husband, we

will make up what is due to her according to the custom of our realm;

but if she has more than she should have, we will have it measured

according to justice.”[1017] The tone of these letters suggests that

the King and his advisers, though determined to carry their point, were

conscious of having undertaken a somewhat formidable task in committing

themselves to a dispute with Falkes.

Seven men and one woman bearing the surname “de Bréauté” occur in

the official records of England under John and Henry III. Four at

least of the men were brothers or half brothers, and Avice was their

sister.[1018] A little village near Havre must have been the original

home of the family, whose first member to appear in history is Falkes.

Several chroniclers tell us that he was a native of Normandy.[1019]

After his fall his enemies heaped scorn on his origin; he was a “serf”

of the King;[1020] patronymic he had none;[1021] and his singular

personal appellation was according to one account not a Christian

name, but a nickname derived from “the scythe” (_faus_ or _fauc_ in

the contemporary speech of his native land) “wherewith he had slain

a knight in his father’s meadow in Normandy.”[1022] Another writer

seems to have thought that it had been given to him--whether at the

font or otherwise--in the spirit of prophecy: “He might well be

called after the scythe, that is, after an instrument of wholesale

destruction.”[1023] One of the best authorities for the history of

John’s reign says that the father of Falkes was a Norman knight.[1024]

In all likelihood he was some small landowner whose sons, legitimate

and other, left their paternal fields and came to England, like the

family of Gerard of Athée, because they preferred to live in exile

under their hereditary sovereign rather than in their own land under

his conqueror.[1025] Another statement concerning Falkes which lacks

confirmation is that he began life as a domestic servant of the King,

in the capacity of “door-keeper.”[1026] The word used is an ambiguous

one; the writer apparently wished his readers to understand by it a

mere menial porter; but it would equally well represent a functionary

of higher standing in the royal household, whose proper title was that

of usher.[1027] In February, 1207, at any rate, {1207–1214} Falkes

was made keeper of something else than the palace doors--the land of

Glamorgan and the honour of Wenlock on the Marches of Wales.[1028]

When he received this appointment he was a “sergeant,” or man-at-arms,

“of the King”;[1029] probably it was on this occasion that John

bestowed on him the honour of knighthood.[1030] These wardenships

were held by Falkes for seven years, and he was also during part of

that time constable of Caermarthen, Cardiff, and Gower.[1031] Within

the important military sphere thus assigned to him he was given the

fullest freedom of action; his valour, capability, and honesty were

all alike trusted implicitly by the King, who employed him also on

other business such as the payment of troops and other persons and the

transport of money and treasure both in England and abroad.[1032] John,

like most of the Angevin counts, was an excellent judge of men, and

he had quickly discerned that Falkes, “though little of stature, was

very valiant,”[1033] and that moreover he was gifted with a versatile

capability and a thoroughness which almost matched those of the

Angevin house itself. The writers of the time, while denouncing Falkes

as “a rod of the Lord’s fury”[1034] and describing him as a monster

of wickedness, unanimously acknowledge that his rise from poverty

and obscurity to wealth, rank, and power was due to his conspicuous

military talents, his dauntless valour, and the tireless energy and

fidelity with which he served his royal master.[1035] In January, 1214

{1214–1216}, on the marriage of the King’s cousin Isabel of Gloucester

to the Earl of Essex, Glamorgan passed with the rest of the lands

appertaining to her honour of Gloucester into the hands of her husband;

and at the same time Caermarthen, Cardiff, and Gower were transferred

from the keeping of Falkes to that of the Earl Marshal.[1036] The King

however gave Falkes plenty of occupation and compensation elsewhere.

Early in 1215 Falkes was acting as a seneschal or steward of the King’s

household.[1037] Meanwhile, as constable of Wenlock, he still retained

the command of an important district on the Welsh March.[1038] There

he gathered round him a picked band of kinsmen and followers who

in 1215 and 1216 proved the most efficient and trustworthy section

of the troops that fought for the Crown against the barons and the

French invader.[1039] It was but natural that his services should be

rewarded by the bestowal of large grants of land taken from the King’s

enemies. This was the only way in which John could furnish him with

means to continue those services, and it was also a most effectual

way of securing that those lands should not fall back into the hands

of the opposite party. The commission of seven shires in Mid-England

to his custody as sheriff was a measure of policy, amply justified by

its results in the struggle with Louis after John’s death, when the

garrisons under the command of Falkes formed across the realm a chain

which Louis never succeeded in breaking.

[Sidenote: 1215–1224]

In 1215 John bestowed on Falkes the hand of Margaret de Rivers, a grant

which should have carried with it the enjoyment of her dower-lands; but

this, as has been seen, Margaret and Falkes did not obtain till March,

1218.[1040] Then the regent also granted to Falkes, to hold “until the

King’s coming of age,” the custody of the person of Margaret’s young

son by her first husband, and of all the lands and castles which had

belonged to the boy’s late grandfather Earl William of Devon and Wight,

and to which the boy himself was now heir.[1041] Thus throughout the

next six years the extensive possessions of the house of Rivers were

in Falkes’s hands; for practical purposes he represented that great

house and was, as a contemporary says, “made equal to an Earl.”[1042]

The other magnates, some of whom seem to have resented the necessity

of admitting even Hubert de Burgh to social equality with themselves,

naturally resented still more the intrusion into their ranks of one

whom they looked upon as a mere upstart stranger. Moreover he came into

collision with more than one of them through his autocratic dealing

with the lands held by them in the shires under his command; and the

violently abusive language in which, when his fiery temper was roused,

he railed at some of the greatest men of the land and at the English

nation in general, gave almost as much offence as his more substantial

misdoings.[1043] The clergy and religious orders, especially the monks

of the great abbey of S. Alban’s--by one of whom later historians, for

the most part, have been somewhat unduly influenced in their views of

men and things in the reign of John and the early years of Henry--had

other reasons for detesting Falkes. Cruelty and rapacity were common,

more or less, in all medieval warfare, and the spoiling of churches and

monasteries was a form of ill-doing of which neither party in the civil

war was altogether guiltless; but in these matters Falkes stood without

a peer save John himself. His crowning outrage was committed in 1217,

when in the dusk of a January morning he fell suddenly upon S. Alban’s,

captured and plundered the town, carried off its inhabitants to prison

in his own castles, slew a servant of the abbey at the very door of the

church, and by a threat of burning down the whole place wrung from the

abbot a ransom of a hundred pounds of silver.[1044] The spoil, however,

went to maintain the soldiers who, if they were the fiercest and most

ruthless, were also the most daring and the most uniformly successful

troops in the service of the young King. They and their leader played,

as we have seen, an important part in the battle of Lincoln; and

whatever may have been the personal feelings of Henry’s guardians and

counsellors towards Falkes, time after time throughout the early years

of the minority, when a man of prompt and vigorous action was wanted

for some specially awkward or unpleasant piece of work, Falkes was

the man on whom they relied, and they never relied on him in vain. It

was Falkes who was set to keep the King’s uncle from intruding into a

royal castle of which he was not the lawful custodian. It was Falkes

whom Hubert de Burgh employed to overawe the riotous citizens of London

and to rid him of their dangerous leader. In their hearts, however,

Hubert and Falkes were rivals, urged to secret mutual jealousy by a

characteristic which, unlike as they were in other respects, was common

to them both; when once they had risen to power and authority, neither

of them was inclined to brook an equal.[1045] Accordingly, Falkes had

joined Chester and the other discontented magnates in their effort

to rid themselves of the Justiciar; and when that effort had failed,

Justiciar, magnates, and King, having none of them any further use for

Falkes, joined hands to rid themselves of him.

[Sidenote: 1224]

Three days after the council of reconciliation in London, had dispersed

in April, 1224, a charge of capital crime, said to have been committed

eight years previously, was laid before the King against Falkes.[1046]

A writ was at once issued, on 26th April, to the sheriff of

Bedfordshire bidding him “at every shire-court call Falkes de Bréauté

to stand to right concerning the complaint made against him in that

county, of a breach of the King’s peace,” and if Falkes did not appear,

cause him to be outlawed. On 28th May the sheriff was told to call

Falkes at his next shire-court, which was to be on the Monday after

the octave of Trinity (17th June), as he had previously done, but the

outlawry was to be respited till further orders. Two days later (30th

May) this respite was countermanded; if on the appointed Monday Falkes

did not answer, the sheriff was bidden to outlaw him at once.[1047]

In Whitsun week, 2nd–8th June, certain of the justices in eyre went

to hold pleas of novel disseisin at Dunstable.[1048] One of these

justices, Henry de Braybroke, had long been at enmity with Falkes’s

brother William, and now found an opportunity which he was not slow to

use against William and Falkes both at once. He deprived William--such

at least is Falkes’s story--of some of his lands and other possessions

without trial.[1049] He insisted, seemingly without warrant, on the

payment by both the brothers of certain dues and arrears which they

owed to the Crown.[1050] Sixteen pleas of forcible disseisin were

brought before him against Falkes; in every case Falkes was convicted,

and sentenced to pay a heavy fine.[1051]

William de Bréauté was at this time commandant, under his brother

Falkes, of the castle of Bedford. After the close of the assizes at

Dunstable, on 17th June--the day on which Falkes was to be called

for the last time in the Bedford shire-court--Henry de Braybroke, on

his way to join the council which had assembled on the previous day

at Northampton, was captured by William de Bréauté and carried as a

prisoner to Bedford.[1052] Some of his companions who escaped capture

spread the tidings abroad; his wife hurried to Northampton and laid her

complaint before the King and the Council.[1053] Every one believed

that the Bréauté brothers had plotted the outrage between them;[1054]

Falkes’s account of the matter is that William had acted half in

wantonness, half in vengeance, and wholly without the knowledge of

Falkes himself.[1055] Even if this were so, however, Falkes was legally

responsible for the action of his sub-castellan and for a prisoner

immured in a castle which was under his charge. Where Falkes was, does

not appear. He was clearly not at the county court at Bedford; but

as soon as the capture of the judge became known, he hurried to the

castle.[1056] According to his own account, his purpose was to set the

judge at liberty but when he reached the castle prisoner and castellan

had both disappeared; William had hidden himself and his captive in the

neighbouring Forest of Wabridge {18 June}. Two knights had meanwhile

been despatched with a citation to Falkes to appear at Northampton on

the morrow (19th June) and answer to the King in person for the seizure

of the judge and for “all other matters which should be brought against

him.” Falkes hereupon sent, on the 19th, messengers to the Earls of

Winchester and Chester, begging that they would endeavour to procure

him a day’s respite, on the plea that he must first find his brother

{19 June}. They performed their commission, and the King appeared

disposed to grant their request; but the enemies of Falkes determined

that forcible steps should be taken that very night;[1057] and next

morning the whole multitude which had come together at Northampton,

King, prelates, barons, knights, and men-at-arms, appeared before the

gate of Bedford castle.[1058]

The King summoned the garrison to admit him, and to surrender the

castle to the Justiciar. William de Bréauté had now returned with his

prisoner--if indeed they had ever really been away--but Falkes had

disappeared in his turn. William and his knights refused to obey the

King’s summons without instructions from Falkes, “chiefly because

they were not bound by homage or fealty to the King,”[1059] and also

because Falkes, having taken the Cross,[1060] was by a privilege from

the Pope entitled, for himself, his lands, and his men, to exemption

from molestation by the secular powers.[1061] This second plea might

probably have carried some weight with the spiritual members of the

King’s host, had it not been neutralized by the other. Feudal law, as

understood on the side of the Channel whence Falkes and his followers

had come, recognized liege homage to a mesne lord as a valid ground

for disclaiming all duty to a suzerain and even a sovereign; but

in England this principle had never been admitted, and was justly

held to be--in the words of a modern writer--“the essence of feudal

anarchy.” Disregarding an appeal to the Pope with which the garrison

wound up their defiance of the King, Archbishop Stephen and the other

bishops present acted upon the orders which they had received from

Rome in the preceding year for dealing with refractory castellans.

They lighted their candles and laid Falkes {20 June}, his liegemen

in the castle, and all their aiders and abettors, under sentence of

excommunication.[1062] Immediately afterwards the siege was begun.

On that siege the whole energies of the King’s government were

concentrated for eight weeks; and before half that time had elapsed

Poitou was lost. In May Louis had outbidden Henry for the support

of the Lusignans, and received the liege homage of Hugh and of his

kinsman Geoffrey, the viscount of Châtelheraut.[1063] On Midsummer

day the French King’s host mustered at Tours. He led it first to

Montreuil-Bellay; there he met the aged viscount Almeric of Thouars,

who for many years had played in Aquitanian politics a part almost more

important than that of the Lusignans. With Almeric Louis made a truce

for a year. On 3rd July he laid siege to Niort. Savaric de Mauléon

was there; seeing that he could not, without succour from over sea,

hold the country against Louis, the Lusignans, and Almeric all united,

he surrendered Niort on the 5th and withdrew to La Rochelle, after

swearing on the Gospels that he would not defend any place except that

one beyond All Saints’ day. Louis advanced next to S. Jean d’Angély,

which opened its gates to him. He then marched upon La Rochelle. Its

garrison, headed by Savaric and reinforced by the men whom he had

brought with him from Niort and by the English knights under Richard de

Gray and Geoffrey de Neville, sallied forth to give battle, and “slew

many of the French,” but were driven back into the city. On the 15th

Louis set up his engines before the walls. He also opened negotiations

with the civic rulers; and the result was that on 3rd August the place

was surrendered. The garrison marched out with the honours of war; the

citizens, on the 13th, swore fealty to Louis.[1064] The fall of La

Rochelle sealed the fate of Poitou, by cutting off Henry’s remaining

partisans there from their last hope of succour from England. Limoges

had already joined the winning side; Périgord did the like. The

conqueror entered Poitiers without further difficulty, and in September

he returned to Paris, leaving a part of his army, under a new seneschal

whom he had appointed instead of Savaric, to join Hugh of La Marche in

an invasion of Gascony.[1065]

According to the Barnwell annalist, “it was said by some persons that

Falkes and his supporters suggested to King Louis that he should

invade Poitou; and in order that Louis might do this freely and

without fear or danger, he, Falkes, promised to keep King Henry so

fully occupied with most urgent business in the middle of his own

country that he would leave his transmarine lands destitute of military

forces.”[1066] We need hardly go about to demonstrate that Louis needed

no “suggestion” from Falkes or any one else for the invasion of Poitou.

The whole of this absurd story, avowedly resting only on what “was

said by some people,” would be beneath notice, but that its latter

part seems to be a distorted and exaggerated report of an assertion

which actually was made by Hubert de Burgh and the King. Before the

successes of Louis were known in England, Henry wrote to the Pope an

account of the circumstances which had, he said, “compelled” him to

lay siege to Bedford castle, “neglecting for the present all the other

affairs which are pressing upon us in Ireland and in Poitou; which

imminent perils,” he added, “we may not unjustly impute to Falkes and

his accomplices.”[1067] Fifteen years later Henry imputed the loss of

Poitou to Hubert, whom he charged with having sent to that country

barrels filled with stones and sand instead of money and treasure,

whereby the nobles and townsfolk were so disgusted with the King’s

service that they went over to his enemies. Hubert answered that he

had never sent any such barrels; that by the advice of the magnates of

England over a hundred knights and many men-at-arms had been sent to

Poitou, and remained there till, without their assent, the burghers

of La Rochelle made terms with the enemy, and thus it was not through

negligence on his own part or on that of the knights that La Rochelle

was lost; “but,” he added, “it was lost through the excesses of

Falkes, who with his people made an insurrection while La Rochelle

was besieged.”[1068] Hubert’s defence here is self-contradictory;

if La Rochelle was lost not for want of reinforcement but by the

wilfulness of its citizens, no “insurrection” in England could have

any influence in the matter. Practically, however, Hubert admits that

further reinforcements should have been sent, but insinuates that their

despatch was made impossible by the conduct of Falkes. Thus did King

and Justiciar alike, at different times, seek to cast upon Falkes the

responsibility for a failure which lay at their own door. Even had the

host gathered at Northampton on 16th June been in truth destined for

Poitou, its gathering would have been tardy. But we cannot believe that

its nominal destination was anything else than a blind. If it were, the

choice of the meeting-place would be inexplicable. No sane commander

would, without any necessity, have chosen to muster an army drawn from

all parts of the realm, and intended for service beyond the Channel,

at Northampton, a town in Mid-England, five days journey from the sea.

For a full half of such an army the choice would involve literally

double toil and trouble--a long, toilsome march, from Kent and Sussex,

Hampshire and Dorset, Devon and Cornwall, up to Northampton and then

down again to a place of embarcation on the south coast, to which

some of these contingents could have gone direct in half the time,

while others must have actually come from its immediate neighbourhood;

and all this without any advantage to their fellow-soldiers from the

Midlands and the North, or to the King himself, all of whom could just

as easily have met them, as had been customary in former reigns, at

the port whence they were to sail.[1069] The barons were summoned to

Northampton because their help was wanted in the execution of a project

predetermined in the royal Council, for the ruin of Falkes de Bréauté.

Such a project was, in itself, not without justification. Falkes

seems to have been generally, and deservedly, regarded as a public

nuisance; and his extraordinary personality, coupled with the peculiar

character of the followers under his control, gave him, even after

the loss of all his sheriffdoms and most of his castles, the power

to make himself also a public danger, if he were so minded. He was,

however, not a whit more of a nuisance and, owing to the events of

the past winter, considerably less of a possible danger at the moment

when the government first took action against him, than he had been

at any time in the past seven or eight years. This was implicitly,

though perhaps unconsciously, admitted by Hubert when he said that the

“insurrection” which--as he and Henry alike insinuate--left King and

Council neither time nor energy nor men to spare for any other object,

took place “while La Rochelle was besieged.” Strictly speaking, this

is not correct; Henry de Braybroke was captured nearly a month before

Louis laid siege to La Rochelle, and, indeed, a week before the French

host set out from Tours. But the statement is none the less, or rather

all the more, a clear proof that the Justiciar knew of no grounds

for charging Falkes with treason or rebellion[1070] earlier than the

capture of Braybroke; that is to say, earlier than 17th June, the day

after the royal host began to assemble at Northampton. That assembly

had been arranged not later than 26th April; its arrangement had been

immediately followed by the raking-up of a charge against Falkes

concerning a matter which dated from the earliest days of Henry’s reign

or even from a time before his accession, and had apparently never been

heard of since; this again had been followed by Henry de Braybroke’s

rigorous dealing with Falkes and his brother at the Dunstable assizes.

All these legal proceedings may in themselves have been perfectly

just; but, begun thus suddenly, without (so far as can be seen) any

special provocation, and crowded all together at this particular time,

they might well have goaded even a man of cooler temper than Falkes to

play into his enemies’ hands by committing some outrage which would

furnish the government with an occasion for crushing him completely;

and to crush him the King and his councillors were evidently already

determined, before that outrage was committed. The abstract justice and

wisdom of their determination need not be discussed here. As a matter

of policy, however, the time for its execution was singularly ill

chosen. The moment when a swarm of locusts was known to be on the point

of advancing upon Poitou was not the moment for stirring up a hornet’s

nest in England. The King paid dearly for his own share--whatever it

may have been--in this blunder. Some share in it, and in all likelihood

the larger share, must have belonged to Hubert; and for Hubert only

one possible excuse can be suggested. As he seems to have underrated

the dangers over sea, so he may, at the outset, have underrated the

difficulty of the task upon which he was entering in England.[1071]

The muster at Northampton may have been designed for a mere military

demonstration, in the heart of the lands which had been so long under

Falkes’s charge, with the expectation that Falkes would be thereby

overawed into making complete submission, somewhat as Count William of

Aumale had been overawed in 1220 and 1221, and that the host might,

when it had accomplished this preliminary purpose, proceed to the

south coast and still reach Poitou before it was too late. Such an

expectation would hardly be consistent with the knowledge which Hubert

must have possessed of the character and the resources of Falkes. If it

was still entertained by any one when in the dawn of 20th June the host

set out for Bedford, a very brief experience there must have sufficed

to shew that it was utterly hopeless.

In 1215 the constable of Bedford castle, William de Beauchamp, had

incurred forfeiture by welcoming the rebel barons within its walls.

Falkes had regained it for the King,[1072] and had been rewarded

with a grant of its constableship in Beauchamp’s stead.[1073] On

its fortification in John’s interest and under John’s orders he

had lavished wealth, labour, and skill; he had crowned it with

towers and battlements--partly built of the stones of two churches

which neither he nor the King scrupled to pull down for that

purpose[1074]--encompassed it with walls and outworks and stone-clad

ditches and ramparts, stored it with military engines and arms. Its

garrison in 1224 consisted of eleven knights and a proportionate

number of men-at-arms, all picked men, amply sufficient to defend a

fortress which was generally reputed impregnable.[1075] On the other

hand, the besiegers were not all as eager about their task as were the

King, the Justiciar, and, it seems, most of the bishops. The Earls of

Chester and Aumale, the Bishop of Winchester, William de Cantelupe,

Brian de Lisle, Peter de Maulay, had obeyed the King’s summons and

accompanied him to Bedford with their followers, but made no secret of

their lack of sympathy with the object of the expedition; and after a

while Bishop Peter and Earl Ranulf, finding themselves excluded from

the King’s private counsels, quitted the camp and went each to his own

home.[1076] Meanwhile urgent orders were being despatched to all parts

of the country for cartloads of ropes, targes, quarrels, pickaxes,

tents, victuals, mangonels and other engines of war, and men to work

the engines.[1077] The current expenditure which all this involved

was so much more than the treasury could meet that the Archbishop of

Canterbury and other prelates who were present in the host voluntarily

made a grant for the King’s necessities. “Of their mere grace and

liberality,” those of them who had a portion of land separate from

that of their chapters gave half a mark for every ploughland thus

held by them in demesne; those who had not separate portions gave two

shillings per ploughland from the demesne lands of their churches;

all alike gave two shillings for every ploughland held by their

tenants and sub-tenants, and for every hide of land, both demesne and

enfeoffed, the personal assistance of two workmen to drag and work the

machines.[1078] After the close of the siege letters patent were issued

by the King, carefully explaining that this generous aid had been voted

by the prelates purely as a matter of grace, and was not to constitute

a precedent for any future occasion.[1079]

At the approach of the royal forces Falkes had slipped away into the

territories of the Earl of Chester, where the King’s writs did not

run. There, according to his own account, he “composed some letters”

to the King, asking for a safe-conduct to go to the court and “do

whatever the barons and the laws of the land should require of him”;

but this messenger on reaching the camp and finding that Falkes

had been excommunicated was so afraid of incurring a share in the

excommunication that he went away without delivering the letters.[1080]

Falkes was said to have told the Bedford garrison that he would succour

them within forty days.[1081] As that period drew towards a close

the besiegers seem to have realized that the capture of the man was

becoming almost more important than, and was likely to prove almost

as difficult as, the capture of the castle. A band of men-at-arms was

detached from the siege to go in search of him, but came back reporting

that he had fled into Wales.[1082] This was the more alarming because

neither Llywelyn’s promised amends for the Kinnerley affair nor the

trial of the claims and counter-claims arising out of that affair

had yet taken place. The settlement which was to have been made at

Candlemas had been three or four times postponed; each time that a

new date for it was fixed, the King had been too hard pressed with

more urgent business to keep his appointment with Llywelyn; it now

stood fixed for 28th July.[1083] On 10th July letters were sent out

calling upon all the King’s bailiffs and other faithful subjects to

help in catching “our enemy Falkes.”[1084] Two days later the sheriffs

of Staffordshire and Shropshire were told that Falkes was known to

have gone into Wales to form with some of its “mighty men” a league

against the King, but, having failed in this, was expected to return

secretly to England; and they were bidden to search for him, to order

a hue and cry to be raised after him, and not to let it cease till

he was captured.[1085] Some three weeks later, as the attainment of

that object seemed no nearer, the King addressed a private letter of

appeal or remonstrance to the Earl of Chester--who by this time had

withdrawn from the host--and also one to Llywelyn of Wales. These

letters are lost, but their tenour can be made out from the replies.

Henry appealed, seemingly in justification of his own conduct, to

Ranulf’s personal knowledge of the circumstances which had led to

the siege of Bedford. He declared that, according to reports which

he had received, Falkes was plotting against him to the uttermost of

his power; and he begged that Ranulf would strive to avert or check

any mischief which might be threatening in his neighbourhood, and if

nothing of the kind seemed to be impending there, at once return to the

camp. Ranulf’s answer was a model of quiet dignity. He did, he said,

know the circumstances relating to the siege of Bedford, and so did

many other persons. Of Sir Falkes de Bréauté’s reported machinations

against the King he knew nothing; he had only seen and observed Sir

Falkes bear himself patiently under the King’s anger, as one who

desired nothing else than to appease it by his own endeavours and the

help of his friends. For his own part Ranulf was (he continued) ready

now, as ever, to protect the King’s interests as much as in him lay,

and accordingly he had, on receipt of the King’s letter, immediately

gone to confer with Llywelyn, and obtained his promise to leave the

King’s land in peace for a month from 4th August. Having secured this,

he was, agreeably to Henry’s command, coming back to the royal presence

as quickly as he could.[1086] To Llywelyn the King related the capture

of Henry de Braybroke and the steps taken in consequence of it; and he

forbade the Prince to harbour Falkes or his men or to give them aid or

counsel. Llywelyn answered by repeating Falkes’s version of the story

as it had been told him by Falkes in a flying visit of less than a

day’s duration, and refusing to recognize an excommunication against

which he declared that Falkes would be justified in defending himself

even if it came from the Pope in person.[1087]

Baffled in his attempts to capture Falkes, the King swore “by his

father’s soul” that if Bedford castle were taken by force, he would

hang every man who was in it. The garrison retorted by bidding his

messengers see to it that no one came with any more demands for

surrender.[1088] Formidable as was the King’s siege train, its work

progressed but slowly. A stone-caster and two mangonels stationed on

the east side of the castle hurled stones all day long at the keep;

two other mangonels battered at the “old tower” on the west side; two

more were gradually making as many breaches in the outer walls, one on

the northern and the other on the southern side; a “cat” sheltered the

ingoing and outgoing of miners who were digging their way underground

to the foundations of the keep; other machines concealed crossbowmen

and slingers whose missiles, despatched thus by unseen hands, caught

the besieged at unawares; at last two moveable wooden “castles,”

towers, or “belfries,” so lofty that their occupants could look down

into every part of the castle enclosure, not excepting the keep itself,

were constructed and filled, the one with scouts to watch all the

doings of the garrison, the other with crossbowmen from whose quarrels,

shot down like bolts out of the sky, no man among the besieged was safe

for a moment without his armour.[1089] Nevertheless William de Bréauté

and his men continued to hurl projectiles at their assailants;[1090]

in the eight weeks of the siege the King lost six knights and, it was

said, more than two hundred men-at-arms and labourers working the

machines.[1091] At length an assault was made upon the barbican; it was

taken, and four or five “foreigners”[1092] were slain. A second assault

won the outer bailey, where “many were slain,” and the King’s men

“came into possession of horses, harness, armour, crossbows, bullocks,

live pigs, bacon, and other things innumerable,” besides sheds full of

corn and hay which they burned. Next, the miners succeeded in bringing

down a part of the wall close to the “old tower”; the King’s men rushed

in through the breach, and after a desperate fight in which many of

them perished, they gained possession of the inner bailey. The keep

still defied them; ten of them who tried to enter it were shut in and

kept fast by the garrison.[1093]

Meanwhile Falkes had been tracked by Bishop Alexander of Coventry.

Alexander had carried the King’s letter to Earl Ranulf;[1094] the

Bishop of Exeter seems to have joined him at Coventry, and there

these two prelates heard that Falkes was at a place three miles

beyond Chester. They immediately published his excommunication,

and then Alexander went to seek him in the hope of bringing him to

submission.[1095] To the bishop’s persuasions Falkes replied that he

was ready to stand to the King’s command and judgement in all things,

on condition that three men whom he believed to be personally hostile

to him[1096] should not be present; or he would submit entirely to the

King’s judgement and accept his mercy, but on condition that these same

three should have no part in discussing the terms of that mercy. He

further begged that either he might be released from excommunication by

Bishop Alexander, or the whole case might be submitted to the Pope. The

first part of the message thus brought back by Alexander to the royal

camp was received with jeers; as to the last point, Archbishop Stephen

was resolute that no one but himself should absolve the culprit.

Alexander and Earl Ranulf went back together to Falkes, and persuaded

him to return with them as far as Coventry.[1097] Thither, on 12th

August, a safe-conduct was sent to him for himself and the members of

his household who were with him, that they might come to Northampton

for absolution within the next ten days.[1098]

To Northampton Falkes--seemingly accompanied by Bishop Alexander--came

without delay; and thence he sent word to his soldiers of his

inability to help them.[1099] On the evening of 14th August the King’s

miners kindled a fire underneath the keep of Bedford castle. The

garrison, seated at supper, saw the room fill with smoke, and presently

found that its walls were cracking. On this they sent forth all the

women in their company--among whom was the wife of Falkes--together

with Henry de Braybroke and the other prisoners, escorted by some of

their own number charged with an offer of surrender. These messengers

were put in chains and kept by the King as pledges for the good

faith of their comrades, who were suffered to spend the night in the

crumbling tower after hoisting the royal standard on its summit. Next

morning {15 Aug.} all the survivors of the desperate band were brought

before the King.[1100] One of them was the chaplain of the castle; he

was handed over to the Archbishop to be judged according to Church

law.[1101] Most of the others, knights and men-at-arms, were grievously

wounded.[1102] The King remitted them to the bishops for absolution;

when they had received it,[1103] he kept his vow; he sent them all

to the gallows. For three of them some of the nobles interceded, and

though “to save the King’s oath” these three were hanged with the rest,

they were cut down immediately, and delivered to the Templars, on

condition of joining that Order in Holy Land.[1104]

When these things were done, the Bishop of Carlisle and one of the

judges, Martin of Pateshull, were sent to Falkes with the tidings,

and with an invitation or citation from the Archbishop to present

himself at Bedford for absolution.[1105] He swooned with horror at

the unexpected fate of his brother and his friends[1106]--a fate

from which he, like them, had hoped that they would be saved by his

vow of crusade and their appeal to the Pope. On coming to himself

he was at first reluctant to accede to the Archbishop’s summons,

being still set on prosecuting his appeal to Rome, and also fearing

the personal enmity on the part of Stephen and Hubert of which he

believed himself to be the object; at last, however, he consented to

go,[1107] but entreated the Bishop of Coventry to accompany and protect

him.[1108] Thus escorted, he went to Bedford, fell at the King’s feet

and threw himself on his mercy.[1109] Henry committed him to the

custody of Bishop Eustace of London till his fate should be judicially

determined;[1110] for that purpose a council was appointed to meet in

London fifteen days after Michaelmas (14th October). The few followers

who accompanied him were then absolved, but it seems to have been

deemed more prudent to defer the absolution of Falkes himself till he

had surrendered, or at least given security for surrendering, the two

castles which he still held--Plympton and Stoke Courcy[1111]--and all

his other property,[1112] and also to make it as public as possible,

in order that, as the absolution of an excommunicate person was an

extremely humiliating ceremony for the penitent, it might serve as a

salutary warning to other possible rebels. Accordingly, when Falkes had

sworn to submit himself to this humiliation on 25th August in London,

a safe-conduct was given him, on 19th August, to go thither for the

twofold purpose of receiving absolution and paying into the treasury,

as compensation for the damage and losses incurred by the King in the

siege of Bedford, the money which he had stored at Westminster.[1113]

On the appointed day {25 Aug.}, in presence of a great concourse of

people, the Archbishop had him stripped according to the rule of the

Church and then gave him absolution.[1114] He then executed a deed

whereby he surrendered to the Crown all his possessions of every kind,

and consented to fall under excommunication again if his constables at

Plympton and Stoke Courcy failed to give up those two castles within a

fortnight.[1115]

A woman struck the next blow at the fallen man. Margaret his wife came

before the King and the Archbishop and declared that she had never

consented to her marriage with him, but had been taken by force in time

of war and wedded to him against her will, wherefore she prayed that

the marriage might be annulled. A day was set for the Archbishop to

pronounce, after due consideration, his judgement on the matter.[1116]

Margaret’s story of the marriage may very likely have been true; but

her protest was made too late to deserve a hearing. Even in 1215 the

widow of Baldwin de Rivers was no mere child, for she was already a

mother. If the disturbed state of public affairs and the absence of

the Primate prevented her seeking legal redress during the next two

years, she could certainly have brought her claim before Stephen at any

moment after his return in the spring of 1218. Instead of doing so,

she waited till the man whose prosperous fortunes she had shared for

nine years, and by whom she had at least one child,[1117] was brought

down to the dust, and then she, too, sought to be rid of him. Such an

abuse of the laws of marriage as she petitioned for was not likely to

be sanctioned by Stephen de Langton, however sternly he might, for the

public weal, deem it necessary to deal with her husband. His judgement

on her petition is not recorded; but there are clear indications that

it was given against her.[1118]

For more than nine weeks Falkes was kept, strictly guarded, in

the custody of the Bishop of London. The meeting of the Council

which was to decide his fate had been fixed for 14th October, but

no decision seems to have been reached till about the 26th.[1119]

{Oct.} Moved partly by remonstrances which the Pope had, some months

before, addressed both to the King and to the Primate in behalf of

Falkes,[1120] partly by their own undeniable knowledge of Falkes’s long

and faithful service to the King’s father, the Council unanimously

determined that he should be spared in life and limbs, on condition

that he would abjure the realm and go over sea on pilgrimage, never

to return.[1121] The Primate exacted from him a further promise not

to carry his complaints to the Pope.[1122] To these conditions he

submitted. On 26th October he received a safe-conduct to go to the

coast and remain there till he could get across the sea,[1123] and

orders for the manning of the ship which was to carry him were issued

to William de Breuse and the Earl of Warren,[1124] the latter of whom

was commissioned to see him safely on board. It was reported that

when parting from the Earl, Falkes with tears begged him to carry

his greetings to “his lord the King,” declaring with a solemn oath

that his disturbances of England’s peace had been instigated by “the

great men of the land.” Five of his men-at-arms accompanied him to

Normandy.[1125] So far was Louis from regarding him as an ally that

he was seized by the French King’s bailiffs immediately on landing at

Fécamp and brought as a prisoner before Louis himself.[1126] The cross

on his shoulder, however, procured his release.[1127] Next Easter

(1225) he proceeded to Rome.[1128] On his way across France he met

Robert Passelewe,[1129] a man learned in law, who may have put into

shape (or at least into Latin) the “Complaint” which--in defiance of

his promise to Archbishop Stephen--he presented to the Pope. In August

he was captured in Burgundy by a knight called Anselm “de Duime,” whom

he had once made prisoner and put to heavy ransom in England. The

Pope seems to have procured his release,[1130] on which he returned

to France, and dwelt for a year at Troyes; at last he was driven out

of the country because he refused to do homage to Louis. Returning

to Rome, he once more entreated the Pope to insist that he should be

restored at least to the enjoyment of his wife’s society and of the

proceeds of her patrimony.[1131] Honorius wrote accordingly, both to

the King and to Archbishop Stephen.[1132] Soon afterwards, however,

the whole matter was ended by the death of Falkes.[1133] A year later

{1226} Henry was trying--with what success we know not--to reclaim from

the Master of the Temple in London eleven thousand marks which Falkes

on his death-bed was said to have confessed were still in the head

house of the Order in England, where he had deposited them for secrecy

and safety.[1134]

[Sidenote: 1224]

Having crushed Falkes, King and ministers in the autumn of 1224 at

last found leisure for taking measures of defence and defiance against

the greater foe beyond the sea. Special bailiffs were appointed for

the protection of the coasts.[1135] Reinforcements were sent to the

Channel Isles to hold them against a possible attack from France.[1136]

The bailiffs of some of the great trading towns were ordered to seize

the persons, goods, and chattels of all Normans and other subjects of

the French King within their several bailiwicks.[1137] Soon, however,

it became apparent that Louis had no present intention of attacking

England, but was bent on completing his conquest of Aquitaine, and

that Gascony was in imminent danger of falling into his hands like

Poitou. The English King’s great difficulty was, as usual, the want of

money. Before the host broke up after the siege of Bedford the carucage

granted by the prelates had been supplemented by a like grant from the

barons;[1138] this was followed by a scutage,[1139] and in November a

tallage was laid on the Jews.[1140] But all this was insufficient; and

at the Christmas court at Westminster Hubert appealed to all present

for “counsel and aid whereby the Crown of England might recover its

lost dignities and its ancient rights in the parts beyond the sea,”

and added that he “thought this could be done if a fifteenth part of

all moveable goods throughout England were given to the King by both

clergy and laity.” After some deliberation the whole assembly agreed to

adopt this suggestion, “if the King would grant them their long desired

liberties”[1141]--that is, if he would re-issue and confirm the Great

Charter. The King’s feeling about this matter seems to have remained

the same as it had been twelve months before, for it was not till 11th

February (1225) that he complied with the required condition; and then

he issued both the Charter of Liberties and that of the Forest in a

new form. The text of both Charters as he now granted them was the

same as in the issue of November, 1217. But in the preamble to each of

them he stated, not, as had been done in all former issues (including

the original Great Charter of 1215), that the liberties were granted

“by the advice of his counsellors,” but that they were granted “of his

own free goodwill, to the prelates, magnates, and all the people of

England, to be kept in the realm of England for ever”; he put on record

the grant of a fifteenth of moveables made to him in return for this

“concession and donation” on his part; and he concluded with a solemn

promise that neither he nor his heirs would do anything to invalidate

or infringe the liberties thus guaranteed, and that any attempt to do

so should be null and void. The Primate, eleven bishops, twenty abbots,

Hubert as Justiciar, nine earls, and twenty-three barons appended their

names as witnesses.[1142]

[Sidenote: 1225]

For many months King and Justiciar were occupied chiefly with schemes,

military and diplomatic, for the preservation of what remained of

Henry’s continental dominions and the recovery of what had been

lost. During the last few months of 1224 the joint efforts of Hugh

of La Marche and the new French seneschal of Poitou to win Gascony

for Louis met with considerable success. Several of the chief Gascon

towns--St. Emilion, Bazas, La Réole--and many of the nobles, swore

fealty to the French King.[1143] The one man who might still have

headed an organized effort to stem the tide was Savaric de Mauléon;

but Savaric had lost the confidence of the English government, owing

to the surrender of La Rochelle. In after days, as has been seen, he

was acknowledged by Hubert de Burgh to have been blameless in that

matter; but at the time Hubert and Henry were only too ready to lay the

blame of it at any door except the one where it was mainly due--their

own--and Savaric’s defence of his conduct failed to convince them of

his loyalty. The natural result followed: the services which they

rejected were transferred to Henry’s rival;[1144] and for several

years to come Savaric’s talents and energies--both of which were of

a high order--were actively employed in the office of governor of La

Rochelle and warden of the seaboard for Louis. The remnant of Henry’s

Aquitanian possessions was thus left without a governor or head of any

kind. Gascony, however, could not be irretrievably lost so long as the

great merchant sea-port of the South, Bordeaux, remained loyal; and the

citizens of Bordeaux, whose commercial and political interests were

closely bound up with those of England, stedfastly resisted all Hugh

of Lusignan’s endeavours to cajole or frighten them into submission.

Their obstinate refusal to make even a truce with him compelled him to

retire into his own county in October, 1224, when one of Henry’s agents

in Gascony reported their jubilant boast that they “would soon confound

all the King’s enemies, if only they had money”; “and,” he added, “I

believe they would, if they had with them the King himself or his

brother Richard. Wherefore I counsel that if money be sent to them,

Richard be sent likewise, with some good man to control the expenditure

of the money.”[1145]

This counsel was followed. The feast of the Epiphany, 1225, was

Richard’s sixteenth birthday. On Candlemas day he was knighted by

his royal brother.[1146] A fortnight later {13 Feb.} Henry granted

him the Earldom of Cornwall “with all that pertained to the King in

that county, to support himself in the King’s service, during the

King’s pleasure”;[1147] and also, it seems, the title of Count of

Poitou, by which Richard was thenceforth called.[1148] Ever since the

beginning of January a fleet had been gathering to convoy the young

Count over sea;[1149] and on Palm Sunday, 23rd March, he sailed from

Portsmouth with a small force of knights, and accompanied by his

uncle Earl William of Salisbury, Philip d’Aubigné,[1150] and some

other chosen counsellors, all of whom were, together with Richard

himself, commissioned by the King to undertake the “defence of Poitou

and Gascony.”[1151] They were warmly welcomed at Bordeaux; and by the

beginning of May the King’s authority was fairly well re-established

throughout Gascony, except at Bergerac and La Réole, whose citadels

were garrisoned by Louis.[1152]

The Pope was anxious for peace between the two Kings, because he wanted

Louis to devote himself to the suppression of the Albigensian disorders

in the county of Toulouse and its dependencies. A legate, Cardinal

Romanus, went to France to confer with Louis on these matters, and

between the end of May and the middle of October three embassies were

sent from England at his request to treat with Louis for peace or

a truce.[1153] On the English side these negotiations seem to have

been undertaken without any real desire to bring them to a successful

issue; but they served the double purpose of conciliating the Pope

and gaining time to prepare for a more vigorous prosecution of the

war. Meanwhile Henry was seeking to form alliances which might help to

weaken the power of France. At the close of the previous year it was

believed in England that Louis had on foot a project for marrying his

daughter to the young King of the Romans, Henry, son of the Emperor

Frederic II. This the English King endeavoured to foil by despatching

to Germany an embassy charged with proposals for two marriages, one

between his sister Isabel and the Emperor’s heir, the other between

himself and a daughter of the Duke of Austria. The negotiations dragged

on for some months,[1154] but came to nothing; neither, however, did

the French scheme, if such a scheme had ever really existed, for at

the end of 1225 Henry of Germany wedded Margaret of Austria. Ten years

later Isabel of England was to become the third wife of his father

the Emperor.[1155] In the middle of August Henry of England secretly

made overtures to the deadliest enemy of both France and Rome--Count

Raymond of Toulouse[1156]--and a draft treaty of offensive and

defensive alliance against Louis was sent from England and its terms

sworn to in Henry’s name by the envoys who carried it to Raymond.[1157]

With another great southern house, that of Auvergne and Clermont,

whose loyalty to France was generally doubtful, Count Richard and

his counsellors made a “confederation” which Henry ratified on 12th

October, the same day on which he bade his brother and uncle make a

truce with France, and himself despatched an embassy thither.[1158]

A month later, the surrender of La Réole completed the re-establishment

of Henry’s power in Gascony.[1159] On this Earl William of Salisbury,

whose health was failing, set out by his royal nephew’s desire for

England. The ship in which he sailed was tossed about in the Bay of

Biscay “many nights and days,” till he despaired of life and flung

his jewels, money, and fine clothes into the sea, “that as he came

naked into this world, so he might, stripped of all earthly honour,

enter into the eternal country”; and his companions followed his

example. At last they sighted the Isle of Rhé, landed there by means

of their boats, and found shelter in an abbey. But two men-at-arms in

the service of Savaric de Mauléon, who was keeping vigilant watch on

the Poitevin coast in the interest of Louis, recognized the Earl and

warned him that he would be captured unless he left the Isle at once.

He gave the men twenty pounds, took to the ship again, and was in

perils in the sea for three weeks longer before he reached the English

coast, seemingly just after Christmas.[1160] {1225–1226} In England

he had been so completely given up for lost that Hubert de Burgh had

planned to secure the hand and the estates of Countess Ela for a nephew

of his own, Raymond by name, and had actually persuaded the King to

consent to the marriage. Henry, however, made his consent conditional

on that of Ela herself; and when the Justiciar sent his nephew to her

“in noble knightly array,” the wife of Longsword indignantly told him

that she had lately had news from her husband stating that he was safe

and well, but even if he were dead, she would in no wise accept him

(the suitor) for her spouse, inasmuch as the nobility of her birth

forbade such a thing. “Go,” she added, “and seek a match elsewhere;

you will find by experience that you have come here in vain.”[1161]

William, when he reached home and heard this story {1226}, went to the

King at Marlborough and after being received by him “with great joy,”

laid before him a grave complaint against the Justiciar for having

sent “some low-born fellow” to insult the Countess; and he added that

unless the King made the Justiciar render him full satisfaction, he

would seek vengeance for such an outrage himself, in a way which would

cause a grave disturbance of the realm. The Justiciar, well knowing

that Earl William would have no difficulty in executing his threat, at

once made a humble apology and “recovered the Earl’s favour by large

gifts of valuable horses and other things.”[1162] The whole story is

a curious illustration of the social relations between Hubert and the

great nobles of the land; for there is no sign of any previous friction

between Hubert and Longsword in political affairs; and between the Earl

and his royal nephew there seems to have existed a genuine personal

attachment. The meeting at Marlborough was their last; Earl William

died at Salisbury on 7th March.[1163]

[Sidenote: 1226]

The practical direction of affairs in Gascony and the guardianship

of its nominal ruler, young Richard, thus devolved entirely upon

Philip d’Aubigné. He was quite equal to his task, and was moreover

well supported by the English government; for Henry and Hubert had at

last learned that Gascony could not be preserved, much less Poitou

recovered, without constant supplies of money, arms, and men {1225

Aug.}; and these they continued to pour into Bordeaux for Richard[1164]

{1226 Feb.–May}--not without considerable difficulty and risk, for

Savaric and his men were continually cruising about, on the watch

to intercept English vessels, and doing their utmost to make all

transit between England and Aquitaine dangerous and sometimes almost

impracticable.[1165] In January, 1226, Henry for a moment at least

contemplated going in person to join his brother.[1166] The King was

at that moment just recovering from an illness which for a time had

endangered his life;[1167] this fact, coinciding with Earl William’s

return and recital of his experiences at sea, may have made Hubert and

the other councillors urge the postponement of a project involving

so serious a risk; for the ship which had been prepared for the King

soon afterwards sailed without him.[1168] At the end of the month

Louis of France took the Cross as leader of the expedition against

Toulouse.[1169] Again the Legate Romanus pleaded with Henry for a

truce, and on 22nd March an envoy was despatched from England to confer

with him about the matter; but the terms in which this mission was

announced shew plainly that the young King and his counsellors were not

disposed to enter upon any negotiations with Louis.[1170] They were in

fact planning to make an attempt at the recovery of Poitou as soon as

Louis should be too busy with his crusade to give any help or support

to his Poitevin adherents.

The French host was summoned to meet at Bourges on 17th May.[1171]

The chief English seaports were bidden to send all their ships to

Portsmouth so as to be there on 30th May ready to go forth “on the

King’s service.”[1172] But Henry’s project met with an unexpected

check. Louis had made it a condition of his Albigensian crusade that

the Pope should forbid Henry, on pain of excommunication, to molest

him or his realm in any way while he was thus engaged;[1173] and this,

on 27th April, Honorius did.[1174] When his letter reached England,

the King called his counsellors together and asked them what they

advised him to do in the face of this prohibition. They were all of

one mind that his cherished scheme must be deferred “till it should

be seen what would become of the French King, who had undertaken such

a difficult work and costly enterprise.” Henry’s anxiety about his

brother was presently allayed by the arrival of letters from Richard

giving a good report of his successes. “Moreover there was then among

the King’s counsellors one Master William surnamed Pierepunt, skilled

in astronomy, who constantly affirmed before the King that if the

King of France proceeded with the expedition which he had begun, he

would either never return alive, or suffer a great loss and overthrow.

The King therefore, cheered by hearing these things, acquiesced

in the counsel of his friends.”[1175] On 23rd June the fleet was

dismissed,[1176] and so far as Poitou was concerned, fighting and

negotiation were alike at a standstill for the next four months.

In Henry’s insular dominions the political storms of 1224 had been

succeeded by a period of calm. The Welsh and Irish Marches were both

of them in a most unusual state of tranquillity. Henry’s long promised

and oft deferred conference with Llywelyn about the amends due for

the Welsh raid of January, 1223, seems to have taken place at last at

the end of September, 1224,[1177] and--strangely enough--resulted in

Llywelyn’s receiving seisin of Kinnerley.[1178] Another conference,

probably for the settlement of matters in dispute between Llywelyn and

the Marshal and between Llywelyn and Hugh de Mortimer, was planned and

postponed several times within the next eighteen months, and seems

not to have taken place till 27th August, 1226.[1179] On that day,

at Shrewsbury, Hugh de Mortimer “and others” again, in the King’s

presence, demanded of Llywelyn the restoration of the lands which he

had taken from them. Llywelyn asked the King for another day, and Henry

gave him one at Whitchurch on 25th October.[1180] The result does not

appear, unless it is indicated in a statement of the Dunstable annalist

that “in the same year (1226) agreement was made between Llywelyn

and William the Marshal and the Earl of Chester.”[1181] But from the

fact that throughout the years 1225–1227 the Welsh chroniclers make

no boast, and the English ones no complaint, of any infraction of the

peace on the part of Llywelyn or his men, we may safely conclude that

the English successes in 1223 had had something more than a merely

transitory effect.[1182] The Earl Marshal had landed at Waterford as

chief Justiciar in Ireland on 19th June, 1224. At the beginning of

August he sent home to the King an encouraging report of the state of

affairs in the March.[1183] In October his hands were strengthened for

the work which he had been specially sent to do--the subjugation of

Hugh de Lacy--by the appointment of his cousin John Marshal as bailiff

of Ulster.[1184] One by one Hugh’s strongholds were captured; at last,

in spring, 1225, Hugh himself surrendered, and was sent by the Earl to

England as a prisoner to beg for the King’s mercy and pardon. Henry

at first would have nothing to do with him; but the Marshal, coming

over soon afterwards, pleaded for him, and, apparently, suggested a

temporary settlement which was carried into effect[1185] in May. Two

hundred marks, to be paid in instalments, beginning from the Easter

last past, were granted to Hugh from the royal treasury for his support

during the current year.[1186] Walter de Lacy was given seisin of

“all his lands in Ireland and England which the King had seized on

occasion of the war with Hugh,” the Marshal being one of his sureties

for the payment of the fine.[1187] Twelve months later the custody of

all Hugh’s lands in Ireland was committed to Walter to hold for three

years, unless within that period Hugh should by the King’s grace obtain

their restoration to himself.[1188] Six weeks after this, on Midsummer

eve, at Winchester, the Earl Marshal resigned the Justiciarship of

Ireland into the hands of the King, and the King at once committed it

to Geoffrey de Marsh.[1189] The transfer was to be made on 1st August;

Geoffrey was to receive a yearly salary of five hundred and eighty

pounds at the Dublin Exchequer so long as he remained Justiciar; and

his present appointment was not to be made an occasion for requiring of

him any account relating to his former tenure of the same office.[1190]

Since his removal from that office Geoffrey had--except about his

papers--given no trouble; in August, 1224, his loyal attitude had been

warmly commended by the Marshal,[1191] and in November of the same

year, when the Marshal’s presence was temporarily required in England,

the responsibility for the peace of the March during his absence had

been entrusted to Geoffrey;[1192] but it was probably not the Marshal’s

influence that procured his re-appointment. The first letter which the

King addressed to him as Justiciar in 1226--on 30th June, when the

actual transfer of the justiciarship had not yet taken place--was an

order to summon the King of Connaught to surrender his land (forfeited,

according to Henry’s account, by its late King’s failure to render due

service to John), and in default, to take it by force and give seisin

of it to Richard de Burgh,[1193] who was already seneschal of Limerick

and Munster, and was brother to the chief Justiciar of England.

Geoffrey, when after a visit to England he had re-entered upon his

duties as Justiciar, declared that “all the King’s castles in Ireland

were fortified against the King, except Limerick, which was in the

custody of Richard de Burgh, who assiduously and constantly assisted

him (Geoffrey) in bringing the King’s affairs to good success.”[1194]

In Geoffrey’s re-appointment at this time we may surely see the hand of

Richard’s brother Hubert.

The Marshal appears to have resigned of his own accord, giving as a

reason that he had vowed a pilgrimage to S. Andrew’s; and it was with

the declared intention of fulfilling his vow immediately that he parted

from the King at Winchester at Midsummer. He had, however, got no

further north than Coventry when he heard that his pilgrimage was being

represented to the King as a cloak for some evil design; whereupon he

at once wrote to Henry that he had given up his project and resolved to

go straight back to Ireland. Henry, on 10th July, warmly protested that

he had no suspicions of his brother-in-law, but looked upon him as a

trusty and loyal counsellor and friend. “But,” he added, “if you really

intend to give up your journey and cross over to Ireland, we bid you

first come to us and surrender our castles of Caermarthen and Cardigan;

or, if you cannot possibly come, send us a man of yours with power to

do so. We are going towards York on business, and propose thence to

return to the marches of Wales.”[1195] This surrender was duly made

before 18th August, when the King committed Caermarthen and Cardigan

to Henry of Audley, by a letter-patent in which he expressly declared

that the Marshal was to be quit for the whole of the time during which

these two castles had been in his keeping and in that of his father

before him.[1196] Probably the brothers-in-law had at their midsummer

meeting agreed upon this transfer, and also upon another arrangement

which was put into legal form a few days later. On 22nd August the

castle of Caerleon, “of which the King demanded seisin,”[1197] was

committed to him by the Earl Marshal “saving his own right and his

inheritance” therein; and on the 26th the King “committed the castle to

the Marshal, to hold for four years from the ensuing Michaelmas day.”

At the end of the four years the Marshal was to deliver the castle to

the King, “saving his own right”; and the King, within a month after he

had received it, was to “cause the Earl to have judgement of his peers

of such right and seisin as he had on the day when this convention was

made at Hereford, and of any other right which he might be able in

the meanwhile to search out”; such right not to be prejudiced by the

present convention. If the Earl’s peers should adjudge seisin to him,

he was to have it without delay, “saving the rights of each party”; and

the judgement was not to be delayed beyond the appointed term. Finally,

“through this convention the King’s anger--if he had any--against the

Earl and his men shall be left behind.”[1198] On the day after this

convention was made public, it was announced that the Marshal “had

set out for Ireland in the King’s service.”[1199] This was shortly

after Geoffrey de Marsh had been complaining that when he called upon

the barons of the March to renew their homage to the King, those of

Leinster failed to respond, and one of them, Theobald Butler, flatly

refused to recognize the new Justiciar’s authority without instructions

from the Earl Marshal.[1200] We can scarcely help suspecting that all

these things were connected; that the Marshal’s successes in Wales

and Ireland, and his marriage with the King’s sister, had aroused the

jealousy of the De Burghs, and that Geoffrey was an instrument in

their hands. If so, they were playing a game which might have proved

dangerous both to themselves and to their sovereign, had it not been

for the dignified moderation and stedfast loyalty of the Earl. However

this may be, Geoffrey de Marsh remained Justiciar in Ireland till he

resigned the office of his own accord in February, 1228.

[Sidenote: 1225]

In England itself the only problem which seems to have given serious

trouble to the government during these years was the everlasting

problem of finance. Gascony had to be supplied, and to supply Gascony

the English treasury had to be drained till there was nothing left

for the needs of the English State and of the Crown itself. Five days

after the re-issue of the Charters in 1225--on 16th February--orders

were given for their publication throughout the realm;[1201] the writs

concerning the fifteenth had been issued on the previous day. Half of

the tax was to be paid into the treasury at Trinity, the other half

at Michaelmas. Detailed instructions were given as to the mode of

assessment, the incidence of the tax, the manner of collection;[1202]

nevertheless, before the end of March the commissioners employed

about the matter in one county at least found themselves involved

in unexpected difficulties. From the wording of the royal order it

appeared (at any rate to them) that the free tenants of bishops and

abbots were to be assessed like those of lay lords; but in Kent the

Archbishop forbade the assessment of any such tenants except those

holding by military service. On 29th March the King sanctioned this

limitation. Complaints had also reached him that the commissioners

were “compelling poor women who had only a small quantity of thread,

or a brooch worth two or three pence, to give a fifteenth”; this

practice they were bidden to stop at once, lest the curses of the

poor should fall upon the head of the King. On the other hand, he

bade them “diligently and efficaciously induce all crusaders” (who as

such were legally exempt) “to contribute to this fifteenth, which is

appointed for the peace and safety of our land and the common weal

and defence of all; and tell them plainly and openly they are to know

that as many of them as shall hold back from giving us this fifteenth,

they and their heirs will never have any part in the liberties which

we have granted to our loyal subjects by our Charters.”[1203] This

method of persuasion, however tyrannical it may sound, was perfectly

logical. The Charters had avowedly been renewed for a consideration;

those who withheld their share of that consideration, although able to

pay it, were not entitled to a share in the benefit of the Charters.

The irretrievable blunder which the Great Council had committed at

Christmas, 1224, in making a bargain with the Crown for a renewal of

the Charters, was already bringing forth its fruit.

Archbishop Stephen’s prohibition to the commissioners in Kent was

probably dictated by caution; certainly not by unwillingness to help

in supplying the needs of the Crown. The Pope, on 3rd February, wrote

to the English prelates and clergy exhorting them to make collections

in their several dioceses for the King, but to take care that the

proceeds went “for useful and necessary purposes,” not in “superfluous

and vain expenses,” and that this collection should not be made a

precedent.[1204] When this letter reached England Stephen bade his

suffragans urge their clergy to obey it by contributing an aid out of

such of their property as was exempt from the fifteenth, and also to

pay up their share of that tax, but to take care that whatever money

they gave was kept safe till further orders.[1205] Their compliance

with these exhortations was made none the easier by the arrival, just

before Christmas, of a papal messenger, Master Otto, and his presence

in England during the next four months. The expenses which fell upon

persons who went on business to the Roman Court were a subject of

general complaint; Honorius proposed that this should be remedied

by the reservation of a prebend in every cathedral and collegiate

church, and a certain proportion of the revenue of every bishop and

every religious house in all the realms of Latin Christendom, for the

Apostolic See, so that the Pope and the officers of his court might

have sufficient means to dispense with the need of charging such heavy

fees.[1206] A council assembled at Bourges on S. Andrew’s day[1207]

opposed this project so strongly that Cardinal Romanus decided to urge

it no further in France till it should be accepted in the Empire,

England, and Spain.[1208] In England, whither the Pope’s demand was

carried by Otto, the need of consulting all the estates of the realm,

and the King’s illness in January, 1226, served as reasons or excuses

for deferring a decision till the middle of April. Then, according to

one account, the King and the prelates followed the cautious example

of their French brethren, saying they would wait to see how other

countries would deal with the question; or, according to another

authority, they answered that in any case England ought to be free from

such an exaction, by reason of her annual tribute to the Pope.[1209]

But that tribute was heavily in arrear, and obviously it was not to

be expected that either Otto or Honorius would be satisfied till the

arrears were paid up. This, therefore, had to be done, and a sum of

over fifteen hundred marks went with Otto back to Rome.[1210] All

this while Otto’s long stay had been adding to the financial burdens

of the English clergy, for a papal envoy was entitled to claim from

every cathedral and collegiate church procurations to the amount of

forty shillings; although Otto seems to have contented himself with a

smaller sum.[1211] In October {13 Oct.} the clergy made their grant to

the Crown; it consisted of a sixteenth of the annual income of their

benefices.[1212] Meanwhile Henry was chafing under the Papal command

to refrain from war in France while Louis was on crusade. Again he

sought to form alliances among the neighbours and the disaffected

feudatories of the French King; in April he was negotiating with the

Duke of Lorraine,[1213] in October he was making plans--which however

came to nothing--to marry the daughter of the Duke of Britanny.[1214]

Suddenly the political situation in France changed. On 8th November

Master William Pierepunt’s forecast came true; Louis of France died

at Montpensier in Auvergne.[1215] His successor was a boy ten years

old. Neither the late King nor his father, Philip Augustus, had

been liked by the barons, and many of these seized the occasion to

assail the Queen-mother, Blanche of Castille, with demands for the

restitution of sundry liberties of which, they said, Louis VIII and

Philip had deprived them.[1216] The coronation, on 30th November,

was almost if not quite as scantily attended as the first crowning

of Henry had been.[1217] Henry at once despatched the Archbishop of

York, Philip d’Aubigné, and some other envoys, to the chief nobles

of Normandy, Anjou, and Poitou, and to the Duke of Britanny--all

lands which, from his point of view, ought rightfully to be subject

to himself--announcing his intention of going over sea, and calling

upon them to receive him loyally.[1218] On 18th December elaborate

schemes of concessions to Hugh and Isabel, and also to Hugh of

Thouars[1219] and William Larchevêque, were drawn up, witnessed, and

sealed ready for despatch, but they were never sent.[1220] Perhaps they

were deemed needless owing to a piece of news which may have arrived

from Aquitaine: Savaric de Mauléon had on the death of Louis VIII

reverted to his old allegiance, and opened the gates of La Rochelle to

Richard.[1221] Henry, however, was not ready for immediate action on

a great scale; and at Mid-Lent (18th March), 1227, a truce was made

between Richard of Poitou on the one part, and Louis IX, Blanche, Hugh

of Lusignan, and their adherents on the other, to last till a fortnight

after Midsummer.[1222]

[Sidenote: 1227]

The English court had spent the Christmas of 1226 at Reading[1223]

and thence moved on by way of Wallingford to Oxford.[1224] What took

place there, before the festal gathering usual at the season broke

up, is related by the King himself in a circular letter issued on the

21st January, 1227, to all the sheriffs of England: “Be it known to

you that by the common counsel of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the

bishops, abbots, earls, barons, and other our magnates and faithful

men, we recently at Oxford provided that henceforth we will cause

charters and confirmations to be made under our seal. And we therefore

bid you without delay publicly proclaim and make known to all persons

in your bailiwick who have, or claim to have, lands or tenements or

liberties by grant or concession and confirmation of our ancestors

the Kings of England, or by our precept, that they come to us without

fail before the beginning of this approaching Lent of the eleventh

year of our reign, to shew us by what warrant they have, or claim to

have, those lands or tenements or liberties, as they desire to keep

or to recover them. You are also to make known to all persons in your

bailiwick, and cause to be publicly proclaimed, that whosoever shall

desire to obtain at any time our charter or confirmation of lands,

tenements, markets, liberties, or anything whatsoever, let them come

to us before the same term, to ask for our charter or confirmation

thereof.”[1225] Thus in the second week of January, 1227 {8–10 Jan.},

three months after the completion of Henry’s nineteenth year, the Great

Council of the realm sanctioned his release from the one restriction

which in 1223 the same authority had decided should still remain

imposed for a while upon his exercise of regal power. In what manner

and on whose initiative this step was taken we do not know. The only

chronicler who even professes to give any account of the matter asserts

that Henry “declared before all” the Council “that he was of legal age,

and henceforth, being set free from wardship, would order the affairs

of the Crown as a prince”; and that the announcement about charters

caused a great commotion, for which the Justiciar was universally held

responsible, as the instigator of the King’s action.[1226] But this

writer’s account of that action, and of its accompanying circumstances,

is too full of demonstrable confusions and inaccuracies to be worthy

of confidence in any particular.[1227] The suggestion may very likely

have come from Hubert; but we need not accept for truth the insinuation

which Hubert’s enemies seem to have induced Henry to believe at a

later time, that Hubert was actuated mainly by a desire to secure for

himself a grant in perpetuity from the Crown.[1228] Nor was there in

the King’s proposed action any thing from which the other members of

the Council could fairly withhold their consent. At the close of a

long minority following on a period of confusion and civil war, it was

not unreasonable--at any rate according to the ideas of that age--that

there should be a general scrutiny of title-deeds which emanated or

purported to emanate from the Crown, with a view to ascertaining their

genuineness and validity, and thus safeguarding the rights both of

the grantees and of the King. Whatever had been granted since Henry’s

accession had been granted by a royal “precept,” not by charter; if

such a grant was to be made permanent a charter would be necessary

to make it so; and the letter of 21st January, fairly construed,

implies no design of invalidating any earlier grants except such as

should on examination prove to be inherently void. But the practice

of seeking from the reigning sovereign confirmation of grants made by

his predecessors was, and had been for centuries, so common that the

King’s comprehensive invitation to “all who desired his confirmation

of anything whatsoever” was certain to meet with an almost equally

comprehensive response. On the other hand, every one knew that such

grants always had to be paid for. In this latter circumstance may be

seen the reason why Henry and his ministers were now so anxious to

ante-date his full majority. The young King’s heart was set upon a

great expedition over sea; the war-chest was empty;[1229] the payments

for confirmations of royal grants would substantially--perhaps more

substantially than any other scheme that could have been devised--help

to fill it.

It is doubtful whether the far-off guardian who for ten years had

watched over the interests of John Lackland’s heir and of his realm

ever knew of his ward’s self-emancipation; for Honorius III died on

18th March, 1227. Some years later a transcript of one of the letters

by which he had sanctioned Henry’s coming of age in 1223 appears to

have been prepared by Bishops Peter of Winchester and Hugh of Ely for

transmission to his successor Gregory IX;[1230] whether in consequence

of some inquiry addressed to them by Gregory on the subject, we

cannot tell. The authorizations given by Honorius were wide enough to

cover the proceedings of January, 1227, without any need of further

ratification from Rome. If those proceedings did reach the ears of the

dying Pontiff, he may well have rejoiced to know that he would not have

to leave his task of guardianship unfinished, and that this part of

his burden of responsibility and care would not pass to the next Pope.

Henceforth Henry of England must indeed be accounted as of full age,

and answerable for himself and his realm.

FOOTNOTES:

[941] _Ann. Dunst._, p. 84; cf. R. Wend., vol. iv. p. 92. Orders to

prepare for the Christmas court at Northampton were issued 9th and 10th

December, _Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 578. The King left London at some

date between 12th and 19th December, and was at Northampton on the

23rd; _ib._ pp. 579, 579 b.

[942] _Ann. Dunst._, p. 84.

[943] R. Wend., vol. iv. p. 92.

[944] Cf. _ib._ and _Quer. Falc._, p. 262.

[945] _Quer. Falc._, _l.c._, “Favore” is surely a misprint or a

clerical error for _fervore_.

[946] _Ib._ Cf. R. Wend., vol. iv. p. 93, R. Coggeshall, pp. 203, 204,

and _Ann. Dunst._, p. 84; this last gives the date, “quinto die Natalis

Domini,” _i.e._, 29th December.

[947] Its commission to Bishop Peter on Louis’s withdrawal in 1217

(_Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 450) was evidently only a temporary measure.

[948] See Note VIII.

[949] _Ib._

[950] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. ii. p. 71.

[951] On all these changes in the custody of castles see Note VIII.

[952] _Quer. Falc._, p. 262.

[953] R. Coggeshall, p. 204.

[954] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. ii. p. 496.

[955] Hugh of Windsor, _custos_ of the Tower in November, 1224 (_Close

Rolls_, vol. ii. p. 8), and Thomas de Blundeville, _custos_ in 1225 and

1226 (_ib._ a. 1225–1226 _passim_) were sub-wardens. Cf. _ib._ pp. 33

b, 83 b.

[956] _Pat. Rolls_, vol. i. p. 430.

[957] Hubert was constable of Dover in October, 1225, _Close Rolls_,

vol. ii. p. 65.

[958] William Hardres appears as constable of Canterbury castle from

Candlemas to Michaelmas 1225, _ib._ p. 46 b; obviously he was a

sub-warden, but whether under Stephen or under Hubert there is nothing

to show.

[959] Matthew Paris’s assertion “Instillatum quippe fuerat illis in

auribus secreto quod si prompta voluntate ea [scil. castra] regi ilico

resignassent, statim illis redderet resignata” (_Hist. Angl._, vol. ii.

p. 261) may be taken for what his uncorroborated assertions are usually

worth.

[960] R. Wend., vol. iv. pp. 83–84.