THE ALIEN INVASION.
With the dismissal of Hubert on July 29, 1232, Peter des Roches resumed
his authority over Henry III. Mindful of past failures, the bishop's
aim was to rule through dependants, so that he could pull the wires
without making himself too prominent. His chief agents in pursuing this
policy were Peter of Rivaux, Stephen Segrave, and Robert Passelewe. Of
these, Peter of Rivaux was a Poitevin clerk, officially described as
the bishop's nephew, but generally supposed to have been his son.
Stephen Segrave, the son of a small Leicestershire landholder, was a
lawyer who had held many judicial and administrative posts, including
the regency during the king's absence abroad in 1230. He abandoned his
original clerical profession, received knighthood, married nobly, and
was the founder of a baronial house in the midlands. His only political
principle was obedience to the powers that were in the ascendant.
Passelewe, a clerk who had acted as the agent of Randolph of Chester
and Falkes of Bréauté at the Roman court, was, like Segrave, a mere
tool.
The Bishop of Winchester began to show his hand. Between June 26 and
July 11, nineteen of the thirty-five sheriffdoms were bestowed on Peter
of Rivaux for life. As Segrave was sheriff of five shires, and the
bishop himself had acquired the shrievalty of Hampshire, this involved
the transference of the administration of over two-thirds of the
counties to the bishop's dependants. On the downfall of Hubert, Segrave
became justiciar. He was not the equal of his predecessors either in
personal weight or in social position, and did not aspire to act as
chief minister. The appointment of a mere lawyer to the great Norman
office of state marks the first stage in the decline, which before long
degraded the justiciarship into a simple position of headship over the
judges, the chief justiceship of the next generation. Hubert's offices
and lands were divided among his supplanters. Peter of Rivaux became
keeper of wards and escheats, castellan of many castles on the Welsh
march, and the recipient of even more offices and wardships in Ireland
than in England. The custody of the Gloucester earldom went to the
Bishop of Winchester. The last steps of the ministerial revolution were
completed at the king's Christmas court at Worcester. There Rivaux, who
had yielded up before Michaelmas most of his shrievalties, was made
treasurer, with Passelewe as his deputy. Of the old ministers only the
chancellor, Ralph Neville, Bishop of Chichester, was suffered to remain
in office. Finally the king's new advisers imported a large company of
Poitevin and Breton mercenaries, hoping with their help to maintain
their newly won position. The worst days of John seemed renewed.
The Poitevin gang called upon Hubert to render complete accounts for
the whole period of his justiciarship. When he pleaded that King John
had given him a charter of quittance, he was told that its force had
ended with the death of the grantor. He was further required to answer
for the wrongs which Twenge's bands had inflicted on the servants of
the pope. He was accused of poisoning William Earl of Salisbury,
William Marshal, Falkes de Bréauté, and Archbishop Richard. He had
prevented the king from contracting a marriage with a daughter of the
Duke of Austria; he had dissuaded the king from attempting to recover
Normandy; he had first seduced and then married the daughter of the
King of Scots; he had stolen from the treasury a talisman which made
its possessor invincible in war and had traitorously given it to
Llewelyn of Wales; he had induced Llewelyn to slay William de Braose;
he had won the royal favour by magic and witchcraft, and finally he had
murdered Constantine FitzAthulf.
Many of these accusations were so monstrous that they carried with them
their own refutation. It was too often the custom in the middle ages to
overwhelm an enemy with incredible charges for it to be fair to accuse
the enemies of Hubert of any excessive malignity. The substantial
innocence of Hubert is clear, for the only charges brought against him
were either errors of judgment and policy, or incredible crimes.
Nevertheless he was in such imminent danger that he took sanctuary with
the canons of Merton in Surrey. Thereupon the king called upon the
Londoners to march to Merton and bring their ancient foe, dead or
alive, to the city. Randolph of Chester interposed between his fallen
enemy and the royal vengeance. He persuaded Henry to countermand the
march to Merton and to suffer the fallen justiciar to leave his refuge
with some sort of safe conduct. But the king was irritated to hear that
Hubert had journeyed into Essex. Again he was pursued, and once more he
was forced to take sanctuary, this time in a chapel near Brentwood.
From this he was dragged by some of the king's household and brought to
London, where he was imprisoned in the Tower. The Bishop of London
complained to the king of this violation of the rights of the Church,
and Hubert was allowed to return to his chapel. However, the levies of
Essex surrounded the precincts, and he was soon forced by hunger to
surrender. He offered to submit himself to the king's will, and was for
a second time confined in the Tower. On November 10, he was brought
before a not unfriendly tribunal, in which the malice of the new
justiciar was tempered by the baronial instincts of the Earls of
Cornwall, Warenne, Pembroke, and Lincoln. He made no effort to defend
himself, and submitted absolutely to the judgment of the king. It was
finally agreed that he should be allowed to retain the lands which he
had inherited from his father, and that all his chattels and the lands
that he had acquired himself should be forfeited to the crown. Further,
he was to be kept in prison in the castle of Devizes under the charge
of the four earls who had tried him.
Peter des Roches was soon in difficulties. The earls who had saved
Hubert began to oppose the whole administration. Their leader was
Richard, Earl of Pembroke, the second son of the great regent, and
since his brother's death head of the house of Marshal. Richard was
bitterly prejudiced against the king and his courtiers by an attempt to
refuse him his brother's earldom. A gallant warrior, handsome and
eloquent, pious, upright, and well educated, Richard, the best of the
marshal's sons, stood for the rest of his short life at the head of the
opposition. He incited his friends to refuse to attend a council
summoned to meet at Oxford, on June 24, 1233. The king would have
sought to compel their presence, had not a Dominican friar, Robert
Bacon, when preaching before the court, warned him that there would be
no peace in England until Bishop Peter and his son were removed from
his counsels. The friar's boldness convinced him that disaffection was
widespread, and he promised the magnates at a later council at London
that he would, with their advice, correct whatever he found there was
need to reform. Meanwhile the Poitevins brought into England fresh
swarms of hirelings from their own land, and Peter des Roches urged
Henry to crush rebellion in the bud. As a warning to greater offenders,
Gilbert Basset was deprived of a manor which he had held since the
reign of King John, and an attempt was made to lay violent hands upon
his brother-in-law, Richard Siward. The two barons resisted, whereupon
all their estates were transferred to Peter of Rivaux. Yet Richard
Marshal still continued to hope for peace, and, after the failure of
earlier councils, set off to attend another assembly fixed for August
1, at Westminster. On his way he learnt from his sister Isabella, the
wife of Richard of Cornwall, that Peter des Roches was laying a trap
for him. In high indignation he took horse for his Welsh estates, and
prepared for rebellion.
The king summoned the military tenants to appear with horses and arms
at Gloucester on the 14th. There Richard Marshal was declared a traitor
and an invasion of his estates was ordered. But the king had not
sufficient resources to carry out his threats, and October saw the
barons once more wrangling with Henry at Westminster, and claiming that
the marshal should be tried by his peers. Peter of Winchester declared
that there were no peers in England as there were in France, and that
in consequence the king had power to condemn any disloyal subject
through his justices. This daringly unconstitutional doctrine provoked
a renewed outcry. The bishops joined the secular magnates, and
threatened their colleague with excommunication. A formidable civil war
broke out. Siward and Basset harried the lands of the Poitevins, while
the marshal made a close alliance with Llewelyn of Wales. The king
still had formidable forces on his side. Richard of Cornwall was
persuaded by Bishop Peter to take up arms for his brother, and the two
new earls, John the Scot of Chester, and John de Lacy of Lincoln,
joined the royal forces. Hubert de Burgh took advantage of the
increasing confusion to escape from Devizes castle to a church in the
town. Dragged back with violence to his prison, he was again, as at
Brentwood, restored to sanctuary through the exertions of the bishop of
the diocese. There he remained, closely watched by his foes, until
October 30, when Siward and Basset drove away the guard, and took him
off with them to the marshal's castle of Chepstow.
The tide of war flowed to the southern march of Wales. Llewelyn and
Richard Marshal devastated Glamorgan, which, as a part of the
Gloucester inheritance, was under the custody of the Bishop of
Winchester. They took nearly all its castles, including that of
Cardiff. Thence they subdued Usk, Abergavenny, and other neighbouring
strongholds, while an independent army, including the marshal's
Pembrokeshire vassals and the men of the princes of South Wales, wasted
months in a vain attack on Carmarthen. The king's vassals were again
summoned to Gloucester, whence Henry led them early in November towards
Chepstow, the centre of the marshal's estates in Gwent. Earl Richard
devastated his lands so effectively that the king could not support his
army on them, and was compelled to move up the Wye valley towards the
castles of Monmouth, Skenfrith, Whitecastle, and Grosmont, the strong
quadrilateral of Upper Gwent which still remained in the hands of the
king's friends. Marching to the most remote of these, Grosmont, on the
upper Monnow, Henry spent several days in the castle, while his army
lay around under canvas. On the night of November 11, the sleeping
soldiers were suddenly set upon by the barons and their Welsh allies;
they fled unarmed to the castle, or scattered in confusion. The
assailants seized their horses, harness, arms and provisions, but
refrained from slaying or capturing them. The royal forces never
rallied. Many gladly went home, giving as their excuse that they were
unable to fight since they had lost their equipment. Henry and his
ministers withdrew to Gloucester. More convinced than ever of the
treachery of Englishmen, the king entrusted the defence of the border
castles to mercenaries from Poitou.
The fighting centred round Monmouth, which Richard approached on the
25th with a small company. A sudden sortie almost overwhelmed the
little band. The marshal held his own heroically against twelve, until
at last Baldwin of Guînes, the warden of the castle, took him prisoner.
Thereupon Baldwin fell to the ground, his armour pierced by a lucky
bolt from a crossbow. His followers, smitten with panic, abandoned the
marshal, and bore their leader home. By that time, however, the bulk of
the marshal's forces had come upon the scene. A general engagement
followed, in which the Anglo-Welsh army drove the enemy back into
Monmouth and took possession of the castle. This set the marshal free
to march northwards and join Llewelyn in a vigorous attack upon
Shrewsbury. In January, 1234, they burnt that town and retired to their
own lands loaded with booty. Meanwhile Siward devastated the estates of
the Poitevins and of Richard of Cornwall. Afraid to be cut off from his
retreat to England the king abandoned Gloucester, where he had kept his
melancholy Christmas court, and found a surer refuge in Bishop Peter's
cathedral city. Thereupon Gloucestershire suffered the fate of
Shropshire. "It was a wretched sight for travellers in that region to
see on the highways innumerable dead bodies lying naked and unburied,
to be devoured by birds of prey, and so polluting the air that they
infected healthy men with mortal sickness."[1]
[1] Wendover, iv., 291.
The king swore that he would never make peace with the marshal, unless
he threw himself on the royal mercy as a confessed traitor with a rope
round his neck. Having, however, exhausted all his military resources,
he cunningly strove to entice Richard from Wales to Ireland. The two
Peters wrote to Maurice Fitzgerald, then justiciar of Ireland, and to
the chief foes of the marshal, urging them to fall upon his Irish
estates and capture the traitor, dead or alive. Many of the most
powerful nobles of Ireland lent themselves to the conspiracy. The Lacys
of Meath, his old enemies, joined with Fitzgerald, Geoffrey Marsh, and
Richard de Burgh, the greatest of the Norman lords of Connaught, and
the nephew of Hubert, in carrying out the plot. The confederates fell
suddenly upon the marshal's estates and devastated them with fire and
sword. On hearing of this attack Richard immediately left Wales, and,
accompanied by only fifteen knights, took ship for Ireland. On his
arrival Geoffrey Marsh, the meanest of the conspirators, received him
with every profession of cordiality, and urged him to attack his
enemies without delay. Geoffrey was an old man; he had long held the
great post of justiciar of Ireland; and he was himself the liegeman of
the marshal. Richard therefore implicitly trusted him, and forthwith
took the field.
The first warlike operations of Earl Richard were successful. After a
short siege he obtained possession of Limerick, and his enemies were
fain to demand a truce. Richard proposed a conference to be held on
April 1, 1234, on the Curragh of Kildare. The conference proved
abortive, for Geoffrey Marsh cunningly persuaded the marshal to refuse
any offer of terms which the magnates would accept, and Richard found
that he had been duped into taking up a position that he was not strong
enough to maintain. Marsh withdrew from his side, on the ground that he
could not fight against Lacy, whose sister he had married. The marshal
foresaw the worst. "I know," he declared, "that this day I am delivered
over to death, but it is better to die honourably for the cause of
justice than to flee from the field and become a reproach to
knighthood."
The forsworn Irish knights slunk away to neighbouring places of
sanctuary or went over to the enemy. When the final struggle came, later
on the same April 1, Richard had few followers save the faithful fifteen
knights who had crossed over with him from Wales. The little band,
outnumbered by more than nine to one, struggled desperately to the end.
At last the marshal, unhorsed and severely wounded, fell into the hands
of his enemies. They bore him, more dead than alive, to his own castle
of Kilkenny, which had just been seized by the justiciar. After a few
days Richard's tough constitution began to get the better of his wounds.
Then his enemies, showing him the royal warranty for their acts, induced
him to admit them into his castles. An ignorant or treacherous surgeon,
called in by the justiciar, cauterised his wounds so severely that his
sufferings became intense. He died of fever on the 16th, and was buried,
as he himself had willed, in the Franciscan church at Kilkenny. No one
rejoiced at the death of the hero save the traitors who had lured him to
his doom and the Poitevins who had suborned them. Their victim, the weak
king, mourned for his friend as David had lamented Saul and Jonathan.[1]
The treachery of his enemies brought them little profit. While Richard
Marshal lay on his deathbed, a new Archbishop of Canterbury drove the
Poitevins from office.
[1] _Dunstable Ann._, p. 137.
In the heyday of the Poitevins' power the Church sounded a feeble but
clear note of alarm. The pope expostulated with Henry for his treatment
of Hubert de Burgh, and Agnellus of Pisa, the first English provincial
of the newly arrived Franciscan order, strove to reconcile Richard
Marshal with his sovereign in the course of the South-Welsh campaign.
More drastic action was necessary if vague remonstrance was to be
translated into fruitful action. The three years' vacancy of the see of
Canterbury, after the death of Richard le Grand, paralysed the action
of the Church. After the pope's rejection of the first choice of the
convent of Christ Church, the chancellor, Ralph Neville, the monks
elected their own prior, and him also Gregory refused as too old and
incompetent. Their third election fell upon John Blunt, a theologian
high in the favour of Peter des Roches, who sent him to Rome, well
provided with ready money, to secure his confirmation. Simon Langton,
again restored to England, and archdeacon of Canterbury, persuaded the
pope to veto Blunt's appointment on the ground of his having held two
benefices without a dispensation. His rejection was the first check
received by the Poitevin faction. It was promptly followed by a more
crushing blow. Weary of the long delay, Gregory persuaded the Christ
Church monks then present at Rome to elect Edmund Rich, treasurer of
Salisbury. Edmund, a scholar who had taught theology and arts with
great distinction at Paris and Oxford, was still more famous for his
mystical devotion, for his asceticism and holiness of life. He was
however an old man, inexperienced in affairs, and, with all his
gracious gifts, somewhat wanting in the tenacity and vigour which
leadership involved. Yet in sending so eminent a saint to Canterbury,
Rome conferred on England a service second only to that which she had
rendered when she secured the archbishopric for Stephen Langton.
Before his consecration as archbishop on April 2, 1234, Edmund had
already joined with his suffragans on February 2 in upholding the good
fame of the marshal and in warning the king of the disastrous results
of preferring the counsels of the Poitevins to those of his
natural-born subjects. A week after his consecration Edmund succeeded
in carrying out a radical change in the administration. On April 9 he
declared that unless Henry drove away the Poitevins, he would forthwith
pronounce him excommunicate. Yielding at once, Henry sent the Bishop of
Winchester back to his diocese, and deprived Peter of Rivaux of all his
offices. The followers of the two Peters shared their fate, and Henry,
despatching Edmund to Wales to make peace with Llewelyn and the
marshal, hurried to Gloucester in order to meet the archbishop on his
return. His good resolutions were further strengthened by the news of
Earl Richard's death. On arriving at Gloucester he held a council in
which the ruin of the Poitevins was completed. A truce, negotiated by
the archbishop with Llewelyn, was ratified. The partisans of the
marshal were pardoned, even Richard Siward being forgiven his long
career of plunder. Gilbert Marshal, the next brother of the childless
Earl Richard, was invested with his earldom and office, and Henry
himself dubbed him a knight. Hubert de Burgh was included in the
comprehensive pardon. Indignant that his name and seal should have been
used to cover his ex-ministers' treachery to Earl Richard, Henry
overwhelmed them with reproaches, and strove by his violence against
them to purge himself from complicity in their acts. The Poitevins
lurked in sanctuary, fearing for the worst. Segrave forgot his
knighthood, resumed the tonsure, and took refuge in a church in
Leicester. The king's worst indignation was reserved for Peter of
Rivaux. Peter protested that his orders entitled him to immunity from
arrest, but it was found that he wore a mail shirt under his clerical
garments, and, without a word of reproach from the archbishop, he was
immured in a lay prison on the pretext that no true clerk wore armour.
Of the old ministers Ralph Neville alone remained in office.
With Bishop Peter's fall disappeared the last of the influences that
had prevailed during the minority. The king, who felt his dignity
impaired by the Poitevin domination, resolved that henceforward he
would submit to no master. He soon framed a plan of government that
thoroughly satisfied his jealous and exacting nature. Henceforth no
magnates, either of Church or State, should stand between him and his
subjects. He would be his own chief minister, holding in his own hands
all the strings of policy, and acting through subordinates whose sole
duly was to carry out their master's orders. Under such a system the
justiciarship practically ceased to exist. The treasurership was held
for short periods by royal clerks of no personal distinction. Even the
chancellorship became overshadowed. Henry quarrelled with Ralph Neville
in 1238, and withdrew from him the custody of the great seal, though he
allowed him to retain the name and emoluments of chancellor. On
Neville's death the office fell into abeyance for nearly twenty years,
during which time the great seal was entrusted to seven successive
keepers. Like his grandfather, Henry wished to rule in person with the
help of faithful but unobtrusive subordinates. This system, which was
essentially that of the French monarchy, presupposed for success the
constant personal supervision of an industrious and strong-willed king.
Henry III was never a strenuous worker, and his character failed in the
robustness and self-reliance necessary for personal rule. The magnates,
who regarded themselves as the king's natural-born counsellors, were
bitterly incensed, and hated the royal clerks as fiercely as they had
disliked the ministers of his minority. Opposed by the barons,
distrusted by the people, liable to be thrown over by their master at
each fresh change of his caprice, the royal subordinates showed more
eagerness in prosecuting their own private fortunes than in consulting
the interests of the State. Thus the nominal government of Henry proved
extremely ineffective. Huge taxes were raised, but little good came
from them. The magnates held sullenly aloof; the people grumbled; the
Church lamented the evil days. Yet for five and twenty years the
wretched system went on, not so much by reason of its own strength as
because there was no one vigorous enough to overthrow it.
The author of all this mischief was a man of some noble and many
attractive qualities. Save when an occasional outburst of temper showed
him a true son of John, Henry was the kindest, mildest, most amiable of
men. He was the first king since William the Conqueror in whose private
life the austerest critics could find nothing blameworthy. His piety
stands high, even when estimated by the standards of the thirteenth
century. He was well educated and had a touch of the artist's
temperament, loving fair churches, beautiful sculpture, delicate
goldsmith's work, and richly illuminated books. He had a horror of
violence, and never wept more bitter tears than when he learned how
treacherously his name had been used to lure Richard Marshal to his
doom. But he was extraordinarily deficient in stability of purpose. For
the moment it was easy to influence him either for good or evil, but
even the ablest of his counsellors found it impossible to retain any
hold over him for long. One day he lavished all his affection on Hubert
de Burgh; the next he played into the hands of his enemies. In the same
way he got rid of Peter des Roches, the preceptor of his infancy, the
guide of his early manhood. Jealous, self-assertive, restless, and
timid, he failed in just those qualities that his subjects expected to
find in a king. Born and brought up in England, and never leaving it
save for short and infrequent visits to the continent, he was proud of
his English ancestors and devoted to English saints, more especially to
royal saints such as Edward the Confessor and Edmund of East Anglia.
Yet he showed less sympathy with English ways than many of his
foreign-born predecessors. Educated under alien influences, delighting
in the art, the refinement, the devotion, and the absolutist principles
of foreigners, he seldom trusted a man of English birth. Too weak to
act for himself, too suspicious to trust his natural counsellors, he
found the friendship and advice for which he yearned in foreign
favourites and kinsmen. Thus it was that the hopes excited by the fall
of the Poitevins were disappointed. The alien invasion, checked for a
few years, was renewed in a more dangerous shape.
During the ten years after the collapse of Peter des Roches, swarms of
foreigners came to England, and spoiled the land with the king's entire
good-will. Henry's marriage brought many Provençals and Savoyards to
England. The renewed troubles between pope and emperor led to a renewal
of Roman interference in a more exacting form. The continued
intercourse with foreign states resulted in fresh opportunities of
alien influence. A new attempt on Poitou brought as its only result the
importation of the king's Poitevin kinsmen. The continued close
relationship between the English and the French baronage involved the
frequent claim of English estates and titles by men of alien birth.
Even such beneficial movements as the establishment of the mendicant
orders in England, and the cosmopolitan outlook of the increasingly
important academic class contributed to the spread of outlandish ideas.
As wave after wave of foreigners swept over England, Englishmen
involved them in a common condemnation. And all saw in the weakness of
the king the very source of their power.
The first great influx of foreigners followed directly from Henry's
marriage. For several years active negotiations had been going on to
secure him a suitable bride. There had also at various times been talk
of his selecting a wife from Brittany, Austria, Bohemia, or Scotland,
and in the spring of 1235 a serious negotiation for his marriage with
Joan, daughter and heiress of the Count of Ponthieu, only broke down
through the opposition of the French court. Henry then sought the hand
of Eleanor, a girl twelve years old, and the second of the four
daughters of Raymond Berengar IV., Count of Provence, and his wife
Beatrice, sister of Amadeus III., Count of Savoy. The marriage contract
was signed in October. Before that time Eleanor had left Provence under
the escort of her mother's brother, William, bishop-elect of Valence.
On her way she spent a long period with her elder sister Margaret, who
had been married to Louis IX. of France in 1234. On January 14, 1236,
she was married to Henry at Canterbury by Archbishop Edmund, and
crowned at Westminster on the following Sunday.
The new queen's kinsfolk quickly acquired an almost unbounded
ascendency over her weak husband. With the exception of the reigning
Count Amadeus of Savoy, her eight maternal uncles were somewhat
scantily provided for. The prudence of the French government prevented
them from obtaining any advantage for themselves at the court of their
niece the Queen of France, and they gladly welcomed the opportunity of
establishing themselves at the expense of their English nephew.
Self-seeking and not over-scrupulous, able, energetic, and with the
vigour and resource of high-born soldiers of fortune, several of them
play honourable parts in the history of their own land, and are by no
means deserving of the complete condemnation meted out to them by the
English annalists.[1] The bishop-elect of Valence was an able and
accomplished warrior. He stayed on in England after accomplishing his
mission, and with him remained his clerk, the younger son of a house of
Alpine barons, Peter of Aigueblanche, whose cunning and dexterity were
as attractive to Henry as the more martial qualities of his master.
Weary of standing alone, the king eagerly welcomed a trustworthy
adviser who was outside the entanglements of English parties, and made
Bishop William his chief counsellor. It was believed that he was
associated with eleven others in a secret inner circle of royal
advisers, whose advice Henry pledged himself by oath to follow. Honours
and estates soon began to fall thickly on William and his friends. He
made himself the mouthpiece of Henry's foreign policy. When he
temporarily left England, he led a force sent by the king to help
Frederick II. in his war against the cities of northern Italy. His
influence with Henry did much to secure for his brother, Thomas of
Savoy, the hand of the elderly countess Joan of Flanders. With Thomas
as the successor of Ferdinand of Portugal, the rich Flemish county,
bound to England by so many political and economic ties, seemed in safe
hands, and preserved from French influence. In 1238 Thomas visited
England, and received a warm welcome and rich presents from the king.
[1] For Eleanor's countrymen see Mugnier, _Les Savoyards en
Angleterre au XIIIe siècle, et Pierre d'Aigueblanche, évêque
d'Héreford_ (1890).
Despite the establishment of the Savoyards, the Poitevin influence began
to revive. Peter des Roches, who had occupied himself after his fall by
fighting for Gregory IX. against the revolted Romans, returned to
England in broken health in 1236, and was reconciled to the king. Peter
of Rivaux was restored to favour, and made keeper of the royal wardrobe.
Segrave and Passelewe again became justices and ministers. England was
now the hunting-ground of any well-born Frenchmen anxious for a wider
career than they could obtain at home.[1] Among the foreigners attracted
to England to prosecute legal claims or to seek the royal bounty came
Simon of Montfort, the second son of the famous conqueror of the
Albigenses. Amice, the mother of the elder Simon, was the sister and
heiress of Robert of Beaumont, the last of his line to hold the earldom
of Leicester. After Amice's death her son used the title and claimed the
estates of that earldom. But these pretensions were but nominal, and
since 1215 Randolph of Chester had administered the Leicester lands as
if his complete property. However, Amaury of Montfort, the Count of
Toulouse's eldest son, ceded to his portionless younger brother his
claims to the Beaumont inheritance, and in 1230 Simon went to England to
push his fortunes. Young, brilliant, ambitious and attractive, he not
only easily won the favour of the king, but commended himself so well to
Earl Randolph that in 1231 the aged earl was induced to relax his grasp
on the Leicester estates. In 1239 the last formalities of investiture
were accomplished. Amaury renounced his claims, and after that Simon
became Earl of Leicester and steward of England. A year before that he
had secured the great marriage that he had long been seeking. In
January, 1238, he was wedded to the king's own sister, Eleanor, the
childless widow of the younger William Marshal. Simon was for the moment
high in the affection of his brother-in-law. To the English he was
simply another of the foreign favourites who turned the king's heart
against his born subjects.
[1] This is well illustrated by Philip de Beaumanoir's
well-known romance, _Jean de Dammartin et Blonde d'Oxford_ (ed.
by Suchier, Soc. des anciens Textes français, and by Le Roux de
Lincy, Camden Soc.).
In 1238 Peter des Roches died. With all his faults the Poitevin was an
excellent administrator at Winchester,[1] and left his estates in
such a prosperous condition that Henry coveted the succession for the
bishop-elect of Valence, though William already had the prospect of the
prince-bishopric of liege. But the monks of St. Swithun's refused to
obey the royal order, and Henry sought to obtain his object from the
pope. Gregory gave William both Liege and Winchester, but in 1239 death
ended his restless plans. William's death left more room for his
kinsfolk and followers. His clerk, Peter of Aigueblanche, returned to
the land of promise, and in 1240 secured his consecration as Bishop of
Hereford. William's brother, Peter of Savoy, lord of Romont and
Faucigny, was invited to England in the same year. In 1241 he was
invested with the earldom of Richmond, which a final breach with Peter
of Brittany had left in the king's hands. Peter, the ablest member of
his house, thus became its chief representative in England.[2]
[1] See H. Hall, _Pipe Roll of the Bishop of Winchester_,
1207-8.
[2] For Peter see Wurstemberger, _Peter II., Graf von Savoyen_
(1856).
With the Provençals and Savoyards came a fresh swarm of Romans. In 1237
the first papal legates _a latere_ since the recall of Pandulf landed
in England. The deputy of Gregory IX. was the cardinal-deacon Otto, who
in 1226 had already discharged the humbler office of nuncio in England.
It was believed that the legate was sent at the special request of
Henry III., and despite the remonstrances of the Archbishop of
Canterbury. Those most unfriendly to the legate were won over by his
irreproachable conduct. He rejected nearly all gifts. He was unwearied
in preaching peace; travelled to the north to settle outstanding
differences between Henry and the King of Scots, and thence hurried to
the west to prolong the truce with Llewelyn. His zeal for the
reformation of abuses made the canons of the national council, held
under his presidency at St. Paul's on November 18, 1237, an epoch in
the history of our ecclesiastical jurisprudence.
Despite his efforts the legate remained unpopular. The pluralists and
nepotists, who feared his severity, joined with the foes of all
taxation and the enemies of all foreigners in denouncing the legate. To
avoid the danger of poison, he thought it prudent to make his own
brother his master cook. During the council of London it was necessary
to escort him from his lodgings and back again with a military force.
In the council itself the claim of high-born clerks to receive
benefices in plurality found a spokesman in so respectable a prelate as
Walter of Cantilupe, the son of a marcher baron, whom Otto had just
enthroned in his cathedral at Worcester, and the legate, "fearing for
his skin," was suspected of mitigating the severity of his principles
to win over the less greedy of the friends of vested interests. His
Roman followers knew and cared little about English susceptibilities,
and feeling was so strong against them that any mischance might excite
an explosion. Such an accident occurred on St. George's day, April 23,
1238, when the legate was staying with the Austin Canons of Oseney,
near Oxford, while the king was six miles off at Abingdon. Some of the
masters of the university went to Oseney to pay their respects to the
cardinal, and were rudely repulsed by the Italian porter. Irritated at
this discourtesy, they returned with a host of clerks, who forced their
way into the abbey. Amongst them was a poor Irish chaplain, who made
his way to the kitchen to beg for food. The chief cook, the legate's
brother, threw a pot of scalding broth into the Irishman's face. A
clerk from the march of Wales shot the cook dead with an arrow. A
fierce struggle followed, in the midst of which Otto, hastily donning
the garb of his hosts, took refuge in the tower of their church, where
he was besieged by the infuriated clerks, until the king sent soldiers
from Abingdon to release him. Otto thereupon laid Oxford under an
interdict, suspended all lectures, and put thirty masters into prison.
English opinion, voiced by the diocesan, Grosseteste, held that the
cardinal's servants had provoked the riot, and found little to blame in
the violence of the clerks.
In 1239 Gregory IX. began his final conflict with Frederick II., and
demanded the support of all Europe. As before, from 1227 to 1230, the
pressure of the papal necessity was at once felt in England. The legate
had to raise supplies at all costs. Crusaders were allowed to renounce
their vows for ready money. Every visitation or conference became an
excuse for procurations and fees. Presents were no longer rejected, but
rather greedily solicited. On the pretence that it was necessary to
reform the Scottish Church, "which does not recognise the Roman Church
as its sole mother and metropolitan," Otto excited the indignation of
Alexander II. by attempts to extend his jurisdiction to Scotland,
hitherto unvisited by legates. In England his claims soon grew beyond
all bearing. At last he demanded a fifth of all clerical goods to
enable the pope to finance the anti-imperial crusade. Even this was
more endurable than the order received from Rome that 300 clerks of
Roman families should be "provided" to benefices in England in order
that Gregory might obtain the support of their relatives against
Frederick. Both as feudal suzerain and as spiritual despot, the pope
lorded it over England as fully as his uncle Innocent III.
Weakness, piety, and self-interest combined to make Henry III.
acquiesce in the legate's exactions. "I neither wish nor dare," said
he, "to oppose the lord pope in anything." The union of king and legate
was irresistible. The lay opposition was slow and feeble. Gilbert
Marshal, though showing no lack of spirit, was not the man to play the
part which his brother Richard had filled so effectively. Richard, Earl
of Cornwall, who constituted himself the spokesman of the magnates,
made a special grievance of the marriage of Simon of Montfort with his
sister Eleanor. England, he said, was like a vineyard with a broken
hedge, so that all that went by could steal the grapes. He took arms,
and subscribed the first of the long series of plans of constitutional
reform that the reign was to witness, according to which the king was
to be guided by a chosen body of counsellors. But at the crisis of the
movement he held back, having accomplished nothing.
There was more vigour in the ecclesiastical opposition. Robert
Grosseteste,[1] a Suffolk man of humble birth, had already won for
himself a position of unique distinction at Oxford and Paris. A teacher
of rare force, a scholar of unexampled range, a thinker of daring
originality, and a writer who had touched upon almost every known
subject, he was at the height of his fame when, in 1235, his appointment
as Bishop of Lincoln gave the fullest opportunities for the employment
of his great gifts in the public service. He was convinced that the
preoccupation of the clergy in worldly employment and the constant
aggressions of the civil upon the ecclesiastical courts lay at the root
of the evils of the time. His conviction brought him into conflict with
the king rather than the legate, though for the moment his absorption in
the cares of his diocese distracted his attention from general
questions. The bishops generally had become so hostile that Otto shrank
from meeting them in another council, and strove to get money by
negotiating individually with the leading churchmen. The old foe of
papal usurpations, Robert Twenge, renewed his agitation on behalf of the
rights of patrons, and the clergy of Berkshire drew up a remonstrance
against Otto's extortions.
[1] For Grosseteste, see F.S. Stevenson, _Robert Grosseteste,
Bishop of Lincoln_ (1899).
Archbishop Edmund saw the need of opposing both legate and king; but he
was hampered by his ecclesiastical and political principles, and still
more, perhaps, by the magnitude of the rude task thrown upon him. He
had set before himself the ideal of St. Thomas, not only in the
asceticism of his private life, but in his zeal for his see and the
Church. But few men were more unlike the strong-willed and bellicose
martyr of Canterbury than the gentle and yielding saint of Abingdon. A
plentiful crop of quarrels, however, soon showed that Edmund had, in
one respect, copied only too faithfully the example of his predecessor.
He was engaged in a controversy of some acerbity with the Archbishop of
York, and he was involved in a long wrangle with the monks of his
cathedral, which took him to Rome soon after the legate's arrival. He
got little satisfaction there, and found a whole sea of troubles to
overwhelm him on his return. At last came the demand of the fifth from
Otto. Edmund joined in the opposition of his brethren to this exaction,
but his attitude was complicated by his other difficulties. Leaning in
his weakness on the pope, he found that Gregory was a taskmaster rather
than a director. At last he paid his fifth, but, broken in health and
spirits, he was of no mind to withstand the demands of the Roman clerks
for benefices. If he could not be another St. Thomas defending the
liberties of the Church, he could at least withdraw like his prototype
from the strife, and find a refuge in a foreign house of religion.
Seeking out St. Thomas's old haunt at Pontigny, he threw himself with
ardour into the austere Cistercian life. On the advice of his
physicians, he soon sought a healthier abode with the canons of Soisy,
in Brie, at whose house he died on November 16, 1240. His body was
buried at Pontigny in the still abiding minster which had witnessed the
devotions of Becket and Langton, and miracles were soon wrought at his
tomb. Within eight years of his death he was declared a saint; and
Henry, who had thwarted him in life, and even opposed his canonisation,
was among the first of the pilgrims who worshipped at his shrine. It
needed a tougher spirit and a stronger character than Edmund's to
grapple with the thorny problems of his age.
The retirement of the archbishop enabled Otto to carry through his
business, and withdraw from England on January 7, 1241. On August 21
Gregory IX. died, with his arch-enemy at the gates of Rome and all his
plans for the time frustrated. High-minded, able and devout, he wagered
the whole fortunes of the papacy on the result of his secular struggle
with the emperor. In Italy as in England, the spiritual hegemony of the
Roman see and the spiritual influence of the western Church were
compromised by his exaltation of ecclesiastical politics over religion.
The monks of Christ Church won court favour by electing as archbishop,
Boniface of Savoy, Bishop-elect of Belley, one of the queen's uncles.
There was no real resistance to the appointment, though a prolonged
vacancy in the papacy made it impossible for him to receive formal
confirmation until 1243, and it was not until 1244 that he condescended
to visit his new province. Meanwhile his kinsmen were carrying
everything before them. Richard of Cornwall lost his first wife,
Isabella, daughter of William Marshal, in 1240, an event which broke
almost the last link that bound him to the baronial opposition. He
withdrew himself from the troubles of English politics by going on
crusade, and with him went his former enemy, Simon of Leicester.
Richard was back in England early in 1242, and on November 23, 1243,
his marriage with Sanchia of Provence, the younger sister of the queens
of France and England, completed his conversion to the court party.
Henry III.'s cosmopolitan instincts led him to take as much part in
foreign politics as his resources allowed. In 1235 he married his
sister Isabella to Frederick II., and henceforth manifested a strong
interest in the affairs of his imperial brother-in-law. His relations
with France were still uneasy, and he hoped to find in Frederick's
support a counterpoise to the steady pressure of French hostility. All
England watched with interest the progress of the emperor's arms. Peter
of Savoy led an English contingent to fight for Frederick against the
Milanese, and Matthew Paris, the greatest of the English chroniclers,
narrates the campaign of Corte Nuova with a detail exceeding that which
he allows to the military enterprises of his own king. Frederick
constantly corresponded with both the king and Richard of Cornwall, and
it was nothing but solicitude for the safely of the heir to the throne
that led the English magnates to reject the emperor's request that
Richard should receive a high command under him. Even Frederick's
breach with the pope in 1239 did not destroy his friendship with Henry.
The situation became extremely complicated, since Innocent IV. derived
large financial support for his crusade from the unwilling English
clergy, while Henry still professed to be Frederick's friend. The king
allowed Otto to proclaim Frederick's excommunication in England, and
then urged the legate to quit the country because the emperor strongly
protested against the presence of an avowed enemy at his
brother-in-law's court. Neither pope nor emperor could rely upon the
support of so half-hearted a prince. Renewed trouble with France
explains in some measure the anxiety of Henry to remain in good
relations with the emperor despite Frederick's quarrel with the pope.
The position of the French monarchy was far stronger than it had been
when Henry first intervened in continental politics. Blanche of Castile
had broken the back of the feudal coalition, and even Peter Mauclerc had
made his peace with the monarchy at the price of his English earldom.
Louis IX. attained his majority in 1235, and his first care was to
strengthen his power in his newly won dominions. If Poitou were still in
the hands of the Count of La Marche and the Viscount of Thouars, the
royal seneschals of Beaucaire and Carcassonne after 1229 ruled over a
large part of the old dominions of Raymond of Toulouse. In 1237 the
treaty of Meaux was further carried out by the marriage of Raymond's
daughter and heiress, Joan, to Alfonse, the brother of the French king.
In 1241 Alfonse came of age, and Louis at once invested him with Poitou
and Auvergne. The lords of Poitou saw that the same process which had
destroyed the feudal liberties of Normandy now endangered their
disorderly independence. Hugh of Lusignan and his wife had been present
at Alfonse's investiture, and the widow of King John had gone away
highly indignant at the slights put upon her dignity.[1] She bitterly
reproached her husband with the ignominy involved in his submission.
Easily moved to new treasons, Hugh became the soul of a league of
Poitevin barons formed at Parthenay, which received the adhesion of
Henry's seneschal of Gascony, Rostand de Sollers, and even of Alfonse's
father-in-law, the depressed Raymond of Toulouse. At Christmas Hugh
openly showed his hand. He renounced his homage to Alfonse, declared his
adhesion to his step-son, Richard of Cornwall, the titular count of
Poitou, and ostentatiously withdrew from the court with his wife. The
rest of the winter was taken up with preparations for the forthcoming
struggle.
[1] See the graphic letter of a citizen of La Rochelle to
Blanche, published by M. Delisle in _Bibliothèque de l'Ecole
des Chartes_, série ii., iv., 513-55 (1856).
Untaught by experience, Henry III. listened to the appeals of his
mother and her husband. Richard of Cornwall, who came back from his
crusade in January, 1242, was persuaded that he had another chance of
realising his vain title of Count of Poitou. But the king had neither
men nor money and the parliament of February 2 refused to grant him
sums adequate for his need, so that, despairing of dealing with his
barons in a body, Henry followed the legate's example of winning men
over individually. He made a strong protest against the King of
France's breach of the existing truce, and his step-father assured him
that Poitou and Gascony would provide him with sufficient soldiers if
he brought over enough money to pay them. Thereupon, leaving the
Archbishop of York as regent, Henry took ship on May 9 at Portsmouth
and landed on May 13 at Royan at the mouth of the Gironde. He was
accompanied by Richard of Cornwall, seven earls, and 300 knights.
Meanwhile Louis IX. marshalled a vast host at Chinon, which from April
to July overran the patrimony of the house of Lusignan, and forced many
of the confederate barons to submit. Peter of Savoy and John Mansel,
Henry's favourite clerk, then made seneschal of Gascony, assembled the
Aquitanian levies, while Peter of Aigueblanche, the Savoyard Bishop of
Hereford, went to Provence to negotiate the union between Earl Richard
and Sanchia, and, if possible, to add Raymond Berengar to the coalition
against the husband of his eldest daughter. Henry hoped to win tactical
advantages by provoking Louis to break the truce, and mendaciously
protested his surprise at being forced into an unexpected conflict with
his brother-in-law. Towards the end of July, Louis, who had conquered
all Poitou, advanced to the Charente, and occupied Taillebourg. If the
Charente were once crossed, Saintonge would assuredly follow the
destinies of Poitou; and the Anglo-Gascon army advanced from Saintes to
dispute the passage of the river. On July 21 the two armies were in
presence of each other, separated only by the Charente. Besides the
stone bridge at Taillebourg, the French had erected a temporary wooden
structure higher up the stream, and had collected a large number of
boats to facilitate their passage. Seeing with dismay the oriflamme
waving over the sea of tents which, "like a great and populous city,"
covered the right bank, the soldiers of Henry retreated precipitately
to Saintes. There was imminent danger of their retreat being cut off,
but Richard of Cornwall went to the French camp, and obtained an
armistice of a few hours, which gave his brother time to reach the
town.
Next day Louis advanced at his ease to the capital of Saintonge. The
Anglo-Gascons went out to meet him, and, despite their inferior numbers,
fought bravely amidst the vineyards and hollow lanes to the west of the
city. But the English king was the first to flee, and victory soon
attended the arms of the French. Immediately after the battle, the lords
of Poitou abandoned Richard for Alfonse. Henry fled from Saintes to
Pons, from Pons to Barbezieux, and thence sought a more secure refuge at
Blaye, leaving his tent, the ornaments of his chapel, and the beer
provided for his English soldiers as booty for the enemy. The outbreak
of an epidemic in the French army alone prevented a siege of Bordeaux,
by necessitating the return of St. Louis to the healthier north. Henry
lingered at Bordeaux until September, when he returned to England.[1]
Meanwhile the French dictated peace to the remaining allies of Henry. On
the death of Raymond of Toulouse, in 1249, Alfonse quietly succeeded to
his dominions. The next twenty years saw the gradual extension of the
French administrative system to Poitou, Auvergne, and the Toulousain.
English Gascony was reduced to little more than the districts round
Bordeaux and Bayonne. Even a show of hostility was no longer useful, and
on April 7, 1243, a five years' truce between Henry and Louis was signed
at Bordeaux. The marriage of Beatrice of Provence, the youngest of the
daughters of Raymond Berengar, to Charles of Anjou, Louis' younger
brother, removed Provence from the sphere of English influence. On his
father-in-law's death in 1245, Charles of Anjou succeeded to his
dominions to the prejudice of his two English brothers-in-law, and
became the founder of a Capetian line of counts of Provence, which
brought the great fief of the empire under the same northern French
influences which Alfonse of Poitiers was diffusing over the lost
inheritances of Eleanor of Aquitaine and the house of Saint-Gilles.
[1] The only good modern account of this expedition is that by
M. Charles Bémont, _La campagne de Poitou, 1242-3_, in _Annales
du Midi_, v., 389-314 (1893). For the Lusignans see Boissonade,
_Quomodo comites Engolismenses erga reges Angliæ et Franciæ
se gesserint_, 1152-1328 (1893).
A minor result of Louis' triumph was the well-deserved ruin of Hugh of
Lusignan and Isabella of Angoulême. The proud spirit of Isabella did
not long tolerate her humiliation. She retired to Fontevraud and died
there in 1246. Hugh X. followed her to the tomb in 1248. Their eldest
son, Hugh XI., succeeded him, but the rest of their numerous family
turned for support to the inexhaustible charity of the King of England.
Thus in 1247 a Poitevin invasion of the king's half-brothers and
sisters recalled to his much-tried subjects the Savoyard invasion of
ten years earlier. In that single year three of the king's brothers and
one of his sisters accepted his invitation to make a home in England.
Of these, Guy, lord of Cognac, became proprietor of many estates.
William, called from the Cistercian abbey in which he was born William
of Valence, secured, with the hand of Joan of Munchensi, a claim to the
great inheritance that was soon to be scattered by the extinction of
the male line of the house of Marshal. Aymer of Valence, a very
unclerical churchman, obtained in 1250 his election as bishop of
Winchester, though his youth and the hostility of his chapter delayed
his consecration for ten years. Alice their sister found a husband of
high rank in the young John of Warenne, Earl of Warenne or Surrey,
while a daughter of Hugh XI. married Robert of Ferrars, Earl of Ferrars
or Derby. Others of their kindred flocked to the land of promise. Any
Poitevin was welcome, even if not a member of the house of Lusignan.
Thus the noble adventurer John du Plessis, came over to England,
married the heiress of the Neufbourg Earls of Warwick, and in 1247 was
created Earl of Warwick. The alien invasion took a newer and more
grievous shape.
The expenses of the war were still to be paid; and in 1244 Henry
assembled a council, declaring that, as he had gone to Gascony on the
advice of his barons, they were bound to make him a liberal grant
towards freeing him from the debts which he had incurred beyond sea.
Prelates, earls, and barons each deliberated apart, and a joint
committee, composed of four members of each order, drew up an
uncompromising reply. The king had not observed the charters; previous
grants had been misapplied, and the abeyance of the great offices of
state made justice difficult and good administration impossible. The
committee insisted that a justiciar, a chancellor, and a treasurer
should forthwith be appointed. This was the last thing that the jealous
king desired. Helpless against a united council, he strove to break up
the solidarity between its lay and clerical elements by laying a papal
order before the prelates to furnish him an adequate subsidy. The leader
of the bishops was now Grosseteste, who from this time until his death
in 1253 was the pillar of the opposition. "We must not," he declared,
"be divided from the common counsel, for it is written that if we be
divided we shall all die forthwith." At last a committee of twelve
magnates was appointed to draw up a plan of reform. The unanimity of all
orders was shown by the co-operation on this body of prelates such as
Boniface of Savoy with patriots of the stamp of Grosseteste and Walter
of Cantilupe, while among the secular lords, Richard of Cornwall and
'Simon of Leicester worked together with baronial leaders like Norfolk
and Richard of Montfichet, a survivor of the twenty-five executors of
Magna Carta. The obstinacy of the king may well have driven the estates
into drawing up the remarkable paper constitution preserved for us by
Matthew Paris.[1] By it the execution of the charters and the
supervision of the administration were to be entrusted to four
councillors, chosen from among the magnates, and irremovable except with
their consent. It is unlikely that the scheme was ever carried out; but
its conception shows an advance in the claims of the opposition, and
anticipates the policy of restraining an incompetent ruler by a
committee responsible to the estates, which, for the next two centuries,
was the popular specific for royal maladministration. For the moment
neither side gained a decided victory. Though the barons persisted in
their refusal of an extraordinary grant, they agreed to pay an aid to
marry the king's eldest daughter to the son of Frederick II.
[1] _Chron. Maj_., iv., 366-68.
Further demands arose from the quarrel between Innocent IV.' and the
emperor. A new papal envoy, Master Martin, came to England to extort
from the clergy money to enable Innocent to carry on his war against
Frederick. The lords told Martin that if he did not quit the realm
forthwith he would be torn in pieces. In terror he prayed for a safe
conduct. "May the devil give you a safe conduct to hell," was the only
reply that the angry Henry vouchsafed. Even his complaisance was
exhausted by Master Martin.
On July 26, 1245, a few weeks before Martin's expulsion, Innocent IV.
opened a general council at Lyons, in which Frederick was deposed from
the imperial dignity. Grosseteste, the chief English prelate to attend
the gathering, was drawn in conflicting directions by his zeal for pope
against emperor and by his dislike of curialist exactions. This
attitude of the bishop is reflected in the remonstrance, in the name of
the English people, laid before Innocent, declaring the faithfulness of
England to the Holy See and the wrongs with which her fidelity had been
requited. The increasing demands for money, the intrusion of aliens
into English cures, and Martin's exactions were set forth at length.
Innocent refused to entertain the petition, forced all the bishops at
Lyons to join in the deprivation of the emperor, and required every
English bishop to seal with his own seal the document by which John had
pledged the nation to a yearly tribute. No one could venture to stand
up against the successor of St. Peter, and so, despite futile
remonstrance, Innocent still had it all his own way. In 1250
Grosseteste again met Innocent face to face at Lyons, and urged him to
"put to flight the evils and purge the abominations" which the Roman
see had done so much to foster. But this outspoken declaration was
equally without result. Bold as were Grosseteste's words, he fully
accepted the curialist theory which regarded the pope as the universal
bishop, the divinely appointed source of all ecclesiastical
jurisdiction. He could therefore do no more than protest. If the pope
chose to disregard him, there was nothing to be done but wait patiently
for better times. The plague of foreign ecclesiastics was still to
torment the English Church for many a year.
The king's difficulties were increased by fresh troubles in Scotland
and Wales. The friendship between Henry and his brother-in-law,
Alexander II., was weakened by the death of the Queen of Scots and by
Alexander's marriage to a French lady in 1239. At last, in 1244,
relations were so threatening that the English levies were mustered for
a campaign at Newcastle. However, on the mediation of Richard of
Cornwall, Alexander bound himself not to make alliances with England's
enemies, and the trouble passed away. In Wales the difficulties were
more complicated. Llewelyn ap Iorwerth died in 1240, full of years and
honour. In the last years of his reign broken health and the revolts of
his eldest son Griffith made the old chieftain anxious for peace with
England, as the best way of securing the succession to all his
dominions of David, his son by Joan of Anjou. Henry III., anxious that
David as his nephew should inherit the principality, granted a
temporary cessation of hostilities. After Llewelyn's death David was
accepted as Prince of Snowdon, and made his way to Gloucester, where he
performed homage, and was dubbed knight by his uncle. Next year,
however, hostilities broke out, and Henry, disgusted with his nephew,
made a treaty with the wife of Griffith, Griffith himself being David's
prisoner. In 1241 Henry led an expedition from Chester into North
Wales, and forced David to submit. He surrendered Griffith to his
uncle's safe keeping and promised to yield his principality to Henry if
he died without a son. Three years later Griffith broke his neck in an
attempt to escape from the Tower. The death of his rival emboldened
David to take up a stronger line against his uncle. A fresh Welsh
expedition was necessary for the summer of 1245, in which the English
advanced to the Conway, but were speedily forced to retire. David held
his own until his death, without issue, in March, 1246, threw open the
question of the Welsh succession.