THE BARONS' WAR.
During the early months of 1258, the aliens ruled the king and realm,
added estate to estate, and defied all attempts to dislodge them. Papal
agents traversed the country, extorting money from prelates and
churches. The Welsh, in secret relations with the lords of the march,
threatened the borders, and made a confederacy with the Scots. The
French were hostile, and the barons disunited, without leaders, and
helpless. A wretched harvest made corn scarce and dear. A wild winter,
followed by a long late frost, cut off the lambs and destroyed the
farmers' hopes for the summer. A murrain of cattle followed, and the
poor were dying of hunger and pestilence. Henry III. was in almost as
bad a plight as his people. He had utterly failed to subdue Llewelyn. A
papal agent threatened him with excommunication and the resumption of
the grant of Sicily. He could not control his foreign kinsfolk, and the
rivalry of Savoyards and Poitevins added a new element of turmoil to
the distracted relations of the magnates. His son had been forced to
pawn his best estates to William of Valence, and the royal exchequer
was absolutely empty. Money must be had at all risks, and the only way
to get it was to assemble the magnates.
On April 2 the chief men of Church and State gathered together at
London. For more than a month the stormy debates went on. The king's
demands were contemptuously waved aside. His exceptional misdeeds, it
was declared, were to be met by exceptional measures. Hot words were
spoken, and William of Valence called Leicester a traitor. "No, no,
William," the earl replied, "I am not a traitor, nor the son of a
traitor; your father and mine were men of a different stamp," An
opposition party formed itself under the Earls of Gloucester,
Leicester, Hereford, and Norfolk. Even the Savoyards partially fell
away from the court, and a convocation of clergy at Merton, presided
over by Archbishop Boniface, drew up canons in the spirit of
Grosseteste. In parliament all that Henry could get was a promise to
adjourn the question of supply until a commission had drafted a
programme of reform. On May 2 Henry and his son Edward announced their
acceptance of this proposal; parliament was forthwith prorogued, and
the barons set to work to mature their scheme.
On June 11 the magnates once more assembled, this time at Oxford. A
summons to fight the Welsh gave them an excuse to appear attended with
their followers in arms. The royalist partisans nicknamed the gathering
the Mad Parliament, but its proceedings were singularly business-like.
A petition of twenty-nine articles was presented, in which the abuses
of the administration were laid bare in detail. A commission of
twenty-four was appointed who were to redress the grievances of the
nation, and to draw up a new scheme of government. According to the
compact Henry himself selected half this body. It was significant of
the falling away of the mass of the ruling families from the monarchy,
that six of Henry's twelve commissioners were churchmen, four were
aliens, three were his brothers, one his brother-in-law, one his
nephew, one his wife's uncle. The only earls that accepted his
nomination were the Poitevin adventurer, John du Plessis, Earl of
Warwick, and John of Warenne, who was pledged to a royalist policy by
his marriage to Henry's half-sister, Alice of Lusignan. The only
bishops were, the queen's uncle, Boniface of Canterbury, and Fulk
Basset of London, the richest and noblest born of English prelates,
who, though well meaning, was too weak in character for continued
opposition. Yet these two were the most independent names on Henry's
list. The rest included the three Lusignan brothers, Guy, William, and
Aymer, still eight years after his election only elect of Winchester;
Henry of Almaine, the young son of the King of the Romans; the
pluralist official John Mansel; the chancellor, Henry Wingham; the
Dominican friar John of Darlington, distinguished as a biblical critic,
the king's confessor and the pope's agent; and the Abbot of
Westminster, an old man pledged by long years of dependence to do the
will of the second founder of his house. In strong contrast to these
creatures of court favour were the twelve nominees of the barons. The
only ecclesiastic was Walter of Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, and the
only alien was Earl Simon of Leicester. With him were three other
earls, Richard of Clare, Earl of Gloucester, Roger Bigod, earl marshal
and Earl of Norfolk, and Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford. Those of
baronial rank were Roger Mortimer, the strongest of the marchers, Hugh
Bigod, the brother of the earl marshal, John FitzGeoffrey, Richard
Grey, William Bardolf, Peter Montfort, and Hugh Despenser.
The twenty-four drew up a plan of reform which left little to be
desired in thoroughness. The Provisions of Oxford, as the new
constitution was styled, were speedily laid before the barons and
adopted. By it a standing council of fifteen was established, with
whose advice and consent Henry was henceforth to exercise all his
authority. Even this council was not to be without supervision. Thrice
in the year another committee of twelve was to treat with the fifteen
on the common affairs of the realm. This rather narrow body was
created, we are told, to save the expense involved in too frequent
meetings of the magnates. A third aristocratic junto of twenty-four was
appointed to make grants of money to the crown. All aliens were to be
expelled from office and from the custody of royal castles. New
ministers, castellans, and escheators were appointed under stringent
conditions and under the safeguard of new oaths. The original
twenty-four were not yet discharged from office. They had still to draw
up schemes for the reform of the household of king and queen, and for
the amendment of the exchange of London. Moreover, "Be it remembered,"
ran one of the articles, "that the estate of Holy Church be amended by
the twenty-four elected to reform the realm, when they shall find time
and place".
For the first time in our history the king was forced to stand aside
from the discharge of his undoubted functions, and suffer them to be
exercised by a committee of magnates. The conception of limited
monarchy, which had been foreshadowed in the early struggles of Henry's
long reign, was triumphantly vindicated, and, after weary years of
waiting, the baronial victors demanded more than had ever been
suggested by the most free interpretation of the Great Charter. The
body that controlled the crown was, it is true, a narrow one. But
whatever was lost by its limitation, was more than gained by the
absolute freedom of the whole movement from any suspicion of the
separatist tendencies of the earlier feudalism. The barons tacitly
accepted the principle that England was a unity, and that it must be
ruled as a single whole. The triumph of the national movement of the
thirteenth century was assured when the most feudal class of the
community thus frankly abandoned the ancient baronial contention that
each baron should rule in isolation over his own estates, a tradition
which, when carried out for a brief period under Stephen, had set up
"as many kings or rather tyrants as lords of castles". The feudal
period was over: the national idea was triumphant. This victory becomes
specially significant when we remember how large a share the barons of
the Welsh march, the only purely feudal region in the country, took in
the movement against the King.
The unity of the national government being recognised, it was another
sign of the times that its control should be transferred from the
monarch to a committee of barons. At this point the rigid conceptions
of the triumphant oligarchy stood in the way of a wide national policy.
Since the reign of John the custom had arisen of consulting the
representatives of the shire-courts on matters of politics and finance.
In 1258 there is not the least trace of a suggestion that parliament
could ever include a more popular element than the barons and prelates.
On the contrary, the Provisions diminished the need even for those
periodical assemblies of the magnates which had been in existence since
the earliest dawn of our history. For all practical purposes small
baronial committees were to perform the work of magnates and people as
well as of the crown. Yet it must be recognised that the barons showed
self-control, as well as practical wisdom, in handing over functions
discharged by the baronage as a whole to the various committees of
their selection. The danger of general control by the magnates was that
a large assembly, more skilled in opposition than in constructive work,
was almost sure to become infected by faction. By strictly limiting and
defining who the new rulers of England were to be, the barons
approached a combination of aristocratic control with the stability and
continuity resulting from limited numbers and defined functions. It is
likely, however, that in bestowing such extensive powers on their
nominees, they were influenced by the well-grounded belief that the new
constitution could only be established by main force, and that, even
when abandoned by the king, the aliens would make a good fight before
they gave up all that they had so long held in England. The success of
the new scheme largely depended upon the immediate execution of the
ordinance for the expulsion of the foreigners.
The first step taken to carry out the Provisions was the appointment of
the new ministers. The barons insisted on the revival of the office of
justiciar, and a strenuous and capable chief minister was found in Hugh
Bigod. It was advisable to go cautiously, and some of the king's
ministers were allowed to continue in office. An appeal to force was
necessary before the new constitution could be set up in detail. The
Savoyards bought their safety by accepting it; but the Poitevins,
seeing that flight or resistance were the only alternatives before
them, were spirited enough to prefer the bolder course. They were
specially dangerous because Edward and his cousin, Henry of Almaine,
the son of the King of the Romans, were much under their influence. In
the Dominican convent at Oxford the baronial leaders formed a sworn
confederacy not to desist from their purpose until the foreigners had
been expelled. There were more hot words between Leicester and William,
the most capable of the Lusignans. The Poitevins soon found that they
could not maintain themselves in the face of the general hatred. On
June 22 they fled from Oxford in the company of their ally, Earl
Warenne. They rode straight for the coast, but failing to reach it,
occupied Winchester, where they sought to maintain themselves in
Aymer's castle of Wolvesey. The magnates of the parliament then turned
against them the arms they professed to have prepared against the
Welsh. Headed by the new justiciar, Hugh Bigod, they besieged Wolvesey.
Warenne abandoned the aliens, and they gladly accepted the terms
offered to them by their foes. They were allowed to retain their lands
and some of their ready money, on condition of withdrawing from the
realm and surrendering their castles. By the middle of July they had
crossed over to France. With them disappeared the whole of the
organised opposition to the new government. Edward, deprived of their
support, swore to observe the Provisions.
Immediately on the flight of the Lusignans the council of Fifteen was
chosen after a fashion which seemed to give the king's friends an equal
voice with the champions of the aristocracy. Four electors appointed
it, and of these two were the nominees of the baronial section, and two
of the royalist section of the original twenty-four. The result of
their work showed that there was only one party left after the Wolvesey
fiasco. While only three of the king's twelve had places on the
permanent council, no less that nine of the fifteen were chosen from
the baronial twelve. It was useless for Archbishop Boniface, John
Mansel, and the Earl of Warwick to stand up against the Bishop of
Worcester, the Earls of Leicester, Norfolk, Hereford, and Gloucester,
against John FitzGeoffrey, Peter Montfort, Richard Grey, and Roger
Mortimer. Moreover, of the three, John Mansel alone could still be
regarded as a royalist partisan. There were three of the fifteen chosen
from outside the twenty-four. Of these, Peter of Savoy, Earl of
Richmond, might, like his brother Boniface, be regarded as an alien,
though hatred of the Poitevins had by this time made Englishmen of the
Savoyards. The other two, the marcher-lord James of Audley and William
of Fors, Earl of Albemarle, were of baronial sympathies. It was the
same with the other councils.
Inquiry was made as to abuses. Gradually the royal officials were
replaced by men of popular leanings. The sheriffs were changed and were
strictly controlled, and four knights from each shire assembled in
October to present to the king the grievances of the people against the
out-going sheriffs. The custody of the castles was put into trusty and,
for the most part, into English hands. Finally the king was forced to
issue a proclamation, in which he commanded all true men "steadfastly
to hold and to defend the statutes that be made or are to be made by
our counsellors". This document was issued in English as well as in
French and Latin. A copy of the English version was sent to every
sheriff, with instructions to read it several times a year in the
county court, so that a knowledge of its contents might be attained by
every man. It is perhaps the first important proclamation issued in
English since the coming of the Normans. Early in 1259 Richard, King of
the Romans, set out to revisit England. He was met at Saint Omer by a
deputation of magnates, who told him that he could only be allowed to
land after taking an oath to observe the Provisions. Richard blustered,
but soon gave in his submission. His adhesion to the reforms marks the
last step in the revolution.
The new constitution worked without interruption until the end of 1259.
Throughout that period domestic affairs were uneventful, and the
efforts of the ministry were chiefly concerned in securing peace
abroad. In 1258 Wales had been in revolt, Scotland unfriendly, and
France threatening. A truce, ill observed, was made with Llewelyn, who
found it worth while to be cautious, seeing that his natural enemies,
but sometime associates, the marchers, had a preponderant share in the
government. The Scots were easier to satisfy, for there was at the time
no real hostility between either kings or peoples. The chief event of
this period is the conclusion of the first peace with France since the
wars of John and Philip Augustus. The protracted negotiations which
preceded it took the king and his chief councillors abroad, and that
made it easier to carry on the new domestic system without friction.
Since the friendly personal intercourse held between Henry and Louis
IX. in 1254, the relations between England and France had become less
cordial. The revival of the English power in Gascony, the
Anglo-Castilian alliance, and the election of Richard of Cornwall to
the German kingship irritated the French, to whom the persistent
English claim to Normandy and Anjou, and the repudiation of the
Aquitanian homage, were perpetual sources of annoyance. The French
championship of Alfonso against Richard achieved the double end of
checking English pretensions, and cooling the friendship between
England and Castile. St. Louis, however, was always ready to treat for
peace, while the revolution of 1258 made all parties in England anxious
to put a speedy end to the unsettled relations between the two realms.
Negotiations were begun as early as 1257, and made some progress; but
the decisive step was taken immediately after the prorogation of the
reforming parliament in the spring of 1258. During May a strangely
constituted embassy treated for peace at Paris, where Montfort and Hugh
Bigod worked side by side with two of the Lusignans and Peter of Savoy.
They concluded a provisional treaty in time for the negotiators to take
their part in the Mad Parliament. The unsettled state of affairs in
England, however, delayed the ratification of the treaty. Arrangements
had been made for its publication at Cambrai, but the fifteen dared not
allow Henry to escape from their tutelage, and Louis refused to treat
save with the king himself. There were difficulties as to the relation
of the pope and the King of the Romans to the treaty, while Earl
Simon's wife Eleanor and her children refused to waive their very
remote claims to a share in the Norman and Angevin inheritances, which
her brother was prepared to renounce. As ever, Montfort held to his
personal rights with the utmost tenacity, and the self-seeking
obstinacy of the chief negotiator of the treaty caused both bad blood
and delay. At last he was bought off by the promise of a money payment,
and the preliminary ratifications were exchanged in the summer of 1259.
On November 14 Henry left England for Paris for the formal conclusion
of the treaty. There were great festivities on the occasion of the
meeting of the two kings, but once more Montfort and his wife blocked
the way. Not until the very morning of the day fixed for the final
ceremony were they satisfied by Henry's promise to deposit on their
behalf a large sum in the hands of the French. Immediately afterwards
Henry did homage to Louis for Gascony.
The chief condition of the treaty of Paris was Henry's definitive
renunciation of all his claims on Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and
Poitou, and his agreement to hold Gascony as a fief of the French
crown. In return for this, Louis not only recognised him as Duke of
Aquitaine, but added to his actual possessions there by ceding to him
all that he held, whether in fief or in demesne, in the three dioceses
of Limoges, Cahors, and Périgueux. Besides these immediate cessions,
the French king promised to hand over to Henry certain districts then
held by his brother, Alfonse of Poitiers, and his brother's wife Joan
of Toulouse, in the event of their dominions escheating to the crown by
their death without heirs. These regions included Agen and the Agenais,
Saintonge to the south of the Charente, and in addition the whole of
Quercy, if it could be proved by inquest that it had been given by
Richard I. to his sister Joan, grandmother of Joan of Poitiers, as her
marriage portion. Moreover the French king promised to pay to Henry the
sums necessary to maintain for two years five hundred knights to be
employed "for the service of God, or the Church, or the kingdom of
England."[1]
[1] For the treaty and its execution see M. Gavrilovitch,
_Étude sur le traité de Paris de 1259_ (1899).
The treaty was unpopular both in France and England. The French
strongly objected to the surrender of territory, and were but little
convinced of the advantage gained by making the English king once more
the vassal of France. English opinion was hostile to the abandonment of
large pretensions in return for so small an equivalent. On the French
side it is true that Louis sacrificed something to his sense of justice
and love of peace. But the territory he ceded was less in reality than
in appearance. The French king's demesnes in Quercy, Périgord, and
Limousin were not large, and the transference of the homage of the
chief vassals meant only a nominal change of overlordship, and was
further limited by a provision that certain "privileged fiefs" were
still to be retained under the direct suzerainty of the French crown.
As to the eventual cessions, Alfonse and his wife were still alive and
likely to live many years. Even the cession of Gascony was hampered by
a stipulation that the towns should take an "oath of security," by
which they pledged themselves to aid France against England in the
event of the English king breaking the provisions of the treaty.
Perhaps the most solid advantage Henry gained by the treaty was
financial, for he spent the sums granted to enable him to redeem his
crusading vow in preparing for war against his own subjects. It was,
however, an immense advantage for England to be able during the
critical years which followed to be free from French hostility. If,
therefore, the French complaints against the treaty were exaggerated,
the English dissatisfaction was unreasonable. The real difficulty for
the future lay in the fact that the possession of Gascony by the king
of a hostile nation was incompatible with the proper development of the
French monarchy. For fifty years, however, a chronic state of war had
not given Gascony to the French; and Louis IX. was, perhaps, politic as
well as scrupulous in abandoning the way of force and beginning a new
method of gradual absorption, that in the end gained the Gascon fief
for France more effectively than any conquest. The treaty of Paris was
not a final settlement. It left a score of questions still open, and
the problems of its gradual execution involved the two courts in
constant disputes down to the beginning of the Hundred Years' War. For
seventy years the whole history of the relations between the two
nations is but a commentary on the treaty of Paris.
During his visit to Paris Henry arranged a marriage between his
daughter Beatrice and John of Brittany, the son of the reigning duke.
In no hurry to get back to the tutelage of the fifteen, he prolonged
his stay on the continent till the end of April, 1260. Yet, abroad as
at home, he could not be said to act as a free man. It was not the king
so much as Simon of Montfort who was the real author of the French
treaty. Indeed, it is from the conclusion of the Peace of Paris that
Simon's preponderance becomes evident. He was at all stages the chief
negotiator of the peace and, save when his personal interests stood in
the way, he controlled every step of the proceedings. If in 1258 he was
but one of several leaders of the baronial party in England, he came
back from France in 1260 assured of supremacy. During his absence
abroad, events had taken place in England which called for his
presence.
After their triumph in 1258, the baronial leaders relaxed their efforts.
Contented with their position as arbiters of the national destinies,
they made little effort to carry out the reforms contemplated at Oxford.
The ranks of the victors were broken up by private dissensions. Before
leaving for France, Earl Simon violently quarrelled with Richard, Earl
of Gloucester. It was currently believed that Gloucester had grown
slack, and Simon rose in popular estimation as a thorough-going reformer
who had no mind to substitute the rule of a baronial oligarchy for the
tyranny of the king. His position was strengthened by his personal
qualities which made him the hero of the younger generation; and his
influence began to modify the policy of Edward the king's son, who,
since the flight of his Poitevin kinsmen, was gradually arriving at
broader views of national policy. Even before his father's journey to
France, Edward took up a line of his own. In the October parliament of
1259, he listened to a petition presented to the council by the younger
nobles[1] who complained that, though the king had performed all his
promises, the barons had not fulfilled any of theirs. Edward thereupon
stirred up the oligarchy to issue an instalment of the promised reforms
in the document known as the Provisions of Westminster. During Henry's
absence in France the situation became strained. The oligarchic party,
headed by Gloucester, was breaking away from Montfort; and Edward was
forming a liberal royalist party which was not far removed from
Montfort's principles. Profiting by these discords, the Lusignans
prepared to invade England. The papacy was about to declare against the
reformers. When the monks of Winchester elected an Englishman as their
bishop in the hope of getting rid of the queen's uncle, Alexander IV.
summoned Aymer to his court and consecrated him bishop with his own
hands.
[1] "Communitas bacheleriae Angliae," _Burton Ann_., p. 471.
_See on_ this, _Engl. Hist. Review_, xvii. (1902), 89-94.
Early in 1260, Montfort went back to England and made common cause with
Edward. Despite the king's order that no parliament should be held
during his absence abroad, Montfort insisted that the Easter parliament
should meet as usual at London. The discussions were hot. Montfort
demanded the expulsion of Peter of Savoy from the council, and Edward
and Gloucester almost came to blows. The Londoners closed their gates on
both parties, but the mediation of the King of the Romans prevented a
collision. Henry hurried home, convinced that Edward was conspiring
against him. The king threw himself into the city of London, and with
Gloucester's help collected an army. Meanwhile Montfort and Edward, with
their armed followers, were lodged at Clerkenwell, ready for war. Again
the situation became extremely critical, and again King Richard proved
the best peacemaker. Henry held out against his son for a fortnight, but
such estrangement was hard for him to endure. "Do not let my son appear
before me," he cried, "for if I see him, I shall not be able to refrain
from kissing him." A reconciliation was speedily effected, and nothing
remained of the short-lived alliance of Edward with Montfort save that
his feud with Gloucester continued until the earl's death.
The dissensions among the barons encouraged Henry to shake off the
tutelage of the fifteen. As soon as he was reconciled with his son, he
charged Leicester with treason.[1] "But, thanks _be_ to God, the earl
answered to all these points with such force that the king could do
nothing against him." Unable to break down his enemy by direct attack,
Henry followed one of the worst precedents of his father's reign by
beseeching Alexander IV. to relieve him of his oath to observe the
Provisions. On April 13, 1261, a bull was issued annulling the whole of
the legislation of 1258 and 1259, and freeing the king from his sworn
promise.
[1] Bémont, _Simon de Montfort_, Appendix xxxvii., pp. 343-53.
William of Valence was already back in England, and restored to his old
dignities. His return was the easier because his brother, Aymer, the
most hated of the Poitevins, had died soon after his consecration to
Winchester. On June 14, 1261, the papal bull was read before the
assembled parliament at Winchester. There Henry removed the baronial
ministers and replaced them by his own friends. Chief among the
sufferers was Hugh Despenser, who had succeeded Hugh Bigod as
justiciar; and Bigod himself was expelled from the custody of Dover
Castle. In the summer Henry issued a proclamation, declaring that the
right of choosing his council and garrisoning his castles was among the
inalienable attributes of the crown. England was little inclined to
rebel, for the return of prosperity and good harvests made men more
contented.
The repudiation of the Provisions restored unity to the baronage. The
defections had been serious, and it was said that only five of the
twenty-four still adhered to the opposition. But the crisis forced
Leicester and Gloucester to forget their recent feuds, and co-operate
once more against the king. They saw that their salvation from Henry's
growing strength lay in appealing to a wider public than that which
they had hitherto addressed. Still posing as the heads of the
government established by the Provisions, they summoned three knights
from each shire to attend an assembly at St. Alban's. This appeal to
the landed gentry alarmed the king so much that he issued counter-writs
to the sheriffs ordering them to send the knights, not to the baronial
camp at St. Alban's, but to his own court at Windsor. Neither party was
as yet prepared for battle. The death of Alexander IV, soon after the
publication of his bull tied the hands of the king. At the same time
the renewed dissensions of Leicester and Gloucester paralysed the
baronage. Before long Simon withdrew to the continent, leaving
everything in Gloucester's hands. At last, on December 7, a treaty of
pacification was patched up, and the king announced that he was ready
to pardon those who accepted its conditions. But there was no
permanence in the settlement, and the king, the chief gainer by it, was
soon pressing the new pope, Urban IV., to confirm the bull of
Alexander. On February 25, 1262, Urban renewed Henry's absolution from
his oath in a bull which was at once promulgated in England. Montfort
then came back from abroad and rallied the baronial party. In January,
1263, Henry once more confirmed the Provisions, and peace seemed
restored. The death of Richard of Gloucester during 1262 increased
Montfort's power. His son, the young Earl Gilbert, was Simon's devoted
disciple, but he was still a minor and the custody of his lands was
handed over to the Earl of Hereford. Montfort's personal charm
succeeded in like fashion in winning over Henry of Almaine.
The events of 1263 are as bewildering and as indecisive as those of the
two previous years. Amidst the confusion of details and the violent
clashing of personal and territorial interests, a few main principles
can be discerned. First of all the royalist party was becoming
decidedly stronger, and fresh secessions of the barons constantly
strengthened its ranks. Conspicuous among these were the lords of the
march of Wales, who in 1258 had been almost as one man on the side of
the opposition, but who by the end of 1263 had with almost equal
unanimity rallied to the crown.[1] The causes of this change of
front are to be found partly in public and partly in personal reasons.
In 1258 Henry III., like Charles I. in 1640, had alienated every class
of his subjects, and was therefore entirely at the mercy of his
enemies. By 1263 his concessions had procured for him a following, so
that he now stood in the same position as Charles after his concessions
to the Long Parliament made it possible for him to begin the Civil War
in 1642. A new royalist party was growing up with a wider policy and
greater efficiency than the old coterie of courtiers and aliens. Of
this new party Edward was the soul. He had dissociated himself from
Earl Simon, but he carried into his father's camp something of Simon's
breadth of vision and force of will. He set to work to win over
individually the remnant that adhered to Leicester. What persuasion and
policy could not effect was accomplished by bribes and promises. Edward
won over the Earl of Hereford, whose importance was doubled by his
custody of the Gloucester lands, the ex-justiciar Roger Bigod, and
above all Roger Mortimer.
[1] On this, and the whole marcher and Welsh aspect of the
period, 1258-1267, see my essay on Wales and _the March during
the Barons' Wars_ in _Owens College Historical Essays_, pp.
76-136 (1902).
The change of policy of the marchers was partly at least brought about
by their constant difficulties with the Prince of Wales. During the
period immediately succeeding the Provisions of Oxford, Llewelyn ceased
to devastate the marches. A series of truces was arranged which, if
seldom well kept, at least avoided war on a grand scale. Within Wales
Llewelyn fully availed himself of the respite from English war.
Triumphant over the minor chiefs, he could reckon upon the support of
every Welsh tenant of a marcher lord, and at last grew strong enough to
disregard the truces and wage open war against the marchers. It was in
vain that Edward, the greatest of the marcher lords, persuaded David,
the Welsh prince's brother, to rise in revolt against him. Llewelyn
devastated the four cantreds to the gates of Chester, and at last,
after long sieges, forced the war-worn defenders of Deganwy and Diserth
to surrender the two strong castles through which alone Edward had
retained some hold over his Welsh lands. It was the same in the middle
march, where Llewelyn turned his arms against the Mortimers, and robbed
them of their castles. Even in the south the lord of Gwynedd carried
everything before him. "If the Welsh are not stopped," wrote a southern
marcher, "they will destroy all the lands of the king as far as the
Severn and the Wye, and they ask for nothing less than the whole of
Gwent." Up to this point the war had been a war of Welsh against
English, but Montfort sought compensation for his losses in England by
establishing relations with the Welsh. The alliance between Montfort
and their enemy had a large share in bringing about the secession of
the marchers. Their alliance with Edward neutralised the action of
Montfort, and once more enabled Henry to repudiate the Provisions.
In the summer of 1263, Edward and Montfort both raised armies.
Leicester made himself master of Hereford, Gloucester, and Bristol, and
when Edward threw himself into Windsor Castle, he occupied Isleworth,
hoping to cut his enemy off from London, where the king and queen had
taken refuge in the Tower. But the hostility of the Londoners made the
Tower an uneasy refuge for them. On one occasion, when the queen
attempted to make her way up the Thames in the hope of joining her son
at Windsor, the citizens assailed her barge so fiercely from London
Bridge that she was forced to return to the Tower. The foul insults
which the rabble poured upon his mother deeply incensed Edward and he
became a bitter foe of the city for the rest of his life. For the
moment the hostility of London was decisive against Henry. Once more
the king was forced to confirm the Provisions, agree to a fresh
banishment of the aliens, and restore Hugh Despenser to the
justiciarship. This was the last baronial triumph. In a few weeks
Edward again took up arms, and was joined by many of Montfort's
associates, including his cousin, Henry of Almaine. Even the Earl of
Gloucester was wavering. The barons feared the appeal to arms, and
entered into negotiations. Neither side was strong enough to obtain
mastery over the other, and a recourse to arbitration seemed the best
way out of an impossible situation. Accordingly, on December, 1263, the
two parties agreed to submit the question of the validity of the
Provisions to the judgment of Louis IX.
The king and his son at once crossed the channel to Amiens, where the
French king was to hear both sides. A fall from his horse prevented
Leicester attending the arbitration, and the barons were represented by
Peter Montfort, lord of Beaudesert castle in Warwickshire, and
representative of an ancient Anglo-Norman house that was not akin to
the family of Earl Simon. Louis did not waste time, and on January 23,
1264, issued his decision in a document called the "Mise of Amiens,"
which pronounced the Provisions invalid, largely on the ground of the
papal sentence. Henry was declared free to select his own wardens of
castles and ministers, and Louis expressly annulled "the statute that
the realm of England should henceforth be governed by native-born
Englishmen". "We ordain," he added, "that the king shall have full
power and free jurisdiction over his realm as in the days before the
Provisions." The only consolation to the barons was that Louis declared
that he did not intend to derogate from the ancient liberties of the
realm, as established by charter or custom, and that he urged a general
amnesty on both parties. In all essential points Louis decided in
favour of Henry. Though the justest of kings, he was after all a king,
and the limitation of the royal authority by a baronial committee
seemed to him to be against the fundamental idea of monarchy. The pious
son of the Church was biassed by the authority of two successive popes,
and he was not unmoved by the indignation of his wife, the sister of
Queen Eleanor. A few weeks later Urban IV. confirmed the award.
The Mise of Amiens was too one-sided to be accepted. The decision to
refer matters to St. Louis had been made hastily, and many enemies of
the king had taken no part in it. They, at least, were free to
repudiate the judgment and they included the Londoners, the Cinque
Ports, and nearly the whole of the lesser folk of England. The
Londoners set the example of rebellion. They elected a constable and a
marshal, and joining forces with Hugh Despenser, the baronial
justiciar, who still held the Tower, marched out to Isleworth, where
they burnt the manor of the King of the Romans. "And this," wrote the
London Chronicler, "was the beginning of trouble and the origin of the
deadly war by which so many thousand men perished." The Londoners did
not act alone. Leicester refused to be bound by the award, though
definitely pledged to obey it. It was, he maintained, as much perjury
to abandon the Provisions as to be false to the promise to accept the
Mise of Amiens. After a last attempt at negotiation at a parliament at
Oxford, he withdrew with his followers and prepared for resistance.
"Though all men quit me," he cried, "I will remain with my four sons
and fight for the good cause which I have sworn to defend--the honour
of Holy Church and the good of the realm." This was no mere boast. The
more his associates fell away, the more the Montfort family took the
lead. While Leicester organised resistance in the south, he sent his
elder sons, Simon and Henry, to head the revolt in the midlands and the
west.
There was already war in the march of Wales when Henry Montfort crossed
the Severn and strove to make common cause with Llewelyn. But the Welsh
prince held aloof from him, and Edward himself soon made his way to the
march. At first all went well for young Montfort. Edward, unable to
capture Gloucester and its bridge, was forced to beg for a truce.
Before long he found himself strong enough to repudiate the armistice
and take possession of Gloucester. Master of the chief passage over the
lower Severn, Edward abandoned the western campaign and went with his
marchers to join his father at Oxford, where he at once stirred up the
king to activity. The masters of the university, who were strong
partisans of Montfort, were chased away from the town. Then the royal
army marched against Northampton, the headquarters of the younger
Simon, who was resting there, and, on April 4, the king and his son
burst upon the place. Their first assault was unsuccessful, but next
day the walls were scaled, the town captured, and many leading barons,
including young Simon, taken prisoner. The victors thereupon marched
northwards, devastated Montfort's Leicestershire estates, and thence
proceeded to Nottingham, which opened its gates in a panic.
Leicester himself had not been idle. While his sons were courting
disaster in the west and midlands, he threw himself into London, where
he was rapturously welcomed. The Londoners, however, became very
unruly, committed all sorts of excesses against the wealthy royalists,
and cruelly plundered and murdered the Jews. Montfort himself did not
disdain to share in the spoils of the Jewry, though he soon turned to
nobler work. He was anxious to open up communications with his allies
in the Cinque Ports. But Earl Warenne, in Rochester castle, blocked the
passage of the Dover road over the Medway. Accordingly Montfort marched
with a large following of Londoners to Rochester, captured the town,
and assaulted the castle with such energy that it was on the verge of
surrendering. The news of Warenne's peril reached Henry in the
midlands. In five days the royalists made their way from Nottingham to
Rochester, a distance of over 160 miles. On their approach Montfort
withdrew into London.
Flushed with their successes at Northampton and Rochester, the
royalists marched through Kent and Sussex, plundering and devastating
the lands of their enemies. Though masters of the open country, they
had to encounter the resistance of the Clare castles, and the solid
opposition of the Cinque Ports. Their presence on the south coast was
specially necessary, for Queen Eleanor, who had gone abroad, was
waiting, with an army of foreign mercenaries, on the Flemish coast, for
an opportunity of sailing to her husband's succour. The royal army was
hampered by want of provisions, and was only master of the ground on
which it was camped. As a first fruit of the alliance with Llewelyn,
Welsh soldiers lurked behind every hedge and hill, cut off stragglers,
intercepted convoys, and necessitated perpetual watchfulness. At last
the weary and hungry troops found secure quarters in Lewes, the centre
of the estates of Earl Warenne.
Montfort then marched southwards from the capital. Besides the baronial
retinues, a swarm of Londoners, eager for the fray, though unaccustomed
to military restraints, accompanied him. On May 13 he encamped at
Fletching, a village hidden among the dense oak woods of the Weald,
some nine miles north of Lewes. A last effort of diplomacy was
attempted by Bishop Cantilupe of Worcester who, despite papal censures,
still accompanied the baronial forces. But the royalists would not
listen to the mediation of so pronounced a partisan. Nothing therefore
was left but the appeal to the sword.
The royal army was the more numerous, and included the greater names.
Of the heroes of the struggle of 1258 the majority was in the king's
camp, including most of the lords of the Welsh march, and the hardly
less fierce barons of the north, whose grandfathers had wrested the
Great Charter from John. The returned Poitevins with their followers
mustered strongly, and the confidence of the royalists was so great
that they neglected all military preparations. The poverty of
Montfort's host in historic families attested the complete
disintegration of the party since 1263. Its strength lay in the young
enthusiasts, who were still dominated by the strong personality and
generous ideals of Leicester, such as the Earl of Gloucester, or
Humphrey Bohun of Brecon, whose father, the Earl of Hereford, was
fighting upon the king's side. Early on the morning of May 14 Montfort
arrayed his troops and marched southward in the direction of Lewes.
Dawn had hardly broken when the troops were massed on the summit of the
South Downs, overlooking Lewes from the north-west.
Lewes is situated on the right bank of a great curve of the river Ouse,
which almost encircles the town. To the south are the low-lying marshes
through which the river meanders towards the sea, while to the north,
east, and west are the bare slopes of the South Downs, through which
the river forces its way past the gap in which the town is situated. To
the north of the town lies the strong castle of the Warennes, wherein
Edward had taken up his quarters, while in the southern suburb the
Cluniac priory of St. Pancras, the chief foundation of the Warennes,
afforded lodgings for King Henry and the King of the Romans. When Simon
reached the summit of the downs, his movements were visible from the
walls. But the royal army was still sleeping and its sentinels kept
such bad watch that the earl was able to array his troops at his
leisure.
From the summit of the hills two great spurs, separated by a waterless
valley, slope down towards the north and west sides of the town. The
more northerly led straight to the castle, and the more southerly to
the priory. Montfort's plan was to throw his main strength on the
attack on the priory, while deluding the enemy into the belief that his
chief object was to attack the castle. He was not yet fully recovered
from his fall from his horse, and it was known that he generally
travelled in a closed car or horse-litter. This vehicle he posted in a
conspicuous place on the northerly spur, and planted over it his
standard. In front of it were massed the London militia, mainly
infantry and the least effective element in his host. Meanwhile the
knights and men-at-arms were mustered on the southerly spur under the
personal direction of Montfort, who held himself in the rear with the
reserve, while the foremost files were commanded by the young Earl of
Gloucester, whom Simon solemnly dubbed to knighthood before the
assembled squadrons. Then the two divisions of the army advanced
towards Lewes, hoping to find their enemies still in their beds.
At the last moment the alarm was given, and before the barons
approached the town, the royalists, pouring out of castle, town, and
priory, hastily took up their position face to face to the enemy. All
turned out as Montfort had foreseen. Edward, emerging from the castle
with his cousin Henry of Almaine, his Poitevin uncles, and the warriors
of the march, observed the standard of Montfort on the hill, and
supposing that the earl was with his banner, dashed impetuously against
the left wing of Leicester's troops. He soon found himself engaged with
the Londoners, who broke and fled in confusion before his impetuous
charge. Eager to revenge on the flying citizens the insults they had
directed against his parents, he pursued the beaten militia for many a
mile, inflicting terrible damage upon them. On his way he captured
Simon's standard and horse-litter, and slew its occupants, though they
were three royalist members of the city aristocracy detained there for
sure keeping. When the king's son drew rein he was many miles from
Lewes, whither he returned, triumphant but exhausted.
The removal of Edward and the marchers from the field enabled Montfort
to profit by his sacrifice of the Londoners. The followers of the two
kings on the left of the royalist lines could not withstand the weight
of the squadrons of Leicester and Gloucester. The King of the Romans
was driven to take refuge in a mill, where he soon made an ignominious
surrender. Henry himself lost his horse under him and was forced to
yield himself prisoner to Gilbert of Gloucester. The mass of the army
was forced back on to the town and priory, which were occupied by the
victors. Scarcely was their victory assured when Edward and the
marchers came back from the pursuit of the Londoners. Thereupon the
battle was renewed in the streets of the town. It was, however, too
late for the weary followers of the king's son to reverse the fortunes
of the day. Some threw themselves into the castle, where the king's
standard still floated; Edward himself took sanctuary in the church of
the Franciscans; many strove to escape eastwards over the Ouse bridge
or by swimming over the river. The majority of the latter perished by
drowning or by the sword: but two compact bands of mail-clad horsemen
managed to cut their way through to safety. One of these, a force of
some two hundred, headed by Earl Warenne himself, and his
brothers-in-law, Guy of Lusignan and William of Valence, secured their
retreat to the spacious castle of Pevensey, of which Warenne was
constable, and from which the possibility of continuing their flight by
sea remained open. Of greater military consequence was the successful
escape of the lords of the Welsh march, whose followers were next day
the only section of the royalist army which was still a fighting force.
This was the only immediate limitation to the fulness of Montfort's
victory. After seven weary years, the judgment of battle secured the
triumph of the "good cause," which had so long been delayed by the
weakness of his confederates and the treachery of his enemies. Not the
barons of 1258, but Simon and his personal following _were_ the real
conquerors at Lewes.