THE EARLY FOREIGN POLICY AND LEGISLATION OF EDWARD I.
The Dominican chronicler, Nicholas Trivet, thus describes the
personality of Edward I.: "He was of elegant build and lofty stature,
exceeding the height of the ordinary man by a head and shoulders. His
abundant hair was yellow in childhood, black in manhood, and snowy white
in age. His brow was broad, and his features regular, save that his left
eyelid drooped somewhat, like that of his father, and hid part of the
pupil. He spoke with a stammer, which did not, however, detract from the
persuasiveness of his eloquence. His sinewy, muscular arms were those of
the consummate swordsman, and his long legs gave him a firm hold in the
saddle when riding the most spirited of steeds. His chief delight was in
war and tournaments, but he derived great pleasure from hawking and
hunting, and had a special joy in chasing down stags on a fleet horse
and slaying them with a sword instead of a hunting spear. His
disposition was magnanimous, but he was intolerant of injuries, and
reckless of dangers when seeking revenge, though easily won over by a
humble submission."[1] The defects of his youth are well brought out by
the radical friar who wrote the _Song of Lewes_. Even to the partisan of
Earl Simon, Edward was "a valiant lion, quick to attack the strongest,
and fearing the onslaught of none. But if a lion in pride and
fierceness, he was a panther in inconstancy and mutability, changing his
word and promise, cloaking himself by pleasant speech. When he is in a
strait he promises whatever you wish, but as soon as he has escaped he
forgets his promise. The treachery or falsehood, whereby he is advanced,
he calls prudence; the way whereby he arrives whither he will, crooked
though it be, he regards as straight; whatever he likes he says is
lawful, and he thinks he is released from the law, as though he were
greater than a king."[2]
[1] _Annals_, pp. 181-82.
[2] _Song_ of _Lewes_, pp. 14-15, ed. Kingsford.
Hot and impulsive in disposition, easily persuaded that his own cause
was right, and with a full share in the pride of caste, Edward
committed many deeds of violence in his youth, and never got over his
deeply rooted habit of keeping the letter of his promise while
violating its spirit. Yet he learnt to curb his impetuous temper, and
few medieval kings had a higher idea of justice or a more strict regard
to his plighted word. "Keep troth" was inscribed upon his tomb, and his
reign signally falsified the prediction of evil which the Lewes
song-writer ventured to utter. A true sympathy bound him closely to his
nobles and people. His unstained family life, his piety and religious
zeal, his devotion to friends and kinsfolk, his keen interest in the
best movements of his time, showed him a true son of Henry III. But his
strength of will and seriousness of purpose stand in strong contrast to
his father's weakness and levity. A hard-working, clear-headed,
practical, and sober temperament made him the most capable king of all
his line. He may have been wanting in originality or deep insight, yet
it is impossible to dispute the verdict that has declared him to be the
greatest of all the Plantagenets.
The broad lines of Edward's policy during the thirty-five years of his
kingship had already been laid down for him during his rude schooling.
The ineffectiveness of his father's government inspired him with a love
of strong rule, and this enabled him to grapple with the chronic
maladministration which made even a well-ordered medieval kingdom a
hot-bed of disorder. The age of Earl Simon had been fertile in new
ideals and principles of government. Edward held to the best of the
traditions of his youth, and his task was not one of creation so much
as of selection. His age was an age of definition. The series of great
laws, which he made during the earlier half of his reign, represented a
long effort to appropriate what was best in the age that had gone
before, and to combine it in orderly sequence. The same ideals mark the
constitutional policy of his later years. The materials for the future
constitution of England were already at his hand. It was a task well
within Edward's capacity to strengthen the authority of the crown by
associating the loyal nobles and clergy in the work of ruling the
state, and to build up a body politic in which every class of the
nation should have its part. Yet he never willingly surrendered the
most insignificant of his prerogatives, and if he took the people into
partnership with him, he did so with the firm belief that he would be a
more powerful king if his subjects loved and trusted him. Though
closely associated with his nobles by many ties of kinship and
affection, he was the uncompromising foe of feudal separatism, and
hotly resented even the constitutional control which the barons
regarded as their right. In the same way the unlimited franchises of
the lords of the Welsh march, the almost regal authority which the
treaty of Shrewsbury gave to the Prince of Wales, the rejection of his
claims as feudal overlord of Scotland, were abhorrent to his autocratic
disposition. True son of the Church though he was, he was the bitter
foe of ecclesiastical claims which, constantly encroaching beyond their
own sphere, denied kings the fulness of their authority.
Edward's policy was thoroughly comprehensive. He is not only the
"English Justinian" and the creator of our later constitution; he has
rightly been praised for his clear conception of the ideal of a united
Britain which brought him into collision with Welsh and Scots. His
foreign policy lay as near to his heart as the conquest of Wales or
Scotland, or the subjection of priests and nobles. He was eager to make
Gascony obey him, anxious to keep in check the French king, and to
establish a sort of European balance of power, of which England, as in
Wolsey's later dreams, was to be the tongue of the balance. Yet,
despite his severe schooling in self-control, he undertook more than he
could accomplish, and his failure was the more signal because he found
the utmost difficulty in discovering trustworthy subordinates.
Moreover, the limited resources of a medieval state, and the even more
limited control which a medieval ruler had over these resources, were
fatal obstacles in the way of too ambitious a policy. Edward had
inherited his father's load of debt, and could only accomplish great
things by further pledging his credit to foreign financiers, against
whom his subjects raised unending complaints. Yet, if his methods of
attaining his objects were sometimes mean and often violent, there was
a rare nobility about his general purpose.
Every precaution was taken to secure Edward's succession and the
establishment of the provisional administration which was to rule until
his return. Before leaving England in 1270, Edward had appointed as his
agents Walter Giffard, Archbishop of York, Roger Mortimer, and Robert
Burnell, his favourite clerk. The vacancy of the see of Canterbury
after Boniface's death placed Giffard in a position of peculiar
eminence. Appointed first lord of the council, he virtually became
regent; and he associated with himself in the administration of the
realm his two colleagues in the management of the new king's private
affairs. Early in 1273 a parliament of magnates and representatives of
shires and boroughs took oaths of allegiance to the king and continued
the authority of the three regents. By the double title of Edward's
personal delegation and the recognition of the estates, Giffard,
Mortimer, and Burnell ruled the country for the two years which were to
elapse before the sovereign's return. Their government was just,
economical, and peaceful. Even Gilbert of Gloucester remained quiet,
and, save for the refusal of the Prince of Wales to perform his feudal
obligations, the calm of the last years of the old reign continued. It
is evidence of constitutional progress that the administration was
carried on with so little friction in the absence of the monarch. Roger
Mortimer, the most formidable of the feudal baronage, was himself one
of the agents of this salutary change. The marcher chieftain put down
with promptitude an attempted revolt of north-country knights which
threatened public tranquillity.
Edward first heard of his father's death in Sicily, but the tidings of
the maintenance of peace rendered it unnecessary for him to hasten his
return, and he made his way slowly through Italy. In Sicily he was
entertained by his uncle, Charles of Anjou. Thence he went to Orvieto,
where the new pope, Gregory X., who, as archdeacon of Liege, had been
the comrade of his crusade, was then residing. From king and pope alike
Edward earnestly sought vengeance for the murder of Henry of Almaine.
Proceeding northwards, he was received with great pomp by the cities of
Lombardy, and made personal acquaintance with Savoy and its count,
Philip, his aged great-uncle. Crossing the Mont Cenis, he was welcomed
by bands of English magnates who had gone forth to meet him. He was
soon at the head of a little army, and in the true spirit of a hero of
romance halted to receive the challenge of the boastful Count of
Chalon. The tournament between the best knights of England and Burgundy
was fought out with such desperation that it became a serious battle.
At last Edward unhorsed the count in a personal encounter, which added
greatly to his fame. This "Little Battle of Chalon" was the last
victory of his irresponsible youth.
The serious business of kingcraft began when Edward met his cousin,
Philip III., at Paris. The news from England was still so good that
Edward resolved to remain in France with the twofold object of settling
his relations with the French monarchy and of receiving the homage and
regulating the affairs of Aquitaine. Despite the treaty of Paris of
1259, there were so many subjects of dispute between the English and
French kings that, beneath the warm protestations of affection between
the kinsmen, there was, as a French chronicler said, but a cat-and-dog
love between them.[1] The treaty had not been properly executed, and the
English had long complained that the French had not yielded up to
England their king's rights over the three bishoprics of Limoges,
Cahors, and Périgueux, which St. Louis had ceded. New complications
arose after the death of Alfonse of Poitiers in the course of the
Tunisian crusade. By the treaty of Paris the English king should then
have entered into possession of Saintonge south of the Charente, the
Agenais, and lower Quercy. But the ministers of Philip III. laid hands
upon the whole of Alfonse's inheritance and refused to surrender these
districts to the English. The welcome which Edward received from his
cousin at Paris could not blind him to the incompatibility of their
interests, nor to the impossibility of obtaining at the moment the
cession of the promised lands. He did not choose to tarry at Paris while
the diplomatists unravelled the tangled web of statecraft. Nor would he
tender an unconditional homage to the prince who withheld from him his
inheritance. Already a stickler for legal rights, even when used to his
own detriment, Edward was unable to deny his subjection to the overlord
of Aquitaine. He therefore performed homage, but he phrased his
submission in terms which left him free to urge his claims at a more
convenient season. "Lord king," he said to Philip, "I do you homage for
all the lands which I ought to hold of you." The vagueness of this
language suggested that, if Edward could not get Saintonge, he might
revive his claim to Normandy. The king appointed a commission to
continue the negotiations with the French court, and then betook himself
to Aquitaine.[2]
[1] "Hic amor dici potest amor cati et canis," _Chron. Limov._,
in _Recueil des Hist. de la France_, xxi., 784.
[2] C.V. Langlois' _Le Règne de Philippe le Hardi_ (1887), and
Gavrilovitch's _Le Traité de Paris_, give the best modern
accounts of Edward's early dealings with the French crown.
It was nearly ten years since the presence of the monarch had
restrained the turbulence of the Gascon duchy. Edward had before him
the task of watching over its internal administration, and checking the
subtle policy whereby the agents of the French crown were gradually
undermining his authority. Two wars, the war of Béarn and the war of
Limoges, desolated Gascony from the Pyrenees to the Vienne. It was
Edward's first task to bring these troubles to an end. Age and
experience had not diminished the ardour which had so long made Gaston
of Béarn the focus of every trouble in the Pyrenean lands. He defied a
sentence of the ducal court of Saint Sever, and was already at war with
the seneschal, Luke of Tany, when Edward's appearance brought matters
to a crisis. During the autumn and winter of 1273-74, Edward hunted out
Gaston from his mountain strongholds, and at last the Béarnais,
despairing of open resistance, appealed to the French king. Philip
accepted the appeal, and ordered Edward to desist from molesting Gaston
during its hearing. The English king, anxious not to quarrel openly
with the French court, granted a truce. The suit of Gaston long
occupied the parliament of Paris, but the good-will of the French
lawyers could not palliate the wanton violence of the Viscount of
Béarn. The French, like the English, were sticklers for formal right,
and were unwilling to push matters to extremities. Edward had the
reward of his forbearance, for Philip advised Gaston to go to England
and make his submission. Gratified by his restoration to Béarn in 1279,
Gaston remained faithful for the next few years. Edward was less
successful in dealing with Limoges. There had been for many years a
struggle between the commune of the castle, or _bourg_, of Limoges and
Margaret the viscountess. It was to no purpose that the townsfolk had
invoked the treaty of Paris, whereby, as they maintained, the French
king transferred to the King of England his ancient jurisdiction over
them. They were answered by a decree of the parliament of Paris that
the homage of the commune of Limoges belonged not to the crown but to
the viscountess, and that therefore the treaty involved no change in
their allegiance. Edward threw himself with ardour on to the side of
the burgesses. Guy of Lusignan, still the agent of his brother abroad,
though prudently excluded from England, was sent to Limoges, where he
incited the commune to resist the viscountess. In May, 1274, Edward
himself took up his quarters in Limoges, and for a month ruled there as
sovereign. But the French court reiterated the decree which made the
commune the vassal of the viscountess. To persevere in upholding the
rebels meant an open breach with the French court in circumstances more
unfavourable than in the case of Gaston of Béarn. Once more Edward
refused to allow his ambition to prevail over his sense of legal
obligation. With rare self-restraint he renounced the fealty of
Limoges, and abandoned his would-be subjects to the wrath of the
viscountess. This was an act of loyalty to feudal duty worthy of St.
Louis. If Edward, on later occasions, pressed his own legal claims
against his vassals, he set in his own case a pattern of strict
obedience to his overlord.
While Edward was still abroad, his friend Gregory X. held from May to
July, 1274, the second general council at Lyons, wherein there was much
talk of a new crusade, and an effort was made, which came very near
temporary success, towards healing the schism of the Eastern and
Western Churches. At Gregory's request Edward put off his coronation,
lest the celebration might call away English prelates from Lyons. When
the council was over, he at last turned towards his kingdom. At Paris
he was met by the mayor of London, Henry le Waleis, and other leading
citizens, who set before him the grievous results of the long disputes
with Flanders, which had broken off the commercial relations between
the two countries, and had inflicted serious losses on English trade.
Edward strove to bring the Flemings to their senses by prohibiting the
export of wool from England to the weaving towns of Flanders. The looms
of Ghent and Bruges were stopped by reason of the withholding of the
raw material, and the distress of his subjects made Count Guy of
Flanders anxious to end so costly a quarrel. On July 28 Edward met Guy
at Montreuil and signed a treaty which re-established the old
friendship between lands which stood in constant economic need of each
other. There was no longer any occasion for further delay, and on
August 2 Edward and his queen crossed over to Dover. Received with open
arms by his subjects, he was crowned at Westminster on August 19 by the
new Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Kilwardby, philosopher,
theologian, and Dominican friar, whom Gregory X. had placed over the
church of Canterbury, despite the vigorous efforts which Edward made to
secure the primacy for Robert Burnell. He had been absent from England
for four years.
Edward's sojourn in France was fruitful of results which he was unable
to reap for the moment. Conscious of the inveterate hostility of the
French king, he strove to establish relations with foreign powers to
counterbalance the preponderance of his rival. When the death of
Richard of Cornwall reopened the question of the imperial succession,
Charles of Anjou had been anxious to obtain the prize for his nephew,
Philip III., on the specious pretext that the headship of Christendom
would enable the King of France to "collect chivalry from all the
world" and institute the crusade which both Gregory X. and Edward so
ardently desired. But the most zealous enthusiast for the holy war
could hardly be deceived by the false zeal with which the Angevin
cloaked his overweening ambition. It was a veritable triumph for
Edward, when Gregory X., though attracted for a moment by the prospect
of a strong emperor capable of landing a crusade, accepted the choice
of the German magnates who, in terror of France, elected as King of the
Romans the strenuous but not overmighty Swabian count, Rudolf of
Hapsburg. As Alfonso of Castile's pretensions were purely nominal, this
election ended the Great Interregnum by restoring the empire on a
narrower but more practical basis. Though Gregory strove to reconcile
the French to Rudolf's accession, common suspicion of France bound
Edward and the new King of the Romans in a common friendship.
Family disputes soon destroyed the unity of policy of the Capetian
house. Philip III., well meaning but weak, was drifting into complete
dependence on Charles of Anjou, whom Edward distrusted, alike as the
protector of the murderers of Henry of Almaine and as the supplanter of
his mother in the Provençal heritage. Margaret of Provence, the widow
of St. Louis, had a common grievance with Edward and his mother against
Charles of Anjou. She hated him the more inasmuch as he was depriving
her of all influence over her son, King Philip. It was easy in such
circumstances for the two widowed queens of France and England to form
grandiose schemes for ousting Charles from Provence. Rudolf lent
himself to their plans by investing Margaret with the county. Edward's
filial piety and political interests made him a willing partner in
these designs. In 1278 he betrothed his daughter Joan of Acre to
Hartmann, the son of the King of the Romans. The plan of Edward and
Rudolf was to revive in some fashion the kingdom of Arles[1] in favour
of the young couple. Though Rudolf was unfaithful to this policy, and
abandoned the proposed English marriage in favour of a match between
his daughter and the son of the King of Sicily, the two queens
persisted in their plans, and new combinations against Charles and
Philip for some years threatened the peace of Europe.
[1] Fournier's _Le Royaume d'Arles et de Vienne_ (1891) gives
the best modern account of Edward's relations to the Middle
Kingdom.
It is unlikely that Edward hoped for serious results from schemes so
incoherent and backed with such slender resources. Besides his alliance
with the emperor, he strove to injure the French king by establishing
close relations with his brother-in-law, Alfonso of Castile, who since
1276 was at war with the French. Earlier than this, he made himself the
champion of Blanche of Artois, the widow of Henry III. of Navarre and
Champagne. He wished that Joan, their only child, should bring her
father's lands to one of his own sons, and, though disappointed in this
ambition, he managed to marry his younger brother, Edmund of Lancaster,
to Blanche. Though the French took possession of Navarre, whereby they
alike threatened Gascony and Castile, they suffered Blanche to rule in
Champagne in her daughter's name, and Edmund was associated with her in
the government of that county. The tenure of a great French fief by the
brother of the English king was a fresh security against the
aggressions of the kings of France and Sicily. It probably facilitated
the conclusion of the long negotiations as to the interpretation of the
treaty of Paris, and the partition of the inheritance of Alfonse of
Poitiers. Edward's position against France was further strengthened in
1279 by the death of his wife's mother, Joan of Castile, the widow of
Ferdinand the Saint and the stepmother of Alfonso the Wise, whereupon
he took possession of Ponthieu in Eleanor's name. Scarcely had he
established himself at Abbeville, the capital of the Picard county,
than the negotiations at Paris were so far ripened that Philip III.
went to Amiens, where Edward joined him. On May 23 both kings agreed to
accept the treaty of Amiens by which the more important of the
outstanding difficulties between the two nations were amicably
regulated. By it Philip recognised Eleanor as Countess of Ponthieu, and
handed over a portion of the inheritance of Alfonse of Poitiers to
Edward. Agen and the Agenais were ceded at once, and a commission was
appointed to investigate Edward's claims over lower Quercy. In return
for this Edward yielded up his illusory rights over the three
bishoprics of Limoges, Périgueux, and Cahors. It was a real triumph for
English diplomacy.
No lasting peace could arise from acts which emphasised the essential
incompatibility of French and English interests by enlarging the
territory of the English kings in France. The undercurrent of hostility
still continued; and the proposal of Pope Nicholas III. that Edward
should act as mediator between Philip III. and Alfonso of Castile led
to difficulties that deeply incensed Edward, and embroiled him once
more both with France and Spain. Under Angevin influence, both Philip
and Alfonso rejected Edward's mediation in favour of that of the Prince
of Salerno, Charles of Anjou's eldest son. Disgust at this
unfriendliness made Edward again support the plans of Margaret of
Provence against the Angevins. In 1281 Margaret's intrigues formed a
combination of feudal magnates called the League of Macon, with the
object of prosecuting her claims over Provence by force of arms. Edward
and his mother, Eleanor, his Savoyard kinsfolk, and Edmund of Lancaster
all entered into the league. But it was hopeless for a disorderly crowd
of lesser chieftains, with the nominal support of a distant prince like
Edward, to conquer Provence in the teeth of the hostility of the
strongest and the ablest princes of the age. The League of Macon came
to nothing, like so many other ambitious combinations of a time in
which men's capacity to form plans transcended their capacity to
execute them. Margaret herself soon despaired of the way of arms and
was bought off by a money compensation. The league mainly served to
keep alive the troubles that still separated England and France. In
1284 Philip gained a new success in winning the hand of Joan of
Champagne, Count Edmund's step-daughter, for his son, the future Philip
the Fair. When Joan attained her majority, Edmund lost the custody of
Champagne, which went to the King of France as the natural protector of
his son and his son's bride. With his brother's withdrawal from Provins
to Lancaster, Edward lost one of his means of influencing the course of
French politics.
A compensation for these failures was found in 1282 when the Sicilian
vespers rang the knell of the Angevin power in Sicily. When the
revolted islanders chose Peter, King of Aragon, as their sovereign,
Charles, seeking to divert him from Sicily by attacking him at home,
inspired his partisan, Pope Martin IV., to preach a crusade against
Aragon. It was in vain that Edward strove to mediate between the two
kings.
The only response made to his efforts was a fantastic proposal that
they should fight out their differences in a tournament at Bordeaux
with him as umpire, but Edward refused to have anything to do with the
pseudo-chivalrous venture. At last, in 1285, Philip III. lent himself
to his uncle's purpose so far as to lead a papalist crusade over the
Pyrenees. The movement was a failure. Philip lost his army and his life
in Aragon, and his son and successor, Philip IV., at once withdrew from
the undertaking. In the year of the crusade of Aragon, Charles of
Anjou, Peter of Aragon, and Martin IV. died. With them the struggles,
which had begun with the attack on Frederick II, reached their
culminating point. Their successors continued the quarrel with
diminished forces and less frantic zeal, and so gave Edward his best
chance to pose as the arbiter of Europe. Though Edward's continental
policy lay so near his heart that it can hardly be passed over, it was
fuller of vain schemes than of great results. Yet it was not altogether
fruitless, since twelve years of resolute and moderate action raised
England, which under Henry III. was of no account in European affairs,
to a position only second to that of France, and that under conditions
more nearly approaching the modern conception of a political balance
and a European state system than feudalism, imperialism, and papalism
had hitherto rendered possible.
In domestic policy, seven years of monotonous administration had in a
way prepared for vigorous reforms. Edward's return to England in 1274
was quickly followed by the dismissal of Walter of Merton, the
chancellor of the years of quiescence. He was succeeded by Robert
Burnell, who, though foiled in his quest of Canterbury, obtained an
adequate standing by his preferment to the bishopric of Bath and Wells.
For the eighteen years of life which still remained to him, Bishop
Burnell held the chancery and possessed the chief place in Edward's
counsels. The whole of this period was marked by a constant legislative
activity which ceased so soon after Burnell's death that it is tempting
to assign at least as large a part of the law-making of the reign to
the minister as to the sovereign. A consummate lawyer and diplomatist,
Burnell served Edward faithfully. Nor was his fidelity impaired either
by the laxity which debarred him from higher ecclesiastical preferment
or by his ambitious endeavours to raise the house of Shropshire squires
from which he sprang into a great territorial family. Edward gave him
his absolute confidence and was blind even to his defects.
The first general parliament of the reign to which the king summoned
the commons was held at Westminster in the spring of 1275. Its work was
the statute of Westminster the First, a comprehensive measure of many
articles which covered almost the whole field of legislation, and is
especially noteworthy for the care which its compilers took to uphold
sound administration and put down abuses. Not less important was the
provision of an adequate revenue for the debt-burdened king. The same
parliament made Edward a permanent grant of a custom on wool,
wool-fells, and leather, which remained henceforth a chief source of
the regular income of the crown. The later imposition of further duties
soon caused men to describe the customs of 1275 as the "Great and
Ancient Custom". It was significant of the economic condition of
England that the great custom was a tax on exports, not imports, and
that, with the exception of leather, it was a tax on raw materials.
Granted the more willingly since the main incidence of it was upon the
foreign merchants, who bought up English wool for the looms of Flanders
and Brabant, the custom proved a source of revenue which could easily
be manipulated, increased, and assigned in advance to the Italian
financiers, willing to lend money to a necessitous king. A new step in
our financial history was attained when this tax on trade steps into
the place so long held by the taxes on land, from which the Normans and
Angevins had derived their enormous revenue.
The statute of Westminster the First had a long series of fellows. Next
year came the statute of Rageman, which supplemented an earlier inquest
into abuses by instituting a special inquiry in cases of trespass. In
1277 the first Welsh war interrupted the current of legislation. The
break was compensated for in 1278 by the passing of the important
statute of Gloucester, the consummation of a policy which Edward had
adopted as soon as he set foot on English soil. The troubles of Edward's
youth had made clear to him the obstacles thrown in the path of orderly
government by the great territorial franchises. He had been forced to
modify his policy to gratify the lord of Glamorgan, and win over the
house of Mortimer by the erection of a new franchise that was a
palatinate in all but name. But such great "regalities" were, after all,
exceptional. Much more irritating to an orderly mind were the
innumerable petty immunities which made half the hundreds in England the
appendages of baronial estates, and such common privileges as "return of
writs," which prevented the sheriff's officers from executing his
mandates on numerous manors where the lords claimed that the execution
of writs must be entrusted to their bailiffs.[1] These widespread powers
in private hands were the more annoying to the king since they were
commonly exercised with no better warrant than long custom, and without
direct grant from him.
[1] See on "return of writs" and a host of similar immunities,
Pollock and Maitland's _History of English Law_, i., 558-82.
Bracton had already laid down the doctrine that no prescription can
avail against the rights of the crown, and it was a commonplace with the
lawyers of the age that nothing less than a clear grant by royal charter
could justify such delegation of the sovereign's powers into private
hands. Within a few months of his landing, Edward sent out commissioners
to inquire into the baronial immunities. The returns of these inquests,
which were carried out hundred by hundred, are embodied in the precious
documents called the Hundred Rolls. The study of these reports inspired
the procedure of the statute of Gloucester, by which royal officers were
empowered to traverse the land demanding by what warrant the lords of
franchises exercised their powers. The demand of the crown for
documentary proof of royal delegation would have destroyed more than
half the existing liberties. But aristocratic opinion deserted Edward
when he strove to carry out so violent a revolution. The irritation of
the whole baronage is well expressed in the story of how Earl Warenne,
unsheathing a rusty sword, declared to the commissioners: "Here is my
warrant. My ancestors won their lands with the sword. With my sword I
will defend them against all usurpers." Nor was this mere boasting. The
return of the king's officers tells us that Warenne would not say of
whom, or by what services, he held his Yorkshire stronghold of
Conisborough, and that his bailiffs refused them entrance into his
liberties and would not suffer his tenants to answer or appear before
them.[1] Edward found it prudent not to press his claims. He disturbed
few men in their franchises, and was content to have collected the mass
of evidence embodied in the _placita de quo warranto_, and thus to have
stopped the possibility of any further growth of the franchises. A few
years later he accepted the compromise that continuous possession since
the coronation of Richard I. was a sufficient answer to a writ of _quo
warranto_. In this lies the whole essence of Edward's policy in relation
to feudalism, a policy very similar to that of St. Louis. Every man is
to have his own, and the king is not to inquire too curiously what a
man's own was. But no extension of any private right was to be
tolerated. Thus feudalism as a principle of political jurisdiction
gradually withered away, because it was no longer suffered to take fresh
root. The later land legislation of Edward's reign pushed the idea still
further.
[1] _Kirkby's Quest for Yorkshire_, pp. 3, 227, 231, Surtees
Soc.
In 1278 it had been the turn of the barons to suffer. Next came the
turn of the Church. Though Edward was a true son of the Church, he saw
as clearly as William the Conqueror and Henry II. the essential
incompatibility between the royal supremacy and the pretensions of the
extreme ecclesiastics. The limits of Church and State, the growth of
clerical wealth and immunities, and the relations of the world-power of
the pope to the local authority of the king, were problems which no
strong king could afford to neglect, and perhaps were incapable of
solution on medieval lines. Edward saw that the most practical way of
dealing with clerical claims was for him to stand in good personal
relations to the chief dispensers of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. With
a pope like Gregory X. it was easy for Edward to be on friendly terms;
but it was more difficult to feel any cordiality for the dogmatic
canonists or the furious Guelfic partisans who too often occupied the
chair of St. Peter. Yet Edward was shrewd enough to see that it was
worth while making sacrifices to keep on his side the power which,
alike under Innocent III. and Clement IV., had given valuable
assistance to his grandfather and father in their struggle against
domestic enemies. Moreover the enormous growth of the system of papal
provisions had given the papacy the preponderating authority in the
selection of the bishops of the English Church. It was only by yielding
to the popes, whenever it was possible, that Edward could secure the
nomination of his own candidates to the chief ecclesiastical posts in
his own realm.
In the earlier years of his reign Edward was luckier in his relations
to the popes than to his own archbishops. But he found that his power
at Rome broke down just where he wanted to exercise it most. He was
disgusted to find how little influence he had in the selection of the
Archbishops of Canterbury. Gregory X. sent to Canterbury the Dominican
Robert Kilwardby, the first mendicant to hold high place in the English
Church. Kilwardby was translated in 1278 to the cardinal bishopric of
Porto, a post of greater dignity but less emolument and power than the
English archbishopric. A cardinal bishop was bound to reside at Rome,
and the real motive for this doubtful promotion was the desire to
remove Kilwardby from England and to send a more active man in his
place. Edward's indiscreet devotion to Bishop Burnell led him again to
press his friend's claims, but, though he persuaded the monks of Christ
Church to elect him, Nicholas III. quashed the appointment, and
selected the Franciscan friar, John Peckham, as archbishop. Peckham, a
famous theologian and physicist, had been a distinguished professor at
Paris, Oxford, and Rome. He was high-minded, honourable and zealous, a
saint as well as a scholar, an enthusiast for Church reform and a
vigorous upholder of the extremest hierarchical pretensions. Fussy,
energetic, tactless, he was the true type of the academic ecclesiastic,
and alike in his personal qualities and his wonderful grasp of detail,
he may be compared to Archbishop Laud. Though received by Edward with a
rare magnanimity, Friar John allowed no personal considerations of
gratitude to interpose between him and his duty. Reaching England in
June, 1279, he presided, within six weeks of his landing, at a
provincial council at Reading. In this gathering canons were passed
against pluralities which frightened every benefice hunter among the
clerks of the royal household. Orders were also issued for the
periodical denunciation of ecclesiastical penalties against all
violators of the Great Charter in a fashion that suggested that the
king was an habitual offender against the fundamental laws of his
realm.
Edward wrathfully laid the usurpations of the new primate before
parliament, and forced Peckham to withdraw all the canons dealing with
secular matters, and particularly those which concerned the Great
Charter. The king set up the counter-claims of the State against the
pretensions of the Church, and the estates passed the statute of
Mortmain of 1279 as the layman's answer to the canons of Reading. Like
most of Edward's laws the statute of Mortmain was based on earlier
precedents. The wealth of the Church had long inspired statesmen with
alarm, and a true follower of St. Francis like Peckham was specially
convinced of the need of reducing the clergy to apostolic poverty. By
the new law all grants of land to ecclesiastical corporations were
expressly prohibited, under the penalty of the land being forfeited to
its supreme lord. The statute was not a mere political weapon of the
moment. It had a wider importance as a step in the development of
Edward's anti-feudal policy, and may be regarded as a counterpart of
the inquest into franchises, and as a means of protecting the State as
well as of disciplining the Church. A corporation never died, and never
paid reliefs or wardships. Its property never escheated for want of
heirs, and, as scutages were passing out of fashion, ecclesiastics were
less valuable to the king in times of war than lay lords. The recent
exigencies of the Welsh war had emphasised the need of strengthening
the military defences of the crown, and the new statute secured this by
preventing the further devolution of lands into the dead hand of the
Church. But all medieval laws were rather enunciations of an ideal than
measures which practical statesmen aimed at carrying out in detail. The
statute of Mortmain hardly stayed the creation of fresh monasteries and
colleges, or the further endowment of old ones. All that was necessary
for the pious founder was to obtain a royal dispensation from the
operation of the statute. There was little need to fear that the new
law would stand in the way of the power of the ecclesiastical estate.
A more distinct challenge to the Church was provoked by a further
aggression of Peckham in 1281. In that year the primate summoned a
council at Lambeth, wherein he sought to withdraw from the cognisance of
the civil courts all suits concerning patronage and the disposition of
the personal effects of ecclesiastics. To extend the jurisdiction of the
_forum ecclesiasticum_ was the surest way of exciting the hostility of
the common lawyers and the king. Once more Edward annulled the
proceedings of a council, and once more the submission of Peckham saved
the land from a conflict which might have assumed the proportions of
Becket's struggle against Henry II. Four years later Edward pressed his
advantage still further by the royal ordinance of 1285, called
_Circumspecte agatis_, which, though accepting the supremacy of the
Church courts within their own sphere, narrowly defined the limits of
their power in matters involving a temporal element. Again Peckham was
fain to acquiesce. His policy had not only irritated the king, but
alienated his fellow bishops. He visited his province with pertinacity
and minuteness, and he was the less able to stand up against the king as
he was engaged in violent quarrels with all his own suffragans. The
leader of the bishops in resisting his claims was Thomas of Cantilupe.
Restored to England by the liberal policy of Edward, Montfort's
chancellor after Lewes had been raised to the see of Hereford, where his
sanctity and devotion won him the universal love of his flock. Involved
in costly lawsuits with the litigious primate, Thomas was forced to
leave his diocese to plead his cause before the papal _curia_. He died
in Italy in 1282, and his relics, carried back by his followers to his
own cathedral, won the reputation of working miracles. A demand arose
for his canonisation, and Edward before his death had secured the
appointment of the papal commission, which, a few years later, added St.
Thomas of Hereford to the list of saints.[1] Thus the chancellor of
Montfort obtained the honour of sanctity through the action of the
victor of Evesham.
[1] The _processus canonisationis_ of Cantilupe, printed in the
Bollandist _Acta Sanctorum_, Oct. 1, 539-705, illustrates many
aspects of this period.
The second Welsh war interrupted both the conflict between Edward and
the archbishop, and the course of domestic legislation. Yet even in the
midst of his campaigns Edward issued the statute of Acton Burnell of
1283, which provided a better way of recovering merchants' debts, and
the statute of Rhuddlan of 1284 for the regulation of the king's
exchequer. The king's full activity as a lawgiver was renewed after the
settlement of his conquest by the statute of Wales of 1284, and the
legislation of his early years culminated in the two great acts of
1285, the statute of Westminster the Second, and the statute of
Winchester. That year, which also witnessed the passing of the
_Circumspecte agatis_, stands out as the most fruitful in lawmaking in
the whole of Edward's reign.
The second statute of Westminster, passed in the spring parliament,
partook of the comprehensive character of the first statute of that
name. There were clauses by which, as the Canon of Oseney puts it,
"Edward revived the ancient laws which had slumbered through the
disturbance of the realm: some corrupted by abuse he restored to their
proper form: some less evident and apparent he declared: some new ones,
useful and honourable, he added". Among the more conspicuous
innovations of the second statute of Westminster was the famous clause
De _donis conditionalibus_, which forms a landmark in the law of real
property. It facilitated the creation of entailed estates by providing
that the rights of an heir of an estate, granted upon conditions, were
not to be barred on account of the alienation of such an estate by its
previous tenant. Thus arose those estates for life, which in later ages
became a special feature of the English land system, and which, by
restricting the control of the actual possessor of a property over his
land, did much to perpetuate the worst features of medieval
land-holding. It is a modern error to regard the legitimation of
estates in tail as a triumph of reactionary feudalism over the will of
Edward. Apart from the fact that there is not a tittle of contemporary
evidence to justify such a view, it is manifest that the interest of
the king was in this case exactly the same as that of each individual
lord of a manor. The greater prospect of reversion to the donor, and
the other features of the system of entails, which commended them to
the petty baron, were still more attractive to the king, the greatest
proprietor as well as the ultimate landlord of all the realm. Other
articles of the Westminster statute were only less important than the
clause _De donis_, notable among them being the institution of justices
of _nisi prius_, appointed to travel through the shires three times a
year to hear civil causes. This was part of the simplification and
concentration of judicial machinery, whereby Edward made tolerable the
circuit system which under Henry III. had been a prolific source of
grievances.
While in the statute of Westminster Edward prepared for the future, the
companion statute of Winchester, the work of the autumn parliament,
revived the jurisdiction of the local courts; reformed the ancient
system of watch and ward, and brought the ancient system of popular
courts into harmony with the jurisdiction emanating from the crown,
which had gone so far towards superseding it. This measure marks the
culmination of Edward's activity as a lawgiver. During the five next
years there were no more important statutes.