THE FRENCH AND SCOTTISH WARS AND THE CONFIRMATION OF THE CHARTERS.
Troubles arose between France and England soon after Edward had settled
the Scottish succession. Neither Edward nor Philip the Fair sought a
conflict. Edward was satisfied with his diplomatic successes, and
Philip's designs upon Gascony were better pursued by chicane than by
warfare. But questions arose of a different kind from the disputes as to
feudal right, which had been hitherto the principal matters in debate
between the two crowns.
There had long been keen commercial rivalry between the Cinque Ports and
the traders of Normandy. The sailors of Bayonne and other Gascon
harbours had associated themselves with the English against the Normans,
and both sides loudly complained to their respective rulers of the
piracies and homicides committed by their enemies. Edward and Philip did
what they could to smooth over matters, but were alike unable to prevent
their subjects flying at each other's throats. The story spread that a
Norman ship was to be seen in the Channel with' English sailors and dogs
hanging suspended from her yard-arms: "And so," says Hemingburgh, "they
sailed over the sea, making no difference between a dog and an
Englishman". Indignation at this outrage drove the English to act
together in large organised squadrons. The French adopted the same
tactics, and a collision soon ensued. On May 15, 1293, an Anglo-Gascon
merchant fleet encountered a Norman fleet off Saint Mahe in Brittany. A
pitched battle, probably prearranged, at once ensued. It ended in a
complete victory for the less numerous English squadron, which
immediately returned to Portsmouth, laden with booty.
Even after this, Edward strove to keep the peace, and endeavoured to
exact compensation from his subjects. They answered with a highly
coloured narrative of the dispute which threw the whole blame upon the
Normans. Philip, changing his policy, took up his subjects' cause, and
summoned Edward to answer in January, 1294, before the Parliament of
Paris for the piracy exercised by his mariners, the misdeeds of his
Gascon subjects, and the violent measures taken by his officers against
any who appealed to the court of Paris. Edward sent his brother, Edmund,
to reply for him. As Count of Champagne and the step-father of Philip's
wife, Joan, Edmund seemed a peculiarly acceptable negotiator. After long
debates, the personal intervention of the French queen, and Philip's
step-mother, Mary of Brabant, resulted in an agreement being arranged.
The overlord's grievances could not be denied, and it was urged that the
formal surrender of part of Gascony might be made by way of recognising
them. French garrisons were therefore to be admitted into six Gascon
strongholds; twenty Gascon hostages were to be delivered over to Philip,
while the seisin of the duchy was also to be transferred to the French
king, who pledged himself not to change the officials nor to occupy the
land in force. The whole business was in fact to be as formal as the
delivery of the seisin of Scotland to Edward during the suit for the
succession. Meanwhile, Edward and Philip were to arrange a meeting at
Amiens to settle the conditions of a permanent peace, by which Edward
was to take Philip's sister, Margaret, as his second wife, and the
Gascon duchy was to be settled upon the offspring of the union. That
Edward or Edmund should ever have contemplated such terms is a strong
proof of their zeal for peace. It soon became clear that Edmund had been
outrageously duped, and that the whole negotiation was a trick to secure
for Philip the permanent possession of Gascony. The constable of France
appeared on the Aquitanian frontier. The English seneschal surrendered
the six castles and the seisin of the land. Gradually the French king
began to take actual possession of the government. Moreover, after three
months, the proceedings against Edward in the parliament of Paris were
resumed; Edward was declared contumacious on the ground of his
non-appearance, and sentence of forfeiture was passed.
Philip's treachery was thus manifest? and in great disgust Edmund
withdrew from France. Edward was deeply indignant. In a parliament, held
in June, 1294, which was attended by the King of Scots, war was resolved
upon. The feudal tenants were summoned to assemble at Portsmouth on
September 1; and Edward appealed for help to his Gascon subjects,
beseeching their pardon for having negotiated the fatal treaty, and
promising a speedy effort to restore them to his obedience. He sent them
his nephew, John of Brittany, as his lieutenant and captain-general,
under whom John of St. John was to act as seneschal of Gascony.
Ambassadors were despatched to all neighbouring courts to build up a
coalition against the French. Strenuous efforts were made to get
together men and money, and the clergy were forced to make a grant of a
half of their spiritual income. Edward overbore their opposition amidst
a scene of excitement in which the Dean of St. Paul's fell dead at the
king's feet. The shires were mulcted of a tenth and the boroughs of a
sixth. And besides these constitutional exactions, the king laid violent
hands on all the coined money deposited in the treasuries of the
churches, and appropriated the wool of the merchants, which he only
restored on the payment of a heavy pecuniary redemption. Meanwhile,
about Michaelmas the lieutenant and the seneschal sailed with a fairly
strong force. Further levies were summoned to assemble at Portsmouth at
later dates. Besides the ordinary tenants of the crown, writs were sent
to the chief magnates of Ireland and Scotland; and Wales and its march
were called upon to furnish all the men that could be mustered. The
Earls of Cornwall and Lincoln were appointed to the command, and Edward
himself proposed to follow them to Gascony as soon as he could.
At the moment of the departure of John of Brittany a sudden insurrection
in Wales frustrated Edward's plans. All Wales was ripe for revolt. In
the principality the Cymry resented English rule, and the sulky marchers
stood aloof in sullen discontent, while their native tenants, seeing in
the recent humiliation of Gloucester and Hereford the degradation of all
their lords, lost respect for such powerless masters. Both in the
principality and in the marches, Edward's demand for compulsory service
in Gascony was universally regarded as a new aggression. The intensity
of the resistance to his demand can be measured by the general nature of
the insurrection, and by the admirable way in which it was organised. As
by a common signal all Wales rose at Michaelmas, 1294. One Madog,
probably a bastard son of Llewelyn, son of Griffith, raised all Gwynedd,
took possession of Carnarvon castle, and closely besieged the other
royal strongholds. In west Wales a chieftain named Maelgwn was equally
successful in Carmarthen and Cardigan. The marches were in arms equally
with the principality. In the north, Lincoln's tenants in Rhos and
Rhuvoniog besieged Denbigh, and threatened the king's fortresses in
Flint. Maelgwn's sphere of operations included the earldom of Pembroke,
while Brecon rose against Hereford, and Glamorgan against Gilbert of
Gloucester. Morgan, the leader of the Glamorganshire rebels, loudly
declared that he did not rebel against the king but against the Earl of
Gloucester. With the beginning of winter the state of Wales was more
critical than in the worst times of the winter of 1282.
Edward postponed his attack on Philip in order to throw all his energies
into the reduction of Wales. The levies assembled at Portsmouth for the
Gascon expedition were hurried beyond the Severn. The king held another
parliament and exacted a fresh supply. Criminals were offered pardon and
good wages, if they would serve, first in Wales and then in Gascony.
Before Christmas about a thousand men-at-arms were mustered at various
border centres under the royal standards, while every marcher lord was
busily engaged in putting down his own rebels. Before so great a force
the Welsh could do but little, and the spring saw the extinction of the
rebellion. But there was hard fighting both in the south and in the
north. Edward himself undertook the reconquest of Gwynedd. He was at
Conway before the end of the year, and in his haste he threw himself
into the town while the mass of his army remained on the right bank of
the river. High tides and winter floods made the crossing of the stream
impossible, and for a short time the king was actually besieged by the
rebels. Conway was unprepared for resistance and almost destitute of
supplies. The garrison thought it a terrible hardship that they had to
live on salt meat and bread, and to drink water mixed with honey. They
were encouraged by Edward refusing to taste better fare than his
troopers, and declining to partake of the one small measure of wine
reserved for his use. William Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, conveyed his
troops across the estuary and raised the siege. Yet the insurgents were
still able to fight a pitched battle. About January 22, 1295, Warwick
found the Welsh established in a strong position in a plain between two
woods. They had fixed the butts of their lances into the ground, hoping
thus to resist the shock of a cavalry charge. Improving on the tactics
of Orewyn bridge, the earl stationed between his squadrons of knights,
archers and crossbowmen, whose missiles inflicted such loss on the Welsh
lines that the cavalry soon found it safe to charge. The Welsh were
utterly broken, and never in a single day did they suffer such enormous
losses. Even more important than its results in breaking the back of
Madog's insurrection, this battle of Maes Madog--or Madog's field, as
the Welsh called the place of their defeat--is of the highest importance
in the development of infantry tactics. The order of the victorious
force strikingly anticipates the great battles in Scotland and France of
a later generation. In obscure fights, like Orewyn bridge and Maes
Madog, the English learnt the famous battle array which was to overwhelm
the Scots in the later years of Edward's reign and prepare the way for
the triumphs of Crecy and Poitiers.
Madog still held out, and with the advent of spring, 1295, Edward began
to hunt him from his lairs. Gwynedd was cleared of the enemy and
Anglesey was reconquered. Carnarvon castle arose from its ruins in the
stately form that we still know, while on the Anglesey side of the Menai
the new stronghold of Beaumaris arose, to ensure the subjection of the
granary of Gwynedd. In May Edward felt strong enough to undertake a
progress in South Wales. After receiving the submissions of the rebels
of Cardigan and Carmarthen, he won back for the lords of Brecon and
Glamorgan the lands which, without his help, they had been unable to
conquer. The Welsh chieftains were leniently treated. While Madog was
imprisoned in the Tower, Morgan was at once set at liberty. By July
Edward was able to leave Wales. Yet his triumph had taxed all his
resources, and left him, overwhelmed with debt, to face the irritation
of subjects unaccustomed to such demands upon their loyalty and
patriotism. But nothing broke his dauntless spirit, and once more he
busied himself in obtaining revenge on the false King of France.
It was inevitable that the Welsh war should have reduced to slender
proportions the expedition of John of Brittany and John of St. John for
the recovery of Gascony. After a tedious voyage the English expedition
sailed up the Gironde late in October, 1294. Their forces, strong enough
to capture Bourg and Blaye, were not sufficient to attack Bordeaux.
Leaving the capital in the hands of its conquerors, the English sailed
past Bordeaux to Rioms, where they disembarked. The small towns of the
neighbourhood were taken and garrisoned, and the Gascon lords began to
flock to the camp of their duke. Before long the army was large enough
to be divided. John of Brittany remained at Rioms, while John of St.
John marched overland to Bayonne. The French garrison was unable to
overpower the enthusiasm of the Bayonnais for Edward, and the capture of
the second town of Gascony was the greatest success attained by the
invaders. With the spring of 1295, however, Charles of Valois, brother
of the King of France, was sent to operate against John of Brittany. The
English and Gascons found themselves unable to make head against him.
There was ill-feeling between the two nations that made up the army, and
also between the nobly-born knights and men-at-arms and the foot
soldiers. The infantry mutinied, and John of Brittany fled by night down
the river from Rioms, leaving many of his knights and all his horses and
armour in the town. Next day Rioms opened its gates to Charles of
Valois, who gained immense spoils and many distinguished prisoners. Save
for the capture of Bayonne, the expedition had been a disastrous
failure.
Edward failed even more signally in his efforts to defeat Philip by
diplomacy. He had left no effort unspared to build up a great coalition
against the French king. He "sent a great quantity of sterling money
beyond the sea," and made alliances with all the princes and barons that
he could find.[1] At first it seemed that he had succeeded. Adolf of
Nassau, the poor and dull, but strenuous and hard-fighting King of the
Romans, concluded a treaty with England, and did not think it beneath
the dignity of the lord of the world to take the pay of the English
monarch. Many vassals of the empire, especially in the Netherlands, the
Rhineland, and Burgundy followed Adolf's example. Edward strengthened
his party further by marrying three of his daughters to the Duke of
Brabant, the son of the Count of Holland, and the Count of Bar as the
price of their adherence to the coalition. He made closer his ancient
friendship with Guy of Dampierre, the old Count of Flanders, by
betrothing Edward of Carnarvon to his daughter Philippine. At the same
time he sought the friendship of the lords of the Pyrenees, such as the
Count of Foix, and of the kings of the Spanish peninsula. But nothing
came of the hopes thus excited, save fair promises and useless
expenditure. Before long Philip of France was able to build up a French
party in appearance as formidable-in reality as useless as Edward's
attempted confederation. Edward's most important ally, Guy of Flanders,
was forced to renounce his daughter's marriage to the heir of England
and hand her over to Philip's custody. The time was not yet come for
effective European coalitions; the real fighting had to be done by the
parties directly interested in the quarrel.
[1] See a contemporary notice printed by F. Funck-Brentano in
_Revue Historique_, xxxix. (1889), pp. 329-30.
The command of the sea continued to be a vital question. The Norman
sailors were eager to avenge their former defeats, and Philip saw that
the best way to preserve his hold over Gascony was to be master of the
Channel and the Bay of Biscay. Edward prepared to meet attack by
establishing an organisation of the English navy which marks an epoch in
the history of our admiralty. He divided the vessels told off to guard
the sea into three classes, and set over each a separate admiral. John
of Botecourt was made admiral of the Yarmouth and eastern fleet; William
of Leyburn was set over the navy at Portsmouth; and the western and
Irish squadron was put under a valiant knight of Irish origin. Meanwhile
the French planned an invasion of England, and promised James of Aragon
that, when England was conquered, its king should be considered his
personal prize. Galleys were hired at Marseilles and Genoa for service
in the Channel, and Sir Thomas Turberville, a Glamorganshire knight
captured at Rioms, turned traitor and was restored to England in the
hope that he might obtain the custody of some seaport and betray it to
the enemy. Turberville strove in vain to induce Morgan to head another
revolt in Glamorgan, and urged upon Philip the need of an alliance with
the Scots. At last the invasion was attempted, and the French admiral,
Matthew of Montmorenci, sacked and burnt the town of Dover. Luckily,
however, Turberville's treason was discovered, and the Yarmouth fleet
soon avenged the attack on Dover by burning Cherbourg. In the face of
such resistance, Philip IV. abandoned his plan of invasion and tried to
establish a sort of "continental blockade" of English ports in which a
modern writer has seen an anticipation of the famous dream of
Napoleon.[1] Though nothing came of these grandiose schemes, yet the
efforts made to organise invasion had their permanent importance as
resulting in the beginnings of the French royal navy. As late as 1297 a
Genoese was appointed admiral of France in the Channel, and strongly
urged the invasion of England and its devastation by fire and flame. But
the immediate result of Philip's efforts to cut off England from the
continent was that his Flemish allies found in his policy a new reason
for abandoning his service. On January 7, 1297, a fresh treaty of
alliance between Edward and Guy, Count of Flanders, was concluded.
[1] See for this Jourdain, _Mémoire sur les Commencements de la
Marine française sous Philippe le Bel_ (1880), and C. de la
Roncière, _Le Blocus continental de l'Angleterre sous Philippe
le Bel_ in _Revue des Questions historiques_, lx. (1896),
401-41.
More effective than Philip's efforts to combine the Continent against
the English were his endeavours to stir up opposition to Edward in
Britain. The Welsh rising of 1294 had taken place independently of him,
but it was not Philip's fault that Morgan did not once more excite
Glamorgan to rebellion. A better opening for intrigue was found in
Scotland. Ever since the accession of John Balliol, there had been
appeals from the Scottish courts to those of Edward. Certain suits begun
under the regency, which had acted in Edward's name from 1290 to 1292,
gave the overlord an opportunity of inserting the thin end of the wedge;
and it looked as if, after a few years, appeals from Edinburgh to London
would be as common as appeals from Bordeaux to Paris. But whatever were
the ancient relations of England and Scotland, it is clear that the
custom of appeals to the English king had never previously been
established. It was no wonder then that what seemed to Edward an
inevitable result of King John's submission, appeared to the Scots an
unwarrantable restriction of their independence.
The weakness and simplicity of King John left matters to take their
course for a time, but the king, who was not strong enough to stand up
against Edward, was not the man to resist the pressure of his own
subjects. On his return from the London parliament of June, 1294, the
Scots barons virtually deposed him. A committee was set up by parliament
consisting of four bishops, four earls, and four barons which, though
established professedly on the model of the twelve peers of France, had
a nearer prototype in the fifteen appointed under the Provisions of
Oxford. To this body the whole power of the Scottish monarchy was
transferred, so that John became a mere puppet, unable to act without
the consent of his twelve masters. Under this new government the
relations of England and Scotland soon became critical. The Scots denied
all right of appeal to the English courts, and expelled from their
country the nobles whose possessions in England gave them a greater
interest in the southern than in the northern kingdom. Among the
dispossessed barons was Robert Bruce, son of the claimant, by marriage
already Earl of Carrick, and now by his father's recent death lord of
Annandale. In defiance of Edward's prohibition the Scots received French
ships, and subjected English traders at Berwick to many outrages. At
last, on July 5, 1295, an alliance was signed between Scotland and
France, by which Edward Balliol, the eldest son of King John, was
betrothed to Joan, the eldest daughter of Charles of Valois, the brother
of the French king. On this, Edward demanded the surrender of three
border castles, and on the refusal of the Scots, cited John to appear at
Berwick on March 1, 1296. Thus, by a process similar to that which had
embroiled Edward with his French overlord, the King of Scots also was
forced to face the alternative of certain war or humiliating surrender.
To Edward a breach with Scotland was unwelcome. In 1294 the Welsh had
prevented him using all his power against France, and in 1295 the Scots
troubles further postponed his prospects of revenge. But no suggestion
of compromise or delay came from him. On his return to London early in
August, 1295, he busied himself with preparing to resist the enemies
that were gathering around him on every side. It was the moment of the
raid on Dover, and the French question was still the more pressing. In a
parliament of magnates at London, Edmund of Lancaster told the story of
his Paris embassy with such effect that two cardinal-legates, whom the
new pope, Boniface VIII., had sent in the hope of making peace, were put
off politely, on the ground that Edward could make no treaty without the
consent of his ally, the King of the Romans. Edmund was appointed
commander of a new expedition to Gascony, though his weak health delayed
his departure. Meanwhile Edward called upon every class of his subjects
to co-operate with him in his defence of the national honour. He was
statesman enough to see that he could only cope with the situation, if
England as a whole rallied round him. His best answer to the Scots and
the French was the convention of the "model parliament" of November,
1295.
The deep political purpose with which this parliament was assembled is
reflected even in the formal language of the writs. "Inasmuch as a most
righteous law of the emperors," wrote Edward, "ordains that what touches
all should be approved by all, so it evidently appears that common
dangers should be met by remedies agreed upon in common. You know well
how the King of France has cheated me out of Gascony, and how he still
wickedly retains it. But now he has beset my realm with a great fleet
and a great multitude of warriors, and proposes, if his power equal his
unrighteous design, to blot out the English tongue from the face of the
earth." To avert this peril, Edward summoned not only a full and
representative gathering of magnates, but also two knights from every
shire and two burgesses from every borough. Moreover, the lower clergy
were also required to take part in the assembly, the archdeacons and
deans in person, the clergy of every cathedral church by one proctor,
the beneficed clerks of each diocese by two proctors. Thus the assembly
became so systematic a representation of the three estates' that after
ages have regarded it as the type upon which subsequent popular
parliaments were to be modelled. This gathering marks the end of the
parliamentary experiments of the earlier part of the reign. It met on
November 27, and each estate, deliberating separately, contributed its
quota to the national defence. The barons and knights offered an
eleventh, and the boroughs a seventh. It was a bitter disappointment to
Edward that the clergy could not be induced to make a larger grant than
a tenth. Enough, however, was obtained to equip the two armies which, in
the spring of 1296, were to operate against the French and the Scots.
The Gascon expedition was the first to start. Early in March, 1296,
Edmund of Lancaster, accompanied by the Earl of Lincoln, landed at Bourg
and Blaye. John of St. John was still maintaining himself in that
district as well as at Bayonne. On the appearance of the reinforcements
the Gascon lords began to flock to the English camp, and a large force
was at once able to take the field. On March 28 an attempt was made to
capture Bordeaux by a sudden assault. On its failure Edmund, who did not
possess the equipment necessary for a formal siege, sailed up the river
to Saint-Macaire and occupied the town. But the castle held out
gallantly, and after a three weeks' siege Edmund retired to his original
position on the lower Gironde. Even there he found difficulty in holding
his own, and before long shifted his quarters to Bayonne. He had
exhausted his resources, and found that his army could not be kept
together without pay. "Thereupon," writes Hemingburgh, "his face fell
and he sickened about Whitsuntide. So with want of money came want of
breath too, and after a few days he went the way of all flesh." Lincoln,
his successor, managed still to stand his ground against Robert of
Artois. At last Artois made a successful night attack upon the English,
captured St. John, and destroyed all his war-train and baggage. The
darkness of the night and the shelter of the neighbouring woods alone
saved the English army from total destruction. "After this," boasted
William of Nangis, "no Englishman or Gascon dared to go out to battle
against the Count of Artois and the French." At Easter, 1297, a truce
was concluded which left nearly all Gascony in French hands.
Soon after the departure of his brother for Gascony, Edward went to war
against the Scots, regarding the non-appearance of King John on March 1
at Berwick as a declaration of hostility. The lord of Wark offered to
betray his castle to the Scots, and Edward's successful effort to save
it first brought him to the Tweed. Meanwhile the men of Annandale under
their new lord, the Earl of Buchan, engaged in a raid on Carlisle, but
failed to capture the city, and speedily returned home. On March 28, the
day on which his brother attacked Bordeaux, Edward crossed the Tweed at
Coldstream, and marched down its left bank towards Berwick. On March 30
Berwick was captured. The townsmen fought badly, and the heroes of the
resistance were thirty Flemish merchants, who held their factory, called
the Red Hall, until the building was fired, and the defenders perished
in the flames. The garrison of the castle, commanded by Sir William
Douglas, laid down their arms at once.
Edward spent a month in Berwick, strengthening the fortifications of the
town, and preparing for an invasion of Scotland. Early in April, King
John renounced his homage and, immediately afterwards, the Scots lords
who had attacked Carlisle devastated Tynedale and Redesdale, penetrating
as far as Hexham. Edward's command of the sea made it impossible for the
raiders to cut off his communications with his base, and they quickly
returned to their own land, where they threw themselves into Dunbar.
Though the lord of Dunbar, Patrick, Earl of March, was serving with the
English king, his countess, who was at Dunbar, invited them into the
fortress. Dunbar blocked the road into Scotland, and Edward sent forward
Earl Warenne with a portion of the army in the hope of recapturing the
position. Warenne laid siege to Dunbar, but on the third day, April 27,
the main Scots army came to its relief. Leaving some of the young nobles
to continue the siege, Warenne drew up his army in battle array. The
Scots thought that the English were preparing for flight, and rushed
upon them with loud cries and blowing of horns. Discovering too late
that the enemy was ready for battle, they fell back in confusion as far
as Selkirk Forest. Next day Edward came up from Berwick and received the
surrender of Dunbar. Henceforth his advance was but a military
promenade.
Edward turned back from Dunbar to receive the submission of the Steward
of Scotland at Roxburgh, and to welcome a large force of Welsh infantry,
whose arrival enabled him to dismiss the English foot, fatigued with the
slight effort of a month's easy campaigning. Thence he made his way to
Edinburgh, which yielded after an eight days' siege. Stirling castle,
the next barrier to his progress, was abandoned by its garrison, and
there Edward was reinforced by some Irish contingents. He then advanced
to Perth, keeping St. John's feast on June 24 in St. John's own town. On
July 10 Balliol surrendered to the Bishop of Durham at Brechin,
acknowledging that he had forfeited his throne by his rebellion. Edward
continued his triumphal progress, preceded at every stage by Bishop Bek
at the head of the warriors of the palatinate of St. Cuthbert. He made
his way through Montrose up the east coast to Aberdeen, and thence up
the Don and over the hills to Banff and Elgin, the farthest limit of his
advance. He returned by a different route, bringing back with him from
Scone the stone on which the Scots kings had been wont to sit at their
coronation. This he presented as a trophy of victory to the monks of
Westminster, where it was set up as a chair for the priest celebrating
mass at the altar over against the shrine of St. Edward, though soon
used as the coronation seat of English kings.
In less than five months Edward had conquered a kingdom. On August 22 he
was back at Berwick, whither he had summoned a parliament of the nobles
and prelates of both kingdoms, in order that the work of organising the
future government of Scotland might be completed. Meanwhile a crowd of
Scots of every class flocked to the victor's court and took oaths of
fealty to him. Their names, along with those of the persons who made
similar recognitions of his sovereignly during his Scottish progress,
were recorded with notarial precision in one of those formal documents
with which Edward delighted to mark the stages in the accomplishment of
his task. This record, popularly styled the Ragman Roll, containing the
names of about two thousand freeholders and men of substance in
Scotland, is of extreme value to the Scottish genealogist and
antiquary.[1] The last entries are dated August 28, the day on which
Edward met his parliament at Berwick. The administration of Scotland was
provided for. John, Earl Warenne, became the king's lieutenant, Hugh
Cressingham, treasurer, and William Ormesby, justiciar. When the land
was subdued Edward showed a strong desire to treat the people well. The
only precaution taken by him against the renewal of disturbances was an
order that the former King of Scots, John Comyn of Buchan, John Comyn of
Badenoch, and other magnates of the patriotic party were to dwell in
England, south of the Trent, until the conclusion of the war with
France. As soon as his business was accomplished at Berwick, Edward
turned his steps southwards. At last he seemed free to lead a great army
against Philip the Fair; and, in order to prepare for the French
expedition, he summoned another parliament to meet at Bury St. Edmunds
on the morrow of All Souls' day, November 3. At Bury the barons,
knights, and burgesses made liberal offerings for the war. But a new
difficulty arose in the absolute refusal of the clergy to vote any
supplies. Once more the cup of hope was dashed from Edward's lips, and
he found himself forced to enter into another weary conflict, this time
with his English liegemen.
[1] It is printed by the Bannatyne Club, and summarised in
_Cal. Doc. Scot._, ii., 193-214.
So long as Peckham had lived, there had always been a danger of a
conflict between Church and State. Friar John had ended his restless
career in 1292, and Edward showed natural anxiety to secure as his
successor a prelate more amenable to the secular authority and more
national in his sentiments. The papacy remained vacant after the death
of Nicholas IV. in 1292, so that there was no danger of Rome taking the
appointment into its own hands, and the happy accident, which had given
the monks of Christchurch a statesmanlike prior in Henry of Eastry,
minimised the chances of a futile conflict between the king and the
canonical electors. Eastry took care that the archbishop-elect should
be a person acceptable to the sovereign. Robert Winchelsea, the new
primate, was an Englishman and a secular clerk, who had taught with
distinction at Paris and Oxford, but had received no higher
ecclesiastical promotion than the archdeaconry of Essex and a canonry
of St. Paul's, and was mainly conspicuous for the sanctity of his life,
his ability as a preacher, and his zeal for making the cathedral of
London a centre of theological instruction. The vacancy in, the papacy
forced upon the archbishop-elect a wearisome delay of eighteen months
in Italy; but at last in September, 1294, he received consecration and
the _pallium_ from the newly elected hermit-pope, Celestine V.
Winchelsea on his return strove to show that a secular archbishop could
be as austere in life, and as zealous for the rights of Holy Church, as
his mendicant predecessors. His desire to walk in the steps of Peckham
soon brought him into conflict with the king, and in this conflict he
showed an appreciation of the political situation, and a power of
interpreting English opinion, which made him the most formidable of
Edward's domestic opponents. He gained his first victory in the
parliament of 1295 by preventing the clergy from making a larger grant
than a tenth. But this triumph sank into insignificance as compared
with the refusal of all aid by the parliament of Bury.
A change in the papacy immensely strengthened Winchelsea's position
against Edward. In December, 1294, Celestine, overpowered with the
burden of an office too heavy for his strength, made his great
renunciation and sought to resume his hermit life. The Cardinal
Benedict Gaetano was at once elected his successor and took the style
of Boniface VIII. The son of a noble house of the neighbourhood of
Anagni, a canonist, a politician, and a zealot, the new pope had made
personal acquaintance with Edward and England from having attended
Cardinal Ottobon on his English legation, and was eager to appease
discord between Christian princes in order to forward the crusade. He
hated war the more because it was largely waged with the money drawn
from the clergy, and was indignant that the custom of taxing the
Church, which was begun under the guise of crusading tenths, had become
so frequent that both Philip and Edward applied it in order to raise
revenue from ecclesiastics for frankly secular warfare. Within a few
weeks of his accession he despatched two cardinals to mediate peace
between the Kings of France and England, and was disgusted at the long
delays with which both kings had sought to frustrate his intervention.
On February 29, 1296, Boniface issued his famous bull _Clericis
laicos_, in which he declared it unlawful for any lay authority to
exact supplies from the clergy without the express authority of the
apostolic see. Princes imposing, and clerics submitting to such
exactions were declared _ipso_ facto excommunicate.
Boniface's contention had been urged by his predecessors, and it is
improbable that he sought to do more than assert the ancient law of the
Church and save the clergy all over the Latin world from exactions
which were fast becoming intolerable. His object was quite general,
though a pointed reference to the extortions of Edward in 1294 showed
that he had the case of England before his mind. He had no wish to
throw down the gauntlet to the princes of Christendom, or to quarrel
with Edward and Philip, between whom he was still conducting
negotiations. It was his misfortune that he was constantly forced to
face fresh conditions which rendered it almost possible to apply the
ancient doctrines. Strong national kings, like Edward and Philip, had
already shown impatience with such traditions of the Church as limited
their temporal authority. The pope's untimely restatement of the
theories of the twelfth century at once involved him in his first
fierce difference with Philip the Fair, and put him into a position in
which he could only win peace by explaining away the doctrine of
_Clericis laicos_. While on the continent the conflict of Church and
State took the form of a dispute between the French king and the
papacy, in England it assumed the shape of a struggle between Edward
and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
In November, 1296, at Bury, Winchelsea admitted the justice of the
French war, but pleaded the pope's decretal as an absolute bar to any
grant from the clerical estate. No decision was arrived at, and the
problem was discussed again in the convocation of Canterbury in
January, 1297. "We have two lords over us," declared the archbishop to
his clergy, "the king and the pope; and, although we owe obedience to
both of these, we owe greater obedience to our spiritual than to our
temporal lord." All that they could do was to entreat the pope's
permission to allow them to pay Cæsar that which Cæsar by himself had
no right to demand. Edward burst into a fury on hearing of this new
pretext for delay. He declared that the clergy must pay a fifth, under
penalty of his withdrawing his protection from a body which strove to
stand outside the commonwealth. The clergy remained firm, and separated
without making any grant. Thereupon, on January 30, the chief justice,
John of Metingham, sitting in Westminster Hall, pronounced the clergy
to be outlays. "Henceforth," he declared, "there shall be no justice
meted out to a clerk in the court of the lord king, however atrocious
be the injury from which he may have suffered. But sentence against a
clerk shall be given at the instance of all who have a complaint
against him." Winchelsea retaliated by publishing the sentence of
excommunication against violators of the papal bull. Two days later the
king ordered the sheriffs to take possession of the lay fees held by
clerks in the province of Canterbury. A few ecclesiastics, who
privately made an offering of a fifth, were alone exempted from this
command.
Edward's conflict with the Church was followed within a month by a
dispute of almost equal gravity with a section of the barons. He
summoned a baronial parliament to assemble on February 24 at Salisbury,
and went down in person to explain his plan of campaign. One force was
to help his new ally, Guy of Flanders, while another was to act in
Gascony. Edward himself was to accompany the army to Flanders. He
requested some of the earls, including Norfolk and Hereford, to fight
for him in Gascony. The deaths of Edmund of Lancaster, Gilbert of
Gloucester, and William of Pembroke had robbed the baronage of its
natural leaders. Earl Warenne was fully engaged in the north, and
Lincoln was devoted to the king's side. The removal of other possible
spokesmen made Norfolk and Hereford the champions of the party of
opposition. For years the friends of aristocratic authority had been
smarting under the growing influence of the crown. The time was ripe
for a revival of the baronial opposition which a generation earlier had
won the Provisions of Oxford. Moreover both the earls had personal
slights to avenge. Hereford bitterly resented the punishment meted out
to him for waging private war against Earl Gilbert in the march.
Norfolk was angry because, during the last Welsh campaign, Edward had
suspended him from the exercise of the marshalship. The form of
Edward's request at Salisbury gave them a technical advantage which
they were not slow to seize. Ignoring the broader issues which lay
between them and the king, they took their stand on their traditional
rights as constable and marshal to attend the king in person. "Freely,"
declared the earl marshal, "will I go with thee, O king, and march
before thee in the first line of thy army, as my hereditary duty
requires." Edward answered: "Thou shalt go without me along with the
rest to Gascony". The marshal replied: "I am not bound to go save with
thee, nor will I go". Edward flew into a passion: "By God, sir earl,
thou shalt either go or hang". Norfolk replied with equal spirit: "By
that same oath, sir king, I will neither go nor hang". The parliament
broke up in disorder. Before long a force of 1,500 men-at-arms gathered
together under the leadership of the constable and marshal.
During these stormy times Edward had been straining every nerve to
equip an adequate army for foreign service. Once more he laid violent
hands upon the wool and hides of the merchants, while a huge
male--tolt, varying from forty shillings a sack for raw wool to
sixty-six shillings and eightpence a sack for carded wool, was exacted
for such wool as the king's officers suffered to remain in the owner's
possession. Moreover, vast stores of wheat, barley, and oats, salt pork
and salt beef were requisitioned all over the land. Men said that the
king's tyranny could no longer be borne, and that the rights decreed to
all Englishmen by the Great Charter were in imminent danger. The
movement, which had begun as a defence of feudal right, became a
popular revolt in favour of national liberty. The commons joined the
barons and clergy in the general opposition to the headstrong king.
Edward saw that he must divide his enemies if he wished to effect his
purpose. The clergy were the easiest to deal with. Boniface VIII. was
already yielding in his struggle against Philip the Fair. In the bull
_Romana mater_ of February 2, 1297, he had authorised voluntary
contributions of the French clergy in the case of pressing necessity,
without previous recourse to the permission of the apostolic see. The
same attitude had already been taken up by the royalist clergy in
England, who redeemed their outlawry by offering to the king the fifth
of their revenues. In March Edward made things easier for the
recalcitrants by suspending the edict confiscating the lay fees of the
Church. Even Winchelsea saw the wisdom of abandoning his too heroic
attitude. In a convocation, held on March 24, he practically applied
the doctrine of _Romana mater_ to the English situation. "Let each
man," he declared, "save his own soul and follow his own conscience.
But my conscience does not allow me to offer money for the king's
protection or on any other pretext." In the event nearly all the clergy
bought off the king's wrath by the voluntary payment of a fifth.
Winchelsea was obdurate. His estates remained for five months in the
king's hands, and he was forced, like another St. Francis, to depend on
the charity of the faithful. But even Winchelsea did not hold out
indefinitely. On July 14 he was publicly reconciled with the king
outside Westminster Hall, and a few days later his goods were restored.
On July 31 Boniface entirely receded from the doctrine of _Cleritis
laicos_ in the bull _Etsi de statu_. Before this could be known in
England, Winchelsea told his clergy that the king had agreed to confirm
the Great Charter, if they would but make a grant to carry on the
French war. A little later Edward of his own authority exacted a third
from all clerical revenues. This persistence in his highhanded policy
made any real reconciliation between Edward and Winchelsea impossible.
The king never forgave the archbishop, whose action demonstrated to all
England the divided allegiance of his clergy between their two masters.
Winchelsea still retained his profound distrust of the king, who had
set at naught the liberties of Church and realm.
The baronial opposition was broken up by devices not dissimilar to
those which neutralised the antagonism of the clergy. By strenuous
efforts Edward obtained a fair sum of money for his expenses. He let it
be understood that, if he took his subjects' wool, the talleys given in
exchange would be redeemed when better times had arrived, and he
scrupulously paid for the corn and meat that his officers had
requisitioned. Meanwhile he summoned all possible fighting men from
England, Wales, and Ireland to meet at London on July 7. The prospect
of subjects of the crown being forced, whatsoever their feudal
obligations might be, to wage war beyond sea, threatened to provoke a
fresh crisis. But after many long altercations, Edward announced that
neither the feudal tenants nor the twenty-pound freeholders had any
legal obligation to go with him to Flanders, and offered pay to all who
were willing to hearken to his "affectionate request" for their
services. Under these conditions a considerable force of stipendiaries
was levied without much difficulty.
Hereford and Norfolk abandoned active in favour of passive hostility.
They refused to serve as constable and marshal, and Edward appointed
barons of less dignity and greater loyalty to act in their place. While
all England was busy with the equipment of troops and the provision of
supplies, they sullenly held aloof. At last, when all was ready, Edward
issued an appeal to his subjects, protesting the purity of his motives,
and emphasising the inexorable necessity under which he was forced to
play the tyrant in the interests of the whole realm. By the beginning
of August such barons as were willing to go to Flanders began to
assemble in arms at London. The young Edward of Carnarvon was appointed
regent during his father's absence, and among the councillors who were
to act in his name was the Archbishop of Canterbury. At last the king
set off to embark at Winchelsea. While there, the earls presented to
him a belated list of grievances. He refused to deal with their demand
for the confirmation of the charters. "My full council," he declared to
the envoys of the earls, "is not with me, and without it I cannot reply
to your requests. Tell those who have sent you that, if they will come
with me to Flanders, they will please me greatly. If they will not
come, I trust they will do no harm to me, or at any rate to my
kingdom." On August 24 he took ship for Flanders, and a few days later
he and his troops safely landed at Sluys, whence they made their way to
Ghent. Nearly a thousand men-at-arms and a great force of infantry,
largely Welsh and Irish, swelled the expedition to considerable
proportions. After all his troubles, Edward found that the loyalty of
his subjects enabled him to carry out the ideal which he had formulated
two years before. King and nation were to meet common dangers by action
undertaken in common.
Everything else was ruthlessly sacrificed in order that the king might
take an army to Flanders. The Gascon expedition was quietly dropped.
But the gravest difficulty arose not from Gascony but Scotland.
Edward's choice of agents to carry out his Scottish policy had been
singularly unhappy. Warenne, the governor, was a dull and lethargic
nobleman more than sixty-six years of age. He complained of the bad
climate of Scotland, and passed most of his time on his Yorkshire
estates. In his absence Cressingham, the treasurer, and Ormesby, the
justiciar, became the real representatives of the English power.
Cressingham was a pompous ecclesiastic, who appropriated to his own
uses the money set aside for the fortification of Berwick, and was
odious to the Scots for his rapacity and incompetence. Ormesby was a
pedantic lawyer, rigid in carrying out the king's orders but stiff and
unsympathetic in dealing with the Scots. Under such rulers Scotland was
neither subdued nor conciliated. No real effort was made to track to
their hiding-places in the hills the numerous outlaws, who had
abandoned their estates rather than take an oath of fealty to Edward.
When the English governors took action, they were cruel and
indiscriminating; and often too were lax and careless. Matters soon
became serious. William Wallace of Elderslie slew an English official
in Clydesdale, and threw in his lot with the outlaws. He was joined by
Sir William Douglas, the former defender of Berwick. By May, 1297,
Scotland was in full revolt. In the north, Andrew of Moray headed a
rising in Strathspey. In central Scotland the justiciar barely escaped
capture, while holding his court at Scone. The south-west, the home
both of Wallace and Douglas, proved the most dangerous district. There
the barons, imitating Bohun and Bigod, based their opposition to Edward
on his claim upon their compulsory service in the French wars. Before
long the son of the lord of Annandale, Robert Bruce, now called Earl of
Carrick, Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, and other magnates were in
arms, and in close association with Douglas and Wallace.
Edward made light of this rebellion. Resolved to go to Flanders at all
costs, he contented himself with calling upon the levies of the shires
north of the Trent to protect his interests in Scotland. Early in July,
Henry Percy, Warenne's grandson, rode through south-western Scotland,
at the head of the Cumberland musters, and on July 7, the local
insurgent leaders, with the exception of Wallace, made their submission
to him at Irvine. Moreover, Edward released the two Comyns from their
veiled imprisonment, and sent them back to Scotland to help in
suppressing the insurrection. Henry Percy boasted that the Scots south
of the Forth had been reduced to subjection. But a few days later
Wallace was found to be strongly established in Ettrick forest and was
threatening Roxburgh. At last Edward stirred up Warenne to return to
his government. The king took the precaution of leaving some of his
best warriors in England in case their services were needed against the
recalcitrant barons or the Scots. Then, as has been said, on August 24
he crossed over to Flanders.
The constable and marshal were still in arms, and Winchelsea, who, in
spite of his reconciliation with Edward, was in close communication
with them, declined to take an active part on the council of regency.
Two days before Edward took ship, Hereford and Norfolk appeared in arms
at the exchequer at Westminster, and forbade the officials to continue
the collection of supplies, until the Great Charter and the Charter of
the Forest had been confirmed. They strove to win the support of the
Londoners, who had long had a grievance against Edward for depriving
them of their right to elect their own mayor, and for subjecting the
city to the arbitrary rule of a warden nominated by the crown. They
forbade their followers to commit acts of violence, but they made it
clear that there could be no peace until the charters were confirmed.
In August, Warenne grappled with the Scottish rising, but his own
incompetence, and the half-heartedness of the Scottish magnates, on
whom he relied, made his task very difficult. Wallace retreated beyond
the Forth, and Warenne reached Stirling on September 10 in pursuit of
him. He learnt that Wallace was holding the wooded heights, immediately
to the north of Stirling bridge on the left bank of the Forth, not far
from the abbey of Cambuskenneth. The Steward of Scotland, who, after
the collapse of the revolt in the south-west, served under Warenne,
offered his mediation. But no good result came from his action, and the
English suspected treachery. Wallace took up a bold attitude, scorning
either compromise or retreat. He had only a small following of cavalry,
but his infantry was numerous and enthusiastic. The English resolved to
attack him on September 11. The Forth at Stirling was crossed by a long
wooden bridge, so narrow that only two horsemen could pass abreast. It
was madness to send an army over the river by such a means in the face
of a watchful enemy. But not only was the English plan of battle
foolish it was also carried out weakly. Warenne overslept himself, and
his subordinates wasted the early morning in useless discussions and
altercations. When at last he woke up, he rejected the advice of a
Scottish knight to send part of his cavalry over the river by a ford
which thirty horsemen could traverse abreast, and ordered all his
troops to cross by the bridge.
Wallace, seeing that the enemy had delivered themselves into his hands,
remained in the woods until a fair proportion of the English
men-at-arms had made their way over the stream. He then suddenly
swooped down upon the bridge, cutting off the retreat of those who had
traversed it, and blocking all possibility of reinforcement. After a
short fight the English to the north of the Forth were cut down almost
to a man. The English on the Stirling side, seeing the fate of their
comrades, fled in terror, and their Scots allies went over to their
country men. Among the slain was the greedy Cressingham, whose skin the
Scots tanned into leather. Warenne did not draw rein until he reached
Berwick, and in one day all Scotland was lost. The castles of Roxburgh
and Berwick alone upheld the English flag. Wallace and Moray governed
all Scotland as "generals of the army of King John". Within a few weeks
of their victory, they raided the three northern counties of England.
Wallace had freed Scotland, but his wonderful success taught the
contending factions in England the plain duty of union against the
common enemy. A new parliament of the three estates was summoned for
September 30. The opposition leaders came armed, and declared that there
could be no supply of men or money until their demand for the
confirmation of the charters was granted. No longer content with simple
confirmation, they drew up, in the form of a statute, a petition
requiring that no tallage or aid should henceforth be taken without the
assent of the estates. This was the so-called _statutum de tallagio non
concedendo_ which seventeenth-century parliaments and judges erroneously
accepted as a statute. The helpless regency substantially accepted their
demands, and, on October 12, issued a confirmation of the charters, to
which fresh clauses were added, providing, with less generality than in
the baronial request, that no male-tolts, or such manner of aids as had
recently been extorted, should be imposed in the future without the
common consent of all the realm, but making no reference to tallage.[1]
Liberal supplies were then voted by all the three estates, and
Winchelsea, who all through these proceedings acted as the brain of the
baronage, exerted himself to explain away the last of the clerical
difficulties raised by the _Clericis laicos_.
[1] The Latin, _Articuli inserti in magna carta_, given by
Hemingburgh, ii., 152, is quoted as a statute in the Petition
of Right of 1628, under the title _De tallagio non concedendo_.
The view of its relation to the French _Confirmatio cartavum_
is that taken by M. Bémont, _Chartes des libertés anglaises_,
especially pp. xliii., xliv. and 87. It is based on Bartholomew
Cotton's nearly contemporary statement (_Hist. Angl_., p. 337).
On November 5 the king ratified, at Ghent, the action of his son's
advisers. Thus the constitutional struggle was ended by the complete
triumph of the baronial opposition. And the victory was the more
signal, because it was gained not over a weak king, careless of his
rights, but over the strongest of the Plantagenets, greedy to retain
every scrap of authority. It is with good reason that the Confirmation
of the Charters of 1297 is reckoned as one of the great turning points
in the history of our constitution. Its provisions sum up the whole
national advance which had been made since Gualo and William the
marshal first identified the English monarchy with the principles
wrested from John at Runnymede. In the years that immediately followed,
it might well seem that the act of 1297, like the submission of John,
was only a temporary expedient of a dexterous statecraft which
consented with the lips but not with the heart. But in later times,
when the details of the struggle were forgotten and the noise of the
battle over, the event stood out in its full significance. Edward had
been willing to take the people into partnership with him when he
thought that they would be passive partners, anxious to do his
pleasure. He was taught that the leaders of the people were henceforth
to have their share with the crown in determining national policy.
Common dangers were still to be met by measures deliberated in common,
but the initiative was no longer exclusively reserved to the monarch.
The sordid pedantry of the baronial leaders and the high-souled
determination of the king compel our sympathy for Edward rather than
his enemies. But all that made English history what it is, was involved
in the issue, and the future of English freedom was assured when the
obstinacy of the constable and marshal prevailed over the resolution of
the great king.