LANCASTER, PEMBROKE, AND THE DESPENSERS.
Bannockburn was almost welcomed by the ordainers, for it afforded new
opportunities of humiliating the defeated king. While Edward tarried at
Berwick, Lancaster was in his castle of Pontefract with a force far
larger than his cousin's. Loudly declaring that the true cause of the
disaster was Edward's neglect to carry out the ordinances, he announced
his intention of immediately enforcing their observance. At a
parliament at York, in September, Edward delivered himself altogether
into Thomas's hands, ordering the immediate execution of the
ordinances, and replacing his ministers and sheriffs by nominees of the
ordainers. The only boon that he obtained was that the earls postponed
the removal from court of Hugh Despenser and Henry Beaumont, the two
faithful friends who had guarded him in his flight from Bannockburn.
Despenser, however, thought it prudent to avoid his enemies by going
into hiding. Edward's submission did not help him against the Scots.
The earls resolved that the question of an expedition was to be
postponed until the next parliament, on the ground that it was
imprudent to take action until Hereford and the other captives had been
released. It was a sorry excuse, for King Robert and his brother were
devastating the northern counties with fire and sword, and it gave new
ground to the suspicion of an understanding between the Scottish king
and the ordainers. But the victor of Bannockburn showed surprising
moderation. He suffered the bodies of Gloucester and the slain barons
to be buried among their ancestors, and released Gloucester's
father-in-law, Monthermer, without ransom, declaring that the thing in
the world which he most desired was to live in peace with the English.
He welcomed an exchange of prisoners, by which his wife, Elizabeth de
Burgh, his sister, his daughter, and the Bishop of Glasgow were
restored to Scotland. The release of Hereford soon added to the king's
troubles.
In January, 1315, Edward's humiliation was completed at a London
parliament. Hugh Despenser and Walter Langton were removed from the
council. The "superfluous members" of the royal household, denounced as
"excessively burdensome to the king and the land," were dismissed, and
drastic ordinances were drawn up for the regulation of the diminished
following still allowed to the king. Edward was put on an allowance of
£10 a day, and the administration of his revenues taken out of his
hands. The grant made was accompanied by the condition that its
spending should be entirely in the hands of the barons, and the estates
arranged after their own fashion for the new Scottish campaign. When
summer came, Lancaster insisted on taking the command himself, and thus
gave a new grievance to Pembroke, who had already been appointed
general. Lancaster was henceforth the indispensable man. When
parliament met at Lincoln, in January, 1316, the few magnates who
attended would transact no business until his arrival. On his tardy
appearance in the last days of the session, it was resolved "that the
lord king should do nothing grave or arduous without the advice of the
council, and that the Earl of Lancaster should hold the chief place in
the council". It was only after some hesitation that the earl accepted
this position. Once more the king was forced to confirm the ordinances.
Liberal grants were made by the estates, and every rural township was
called upon to furnish and pay a foot soldier to fight the Scots.
The commander of the army and the chief counsellor of the king,
Lancaster, was in a stronger position than any subject since the days of
Simon of Montfort. He could afford to despise aristocratic jealousy and
royal malignity. To the commons he was the good earl, who was standing
up for the rights of the people. He was the darling of the clergy, who
looked upon him as the pillar of orthodoxy, the disciple of Winchelsea,
and the upholder of the rights of Holy Church. The warlike and energetic
barons of the north were his sworn followers, and, apart from his hold
upon public opinion, he could always fall back on the resources of his
five earldoms. But events were soon to show that the successful leader
of opposition was absolutely incapable of carrying out a constructive
policy. He had no ideals, no principles, no feeling of the importance of
administrative efficiency, no sense of responsibility, no power of
controlling his followers. He never understood that his business was no
longer to oppose but to act. The clear-headed monk of Malmesbury paints
the disastrous results of his inaction: "Whatsoever pleased the king,
the earl's servants strove to overthrow; and whatever pleased the earl,
was declared by the king's servants to be treasonable; and so, at the
suggestion of the evil one, the households of earl and king put
themselves in the way and would not allow their masters, by whom the
land should have been defended, to be of one accord". Even the implied
understanding with the King of Scots was not abandoned by the man on
whom the responsibility rested of defeating him. When Bruce devastated
the north of England he still spared the lands of the king's "chief
counsellor," as of old he had spared the lands of the opposition leader.
When, in 1316, Lancaster mustered his forces at Newcastle against the
Scots, Edward repaid him for his inaction in 1314 by declining to
accompany him over the border. "Thereupon," wrote the border
annalist,[1] "the earl at once went back; for neither trusted the
other." Edward, who forgot and forgave nothing, secretly negotiated with
the pope for absolution from his oath to the ordinances. He gradually
built up a court party, and soon restored Hugh Despenser to his position
in the household. As might be expected in such circumstances no
effective resistance was made to the Scots.
[1] _Lanercost Chronicle_, p. 233.
It was a time of severe distress in England. In 1315 a rainy summer
ruined the harvest. Great floods swept away the hay from the fields,
and drowned the sheep and cattle. In 1316 famine raged, especially in
the north. For a hundred years, we are told, such scarcity of corn had
not been known. A bushel of wheat was sold at London for forty pence,
and the Northumbrians were driven to feed on dogs, horses, and other
unwonted food. Pestilence followed in the train of famine. It was in
vain that parliament passed laws, limiting the repasts of the barons'
households to two courses of meat, and fixing the price of the chief
sorts of victuals. The only result was that dealers refused to bring
their produce to market. Then the legislation, passed in a panic, was
repealed in a panic. "It is better," said a chronicler, "to buy things
at a high rate than not to be able to buy them at all."
Private wars raged from end to end of south Britain. On the upper
Severn, Griffith of Welshpool, the younger son of Griffith ap
Gwenwynwyn, laid regular siege to Powys castle, the stronghold of John
Charlton, his niece's husband and his rival for the lordship of upper
Powys. As Charlton was a courtier, Griffith attached himself to the
ordainers. After Bannockburn, the captivity of Hereford, the lord of
Brecon, and the death without heirs of Gloucester, the lord of
Glamorgan, removed the strongest restraints on the men of south Wales.
The royal warden of Glamorgan, Payne of Turberville, displaced
Gloucester's old officers. One of the sufferers was Llewelyn Bren, "a
great and powerful Welshman in those parts," who had held high office
under Earl Gilbert. In 1315 Llewelyn, after seeking justice in vain at
the king's court, rose in revolt against Turberville. He gathered the
Welshmen on the hills, burst upon Caerphilly, while the constable was
holding a court outside the castle, took the outer ward by surprise and
burnt it to ashes. There was fear lest this revolt should be the
starting-point of a general Welsh rising. Llewelyn's hill strongholds
threatened Brecon on the north and the vale of Glamorgan on the south;
and Hereford, then released from his Scottish captivity, was entrusted
with the suppression of the revolt. Before long all the lords of the
march joined Hereford in stamping out the movement. Among them were the
two Roger Mortimers, the Montagues and the Giffords, and Henry of
Lancaster, Earl Thomas's brother, and lord in his own right of Monmouth
and Kidwelly. Overwhelmed by such mighty opponents, Llewelyn
surrendered to Hereford, hoping thus to save his followers.
Lancaster himself suffered from the spirit of anarchy that was abroad.
His own Lancashire vassals rose against his authority, under Adam
Banaster, a former member of his household. Adam belonged to an
important Lancashire family, which had long stood in close relations to
Wales, and had committed a homicide for which he despaired of pardon.
He now posed as the champion of the king against the earl, believing
that anything that caused trouble to Thomas would give no small delight
at court. Lancaster showed more energy in upholding his own rights than
in maintaining the honour of England. He raised such an overwhelming
force that Banaster, unable to hold the field against him, shut himself
up in his house. His refuge was stormed and his head brought to Earl
Thomas as a trophy of victory. While Banaster was raiding Lancashire
and Llewelyn south Wales, the Scots were devastating the country as far
south as Furness, and Edward Bruce, King Robert's brother, was
conquering Ireland. There was little wonder that Edward Bruce hoped to
cross over to Wales when he had done his work in Ireland, or that the
Welsh, buoyed up, as in the last generation, by the prophesies of
Merlin, believed that the time was come when they would expel the
Saxons, and win back the empire of Britain.
Of much longer duration than the wars of Llewelyn Bren and Adam
Banaster, were the formidable disturbances which raged for many years
at Bristol. Fourteen Bristol magnates had long a preponderating
influence in the government of the town. The commons bitterly resented
their superiority and declared that every burgess should enjoy equal
rights. A royal inquiry was ordered, but the judges, bribed, as was
believed, by the fourteen, gave a decision which was unacceptable to
the commons. Lord Badlesmere, warden of the castle, sided with the
oligarchs, and thus the whole authority of the state was brought to
bear against the popular party. But it was an easy matter to resist the
government of Edward II. The commons took arms and a riot broke out in
court. Twenty men were killed in the disturbances, and the judges fled
for their lives. Eighty burgesses were proved by inquest at Gloucester
to have been the ringleaders. As they refused to appear to answer the
charges, they were outlawed. Indignation at Bristol then rose to such a
height that the fourteen fled in their turn, and for more than two
years Bristol succeeded in holding out against the royal mandate. At
last, in 1316, the town was regularly besieged by the Earl of Pembroke.
The castle was not within the burgesses' power, and its _petrariae_,
breaking down the walls and houses of the borough, compelled the
townsmen to surrender. A few of the chief rebels were punished, but a
pardon was issued to the mass of the burgesses.
More dangerous than any of these troubles was the attack made by Edward
Bruce on the English power in Ireland. That power had been on the wane
during the last two generations. Edward I. had formed schemes for the
better administration of the country, but little had come of them. The
English government in Dublin gradually lost such control as it had
possessed over the remoter parts of the island. The shire organisation,
set up in an earlier generation, became little more than nominal. The
constitutional movement of the thirteenth century extended to the
island, and the Irish parliament, then growing up out of the old
council, reflected in a blurred fashion the organisation of the English
parliament of the three estates. But royal lieutenants and councils,
shires and sheriffs, parliaments and justices had only the most
superficial influence on Irish life. Real authority was divided between
the Norman lords of the plain and the Celtic chieftains of the hills.
Each feudal lord hated his fellows, and bitter as were the feuds of
Fitzgeralds and Burghs, they were mild as compared with the rancorous
hereditary factions which divided the native septs from each other.
These divisions alone made it possible for the king's officers to keep
up some semblance of royal rule. If they were seldom obeyed, the
divisions in the enemies' camps prevented any chance of their being
overthrown. Thus the Irish went on living a rude, turbulent life of
perpetual purposeless war and bloodshed. Ireland was a wilder, larger,
more remote Welsh march, and the resemblance was heightened by the fact
that many of the Anglo-Norman principalities were in the hands of great
English or marcher families, and that the Irish foot-soldier played
only a less important part than the Welsh archer and pikeman among the
light-armed soldiers of the English crown.
The easiest way to keep up a show of English government was to form an
alliance between the crown and some of the baronial houses. Richard de
Burgh, Earl of Ulster, the most powerful of the feudal lords of
Ireland, was the only one who at that period bore the title of earl. He
had long been interested in general English affairs, and his kinswomen
had intermarried into great British houses. One of his daughters
married Robert Bruce when he was Earl of Carrick, and another was more
recently wedded to Earl Gilbert of Gloucester. Despite the Bruce
connexion, the Earl of Ulster was still trusted by the English party,
and the king gave him the command of an Irish army which he had
intended to send against Scotland in 1314. Richard was too busy
fighting the Ulster clans of O'Donnell and O'Neil, and too jealous of
the Fitzgeralds, his feudal rivals, to throw his heart into the
hopeless task of gathering together the two nations and many clans of
Ireland into a single host. The death of Earl Gilbert at Bannockburn
broke his nearest tie with England, and the release of Elizabeth Bruce
in exchange for Hereford gave his daughter the actual enjoyment of the
throne of Scotland. His natural instincts as an Irishman and as a baron
were to restrain the power of his overlord. When the news of Bruce's
victory produced a great stir among the Irish clans, he stood aside and
let events take their course.
Though the Gael of the Scottish Highlands played little part at
Bannockburn, the Irish rejoiced at the Scots' success as that of their
kinsmen. "The Kings of the Scots," said the Irish Celts, "derive their
origin from our land. They speak our tongue and have our laws and
customs." However little true this was in fact, it was a good excuse
for some of the Irish clans to offer the throne of Ireland to the King
of Scots. Robert rejected the proposal for himself, but was willing to
give his able and adventurous brother Edward the chance of winning
another crown for his house. Edward, "who thought that Scotland was too
little for his brother and himself," cheerfully fell in with the
scheme. On May 25, 1315, he landed near Carrickfergus and received a
rapturous welcome from the O'Neils, the greatest of the septs of the
north-east. Before long all Celtic Ulster flocked to his banners, and
Edmund Butler, then justice of Ireland, strove with little success to
make head against the Scottish invasion. The completeness of Bruce's
union with the native Irish gave him his best chance of attaining his
object. Up to this point the attitude of the Earl of Ulster had been
most undecided. He at last threw in his lot with the justiciar. When
parties began to shape themselves it was clear that "all the Irish of
Ireland" were in league with Bruce. The danger was that "a great part
of the great lords and lesser English folk" also joined the invader.
Conspicuous among these were the Lacys of Meath.
Edward Bruce showed energy and vigour. He made his way southwards, and
in September won a victory over the forces of the Earl of Ulster and
the justiciar at Dundalk, then in the south of Ulster. After this he
pushed into Meath and Leinster and was joined by the O'Tooles and the
other clans of the Wicklow mountains, while the adhesion of Phelim
O'Connor, King of Connaught, brought the whole of the Celtic west into
his alliance. The barons, however, took the alarm. During the winter
Butler contracted friendship with many of the Norman colonists. From
that time the struggle assumed the character of a war between Celtic
Ireland and feudal Ireland, the native clansmen and the Anglo-Norman
settlers. Thus, though Bruce and his wild allies found it easy to make
themselves masters of the open country, all the castles and towns were
closed to them and could only be won by long-continued efforts. Before
long, Butler drove them to the hills. Ere the winter was over, Edward
found it prudent to retire to Ulster.
During 1316 the struggle raged unceasingly. Bruce was crowned King of
Ireland, the O'Neil, it was said, having abdicated his rights in his
favour. But the summer saw the utter defeat of the O'Connors by the
justiciar at the bloody battle of Athenry, where King Phelim and the
noblest of his sept perished. A little later the King of Scots came to
the help of his brother. With his aid, Edward was able to reduce
Carrickfergus, which had hitherto defied his efforts. Then the brothers
led their forces from one end of Ireland to the other. Dublin prepared
for a siege by burning its suburbs and devastating the country around.
But though the two Bruces penetrated as far as Limerick, they did not
capture a single castle or a walled town. They lost so many men during
their winter campaign, that they were forced in the spring to retire to
Ulster. The hopeless disunion of both parties in Ireland seemed likely
to prolong the struggle indefinitely. The men of Dublin and the Earl of
Ulster were at feud with each other, and the citizens captured the earl
and shut him up in Dublin castle. However little the earl could be
trusted, this was a step likely to throw all Ulster into the arms of
the Bruces. But a stronger justice of Ireland then superseded Edmund
Butler. Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, the mightiest baron of the Welsh
march, and a man of real ability, rare energy, extreme ruthlessness,
and savage cruelty, crossed over from Haverfordwest early in 1317 at
the head of a large force of marcher knights and men-at-arms, versed
from their youth up in the traditions of Celtic warfare. Mortimer set
himself to work to break up the ill-assorted coalition that supported
Bruce. He released the Earl of Ulster from his Dublin prison; he
procured the banishment of the heads of the house of Lacy; he won over
some of the Irish septs to his side; he stimulated the civil war which
had devastated Connaught since the fall of the O'Connors. Edward Bruce
was once more confined to Ulster, where he still struggled on bravely.
In the autumn of 1318 he led a foray southwards, and met his fate in a
skirmish near Dundalk on October 14, when his force was scattered in
confusion by John of Bermingham, one of the neighbouring lords. The
four quarters of the luckless King of Ireland were exposed in the four
chief towns of the island as a trophy of victory, and Bermingham was
rewarded by the new earldom of Louth.
Edward Bruce's enterprise ended with his death, and Ireland rapidly
settled down into its normal condition of impotent turbulence. Though
at first sight the invader utterly failed, yet he pricked the bubble of
the English power in Ireland. His gallant attempt at winning the throne
is the critical event in a long period of Irish history. From the days
of Henry III to the days of Edward Bruce, the lordship of the English
kings in Ireland was to some extent a reality. From 1315 to the reign
of Henry VIII, the English dominion was little more than a name as
regards the greater part of Ireland.
No one attained success, in the years after Bannockburn,--neither
Banaster, nor Llewelyn Bren, nor the Bristol commons nor Edward Bruce
and his Irish allies. Before long, the incompetence of Lancaster became
as manifest as the incompetence of Edward II. Lancaster's failure led
to the dissolution of the baronial opposition into fiercely opposing
factions. Personal and territorial jealousies slowly undermined a unity
which had always been more apparent than real. The Earl of Pembroke had
never forgiven the treachery of Deddington. Though Warwick was dead,
Pembroke still pursued Lancaster with unrelenting hatred. No partisan
of prerogative, and an enemy of Edward's personal following, Earl Aymer
separated himself from his old associates and strove to form a middle
party between the faction of the king and the faction of Lancaster.
Warerine, coarse, turbulent, and vicious, at once violent and crafty,
still acted with him. The lord of Conisborough had long grudged the
master of Pontefract and Sandal his great position in Yorkshire. The
natural rivalries of neighbouring potentates were further emphasised by
personal animosity of the deadliest kind. Lancaster had long been at
variance with his wife, Alice Lacy. On May 9, 1317, the Countess of
Lancaster ran away from him, with the active help of Warenne and by the
secret contrivance of the king. Private war at once broke out between
the two earls. Lancaster was too strong for his enemy. Before winter
had begun, Conisborough and Warenne's other Yorkshire castles fell into
his hands. Lancaster's partisans even laid hold of the king's castle of
Knaresborough, while other Lancastrian bands occupied Alton castle in
Staffordshire. Intermittent hostilities continued until the summer of
1318. Twice Edward himself went to the north, and on one occasion
appeared in force outside Pontefract. But the more moderate of the
baronage managed to prevent open hostilities between the king and the
earl. Lancaster was, as ever, fighting for his own hand. His
self-seeking narrowness gave Pembroke the chance of winning for his
middle party a preponderating authority.
Pembroke found more trustworthy allies than Warenne in Bartholomew,
Lord Badlesmere, the sometime instigator of the Bristol troubles, and a
bitter opponent of Lancaster, and in Roger of Amory, the husband of one
of the three co-heiresses who now divided the Gloucester inheritance.
Edward, who had profited by the divisions of his enemies to revive the
court party, formed a coalition between his friends and the followers
of Pembroke. All lovers of order, of moderation, and of the supremacy
of the law necessarily made common cause with them. Thus it followed
that the same machinery, which Lancaster a few years earlier had turned
against the king, was now turned against him. An additional motive to
bring peaceable Englishmen into line was found in the capture of
Berwick by Bruce in April, 1318. After this negotiations for peace
began. The king and Lancaster treated as two independent princes.
Lancaster was no longer supported by any prominent earl, and even his
clerical friends were falling from him. Ordainers as jealous as
Arundel, royalists as fierce as Mortimer, served along with trimmers
like Pembroke and Badlesmere, in acting as mediators. Lancaster could
no more resist than Edward could in 1312. On August 9 he accepted at
Leek, in Staffordshire, the conditions drawn up for him.
The treaty of Leek marks the triumph of the middle party and the
removal of Lancaster from the first place in the royal council. A
pardon was granted to him and his followers, but Thomas gained little
else by the compact. Pembroke and his friends showed themselves as
jealous of Edward as ever the ordainers had been. The ordinances were
once more confirmed, and a new council of seventeen was nominated,
including eight bishops, four earls, four barons, and one banneret. The
earls were Pembroke, Arundel, Richmond, and Hereford. Of these the
Breton Earl of Richmond was the most friendly to the king, but it was
significant to find so truculent a politician as Hereford making common
cause with Pembroke. The most important of the four barons was Roger
Mortimer of Wigmore. Lancaster though not paramount was still powerful,
but his habit of absenting himself from parliaments made it useless to
offer him a place in the council, and he was represented by a single
banneret, nominated by him. Of these councillors two bishops, one earl,
one baron, and Lancaster's nominee were to be in constant attendance.
They were virtually to control Edward's policy, and to see that he
consulted parliament in all matters that required its assent. A few
days after the treaty Edward and Lancaster met at Hathern, near
Loughborough, and exchanged the kiss of peace. Roger of Amory and other
magnates of the middle party reconciled themselves to Lancaster, and he
condescendingly restored them to his favour. But he would not deign to
admit Hugh Despenser to his presence, and declared that he was still
free to carry on his quarrel against Warenne. In October, a parliament
at York confirmed the treaty of Leek, adding new members to the council
and appointing another commission to reform the king's household. From
that time until 1321, Pembroke and his friends controlled the English
state, though often checked both by the king and even more by
Lancaster, who still stood ostentatiously aloof from parliaments and
campaigns. These years, though neither glorious nor prosperous, were
the most peaceable and uneventful of the whole of Edward II.'s reign.
They are noteworthy for the only serious attempt made to check the
progress of the Scots after Bannockburn. From 1318 to 1320 king and
court were almost continually in the north. York became the regular
meeting-place of parliaments for even a longer period.
Since 1314, the Scots had mercilessly devastated the whole north of
England. The population made little attempt at resistance, and sought
to buy them off by large payments of money. The Scots took the cash and
soon came again for more. They wandered at will over the open country,
and only the castles and walled towns afforded protection against them.
Their forays extended as far south as Lancashire and Yorkshire, and, so
early as 1315, Carlisle and Berwick were regularly besieged by them. It
was to no purpose that in 1317 the pope issued a bull insisting upon a
truce. The English welcomed an armistice on any terms, but the Scots'
interest was in the continuance of the war, and they paid no attention
to the papal proposal. The result was a renewal of Bruce's
excommunication, and the placing of all Scotland under interdict. Yet
no papal censures checked Robert's career or lessened his hold over
Scotland. Next year he showed greater activity than ever. In April,
1318, he captured the town of Berwick by treachery. Peter of Spalding,
one of the English burgesses who formed the town guard, was bribed to
allow a band of Scots to seize that section of the town wall of which
he was guardian. Then the intruders captured the gates and admitted
their comrades. Thus the last Scottish town to be held by the English
went back to its natural rulers. The English burgesses were expelled,
though Bruce showed wonderful moderation, and few of his enemies were
slain. Berwick castle held out for a time, until lack of victuals
caused its surrender. In May the Scots marched through Northumberland
and Durham into Yorkshire, burnt Northallerton and Boroughbridge, and
exacted a thousand marks from Ripon, as the price of respecting the
church of St. Wilfred. They then spent three days at Knaresborough, and
made their way home through Craven.
Such successes show clearly enough that the treaty of Leek was not
signed a moment too soon. It was, however, too late for any great
effort against the Scots in 1318. A strenuous endeavour was made to
levy a formidable expedition for 1319. In strict accordance with the
ordinances, the parliament, which met at York in May of that year,
agreed that there should be a muster at Berwick for July 22, and
granted a liberal subsidy. An insolent offer of peace, coupled with a
promise of freedom of life and limb to Bruce, should he resign his
crown, provoked from the Scots king the reply that Scotland was his
kingdom both by hereditary right and the law of arms, and that he was
indifferent whether he had peace with the English king or not. On July
22, the feast of St. Mary Magdalen and the anniversary of Falkirk
fight, the barons assembled at Newcastle. Thomas of Lancaster was there
with his brother Henry. Warenne, newly reconciled with Lancaster by a
large surrender of lands, also attended, as did Pembroke, Arundel,
Hereford, and the husbands of the three Gloucester co-heiresses. There
was a braver show of earls than even in 1314. An offer of lands, when
Scotland was conquered, attracted a large number of volunteer infantry,
while the cupidity of the seamen was appealed to by a promise of ample
plunder. In August the host and fleet moved northwards, and closely
beset Berwick.
The Scots were too astute to offer battle. While the English were
employed at Berwick, Sir James Douglas led their main force into the
heart of Yorkshire. Douglas hoped to capture Queen Isabella, who was
staying near York. A spy betrayed this design to the English, and
Isabella was hurried off by water to Nottingham, while Douglas pressed
on into the heart of Yorkshire. The Yorkshiremen had to defend their
own shire while their best soldiers were with the king at Berwick. A
hastily gathered assembly of improvised warriors flocked into York.
Archbishop Melton put himself at their head, and the clergy, both
secular and religious, formed a considerable element in the host. Then
they marched out against the Scots, and found them at Myton in
Swaledale. The Scots despised the disorderly mob of squires and
farmers, priests and canons, monks and friars. "These are not
warriors," they cried, "but huntsmen. They will do nought against us."
Concealing their movements by kindling great fires of hay, they bore
down upon the Yorkshiremen and put them to flight with much loss. The
fight was called "the white battle of Myton" on account of the large
number of white-robed monks who took part in it The archbishop escaped
with the utmost difficulty. Many fugitives were drowned in the Swale,
and not one would have escaped had not night stopped the Scots'
pursuit. The victors then pushed as far south as Pontefract. On the
news of the battle, the besiegers of Berwick were dismayed. There was
talk of dividing the army, and sending one part to drive Douglas out of
Yorkshire while the other continued the siege. But the magnates, in no
mood to run risks, insisted on an immediate return to England. Before
Edward had reached Yorkshire, Douglas had made his way home over
Stainmoor and Gilsland. Thereupon the king sent back his troops, each
man to his own house. The magnificent army had accomplished nothing at
all. So inglorious a termination of the campaign naturally gave rise to
suspicions of treason. A story was spread abroad that Lancaster had
received £4,000 from the King of Scots and had consequently done his
best to help his ally. The rumour was so seriously believed that the
earl offered to purge himself by ordeal of hot iron. In despair Edward
made a two years' truce with the Scots. It was the best way of avoiding
another Bannockburn.
Troublous times soon began again. Since Edward surrendered himself to
the guidance of Pembroke and Badlesmere, he had enjoyed comparative
repose and dignity. It was only when a great enterprise, like the Scots
campaign, was attempted that the evil results of anarchy and the
still-abiding influence of Lancaster made themselves felt. But Edward
bore no love to Pembroke and his associates, and was quietly feeling
his way towards the re-establishment of the court party. His chief
helpers in this work were the two Despensers, father and son, both
named Hugh. The elder Despenser, then nearly sixty years of age, had
grown grey in the service of Edward I. A baron of competent estate, he
inherited from his father, the justiciar who fell at Evesham, an
hereditary bias towards the constitutional tradition, but he looked to
the monarch or to the popular estates, rather than to the baronage, as
the best embodiment of his ideals. Ambitious and not over-scrupulous,
he saw more advantage to himself in playing the game of the king than
in joining a swarm of quarrelsome opposition lords. From the beginning
of the reign he had identified himself with Gaveston and the courtiers,
and had incurred the special wrath of Lancaster and the ordainers.
Excluded from court, forced into hiding, excepted from several
pacifications as he had been, Despenser never long absented himself
from the court. His ambition was kindled by the circumstance that his
eldest son had become the most intimate personal friend of the king.
Brought up as a boy in the household of Edward when Prince of Wales,
the ties of old comradeship gradually drew the younger Hugh into
Gaveston's old position as the chief favourite. Neither a foreigner nor
an adventurer, Despenser had the good sense to avoid the worst errors
of his predecessor. As chamberlain, he was in constant attendance on
the king; and having married Edward's niece Eleanor, the eldest of the
Gloucester co-heiresses, he sought to establish himself among the
higher aristocracy. Royal grants and offices rained upon father and
son. The household officers were changed at their caprice. The only
safe way to the king's favour was by purchasing their good-will. Their
good fortune stirred up fierce animosities, and the barons showed that
they could hate a renegade as bitterly as a foreign adventurer.
The Despensers' ambition to attain high rank was the more natural from
the havoc which death had played among the earls. "Time was," said the
monk of Malmesbury, "when fifteen earls and more followed the king to
war; but now only five or six gave him their assistance." The five
earldoms of Thomas of Lancaster meant the extinction of as many ancient
houses. The earldoms of Chester, Cornwall, and Norfolk had long been in
the king's hands. If the comital rank was not to be extinguished
altogether, it had to be recruited with fresh blood. And who were so
fit to fill up the vacant places as these well-born favourites?
A little had been done under Edward II to remedy the desolation of the
earldoms. The revival of the earldom of Cornwall in favour of Gaveston
had not been a happy experiment. But the king's elder half-brother,
Thomas of Brotherton, invested with the estates and dignities of the
Bigods, was made earl marshal and Earl of Norfolk. In 1321 the earldom
of Kent, extinct since the fall of Hubert de Burgh, was revived in
favour of Edmund of Woodstock, the younger half-brother of the king.
The titular Scottish earldoms of some English barons, such as the
Umfraville earls of Angus, kept up the name, if not the state of earls,
and we have seen the reward of the victor of Dundalk in the creation of
a new earldom of Louth in Ireland. But there were certain hereditary
dignities whose suspension seemed unnatural. Conspicuous among these
was the Gloucester earldom which, from the days of the valiant son of
Henry I. to the death of the last male Clare at Bannockburn, had played
a unique part in English history.
Both the Despensers desired to be earls, and the younger Hugh wished
that the Gloucester earldom should be revived in his favour. Assured of
the good-will of the king, both had to contend against the jealousy of
the baronage and the exclusiveness of the existing earls. The younger
Hugh had also to reckon with his two brothers-in-law, with whom he had
divided the Clare estates. These were Hugh of Audley, who had married
Margaret the widow of Gaveston, and Roger of Amory, the husband of
Elizabeth, the youngest of the Clare sisters. There had been difficulty
enough in effecting the partition of the Gloucester inheritance among
the three co-heiresses. In 1317 the division was made, and Despenser had
become lord of Glamorgan, which politically and strategically was most
important of all the Gloucester lands.[1] Yet even then, Despenser was
not satisfied with his position. His rival Audley had been allotted
Newport and Netherwent, while Amory had been assigned the castle of Usk
and estates higher up the Usk valley. Annoyed that he should be a lesser
personage in south Wales than Earl Gilbert had been, Despenser began to
intrigue against his wife's brothers-in-law. Each of the co-heirs had
already become deadly rivals. Their hostility was the more keen since
the three had already taken different sides in English politics.
Despenser was the soul of the court faction; Amory was the ally of
Pembroke and Badlesmere, the men of the middle party; and Audley was an
uncompromising adherent of Thomas of Lancaster. There was every chance
that each one of the three would have competent backing. To each the
triumph of his friends meant the prospect of his becoming Earl of
Gloucester.
[1] See for this, W.H. Stevenson, _A Letter of the Younger
Despenser in 1321_ in _Engl. Hist. Rev._, xii. (1897), 755-61.
Despenser, abler and more restless than the others, and confident in
the royal favour, was the first to take the aggressive. He wished to
base his future greatness upon a compact marcher principality in south
Wales, and to that end not only laid his hands upon the outlying
possessions of the Clares but coveted the lands of all his weaker
neighbours. He took advantage of a family arrangement for the
succession to Gower, to strike the first blow. The English-speaking
peninsula of Gower, with the castle of Swansea, was still held by a
junior branch of the decaying house of Braose, whose main marcher
lordships had been divided a century earlier between the Bohuns and the
Mortimers. Its spendthrift ruler, William of Braose, was the last male
of his race. He strove to make what profit he could for himself out of
his succession, and had for some time been treating with Humphrey of
Hereford. Gower was immediately to the south-west of Hereford's
lordship of Brecon. Its acquisition would extend the Bohun lands to the
sea, and make Earl Humphrey the greatest lord in south Wales. At the
last moment, however, Braose broke off with him and sought to sell
Gower to John of Mowbray, the husband of his daughter and heiress. When
Braose died in 1320, Mowbray took possession of Gower in accordance
with the "custom of the march". The royal assent had not been asked,
either for licence to alienate, or for permission to enter upon the
estate. Despenser coveted Gower for himself. He had already got
Newport, had he Swansea also he would rule the south coast from the
Lloughor to the Usk. Accordingly, he declared that the custom of the
march trenched upon the royal prerogative, and managed that Gower
should be seized by the king's officers, as a first step towards
getting it for himself.
Despenser's action provoked extreme indignation among all the marcher
lords. They denounced the apostate from the cause of his class for
upsetting the balance of power in the march, and declared that in
treating a lordship beyond the Wye like a landed estate in England,
Hugh had, like Edward I., "despised the laws and customs of the march".
It was easy to form a coalition of all the marcher lords against him.
The leaders of it were Humphrey of Hereford, Roger Mortimer of Chirk,
justice of Wales, and his nephew, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, the head
of the house, who had overthrown Edward Bruce's monarchy of Ireland. As
Braose co-heirs their position was unassailable. But every other baron
had his grievance. John of Mowbray resented the loss of Gower; Henry of
Lancaster feared for Monmouth and Kidwelly; Audley wished to win back
Newport, and Amory, Usk. Behind the confederates was Thomas of
Lancaster himself, eager to regain his lost position of leadership. The
league at once began to wage war against Despenser in south Wales, and
approached the court with a demand that he should be banished as a
traitor.
Edward made his way to Gloucester in March, 1321, and strove to protect
Despenser and to calm the wild spirits of the marchers. But private war
had already broken out after the marcher fashion, and the king retired
without effecting his purpose. Left to themselves the marcher allies
easily overran the Despenser lands, inherited or usurped. Neither
Cardiff nor Caerphilly held out long against them: the Welsh
husbandmen, like the English knights and barons of Glamorgan, were
hostile to the Despensers. The king could do nothing to help his
friends. In May, Lancaster formed a league of northern barons in the
chapter-house of the priory at Pontefract. In June, another northern
gathering was held in the Norman nave of the parish church of
Sherburn-in-Elmet, a few miles to the north of Pontefract. This was
attended by the Archbishop of York and two of his suffragans, and a
great number of clergy, secular and regular, as well as by many barons
and knights. It was in fact an informal parliament of the Lancastrian
party. A long list of complaints were drawn up which, under fair words,
demanded the removal of bad ministers, and among them the chamberlain.
The clerical members of the conference met separately at the rectory,
where they showed more circumspection, but an equally partisan bias.[1]
[1] Bp. Stubbs works all this out, _Chron. Ed. I. and II_.,
ii., pref., lxxxvi.-xc.
The conferences at Pontefract and Sherburn showed that Lancaster and
the northerners were in full sympathy with the men of the west. The
middle party again made common cause with the followers of Lancaster.
Amory's interests were sufficiently involved to make him an eager enemy
of Despenser, and Badlesmere was almost as keen. Though Pembroke still
professed to mediate, it was generally believed that he was delighted
to get rid of the Despensers. Even Warenne took sides against them,
though the discredited earl was fast becoming of no account. Such being
the drift of opinion, the fate of the favourites was settled when the
estates assembled in London in July. Edward had delayed a meeting of
parliament as long as he could, and was helpless in its hands. Great
pains were taken this time to prevent the repetition of the
informalities which had attended the attack on Gaveston. There was an
unprecedented gathering of magnates, who came to the parliament with a
large armed following, encamped like an army in all the villages to the
north of the city. The commons were fully represented, and the clerical
estate was expressly summoned. Articles were at once drawn up against
the Despensers. They had aspired to royal power; had turned the heart
of the king from his subjects; had excited civil war, and had taught
that obedience was due to the crown rather than to the king. This last
charge came strangely from those who had urged that doctrine as a
pretext for withdrawing support from Gaveston. It is a good
illustration of the tendency of the Despensers to cloak their personal
ambitions with loud-sounding constitutional phrases.
The peers pronounced sentence of banishment and forfeiture against both
the elder and the younger Hugh. They were not to be recalled save by
consent of the peers in parliament assembled. The easy revolution was
completed by the issuing of pardons to nearly five hundred members of
the triumphant coalition. The elder Despenser at once withdrew to the
continent. The younger Hugh found friends among the mariners of the
Cinque Ports. These at first protected him in England, and then put at
his disposal a little fleet of vessels with which, when driven from the
land, he took to piracy in the narrow seas.
The fall of the Despensers was brought about very much after the same
fashion as the first exile of Gaveston. Like Gaveston, they speedily
returned, and in circumstances which suggest an even closer parallel
with the events that led to the recall of the Gascon. The triumphant
coalition in each case fell to pieces as soon as it had done its
immediate work. Once more the loss of his friend and comrade stirred up
Edward to an energy and perseverance such as he never displayed on
other occasions. But the second triumph of the king assumed a more
complete character than his earlier snatched victory. Accident favoured
Edward's design of bringing back his favourites, and throwing off once
more the baronial thraldom. On October 13, 1321, Queen Isabella, on her
way to Canterbury, claimed hospitality at Leeds castle, situated
between Maidstone and the archiepiscopal city. The castle belonged to
Badlesmere, whose wife was then residing there, with his kinsman,
Bartholomew Burghersh, and a competent garrison. Lady Badlesmere
refused to admit the queen, declaring that, without her lord's orders,
she could not venture to entertain any one. Bitterly indignant at the
insult, the queen took up her quarters in the neighbouring priory and
attempted to force an entrance. The castle, however, was not to be
taken by the hasty attack of a small company. Six of Isabella's
followers were slain, and the attempt was abandoned. Isabella called
upon her husband to avenge her; and the king at once resolved to
capture Leeds castle at any cost, and prepared to undertake the
enterprise in person. He offered high wages to all crossbowmen,
archers, knights, and squires who would follow him to Leeds, and
summoned the levies of horse and foot from the towns and shires of the
south-east. His trust in the loyalty of his subjects met with an
unexpectedly favourable response. In a few days a large army gathered
round the king under the walls of Leeds. Among the many magnates who
appeared among the royal following were six earls: Pembroke,
Badlesmere's own associate; the king's two brothers, Norfolk and Kent;
Warenne, Richmond, and Arundel, who as Despenser's kinsman felt himself
bound to fight on his side. On October 23 the castle was closely
besieged by this overwhelming force, and on October 31 was forced to
surrender. Burghersh was shut up in the Tower and Lady Badlesmere in
Dover castle. Thirteen of the garrison, "stout men and valiant," were
hanged by the angry king.
During the siege of Leeds, the magnates of the march, headed by
Hereford and Roger Mortimer, collected a force at Kingston-on-Thames,
where they were joined by Badlesmere. But they dared not advance
towards the relief of the Kentish castle, and, after a fortnight they
dispersed to their own homes. Lancaster hated Badlesmere so bitterly
that he made no move against the king, and sullenly bided his time in
the north. His inaction paralysed the barons as effectively as in
earlier days it had hindered the plans of the king. Flushed with his
victory, Edward gradually unfolded his designs. His tool, Archbishop
Reynolds, summoned a convocation of the southern province for December
1 at St. Paul's, and obtained from the assembled clergy the opinion
that the proceedings against the Despensers were invalid. On January 1,
1322, Reynolds solemnly declared this sentence in St. Paul's. Edward
did not wait for the archbishop. Attended by many of the warriors who
had fought at Leeds, he marched to the west, occupying on his journey
the lands and castles of his enemies. He kept his Christmas court at
Cirencester, and thence advanced towards the Severn. As the inaction of
Lancaster kept the northern barons quiet, Edward's sole task was to
wreak his revenge on the marcher lords. They were unprepared for
resistance, and waited in vain for Lancaster to come to their help.
Without a leader, they made feeble and ill-devised efforts to oppose
the king's advance. Their command of the few bridges over the Severn
prevented the king from crossing the river, and leading his troops
directly into the march. Foiled at Gloucester, Worcester, and
Bridgnorth, Edward made his way up the stream to Shrewsbury. The two
Mortimers, who held the town and the passage of the river, could have
stopped him if they had chosen. But they feared to undertake strong
measures while Lancaster's action remained uncertain. They suffered
Edward to cross the stream and surrendered to him. The collapse of the
fiercest of the marcher lords frightened the rest into surrender.
Edward wandered back through the middle and southern marches, occupying
without resistance the main strongholds of his enemies. At Hereford, he
sharply rebuked the bishop for upholding the barons against their
natural lord. At Berkeley, he received from Maurice of Berkeley the
keys of the stately fortress which was so soon to be the place of his
last humiliation. Early in February, he was back at Gloucester, where,
on February 11, he recalled the Despensers.
Humphrey of Hereford, Roger of Amory, and a few other marchers managed
to escape the king's pursuit, and rode northwards to join Thomas of
Lancaster. Thomas had long been ready at Pontefract with his followers
in arms. But he let the time for effective action slip, and was only
goaded into doing anything when the fugitives from the march impressed
him with the critical state of affairs. The quarrel of king and barons
was not the only trouble besetting England. The two years' truce with
Scotland had expired, and Robert Bruce was once more devastating the
northern counties. But neither Edward nor Lancaster cared anything for
this. Andrew Harclay, the governor of Carlisle, strongly urged the king
to defend his subjects from the Scots rather than make war against
them. Edward answered that rebels must be put down before foreign
enemies could be encountered, and pressed northwards with his
victorious troops.
Lancaster was then besieging Tickhill, a royal castle in southern
Yorkshire. After wasting three weeks before its walls, he led his force
south to Burton-on-Trent, which he occupied on March 10. Edward soon
approached the Trent on his northward march. The barons thereupon lost
courage, and, abandoning the defence of the passage over the river, fled
northwards to Pontefract, the centre of Lancaster's power in Yorkshire.
Edward advanced against them, taking on his road Lancaster's castle of
Tutbury, where Roger of Amory was captured, mortally wounded. The
Lancastrians were panic-stricken. They fled from Pontefract as they had
fled from Burton, retreating northwards, probably simply to avoid the
king, possibly to join hands with Robert Bruce. On March 16 the
fugitives reached Boroughbridge, on the south bank of the Ure, where a
long narrow bridge, hardly wide enough for horsemen in martial array,
crossed the stream. The north bank of the river, and the approaches to
the bridge, were held in force by the levies of Cumberland and
Westmoreland which Barclay had summoned at the king's request, in order
to prevent a junction between the Lancastrians and the Scots. Barclay
was a brave and capable commander and had well learnt the lessons of
Scottish warfare.[1] He dismounted all his knights and men-at-arms, and
arranged them on the northern side of the river, along with some of his
pikemen. The rest of the pikemen he ordered to form a "schiltron" after
the Scottish fashion, so that their close formation might resist the
cavalry of which the Lancastrian force consisted. He bade his archers
shoot swiftly and continually at the enemy.
[1] For the tactics of Boroughbridge see _Engl. Hist. Review_,
xix. (1904), 711-13.
Seeing this disposition of the hostile force, the Lancastrian army
divided. One band, under Hereford and Roger Clifford, dismounted and
made for the bridge, which was defended by the schiltron of pikemen.
The rest of the men-at-arms remained on horseback and followed
Lancaster, to a ford near the bridge, whence, by crossing the water,
they could take the schiltron in flank. Neither movement succeeded.
Hereford and Clifford advanced, each with one attendant, to the bridge.
No sooner had the earl entered upon the wooden structure than he was
slain by a Welsh spearman, who had hidden himself under it, and aimed a
blow at Humphrey through the planking. Clifford was severely wounded,
and escaped with difficulty. Discouraged by the loss of their leaders,
the rest of the troops made only a feeble effort to force the passage.
The same evil fortune attended the division that followed Lancaster.
The archers of Harclay obeyed his orders so well that the Lancastrian
cavalry scarcely dared enter the water. Lancaster lost his nerve, and
besought Harclay for a truce until the next morning. His request was
granted, but during the night all the followers of Hereford dispersed,
thinking that there was no need for them to remain after the death of
their lord. Lancaster's own troops were likewise thinned by desertions.
The sheriff of York came up early in the morning with an armed force
from the south, joined Harclay, and cut off the last hope of retreat.
Further resistance being useless, Lancaster, Audley, Clifford, Mowbray,
and the other leaders surrendered in a body.
Edward was then at Pontefract in the chief castle of his deadliest
enemy. Thither the prisoners of Boroughbridge were sent for their
trial, and there they were hastily condemned by a body of seven earls
and numerous barons, presided over by the king himself. Lancaster, not
allowed to say a word in his defence, was at once sentenced to death as
a rebel and a traitor. In consideration of his exalted rank, the
grosser penalties of treason were commuted, as in the case of Gaveston,
to simple decapitation. On the morning of March 22 Thomas was led out
of his castle, clad in the garb of a penitent and mounted on a sorry
steed. He was conducted to a little hill outside the walls. The crowd
mocked at his sufferings and in scorn called him "King Arthur". In two
or three blows of the axe, his head was struck off from his body. Nor
was he the only victim. Audley, spared his life by reason of his
marriage to the king's niece, was, like the two Mortimers, consigned to
prison. Clifford and Mowbray were hanged at York, and Badlesmere at
Canterbury. In all, more than twenty knights and barons paid the
penalty of death.
It is hard to waste much pity on Lancaster. He was the victim of his
own fierce passions and, still more, of his own utter incompetence. His
attitude all through the crisis had been inept in the extreme, and the
poor fight that he made for his life at Boroughbridge was a fitting
conclusion to a feeble career. But with all his faults he remained
popular to the end, especially with the clergy and commons. He was
hailed as a martyr to freedom and sound government. Pilgrimages were
made to the scene of his death, and miracles were wrought with his
relics. A chapel arose on the little hill dedicated to his worship, and
a loud cry arose for his canonisation. The abuse made by his enemies of
their victory only strengthened his reputation among the people. The
tragedy of his fall appealed to the rude sympathies of the
north-countrymen, and the merit of the cause atoned in their minds for
the weakness of the man.
A parliament met at York on May 2, where the triumph of the king
received its consummation. The Despensers had more advanced
constitutional ideas than Lancaster, and pains were taken that this
parliament should completely represent the three estates. It was a
novel feature that twelve representatives of the commons of north Wales
and twelve of the commons of south Wales attended, on this occasion, to
speak on behalf of the region where the troubles had first begun. With
the full approval of the estates, the ordinances were solemnly revoked,
as infringing the rights of the crown. The important principle was laid
down that "matters which are to be established for the estate of the
king and for the estate of the realm shall be treated, accorded, and
established in parliament by the king and by the council of the
prelates, earls, and barons, and the commonalty of the realm". Thus,
while the repeal of the ordinances seemed based upon their infringement
of the royal prerogative, it was at least implied that they were also
invalid because they were the work of a council of barons only, and not
of a full parliament of the estates. This declaration of the necessity
of popular co-operation in valid legislation is the most important
constitutional advance of the reign of Edward II. It is a significant
comment on the limitations of the baronial opposition that the
ordinances should be the last great English law in the passing of which
the commons were not consulted, and that a royalist triumph should be
the occasion of the declaration of a vital principle.
The king's friends then received their rewards. Harclay was made Earl
of Carlisle and the elder Despenser became Earl of Winchester. Fear of
the marcher lords, even in their prison, withheld from the younger Hugh
the title, though hardly the authority, of Earl of Gloucester. In other
ways also the Despensers were anxious to prevent their victory
suggesting too much of a reaction. Before parliament separated, it
adopted a new series of ordinances confirming the Great Charter and
re-enacting in more constitutional fashion some portions of the laws of
1312, which aimed at protecting the subject and strengthening the
administration. Grants of men and money were made to fight the Scots,
and once more the new customs were allowed to swell the royal revenue.
Thus the revolution was completed. Edward, Gaveston, Lancaster, and
Pembroke had each in their turn been tried and found wanting. Thanks to
the jealousies of the barons, his own spasmodic energy, and the
acuteness of the Despensers, Edward was still to have another chance,
under the guidance of his new friends. We shall see how the restored
rule of the Despensers was blighted by the same incompetence and
selfishness which had ruined their predecessors in power. The triumph
of the Despensers proved but the first act in the tragic fall of Edward
II.