CHAPTER XII.

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THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND

FROM THE INVASION OF JULIUS CÆSAR

TO THE END OF THE REIGN OF JAMES THE SECOND,

BY DAVID HUME, ESQ.

1688

London: James S. Virtue, City Road and Ivy Lane

New York: 26 John Street

1860

And

Philadelphia:

J. B. Lippincott & Co.

March 17, 1901

In Three Volumes:

VOLUME ONE: The History Of England From The Invasion Of Julius Cæsar To

The End Of The Reign Of James The Second............ By David Hume, Esq.

VOLUME TWO: Continued from the Reign of William and Mary to the Death of

George II........................................... by Tobias Smollett.

VOLUME THREE: From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year

of the Reign of Queen Victoria............... by E. Farr and E.H. Nolan.

VOLUME ONE

Part B.

HENRY III. TO RICHARD III.

CHAPTER XII.

[Illustration: 1_155_henry3.jpg HENRY III.]

HENRY III.

{1216.} Most sciences, in proportion as they increase and improve,

invent methods by which they facilitate their reasonings, and, employing

general theorems, are enabled to comprehend, in a few propositions,

a great number of inferences and conclusions. History, also, being a

collection of facts which are multiplying without end, is obliged to

adopt such arts of abridgment, to retain the more material events, and

to drop all the minute circumstances, which are only interesting during

the time, or to the persons engaged in the transactions. This truth is

nowhere more evident than with regard to the reign upon which we are

going to enter. What mortal could have the patience to write or read a

long detail of such frivolous events as those with which it is filled,

or attend to a tedious narrative which would follow, through a series

of fifty-six years, the caprices and weaknesses of so mean a prince as

Henry? The chief reason why Protestant writers have been so anxious

to spread out the incidents of this reign, is in order to expose the

rapacity, ambition, and artifices of the court of Rome, and to prove,

that the great dignitaries of the Catholic church, while they pretended

to have nothing in view but the salvation of souls, had bent all their

attention to the acquisition of riches, and were restrained by no sense

of justice or of honor in the pursuit of that great object.[*] But this

conclusion would readily be allowed them, though it were not illustrated

by such a detail of uninteresting incidents; and follows indeed, by

an evident necessity, from the very situation in which that church

was placed with regard to the rest of Europe. For, besides that

ecclesiastical power, as it can always cover its operations under a

cloak of sanctity, and attacks men on the side where they dare not

employ their reason, lies less under control than civil government;

besides this general cause, I say, the pope and his courtiers were

foreigners to most of the churches which they governed; they could not

possibly have any other object than to pillage the provinces for present

gain; and as they lived at a distance, they would be little awed by

shame or remorse in employing every lucrative expedient which was

suggested to them. England being one of the most remote provinces

attached to the Romish hierarchy, as well as the most prone to

superstition, felt severely, during this reign, while its patience was

not yet fully exhausted, the influence of these causes, and we shall

often have occasion to touch cursorily upon such incidents. But we shall

not attempt to comprehend every transaction transmitted to us: and till

the end of the reign, when the events become more memorable, we shall

not always observe an exact chronological order in our narration.

* M. Paris, p. 623.

The earl of Pembroke, who at the time of John’s death, was mareschal

of England, was, by his office, at the head of the armies, and

consequently, during a state of civil wars and convulsions, at the head

of the government; and it happened, fortunately for the young monarch

and for the nation, that the power could not have been intrusted into

more able and more faithful hands. This nobleman, who had maintained

his loyalty unshaken to John during the lowest fortune of that monarch,

determined to support the authority of the infant prince; nor was he

dismayed at the number and violence of his enemies. Sensible that

Henry, agreeably to the prejudices of the times, would not be deemed

a sovereign till crowned and anointed by a churchman, he immediately

carried the young prince to Glocester, where the ceremony of coronation

was performed, in the presence of Gualo, the legate, and of a few

noblemen, by the bishops of Winchester and Bath.[*] As the concurrence

of the papal authority was requisite to support the tottering throne,

Henry was obliged to swear fealty to the pope, and renew that homage to

which his father had already subjected the kingdom:[**] and in order to

enlarge the authority of Pembroke, and to give him a more regular

and legal title to it, a general council of the barons was soon after

summoned at Bristol, where that nobleman was chosen protector of the

realm.

* M. Paris, p. 290. Hist Croyl. Cont. p. 474. W. Heming. p.

562. Privet, p. 168.

** M. Paris, p. 200.

Pembroke, that he might reconcile all men to the government of his

pupil, made him grant a new charter of liberties, which, though mostly

copied from the former concessions extorted from John, contains some

alterations which may be deemed remarkable.[*] The full privilege of

elections in the clergy, granted by the late king, was not confirmed,

nor the liberty of going out of the kingdom without the royal consent:

whence we may conclude, that Pembroke and the barons, jealous of the

ecclesiastical power, both were desirous of renewing the king’s claim

to issue a congé d’élire to the monks and chapters, and thought it

requisite to put some check to the frequent appeals to Rome. But what

may chiefly surprise us is, that the obligation to which John had

subjected himself, of obtaining the consent of the great council before

he levied any aids or scutages upon the nation, was omitted; and this

article was even declared hard and severe, and was expressly left to

future deliberation. But we must consider, that, though this limitation

may perhaps appear to us the most momentous in the whole charter of

John, it was not regarded in that light by the ancient barons, who were

more jealous in guarding against particular acts of violence in the

crown than against such general impositions which, unless they were

evidently reasonable and necessary, could scarcely, without general

consent, be levied upon men who had arms in their hands, and who could

repel any act of oppression by which they were all immediately affected.

We accordingly find, that Henry, in the course of his reign, while he

gave frequent occasions for complaint with regard to his violations of

the Great Charter, never attempted, by his own will, to levy any aids

or scutages, though he was often reduced to great necessities, and was

refused supply by his people.

* Rymer, vol. i. p. 215.

So much easier was it for him to transgress the law, when individuals

alone were affected, than even to exert his acknowledged prerogatives,

where the interest of the whole body was concerned.

This charter was again confirmed by the king in the ensuing year, with

the addition of some articles to prevent the oppressions by sheriffs;

and also with an additional charter of forests, a circumstance of great

moment in those ages, when hunting was so much the occupation of the

nobility, and when the king comprehended so considerable a part of the

kingdom within his forests, which he governed by peculiar and arbitrary

laws. All the forests, which had been enclosed since the reign of Henry

II., were disafforested, and new perambulations were appointed for that

purpose; offences in the forests were declared to be no longer capital,

but punishable by fine, imprisonment, and more gentle penalties; and all

the proprietors of land recovered the power of cutting and using their

own wood at their pleasure.

Thus these famous charters were brought nearly to the shape in which

they have ever since stood; and they were, during many generations, the

peculiar favorites of the English nation, and esteemed the most sacred

rampart to national liberty and independence. As they secured the rights

of all orders of men, they were anxiously defended by all, and became

the basis, in a manner, of the English monarchy, and a kind of original

contract which both limited the authority of the king and insured the

conditional allegiance of his subjects. Though often violated, they

were still claimed by the nobility and people; and as no precedents

were supposed valid that infringed them, they rather acquired than lost

authority, from the frequent attempts made against them in several ages

by regal and arbitrary power.

While Pembroke, by renewing and confirming the Great Charter, gave so

much satisfaction and security to the nation in general, he also applied

himself successfully to individuals; he wrote letters, in the king’s

name, to all the malcontent barons; in which he represented to them

that, whatever jealousy and animosity they might have entertained

against the late king, a young prince, the lineal heir of their ancient

monarchs, had now succeeded to the throne, without succeeding either

to the resentments or principles of his predecessor; that the desperate

expedient, which they had employed, of calling in a foreign potentate,

had, happily for them as well as for the nation, failed of entire

success, and it was still in their power, by a speedy return to their

duty, to restore the independence of the kingdom, and to secure that

liberty for which they so zealously contended; that as all past offences

of the barons were now buried in oblivion, they ought, on their part,

to forget their complaints against their late sovereign, who, if he had

been anywise blamable in his conduct had left to his son the salutary

warning, to avoid the paths which had led to such fatal extremities:

and that having now obtained a charter for their liberties, it was

their interest to show, by their conduct, that this acquisition was

not incompatible with their allegiance, and that the rights of king and

people, so far from being hostile and opposite, might mutually support

and sustain each other.[*]

These considerations, enforced by the character of honor and constancy

which Pembroke had ever maintained, had a mighty influence on the

barons; and most of them began secretly to negotiate with him, and

many of them openly returned to their duty. The diffidence which Lewis

discovered of their fidelity, forwarded this general propension towards

the king; and when the French prince refused the government of the

castle of Hertford to Robert Fitz-Walter, who had been so active against

the late king, and who claimed that fortress as his property, they

plainly saw that the English were excluded from every trust, and that

foreigners had engrossed all the confidence and affection of their new

sovereign.[**] The excommunication, too, denounced by the legate

against all the adherents of Lewis, failed not, in the turn which men’s

dispositions had taken, to produce a mighty effect upon them; and they

were easily persuaded to consider a cause as impious, for which they had

already entertained an unsurmountable aversion.[***] Though Lewis made

a journey to France, and brought over succors from that kingdom [****]

he found, on his return, that his party was still more weakened by the

desertion of his English confederates, and that the death of John had,

contrary to his expectations, given an incurable wound to his cause.

The earls of Salisbury Arundel, and Warrenne, together with William

Mareschal, eldest son of the protector, had embraced Henry’s party;

and every English nobleman was plainly watching for an opportunity of

returning to his allegiance.

* Rymer, vol. i. p. 215. Brady’s App. No. 143.

** M. Paris, p. 200, 202.

*** Ibid. p. 200 M. West, p. 277

**** Chron. Dunst vol. i. p. 79.

Pembroke was so much strengthened by these accessions, that he ventured

to invest Mount Sorel; though, upon the approach of the count of Perche

with the French army, he desisted from his enterprise, and raised the

siege.[*] The count, elated with this success, marched to Lincoln; and

being admitted into the town, he began to attack the castle, which he

soon reduced to extremity. The protector summoned all his forces from

every quarter, in order to relieve a place of such importance; and he

appeared so much superior to the French, that they shut themselves up

within the city, and resolved to act upon the defensive.[**] But the

garrison of the castle, having received a strong reënforcement, made a

vigorous sally upon the besiegers; while the English army, by concert,

assaulted them in the same instant from without, mounted the walls by

scalade, and bearing down all resistance, entered the city sword in

hand. Lincoln was delivered over to be pillaged; the French army was

totally routed; the count de Perche, with only two persons more,

was killed, but many of the chief commanders, and about four hundred

knights, were made prisoners by the English.[***] So little blood was

shed in this important action, which decided the fate of one of the

most powerful kingdoms in Europe; and such wretched soldiers were those

ancient barons, who yet were unacquainted with every thing but arms!

* M. Paris, p. 203

** Chron. Dunst vol. i. p. 81.

*** M. Paris, p. 204, 205.

**** Chron. de Mailr. p. 195.

Prince Lewis was informed of this fatal event while employed in the

siege of Dover, which was still valiantly defended against him by Hubert

de Burgh. He immediately retreated to London, the centre and life of his

party; and he there received intelligence of a new disaster, which

put an end to all his hopes. A French fleet, bringing over a strong,

reënforcement, had appeared on the coast of Kent; where they were

attacked by the English under the command of Philip d’Albiney, and were

routed with considerable loss. D’Albiney employed a stratagem against

them, which is said to have contributed to the victory: having gained

the wind of the French, he came down upon them with violence; and

throwing in their faces a great quantity of quick lime, which he

purposely carried on board, he so blinded them, that they were disabled

from defending themselves.[*]

After this second misfortune of the French, the English barons

hastened every where to make peace with the protector, and, by an early

submission, to prevent those attainders to which they were exposed

on account of their rebellion. Lewis, whose cause was now totally

desperate, began to be anxious for the safety of his person, and was

glad, on any honorable conditions, to make his escape from a country

where he found every thing was now become hostile to him. He concluded

a peace with Pembroke, promised to evacuate the kingdom, and only

stipulated in return an indemnity to his adherents, and a restitution of

their honors and fortunes, together with the free and equal enjoyment

of those liberties which had been granted to the rest of the nation.[**]

Thus was happily ended a civil war which seemed to be founded on the

most incurable hatred and jealousy, and had threatened the kingdom with

the most fatal consequences.

The precautions which the king of France used in the conduct of this

whole affair are remarkable. He pretended that his son had accepted of

the offer from the English barons without his advice, and contrary to

his inclination: the armies sent to England were levied in Lewis’s

name: when that prince came over to France for aid, his father publicly

refused to grant him any assistance, and would not so much as admit him

to his presence: even after Henry’s party acquired the ascendant, and

Lewis was in danger of falling into the hands of his enemies, it was

Blanche of Castile his wife, not the king his father, who raised armies

and equipped fleets for his succor.[***]

*. M. Paris, p. 206. Ann. Waverl. p. 183. W. Heming. p. 563.

Trivet, p. 109. M. West. p. 277. Knyghton, p. 2428.

**. Rhymer, vol. i. p. 221. M. Paris, p. 207. Chron. Dunst.

vol. i. p. 83. M. West. p. 278. Knyghton, p. 2429.

*** M, Paris, p. 256. Chron. Dunst, vol. i. p. 82.

All these artifices were employed, not to satisfy the pope; for he had

too much penetration to be so easily imposed on: nor yet to deceive the

people; for they were too gross even for that purpose: they only served

for a coloring to Philip’s cause; and in public affairs men are often

better pleased that the truth, though known to every body, should

be wrapped up under a decent cover, than if it were exposed in open

daylight to the eyes of all the world.

After the expulsion of the French, the prudence and equity of the

protector’s subsequent conduct contributed to cure entirely those wounds

which had been made by intestine discord. He received the rebellious

barons into favor; observed strictly the terms of peace which he had

granted them; restored them to their possessions; and endeavored, by an

equal behavior, to bury all past animosities in perpetual oblivion.

The clergy alone, who had adhered to Lewis, were sufferers in this

revolution. As they had rebelled against their spiritual sovereign, by

disregarding the interdict and excommunication, it was not in Pembroke’s

power to make any stipulations in their favor; and Gualo, the legate,

prepared to take vengeance on them for their disobedience.[*] Many of

them were deposed; many suspended; some banished; and all who escaped

punishment made atonement for their offence, by paying large sums to the

legate, who amassed an immense treasure by this expedient.

The earl of Pembroke did not long survive the pacification, which had

been chiefly owing to his wisdom and valor;[*] and he was succeeded in

the government by Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, and Hubert de

Burgh, the justiciary. The counsels of the latter were chiefly followed;

and had he possessed equal authority in the kingdom with Pembroke, he

seemed to be every way worthy of filling the place of that virtuous

nobleman. But the licentious and powerful barons, who had once broken

the reins of subjection to their prince, and had obtained by violence an

enlargement of their liberties and independence, could ill be restrained

by laws under a minority; and the people, no less than the king,

suffered from their outrages and disorders. They retained by force the

royal castles, which they had seized during the past convulsions, or

which had been committed to their custody by the protector;[**] they

usurped the king’s demesnes;[***] they oppressed their vassals; they

infested their weaker neighbors; they invited all disorderly people to

enter in their retinue, and to live upon their lands; and they gave them

protection in all their robberies and extortions.

* Brady’s App. No. 144. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 83.

** M. Paris, p. 210. * Trivet, p. 174

*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 276.

No one was more infamous for these violent and illegal practices than

the earl of Albemarle; who, though he had early returned to his duty,

and had been serviceable in expelling the French, augmented to the

utmost the general disorder, and committed outrages in all the counties

of the north. In order to reduce him to obedience, Hubert seized an

opportunity of getting possession of Rockingham Castle, which Albemarle

had garrisoned with his licentious retinue: but this nobleman, instead

of submitting, entered into a secret confederacy with Fawkes de Breauté,

Peter de Mauleon, and other barons, and both fortified the Gastle of

Biham for his defence, and made himself master by surprise of that of

Fotheringay. Pandulf, who was restored to his legateship, was active in

suppressing this rebellion; and with the concurrence of eleven bishops,

he pronounced the sentence of excommunication against Albemarle and his

adherents:[*] an army was levied: a scutage of ten shillings a knight’s

fee was imposed on all the military tenants. Albemarle’s associates

gradually deserted him; and he himself was obliged at last to sue for

mercy. He received a pardon, and was restored to his whole estate.

This impolitic lenity, too frequent in those times, was probably the

result of a secret combination among the barons, who never could endure

to see the total ruin of one of their own order: but it encouraged

Fawkes de Breauté, a man whom King John had raised from a low origin, to

persevere in the course of violence to which he had owed his fortune and

to set at nought all law and justice. When thirty-five verdicts were at

one time found against him, on account of his violent expulsion of so

many freeholders from their possessions, he came to the court of justice

with an armed force, seized the judge who had pronounced the verdicts,

and imprisoned him in Bedford Castle. He then levied open war against

the king; but being subdued and taken prisoner, his life was

granted him; but his estate was confiscated, and he was banished the

kingdom.[**]

* Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 102.

** Rymer, vol. i. p. 198. M. Paris, p. 221, 224. Ann. Waverl

p. 188, Chron. Dunst vol. i. p. 141, 146. M. West, p. 283.

{1222.} Justice was executed with greater severity against disorders

less premeditated, which broke out in London. A frivolous emulation in

a match of wrestling, between the Londoners on the one hand, and the

inhabitants of Westminster and those of the neighboring villages on the

other, occasioned this commotion. The former rose in a body, and pulled

down some houses belonging to the abbot of Westminster: but this riot,

which, considering the tumultuous disposition familiar to that capital,

would have been little regarded, seemed to become more serious by the

symptoms which then appeared of the former attachment of the citizens to

the French interest. The populace, in the tumult, made use of the cry

of war commonly employed by the French troops: “Mountjoy, Mountjoy,

God help us and our lord Lewis.” The justiciary made inquiry into the

disorder; and finding one Constantine Fitz-Arnulf to have been the

ring-*leader, an insolent man, who justified his crime in Hubert’s

presence, he proceeded against him by martial law, and ordered him

immediately to be hanged, without trial or form of process. He also cut

off the feet of some of Constantine’s accomplices.[*]

This act of power was complained of as an infringement of the Great

Charter: yet the justiciary, in a parliament summoned at Oxford, (for

the great councils about this time began to receive that appellation,)

made no scruple to grant in the king’s name a renewal and confirmation

of that charter. When the assembly made application to the crown for

this favor,--as a law in those times seemed to lose its validity if not

frequently renewed,--William de Briewere, one of the council of regency,

was so bold as to say openly, that those liberties were extorted by

force, and ought not to be observed: but he was reprimanded by the

archbishop of Canterbury, and was not countenanced by the king or his

chief ministers.[**] A new confirmation was demanded and granted two

years after; and an aid, amounting to a fifteenth of all movables, was

given by the parliament, in return for this indulgence. The king issued

writs anew to the sheriffs, enjoining the observance of the charter; but

he inserted a remarkable clause in the writs, that those who paid not

the fifteenth should not for the future be entitled to the benefit of

those liberties.[***]

* M. Paris, p. 217, 218, 259. Ann. Waverl. p. 187. Chron.

Dunst. vol. i. p. 129.

** M. West. p. 282.

*** Clause ix. H. 3, m. 9, and m. 6, d.

The low state into which the crown was fallen, made it requisite for a

good minister to be attentive to the preservation of the royal

prerogatives, as well as to the security of public liberty. Hubert

applied to the pope, who had always great authority in the kingdom, and

was now considered as its superior lord, and desired him to issue a

bull, declaring the king to be of full age, and entitled to exercise in

person all the acts of royalty.[*] In consequence of this declaration,

the justiciary resigned into Henry’s hands the two important fortresses

of the Tower and Dover Castle, which had been intrusted to his custody;

and he required the other barons to imitate his example. They refused

compliance: the earls of Chester and Albemarle, John Constable of

Chester, John de Lacy, Brian de l’Isle, and William de Cantel, with some

others, even formed a conspiracy to surprise London, and met in arms at

Waltham with that intention: but finding the king prepared for defence,

they desisted from their enterprise. When summoned to court in order to

answer for their conduct, they scrupled not to appear, and to confess

the design: but they told the king that they had no bad intentions

against his person, but only against Hubert de Burgh, whom they were

determined to remove from his office.[**] They appeared too formidable

to be chastised; and they were so little discouraged by the failure of

their first enterprise, that they again met in arms at Leicester, in

order to seize the king, who then resided at Northampton: but Henry,

informed of their purpose, took care to be so well armed and attended,

that the barons found it dangerous to make the attempt; and they sat

down and kept Christmas in his neighborhood.[***] The archbishop and the

prelates, finding every thing tend towards a civil war, interposed with

their authority, and threatened the barons with the sentence of

excommunication, if they persisted in detaining the king’s castles. This

menace at last prevailed: most of the fortresses were surrendered;

though the barons complained that Hubert’s castles were soon after

restored to him, while the king still kept theirs in his own custody.

There are said to have been one thousand one hundred and fifteen castles

at that time in England.[****]

* M. Paris, p. 220.

** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 137.

*** M. Paris, p. 221. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 138.

**** Coke’s Comment on Magna Charta, chap. 17.

It must be acknowledged that the influence of the prelates and the

clergy was often of great service to the public.

Though the religion of that age can merit no better name than that of

superstition, it served to unite together a body of men who had great

sway over the people, and who kept the community from falling to pieces,

by the factions and independent power of the nobles. And what was of

great importance, it threw a mighty authority into the hands of men, who

by their profession were averse to arms and violence, who tempered by

their mediation the general disposition towards military enterprises;

and who still maintained, even amidst the shock of arms, those secret

links, without which it is impossible for human society to subsist.

Notwithstanding these intestine commotions in England, and the

precarious authority of the crown, Henry was obliged to carry on war

in France; and he employed to that purpose the fifteenth which had been

granted him by parliament. Lewis VIII., who had succeeded to his father

Philip, instead of complying with Henry’s claim, who demanded the

restitution of Normandy and the other provinces wrested from England,

made an irruption into Poictou, took Rochelle[*] after a long siege,

and seemed determined to expel the English from the few provinces

which still remained to them. Henry sent over his uncle, the earl of

Salisbury, together with his brother, Prince Richard, to whom he had

granted the earldom of Cornwall, which had escheated to the crown.

Salisbury stopped the progress of Lewis’s arms, and retained the

Poictevin and Gascon vassals in their allegiance: but no military action

of any moment was performed on either side. The earl of Cornwall, after

two years’ stay in Guienne, returned to England.

* Rymer, vol i. p. 269. Trivet, p. 179.

{1227.} This prince was nowise turbulent or factious in his disposition:

his ruling passion was to amass money, in which he succeeded so well as

to become the richest subject in Christendom: yet his attention to gain

threw him sometimes into acts of violence, and gave disturbance to

the government. There was a manor, which had formerly belonged to the

earldom of Cornwall but had been granted to Waleran de Ties, before

Richard had been invested with that dignity, and while the earldom

remained in the crown. Richard claimed this manor, and expelled the

proprietor by force: Waleran complained: the king ordered his brother to

do justice to the man, and restore him to his rights: the earl said that

he would not submit to these orders, till the cause should be decided

against him by the judgment of his peers: Henry replied, that it was

first necessary to reinstate Waleran in possession, before the cause

could be tried; and he reiterated his orders to the earl.[*] We may

judge of the state of the government, when this affair had nearly

produced a civil war The earl of Cornwall, finding Henry peremptory in

his commands, associated himself with the young earl of Pembroke who

had married his sister, and who was displeased on account of the

king’s requiring him to deliver up some royal castles which were in his

custody. These two malecontents took into the confederacy the earls of

Chester, Warrenne, Glocester, Hereford, Warwick, and Ferrers, who were

all disgusted on a like account. [**] They assembled an army, which the

king had not the power or courage to resist; and he was obliged to give

his brother satisfaction, by grants of much greater importance than the

manor, which had been the first ground of the quarrel.[***]

The character of the king, as he grew to man’s estate, became every

day better known; and he was found in every respect unqualified for

maintaining a proper sway among those turbulent barons, whom the feudal

constitution subjected to his authority. Gentle, humane, and merciful

even to a fault, he seems to have been steady in no other circumstance

of his character; but to have received every impression from those who

surrounded him, and whom he loved, for the time, with the most imprudent

and most unreserved affection. Without activity or vigor, he was unfit

to conduct war; without policy or art, he was ill fitted to maintain

peace: his resentments, though hasty and violent, were not dreaded,

while he was found to drop them with such facility; his friendships

were little valued, because they were neither derived from choice,

nor maintained with constancy: a proper pageant of state in a regular

monarchy, where his ministers could have conducted all affairs in his

name and by his authority; but too feeble in those disorderly times

to sway a sceptre, whose weight depended entirely on the firmness and

dexterity of the hand which held it.

* M. Paris, p. 233.

** M. Paris, p. 233.

*** M. Paris, p. 233.

The ablest and most virtuous minister that Henry ever possessed was

Hubert de Burgh;[*] a man who had been steady to the crown in the most

difficult and dangerous times, and who yet showed no disposition, in

the height of his power, to enslave or oppress the people. The only

exceptionable part of his conduct is that which is mentioned by Matthew

Paris,[**] if the fact be really true, and proceeded from Hubert’s

advice, namely, the recalling publicly and the annulling of the charter

of forests, a concession so reasonable in itself, and so passionately

claimed both by the nobility and people: but it must be confessed that

this measure is so unlikely, both from the circumstances of the times

and character of the minister, that there is reason to doubt of its

reality, especially as it is mentioned by no other historian. Hubert,

while he enjoyed his authority, had an entire ascendant over Henry, and

was loaded with honors and favors beyond any other subject.

{1231.} Besides acquiring the property of many castles and manors, he

married the eldest sister of the king of Scots, was created earl of

Kent, and, by an unusual concession, was made chief justiciary of

England for life; yet Henry, in a sudden caprice, threw off his faithful

minister, and exposed him to the violent persecutions of his enemies.

Among other frivolous crimes objected to him, he was accused of gaining

the king’s affections by enchantment, and of purloining from the royal

treasury a gem which had the virtue to render the wearer invulnerable,

and of sending this valuable curiosity to the prince of Wales.[***] The

nobility, who hated Hubert on account of his zeal in resuming the rights

and possessions of the crown, no sooner saw the opportunity favorable,

than they inflamed the king’s animosity against him, and pushed him to

seek the total ruin of his minister. Hubert took sanctuary in a church:

the king ordered him to be dragged from thence: he recalled those

orders: he afterwards renewed them: he was obliged by the clergy to

restore him to the sanctuary: he constrained him soon after to surrender

himself prisoner, and he confined him in the castle of the Devizes.

Hubert made his escape, was expelled the kingdom, was again received

into favor, recovered a great share of the king’s confidence, but

never showed any inclination to reinstate himself in power and

authority.[****]

* Ypod. Neust. p. 464.

** Page 232. M. West (p. 216) ascribes this counsel to

Peter, bishop of Winchester.

*** M. Paris, p. 259.

**** M. Paris, p. 259, 260, 261, 266. Chron. T. Wykes, p.

41, 47 Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 220, 221. M. West, p. 291,

301.

The man who succeeded him in the government of the king and kingdom, was

Peter, bishop of Winchester, a Poictevin by birth, who had been raised

by the late king, and who was no less distinguished by his arbitrary

principles and violent conduct, than by his courage and abilities. This

prelate had been left by King John justiciary and regent of the kingdom

during an expedition which that prince made into France; and his illegal

administration was one chief cause of that great combination among the

barons, which finally extorted from the crown the charter of liberties,

and laid the foundation of the English constitution. Henry, though

incapable, from his character, of pursuing the same violent maxims which

had governed his father, had imbibed the same arbitrary principles;

and in prosecution of Peter’s advice, he invited over a great number of

Poictevins and other foreigners, who, he believed, could more safely be

trusted than the English, and who seemed useful to counterbalance the

great and independent power of the nobility.[*] Every office and command

was bestowed on these strangers; they exhausted the revenues of the

crown, already too much impoverished;[**] they invaded the rights of the

people; and their insolence, still more provoking than their power, drew

on them the hatred and envy of all orders of men in the kingdom.[***]

{1233.} The barons formed a combination against this odious ministry,

and withdrew from parliament, on pretence of the danger to which

they were exposed from the machinations of the Poictevins. When again

summoned to attend, they gave for answer, that the king should dismiss

his foreigners, otherwise they would drive both him and them out of

the kingdom, and put the crown on another head, more worthy to wear it:

[****] such was the style they used to their sovereign. They at

last came to parliament, but so well attended, that they seemed in a

condition to prescribe laws to the king and ministry.

* M. Paris, p. 263

** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 151.

*** M. Paris, p. 258

**** M. Paris, p 265.

Peter des Roches, however, had in the interval found means of sowing

dissension among them, and of bringing over to his party the earl of

Cornwall, as well as the earls of Lincoln and Chester. The confederates

were disconcerted in their measures: Richard, earl Mareschal, who had

succeeded to that dignity on the death of his brother William, was

chased into Wales; he thence withdrew into Ireland, where he

was treacherously murdered by the contrivance of the bishop of

Winchester.[*] The estates of the more obnoxious barons were

confiscated, without legal sentence or trial by their peers; [**] and

were bestowed with a profuse liberality on the Poictevins. Peter even

carried his insolence so far as to declare publicly, that the barons of

England must not pretend to put themselves on the same foot with those

of France, or assume the same liberties and privileges: the monarch in

the former country had a more absolute power than in the latter. It had

been more justifiable for him to have said, that men so unwilling to

submit to the authority of laws, could with the worst grace claim any

shelter or protection from them.

When the king at any time was checked in his illegal practices, and when

the authority of the Great Charter was objected to him, he was wont to

reply, “Why should I observe this charter, which is neglected by all my

grandees, both prelates and nobility?” It was very reasonably said to

him, “You ought, sir, to set them the example.” [***]

So violent a ministry as that of the bishop of Winchester could not be

of long duration; but its fall proceeded at last from the influence of

the church, not from the efforts of the nobles. Edmond, the primate,

came to court, attended by many of the other prelates, and represented

to the king the pernicious measures embraced by Peter des Roches, the

discontents of his people, the ruin of his affairs; and after requiring

the dismission of the minister and his associates, threatened him

with excommunication in case of his refusal. Henry, who knew that an

excommunication so agreeable to the sense of the people could not

fail of producing the most dangerous effects, was obliged to submit:

foreigners were banished; the natives were restored to their place in

council;[****] the primate, who was a man of prudence, and who took care

to execute the laws and observe the charter of liberties, bore the chief

sway in the government.

{1236.} But the English in vain flattered themselves that they should be

long free from the dominion of foreigners. The king, having married

Eleanor, daughter of the count of Provence,[*****] was surrounded by a

great number of strangers from that country, whom he caressed with the

fondest affection, and enriched by an imprudent generosity.[******]

* Chron. Dunst. vol. i p. 219.

** M. Paris, p. 265.

*** M. Paris, p. 608.

**** M. Paris, p. 271, 272

***** Rymer, vol. i. p. 448.

****** M. Paris, p. 286.

The bishop of Valence, a prelate of the house of Savoy, and maternal

uncle to the queen, was his chief minister, and employed every art to

amass wealth for himself and his relations. Peter of Savoy, a brother of

the same family, was invested in the honor of Richmond, and received the

rich wardship of Earl Warrenne; Boniface of Savoy was promoted to the

see of Canterbury: many young ladies were invited over to Provence, and

married to the chief noblemen of England, who were the king’s wards.

[*] And, as the source of Henry’s bounty began to fail, his Savoyard

ministry applied to Rome, and obtained a bull, permitting him to resume

all past grants; absolving him from the oath which he had taken to

maintain them; even enjoining him to make such a resumption, and

representing those grants as invalid, on account of the prejudice which

ensued from them to the Roman pontiff, in whom the superiority of the

kingdom was vested.[**] The opposition made to the intended resumption

prevented it from taking place; but the nation saw the indignities to

which the king was willing to submit, in order to gratify the avidity of

his foreign favorites. About the same time he published in England the

sentence of excommunication, pronounced against the emperor Frederic,

his brother-in-law;[***] and said in excuse, that, being the pope’s

vassal, he was obliged by his allegiance to obey all the commands of his

holiness. In this weak reign, when any neighboring potentate insulted

the king’s dominions, instead of taking revenge for the injury, he

complained to the pope as his superior lord, and begged him to give

protection to his vassal.[****]

* M. Paris, p. 236, 301, 305, 316, 541.

**M. West. p. 302, 304.

*** M. Paris, p. 484.

****M. West.p. 338.

{1247.} The resentment of the English barons rose high at the preference

given to foreigners; but no remonstrance or complaint could ever prevail

on the king to abandon them, or even to moderate his attachment towards

them. After the Provencals and Savoyards might have been supposed pretty

well satiated with the dignities and riches which they had acquired, a

new set of hungry foreigners were invited over, and shared among them

those favors which the king ought in policy to have conferred on the

English nobility, by whom his government could have been supported and

defended. His mother Isabella, who had been unjustly taken by the late

king from the count de la Marche, to whom she was betrothed, was no

mistress of herself by the death of her husband, than she married that

nobleman;[*] and she had born him four sons, Guy, William, Geoffrey, and

Aymer, whom she sent over to England, in order to pay a visit to their

brother. The good-natured and affectionate disposition of Henry was

moved at the sight of such near relations; and he considered neither his

own circumstances, nor the inclinations of his people, in the honors and

riches which he conferred upon them.[**] Complaints rose as high against

the credit of the Gascon, as ever they had done against that of the

Poictevin and of the Savoyard favorites; and to a nation prejudiced

against them, all their measures appeared exceptionable and criminal.

Violations of the Great Charter were frequently mentioned; and it is

indeed more than probable, that foreigners, ignorant of the laws, and

relying on the boundless affections of a weak prince, would, in an

age when a regular administration was not any where known, pay more

attention to their present interest than to the liberties of the people.

It is reported that the Poictevins and other strangers, when the

laws were at any time appealed to in opposition to their oppressions,

scrupled not to reply, “What did the English laws signify to them? They

minded them not.” And as words are often more offensive than actions,

this open contempt of the English tended much to aggravate the general

discontent, and made every act of violence committed by the foreigners

appear not only an injury, but an affront to them.[***]

I reckon not among the violations of the Great Charter some arbitrary

exertions of prerogative to which Henry’s necessities pushed him, and

which, without producing any discontent, were uniformly continued by all

his successors, till the last century. As the parliament often refused

him supplies, and that in a manner somewhat rude and indecent,[****] he

obliged his opulent subjects, particularly the citizens of London, to

grant him loans of money; and it is natural to imagine that the same

want of economy which reduced him to the necessity of borrowing,

would prevent him from being very punctual in the repayment.[*****] He

demanded benevolences, or pretended voluntary contributions, from his

nobility and prelates.[******]

* Trivet, p. 174.

** M. Paris, p. 491. M. West. p. 338. Knyghton, p. 2436.

*** M. Paris, p. 566, 666. Ann. Waverl. p. 214. Chron.

Dunst. vol. i. p. 335.

**** M. Paris, p. 301

***** M. Paris, p. 406.

****** M. Paris, p. 507

He was the first king of England, since the conquest, that could fairly

be said to lie under the restraint of law; and he was also the first

that practised the dispensing power, and he employed the clause of “non

obstante” in his grants and patents. When objections were made to this

novelty, he replied that the pope exercised that authority, and why

might not he imitate the example? But the abuse which the pope made of

his dispensing power, in violating the canons of general councils, in

invading the privileges and customs of all particular churches, and

in usurping on the rights of patrons, was more likely to excite the

jealousy of the people than to reconcile them to a similar practice in

their civil government. Roger de Thurkesby, one of the king’s justices,

was so displeased with the precedent, that he exclaimed, “Alas! what

times are we fallen into? Behold, the civil court is corrupted in

imitation of the ecclesiastical, and the river is poisoned from that

fountain.”

The king’s partiality and profuse bounty to his foreign relations, and

to their friends and favorites, would have appeared more tolerable to

the English, had any thing been done meanwhile for the honor of the

nation, or had Henry’s enterprises in foreign countries been attended

with any success or glory to himself or to the public; at least, such

military talents in the king would have served to keep his barons in

awe, and have given weight and authority to his government. But though

he declared war against Lewis IX. in 1242, and made an expedition into

Guienne, upon the invitation of his father-in-law, the count de

la Marche, who promised to join him with all his forces, he was

unsuccessful in his attempts against that great monarch, was worsted at

Taillebourg, was deserted by his allies, lost what remained to him of

Poictou, and was obliged to return with loss of honor into England.[*]

{1253.} The Gascon nobility were attached to the English government,

because the distance of their sovereign allowed them to remain in a

state of almost total independence; and they claimed, some time after,

Henry’s protection against an invasion which the king of Castile

made upon that territory. Henry returned into Guienne, and was more

successful in this expedition; but he thereby involved himself and his

nobility in an enormous debt, which both increased their discontents,

and exposed him to greater danger from their enterprises.[**]

* M. Paris, p. 393, 394, 398, 399, 405. W. Heming. p. 574.

Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 153.

** M. Paris, p. 414.

Want of economy and an ill-judged liberality were Henry’s great defects;

and his debts, even before this expedition, had become so troublesome,

that he sold all his plate and jewels, in order to discharge them. When

this expedient was first proposed to him, he asked where he should find

purchasers. It was replied, the citizens of London. “On my word,” said

he, “if the treasury of Augustus were brought to sale, the citizens are

able to be the purchasers: these clowns, who assume to themselves

the name of barons, abound in every thing, while we are reduced to

necessities.” [*] And he was thenceforth observed to be more forward and

greedy in his exactions upon the citizens.[**]

But the grievances which the English during this reign had reason

to complain of in the civil government, seem to have been still less

burdensome than those which they suffered from the usurpations and

exactions of the court of Rome. On the death of Langton, in 1228, the

monks of Christ-church elected Walter de Hemesham, one of their own

body, for his successor: but as Henry refused to confirm the election,

the pope, at his desire, annulled it;[***] and immediately appointed

Richard, chancellor of Lincoln, for archbishop, without waiting for a

new election. On the death of Richard, in 1231, the monks elected Ralph

de Neville, bishop of Chichester; and though Henry was much pleased with

the election, the pope, who thought that prelate too much attached

to the crown, assumed the power of annulling his election.[****] He

rejected two clergymen more, whom the monks had successively chosen; and

he at last told them that, if they would elect Edmond, treasurer of the

church of Salisbury, he would confirm their choice; and his nomination

was complied with. The pope had the prudence to appoint both times very

worthy primates; but men could not forbear observing his intention of

thus drawing gradually to himself the right of bestowing that important

dignity.

* M. Paris, p. 501.

** M. Paris, p. 501, 507, 518, 578, 606, 625, 548.

*** M. Paris, p. 244.

**** M. Paris, p. 254.

The avarice, however, more than the ambition of the see of Rome, seems

to have been in this age the ground of general complaint. The papal

ministers, finding a vast stock of power amassed by their predecessors,

were desirous of turning it to immediate profit, which they enjoyed at

home, rather than of enlarging their authority in distant countries,

where they never intended to reside. Every thing was become venal in the

Romish tribunals: simony was openly practised; no favors, and even no

justice, could be obtained without a bribe; the highest bidder was

sure to have the preference, without regard either to the merits of the

person or of the cause; and besides the usual perversions of right in

the decision of controversies, the pope openly assumed an absolute

and uncontrolled authority of setting aside, by the plenitude of his

apostolic power, all particular rules, and all privileges of patrons,

churches, and convents. On pretence of remedying these abuses, Pope

Honorius, in 1226, complaining of the poverty of his see as the source

of all grievances, demanded from every cathedral two of the best

prebends, and from every convent two monks’ portions, to be set apart

as a perpetual and settled revenue of the papal crown; but all men

being sensible that the revenue would continue forever, and the abuses

immediately return, his demand was unanimously rejected. About

three years after, the pope demanded and obtained the tenth of all

ecclesiastical revenues, which he levied in a very oppressive manner;

requiring payment before the clergy had drawn their rents or tithes,

and sending about usurers, who advanced them the money at exorbitant

interest. In the year 1240, Otho the legate, having in vain attempted

the clergy in a body, obtained separately, by intrigues and menaces,

large sums from the prelates and convents, and on his departure is said

to have carried more money out of the kingdom than he left in it This

experiment was renewed four years after with success by Martin the

nuncio, who brought from Rome powers of suspending and excommunicating

all clergymen that refused to comply with his demands. The king, who

relied on the pope for the support of his tottering authority, never

failed to countenance those exactions.

Meanwhile all the chief benefices of the kingdom were conferred on

Italians; great numbers of that nation were sent over at one time to be

provided for; non-residence and pluralities were carried to an enormous

height; Mansel, the king’s chaplain, is computed to have held at once

seven hundred ecclesiastical livings; and the abuses became so evident,

as to be palpable to the blindness of superstition itself. The people,

entering into associations, rose against the Italian clergy; pillaged

their barns; wasted their lands; insulted the persons of such of them

as they found in the kingdom;[*] and when the justices made inquiry into

the authors of this disorder, the guilt was found to involve so many,

and those of such high rank, that it passed unpunished.

* Rymer, vol. i. p. 323. M. Paris, p. 255, 257.

At last, when Innocent IV., in 1245, called a general council at Lyons,

in order to excommunicate the emperor Frederic, the king and nobility

sent over agents to complain, before the council, of the rapacity of the

Romish church. They represented, among many other grievances, that the

benefices of the Italian clergy in England had been estimated, and were

found to amount to sixty thousand marks[*] a year, a sum which exceeded

the annual revenue of the crown itself.[**] They obtained only an

evasive answer from the pope; but as mention had been made, before the

council, of the feudal subjection of England to the see of Rome,

the English agents, at whose head was Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk,

exclaimed against the pretension, and insisted that King John had no

right, without the consent of his barons, to subject the kingdom to

so ignominious a servitude.[***] The popes, indeed, afraid of carrying

matters too far against England, seem thenceforth to have little

insisted on that pretension.

This check, received at the council of Lyons, was not able to stop the

court of Rome in its rapacity: Innocent exacted the revenues of all

vacant benefices, the twentieth of all ecclesiastical revenues without

exception; the third of such as were exceeded a hundred marks a year;

the half of such as were possessed by non-residents.[****] He claimed

the goods of all intestate clergymen;[*****] he pretended a title to

inherit all money gotten by usury: he levied benevolences upon the

people; and when the king, contrary to his usual practice, prohibited

these exactions, he threatened to pronounce against him the same

censures which he had emitted against the emperor Frederic.[******]

* Innocent’s bull in Rymer, vol. i. p. 471, says only fifty

thousand marks a year.

** M. Paris, p. 451. The customs were part of Henry’s

revenue, and amounted to six thousand pounds a year: they

were at first email sums paid by the merchants for the use

of the king’s ware-houses, measures, weights, etc. See

Gilbert’s History of the Exch p. 214.

*** M. Paris, p. 460.

**** M. Paris, p. 480. Ann. Burt. p. 305, 573.

***** M. Paris, p. 474.

****** M. Paris, p. 476.

{1255.} But the most oppressive expedient employed by the pope, was the

embarking of Henry in a project for the conquest of Naples, or Sicily

on this side the Fare, as it was called; an enterprise which threw

much dishonor on the king, and involved him, during some years, in great

trouble and expense. The Romish church, taking advantage of favorable

incidents, had reduced the kingdom of Sicily to the same state of feudal

vassalage which she pretended to extend over England; and which, by

reason of the distance, as well as high spirit of this latter kingdom,

she was not able to maintain. After the death of the emperor Frederic

II., the succession of Sicily devolved to Conradine, grandson of that

monarch; and Mainfroy, his natural son, under pretence of governing

the kingdom during the minority of the prince, had formed a scheme

of establishing his own authority. Pope Innocent, who had carried

on violent war against the emperor Frederic, and had endeavored to

dispossess him of his Italian dominions, still continued hostilities

against his grandson; but being disappointed in all his schemes by the

activity and artifices of Mainfroy, he found that his own force alone

was not sufficient to bring to a happy issue so great an enterprise.

He pretended to dispose of the Sicilian crown, both as superior lord of

that particular kingdom, and as vicar of Christ, to whom all kingdoms of

the earth were subjected; and he made a tender of it to Richard, earl of

Cornwall, whose immense riches, he flattered himself, would be able to

support the military operations against Mainfroy. As Richard had the

prudence to refuse the present,[*] he applied to the king, whose levity

and thoughtless disposition gave Innocent more hopes of success; and he

offered him the crown of Sicily for his second son, Edmond.[**]

Henry, allured by so magnificent a present, without reflecting on

the consequences, without consulting either with his brother or the

parliament, accepted of the insidious proposal, and gave the pope

unlimited credit to expend whatever sums he thought necessary for

completing the conquest of Sicily. Innocent, who was engaged by his

own interests to wage war with Mainfroy, was glad to carry on his

enterprises at the expense of his ally: Alexander IV., who succeeded him

in the papal throne, continued the same policy, and Henry was surprised

to find himself on a sudden involved in an immense debt, which he had

never been consulted in contracting. The sum already amounted to a

hundred and thirty-five thousand five hundred and forty-one marks,

beside interest;[***] and he had the prospect, if he answered this

demand, of being soon loaded with more exorbitant expenses if he refused

it, of both incurring the pope’s displeasure, and losing the crown of

Sicily, which he hoped soon to have the glory of fixing on the head of

his son.

* M. Paris, p.650.

** Rymer, vol. i. p. 502, 512, 530. M. Paris, p. 599, 613

*** Rymer, vol i. p. 587. Chron. Dunst vol. i. p. 319.

He applied to the parliament for supplies; and that he might be sure not

to meet with opposition, he sent no writs to the more refractory barons:

but even those who were summoned, sensible of the ridiculous cheat

imposed by the pope, determined not to lavish their money on such

chimerical projects; and making a pretext of the absence of their

brethren, they refused to take the king’s demands into consideration.[*]

In this extremity the clergy were his only resource; and as both their

temporal and spiritual sovereign concurred in loading them, they were

ill able to defend themselves against this united authority.

The pope published a crusade for the conquest of Sicily; and required

every one who had taken the cross against the infidels, or had vowed to

advance money for that service, to support the war against Mainfroy, a

more terrible enemy, as he pretended, to the Christian faith than

any Saracen.[**] He levied a tenth on all ecclesiastical benefices in

England for three years; and gave orders to excommunicate all bishops

who made not punctual payment. He granted to the king the goods of

intestate clergymen; the revenues of vacant benefices, the revenues of

all non-residents.[***] But these taxations, being levied by some rule,

were deemed less grievous than another imposition, which arose from the

suggestion of the bishop of Hereford, and which might have opened the

door to endless and intolerable abuses.

This prelate, who resided at the court of Rome by a deputation from

the English church, drew bills of different values but amounting on the

whole to a hundred and fifty thousand five hundred and forty marks on

all the bishops and abbots of the kingdom; and granted these bills to

Italian merchants, who, it was pretended, had advanced money for the

service of the war against Mainfroy.[****] As there was no likelihood

of the English prelates’ submitting, without compulsion, to such an

extraordinary demand, Rustand the legate was charged with the commission

of employing authority to that purpose, and he summoned an assembly of

the bishops and abbots whom he acquainted with the pleasure of the pope

and of the king.

* M. Paris, p. 614

** Rymer, vol. i. p. 547, 548, etc.

*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 597, 598.

**** M. Paris, p. 612, 628. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 54.

Great were the surprise and indignation of the assembly: the bishop of

Worcester exclaimed, that he would lose his life rather than comply: the

bishop of London said, that the pope and king were more powerful than

he; but if his mitre were taken off his head, he would clap on a helmet

in its place.[*] The legate was no less violent on the other hand; and

he told the assembly, in plain terms, that all ecclesiastical benefices

were the property of the pope, and he might dispose of them, either

in whole or in part, as he saw proper.[**] In the end, the bishops and

abbots, being threatened with excommunication, which made all their

revenues fall into the king’s hands, were obliged to submit to the

exaction; and the only mitigation which the legate allowed them was,

that the tenths already granted should be accepted as a partial payment

of the bills. But the money was still insufficient for the pope’s

purpose: the conquest of Sicily was as remote as ever: the demands which

came from Rome were endless: Pope Alexander became so urgent a creditor,

that he sent over a legate to England, threatening the kingdom with an

interdict, and the king with excommunication, if the arrears, which he

pretended to be due to him, were not instantly remitted;[***] and at

last Henry, sensible of the cheat, began to think of breaking off the

agreement, and of resigning into the pope’s hands that crown which

it was not intended by Alexander that he or his family should ever

enjoy.[****]

* M. Paris, p. 614.

** M. Paris, p. 619

*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 624. M. Paris, p. 648.

**** Rymer, vol. i. p. 630.

The earl of Cornwall had now reason to value himself on his foresight,

in refusing the fraudulent bargain with Rome, and in preferring the

solid honors of an opulent and powerful prince of the blood of England,

to the empty and precarious glory of a foreign dignity. But he had not

always firmness sufficient to adhere to this resolution: his vanity and

ambition prevailed at last over his prudence and his avarice; and he was

engaged in an enterprise no less expensive and vexatious than that of

his brother, and not attended with much greater probability of success.

The immense opulence of Richard having made the German princes cast

their eye on him as a candidate for the empire, he was tempted to expend

vast sums of money on his election; and he succeeded so far as to be

chosen king of the Romans, which seemed to render his succession

infallible to the imperial throne. He went over to Germany, and carried

out of the kingdom no less a sum than seven hundred thousand marks, if

we may credit the account given by some ancient authors,[*] which is

probably much exaggerated.[**] His money, while it lasted, procured him

friends and partisans; but it was soon drained from him by the avidity

of the German princes; and, having no personal or family connections in

that country, and no solid foundation of power, he found, at last, that

he had lavished away the frugality of a whole life in order to procure

a splendid title; and that his absence from England, joined to the

weakness of his brother’s government, gave reins to the factious and

turbulent dispositions of the English barons, and involved his own

country and family in great calamities.

* M. Paris, p. 638. The same author, a few pages before,

makes Richard’s treasures amount to little more than half

the sum, (p. 634.) The king’s dissipations and expenses,

throughout this whole reign, according to the same author,

had amounted only to about nine hundred and forty thousand

marks, (p. 638.)

** The sums mentioned by ancient authors, who were almost all

monks, are often improbable, and never consistent. But we

know from an infallible authority, the public remonstrance

to the council of Lyons, that the king’s revenues were below

sixty thousand marks a year: his brother, therefore, could

never have been master of seven hundred thousand marks;

especially as he did not sell his estates in England, as we

learn from the same author; and we hear afterwards of his

ordering all his woods to be cut, in order to satisfy the

rapacity of the German princes: his son succeeded to the

earldom of Cornwall and his other revenues.

The successful revolt of the nobility from King John, and their imposing

on him and his successors limitations of their royal power, had made

them feel their own weight and importance, had set a dangerous precedent

of resistance, and being followed by a long minority, had impoverished

as well as weakened that crown which they were at last induced, from the

fear of worse consequences, to replace on the head of young Henry. In

the king’s situation, either great abilities and vigor were requisite

to overawe the barons, or great caution and reserve to give them no

pretence for complaints; and it must be confessed, that this prince was

possessed of neither of these talents. He had not prudence to choose

right measures; he wanted even that constancy which sometimes gives

weight to wrong ones; he was entirely devoted to his favorites, who

were always foreigners; he lavished on them, without discretion,

his diminished revenue; and finding that his barons indulged their

disposition towards tyranny, and observed not to their own vassals

the same rules which they had imposed on the crown, he was apt, in

his administration, to neglect all the salutary articles of the Great

Charter; which he remarked to be so little regarded by his nobility.

This conduct had extremely lessened his authority in the kingdom; had

multiplied complaints against him; and had frequently exposed him to

affronts, and even to dangerous attempts upon his prerogative. In

the year 1244, when he desired a supply from parliament, the barons,

complaining of the frequent breaches of the Great Charter, and of the

many fruitless applications which they had formerly made for the redress

of this and other grievances, demanded in return, that he should give

them the nomination of the great justiciary and of the chancellor, to

whose hands chiefly the administration of justice was committed: and,

if we may credit the historian,[*] they had formed the plan of other

limitations, as well as of associations to maintain them, which would

have reduced the king to be an absolute cipher, and have held the crown

in perpetual pupillage and dependence. The king, to satisfy them, would

agree to nothing but a renewal of the charter, and a general permission

to excommunicate all the violators of it; and he received no supply,

except a scutage of twenty shillings on each knight’s fee for the

marriage of his eldest daughter to the king of Scotland; a burden which

was expressly annexed to their feudal tenures.

* M. Paris, p. 432.

Four years after, in a full parliament, when Henry demanded a new

supply, he was openly reproached with the breach of his word, and the

frequent violations of the charter. He was asked whether he did not

blush to desire any aid from his people, whom he professedly hated and

despised; to whom on all occasions he preferred aliens and foreigners,

and who groaned under the oppressions which he either permitted or

exercised over them. He was told that, besides disparaging his nobility

by forcing them to contract unequal and mean marriages with strangers,

no rank of men was so low as to escape vexations from him or his

ministers; that even the victuals consumed in his household, the clothes

which himself and his servants wore, still more the wine which they

used, were all taken by violence from the lawful owners, and no

compensation was ever made them for the injury; that foreign merchants,

to the great prejudice and infamy of the kingdom shunned the English

harbors as if they were possessed by pirates, and the commerce with all

nations was thus cut off by these acts of violence; that loss was

added to loss, and injury to injury, while the merchants, who had been

despoiled of their goods, were also obliged to carry them at their own

charge to whatever place the king was pleased to appoint them; that even

the poor fishermen on the coast could not escape his oppressions and

those of his courtiers; and finding that they had not full liberty to

dispose of their commodities in the English market, were frequently

constrained to carry them to foreign ports, and to hazard all the perils

of the ocean, rather than those which awaited them from his oppressive

emissaries; and that his very religion was a ground of complaint to his

subjects, while they observed, that the waxen tapers and splendid silks,

employed in so many useless processions, were the spoils which he had

forcibly ravished from the true owners.[*] Throughout this remonstrance,

in which the complaints derived from an abuse of the ancient right of

purveyance may be supposed to be somewhat exaggerated, there appears a

strange mixture of regal tyranny in the practices which gave rise to

it, and of aristocratical liberty, or rather licentiousness, in the

expressions employed by the parliament. But a mixture of this kind

is observable in all the ancient feudal governments, and both of them

proved equally hurtful to the people.

As the king, in answer to their remonstrance, gave the parliament only

good words and fair promises, attended with the most humble submissions,

which they had often found deceitful, he obtained at that time no

supply; and therefore, in the year 1253, when he found himself again

under the necessity of applying to parliament, he had provided a new

pretence, which he deemed infallible, and taking the vow of a crusade,

he demanded their assistance in that pious enterprise.[**] The

parliament, however, for some time hesitated to comply, and the

ecclesiastical order sent a deputation consisting of four prelates, the

primate and the bishops of Winchester Salisbury, and Carlisle, in order

to remonstrate with him on his frequent violations of their privileges,

the oppressions with which he had loaded them and all his subjects,[***]

and the uncanonical and forced elections which were made to vacant

dignities.

* M. Paris, p. 498. See further, p. 578. M. West. p. 348.

** M. Paris, p. 518, 558, 568. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 293.

*** M. Paris, p. 568.

“It is true,” replied the king, “I have been somewhat faulty in this

particular: I obtruded you, my lord of Canterbury, upon your see; I was

obliged to employ both entreaties and menaces, my lord of Winchester,

to have, you elected; my proceedings, I confess, were very irregular,

my lords of Salisbury and Carlisle, when I raised you from the lowest

stations to your present dignities; I am determined henceforth to

correct these abuses; and it will also become you, in order to make a

thorough reformation, to resign your present benefices; and try to enter

again in a more regular and canonical manner.” [*] The bishops, surprised

at these unexpected sarcasms, replied, that the question was not at

present how to correct past errors, but to avoid them for the future.

The king promised redress both of ecclesiastical and civil grievances;

and the parliament in return agreed to grant him a supply, a tenth

of the ecclesiastical benefices, and a scutage of three marks on

each knight’s fee: but as they had experienced his frequent breach of

promise, they required that he should ratify the Great Charter in

a manner still more authentic and more solemn than any which he had

hitherto employed. All the prelates and abbots were assembled: they held

burning tapers in their hands: the Great Charter was read before them:

they denounced the sentence of excommunication against every one who

should thenceforth violate that fundamental law: they threw their tapers

on the ground, and exclaimed, “May the soul of every one who incurs this

sentence so stink and corrupt in hell!” The king bore a part in this

ceremony, and subjoined, “So help me God, I will keep all these articles

inviolate, as I am a man, as I am a Christian, as I am a knight, and as

I am a king crowned and anointed.” [**] Yet was the tremendous ceremony

no sooner finished, than his favorites, abusing his weakness, made

him return to the same arbitrary and irregular administration; and the

reasonable expectations of his people were thus perpetually eluded and

disappointed.[***]

* M. Paris, p. 579.

** Ibid. p. 580. Ann. Burt. p. 323. Ann. Waverl. p. 210. W

Heming. p. 571. M. West. p. 353.

*** M. Paris, p. 597, 608.

{1258.} All these imprudent and illegal measures afforded a pretence to

Simon de Mountfort, earl of Leicester, to attempt an innovation in the

government, and to wrest the sceptre from the feeble and irresolute

hand which held it. This nobleman was a younger son of that Simon de

Mountfort who had conducted with such valor and renown the crusade

against the Albigenses, and who, though he tarnished his famous exploits

by cruelty and ambition, had left a name very precious to all the bigots

of that age, particularly to the ecclesiastics. A large inheritance

in England fell by succession to this family; but as the elder brother

enjoyed still more opulent possessions in France, and could not perform

fealty to two masters, he transferred his right to Simon, his younger

brother, who came over to England, did homage for his lands, and

was raised to the dignity of earl of Leicester. In the year 1238, he

espoused Eleanor, dowager of William, earl of Pembroke, and sister to

the king;[*] but the marriage of this princess with a subject and a

foreigner, though contracted with Henry’s consent, was loudly complained

of by the earl of Cornwall and all the barons of England; and Leicester

was supported against their violence by the king’s favor and authority

alone.[**] But he had no sooner established himself in his possessions

and dignities, than he acquired, by insinuation and address, a strong

interest with the nation, and gained equally the affections of all

orders of men. He lost, however, the friendship of Henry from the usual

levity and fickleness of that prince; he was banished the court; he was

recalled; he was intrusted with the command of Guienne,[***] where he

did good service and acquired honor; he was again disgraced by the king,

and his banishment from court seemed now final and irrevocable. Henry

called him traiter to his face; Leicester gave him the lie, and told

him that, if he were not his sovereign, he would soon make him repent

of that insult. Yet was this quarrel accommodated, either from the good

nature or timidity of the king, and Leicester was again admitted into

some degree of favor and authority. But as this nobleman was become too

great to preserve an entire complaisance to Henry’s humors, and to

act in subserviency to his other minions, he found more advantage in

cultivating his interest with the public, and in inflaming the general

discontents which prevailed against the administration. He filled every

place with complaints against the infringement of the Great Charter, the

acts of violence committed on the people, the combination between the

pope and the king in their tyranny and extortions, Henry’s neglect of

his native subjects and barons; and though himself a foreigner, he was

more loud than any in representing the indignity of submitting to the

dominion of foreigners.

* M. Paris, p. 314.

** Ibid, p. 315.

*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 459, 513.

By his hypocritical pretensions to devotion he gained the favor of the

zealots and clergy: by his seeming concern for public good he acquired

the affections of the public: and besides the private friendships which

he had cultivated with the barons, his animosity against the favorites

created a union of interests between him and that powerful order.

A recent quarrel which broke out between Leicester and William de

Valence, Henry’s half brother and chief favorite, brought matters to

extremity,[*] and determined the former to give full scope to his bold

and unbounded ambition, which the laws and the king’s authority had

hitherto with difficulty restrained. He secretly called a meeting of

the most considerable barons, particularly Humphrey de Bohun, high

constable, Roger Bigod, earl mareschal, and the earls of Warwick and

Glocester; men who by their family and possessions stood in the first

rank of the English nobility. He represented to this company the

necessity of reforming the state, and of putting the execution of the

laws into other hands than those which had hitherto appeared, from

repeated experience, so unfit for the charge with which they were

intrusted. He exaggerated the oppressions exercised against the lower

orders of the state, the violations of the barons’ privileges, the

continued depredations made on the clergy; and in order to aggravate the

enormity of this conduct, he appealed to the Great Charter, which Henry

had so often ratified, and which was calculated to prevent forever the

return of those intolerable grievances. He magnified the generosity of

their ancestors, who, at a great expense of blood, had extorted that

famous concession from the crown; but lamented their own degeneracy,

who allowed so important an advantage, once obtained, to be wrested from

them by a weak prince and by insolent strangers. And he insisted that

the king’s word, after so many submissions and fruitless promises on his

part, could no longer be relied on; and that nothing but his absolute

inability to violate national privileges could henceforth insure the

regular observance of them.

* M. Paris, p. 649.

These topics, which were founded in truth, and suited so well the

sentiments of the company, had the desired effect, and the barons

embraced a resolution of redressing the public grievances, by taking

into their own hands the administration of government. Henry having

summoned a parliament, in expectation of receiving supplies for his

Sicilian project, the barons appeared in the hall, clad in complete

armor, and with their swords by their side: the king, on his entry,

struck with the unusual appearance, asked them what was their purpose,

and whether they pretended to make him their prisoner.[*] Roger Bigod

replied in the name of the rest, that he was not their prisoner, but

their sovereign; that they even intended to grant him large supplies,

in order to fix his son on the throne of Sicily; that they only expected

some return for this expense and service; and that, as he had frequently

made submissions to the parliament, had acknowledged his past errors,

and had still allowed himself to be carried into the same path, which

gave them such just reason of complaint, he must now yield to more

strict regulations, and confer authority on those who were able and

willing to redress the national grievances. Henry, partly allured by the

hopes of supply, partly intimidated by the union and martial appearance

of the barons, agreed to their demand, and promised to summon another

parliament at Oxford, in order to digest the new plan of government, and

to elect the persons who were to be intrusted with the chief authority.

This parliament, which the royalists, and even the nation, from

experience of the confusions that attended its measures, afterwards

denominated the “mad parliament,” met on the day appointed; and as all

the barons brought along with them their military vassals, and appeared

with an armed force, the king, who had taken no precautions against

them, was in reality a prisoner in their hands, and was obliged to

submit to all the terms which they were pleased to impose upon him.

Twelve barons were selected from among the king’s ministers; twelve more

were chosen by parliament: to these twenty-four unlimited authority was

granted to reform the state; and the king himself took an oath, that he

would maintain whatever ordinances they should think proper to enact for

that purpose.[**] Leicester was at the head of this supreme council,

to which the legislative power was thus in reality transferred; and all

their measures were taken by his secret influence and direction.

* Annal. Theokesoury.

** Rymer, vol. i. p. 655. Chron. Dunst. vol.i. p. 334.

Knyghton p. 2445.

Their first step bore a specious appearance, and seemed well calculated

for the end which they professed to be the object of all these

innovations; they ordered that four knights should be chosen by each

county; that they should make inquiry into the grievances of which

their neighborhood had reason to complain, and should attend the ensuing

parliament, in order to give information to that assembly of the state

of their particular counties;[*] a nearer approach to our present

constitution than had been made by the barons in the reign of King John,

when the knights were only appointed to meet in their several counties,

and there to draw up a detail of their grievances. Meanwhile the

twenty-four barons proceeded to enact some regulations, as a redress

of such grievances as were supposed to be sufficiently notorious. They

ordered, that three sessions of parliament should be regularly held

every year, in the months of February, June, and October; “that a new

sheriff should be annually elected by the votes of the freeholders in

each county;[**] that the sheriffs should have no power of fining

the barons who did not attend their courts, or the circuits of the

justiciaries; that no heirs should be committed to the wardship of

foreigners, and no castles intrusted to their custody; and that no new

warrens or forests should be created, nor the revenues of any counties

or hundreds be let to farm.” Such were the regulations which the

twenty-four barons established at Oxford, for the redress of public

grievances.

* M. Paris, p. 657. Addit. p. 140. Ann. Burt, p, 412.

** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 336.

But the earl of Leicester and his associates, having advanced so far

to satisfy the nation, instead of continuing in this popular course, or

granting the king that supply which they had promised him, immediately

provided for the extension and continuance of their own authority.

They roused anew the popular clamor which had long prevailed against

foreigners; and they fell with the utmost violence on the king’s

half brothers, who were supposed to be the authors of, all national

grievances, and whom Henry had no longer any power to protect. The four

brothers, sensible of their danger, took to flight, with an intention of

making their escape out of the kingdom; they were eagerly pursued by the

barons; Aymer, one of the brothers, who had been elected to the see of

Winchester took shelter in his episcopal palace, and carried the others

along with him; they were surrounded in that place, and threatened to

be dragged out by force, and to be punished for their crimes and

misdemeanors; and the king, pleading the sacredness of an ecclesiastical

sanctuary, was glad to extricate them from this danger by banishing

them the kingdom. In this act of violence, as well as in the former

usurpations of the barons, the queen and her uncles were thought to

have secretly concurred; being jealous of the credit acquired by the

brothers, which, they found, had eclipsed and annihilated their own.

But the subsequent proceedings of the twenty-four barons were sufficient

to open the eyes of the nation, and to prove their intention of reducing

forever both the king and the people under the arbitrary power of a

very narrow aristocracy., which must at last have terminated either in

anarchy, or in a violent usurpation and tyranny. They pretended

that they had not yet digested all the regulations necessary for the

reformation of the state, and for the redress of grievances; and

that they must still retain their power, till that great purpose

were thoroughly effected: in other words, that they must be perpetual

governors, and must continue to reform, till they were pleased to

abdicate their authority. They formed an association among themselves,

and swore that they would stand by each other with their lives and

fortunes; they displaced all the chief officers of the crown, the

justiciary, the chancellor, the treasurer; and advanced either

themselves or their own creatures in their place: even the offices of

the king’s household were disposed of at their pleasure: the government

of all the castles was put into hands in whom they found reason to

confide: and the whole power of the state being thus transferred to

them, they ventured to impose an oath, by which all the subjects were

obliged to swear, under the penalty of being declared public enemies,

that they would obey and execute all the regulations, both known and

unknown, of the twenty-four barons: and all this, for the greater

glory of God, the honor of the church, the service of the king, and the

advantage of the kingdom.[*]

* Chron. T. Wykes, p. 52.

No one dared to withstand this tyrannical authority: Prince Edward

himself, the king’s eldest son, a youth of eighteen, who began to give

indications of that great and manly spirit which appeared throughout the

whole course of his life, was, after making some opposition, constrained

to take that oath, which really deposed his father and his family from

sovereign authority.[*] Earl Warrenne was the last person in the kingdom

that could be brought to give the confederated barons this mark of

submission.