power, introduced an innovation in the constitution of parliament, which
was of the utmost importance. They ordained, that this assembly should
choose a committee of twelve persons, who should, in the intervals of
the sessions, possess the authority of the whole parliament, and should
attend, on a summons, the person of the king, in all his motions. But so
powerful were these barons, that this regulation was also submitted to;
the whole government was overthrown or fixed on new foundations; and the
monarchy was totally subverted, without its being possible for the king
to strike a single stroke in defence of the constitution against the
newly-erected oligarchy.
{1259.} The report that the king of the Romans intended to pay a visit
to England, gave alarm to the ruling barons, who dreaded lest the
extensive influence and established authority of that prince would be
employed to restore the prerogatives of his family, and overturn their
plan of government.[**] They sent over the bishop of Worcester, who met
him at St. Omars; asked him, in the name of the barons, the reason of
his journey, and how long he intended to stay in England; and insisted
that, before he entered the kingdom he should swear to observe the
regulations established at Oxford. On Richard’s refusal to take this
oath, they prepared to resist him as a public enemy; they fitted out a
fleet, assembled an army, and exciting the inveterate prejudices of
the people against foreigners, from whom they had suffered so many
oppressions, spread the report that Richard, attended by a number
of strangers, meant to restore by force the authority of his exiled
brothers, and to violate all the securities provided for public liberty.
The king of the Romans was at last obliged to submit to the terms
required of him. [***]
* Ann. Burt. p. 411.
** M. Paris, p. 661.
*** Ibid p. 661, 662. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 53.
But the barons, in proportion to their continuance in power, began
gradually to lose that popularity which had assisted them in obtaining
it; and men repined, that regulations, which were occasionally
established for the reformation of the state, were likely to become
perpetual, and to subvert entirely the ancient constitution. They were
apprehensive lest the power of the nobles, always oppressive, should now
exert itself without control, by removing the counterpoise of the crown;
and their fears were increased by some new edicts of the barons, which
were plainly calculated to procure to themselves an impunity in all
their violences. They appointed that the circuits of the itinerant
justices, the sole check on their arbitrary conduct, should be held only
once in seven years, and men easily saw that a remedy which returned
after such long intervals, against an oppressive power which was
perpetual, would prove totally insignificant and useless.[*] The cry
became loud in the nation, that the barons should finish their intended
regulations. The knights of the shires, who seem now to have been
pretty regularly assembled, and sometimes in a separate house,
made remonstrances against the slowness of their proceedings. They
represented that, though the king had performed all the conditions
required of him, the barons had hitherto done nothing for the public
good, and had only been careful to promote their own private advantage,
and to make inroads on royal authority; and they even appealed to Prince
Edward, and claimed his interposition for the interests of the nation,
and the reformation of the government.[**] The prince replied that,
though it was from constraint, and contrary to his private sentiments,
he had sworn to maintain the provisions of Oxford, he was determined to
observe his oath: but he sent a message to the barons, requiring them
to bring their undertaking to a speedy conclusion, and fulfil their
engagements to the public: otherwise, he menaced them, that at the
expense of his life, he would oblige them to do their duty, and
would shed the last drop of his blood in promoting the interests and
satisfying the just wishes of the nation.[***]
The barons, urged by so pressing a necessity, published at last a new
code of ordinances for the reformation of the state: [****] but the
expectations of the people were extremely disappointed when they found
that these consisted only of some trivial alterations in the municipal
law; and still more, when the barons pretended that the task was not yet
finished and that they must further prolong their authority, in order to
bring the work of reformation to the desired period.
* M. Paris, p. 667. Trivet, p. 209.
** Ann. Burt. p. 427.
*** Ann Burt. p. 427.
**** Ann. Burt. p. 428, 439
The current of popularity was now much turned to the side of the crown;
and the barons had little, to rely on for their support besides the
private influence and power of their families, which, though exorbitant,
was likely to prove inferior to the combination of king and people. Even
this basis of power was daily weakened by their intestine jealousies and
animosities; their ancient and inveterate quarrels broke out when they
came to share the spoils of the crown; and the rivalship between the
earls of Leicester and Glocester, the chief leaders among them, began
to disjoint the whole confederacy. The latter, more moderate in his
pretensions, was desirous of stopping or retarding the career of the
barons’ usurpations; but the former, enraged at the opposition which, he
met with in his own party, pretended to throw up all concern in English
affairs; and he retired into France.[*]
The kingdom of France, the only state with which England had any
considerable intercourse, was at this time governed by Lewis IX., a
prince of the most singular character that is to be met with in all
the records of history. This monarch united to the mean and abject
superstition of a monk all the courage and magnanimity of the greatest
hero; and, what may be deemed more extraordinary, the justice and
integrity of a disinterested patriot, the mildness and humanity of an
accomplished philosopher. So far from taking advantage of the divisions
among the English, or attempting to expel those dangerous rivals from
the provinces which they still possessed in France, he had entertained
many scruples with regard to the sentence of attainder pronounced
against the king’s father, had even expressed some intention of
restoring the other provinces, and was only prevented from taking that
imprudent resolution by the united remonstrances of his own barons, who
represented the extreme danger of such a measure,[**] and, what had a
greater influence on Lewis, the justice of punishing by a legal sentence
the barbarity and felony of John. Whenever this prince interposed
in English affairs, it was always with an intention of composing the
differences between the king and his nobility: he recommended to both
parties every peaceable and reconciling measure; and he used all his
authority with the earl of Leicester, his native subject, to bend him to
a compliance with Henry.
* Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 348.
** M. Paris, p. 604.
He made a treaty with England at a time when the distractions of that
kingdom were at the greatest height, and when the king’s authority was
totally annihilated; and the terms which he granted might, even in
a more prosperous state of their affairs, be deemed reasonable and
advantageous to the English. He yielded up some territories which
had been conquered from Poictou and Guienne; he insured the peaceable
possession of the latter province to Henry; he agreed to pay that prince
a large sum of money; and he only required that the king should, in
return, make a final cession of Normandy and the other provinces, which
he could never entertain any hopes of recovering by force of arms.[*]
This cession was ratified by Henry, by his two sons and two daughters,
and by the king of the Romans and his three sons: Leicester alone,
either moved by a vain arrogance, or desirous to ingratiate himself with
the English populace, protested against the deed, and insisted on the
right, however distant, which might accrue to his consort.[**] Lewis saw
in his obstinacy the unbounded ambition of the man; and as the barons
insisted that the money due by treaty should be at their disposal, not
at Henry’s, he also saw, and probably with regret, the low condition to
which this monarch, who had more erred from weakness than from any bad
intentions, was reduced by the turbulence of his own subjects.
{1261.} But the situation of Henry soon after wore a more favorable
aspect. The twenty-four barons had now enjoyed the sovereign power near
three years; and had visibly employed it, not for the reformation of
the state, which was their first pretence, but for the aggrandizement
of themselves and of their families. The breach of trust was apparent to
all the world: every order of men felt it, and murmured against it: the
dissensions among the barons themselves, which increased the evil,
made also the remedy more obvious and easy: and the secret desertion
in particular of the earl of Glocester to the crown, seemed to promise
Henry certain success in any attempt to resume his authority. Yet durst
he not take that step, so reconcilable both to justice and policy,
without making a previous application to Rome, and desiring an
absolution from his oaths and engagements.[***]
* Rymer, vol. i. p 675. M. Paris, p. 566. Chron. T. Wykes,
p, 53. Trivet, p. 208 M. West. p. 371.
** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 53.
*** Ann. Burt. p. 389.
The pope was at this time much dissatisfied with the conduct of the
barons; who, in order to gain the favor of the people and clergy of
England, had expelled all the Italian ecclesiastics, had confiscated
their benefices, and seemed determined to maintain the liberties and
privileges of the English church, in which the rights of patronage
belonging to their own families were included. The extreme animosity of
the English clergy against the Italians was also a source of his disgust
to the order; and an attempt which had been made by them for further
liberty and greater independence on the civil power, was therefore less
acceptable to the court of Rome.[*] About the same time that the barons
at Oxford had annihilated the prerogatives of the monarchy, the clergy
met in a synod at Merton, and passed several ordinances, which were
no less calculated to promote their own grandeur at the expense of
the crown. They decreed, that it was unlawful to try ecclesiastics by
secular judges; that the clergy were not to regard any prohibitions
from civil courts; that lay patrons had no right to confer spiritual
benefices; that the magistrate was obliged, without further inquiry, to
imprison all excommunicated persons; and that ancient usage, without any
particular grant or charter, was a sufficient authority for any clerical
possessions or privileges.[**] About a century before, these claims
would have been supported by the court of Rome beyond the most
fundamental articles of faith: they were the chief points maintained
by the great martyr Becket; and his resolution in defending them had
exalted him to the high station which he held in the catalogue of Romish
saints. But principles were changed with the times: the pope was become
somewhat jealous of the great independence of the English clergy, which
made them stand less in need of his protection, and even imboldened them
to resist his authority, and to complain of the preference given to the
Italian courtiers, whose interests, it is natural to imagine, were the
chief object of his concern. He was ready, therefore, on the king’s
application, to annul these new constitutions of the church of
England.[***] And, at the same time, he absolved the king and all his
subjects from the oath which they had taken to observe the provisions of
Oxford.[****]
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 755.
** Ann. Burt. p. 389.
*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 755.
**** Rymer, vol. i. p. 722. M. Paris, p. 666. W. Heming. p,
580. Ypod. Neust. p; 468. Knyghton, p. 2446.
Prince Edward, whose liberal mind, though in such early youth, had
taught him the great prejudice which his father had incurred by his
levity, inconstancy, and frequent breach of promise, refused for a
long time to take advantage of thus absolution; and declared that the
provisions of Oxford, how unreasonable soever in themselves, and how
much soever abused by the barons, ought still to be adhered to by those
who had sworn to observe them:[*] he himself had been constrained by
violence to take that oath; yet was he determined to keep it. By this
scrupulous fidelity the prince acquired the confidence of all parties,
and was afterwards enabled to recover fully the royal authority, and
to perform such great actions both during his own reign and that of his
father.
The situation of England, during this period, as well as that of most
European kingdoms, was somewhat peculiar. There was no regular military
force maintained in the nation: the sword, however, was not, properly
speaking, in the hands of the people; the barons were alone intrusted
with the defence of the community; and after any effort which they made,
either against their own prince or against foreigners, as the military
retainers departed home, the armies were disbanded, and could not
speedily be reassembled at pleasure. It was easy, therefore, for a
few barons, by a combination, to get the start of the other party, to
collect suddenly their troops, and to appear unexpectedly in the field
with an army, which their antagonists, though equal or even superior
in power and interest, would not dare to encounter. Hence the sudden
revolutions which often took place in those governments; hence the
frequent victories obtained without a blow by one faction over the
other; and hence it happened, that the seeming prevalence of a party was
seldom a prognostic of its long continuance in power and authority.
{1262.} The king, as soon as he received the pope’s absolution from his
oath, accompanied with menaces of excommunication against all opponents,
trusting to the countenance of the church, to the support promised him
by many considerable barons, and to the returning favor of the people,
immediately took off the mask. After justifying his conduct by a
proclamation, in which he set forth the private ambition and the breach
of trust conspicuous in Leicester and his associates, be declared that
he had resumed the government, and was determined thenceforth to exert
the royal authority for the protection of his subjects.
* M. Paris. D. 667.
He removed Hugh le Despenser and Nicholas de Ely, the justiciary and
chancellor appointed by the barons; and put Philip Basset and Walter de
Merton in their place. He substituted new sheriffs in all the counties,
men of character and honor; he placed new governors in most of the
castles; he changed all the officers of his household; he summoned a
parliament, in which the resumption of his authority was ratified, with
only five dissenting voices; and the barons, after making one fruitless
effort to take the king by surprise at Winchester, were obliged to
acquiesce in those new regulations.[*]
The king, in order to cut off every objection to his conduct, offered
to refer all the differences between him and the earl of Leicester to
Margaret, queen of France.[**] The celebrated integrity of Lewis gave a
mighty influence to any decision which issued from his court; and Henry
probably hoped, that the gallantry on which all barons, as true knights,
valued themselves, would make them ashamed not to submit to the award
of that princess. Lewis merited the confidence reposed in him. By
an admirable conduct, probably as political as just, he continually
interposed his good offices to allay the civil discords ol the English:
he forwarded all healing measures which might give security to
both parties: and he still endeavored, though in vain, to soothe by
persuasion the fierce ambition of the earl of Leicester, and to convince
him how much it was his duty to submit peaceably to the authority of his
sovereign.
* M. Paris, p. 668. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 55.
** Rymer, vol. i. p. 724.
{1263.} That bold and artful conspirator was nowise discouraged by
the bad success of his past enterprises. The death of Richard, earl
of Glocester, who was his chief rival in power, and who, before his
decease, had joined the royal party seemed to open a new field to his
violence, and to expose the throne to fresh insults and injuries. It was
in vain that the king professed his intentions of observing strictly
the great charter, even of maintaining all the regulations made by the
reforming barons at Oxford or afterwards, except those with entirely
annihilated the royal authority; these powerful chieftains, now
obnoxious to the court, could not peaceably resign the hopes of entire
independence and uncontrolled power with which they had flattered
themselves, and which they had so long enjoyed. Many of them engaged
in Leicester’s views, and among the rest, Gilbert, the young earl
of Glocester, who brought him a mighty accession of power, from the
extensive authority possessed by that opulent family. Even Henry, son
of the king of the Romans, commonly called Henry d’Allmaine, though a
prince of the blood, joined the party of the barons against the king,
the head of his own family Leicester himself, who still resided in
France, secretly formed the links of this great conspiracy, and planned
the whole scheme of operations.
The princes of Wales, notwithstanding the great power of the monarchs
both of the Saxon and Norman line, still preserved authority in their
own country. Though they had often been constrained to pay tribute
to the crown of England, they were with difficulty retained in
subordination or even in peace; and almost through every reign since
the conquest, they had infested the English frontiers with such petty
incursions and sudden inroads, as seldom merit to have place in a
general history. The English, still content with repelling their
invasions, and chasing them back into their mountains, had never pursued
the advantages obtained over them, nor been able, even under their
greatest and most active princes, to fix a total, or so much as a feudal
subjection on the country. This advantage was reserved to the present
king, the weakest and most indolent. In the year 1237, Lewellyn, prince
of Wales, declining in years and broken with infirmities, but still more
harassed with the rebellion and undutiful behavior of his youngest son
Griffin, had recourse to the protection of Henry; and consenting
to subject his principality, which had so long maintained, or soon
recovered, its independence to vassalage under the crown of England,
had purchased security and tranquillity on these dishonorable terms. His
eldest son and heir, David, renewed the homage to England; and having
taken his brother prisoner, delivered him into Henry’s hands, who
committed him to custody in the Tower. That prince, endeavoring to make
his escape, lost his life in the attempt; and the prince of Wales, freed
from the apprehensions of so dangerous a rival, paid thenceforth less
regard to the English monarch, and even renewed those incursions by
which the Welsh, during so many ages, had been accustomed to infest the
English borders. Lewellyn, however, the foil of Griffin, who succeeded
to his uncle, had been obliged to renew the homage which was now claimed
by England as an established right; but he was well pleased to inflame
those civil discords, on which he rested his present security and
founded his hopes of future independence. He entered into a confederacy
with the earl of Leicester, and collecting all the force of his
principality, invaded England with an army of thirty thousand men.
He ravaged the lands of Roger de Mortimer, and of all the barons who
adhered to the crown;[*] he marched into Cheshire, and committed like
depredations on Prince Edward’s territories; every place where his
disorderly troops appeared was laid waste with fire and sword; and
though Mortimer, a gallant and expert soldier, made stout resistance, it
was found necessary that the prince himself should head the army against
this invader. Edward repulsed Prince Lewellyn, and obliged him to take
shelter in the mountains of North Wales: but he was prevented from
making further progress against the enemy by the disorders which soon
after broke out in England.
The Welsh invasion was the appointed signal for the malecontent barons
to rise in arms; and Leicester, coming over secretly from France,
collected all the forces of his party, and commenced an open rebellion.
He seized the person of the bishop of Hereford, a prelate obnoxious to
all the inferior clergy, on account of his devoted attachment to the
court of Rome.[**] Simon, bishop of Norwich, and John Mansel, because
they had published the pope’s bull, absolving the king and kingdom from
their oaths to observe the provisions of Oxford, were made prisoners,
and exposed to the rage of the party. The king’s demesnes were ravaged
with unbounded fury,[***] and as it was Leicester’s interest to allure
to his side, by the hopes of plunder, all the disorderly ruffians in
England he gave them a general license to pillage the barons of the
opposite party, and even all neutral persons.
* Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 354.
** Trivet, p. 211. M. West. p. 382, 392.
*** Trivet, p. 211. M. West. p. 382.
But one of the principal resources of his faction was the populace of
the cities, particularly of London; and as he had, by his hypocritical
pretensions to sanctity, and his zeal against Rome, engaged the monks
and lower ecclesiastics in his party, his dominion over the inferior
ranks of men became uncontrollable. Thomas Fitz-Richard, mayor of
London, a furious and licentious man, gave the countenance of authority
to these disorders in the capital; and having declared war against the
substantial citizens, he loosened all the bands of government, by which
that turbulent city was commonly but ill restrained. On the approach of
Easter, the zeal of superstition, the appetite for plunder, or what is
often as prevalent with the populace as either of these motives, the
pleasure of committing havoc and destruction, prompted them to attack
the unhappy Jews, who were first pillaged without resistance, then
massacred, to the number of five hundred persons.[*] The Lombard bankers
were next exposed to the rage of the people; and though, by taking
sanctuary in the churches, they escaped with their lives, all their
money and goods became a prey to the licentious multitude. Even the
houses of the rich citizens, though English, were attacked by night;
and way was made by sword and by fire to the pillage of their goods,
and often to the destruction of their persons. The queen, who, though
defended by the Tower, was terrified by the neighborhood of such
dangerous commotions, resolved to go by water to the Castle of Windsor;
but as she approached the bridge, the populace assembled against her:
the cry ran, “Drown the witch;” and besides abusing her with the most
opprobrious language, and pelting her with rotten eggs and dirt, they
had prepared large stones to sink her barge, when she should attempt to
shoot the bridge; and she was so frightened, that she returned to the
Tower[**]
The violence and fury of Leicester’s faction had risen to such a height
in all parts of England, that the king, unable to resist their
power, was obliged to set on foot a treaty of peace, and to make an
accommodation with the barons on the most disadvantageous terms.[***]
* Chron T. Wykes, p. 59.
** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 57.
*** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 358. Trivet, p. 211.
He agreed to confirm anew the provisions of Oxford, even those which
entirely annihilated the royal authority; and the barons were again
reinstated in the sovereignty of the kingdom. They restored Hugh le
Despenser to the office of chief justiciary: they appointed their own
creatures sheriffs in every county of England; they took possession of
all the royal castles and fortresses; they even named all the officers
of the king’s household; and they summoned a parliament to meet at
Westminster, in order to settle more fully their plan of government.
They here produced a new list of twenty-four barons, to whom they
proposed that the administration should be entirely committed; and
they insisted that the authority of this junto should continue not only
during the reign of the king, but also during that of Prince Edward.
This prince, the life and soul of the royal party, had unhappily,
before the king’s accommodation with the barons, been taken prisoner by
Leicester in a parley at Windsor;[*] and that misfortune, more than
any other incident, had determined Henry to submit to the ignominious
conditions imposed upon him. But Edward, having recovered his liberty by
the treaty, employed his activity in defending the prerogatives of his
family; and he gained a great party even among-those who had at first
adhered to the cause of the barons. His cousin, Henry d’Allmaine, Roger
Bigod, earl mareschal, Earl Warrenne, Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford,
John Lord Basset, Ralph Basset, Hammond l’Estrange, Roger Mortimer, Henry
de Piercy, Robert de Brus, Roger de Leybourne, with almost all the lords
marchers, as they were called, on the borders of Wales and of Scotland,
the most warlike parts of the kingdom, declared in favor of the royal
cause; and hostilities, which were scarcely well composed, were again
renewed in every part of England. But the near balance of the parties,
joined to the universal clamor of the people, obliged the king and
barons to open anew the negotiations for peace; and it was agreed by
both sides to submit their differences to the arbitration of the king of
France.[**]
* M. Paris, p. 669. Trivet, p. 213.
** M. Paris, p. 668, Chron. T. Wykes, p. 58. W. Heming, p.
580. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 363.
{1264.} This virtuous prince, the only man, who, in like circumstances,
could safely have been intrusted with such an authority by a neighboring
nation, had never ceased to interpose his good, offices between the
English factions, and had, even, during the short interval of peace,
invited over to Paris both the king and the earl of Leicester, in order
to accommodate the differences between them, but found that the fears
and animosities on both sides, as well as the ambition of Leicester,
were so violent, as to render all his endeavors ineffectual. But when
this solemn appeal, ratified by the oaths and subscriptions of
the leaders in both factions, was made to his judgment, he was not
discouraged from pursuing his honorable purpose: he summoned the states
of France at Amiens; and there, in the presence of that assembly,
as well as in that of the king of England and Peter de Mountfort,
Leicester’s son, he brought this great cause to a trial and examination.
It appeared to him, that the provisions of Oxford, even had they not
been extorted by force, had they not been so exorbitant in their nature
and subversive of the ancient constitution, were expressly established
as a temporary expedient, and could not, without breach of trust,
be rendered perpetual by the barons. He therefore annulled these
provisions; restored to the king the possession of his castles, and the
power of nomination to the great offices; allowed him to retain what
foreigners he pleased in his kingdom, and even to confer on them places
of trust and dignity; and, in a word, reestablished the royal power
in the same condition on which it stood before the meeting of
the parliament at Oxford. But while he thus suppressed dangerous
innovations, and preserved unimpaired the prerogatives of the English
crown, he was not negligent of the rights of the people; and besides
ordering that a general amnesty should be granted for all past offences,
he declared, that his award was not anywise meant to derogate from
the privileges and liberties which the nation enjoyed by any former
concessions or charters of the crown.[*]
This equitable sentence was no sooner known in England, than Leicester
and his confederates determined to reject it and to have recourse
to arms, in order to procure to themselves more safe and advantageous
conditions.[**]
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 776, 777, etc. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 58.
Knyghton, p. 2446.
** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 363.
Without regard to his oaths and subscriptions, that enterprising
conspirator directed his two sons, richard and Peter de Mountfort, in
conjunction with Robert de Ferrers, earl of Derby, to attack the city of
Worcester; while Henry and Simon de Mountfort, two others of his sons,
assisted by the prince of Wales, were ordered to lay waste the estate
of Roger de Mortimer. He himself resided at London; and employing as
his instrument Fitz-Richard, the seditious mayor, who had violently
and illegally prolonged his authority, he wrought up that city to the
highest ferment and agitation. The populace formed themselves into
bands and companies; chose leaders; practised all military exercises;
committed violence on the royalists; and to give them greater
countenance in their disorders, an association was entered into between
the city and eighteen great barons, never to make peace with the king
but by common consent and approbation. At the head of those who swore to
maintain this association, were the earls of Leicester, Glocester,
and Derby, with Le Despenser, the chief justiciary; men who had all
previously sworn to submit to the award of the French monarch. Their
only pretence for this breach of faith was, that the latter part of
Lewis’s sentence was, as they affirmed, a contradiction to the former.
He ratified the charter of liberties, yet annulled the provisions of
Oxford, which were only calculated, as they maintained, to preserve that
charter; and without which, in their estimation, they had no security for
its observance.
The king and prince, finding a civil war inevitable, prepared themselves
for defence; and summoning the military vassals from all quarters, and
being reinforced by Baliol, lord of Galloway, Brus, lord of Annandale,
Henry Piercy, John Comyn,[*] and other barons of the north, they
composed an army, formidable as well from its numbers as its military
prowess and experience. The first enterprise of the royalists was the
attack of Northampton, which was defended by Simon de Mountfort, with
many of the principal barons of that party: and a breach being; made in
the walls by Philip Basset, the place was carried by assault, and both
the governor and the garrison were made prisoners. The royalists marched
thence to Leicester and Nottingham; both which places having opened
their gates to them, Prince Edward proceeded with a detachment into the
county of Derby, in order to ravage with fire and sword the lands of
the earl of that name, and take revenge on, him for his disloyalty.
Like maxims of war prevailed with both parties throughout England; and
the kingdom was thus exposed in a moment to greater devastation, from
the animosities of the rival barons, than it would have suffered from
many years of foreign or even domestic hostilities, conducted by more
humane and more generous principles.
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 772. M. West. p. 385. Ypod. Neust. p.
469.
The earl of Leicester, master of London, and of the counties in the
south-east of England, formed the siege of Rochester, which alone
declared for the king in those parts, and which, besides Earl Warrenne,
the governor, was garrisoned by many noble and powerful barons of the
royal party. The king and prince hastened from Nottingham, where they
were then quartered, to the relief of the place; and on their approach,
Leicester raised the siege and retreated to London, which, being the
centre of his power, he was afraid might, in his absence, fall into the
king’s hands, either by force or by a correspondence with the principal
citizens, who were all secretly inclined to the royal cause. Reënforced
[**unusual spelling but that is what it looks like] by a great body
of Londoners, and having summoned his partisans from all quarters,
he thought himself strong enough to hazard a general battle with
the royalists, and to determine the fate of the nation in one great
engagement, which, if it proved successful, must be decisive against
the king, who had no retreat for his broken troops in those parts, while
Leicester himself, in case of any sinister accident, could easily
take shelter in the city. To give the better coloring to his cause, he
previously sent a message with conditions of peace to Henry, submissive
in the language, but exorbitant in the demands;[*] and when the
messenger returned with the lie and defiance from the king, the prince,
and the king of the Romans, he sent a new message, renouncing, in the
name of himself and of the associated barons, all fealty and allegiance
to Henry. He then marched out of the city with his army, divided into
four bodies: the first commanded by his two sons, Henry and Guy de
Mountfort, together with Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, who had
deserted to the barons; the second led by the earl of Glocester, with
William de Montchesney and John Fitz-John; the third, composed of
Londoners, under the command of Nicholas de Segrave; the fourth headed
by himself in person. The bishop of Chichester gave a general absolution
to the army, accompanied with assurances, that, if any of them fell in
the ensuing action, they would infallibly be received into heaven, as
the reward of their suffering in so meritorious a cause.
* M. Paris, p. 669. W. Heming. p. 583.
Leicester, who possessed great talents for war, conducted his march with
such skill and secrecy, that he had well nigh surprised the royalists
in their quarters at Lewes, in Sussex, but the vigilance and activity of
Prince Edward soon repaired this negligence; and he led out the king’s
army to the field in three bodies. He himself conducted the van,
attended by Earl Warrenne and William de Valence; the main body was
commanded by the king of the Romans and his son Henry; the king himself
was placed in the rear at the head of his principal nobility. Prince
Edward rushed upon the Londoners who had demanded the post of honor in
leading the rebel army, but who, from their ignorance of discipline and
want of experience, were ill fitted to resist the gentry and military
men, of whom the prince’s body was composed. They were broken in an
instant; were chased off the field; and Edward, transported by his
martial ardor, and eager to revenge the insolence of the Londoners
against his mother,[*] put them to the sword for the length of four
miles, without giving them any quarter, and without reflecting on the
fate which in the mean time attended the rest of the army. The earl of
Leicester, seeing the royalists thrown into confusion by their eagerness
in the pursuit, led on his remaining troops against the bodies commanded
by the two royal brothers: he defeated with great slaughter the forces
headed by the king of the Romans; and that prince was obliged to yield
himself prisoner to the earl of Glocester: he penetrated to the body
where the king himself was placed, threw it into disorder, pursued
his advantage, chased it into the town of Lewes, and obliged Henry to
surrender himself prisoner.[**]
Prince Edward, returning to the field of battle from his precipitate
pursuit of the Londoners, was astonished to find it covered with the
dead bodies of his friends, and still more to hear that his father and
uncle were defeated and taken prisoners, and that Arundel, Comyn, Brus,
Hamond l’Estrange, Roger Leybourne, and many considerable barons of his
party were in the hands of the victorious enemy. Earl Warrenne, Hugh
Bigod, and William de Valence, struck with despair at this event,
immediately took to flight, hurried to Pevencey, and made their escape
beyond sea:[***] but the prince, intrepid amidst the greatest disasters,
exhorted his troops to revenge the death of their friends, to relieve
the royal captives, and to snatch an easy conquest from an enemy
disordered by their own victory.[****] He found his followers
intimidated by their situation, while Leicester, afraid of a sudden and
violent blow from the prince, amused him by a feigned negotiation, till
he was able to recall his troops from the pursuit, and to bring them
into order.[*****]
* M. Paris, p. 670. Chron. T. Wykes, P 62
** W. Heming. p. 583 M. West p. 337. Ypod. Neust. p. 469.
*** Kynghton, p. 2450.
**** M. Paris, p. 670.
***** M. West, p., 387.
****** Chron. T. Wyke, p. 63. W. Heming. p. 584.
******* W. Heming. p. 581.
There now appeared no further resource to the royal party, surrounded
by the armies and garrisons of the enemy, destitute of forage and
provisions, and deprived of their sovereign, as well as of their
principal leaders, who could alone inspirit them to an obstinate
resistance. The prince, therefore, was obliged to submit to Leicester’s
terms, which were short and severe, agreeably to the suddenness and
necessity of the situation. He stipulated that he and Henry d’Allmaine
should surrender themselves prisoners as pledges in lieu of the two
kings; that all other prisoners on both sides should be released;[*] and
that in order to settle fully the terms of agreement, application should
be made to the king of France, that he should name six Frenchmen, three
prelates and three noblemen; these six to choose two others of their
own country, and these two to choose one Englishman, who, in conjunction
with themselves, were to be invested by both parties with full powers
to make what regulations they thought proper for the settlement of the
kingdom. The prince and young Henry accordingly delivered themselves
into Leicester’s hands, who sent them under a guard to Dover Castle.
Such are the terms of agreement, commonly called the Mise of Lewes, from
an obsolete French term of that meaning; for it appears that all the
gentry and nobility of England, who valued themselves on their Norman
extraction, and who disdained the language of their native country, made
familiar use of the French tongue till this period, and for some time
after.
Leicester had no sooner obtained this great advantage and gotten the
whole royal family in his power, than he openly violated every article
of the treaty, and acted as sole master, and even tyrant of the kingdom.
He still detained the king in effect a prisoner, and made use of that
prince’s authority to purposes the most prejudicial to his interests,
and the most oppressive of his people.[**] He every where disarmed the
royalists, and kept all his own partisans in, a military posture:[***]
he observed the same partial conduct in the deliverance of the captives,
and even threw many of the royalists into prison, besides those who were
taken in the battle of Lewes; he carried the king from place to place,
and obliged all the royal castles, on pretence of Henry’s commands, to
receive a governor and garrison of his own appointment.
* M. Paris, p. 671. Knyghton, p. 2451.
** Rymer, vol. i. p. 790, 791, etc.
*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 795. Brady’s Appeals, No. 211, 212.
Chron. T. Wykes, p. 63.
All the officers of the crown and of the household were named by him,
and the whole authority, as well as arms of the state, was lodged in his
hands: he instituted in the counties a new kind of magistracy, endowed
with new and arbitrary powers, that of conservators of the peace;[*]
his avarice appeared bare-faced, and might induce us to question the
greatness of his ambition, at least the largeness of his mind, if we had
not reason to think that he intended to employ his acquisitions as the
instruments for attaining further power and grandeur. He seized the
estates of no less than eighteen barons as his share of the spoil gained
in the battle of Lewes: he engrossed to himself the ransom of all the
prisoners; and told his barons, with a wanton insolence, that it was
sufficient for them that he had saved them by that victory from the
forfeitures and attainders which hung over them:[**] he even treated the
earl of Glocester in the same injurious manner, and applied to his own
use the ransom of the king of the Romans, who in the field of battle had
yielded himself prisoner to that nobleman. Henry, his eldest son, made a
monopoly of all the wool in the kingdom, the only valuable commodity for
foreign markets which it at that time produced.[***] The inhabitants of
the cinque ports, during the present dissolution of government, betook
themselves to the most licentious piracy, preyed on the ships of all
nations, threw the mariners into the sea, and by these practices,
soon banished all merchants from the English coasts and harbors. Every
foreign commodity rose to an exorbitant price, and woollen cloth, which
the English had not then the art of dyeing, was worn by them white, and
without receiving the last hand of the manufacturer. In answer to the
complaints which arose on this occasion, Leicester replied that
the kingdom could well enough subsist within itself, and needed no
intercourse with foreigners. And it was found that he even combined with
the pirates of the cinque ports, and received as his share the third of
their prizes.[****]
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 792.
** Knyghton, p. 2451.
*** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 65.
**** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 6.
No further mention was made of the reference to the king of France, so
essential an article in the agreement of Lewes; and Leicester summoned a
parliament, composed altogether of his own partisans, in order to
rivet, by their authority, that power which he had acquired by so much
violence, and which he used with so much tyranny and injustice. An
ordinance was there passed, to which the king’s consent had been
previously extorted, that every act of royal power should be exercised
by a council of nine persons, who were to be chosen and removed by the
majority of three, Leicester himself, the earl of Glocester, and the
bishop of Chichester.[*] By this intricate plan of government, the
sceptre was really put into Leicester’s hands; as he had the entire
direction of the bishop of Chichester, and thereby commanded all the
resolutions of the council of three, who could appoint or discard at
pleasure every member of the supreme council.
But it was impossible that things could long remain in this strange
situation. It behoved Leicester either to descend with some peril
into the rank of a subject, or to mount up with no less into that of
a sovereign; and his ambition, unrestrained either by fear or by
principle, gave too much reason to suspect him of the latter intention.
Meanwhile he was exposed to anxiety from every quarter; and felt that
the smallest incident was capable of overturning that immense and
ill-cemented fabric which he had reared. The queen, whom her husband
had left abroad, had collected in foreign parts an army of desperate
adventurers, and had assembled a great number of ships, with a view of
invading the kingdom, and of bringing relief to her unfortunate family.
Lewis, detesting Leicester’s usurpations and perjuries, and disgusted
at the English barons, who had refused to submit to his award, secretly
favored all her enterprises, and was generally believed to be making
preparations for the same purpose. An English army, by the pretended
authority of the captive king, was assembled on the sea-coast, to oppose
this projected invasion;[**] but Leicester owed his safety more to cross
winds, which long detained and at last dispersed and ruined the queen’s
fleet, than to any resistance which, in their present situation, could
have been expected from the English.
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 793. Brady’s Appeals, No. 213.
** Brady’s Appeals, No. 216, 217. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p
373 M. West, p. 385.
Leicester found himself better able to resist the spiritual thunders
which were levelled against him. The pope, still adhering to the king’s
cause against the barons, despatched Cardinal Guido as his legate
into England, with orders to excommunicate by name the three earls,
Leicester, Glocester, and Norfolk, and all others in general, who
concurred in the oppression and captivity of their sovereign.[*]
Leicester menaced the legate with death if he set foot within the
kingdom; but Guido, meeting in France the bishops of Winchester, London,
and Worcester, who had been sent thither on a negotiation, commanded
them, under the penalty of ecclesiastical censures, to carry his bull
into England, and to publish it against the barons. When the prelates
arrived off the coast, they were boarded by the piratical mariners of
the cinque ports, to whom probably they gave a hint of the cargo which
they brought along with them: the bull was torn and thrown into the
sea; which furnished the artful prelates with a plausible excuse for not
obeying the orders of the legate. Leicester appealed from Guido to the
pope in person; but before the ambassadors appointed to defend his cause
could reach Rome, the pope was dead; and they found the legate himself,
from whom they had appealed, seated on the papal throne, by the name of
Urban IV. That daring leader was nowise dismayed with this incident; and
as he found that a great part of his popularity in England was founded
on his opposition to the court of Rome, which was now become odious, he
persisted with the more obstinacy in the prosecution of his measures.
{1265.} That he might both increase and turn to advantage his
popularity, Leicester summoned a new parliament in London, where he
knew his power was uncontrollable; and he fixed this assembly on a
more democratical basis than any which had ever been summoned since the
foundation of the monarchy. Besides the barons of his own party, and
several ecclesiastics, who were not immediate tenants of the crown, he
ordered returns to be made of two knights from each shire, and, what is
more remarkable, of deputies from the boroughs, an order of men which,
in former ages, had always been regarded as too mean to enjoy a place in
the national councils.[**] This period is commonly esteemed the epoch of
the house of commons in England; and it is certainly the first time that
historians speak of any representatives sent to parliament by the
boroughs and even in the most particular narratives delivered of
parliamentary transactions, as in the trial of Thomas à Becket, where
the events of each day, and almost of each hour, are carefully recorded
by contemporary authors,[***] there is not, throughout the whole, the
least appearance of a house of commons.
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 798. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 373.
** Rymer, vol. i. p. 802.
*** Fitz-Stephen, Hist. Quadrip. Hoveden, etc.
In all the general accounts given in preceding times of those
assemblies, the prelates and barons only are mentioned as the
constituent members. But though that house derived its existence from so
precarious and even so invidious an origin as Leicester’s usurpation, it
soon proved, when summoned by the legal princes, one of the most
useful, and, in process of time, one of the most powerful members of
the national constitution; and gradually rescued the kingdom from
aristocratical as well as from regal tyranny. But Leicester’s policy, if
we must ascribe to him so great a blessing, only forwarded by some
years an institution, for which the general state of things had already
prepared the nation; and it is otherwise inconceivable, that a plant,
set by so inauspicious a hand, could have attained to so vigorous
a growth, and have flourished in the midst of such tempests and
convulsions. The feudal system, with which the liberty, much more the
power of the commons, was totally incompatible, began gradually
to decline; and both the king and the commonalty, who felt its
inconveniencies, contributed to favor this new power, which was more
submissive than the barons to the regular authority of the crown, and at
the same time afforded protection to the inferior orders of the state.
Leicester, having thus assembled a parliament of his own model, and
trusting to the attachment of the populace of London, seized the
opportunity of crushing his rivals among the powerful barons. Robert
de Ferrers, earl of Derby, was accused in the king’s name, seized, and
committed to custody, without being brought to any legal trial.[*] John
Gifford, menaced with the same fate, fled from London, and took shelter
in the borders of Wales. Even the earl of Glocester, whose power and
influence had so much contributed to the success of the barons, but
who of late was extremely disgusted with Leicester’s arbitrary conduct,
found himself in danger from the prevailing authority of his ancient
confederate; and he retired from parliament.[**] This known dissension
gave courage to all Leicester’s enemies and to the king’s friends; who
were now sure of protection from so potent a leader.
* Chron. T. Wykes, p. 66. Ann. Waverl. p. 216.
** M. Paris, p. 671. Ann. Waverl. p. 211.
Though Roger Mortimer, Hamond l’Estrange, and other powerful marchers
of Wales, had been obliged to leave the kingdom, their authority still
remained over the territories subjected to their jurisdiction; and
there were many others who were disposed to give disturbance to the new
government. The animosities inseparable from the feudal aristocracy,
broke out with fresh violence, and threatened the kingdom with new
convulsions and disorders.
The earl of Leicester, surrounded with these difficulties, embraced a
measure, from which he hoped to reap some present advantages, but which
proved in the end the source of all his future calamities. The active
and intrepid Prince Edward had anguished in prison ever since the fatal
battle of Lewes; and as he was extremely popular in the kingdom there
arose a general desire of seeing him again restored to liberty.[*]
Leicester, finding that he could with difficulty oppose the concurring
wishes of the nation, stipulated with the prince, that, in return,
he should order his adherents to deliver up to the barons all their
castles, particularly those on the borders of Wales; and should swear
neither to depart the kingdom during three years, nor introduce into it
any foreign forces.[**] The king took an oath to the same effect, and
he also passed a charter in which he confirmed the agreement or Mise of
Lewes; and even permitted his subjects to rise in arms against him, if
he should ever attempt to infringe it.[***] So little care did Leicester
take, though he constantly made use of the authority of this captive
prince, to preserve to him any appearance of royalty or kingly
prerogatives.
* Knyghton, p. 2451.
** Ann. Waverl. p. 216.
*** Blackstone’s Mag. Chart. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 378.
In consequence of this treaty, Prince Edward was brought into
Westminster Hall, and was declared free by the barons: but instead of
really recovering his liberty, as he had vainly expected, he found that
the whole transaction was a fraud on the part of Leicester; that he
himself still continued a prisoner at large, and was guarded by the
emissaries of that nobleman; and that, while the faction reaped all the
benefit from the performance of his part of the treaty, care was taken
that he should enjoy no advantage by it. As Glocester, on his rupture
with the barons, had retired for safety to his estates on the borders
of Wales, Leicester followed him with an army to Hereford,[*] continued
still to menace ana negotiate, and that he might add authority to his
cause, he carried both the king and prince along with him. The earl of
Glocester here concerted with young Edward the manner of that prince’s
escape. He found means to convey to him a horse of extraordinary
swiftness; and appointed Roger Mortimer who had returned into the
kingdom, to be ready at hand with a small party to receive the prince,
and to guard him to a place of safety. Edward pretended to take the
air with some of Leicester’s retinue, who were his guards; and making
matches between their horses, after he thought he had tired and blown
them sufficiently, he suddenly mounted Glocester’s horse, and called
to his attendants that he had long enough enjoyed the pleasure of
their company, and now bade them adieu. They followed him for some time
without being able to overtake him; and the appearance of Mortimer with
his company put an end to their pursuit.
* Chron. T. Wykes, p. 67. Ann. Waverl. p. 218. W. Heming, p.
585. Chron Durst. vil. i i. p. 383, 384.
The royalists, secretly prepared for this event, immediately flew to
arms; and the joy of this gallant prince’s deliverance, the oppressions
under which the nation labored, the expectation of a new scene of
affairs, and the countenance of the earl of Glocester, procured Edward
an army which Leicester was utterly unable to withstand. This nobleman
found himself in a remote quarter of the kingdom; surrounded by his
enemies; barred from all communication with his friends by the Severn,
whose bridges Edward had broken down; and obliged to fight the cause
of his party under these multiplied disadvantages. In this extremity he
wrote to his son, Simon de Mountfort, to hasten from London with an army
for his relief; and Simon had advanced to Kenilworth with that view,
where, fancying that all Edward’s force and attention were directed
against his father, he lay secure and unguarded. But the prince, making
a sudden and forced march, surprised him in his camp, dispersed his
army, and took the earl of Oxford and many other noblemen prisoners,
almost without resistance. Leicester, ignorant of his son’s fate, passed
the Severn in boats during Edward’s absence, and lay at Evesham, in
expectation of being every hour joined by his friends from London; when
the prince, who availed himself of every favorable moment, appeared in
the field before him. Edward made a body of his troops advance from
the road which led to Kenilworth, and ordered them to carry the banners
taken from Simon’s army; while he himself, making a circuit with the
rest of his forces, purposed to attack the enemy on the other quarter.
Leicester was long deceived by this stratagem, and took one division of
Edward’s army for his friends; but at last, perceiving his mistake,
and observing the great superiority and excellent disposition of the
royalists, he exclaimed, that they had learned from him the art of war;
adding, “The Lord have mercy on our souls, for I see our bodies are the
prince’s!” The battle immediately began, though on very unequal terms.
Leicester’s army, by living in the mountains of Wales without bread,
which was not then much used among the inhabitants, had been extremely
weakened by sickness and desertion, and was soon broken by the
victorious royalists; while his Welsh allies, accustomed only to a
desultory kind of war, immediately took to flight, and were pursued with
great slaughter. Leicester himself, asking for quarter, was slain in the
heat of the action, with his eldest son Henry, Hugh le Despenser, and
about one hundred and sixty knights, and many other gentlemen of his
party. The old king had been purposely placed by the rebels in the front
of the battle, and being clad in armor, and thereby not known by his
friends, he received a wound, and was in danger of his life; but crying
out, “I am Henry of Winchester, your king,” he was saved, and put in a
place of safety by his son, who flew to his rescue.
The violence, ingratitude, tyranny, rapacity, and treachery of the earl
of Leicester, give a very bad idea of his moral character, and make us
regard his death as the most fortunate event which, in this conjuncture,
could have happened to the English nation: yet must we allow the man
to have possessed great abilities, and the appearance of great virtues,
who, though a stranger, could, at a time when strangers were the most
odious and the most universally decried, have acquired so extensive an
interest in the kingdom, and have so nearly paved his way to the throne
itself. His military capacity, and his political craft, were equally
eminent: he possessed the talents both of governing men and conducting
business; and though his ambition was boundless, it seems neither to
have exceeded his courage nor his genius; and he had the happiness
of making the low populace, as well as the haughty barons, coöperate
towards the success of his selfish and dangerous purposes. A prince of
greater abilities and vigor than Henry might have directed the talents
of this nobleman either to the exaltation of his throne or to the good
of his people but the advantages given to Leicester, by the weak and
variable administration of the king, brought on the ruin of royal
authority, and produced great confusions in the kingdom which, however,
in the end, preserved and extremely improved national liberty and the
constitution. His popularity, even after his death, continued so great,
that, though he was excommunicated by Rome, the people believed him to
be a saint; and many miracles were said to be wrought upon his tomb.[*]
{1266.} The victory of Evesham, with the death of Leicester, proved
decisive in favor of the royalists, and made an equal though an opposite
impression on friends and enemies, in every part of England. The king of
the Romans recovered his liberty: the other prisoners of the royal party
were not only freed, but courted by their keepers; Fitz-Richard, the
seditious mayor of London, who had marked out forty of the most wealthy
citizens for slaughter, immediately stopped his hand on receiving
intelligence of this great event; and almost all the castles, garrisoned
by the barons, hastened to make their submissions, and to open their
gates to the king. The Isle of Axholme alone, and that of Ely, trusting
to the strength of their situation, ventured to make resistance; but
were at last reduced, as well as the Castle of Dover, by the valor and
activity of Prince Edward.[**] Adam de Gourdon, a courageous baron,
maintained himself during some time in the forests of Hampshire,
committed depredations in the neighborhood, and obliged the prince to
lead a body of troops into that country against him. Edward attacked the
camp of the rebels; and being transported by the ardor of battle, leaped
over the trench with a few followers, and encountered Gourdon in single
combat. The victory was long disputed between these valiant combatants;
but ended at last in the prince’s favor, who wounded his antagonist,
threw him from his horse, and took him prisoner. He not only gave him
his life; but introduced him that very night to the queen at Guildford,
procured him his pardon, restored him to his estate, received him into
favor, and was ever after faithfully served by him.[***]
* Chron. de Mailr. p. 232.
** M. Paris p. 676. W. Heming. p. 588.
*** M. Paris, p 575
A total victory of the sovereign over so extensive a rebellion commonly
produces a revolution of government, and strengthens, as well as
enlarges, for some time, the prerogatives of the crown; yet no
sacrifices of national liberty were made on this occasion; the Great
Charter remained still inviolate; and the king, sensible that his own
barons, by whose assistance alone he had prevailed, were no less jealous
of their independence than the other party, seems thenceforth to have
more carefully abstained from all those exertions of power which had
afforded so plausible a pretence to the rebels. The clemency of this
victory is also remarkable; no blood was shed on the scaffold; no
attainders, except of the Mountfort family, were carried into execution;
and though a parliament, assembled at Winchester, attainted all those
who had borne arms against the king, easy compositions were made
with them for their lands;[*] and the highest sum levied on the most
obnoxious offenders exceeded not five years’ rent of their estate. Even
the earl of Derby, who again rebelled, after having been pardoned and
restored to his fortune, was obliged to pay only seven years’ rent, and
was a second time restored. The mild disposition of the king, and the
prudence of the prince, tempered the insolence of victory and gradually
restored order to the several members of the state, disjointed by so
long a continuance of civil wars and commotions.
The city of London, which had carried farthest the rage and animosity
against the king, and which seemed determined to stand upon its defence
after almost all the kingdom had submitted, was, after some interval,
restored to most of its liberties and privileges; and Fitz-Richard,
the mayor, who had been guilty of so much illegal violence, was only
punished by fine and imprisonment. The countess of Leicester, the king’s
sister, who had been extremely forward in all attacks on the royal
family, was dismissed the kingdom with her two sons, Simon and Guy,
who proved very ungrateful for this lenity. Five years afterwards, they
assassinated, at Viterbo in Italy, their cousin Henry d’Allmaine, who at
that very time was endeavoring to make their peace with the king; and
by taking sanctuary in the church of the Franciscans, they escaped the
punishment due to so great an enormity.[**]
* M. Paris, p. 675.
** Rymer, vol. i. p. 879; vol. ii. p. 4, 6. Chron. T. Wykes,
p. 94 W. Heming. p. 589. Trivet, p. 240.
{1267.} The merits of the earl of Glocester, after he returned to his
allegiance, had been so great, in restoring the prince to his liberty,
and assisting him in his victories against the rebellious barons, that
it was almost impossible to content him in his demands; and his youth
and temerity as well as his great power, tempted him, on some new
disgust, to raise again the flames of rebellion in the kingdom. The
mutinous populace of London at his instigation took to arms; and the
prince was obliged to levy an army of thirty thousand men in order to
suppress them. Even this second rebellion did not provoke the king to
any act of cruelty; and the earl of Glocester himself escaped with total
impunity. He was only obliged to enter into a bond of twenty thousand
marks, that he should never again be guilty of rebellion; a strange
method of enforcing the laws, and a proof of the dangerous independence
of the barons in those ages! These potent nobles were, from the danger
of the precedent, averse to the execution of the laws of forfeiture and
felony against any of their fellows; though they could not, with a
good grace, refuse to concur in obliging them to fulfil any voluntary
contract and engagement into which they had entered.
{1270.} The prince, finding the state of the kingdom tolerably composed,
was seduced by his avidity for glory, and by the prejudices of the
age, as well as by the earnest solicitations of the king of France, to
undertake an expedition against the infidels in the Holy Land;[*] and he
endeavored previously to settle the state in such a manner, as to dread
no bad effects from his absence. As the formidable power and turbulent
disposition of the earl of Glocester gave him apprehensions, he insisted
on carrying him along with him, in consequence of a vow which that
nobleman had made to undertake the same voyage: in the mean time, he
obliged him to resign some of his castles, and to enter into a new bond
not to disturb the peace of the kingdom.[**]
* M. Paris, p. 677
** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 90.
He sailed from England with an army; and arrived in Lewis’s camp before
Tunis in Africa, where he found that monarch already dead, from the
intemperance of the climate and the fatigues of his enterprise. The
great, if not only weakness of this prince, in his government, was
the imprudent passion for crusades; but it was this zeal chiefly that
procured him from the clergy the title of St. Lewis, by which he is
known in the French history and if that appellation had not been so
extremely prostituted as to become rather a term of reproach, he seems,
by his uniform probity and goodness, as well as his piety, to have fully
merited the title. He was succeeded by his son Philip, denominated
the Hardy; a prince of some merit, though much inferior to that of his
father.
{1271.} Prince Edward, not discouraged by this event, continued his
voyage to the Holy Land, where he signalized himself by acts of valor;
revived the glory of the English name in those parts; and struck such
terror into the Saracens, that they employed an assassin to murder him,
who wounded him in the arm, but perished in the attempt.[*] Meanwhile
his absence from England was attended with many of those pernicious
consequences which had been dreaded from it. The laws were not executed:
the barons oppressed the common people with impunity: they gave shelter
on their estates to bands of robbers, whom they employed in committing
ravages on the estates of their enemies: the populace of London returned
to their usual licentiousness: and the old king, unequal to the burden
of public affairs, called aloud for his gallant son to return,[**] and
to assist him in swaying that sceptre which was ready to drop from
his feeble and irresolute hands. At last, overcome by the cares of
government and the infirmities of age, he visibly declined, and he
expired at St. Edmondsbury in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and
fifty-sixth of his reign;[***] the longest reign that is to be met with
in the English annals.
* M. Paris, p. 678, 679. W. Heming, p. 520.
** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 404.
*** Kymer, vol. i. p. 869. M. Paris, p. 678.
{1272.} His brother, the king of the Romans, (for he never attained the
title of emperor,) died about seven months before him.
The most obvious circumstance of Henry’s character is his incapacity for
government, which rendered him as much a prisoner in the hands of his
own ministers and favorites, and as little at his own disposal, as when
detained a captive in the hands of his enemies. From this source, rather
than from insincerity or treachery, arose his negligence in observing
his promises; and he was too easily induced, for the sake of present
convenience, to sacrifice the lasting advantages arising from the trust
and confidence of his people. Hence too were derived his profusion to
favorites, his attachment to strangers, the variableness of his
conduct, his hasty resentments, and his sudden forgiveness and return of
affection.
Instead of reducing the dangerous power of his nobles, by obliging
them to observe the laws towards their inferiors, and setting them the
salutary example in his own government, he was seduced to imitate
their conduct, and to make his arbitrary will, or rather that of his
ministers, the rule of his actions. Instead of accommodating himself,
by a strict frugality, to the embarrassed situation in which his
revenue had been left by the military expeditions of his uncle, the
dissipations of his father, and the usurpations of the barons, he was
tempted to levy money by irregular exactions, which, without enriching
himself, impoverished, at least disgusted, his people. Of all men,
nature seemed least to have fitted him for being a tyrant, yet are there
instances of oppression in his reign, which, though derived from the
precedents left him by his predecessors, had been carefully guarded
against by the Great Charter, and are inconsistent with all rules of
good government. And on the whole, we may say, that greater abilities,
with his good dispositions, would have prevented him from falling
into his faults, or with worse dispositions, would have enabled him to
maintain and defend them.
This prince was noted for his piety and devotion, and his regular
attendance on public worship; and a saying of his on that head is much
celebrated by ancient writers. He was engaged in a dispute with Lewis
IX. of France, concerning the preference between sermons and masses: he
maintained the superiority of the latter, and affirmed, that he would
rather have one hour’s conversation with a friend, than hear twenty of
the most elaborate discourses pronounced in his praise.[*]
* Walsing. Edw. I. p. 43.
Henry left two sons, Edward, his successor, and Edmond earl of
Lancaster; and two daughters, Margaret, queen of Scotland, and Beatrix,
duchess of Brittany. He had five other children, who died in their
infancy.
The following are the most remarkable laws enacted during this reign.
There had been great disputes between the civil and ecclesiastical
courts concerning bastardy. The common law had deemed all those to
be bastards who were born before wedlock; by the canon law they were
legitimate: and when any dispute of inheritance arose, it had formerly
been usual for the civil courts to issue writs to the spiritual,
directing them to inquire into the legitimacy of the person. The bishop
always returned an answer agreeable to the canon law, though contrary to
the municipal law of the kingdom. For this reason, the civil courts had
changed the terms of their writ; and instead of requiring the spiritual
courts to make inquisition concerning the legitimacy of the person, they
only proposed the simple question of fact, whether he were born before
or after wedlock. The prelates complained of this practice to the
parliament assembled at Merton in the twentieth of this king, and
desired that the municipal law might be rendered conformable to the
canon; but received from all the nobility the memorable reply, “Nolumus
leges Angliae mutare.” We will not change the laws of England.[*]
After the civil wars, the parliament summoned at Marlebridge gave their
approbation to most of the ordinances which had been established by the
reforming barons, and which though advantageous to the security of the
people, had not received the sanction of a legal authority. Among other
laws, it was there enacted, that all appeals from the courts of inferior
lords should be carried directly to the king’s courts, without passing
through the courts of the lords immediately superior.[**] It was
ordained, that money should bear no interest during the minority of
the debtor.[***] This law was reasonable, as the estates of minors
were always in the hands of their lords, and the debtors could not pay
interest where they had no revenue. The charter of King John had granted
this indulgence: it was omitted in that of Henry III., for what reason
is not known; but it was renewed by the statute of Marlebridge. Most
of the other articles of this statute are calculated to restrain the
oppressions of sheriffs, and the violence and iniquities committed
in distraining cattle and other goods. Cattle and the instruments of
husbandry formed at that time the chief riches of the people.
In the thirty-fifth year of this king, an assize was fixed of bread, the
price of which was settled according to the different prices of corn,
from one shilling a quarter to seven shillings and sixpence,[****]
money of that age. These great variations are alone a proof of bad
tillage:[*****] yet did the prices often rise much higher than any taken
notice of by the statute.
* Statute of Merton, chap. 9.
** Statute of Marlb. chap. 20.
*** Ibid. chap. 16.
**** Statutes at large, p. 6.
***** We learn from Cicero’s orations against Verres, (lib.
iii. cap. 81, 92,) that the price of corn in Sicily was,
during the preetorship of Sacerdos five denarii amodius;
during that of Verres, which immediately succeeded, only two
sesterces; that is, ten times lower; a presumption, or
rather a proof, of the very bad state of tillage in ancient
times.
The Chronicle of Dunstable tells us, that in this reign wheat was once
sold for a mark, nay, for a pound a quarter; that is, three pounds of
our present money.[*] The same law affords us a proof of the little
communication between the parts of the kingdom, from the very different
prices which the same commodity bore at the same time. A brewer, says
the statute, may sell two gallons of ale for a penny in cities, and
three or four gallons for the same price in the country. At present,
such commodities, by the great consumption of the people, and the great
stocks of the brewers, are rather cheapest in cities. The Chronicle
above mentioned observes, that wheat one year was sold in many places
for eight shillings a quarter, but never rose in Dunstable above a
crown.
* So also Knyghton, p. 2444.
Though commerce was still very low, it seems rather to have increased
since the conquest; at least, if we may judge of the increase of money
by the price of corn. The medium between the highest and lowest prices
of wheat, assigned by the statute, is four shillings and threepence a
quarter; that is, twelve shillings and ninepence of our present money.
This is near half of the middling price in our time. Yet the middling
price of cattle, so late as the reign of King Richard, we find to be
above eight, near ten times lower than the present. Is not this the true
inference, from comparing these facts, that, in all uncivilized nations,
cattle, which propagate of themselves, bear always a lower price than
corn, which requires more art and stock to render it plentiful than
those nations are possessed of? It is to be remarked, that Henry’s
assize of corn was copied from a preceding assize established by King
John; consequently, the prices which we have here compared of corn and
cattle may be looked on as contemporary; and they were drawn, not from
one particular year, but from an estimation of the middling prices for
a series of years. It is true, the prices assigned by the assize of
Richard were meant as a standard for the accompts of sheriffs and
escheators and as considerable profits were allowed to these ministers,
we may naturally suppose that the common value of cattle was somewhat
higher: yet still, so great a difference between the prices of corn and
cattle as that of four to one, compared to the present rates, affords
important reflections concerning the very different state of industry
and tillage in the two periods.
Interest had in that age mounted to an enormous height, as might
be expected from the barbarism of the times and men’s ignorance of
commerce. Instances occur of fifty per cent. paid for money.[*] There
is an edict of Philip Augustus, near this period, limiting the Jews in
France to forty-eight per cent.[**] Such profits tempted the Jews to
remain in the kingdom, notwithstanding the grievous oppressions to
which, from the prevalent bigotry and rapine of the age, they were
continually exposed. It is easy to imagine how precarious their state
must have been under an indigent prince, somewhat restrained in his
tyranny over his native subjects, but who possessed an unlimited
authority over the Jews, the sole proprietors of money in the kingdom,
and hated on account of their riches, their religion, and their usury;
yet will our ideas scarcely come up to the extortions which in fact we
find to have been practised upon them. In the year 1241, twenty thousand
marks were exacted from them;[***] two years after money was again
extorted; and one Jew alone, Aaron of York, was obliged to pay above
four thousand marks;[****] in 1250, Henry renewed his oppressions; and
the same Aaron was condemned to pay him thirty thousand marks upon an
accusation of forgery;[*****] the high penalty imposed upon him, and
which, it seems, he was thought able to pay, is rather a presumption of
his innocence than of his guilt.
* M. Paris, p. 586.
** Brussel, Traité des Fiefs, vol. i, p. 576.
*** M. Paris, p. 372.
**** M. Paris, p. 410.
***** M. Paris, p. 525.
In 1255, the king demanded eight thousand marks from the Jews, and
threatened to hang them if they refused compliance. They now lost all
patience, and desired leave to retire with their effects out of the
kingdom. But the king replied, “How can I remedy the oppressions you
complain of? I am myself a beggar. I am spoiled, I am stripped of all
my revenues; I owe above two hundred thousand marks; and if I had said
three hundred thousand, I should not exceed the truth; I am obliged to
pay my son, Prince Edward, fifteen thousand marks a year; I have not a
farthing; and I must have money from any hand, from any quarter, or by
any means.” He then delivered over the Jews to the earl of Cornwall,
that those whom the one brother had flayed, the other might embowel, to
make use of the words of the historian.[*] King John, his father, once
demanded ten thousand marks from a Jew of Bristol; and on his refusal,
ordered one of his teeth to be drawn every day till he should comply.
The Jew lost seven teeth, and then paid the sum required of him.[**]
One talliage laid upon the Jews, in 1243, amounted to sixty thousand
marks;[***] a sum equal to the whole yearly revenue of the crown.
To give a better pretence for extortions, the improbable and absurd
accusation, which has been at different times advanced against that
nation, was revived in England, that they had crucified a child in
derision of the sufferings of Christ. Eighteen of them were hanged at
once for this crime;[****] though it is nowise credible that even the
antipathy borne them by the Christians, and the oppressions under which
they labored, would ever have pushed them to be guilty of that dangerous
enormity. But it is natural to imagine, that a race exposed to such
insults and indignities, both from king and people, and who had so
uncertain an enjoyment of their riches, would carry usury to the utmost
extremity, and by their great profits make themselves some compensation
for their continual perils.
Though these acts of violence against the Jews proceeded much from
bigotry, they were still more derived from avidity and rapine. So far
from desiring in that age to convert them, it was enacted by law in
France, that if any Jew embraced Christianity, he forfeited all his
goods, without exception, to the king or his superior lord. These
plunderers were careful lest the profits accruing from their dominion
over that unhappy race should be diminished by their conversion.[*****]
Commerce must be in a wretched condition where interest was so high, and
where the sole proprietors of money employed it in usury only, and
were exposed to such extortion and injustice. But the bad police of
the country was another obstacle to improvements, and rendered all
communication dangerous, and all property precarious. The Chronicle of
Dunstable says,[******] that men were never secure in their houses, and
that whole villages were often plundered by bands of robbers, though no
civil wars at that time prevailed in the kingdom.
*M. Paris, p. 606.
**M. Paris, p. 160.
***Madox, p. 152.
****M. Paris, p. 613.
*****Brussel, vol. i. p. 622. Du Cange, verbo Judaei.
******Vol. i. p. 155.
In 1249, some years before the insurrection of the barons, two merchants
of Brabant came to the king at Winchester, and told him that they had
been spoiled of all their goods by certain robbers, whom they knew,
because they saw their faces every day in his court; that like practices
prevailed all over England, and travellers were continually exposed to
the danger of being robbed, bound, wounded, and murdered; that
these crimes escaped with impunity, because the ministers of justice
themselves were in a confederacy with the robbers; and that they, for
their part, instead of bringing matters to a fruitless trial by law,
were willing, though merchants, to decide their cause with the robbers
by arms and a duel. The king, provoked at these abuses, ordered a jury
to be enclosed, and to try the robbers: the jury, though consisting
of twelve men of property in Hampshire, were found to be also in a
confederacy with the felons, and acquitted them. Henry, in a rage,
committed the jury to prison, threatened them with severe punishment,
and ordered a new jury to be enclosed, who, dreading the fate of their
fellows, at last found a verdict against the criminals. Many of the
king’s own household were discovered to have participated in the guilt;
and they said for their excuse, that they received no wages from him,
and were obliged to rob for a maintenance.[*] “Knights and esquires,”
says the Dictum of Kenilworth, “Who were robbers, if they have no land,
shall pay the half of their goods, and find sufficient security to
keep henceforth the peace of the kingdom.” Such were the manners of the
times!
One can the less repine, during the prevalence of such manners, at the
frauds and forgeries of the clergy; as it gives less disturbance to
society to take men’s money from them with their own consent, though by
deceits and lies, than to ravish it by open force and violence. During
this reign the papal power was at its summit, and was even beginning
insensibly to decline, by reason of the immeasurable avarice and
extortions of the court of Rome, which disgusted the clergy as well as
laity in every kingdom of Europe. England itself, though sunk in the
deepest abyss of ignorance and superstition, had seriously entertained
thoughts of shaking off the papal yoke;[**] and the Roman pontiff was
obliged to think of new expedients for rivetting it faster upon the
Christian world.
* M. Paris, p. 509.
** M. Paris, p. 421.
For this purpose, Gregory IX. published his decretals,[*] which are a
collection of forgeries favorable to the court of Rome, and consist
of the supposed decrees of popes in the first centuries. But these
forgeries are so gross, and confound so palpably all language, history,
chronology, and antiquities,--matters more stubborn than any speculative
truths whatsoever,--that even that church, which is not startled at
the most monstrous contradictions and absurdities, has been obliged to
abandon them to the critics. But in the dark period of the thirteenth
century, they parsed for undisputed and authentic; and men, entangled
in the mazes of this false literature, joined to the philosophy, equally
false, of the times, had nothing wherewithal to defend themselves, but
some small remains of common sense, which passed for profaneness and
impiety, and the indelible regard to self-interest, which, as it was the
sole motive in the priests for framing these impostures, served also, in
some degree, to protect the laity against them.
* Trivet, p. 191.
Another expedient, devised by the church of Rome, in this period, for
securing her power, was the institution of new religious orders, chiefly
the Dominicans and Franciscans, who proceeded with all the zeal and
success that attend novelties; were better qualified to gain the
populace than the old orders, now become rich and indolent; maintained
a perpetual rivalship with each other in promoting their gainful
superstitions; and acquired a great dominion over the minds, and
consequently over the purses, of men, by pretending a desire of poverty
and a contempt for riches. The quarrels which arose between these
orders, lying still under the control of the sovereign pontiff, never
disturbed the peace of the church, and served only as a spur to their
industry in promoting the common cause; and though the Dominicans lost
some popularity by their denial of the immaculate conception,--a
point in which they unwarily engaged too far to be able to recede with
honor,--they counterbalanced this disadvantage by acquiring more solid
establishments, by gaining the confidence of kings and princes, and
by exercising the jurisdiction assigned them of ultimate judges and
punishers of heresy. Thus the several orders of monks became a kind
of regular troops or garrisons of the Romish church; and though the
temporal interests of society, still more the cause of true piety, were
hurt, by their various devices to captivate the populace, they proved
the chief supports of that mighty fabric of superstition, and, till the
revival of true learning, secured it from any dangerous invasion.
The trial by ordeal was abolished in this reign by order of council; a
faint mark of improvement in the age.[*]
Henry granted a charter to the town of Newcastle, in which he gave the
inhabitants a license to dig coal. This is the first mention of coal in
England.
We learn from Madox,[**] that this king gave at one time one hundred
shillings to Master Henry, his poet; also the same year he orders this
poet ten pounds.
It appears from Selden, that in the forty-seventh of this reign, a
hundred and fifty temporal and fifty spiritual barons were summoned to
perform the service, due by their tenures.[***] In the thirty-fifth of
the subsequent reign, eighty-six temporal barons, twenty bishops,
and forty-eight abbots, were summoned to a parliament convened at
Carlisle.[****]
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 228. Spelman, p. 326.
** Page 208.
*** Titles of Honor, part ii. chap. 3.
**** Parliamentary Hist. vol. i. p. 151.
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