they saw a well-ordered army approaching, and Leicester’s barber,
who happened to be the longest-sighted man amongst then, at first
recognized all the standards as belonging to young De Montfort;
only after he had ascended a church-tower did he perceive the
emblems of De Clare and Edward mingled with them. De Montfort was
thus greatly outnumbered and surprised. As the enemy approached in
three well-arrayed divisions, “Ah,” said he, “that arrangement is
not your own, I have taught you how to fight.” Then, as it became
evident that he had neither time nor men to secure the victory,
he added, “God have mercy on our souls, for our bodies are the
Prince’s.” The stories of the fidelity of his party are touching.
He begged his partisans to fly while there was time. They refused
to leave him, while his son Henry begged him to make good his
retreat, and leave him alone to fight the battle. He was not a
man to listen to such advice. At length the assault came. He saw
the best of his followers and his son killed or disabled around
him. But still, though his horse was killed under him, “like a
giant,” says one, “like an impregnable tower for the liberties of
England,” says another of the Chroniclers, he fought on, wielding
his sword with both hands, till he fell overpowered by the assault
of numbers. Three hours completed the battle, which was little
else than a massacre. “Thus lamentably fell the flower of all
knighthood, leaving an example of steadfastness to others. But
since there is no curse more baleful than a domestic enemy, who
can wonder at his fall? those who had eaten his bread lifted their
heels against him, they who loved him by word of mouth lied in
their throat.”[42]
[Sidenote: Kenilworth and the Fens hold out. 1266.]
[Sidenote: Dictum of Kenilworth.]
The victory produced a complete reaction in England. Castle
after castle opened its gates to the royalists. At Kenilworth
alone, which Simon had defended with extraordinary machines which
his skill as an engineer had invented, and in the inaccessible
marshes in the East of England, the baronial party still held out.
The conqueror proceeded at once to act with reckless severity.
The whole of Leicester’s property was confiscated and given to
Prince Edward, all his followers were deprived of civil rights
and property, and all acts of the government since the battle
of Lewes were declared null. This was the work of a Parliament
summoned at Winchester, where of course there is no sign either
of county or of borough representation. After London, which made
some opposition, was conquered, and for the time disfranchised,
all efforts were directed against Kenilworth. This stronghold had
become a centre from which, as from the Eastern Fens, disorderly
bodies pushed out to wreak their vengeance on the King’s followers.
The defence was heroic. It seemed plain that the reaction had been
carried much too far. One party at all events of the royalists,
with Prince Henry d’Almeyne and perhaps Prince Edward at its head,
desired a more conciliatory policy, and at length, at the end of
the year, a Commission of twelve was established to attempt to
produce peace. Under their management, a Parliament and Convocation
was held, the Magna Charta again acknowledged, even by the Papal
Legate, and those who had been disinherited were allowed to regain
their lands by paying a certain number of years’ income to the
new possessors. The sons of Lord Derby and Leicester were alone
excepted. In accordance with this arrangement, called the Dictum of
Kenilworth, the castle was surrendered.
[Sidenote: De Clare compels more moderate government.]
[Sidenote: Constitutional end of the reign.]
The insurgents in the Fens afterwards submitted on the same terms,
but not before Gilbert de Clare had again changed sides, making it
plain to the government that however much jealousy of De Montfort
might have broken the baronial moderate party, the feelings which
had dictated the Provisions of Oxford were still unconquered. Under
these circumstances it was found necessary to take further measures
to insure moderation of government. In May 1267, Magna Charta
was again enacted, and from this time forward kept. The offices
were given into the hands of Englishmen, and Englishmen only. The
Sicilian project had become impossible, indeed the crown had been
given to Charles of Anjou; and, finally, Prince Edward, whose
influence might have been dangerous, had withdrawn from England on
a crusade, and taken many English nobles with him. The Barons’ war
had thus, although in its outward form a failure, secured its main
object--tolerable constitutional government, and the establishment
of a national rule. In 1272 the King died.
[Sidenote: Views of the people on the revolution.]
It is always difficult to know how far the popular feeling is
engaged in political revolutions. The great bulk of the nation is
never the originator of such changes. The fate of a country is
settled by the conduct and thought of its educated men, though the
mass of the people plays a very prominent part as an instrument
in the hands of its leaders. There is much to make us believe,
however, that the movement of the Barons was in reality a national
one. More particularly is this true in the case of Simon de
Montfort. He is constantly spoken of by contemporary writers with
admiration. “Il eime dreit, et att le tort,” (He loves right and
hates the wrong), says one poet. “It should, however, be declared,”
says the Chronicler of Melrose, “that no one in his senses would
call Simon a traitor, for he was no traitor, but the most devout
and faithful worshipper of the Church in England, the shield and
defender of the kingdom, the enemy and expeller of aliens, although
by birth he was one of them.” The Londoners were his devoted
adherents, while the character of the Parliament which he summoned
after the battle of Lewes was certainly popular. It seems fair to
believe that he was the unselfish supporter of the national policy.
Again, all the writers of the time, with very few exceptions,[43]
whether chroniclers or poets, were in favour of the baronial party.
When some of the leaders seem flagging in their energy, they were
cheered by such words as these,--
“O Comes Gloverniæ, comple quod cæpisti,
Nisi claudas congruè, multos decepisti.”
“O tu Comes le Bygot, pactum serva sanum
Cum sis miles strenuus, nunc exerce manum.
O vos magni proceres, qui vos obligatis,
Observate firmiter illud quod juratis.”
Again, in one political poem of the day we have the question at
issue argued out in a manner which shows the advance of political
knowledge, and in a constitutional tone which would become a modern
Whig. “All restraint does not deprive of liberty. He who is kept
from falling so that he lives free from danger, reaps advantage
from such keeping, nor is such a support slavery, but the safeguard
of virtue. Therefore that it is permitted to a king all that is
good, but that he dare not do evil--this is God’s gift.... If a
prince love his subjects, he will be repaid with love; if he reign
justly, he will be honoured; if he err, he ought to be recalled by
them whom his unjust denial may have grieved, unless he be willing
to be corrected; if he is willing to make amends, he ought to be
raised up and aided by those same persons.... If a king be less
wise than he ought to be, what advantage will the kingdom gain
by his reign? Is he to seek by his own opinion on whom he should
depend to have his failing supplied? If he alone choose, he will
be easily deceived. Therefore let the community of the kingdom
advise, and let it be known what the generality thinks, to whom
their own laws are best known. Since it is their own affairs that
are at stake, they will take more care and will act with an eye to
their own peace.... We give the first place to the community; we
say also that the law rules over the king’s dignity, for the law
is the light without which he who rules will wander from the right
path.”
That proclamations should be published in English is also a
significant fact, and it may on the whole be considered that
this war was practically the conclusion of foreign domination in
England. It is the great honour of Edward I. to have perceived this
so clearly, that he willingly accepted the new national line of
policy which the Barons had marked out, and he may be regarded as
our first purely national monarch.
EDWARD I.
1272-1307.
Born, 1239 = 1. Eleanor of Castile.
|
+---------+---------+---------+---+------+-----------------+
| | | | | |
John. Henry. Alfonso. Edward II. Eleanor = Henry |
d. 1271. d. 1274. d. 1284. of Bar. |
|
+------------------------------------------------------+
|
+----+----------------+-------------------+
| | |
Joan = Gilbert, Margaret = John of Elizabeth = 1. John of
Earl of Brabant. Holland.
Gloucester. 2. Humphrey
de Bohun.
= 2. Margaret of France.
|
+--------------+---------------+
| |
Thomas, Earl of Norfolk. Edmund, Earl of Kent.
CONTEMPORARY PRINCES.
_Scotland._ | _France._ | _Germany._ | _Spain._
| | |
Alexander III., | Philip III., | Rodolph, 1272. | Alphonso X.,
1249. | 1270. | Adolphus, 1291. | 1252.
Margaret, 1286. | Philip IV., | Albert, 1298. | Sancho IV.,
Interregnum, 1290. | 1285. | | 1284.
Baliol, 1292. | | | Ferdinand IV.,
Interregnum, 1296. | | | 1295.
Robert I., 1306. | | |
POPES.--Gregory X., 1271. Innocent V., 1276. Adrian V., 1276.
John XX., 1276. Nicholas III., 1277. Martin IV., 1281. Honorius IV.,
1285. Nicholas IV., 1288. Vacancy, two years. Celestine V., 1292.
Boniface VIII., 1294. Benedict X., 1303. Vacancy, one year.
Clement V., 1305.
_Archbishops._ | _Chancellors._ | _Chief-justices._
| |
Robert Kilwardby, | Walter de Merton, 1272. | Ralph de Hengham,
1273-1278. | Robert Burnell, 1273-1292. | 1273-1289.
John Peckham, | John Langton, 1292. | Gilbert de Thornton,
1279-1292. | William Greenfield, 1302. | 1289-1295.
Robert Winchelsey, | William de Hamilton, 1304. | Roger Brabazon, 1295.
1294-1313. | Ralph de Baldock, 1307. |
[Sidenote: Edward’s peaceful accession. 1272.]
[Sidenote: His journey home, 1274.]
Edward was still abroad when the news of his father’s death was
brought to him. His accession had been so long looked forward to
as a happy termination to the difficulties of the last reign, that
what might have been a dangerous crisis passed over peacefully.
An assembly was summoned at Westminster, not only of the nobles,
but also of the representatives of the lower estates, and there an
oath of fidelity was taken to the absent King. Three prominent
nobles seem to have assumed the position of governors; the
Archbishop of York, as head of the clergy, Edmund of Cornwall, the
King’s brother, as representative of the royalty, and Gilbert of
Gloucester, as chief of the baronage. Under them the government
pursued its old course. Hearing that things were going well in
England, Edward did not hurry home. He returned by Sicily and Rome,
where he induced the Pope to visit upon the young De Montforts
the murder of Henry D’Almeyne, whom they had killed at Viterbo.
Thence he passed into France, joined in a great tournament at
Châlons, where jest was changed to earnest, and a rough skirmish
ensued, known as the little battle of Châlons. True to his legal
obligations, he did homage at Paris for his French dominions,
demanding what as yet had not been fulfilled, the completion of
the late definitive treaty in France: and after settling, not
without application to the French King as feudal superior, his
quarrels with Gaston de Bearn in Gascony, and establishing friendly
relations with Flanders, he returned in 1274 to England, and there,
on the 18th of August, was crowned and received the homage of his
Barons, and that, among others, of Alexander III. of Scotland.
Shortly after, he appointed as his chancellor Robert Burnell, who
served him throughout his life as chief minister, while Anthony
Beck, Bishop of Durham, was his chief agent in all diplomatic
matters.
[Sidenote: The importance of the reign.]
From the reign of Edward began what may be properly spoken of as
the _English_ monarchy. The last reign had brought prominently
forward the two great points which constituted the nationality
of the country. Primarily the object of the baronial party had
been to separate England from the overwhelming importance of its
foreign connections, and to prevent it from becoming a mere source
of wealth to foreign adventurers. In this the baronial party had
succeeded. While declaring themselves national, they had been
obliged to have recourse for support to other elements of the
nation than those from which the ruling class had hitherto been
formed. The advance of these new classes had, as has been seen,
been gradual. Already, in earlier reigns, the principle both of
election and representation had been, on more than one occasion,
accepted. But it was the formal admission both of knights of the
shire and of burghers to parliamentary privileges, even though the
practice had not been continued, which rendered it impossible long
to ignore the growing feeling that all classes should in some way
be consulted about what interested all.
[Sidenote: Edward the first English king.]
[Sidenote: His political views.]
[Sidenote: His legal mind.]
[Sidenote: His success.]
[Sidenote: His enforced concessions.]
Edward was well fitted, both by position and character, to play the
part of the first English king. He had given distinct proofs in the
earlier part of the late baronial quarrels that a good and national
government was what he desired. But it would be wrong to suppose
that he was at all inclined to what we should now call liberal
policy. In the latter part of his father’s reign he had made it
clear that to his mind a strong monarchy was a necessary condition
of good government. It was only gradually, and in accordance with
a love of symmetrical government which strongly characterized him,
that he recognized the advantage of the complete admission of the
hitherto unprivileged classes to the rights of representation.
He set before him as his object the establishment of a good and
orderly government in the national interests, but carried out by a
strong, nay despotic monarch, subjected only to the restrictions
of the law. This is indeed another prominent characteristic of the
King, in which he went along with the tendencies of the age. His
mind was essentially legal, and just at this time the Roman and
civil law were forcing their way into prominence throughout Europe.
In Edward and his great rival Philip IV. of France, we have,
allowing for their differences in personal character, instances
of the same course of action. They both intended to make use of
feudal law, interpreted more or less by the Roman law, and pressed
to its legal and logical conclusions, to strengthen the monarchy.
It is thus that we find Edward constantly enacting statutes and
constitutions, making use of feudal claims to compel the submission
of his neighbours, and exerting to the full, sometimes even beyond
the limits of honesty, the rights the constitution gave him, but
never wilfully transgressing what he regarded as the law. He was
successful in carrying out the two first branches of his threefold
policy; in the third he failed. Good government he established by
a series of admirable administrative enactments, and by that power
of definition which a living historian[44] has attributed to him,
in spite of the difficulties presented by the independent position
of the Church, and by the disorders still remaining from the late
troubled times. Nationality he was able to foster both by foreign
wars and by his great plan of connecting all the kingdoms of Great
Britain. But in his efforts to establish an absolute monarchy, he
was met by the financial difficulties into which the late reign had
plunged the Crown, and by that entanglement in foreign politics
which the English possessions in France, of which he was not yet
quite free, continually caused. Urged by his wide schemes to have
recourse to arbitrary means for replenishing his treasury, he
excited again an opposition similar to that of his father’s reign,
and found himself obliged to make concessions which effectually
prevented any of his successors from attempting to render the Crown
independent.
[Sidenote: First Parliament. Statute of Westminster. 1275.]
[Sidenote: Establishment of customs.]
[Sidenote: His restorative measures. 1278.]
The first years of the King’s reign were employed in restoring
order to the government and the finances. His first Parliament
met at Westminster in 1275, where was passed a great restorative
measure known by the name of the First Statute of Westminster.
It was so wide and far-reaching that it might be called a code
rather than an Act. Its object is said by a contemporary writer to
have been to “awake those languid laws which had long been lulled
asleep” by the abuses of the time. It secured the rights of the
Church, improved the tardy processes of law, and re-established
the charters, further limiting the sums which could be demanded
for the three legal aids. At the same Parliament, an export duty
on wool and leather, the origin of the customs, was granted to
the King, the more readily, perhaps, as his firmness had lately
re-established the wool-trade with Flanders. During the next three
or four years other less popular measures were taken with a view to
replenish the King’s treasury. Commissions were issued to inquire
into the exact limits of the grants of the late King to the clergy,
and to inquire into the tenure of property throughout England, with
the twofold view of establishing the rights of property disturbed
by the late war, and of clearly defining the revenue due to the
Crown.
[Sidenote: New coinage.]
[Sidenote: Statute of Mortmain. 1279.]
It was not till the year 1278 that the effect of this commission
was seen. Orders were then issued to the itinerant justices to make
use of the evidence which had been obtained, and to issue writs
of “quo warranto,” to oblige owners to make good their titles.
This was the occasion of the well-known answer of Warrenne, Earl
of Surrey, who presented his sword to the judge, saying, “This
is my title-deed, with this my ancestors won my land, with this
will I keep it.” The temper thus shown by one of his most faithful
followers prevented Edward from pushing matters to extremity.
During these years was set on foot also the practice of demanding
that those who were wealthy enough should receive knighthood. The
practice was kept up during the reign, but the property counted
sufficient for the holder of that dignity varied from £20 to £100
a year. The King’s activity reached in all directions. Another
commission was issued to inquire into the conduct of sheriffs. The
coinage, much clipped and debased, was renewed; it was ordered
that its shape should always be round, as the prevalent method of
clipping had been to cut the pieces into four, so that the exact
edge could not be known. At length, in 1279, Edward proceeded to
regulate one of the great abuses of the Church. Not only had that
body become exorbitantly rich, but the privileges which it claimed
had begun to be detrimental to the Crown; and when, in the earlier
part of the year, Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury, produced and
authorized, at a meeting at Reading, some canons tending to the
independence of the Church, the King was determined to strike a
blow in return. As corporations could not die, land which had
passed into their possession was free from the fines and payments
due from an incoming heir, which were thus lost to the feudal
superior. Moreover, and this touched the Crown more nearly, it had
become a habit to give property to the Church, and fraudulently to
receive it back again as a Church fief, and thus free from feudal
services. By the Statute of Mortmain, which was now passed, it was
forbidden, without the King’s consent, to transfer property to the
Church.
[Sidenote: Wales. 1275.]
[Sidenote: Llewellyn’s suspicious conduct.]
[Sidenote: War breaks out. 1277.]
[Sidenote: Llewellyn submits.]
[Sidenote: His merciful treatment.]
Meanwhile, while Edward had been thus busied at home, affairs in
Wales had begun to attract his attention. Llewellyn had always
been in close alliance with the Leicester party, and had shown his
dissatisfaction at the accession of Edward by refusing to come
to the assembly which swore fealty to the new King. Edward, who
wished honestly to heal the late differences, had summoned him to
his coronation, and had again been refused. Had he not desired a
peaceful solution of the difficulty, he would certainly now have
proceeded to extremities. But no less than six opportunities were
given to the Prince of appearing in England, to set himself right;
on every occasion he had refused to do so. The suspicions which
his conduct excited received a strong confirmation when it was
known that he was contemplating a marriage with the daughter of
De Montfort. It is probable that this marriage was to be carried
out in pursuance of some scheme for continuing the disturbances
of the last reign. Fortunately the lady was captured, with her
brother Almeric who was escorting her, on her way to Wales.
This brought matters to a crisis. In 1276, Llewellyn, who had
refused all approaches to friendship, demanded, in the language
of an independent prince, a treaty, and the restoration of his
wife. In November of that year Edward, acting in concert with
his Parliament, ordered his army to meet him at Worcester, and
the war began. Even the strength of his country did not enable
Llewellyn to hold out against the superior power and ability of the
English King. A fleet of ships from the Cinque Ports cut him off
from Anglesea, and mastered that island, while the English army
forced him back towards the mountains of Snowdon. He was induced
to treat. The terms given him were stringent. The Cantreds or
Hundreds between Chester and Conway were given up to the English.
Anglesea alone he was allowed to keep in full, on the payment of
1000 marks, while a few baronies around Snowdon were left in his
hands, to prevent his title of Prince of Wales being a mere empty
honour. Besides this, he had to pay 50,000 marks for the expenses
of the war, and a tribute of 1000 marks. Once conquered, however,
and brought to complete submission, his treatment was generous. The
money payments were at once remitted. His brother David, his enemy,
and a probable source of discomfort to him, was kept in England and
pensioned; and finally, he came to England, and received his wife,
their marriage being nobly celebrated by the King.
[Sidenote: Second rising in Wales. 1282.]
[Sidenote: Death of Llewellyn.]
[Sidenote: Execution of David. 1283.]
[Sidenote: Statute of Wales. Annexation of Wales. 1284.]
[Sidenote: Statute of Winchester. 1285.]