David, though he had fought for Edward and been well rewarded,
suddenly deserted to his fellow countrymen. He attacked the Castle
of Hawardyn, and, in company with his brother Llewellyn, besieged
Rhuddlan and Flint. Edward at once advanced against them. Hard
pressed, the brothers divided their forces. David continued to
fight in the North, while his brother betook himself to South
Wales. He was there surprised, defeated, and killed, on the River
Wye, and his head sent to Edward, and displayed in London, in scorn
adorned with an ivy crown, in allusion to some prophecy that he
should be crowned in London. David was shortly afterwards compelled
to surrender. A Parliament had been summoned to grant supplies;
some difficulty had arisen, and before an answer could be given,
a fresh one was called at Shrewsbury, (moved afterwards to Acton
Burnell, the seat of the Chancellor,) by which the unfortunate
Prince was tried, and condemned to death. This Parliament
afterwards proceeded to the settlement of the conquered country, by
what is known as the Statute of Wales. By this a considerable part
of English law and English institutions, with some modifications
to suit the prejudices of the Welsh, were introduced. The conquest
was completed by the famous presentation to the people of the
King’s new-born heir, under the title of the Prince of Wales. There
was henceforth no longer any pretence of feudal supremacy; Wales
was annexed to the English Crown. The following year the Parliament
at Winchester produced the Statute known by the name of that city,
which arranged the defence of the country upon a national basis. Of
that piece of legislation, as well as of others before and after
it, more will be said by and by. In the year after this, Edward
left England, placing the government in the hands of his brother
Edmund.
[Sidenote: Foreign affairs call Edward abroad.]
[Sidenote: Sicilian Vespers.]
It will be necessary to turn for a moment to Edward’s foreign
relations to explain the necessity of his journey abroad. He had
the misfortune, like his predecessors, to be master of Aquitaine,
and as Duke of that province a vassal and peer of France. He was,
moreover, cousin of the King of France, and brother-in-law of
the King of Castile. Although a definitive treaty had been made
between Henry III. and the French King, it had never been properly
carried out; Edward had, as in duty bound done homage for his
French possessions, and had from time to time renewed his claims.
He had even been allowed in 1279, in right of his wife, to take
possession of Ponthieu. There was, nevertheless a constant feeling
of distrust between the French King and his too powerful vassal.
Edward had therefore done his best to cement his friendship on
the side of Spain. But, in 1282, an event happened which enabled
him to secure a settlement of his French claims, and to assume
the important position of mediator in a great foreign quarrel. A
war seemed imminent between Castile and France, when Peter III.
of Aragon, for whose favour both parties had been intriguing,
suddenly raised a large army, the destination of which was said to
be Africa, but which shortly after proved to be intended for the
conquest of Sicily from the French. This put an end to the quarrel
with Castile, and brought Aragon forward as the Spanish power
against which the French energies were directed. Charles of Anjou
had received from the Pope the grant of the Two Sicilies when the
Barons of England had obliged Edmund to renounce it. He had made
good his position with extreme cruelty; and now the Sicilian people
entered into that famous conspiracy known by the name of Sicilian
Vespers, and massacred the French throughout the island. They then
proceeded to give themselves to Peter III. of Aragon, in concert
with whom they had certainly been acting. He was successful in
his enterprise. His admiral, Loria, had everywhere defeated the
fleets of Anjou, and in 1284 had taken prisoner Charles, Prince of
Salerno, the Duke of Anjou’s heir. For a short time there seemed
some possibility of the quarrel being ended by a single combat
between Peter and Charles; formal preparations were made, and
Edward was entreated to preside as umpire. But chivalrous though
he was, he was too much of a statesman to give his consent to so
trivial a form of settlement; and, in 1285, Charles died.
[Sidenote: Edward mediator between France and Aragon. 1286.]
[Sidenote: His award is repudiated.]
His quarrel was taken up by the French King, and matters had
reached this point when Edward thought it necessary to go abroad
(especially as a new King, Philip IV., had just come to the
throne), to arrange if possible a question which, involving not
only his own interests, but also the authority of the Pope, was
one of European interest. He succeeded in inducing Philip IV. to
allow the justice of his claims with regard to the provinces to
be united to Gascony, and proceeded the following year to act the
part of mediator between the Courts of France and Aragon. He was
trusted absolutely in this negotiation, and after some difficulty
hoped that he had arrived at some conclusion, when he had succeeded
in obtaining the freedom of Prince Charles of Salerno, although
the terms of liberation were very hard. Large sums of money were
to be paid, and Sicily was to be given up to the Spanish Prince,
James. But no sooner was Charles at liberty than he repudiated
these conditions; and Edward, disgusted with his want of faith,
and thinking probably that it was wiser not to plunge too deep
into European politics, determined to return home, neglecting the
offered opportunity of forming an alliance with Aragon, which might
have formed some counter-poise in Southern Europe to the power of
France and of Rome.
[Sidenote: Disturbances in England during his absence. 1289.]
[Sidenote: Edward returns.]
[Sidenote: Punishes corrupt judges.]
His presence at home indeed was much wanted. The moment the back
of the great ruler was turned, and the weight of his hand removed,
it became evident that much time would be necessary before his
arrangements could restore more than external order to the deeply
disturbed society of England. Fresh disturbances had arisen in
Wales, where Rhys ap Meredith had been roused to rebellion by the
strictness with which the English law was carried out. Nor had
the Regent’s army, under Gilbert de Clare, succeeded in capturing
him. It seems indeed that several of the greater nobles had begun
to show discontent, and in 1288, Surrey, Warwick, Gloucester, and
Norfolk had all appeared in a disorderly fashion in arms. There
were other disturbances too in the lower strata of society. The
Statute of Winchester was not yet fairly in operation, bands of
outlaws appeared in the forest districts, and among others, one
Chamberlain had fallen upon a fair held at Boston in Lincolnshire,
and had burnt the town. The presence of the King restored order,
but the fundamental cause of the misgovernment was laid open to
him by his faithful Chancellor, Burnell. Like Henry II., he had
employed as his judges professional lawyers, and they had not been
proof against the great temptations of their office. The judges
were corrupt, and justice was bought and sold. Very serious charges
were brought against them in October; all except two, who deserve
to be mentioned, John of Methingham and Elias de Bockingham, were
convicted. The chief baron, Stratton, was fined 34,000 marks, the
chief justice of the King’s Bench, 7000, the master of the rolls,
1000; while Weyland, chief justice of the common pleas, fled to
sanctuary, was there blockaded, and after his forty days of safety
had to abjure the realm. His property, which was confiscated, is
said to have amounted to 100,000 marks.
[Sidenote: Banishes the Jews. 1290.]
At the same time the King banished all the Jews from the kingdom.
Upwards of 16,000 are said to have left England, nor did they
reappear till Cromwell connived at their return in 1654. It is
not quite clear why the King determined on this act of severity,
especially as the Jews were royal property, and a very convenient
source of income. It is probable, however, that their way of doing
business was very repugnant to his ideas of justice, while they
were certainly great falsifiers of the coinage, which he was very
anxious to keep pure and true. Earlier in the reign he had hanged
between 200 and 300 of them for that crime, and they are said to
have demanded 60 per cent. for their loans, taking advantage of
the monopoly as money-lenders which the ecclesiastical prohibition
of usury had given them. Moreover, about this time, the great
banking-houses of Italy were becoming prominent. With them Edward
had already had much business, and their system of advances upon
fairer terms was much more pleasing to him. From this time onwards
the money business of England was in their hands.[45]
[Sidenote: End of First Period of the reign.]
We have now reached what may be considered as the close of the
first period of Edward’s reign, which had been occupied by
legislation and by the conquest of Wales. From this time onwards,
it is the conquest of Scotland, and the great constitutional
effort of the reign, intermingled with foreign affairs, which we
shall have to observe.
[Sidenote: Relations with Scotland.]
It is uncertain when Edward’s thoughts were first directed to the
Northern kingdom, but events had been rapidly occurring, which
threw Scotland almost entirely into his hands. Quite early in the
reign he seems to have wished, as was natural for one of his legal
mind, to have the disputed question of homage cleared up. Again
and again homage had been paid to his predecessors; but, except in
the case of William the Lion’s homage to Henry II., it had been
always open to the Scotch King to assert that it was for fiefs
in England, and not for Scotland, that his homage was rendered.
Even that clear instance had been annihilated by the subsequent
sale of the submission then made by Richard I. It would seem in
fact that the claim to overlordship was really based upon much
earlier transactions. Scotland consisted of three incorporated
kingdoms--the Highlands, or kingdoms of the Scots, Galloway, which
was part of the British kingdom of Strathclyde, and the Lothians,
which had undoubtedly been a part of the Anglian kingdom of
Northumbria. In the time of the English Empire the King of Scots
and all the people had chosen Eadward the Elder as father and lord;
that is to say, they had what is technically called commended
themselves to the English King. Strathclyde had been conquered
by Eadmund, and by him had been granted to Malcolm as a fief, on
condition of military tenure; while afterwards the Lothians had
been granted by Eadgar to the Scotch kings as an English earldom.
Thus, on various grounds, all parts of the Kingdom of Scotland
acknowledged the English King as their overlord. When England fell
into the hands of the Normans, William, professedly assuming the
position which his predecessor had held, would naturally expect
the same homage to be paid to him. It is equally certain that
the Scotch kings would object to pay it. It had therefore been a
constantly open and disputed question till the time of Edward.
Meanwhile the feudal law, which had not existed at the time of the
original commendation, had grown up and been formulated. Edward,
as we have seen, intended to use it to the full. He therefore
desired the uncertain acknowledgment of the old supremacy to be
brought, as it had never hitherto been, within the precise and
clearly-defined limits of feudal overlordship. The character of
Alexander III. was such as to strengthen such ideas. In 1275, his
wife, Edward’s sister Margaret, had died. The tie of relationship
thus broken, Edward had demanded and received, in 1278, a homage,
which he declared to his chancellor was complete and without
reservation;[46] and since that time, more than once, Alexander had
seemed to acknowledge the supremacy.
[Sidenote: Extinction of the Scotch royal family.]
[Sidenote: Proposed marriage of the Maid and Prince Edward.]
[Sidenote: Accepted with restrictions. 1290.]
But it was the rapid extinction of that monarch’s family which
brought matters to a crisis. Margaret had had two sons and one
daughter, Margaret. Both the sons had died young, and the daughter
had married Eric, King of Norway, with the promise that she was
to retain her rights to the Scotch succession. In accordance with
this, when she died in her first confinement, her little child
of the same name, spoken of as the Maid of Norway, was, in 1284,
declared heiress of the throne. In 1286 King Alexander died. He
had married again, but had no children; the crown would therefore
have naturally come to the Maid of Norway. During her absence, a
regency, consisting of the Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow,
the Lords Fife, Buchan, and Comyn, and others, was appointed. But
already other claimants had come forward, and their respective
parties had begun a civil war. To Edward it seemed the opportunity
had arrived of establishing his rights without violence. A marriage
between his son and the Maid of Norway at once occurred to him. For
this he had secretly cleared the way by obtaining from the Pope a
dispensation to enable these cousins to marry. Armed with this,
but acting ostensibly in the Norwegian interest, he contrived to
bring about a meeting at Salisbury between commissioners on the
part of Eric, of the Scotch government, and of himself, at which
it was agreed that the young Queen should be received in Scotland
free of matrimonial engagements, but pledged not to marry except
by the advice of Edward and with the consent of her father. Almost
immediately after this, the plan of the marriage was made public,
and was at once willingly accepted by the Scotch, who were anxious
to be saved from a civil war, but who, while accepting it, took
care, at a parliament held at Brigham in 1290, to guard with
scrupulous care the independence of the kingdom.
[Sidenote: Invitation to Edward to settle the succession.]
[Sidenote: Death of the Maid.]
[Sidenote: Death of the Queen.]
[Sidenote: Meeting at Norham. 1291.]
It was not exactly thus that Edward understood the treaty. He at
once despatched Anthony Beck, Bishop of Durham, to act in unison
with the guardians of Scotland, as Lieutenant of Queen Margaret and
her husband, at the same time demanding possession of the royal
castles, ostensibly for the purpose of preserving the peace of the
kingdom. The governors of the castles declined to give them up,
but seven great Earls wrote to Edward, as though to a superior,
begging him to curb the power of the regency, while, on the other
hand, a member of the regency, the Bishop of St. Andrews, also
wrote, begging Edward to approach the border to assist in keeping
order, and to appoint a king if the rumour which had been spread of
the death of the Maid of Norway should prove true. The report was
true, Margaret had died on her journey from Norway in the Orkney
islands; and acting on these two letters, which he construed as an
invitation, Edward summoned a meeting at Norham, to be held after
Easter 1291. The delay was probably occasioned by a heavy blow
which had fallen on Edward. In November he had lost his much loved
wife Eleanor. It is one of his titles to our respect, that in a
licentious age he was remarkably pure, and that no word was ever
breathed against his perfect fidelity as a husband. After a period
of bitter sorrow, and a pompous funeral, each stage of the journey
being subsequently marked by a beautiful cross, he returned again
in the following year to his Scotch plans. At that meeting he put
forward his claim as superior and overlord of the kingdom, saying
that it lay with him in that capacity to put an end to discord. He
ended by asking that his title should be acknowledged, in order
that he might act freely. A delay of three weeks was demanded, at
which time the assembly met again on Scotch ground opposite the
Castle of Norham. An answer seems to have been meanwhile sent, but
the King had regarded it as not to the point; and at the assembly
itself no objections were raised to his claim. All the competitors
acknowledged his authority in set words, and the case was put into
Edward’s hands.
[Sidenote: Edward’s supremacy allowed.]
[Sidenote: The claimants.]
[Sidenote: Edward gives a just verdict. 1292.]
[Sidenote: Balliol accepts the throne as a vassal.]
[Sidenote: Scotland appeals to the English Courts. 1293.]
[Sidenote: The appeals not pressed to extremities.]
There were a great number of claimants; but three only established
a case worth consideration. These were Bruce, Balliol, and
Hastings. The claims of all these went back to David I. This king
had three grandsons; Malcolm IV., who was childless, William the
Lion, whose direct descendants had just come to an end, and David,
Earl of Huntingdon, from whom all three claimants were descended.
He had had three daughters; Margaret, the eldest, whose grandson
was Balliol, Isabella, the second, whose son was Bruce, Ada, the
third, whose grandson was Hastings. Besides these three, Comyn was
also a grandson of Margaret, but being a son of a second daughter,
his claims were obviously inferior to those of Balliol.[47] To
decide these claims, Edward, as lord superior, established a
great court; forty of Bruce’s friends, forty of Balliol’s, and
twenty-four members on the part of Edward, were to constitute
it. Edward seems to have proceeded with the full intention of
giving a just and legal judgment, and after several meetings, in
November 1292, a decision was arrived at in favour of John Balliol.
Meanwhile, during the settlement of the question, Edward had
taken possession of the Scotch castles, had appointed the great
officers of the kingdom, and had caused the regents to exact an
oath of fealty to him as superior lord. The new King accepted the
throne distinctly as a vassal of England, and finally, to make
his dependence perfectly clear, did homage after his coronation.
He did not find his new position free from difficulty. He found
that the letter of the feudal law to which he owed his elevation
could be turned against himself. It was indeed unnatural to expect
the Scotch to submit to the inconveniences without claiming the
advantages of that law. Balliol had not been long on the throne
before they asserted that, if he was a vassal, appeals would lie
from his judgments to the English courts. In the following year two
or three such appeals were made, one from a goldsmith, and one from
Macduff, Earl of Fife. When summoned to appear before the English
courts, Balliol refused to come. He made his appearance however at
the Parliament held in the autumn of 1293, and there declared that,
as King of Scotland, he could not act without the advice of his
people. A delay was given him for the purpose of consulting his
parliament; he did not take advantage of it. The case of Macduff
was therefore given against him by the English baronage in his
presence. He was fined to Macduff 700 marks, to Edward 10,000.
On the protest of Balliol, a fresh delay was allowed, nor does
Edward seem to have been in any way disposed to do more than make
good his legal position. It is plain, however that the position of
vassal king, with its awkward and probably unexpected incidents,
disgusted Balliol; and political events soon enabled him to make
his displeasure felt.
[Sidenote: Quarrel with France.]
[Sidenote: Edward outwitted. Gascony occupied. 1294.]
[Sidenote: First true Parliament.]
Philip IV., the new King of France, was as legal in his mind as
Edward, but more dishonest. It was as plain to him that it was
desirable to unite France by annexing Guienne, as it was to Edward
that it was advantageous to England to annex Scotland. They set
about their designs in somewhat the same way. The sea was at
this time regarded as a sort of no man’s land, where incessant
fighting little short of piracy was allowable. There were plenty of
instances of battles between English and French merchant-ships. The
Normans are said to have infested the whole coast of France from
Holland to Spain. The Cinque Ports mariners were probably not much
behind them. At last a formal meeting was arranged in 1293, where
the matter was to be fought out. An empty chip marked the point of
contest, and there the fleets of France and England fought a great
battle, which terminated in the defeat of the French. Edward, who
knew Philip’s character and the resources of the feudal law, was
anxious to do what he could to clear himself of complicity in the
quarrel; but no representations of his were attended to by the
French King, and Philip summoned him to appear before the French
Parliament. As the English offenders were not given up, and as
Edward declined to appear, the Constable of France took possession
in the King’s name of Edward’s French provinces. With much more
important matters in hand, and with the knowledge probably of what
Balliol’s conduct was going to be, Edward tried all he could to
settle the matter peacefully. He sent over to France his brother
Edmund, whose wife[48] was the mother of the French Queen. Through
the instrumentality of these Queens a treaty was arranged, by
which the summons to Paris was annulled, and a personal meeting at
Amiens arranged, pending which the strongholds of Gascony were to
be put in Philip’s hands. Edmund withdrew the English army, and
dismissed the commander, St. John, and at the same time demanded
a safe conduct for his brother at the proposed meeting. But Philip
refused the safe conduct, declared himself dissatisfied with the
surrender of the towns, and refused to leave the country which he
had occupied. Fresh insulting messages were sent to Edward, and, in
1294, Edmund returned to England, and war became necessary. Great
preparations were made; alliances were formed on the north-east of
France; money was granted by Parliament. This proving insufficient,
no less than half their property was demanded from the clergy.
An insurrection in Wales, and the news that an alliance had been
formed between Philip and the Scotch, rendered the preparations
useless.
It was plain to Edward that it was worth risking his foreign
dominions to consolidate his power as King of Great Britain. For
the present, therefore, he left Gascony alone, and turned his
arms against Scotland. Engaged at once in a war with France, with
Scotland, and with Wales, he found it necessary to raise supplies
from all branches of his subjects. A genuine Parliament was
therefore called in October, in which all estates were represented,
and which has been considered the true origin of our Parliament as
it now exists. The three Estates granted the supply as different
orders; and it was not without difficulty that the clergy,
suffering from the late enormous exaction, were induced to grant
him a tenth. The other estates seem to have come readily to his
assistance at this great crisis.
[Sidenote: Edward marches into Scotland. 1296.]
[Sidenote: Defeat of Scotch at Dunbar.]
[Sidenote: Submission of Balliol and Scotland.]
In March a large army was assembled at Newcastle, and while the
Scotch crossed the borders and ravaged Cumberland with savage
ferocity,[49] Edward pushed forward into Scotland. In three days
Berwick was captured. While still before that place, he received
from Balliol, who seems to have been under some constraint,
renunciation of his allegiance; and before the end of April brought
his army, under the Earl of Surrey and Warrenne, to Dunbar. The
Scotch advanced to meet him, occupying the higher ground; but
foolishly mistaking the movements of the English army in the
valley for a flight, they left their strong position, and were
hopelessly routed, with a loss of 10,000 men. This battle decided
the fate of Scotland. Several of the great Earls and many knights
were taken prisoners. The King met no further opposition in his
march through Edinburgh to Perth. On the 10th of July, Balliol
made his submission, was allowed to live under supervision in
the Tower of London, whence he afterwards proceeded to Normandy;
and Edward henceforth acted no longer as feudal superior, but as
King. At a Parliament held at Berwick, he received the fealty of
the clergy, gentry, and barons of Scotland, whose names, filling
thirty-five skins of parchment, are still preserved among the
English archives. Scotland was left as much as possible in its old
condition, but the Earl of Warenne and Surrey was made Guardian;
Hugh de Cressingham, Treasurer; William of Ormsby, Justiciary; and
an Exchequer was established in the English fashion. At the same
time the coronation stone of Scone was removed to Westminster,
where it still is. Edward had thus completed his first conquest of
Scotland. Both legally and politically, his conduct is justifiable.
The consolidation of Great Britain was a most desirable object.
The French alliance, the invasion of England, and the renunciation
of vassalage, constituted by feudal law a sufficient cause for
confiscating the possessions of a vassal prince. But this leaves
untouched the question, how far it is right to annex a free people
against their will? It must be remembered that the submission of
Scotland had been made by the nobility only, who were in fact
Normans, and many of them English Barons.
[Sidenote: Refusal of the clergy to grant subsidies. Nov. 3. 1296.]
[Sidenote: Clergy outlawed.]