liberty to turn his attention towards France. But his late
exertions had caused great expenditure, to which had been added
the subsidies by which he had been compelled to purchase the
alliance of the Princes on the north-east of France. To meet this
necessity, a Parliament was summoned at Bury St. Edmunds, at
which the Barons and Commons gave fresh grants. But the clergy,
driven to extremity by the King’s late demands upon them, found
themselves in a position to refuse. Benedict of Gaita had lately
been elected Pope, under the title of Boniface VIII., and had at
once entered upon a policy resembling that of the great Popes
of the twelfth century. He had issued a Bull known by the name
of “Clericis Laicos,” in which he had forbidden the clergy to
pay taxes to their temporal sovereign. Backed by this authority,
Archbishop Winchelsea refused in the name of the clergy to make any
grant to Edward. The clergy, it was said, owed allegiance to two
sovereigns--the one temporal, the other spiritual. Their obedience
was due first to their spiritual chief. An exemption from taxation
of the Church, which had rapidly been growing enormously wealthy,
would have crippled Edward’s resources. He had already accepted
the principle, that all should be consulted and all pay in matters
touching the advantage of all. He proceeded at once, therefore, to
meet the claim in his usual legal fashion. If the clergy would not
help him, he would not protect the clergy. The Chief Justice was
ordered to announce publicly from the bench in Westminster Hall,
that no justice would be done the clergy in the King’s Court, but
would nevertheless be done to all manner of persons who had any
complaint against them. Nor was this sentence of outlawry a vain
one; the tenants began at once to refuse to pay their rents, the
Church property was seized, and the owners could get no redress.
This severe treatment induced many of the clergy to make their
submission, but the Archbishop still held out.
[Sidenote: Barons too refuse to help Edward.]
[Sidenote: Compromise with the clergy.]
[Sidenote: Edward secures an illegal grant.]
Matters thus remained till another Parliament met at Salisbury
in February 1297, when, the Barons only being summoned, the King
explained his plan for the war with France. He was under pledge
to pay subsidies, and to bring an army to his allies in Flanders.
This army he would personally command. He wished his Constable and
Marshall, the Earls of Hereford and Norfolk, to take charge of a
second army destined for Guienne. These two noblemen positively
refused. They had learnt law from their King, and alleged as their
excuse, which was evidently only a technical one, that they were
only bound to follow the King in person. They then withdrew from
the Assembly, which broke up, with nothing done. The King, in want
of money, gave free vent to his arbitrary temper, seized the wool
of his merchants, and ordered large requisitions of provisions
to be made in the counties, for which, however, he promised
future payment. In the following March, Winchelsea had a personal
interview with the King, in which he appears to have arranged some
sort of temporary compromise; for immediately afterwards a meeting
of the clergy was held, in which he recommended them to act each
for himself as best he could. Determined to proceed in spite of
all opposition, the King summoned the whole military force of the
kingdom to meet him at London on the 7th of July. There the Earls
still refused to do their duty, and fresh officers were appointed
in their place. The King reconciled himself with the clergy, and
appointed the Archbishop one of the counsellors who were to act
as advisers to his young son Edward, in whose hands he left the
government. He also induced those nobles and Commons who were with
him, though in no sense a Parliament, to make him a money grant.
They gave him an eighth of the moveables of the barons and knights,
a fifth of the cities and boroughs. This grant was given expressly
for a promised confirmation of the charters. This seems to show
what the real point at issue was. The King’s excessive arbitrary
taxation had aroused the old feeling which had produced the
baronial wars of the preceding reign. The clergy were also asked
for a grant in a convocation held upon the 10th of August. It was
there decided that there was good hope that leave would be given
them to make a grant. On this the King acted, and ordered a levy of
what amounted to a fifth on all their revenue, both temporal and
spiritual.
[Sidenote: The Earls demand the confirmation of the charters.]
[Sidenote: It is granted with reservations.]
Shortly after this, he received the demands of the refractory
Earls, complaining of the non-observance of the charters, of the
tallages, aids and requisitions, and of the tax on wool. Declining
to give an answer at present, on the 22nd of August he set sail
for Flanders. On the very next day the Earls appeared in the
Exchequer Chamber, and peremptorily forbad the collection of the
irregularly granted eighth, until the charters had been signed
which had been the express condition of the grant. The necessity
for concession had become obvious, and in a Parliament summoned
on the 6th of October, the promised confirmation was given by the
Prince. The Earls, who appeared in arms, with troops, insisted upon
the addition of some supplementary clauses, which have since been
known as the statute “De tallagio non concedendo.” They further
demanded that the late grant should be considered illegal; it was
therefore cancelled, and a new constitutional grant of a ninth was
made in its place. Prince Edward’s confirmation was renewed by the
King in person at Ghent. It was again renewed, in 1299, with an
unsatisfactory clause “saving the rights of the Crown,” which the
King was obliged subsequently to remove, and finally, in 1301, at
the Parliament of Lincoln. The charters thus confirmed were the
amended charter of Henry III., the additions to it were contained
in the supplementary articles of the two Earls, which forbid
what had hitherto been undoubtedly constitutional, the arbitrary
tallaging of towns and taxing of wool. They contained however
a clause “saving the old rights of the King,” and Edward took
advantage of this afterwards, in 1304, to continue the old wool-tax
and to tallage the towns in his own domain.[50]
[Sidenote: Appearance of Wallace.]
It was the dangerous condition of his affairs which induced the
King to yield to the pressure of the Barons; for in the spring of
1297, Wallace had made his appearance in Scotland. The younger son
of a small proprietor in Elderslie, and without means of his own,
he had established his fame as a guerilla leader. In the woods and
mountains he collected a band of outlaws, with whom he attacked
isolated parties of English, all of whom were at once put to
death. His cruelties especially against the nuns and priests are
described as most revolting. Cressingham, Treasurer of Scotland,
foolishly despised him, and thus allowed the insurrection to gain
head. He was joined by Sir William Douglas; but on the whole was
both disliked and despised by the Scotch nobility. At length,
as his followers had increased to an army, and threatened the
fortress of Stirling, it became necessary to take measures against
him. Warrenne, Earl of Surrey, and Cressingham, raised an army,
and advanced to the Forth. The armies met early in September
at Cambuskenneth, near Stirling. The river is there spanned
by a narrow bridge, at the north end of which the Scotch were
strongly posted. With overweening folly, Cressingham insisted on
an immediate advance across the bridge. The natural consequence
followed; when a small portion of the English had crossed, and were
thus cut off from support, the Scotch fell on them and completely
routed them. Warrenne, an old and feeble man, took to hasty flight,
and the army was in fact destroyed. This victory was followed up
by a fierce invasion of the north of England. Wallace seems to
have collected troops by violent means; he then led them across
the English border, and sweeping it lengthwise from Newcastle to
Carlisle, “he left nothing behind him but blood and ashes.”[51] His
cruelties were indeed beyond description, and could not but have
filled the English with horror, something akin to that which the
English in India must have felt at the outbreak of the mutiny.
[Sidenote: Treaty with France. 1299.]
Edward’s expedition to Flanders had been a failure. The people in
the cities, angry with his interference in the wool trade, were
opposed to him; his allies had been tampered with by Philip, who
had also won a victory over them at Furnes; the Pope was urging
peace; and Edward, who always regarded his French affairs as
secondary, made a truce before the end of the year 1297, which two
years afterwards ripened under the arbitration of Boniface to the
Treaty of Chartres. By that treaty, Guienne was restored to the
English King, who withdrew his support from his Flemish allies;
while Philip in return gave up the cause of the Scotch. The treaty
was cemented by a double marriage. Edward himself married Margaret,
the French King’s sister; while his son Edward was betrothed to
Isabella, Philip’s daughter.
[Sidenote: Edward returns and invades Scotland.]
[Sidenote: Defeats Wallace at Falkirk.]
[Sidenote: Comyn’s regency.]
Shortly after his return, Edward advanced to revenge the insults
of Wallace, who had meantime unwisely taken the title of the
Guardian of the Kingdom, thus still further exciting the jealousy
of the nobles. He retired before the English army, laying waste
the country behind him, and Edward had almost been starved into a
retreat, when two Scotch Earls told him that Wallace was in the
woods in his immediate neighbourhood. Edward at once advanced to
meet him. Wallace, with his infantry formed into solid squares,
awaited his attack. Such horse as he had fled without striking a
blow. The arrows of the English archers broke the squares, and the
7000 heavy armed English cavalry had no difficulty in completing
the victory. Wallace fled, and resumed his outlaw’s life, nor does
he again play a prominent part in history. In 1305, he was betrayed
by one of his own followers named Jack Short to Sir John Monteith,
by whom he was given up to the English King, and suffered death,
with all the extreme penalties of the law.[52] The bitter feeling
his outrages had caused in England made any other fate impossible.
But though Wallace sinks into obscurity, his work had not been
without effect. The southern counties were so ravaged that the
King could not maintain an army there, and had to retire from the
country, which passed into the hands of a temporary regency, at the
head of which was Comyn.
[Sidenote: Parliament of Lincoln.]
For several years the steps taken for the reduction of Scotland
were marked by great weakness. Edward’s energy was paralyzed,
partly by the affairs in France, partly by questions arising with
regard to the charters in England. Frequent complaints had been
raised with regard to infringements of the Charter of Forests. It
was to settle these complaints, and to discuss an extraordinary
claim raised by Pope Boniface, that a Parliament was assembled at
Lincoln in 1301. With regard to the charter the King yielded, and
a considerable disafforesting of districts illegally included
within the limits of the forests took place. Pleased with the
King’s constitutional conduct, the baronage joined heartily in
the rejection of the Papal claim. Boniface had issued a mandate
desiring the King to abstain from all further attacks on Scotland,
“which did and doth still belong in full right to the Church of
Rome.” This mandate was delivered while Edward was in Scotland,
and Boniface’s position as arbiter between Edward and the King of
France prevented him from at once rejecting it. It is probable
that Boniface was only asserting his position as guardian of
international law, but the English treated the claim as serious.
When it was brought before Parliament, the baronage replied that
the kingdom of Scotland never had belonged to the See of Rome, and
that they, the Barons of England, would not allow Edward, even if
he wished it, to surrender the rights of the Crown. It was not till
1303 that Edward was able to resume his conquest of that kingdom.
Early in that year he ordered his Barons to assist John Segrave,
Governor of Scotland, in marching from Berwick to Edinburgh. But
that General mismanaged his march, and as he approached Roslin on
the way to Edinburgh, in three divisions, he was fallen upon by
Comyn, and his army defeated in detail.
[Sidenote: Fresh invasion of Scotland.]
[Sidenote: Second conquest of Scotland.]
[Sidenote: Bruce murders Comyn, and rebels.]
[Sidenote: Preparations for fourth invasion.]
[Sidenote: Edward’s death near Carlisle.]
The King had thus much to revenge when, in June, he began his
march. On this occasion he was accompanied by a fleet to bring
his supplies. He thus avoided the difficulty which the desolate
state of the country had hitherto presented. He pushed onward
into the far North. On returning he took up his abode for a
time in Dunfermline. Most of the Scotch Barons there sought and
obtained pardon, and at length Comyn, who had been the leader of
the rebellion, made a treaty in Fife, by which the Lords agreed
to suffer any pecuniary fine Edward thought fit, and the castles
and government were to be in Edward’s hands. One stronghold only
refused to obey this treaty. Sir William Oliphant held the fortress
of Stirling, and it required three months to reduce its gallant
defenders to submission. This was the last opposition Edward had
to fear; he at once admitted the Scotch to pardon, and settled the
country, placing his chief confidence apparently in Wishart, Bishop
of St. Andrews, John de Mowbray and Robert Bruce. It was soon seen
how little reliance could be put on the first and last of these
Commissioners.
Robert Bruce was the grandson of the claimant of the Scotch throne;
his grandfather had been an English judge, his father a constant
friend of Edward. It was only by marriage that the family had
acquired the estates of Carrick and Annandale. He was therefore
to all intents and purposes an Englishman, or rather a Norman
Baron, possessed of that peculiar characteristic of the race which
rendered it in fact a race of adventurers, with the constant hope
of winning great things before their minds. The instances of
Norman Barons who had won earldoms, kingdoms and empires, were
too numerous not to have had effect upon aspiring members of the
race. Bruce had up to this time played a somewhat vacillating
game, but on the whole, perhaps because of his feud with Balliol,
he had remained faithful to Edward. He seems now to have thought
his opportunity had arrived. It may perhaps have been the King’s
growing infirmities that encouraged him. At all events, early in
February 1306, he murdered in the church of Dumfries Comyn, who,
in accordance with the interpretation of the law which Edward
had recognized, stood next to the Balliols in succession to the
Scotch throne, and who, since he had last submitted to Edward, had
been true to him. Bruce then, joined by a few nobles, raised the
standard of revolt. He proceeded at once to Scone, and there, in
March, was crowned by Wishart and other of Edward’s Commissioners.
This unexpected insurrection from those whom he had trusted
roused Edward to extreme anger. With great pomp, at a meeting at
Westminster, he knighted his son, and took a solemn oath to avenge
John Comyn’s death. Carlisle was the point of rendezvous, but
already Bruce had been defeated at Methven near Perth by Aymer de
Valence, Earl of Pembroke, and was wandering barefoot and in misery
among the hills and woods of the country. He was reduced to demand
the pity of the King, but was refused; and a severe ordinance was
issued that all abettors of the murder of Comyn should be hanged,
and that all those who assisted Bruce should be imprisoned. The
ordinance was carried out with severity. Nigel Bruce, two Seatons,
the Earl of Athole and Simon Fraser, were all executed, and the
Countess of Buchan, who had crowned Bruce, was imprisoned, with
ironical cruelty, in a crown-shaped cage. But Bruce himself was not
taken, and issuing from his fastnesses, he inflicted many losses by
surprise upon the English. He even in his turn defeated the Earl of
Pembroke, and shortly after the Earl of Gloucester; and Edward was
rousing himself to attack him, though scarcely able to mount his
horse, when he died upon the march.
[Sidenote: Constitutional importance of the reign.]
The mere narration of the political facts of the reign, although
it brings out prominently much of Edward’s greatness, gives no
idea of the real constitutional importance of his work. Not only
was he the first truly English King, both by his circumstances
and political views, but he became, in virtue of his love of order
and legal arrangement, the completer of the English Constitution.
In the first place, it is to him that we owe the perfection of
the Parliamentary system, of the complete representation in
Parliament of the three Estates of the realm, the Lords, Commons,
and Clergy. For it is plain that it was his intention to combine
the three, although the clergy refused to accede to his wish, and
preferred to tax themselves separately in Convocation; a body which
however, as will be afterwards seen, also owes its representative
arrangements to him. The gradual introduction of the representative
system of the counties has been mentioned. Again and again, on
special occasions, knights, to represent the shire and to give
information with regard to their counties, had been summoned. Simon
de Montfort had even introduced representation of the boroughs; but
this was regarded as wholly exceptional. Nevertheless, Edward was
not long in seeing both the justice and advantage of the system.
In the first Parliament of his reign, when enacting the first
great Statute of Westminster, a healing and restorative measure
applicable to the whole country, he said that he made it with the
consent of the _commonalty_; there were possibly representatives of
the counties present; more probably their consent was arrived at
in some other way. At the same time, the high view which he took
of his own constitutional position is marked by a change in the
ordinary form of enactment. Statutes had hitherto been enacted “by
the counsel and consent of Parliament.” The alteration of a few
letters changed the meaning of this phrase. The present statute was
said to be enacted “by the King by the advice of his Council and
the assent of Parliament.” The legislative power was thus made to
reside in the King and his Council. It is the power thus claimed
which gave rise to the legislative, or rather the ordaining power
claimed by the King in Council, which was afterwards frequently
complained of by the Parliament. But Edward, in spite of these
pretensions, accepted the view that all should be consulted where
the interests of all were at stake. This was of course chiefly
in the matter of taxation, and the convenience as well as the
justice of the method which Simon de Montfort had set on foot soon
became evident to his mind. From the beginning of this reign, the
method of taxation had been changed. Instead of an aid, raised
from the land, it had become a subsidy raised by an assessment
on the moveables of the people. Most frequently the proportion
granted was a tenth or fifteenth, but in these early times every
variety of proportion was granted. As yet, however, these taxes
had been collected locally in accordance with arrangements made
by Exchequer officers, sheriffs, or the county court. In 1282,
the King, being in want of money for his Welsh wars, proceeded by
his ordinary method. The sums raised locally were insufficient;
while his Barons were with him at the wars it was inconvenient to
hold a Parliament; writs were issued therefore to the sheriffs
and archbishops to collect their two Estates, the Commons and the
clergy, at two centres, York and Northampton. At these meetings
were present four representative knights from each county, and
all freeholders of more than one knight’s fee. The Commons made
their grant of a thirtieth. The assemblies of the clergy declined,
until the parochial clergy were represented. For this purpose the
election of Proctors was then ordered, and they have since formed
a regular part of the Convocation. These negotiations were not
completed when what is called the Parliament of Acton Burnell was
summoned to settle the affairs of Wales. At that meeting there
were present no clergy, and representatives of twenty towns only,
summoned separately. In 1290, a further proof is given that for
taxation by subsidy the representation of the Commons was beginning
to be considered necessary. In that year an old-fashioned feudal
aid was granted for the marriage of the King’s daughter. It was
granted by the baronage for the whole commonalty, and was in the
old form of land-tax, but the Commons being subsequently present,
it was changed at their request to a fifteenth. It was possible for
the baronage to grant the aid upon military tenants, but the rest
of the people could not be reached. Two principles had by this time
been established,--that the clergy should be fully represented, and
that for subsidies upon the whole kingdom it was both convenient
and just that the Commons should in some way be represented; but
it was not yet held necessary for feudal matters, or for questions
touching the baronage only, that the Commons should be present.
Indeed, at this very Parliament, the statute “Quia Emptores” was
passed by the Barons before the Commons assembled. All these
preparatory steps found their completion in the Parliament of 1295,
when writs were issued to the Archbishops to appear themselves, and
to send Proctors to Westminster; to the Prelates and Barons, as
Peers, and to the sheriffs, summoning the knights of the counties,
and two burghers from each town.[53] There was thus a Parliament
complete in all its parts, such as it has since remained. We must
not suppose, however, that the Estates acted in common, or that
the Commons had much voice in the deliberation. At this very
Parliament of 1295, the grant of each order was different, nor
was it till 1318, in Edward II.’s reign, that the Commons can be
considered as perfectly incorporated in the Legislative Assembly.
The constitutional view at present was, that the King, with the
assent of his Barons, granted the petitions of the Commons and the
Clergy.
[Sidenote: Great statutes of the reign.]