land at Ravenspur in Yorkshire, declaring loudly that he came but
to demand his family succession. The Percies, the old friends
of the Lancastrians, received him with gladness, and his march
southwards soon became formidable. The King’s ministers, Wiltshire,
Bussy, and Greene, fled for refuge to Bristol. Thither York also
betook himself, thus leaving the capital open. Lancaster, now at
the head of a powerful army, also drew to the West. As he came
within reach of the Duke of York, civilities were exchanged, which
proved that he had no opposition to fear from him. Bristol opened
its gates. The King’s favourites were seized and executed, and
the King, who had landed in Wales from Ireland, with the Duke of
Albemarle and other nobles, saw his army rapidly dissolve, and
had to take refuge in the castle of Conway. Henry of Lancaster
found himself joined by all the nobility. He commissioned Percy
of Northumberland to procure a meeting with Richard at Flint.
The proposed meeting was a trap to catch the King; as he rode
from the castle with Northumberland, Richard found himself in the
midst of hostile troops. When he was introduced to the presence of
Lancaster, he knew that his fate was sealed, and with his peculiar
power of accepting circumstances, was entirely submissive in his
behaviour.
[Sidenote: Makes him resign the kingdom.]
A Parliament had been summoned to meet in September; but before
that time, Richard was induced to make a formal resignation of the
kingdom. Not content with this, when the Parliament met, Henry
caused the coronation oath to be read. It was contended that
Richard had broken it, and therefore forfeited the crown. The
Bishop of Carlisle alone raised his voice in favour of the fallen
King, and demanded that he should at least be heard in his defence.
His interference was, of course, in vain. The deposition of the
King was voted. The throne being thus vacant, the Duke was not long
in laying claim to it. In a curious document, in which he mingled
the claims of blood, of conquest, and the necessity of reform,
he put forward his demands. They were unanimously admitted. The
Archbishop of Canterbury took him by the hand and led him to the
throne. It was his cue to act with strict legality, yet he could
not afford to do without a Parliament so obviously devoted to his
interests. As that Parliament had expired by Richard’s deposition,
he immediately issued writs for a new one, returnable in six days,
thus rendering it absolutely impossible to make any new elections.
It was with the Parliament thus secured that he began his reign.
STATE OF SOCIETY.
1216-1399.
Although the narration of political facts implies much of the
history of the country, it leaves out of sight much that touches
the real life of the people. During the last hundred years great
social changes had been going on, and great social progress made.
In fact, till the end of the reign of King John, the social, like
the political history of the country scarcely deserves the name of
national. The description of any feudal society will in a great
measure suit it. But the national existence had been worked out in
the reign of Henry III., and was completed and finally established
by the great time of Edward I. From that time onwards, continuous
change and growth had been visible, and that growth had been
national. The great fact of all modern history is the breaking up
of the feudal and ecclesiastical system of the middle ages, and
the introduction, as political and social elements of weight, of
the middle and industrial classes. It is the beginning of that
process which constitutes therefore the history of this period. The
points to observe will be, therefore, the growth and advance of
the commons, the decay of the aristocracy. But it is as yet quite
impossible to speak of the commons as one body. The line which
divided the class which sent its representatives to Parliament,
and which was already becoming of political importance, from the
mass of the labouring part of the nation, was very clearly drawn,
and the characteristics, the employments, and the feelings of the
one class, as well as the causes of their advance, will be very
different from those of the other. A brief sketch has been already
given of the gradual introduction of the commons into Parliament.
But it still remains to explain and illustrate the sources of their
wealth, their aristocratic tendencies, and the prevalence among
them of a strong distaste for the pre-eminent position occupied
by the Church. It was their wealth which gained them admission
to Parliament, and the way in which that wealth was gained which
greatly influenced their views after they had been admitted.
[Sidenote: Trade.]
[Sidenote: The staple.]
Trade, on which their riches depended, was as yet in its infancy;
and the views which regulated its management as yet too crude to be
spoken of by such a dignified title as political economy. As far as
they went, however, they were very clear, and were, in fact, though
afterwards improved, the same in spirit as those which existed in
England before the time of Adam Smith. Observing only the obvious
fact, that the possession of money enabled a man to purchase
whatever he wanted, early traders conceived the idea that money
was wealth, and that nothing else was. And as the wealth of the
nation was of the last importance, both to the governor and to the
governed, and as trade was the chief method by which money could
be supplied, and by which money might be drawn from the country,
the regulation of trade became one of the most important duties of
the King and the Parliament. Now money being the sole wealth, in
that regulation of trade it became necessary to aim first at the
introduction of money; secondly, at its retention. It was to these
objects that the frequent ordinances and statutes with regard to
trade were directed. Although very various and, as such regulations
were almost certain to be, frequently inefficacious, they were
energetic and simple. England was not as yet a manufacturing
country. Its trade was an export trade of raw materials,
principally derived from sheep farming on the vast spaces of
uncultivated land which then existed, and from its mineral wealth.
Its principal commodities were wool, sheep-skins, or wool-fells,
and leather, together with tin and lead.[70] Only the coarsest
kind of cloth was manufactured; sometimes intentionally rough and
coarse, to be changed into fine cloth afterwards in Flanders, but
exported as cloth to avoid the tax on wool. Primitive trade, when
the seas were beset with pirates, had been carried on chiefly
inland, and great fairs, such as that of Troyes in France, had been
established under the guardianship of feudal lords, who guaranteed
the safety of the merchants for a toll. Domestic trade was carried
on in the same way, and one of the forms of royal exaction was to
open a fair, and insist upon all other shops and other places of
sale being closed during its continuance.[71] As the seas became
safer, and the mercantile spirit of the Flemings rose, the great
free cities of Flanders became as it were perpetual fairs, and were
known as staples, from the German “stapeln,” _to keep up_. In order
that trade should be well under command, it was necessary that it
should be carried on in few channels. The English government had
therefore chosen some of these Flemish towns, and ordered that
all the chief productions of England, which have been already
mentioned, should be sold in those towns, and nowhere else. These
goods were therefore called staple commodities; the merchants who
traded in them, the merchants of the staple. And this staple trade
was put under an organization--there being a mayor, a constable,
and courts of the staple. At these staple towns, the King’s
customers, or custom-house officers, by means of this organization,
had every bargain under direct supervision; and every bargain thus
supervised was obliged to be made for a certain sum of actual coin,
the government thus securing a continual flow of silver into the
hands of the English merchants. The staple towns were frequently
changed. To reward any particularly faithful ally, or to raise the
importance of any particular town, as for instance Calais, the
staple was removed to that Prince’s province, or to that town. The
proportion of each bargain to be brought over in coin was also
constantly varying. Indeed, the frequent interference of government
in such matters was not among the least of the restrictions of
trade. Edward III. was said, at one time of his life, to have had a
different plan every month. Upon the whole, however, the principle
was the same. Amongst the most remarkable plans of Edward III. was
one for keeping the evident riches that accrued to the staple towns
within the limits of England. In the twenty-seventh year of his
reign he named nine towns in England which were to be the exclusive
selling places of the English staple commodities. For an Englishman
to carry such commodities beyond the seas was punishable by death.
As Edward could not protect the foreign merchants visiting his
staples, and as the additional trouble of purchasing goods at them
naturally lowered prices, this plan did not answer. It was, in
fact, suicidal for an island people, since it destroyed all object
in the keeping up a mercantile navy. It was therefore speedily
abandoned; and after the reign of Henry VI., Calais became the sole
English staple town. A similar attempt was made in the fourteenth
year of Richard II., when it was enacted that no Englishman
should buy wool except of the owners of the sheep, and for his own
use. The export trade was thus again for a time given over to the
foreign merchant, for the sake of securing to the wool-grower the
profits of the retail as well as the wholesale trade; the effect
was naturally a decrease of purchasers, which reduced the growers
to great distress. The government had, by insisting on money
payments in every bargain, secured an influx of silver; but as the
nation was too far advanced in civilization to do without foreign
products, there were a certain number of foreign importers, who
threatened in their turn to withdraw it again. One or two attempts
were indeed made to confine English trade to the limits of the
country. Thus, it was the view of Simon de Montfort, who disliked
all extravagance in dress, that the production of the country was
enough to supply its own inhabitants; and in 1261, and in 1271,
exportation of English wool was forbidden, and people acquired the
habit of dressing in undyed native cloth. Such primitive patriotism
could not last in an advancing nation. Trade soon resumed its old
course. The greater part of the foreign merchants were Germans, and
to keep them under government supervision, they were formed into a
guild, given certain privileges, allowed to possess a guild-hall,
and are generally known as the Merchants of the Steelyard.[72]
Other alien merchants there also were, who were protected by law;
notably by the great statute of Edward I., “De mercatoribus.” But
although the goods they brought were necessary, their bargains, no
less than those of the staple merchants, were under supervision.
They were bound to employ a certain proportion of the money
obtained from their sales in English goods.[73] Moreover, all
foreign merchants were held to be mutually responsible for each
other’s debts. Thus the retention of the silver in England was
also secured, while, to avoid any varieties in the value of money,
English coin alone was current, and foreign coin had at once to be
exchanged at the royal exchangers.
[Sidenote: Coinage.]
Since money was so important an object, the coinage was naturally
regarded with great care. It was an exclusive royal monopoly, and
in the reign of Edward III. the punishment of death was enacted
against false coiners. There was a constant dread lest in the
exchange England should be the loser. The belief was prevalent that
the value of the money depended upon the denomination. It had not
yet entered men’s minds to think that it was but another commodity,
worth exactly its intrinsic value, which no change of name could
alter. Up till the reign of Edward III., although clipped and
lightened in use, and although Edward I. had begun the bad practice
of depreciating the coin by diminishing its legal weight, the
coinage had been on the whole but little tampered with. But between
the years 1344 and 1351, the number of silver pennies made from the
pound of silver had increased from 243 to 270. In that year, groats
of the nominal value of 4d., but of the weight of only three and
a half of the diminished penny, were issued. It is impossible to
make any true estimate of the comparative value of money then and
at the present time. The facts with regard to the actual amount of
silver employed are these: The pound, which only nominally existed,
was a full pound of silver, which would at present be coined into
£2, 16s. 3d. The shilling, which seems also to have been a nominal
coin, was the twentieth part of this, or 2s. 9¾d. The silver penny,
which was, till the time of Edward III., almost the only coin, was
therefore worth 2¾d. Edward introduced several new coins; some of
gold, which, as there was no fixed proportion between them and
silver, were not popular, and were recalled; and nobles of the
value of 6s. 8d., or half a mark; together with the groats above
mentioned. But of the purchasing value of the money thus made
no fixed estimate can be given, as that of course depends upon
the relative value of the articles purchased; and under the very
different circumstances of those times the relative value of those
articles was so different, that to compare the value of money with
any one of them would give a totally false impression. It is usual
to say roughly that to reach the present value of any sum mentioned
it should be multiplied by fifteen.
[Sidenote: Guilds.]
This form of commerce, restricted as has been before explained, was
certain to break down as the wants of the nation increased. There
was a company of merchant adventurers founded, perhaps, though this
seems very uncertain, as early as Henry III.’s reign, which had
the right to trade in other commodities besides the staple, and
to choose its own ports. It was the growth of this company which,
in the next century, had most to do with breaking down the staple
monopoly. It is needless to point out the bad effects which this
constant interference must have produced. It is certain that the
foreign merchant paid himself well for the extreme difficulties
placed in the way of his business; while, at the same time, the
difficulties of procuring foreign articles of luxury must have
gone far to render the habits of ordinary life rough and simple.
The same principle of restriction, which was established in the
commerce of the country, existed in the retail trade. The towns of
England were of natural and accidental growth, accumulations of
men who had gathered for purposes of self-defence or convenience,
living in accordance with the ordinary habits of the country, in
the same position, in fact, with regard to the king and their
lords as any other society of men--citizens originally by right of
the possession of land, and as the system of lordship established
itself, bound to customary duties to their lord, just as the
inhabitants of the country were. In the same way the citizens
of the town, with the exception of these customary duties, were
free and self-governing. They gradually, and chiefly by means of
purchase, obtained freedom from the customary duties, and thus
became independent, self-governing communities. Charters securing
them freedom, in the case of the royal cities at all events, were
many of them due to the necessities of the Angevin kings, and to
their want of money for the payment of their mercenary troops. The
close neighbourhood of the inhabitants of towns early introduced
an artificial system of union, analogous to the frankpledge.
Men formed themselves into what were known as frith-guilds,[74]
the members of which were mutually responsible for one another,
met at periodical feasts, supported one another’s poor, and in
other respects performed the duties of members of an artificial
family. As trade increased these guilds in the generality of cases
coalesced into one, which took upon itself the direction of trade,
and was known as the merchant guild. With the natural tendency
of a governing body, this old merchant guild became exceedingly
exclusive. New-comers to the town were not admitted to it, and
craftsmen were generally excluded from its limits. In turn those
craftsmen established guilds of their own, known as craft-guilds,
by the warden and leaders of which the bye-laws of the particular
craft were formed. Between these and their aristocratic neighbours,
the merchant guild, quarrels arose, and in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries the contest between the two was fought out,
the craft-guilds eventually securing their acknowledgment and a
share in the government of the town. Speaking generally, therefore,
we may conceive of the towns of England as being divided into a
series of guilds, the leaders of which usually formed a governing
body, and which were capable of making bye-laws for their own
special members. The commercial aim of these associations was,
to insure good work, to insure work for all its members, and to
resist that spirit of competition which was gradually rising, and
which ended in the creation of two classes, the capitalist and
the workman. To secure these objects, they limited the number of
master workmen, admitted candidates to their association only after
lengthened apprenticeships, limited the number of apprentices each
master might employ, and kept a close supervision over the articles
made, which were usually authenticated by the corporation mark.[75]
These restrictions upon industry at the close of our period were
beginning to break down; round the master workmen, there was
arising a class of journeymen or day labourers, whose ranks were
constantly swelled by fugitive serfs from the country; while, on
the other side, individual enterprise was making itself felt, and
capital was being collected, the owners of which refused to submit
to the old corporation laws. The constant supervision both of trade
and of the work of artisans supported the notion that governing
bodies had the right to set prices on the articles under their
control, a principle which was used not only by the guilds, but by
the Government, as when, in the famine years of 1315 and 1316, it
prescribed the exact price of all articles of food. As this had
the natural effect of keeping things entirely out of the market,
so that butcher’s meat disappeared altogether, it was shortly
repealed; the prices to be demanded for victuals were constantly
subject to the supervision of justices. The assize of bread, which
is commonly assigned to the fifty-first year of Henry III., 1266,
regulated the price in accordance with the market prices of corn,
but the assizes of other matters, such as wine, wood, fish, fowls,
etc., seem to have been perfectly arbitrary.
[Sidenote: Ships.]
Though thus restricted, the trade of the English was very
considerable. Their ships reached into the Baltic, where a constant
communication was kept up with the Teutonic order, to whom Prussia
belonged. The intercourse with that order was close. We hear of
Henry, the first Duke of Lancaster, the Earl of Derby, afterwards
Henry IV., and Thomas of Gloucester, repairing to their assistance.
But the English merchants could never secure an equality of rights
in the Baltic, the trade of which was regarded as a monopoly by the
Hanseatic towns. English ships also visited Spain, so that Chaucer
could describe his experienced shipman as knowing all the harbours
from Gothland to Finnisterre;[76] while Venetian and Genoese
merchants, in whose hands the whole trade of the East was, brought
their goods largely to England; indeed, in 1379, a Genoese merchant
is said to have suggested to Richard II. to make Southampton the
emporium of all the oriental trade of the North. So great was the
importance of the English shipping, that Edward III. distinctly
claimed for himself and his predecessors the dominion of the
sea.[77] The ships were, however, though numerous, of small burden;
in the great fleet employed by Edward at Calais, there were 710
vessels, with crews amounting to 14,151 persons, which would give
an average crew of about twenty men; and as it is said that there
were about sixty-five sailors to every hundred tons, it would make
the average size of the vessels very small. Indeed, a ship manned
by thirty seamen, employed to convey Edward I. to the Continent,
was regarded as a wonder for its size. Of navy, properly speaking,
there was little or none. There were only twenty-five royal ships
at Calais, the rest were all merchantmen pressed for the service.
About this time it became habitual to put cannon on board ships.
When used for military purposes, they were manned by troops and
archers.
It has been mentioned that the trade of England was almost entirely
in raw materials. The cloth manufactured had hitherto been of the
roughest description, but Edward III., true to his view of keeping
English trade for the English, and moved perhaps by the wealth of
his allies the Flemish, attempted to introduce the manufacture
of finer cloths. In 1331, he invited weavers and fullers from
Flanders, and the patent exists which he gave to one John Kempe,
to practise and teach his mystery.[78] This seems to have been the
beginning of the finer cloth manufactures of England.
[Sidenote: Furniture.]
[Sidenote: Dress.]
[Sidenote: Houses.]