REIGN OF EDWARD III. AFTER THE TREATY OF BRETIGNI.
1360--1377.
LEADING DATES
Reign of Edward III., 1327-1377.
Battle of Navarrete 1367
Renewal of war with France 1369
Truce with France 1375
The Good Parliament 1376
Death of Edward III. 1377
1. =The First Years of Peace. 1360--1364.=--To hold his new provinces
the better, Edward sent the Black Prince to govern them in =1363= with
the title of Duke of Aquitaine. King John had been liberated soon
after the making of the peace, and had been allowed to return to
France on payment of part of his ransom, and on giving hostages for
the payment of the remainder. In =1363= one of the hostages, his son,
the Duke of Anjou, broke his parole and fled, on which John, shocked
at such perfidy, returned to England to make excuses for him, and died
there in =1364=. If honour, he said, were not to be found elsewhere,
it ought to be found in the breasts of kings.
2. =The Spanish Troubles. 1364--1368.=--John's eldest son and
successor, Charles V., known as the Wise, or the Prudent, was less
chivalrous, but more cautious than his father, and soon found an
opportunity of stirring up trouble for the Black Prince without
exposing his own lands to danger. Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile,
who had for some time been the ally of England, had murdered his
wife, tyrannised over his nobles, and contracted an alliance with the
Mohammedans of Granada. The Pope having excommunicated him, his own
illegitimate brother, Henry of Trastamara, claimed the crown, and
sought aid of the king of France. Charles V. sent Bertrand du
Guesclin, a rising young commander, to his help. Du Guesclin's army
was made up of men of the Free Companies (see p. 252), which still
continued to plunder France on their own account after the Peace of
Bretigni. In this way Charles got rid of a scourge of his own country
at the same time that he attacked an ally of the English. In =1366= Du
Guesclin entered Spain. The tyrannical Pedro took refuge at Bayonne,
where he begged the Black Prince to help him. The Gascon nobles
pleaded with the Prince to reject the monster, but the Prince was not
to be held back. "It is not a right thing or reasonable," he said,
when they urged him to keep aloof from the unjust undertaking to which
he invited them, "that a bastard should hold a kingdom, and thrust out
of it, and of his heritage, a brother and heir of the land by legal
marriage. All kings and sons of kings should never agree nor consent
to it, for it is a great blow at the royal state." In =1367= the Black
Prince entered Spain, and with the help of his English archers
thoroughly defeated Henry at Navarrete. Then vengeance overtook him on
the side on which he had sinned. Pedro was as false as he was cruel,
and refused to pay the sums which he had engaged to furnish to the
Prince's troops. Sickness broke out in the English ranks, and the
Black Prince returned to Bordeaux with only a fifth part of his army,
and with his own health irretrievably shattered. In =1368= Henry made
his way back to Spain, defeated and slew Pedro, and undid the whole
work of the Black Prince to the south of the Pyrenees.
[Illustration: A gold noble of Edward III., struck between A.D. 1360
and 1369.]
[Illustration: Effigy of Edward the Black Prince, from his tomb at
Canterbury: showing the type of armour worn from 1335 to 1400.]
3. =The Taxation of Aquitaine. 1368--1369.=--Worse than this was in
store for the Black Prince. As his soldiers clamoured for their wages,
he levied a hearth tax to supply their needs. The Aquitanian
Parliament declared against the tax, and appealed to the king of
France to do them right. In =1369= Charles, who knew that the men of
Aquitaine would be on his side, summoned the Black Prince to Paris to
defend his conduct, on the pretext that, as there had been some
informality in the treaty of Bretigni, he was himself still the feudal
superior of the Duke of Aquitaine. "Willingly," replied the Black
Prince when he received the summons, "we will go to the court of
Paris, as the king of France orders it; but it shall be with helmet on
head and sixty thousand men with us."
4. =The Renewed War. 1369--1375.=--Edward, by the advice of
Parliament, resumed the title of King of France, and war broke out
afresh in =1369=. The result of the first war had been owing to the
blunders of the French in attacking the English archers with the
feudal cavalry. Charles V. and his commander, Du Guesclin, resolved to
fight no battles. Their troops hung about the English march, cut off
stragglers, and captured exposed towns. The English marched hither and
thither, plundering and burning, but their armies, powerful as they
were when attacked in a defensive position, could not succeed in
forcing a battle, and were worn out without accomplishing anything
worthy of their fame. The Black Prince, soured by failure and
ill-health, having succeeded in =1370= in recapturing Limoges, ordered
his men to spare no one in the town. "It was great pity," wrote the
chronicler Froissart, "for men, women, and children threw themselves
on their knees before the Prince, crying 'Mercy! mercy! gentle Sire!'"
The Prince, who had waited at table behind a captive king, hardened
his heart. More than three thousand--men, women and children--were
butchered on that day. Yet the spirit of chivalry was strong within
him, and he spared three gentlemen who fought bravely merely in order
to sell their lives dearly. In =1371= the Black Prince was back in
England. His eldest surviving brother, John of Gaunt--or Ghent--Duke
of Lancaster, continued the war in France. In =1372= the English lost
town after town. In =1373= John of Gaunt set out from Calais. He could
plunder, but he could not make the enemy fight. "Let them go," wrote
Charles V. to his commanders; "by burning they will not become masters
of your heritage. Though storms rage over a land, they disperse of
themselves. So will it be with these English." When the English
reached the hilly centre of France food failed them. The winter came,
and horses and men died of cold and want. A rabble of half-starved
fugitives was all that reached Bordeaux after a march of six hundred
miles. Aquitaine, where the inhabitants were for the most part hostile
to the English, and did everything in their power to assist the
French, was before long all but wholly lost, and in =1375= a truce was
made which put an end to hostilities for a time, leaving only Calais,
Cherbourg, Brest, Bayonne, and Bordeaux in the hands of the English.
5. =Anti-Papal Legislation. 1351--1366.=--The antagonism between
England and France necessarily led to an antagonism between England
and the Papacy. Since =1305= the Popes had fixed their abode at
Avignon, and though Avignon was not yet incorporated with France, it
was near enough to be under the control of the king of France. During
the time of this exile from Rome, known to ardent churchmen as the
Babylonian captivity of the Church, the Popes were regarded in England
as the tools of the French enemy. The Papal court, too, became
distinguished for luxury and vice, and its vast expenditure called for
supplies which England was increasingly loth to furnish. By a system
of provisions, as they were called, the Pope provided--or appointed
beforehand--his nominees to English benefices, and expected that his
nominees would be allowed to hold the benefices to the exclusion of
those of the patrons. In =1351= the Statute of Provisors[20] attempted
to put an end to the system, but it was not immediately successful,
and had to be re-enacted in later years. In =1353= a Statute of
_Praemunire_[21] was passed, in which, though the Pope's name was not
mentioned, an attempt was made to stop suits being carried before
foreign courts--in other words before the Papal court at Avignon.
Another claim of the Popes was to the 1,000 marks payable annually as
a symbol of John's vassalage, a claim most distasteful to Englishmen
as a sign of national humiliation. Since =1333=, the year in which
Edward took the government into his own hands, the payment had not
been made, and in =1366= Parliament utterly rejected a claim made by
the Pope for its revival.
[Footnote 20: Provisors are the persons provided or appointed to a
benefice.]
[Footnote 21: So called from the first words of the writs appointed
to be issued under it, _Praemunire facias_; the first of these two
words being a corruption of _Praemoneri_.]
6. =Predominance of the English Language.=--The national spirit which
revealed itself in an armed struggle with the French and in a legal
struggle with the Papacy showed itself in the increasing predominance
of the English language. In =1362= it supplanted French in the law
courts, and in the same year Parliament was opened with an English
speech. French was still the language of the court, but it was
becoming a foreign speech, pronounced very differently from the
'French of Paris.'
7. =Piers the Plowman. 1362.=--Cruel as had been the direct results of
the English victories in France, they had indirectly contributed to
the overthrow of that feudalism which weighed heavily upon France and
upon all Continental Europe. The success of the English had been the
success of a nation strong in the union of classes. The cessation of
the war drove the thoughts of Englishmen back upon themselves. The old
spiritual channels had been, to a great extent, choked up. Bishops
were busy with the king's affairs; monks had long ceased to be
specially an example to the world; and even the friars had fallen from
their first estate, and had found out that, though they might
personally possess nothing, their order might be wealthy. The men who
won victories in France came home to spend their booty in show and
luxury. Yet, for all the splendour around, there was a general feeling
that the times were out of joint, and this feeling was strengthened by
a fresh inroad of the Black Death in =1361=. To the prevalent
yearning for a better life, a voice was given by William Langland,
whose _Vision of Piers the Plowman_ appeared in its first shape in
=1362=. In the opening of his poem he shows to his readers the
supremacy of the Maiden Meed--bribery--over all sorts and conditions
of men, lay and clerical. Then he turns to the purification of this
wicked world. They who wish to eschew evil and to do good inquire
their way to Truth--the eternal God--and find their only guide in
'Piers the Plowman.' The simple men of the plough, who do honest work
and live upright lives, know how to find the way to Truth. That way
lies not through the inventions of the official Church, the pardons
and indulgences set up for sale. "They who have done good shall go
into eternal life, but they who have done evil into eternal fire."
Langland's teaching, in short, is the same as that of the great
Italian poet, Dante, who, earlier in the century, had cried aloud for
the return of justice and true religion. He stands apart from Dante
and from all others of his time in looking for help to the despised
peasant. No doubt his peasant was idealised, as no one knew better
than himself; but it was honesty of work in the place of dishonest
idleness which he venerated. It was the glory of England to have
produced such a thought far more than to have produced the men who,
heavy with the plunder of unhappy peasants, stood boldly to their arms
at Crecy and Poitiers. He is as yet hardly prepared to say what is the
righteousness which leads to eternal life. It is not till he issues a
second edition in =1377= that he can answer. To do well, he now tells
us, is to act righteously to all in the fear of God. To do better is
to walk in the way of love: "Behold how good a thing it is for
brethren to dwell in unity." To do best is to live in fellowship with
Christ and the Church, and in all humility to bring forth the fruits
of the Divine communion.
8. =The Anti-Clerical Party. 1371.=--Langland wished to improve, not
to overthrow, existing institutions, but for all that his work was
profoundly revolutionary. They who call on those who have left their
first love to return to it are seldom obeyed, but their voice is often
welcomed by the corrupt and self-seeking crowd which is eager, after
the fashion of birds of prey, to tear the carcase from which life has
departed. A large party was formed in England, especially amongst the
greater barons, which was anxious to strip the clergy of their wealth
and power, without any thought for the better fulfilment of their
spiritual functions. In the Parliament of =1371= bishops were declared
unfit to hold offices of state. Amongst others who were dismissed was
William of Wykeham, the Bishop of Winchester. He was a great architect
and administrator, and having been deprived of the Chancellorship used
his wealth to found at Winchester the first great public school in
England. By this time a Chancellor was no longer what he had been in
earlier days (see p. 127), a secretary to the king. He was now
beginning to exercise equitable jurisdiction--that is to say, the
right of deciding suits according to equity, in cases in which the
strict artificial rules of the ordinary courts stood in the way of
justice.
[Illustration: William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, 1367-1404:
from his tomb at Winchester.]
9. =The Duke of Lancaster. 1374--1376.=--In =1374=, as soon as the
Duke of Lancaster returned from his disastrous campaign (see p. 257),
he put himself at the head of the baronial and anti-clerical party. He
was selfish and unprincipled, but he had enormous wealth, having
secured the vast estates of the Lancaster family by his marriage with
Blanche, the granddaughter of the brother of Thomas of Lancaster, the
opponent of Edward II. Rich as he was he wished to be richer, and he
saw his opportunity in an attack upon the higher clergy, which might
end in depriving them not only of political power, but of much of
their ecclesiastical property as well. His accession to the baronial
party was of the greater importance because he was now practically the
first man in the state. The king was suffering from softening of the
brain, and had fallen under the influence of a greedy and unscrupulous
mistress, Alice Perrers, whilst the Black Prince was disqualified by
illness from taking part in the management of affairs. A bargain was
struck between the Duke and Alice Perrers, who was able to obtain the
consent of the helpless king to anything she pleased. She even sat on
the bench with the judges, intimidating them into deciding in favour
of the suitors who had bribed her most highly. It seemed as if
Langland's Meed (see p. 259) had appeared in person. The king's
patronage was shared between her and Lancaster.
10. =John Wycliffe. 1366--1376.=--If Lancaster's character had been
higher, he might have secured a widespread popularity, as the feeling
of the age was adverse to the continuance of a wealthy clergy. Even as
things were, he had on his side John Wycliffe, the most able reasoner
and devoted reformer of his age, who, like others before and after
him, imagined that a high spiritual enterprise could be achieved with
the help of low and worldly politicians. Wycliffe had distinguished
himself at Oxford, and had attracted Lancaster's notice by the ability
of his argument against the Pope's claim to levy John's tribute (see
p. 258). In =1374= he had been sent to Bruges to argue with the
representatives of the Pope on the question of the provisions, and by
=1376= had either issued, or was preparing to issue, his work _On
Civil Lordship_, in which, by a curious adaptation of feudal ideas, he
declared that all men held their possessions direct from God, as a
vassal held his estate from his lord; and that as a vassal was bound
to pay certain military services, failing which he lost his estate, so
everyone who fell into mortal sin failed to pay his service to God,
and forfeited his right to his worldly possessions. In this way
dominion, as he said, was founded on grace--that is to say, the
continuance of man's right to his possessions depended on his
remaining in a state of grace. It is true that Wycliffe qualified his
argument by alleging that he was only announcing theoretical truth,
and that no man had a right to rob another of his holding because he
believed him to be living in sin. It is evident, however, that men
like Lancaster would take no heed of this distinction, and would
welcome Wycliffe as an ally in the work of despoiling the clergy for
their own purposes.
11. =Lancaster and the Black Prince. 1376.=--Ordinary citizens, who
cared nothing for theories which they did not understand, were roused
against Lancaster by the unblushing baseness of his rule. Nor was this
all. The anti-clerical party was also a baronial party, and ever since
the Knights Bachelors of England had turned to the future Edward I. to
defend them against the barons who made the Provisions of Oxford (see
p. 199), the country gentry and townsmen had learnt the lesson that
they would be the first to suffer from the unchecked rule of the
baronage. They now had the House of Commons to represent their wishes,
but as yet the House of Commons was too weak to stand alone. At last
it was rumoured that when the Black Prince died his young son Richard
was to be set aside, and that Lancaster was to claim the inheritance
of the crown, as an earlier John had claimed it in the place of the
youthful Arthur. The Black Prince awoke from his lethargy, and stood
forward as the leader of the Commons.
12. =The Good Parliament. 1376.=--A Parliament, known as the Good
Parliament, met in =1376=, and, strong through the Black Prince's
support, the Commons refused to grant supply till an account of the
receipts and expenditure had been laid before them. "What," cried
Lancaster, "do these base and ignoble knights attempt? Do they think
they be the kings and princes of the land? I think they know not what
power I am of. I will therefore, early in the morning, appear unto
them so glorious, and will show such power among them, and with such
vigour I will terrify them that neither they nor theirs shall dare
henceforth to provoke me to wrath." Lancaster soon found that his
brother was stronger than he. The Commons obtained a new Council, in
which Wykeham was included and from which Lancaster was shut out. They
then proceeded to accuse before the House of Lords Richard Lyons and
Lord Latimer of embezzling the king's revenue. Lyons, accustomed to
the past ways of the court, packed 1,000_l._ in a barrel and sent it
to the Black Prince. The Black Prince returned the barrel and the
money, and the Lords condemned Lyons to imprisonment. Latimer was also
sentenced to imprisonment, but he was allowed to give bail and
regained his liberty. These two cases are the first instances of the
exercise of the right of impeachment--that is to say, of the
accusation of political offenders by the Commons before the Lords.
Alice Perrers was next driven from court.
[Illustration: Tomb of Edward III. in Westminster Abbey.]
13. =The Last Year of Edward III. 1376--1377.=--Whilst Parliament was
still sitting the Black Prince, worn out by his exertions, died. His
son, young Richard, was at once recognised as heir to the throne.
Lancaster, however, regained his influence over his doting father.
Alice Perrers and Lord Latimer found their way back to court. The
Speaker of the House of Commons was thrown into prison. Frivolous
charges were brought against Wykeham, who was deprived of his
temporalities and banished from the court. In =1377= a new Parliament,
elected under Lancaster's influence, reversed all the proceedings of
the Good Parliament, and showed how little sympathy the baronial party
had with the people by imposing a poll tax of 4_d._ a head on all
except beggars, thus making the payment of a labourer and a duke
equal. The bishops, unable to strike at Lancaster, struck at Wycliffe,
as his creature. Wycliffe was summoned to appear before an
ecclesiastical court at St. Paul's, presided over by Courtenay, the
Bishop of London. He came supported by Lancaster and a troop of
Lancaster's followers. Hot words were exchanged between them and the
Bishop. The London crowd took their Bishop's part and the Duke was
compelled to flee for his life. In the summer of =1377= Edward III.
died, deserted by everyone, Alice Perrers making off, after robbing
him of his finger-rings.
[Illustration: Figures of Edward, the Black Prince, and Lionel, Duke
of Clarence, from the tomb of Edward III.; illustrating the ordinary
costume of gentlemen at the end of the fourteenth century.]
14. =Ireland from the Reign of John to that of Edward II.=--When
England was gradually losing its hold on France, what hold it had had
on Ireland was gradually slipping away. Henry II. had been quite
unable to effect in Ireland the kind of conquest which William the
Conqueror had effected in England. William had succeeded because he
had been able to secure order by placing himself at the head of the
conquered nation. In Ireland, in the first place, the king was a
perpetual absentee; and, in the second place, there was no Irish
national organisation at the head of which he could have placed
himself, even if he had from time to time visited the island. There
were separate tribes, each one attached to its own chief and to its
own laws and customs. They were unable to drive out their feudal
conquerors; but in the outlying parts of the country, they were able
to absorb them, just as the English in their own country absorbed
their Norman conquerors. The difference was that in England the
conquerors were absorbed into a nation: in Ireland they were absorbed
into the several tribes. The few who retained the English laws and
habits were, for the most part, confined to the part of Ireland in the
neighbourhood of Dublin, which was specially accessible to English
influences. In =1315= Edward Bruce, the brother of Robert Bruce,
invaded Ireland, and, though he was ultimately defeated and slain, he
did enough to shatter the power of the English nobility; and it was
mainly in consequence of his partial success that the authority of the
English government was, for some time to come, limited to a certain
district round Dublin, known about a century later as the English
Pale, the extent of which varied from time to time.
15. =The Statute of Kilkenny. 1367.=--As long as the French wars
lasted the attention of the English Government was diverted from
Ireland. In =1361=, however, the year after the Treaty of Bretigni,
the king's son, Lionel Duke of Clarence, was sent to extend English
rule. In =1367= he gathered a Parliament of the English colonists.
This Parliament passed the Statute of Kilkenny, by which the relations
between the two races were defined. Within the Pale English laws and
customs were to prevail, and even Irishmen living there were to be
debarred from the use of their own language. Beyond the Pale the Irish
were to be left to themselves, communication between the two peoples
being cut off as much as possible. The idea of conquering Ireland was
abandoned, and the idea of maintaining a colony on a definite part of
Irish soil was substituted for it. The Statute of Kilkenny was, in
short, a counterpart of the Treaty of Bretigni. In both cases Edward
III. preferred the full maintenance of his authority over a part of a
country to its assertion over the whole.
16. =Weakness of the English Colony. 1367--1377.=--It takes two to
make a bargain, and the Irish were not to be prevented from
encroaching on the English because the English had resolved no longer
to encroach upon them. The renewal of the war with France in =1369=
made it impossible to send help from England, and during the latter
part of the reign of Edward III. the Irish pillaged freely within the
English territory, constantly winning ground from their antagonists.
_Genealogy of the more important Sons of Edward III._
EDWARD III.
d. 1377
|
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Edward, Lionel, John of Gaunt, Edmund, Thomas,
the Black Duke of Duke of Duke of Duke of
Prince, Clarence, Lancaster, York, Gloucester,
d. 1376 d. 1368 d. 1399 d. 1402 d. 1397