Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Blackletter
text is denoted =thus=.
THE LIFE AND REIGN OF EDWARD I.
[Illustration: EDWARD I.
After the Engraving by Vertue, from the Statue at Carnarvon Castle.]
THE LIFE AND REIGN OF EDWARD I.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
“THE GREATEST OF THE PLANTAGENETS.”
Pactum Serva.
SEELEY, JACKSON, & HALLIDAY, FLEET STREET, LONDON. MDCCCLXXII.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY SIMMONS & BOTTEN,
Shoe Lane, E.C.
PREFACE.
The volume entitled “The Greatest of the Plantagenets,” was correctly
described in its title‐page, as “an Historical Sketch.” Nothing more
than this was contemplated by the writer. The compilation was made
among the manuscripts of the British Museum, in the leisure mornings of
one spring and summer; and so soon as a fair copy had been taken, it
was handed to the printer. The work was regarded as little else than
a contribution towards an accurate review of what is both the most
interesting and the most neglected period of our English history.
Its reception exceeded by far the author’s anticipations. Very
naturally—it might be said, quite inevitably—many of those who
admitted the general truth of the narrative, were ready to charge the
writer with “partisanship,” and with taking a “one‐sided vie” of the
question. It is not easy to see how this could have been avoided. A
great literary authority has said, that the first requisite for a
good biography is, that the writer should be possessed with an honest
enthusiasm for his subject. And in the present case his chief object
was to protest against what he deemed to be injustice. It was his
sincere belief, that for about a century past an erroneous estimate of
this great king’s character had been commonly presented to the English
people. He endeavoured to show that this had been the case; to explain
the causes, and to lead men’s minds to what he deemed to be the truth.
Such a task could hardly be performed without giving large opportunity
to an objector to exclaim, “You write in a partisan spirit.”
When a new view of any passage in history is presented, many fair and
honourable men, while they yield to the force of evidence, cannot help
feeling some reluctance—some dislike to the sudden change of belief
which is asked of them. Such men will often be found to object to the
manner in which their old opinion has been assailed, even while they
admit that that opinion was erroneous, and can no longer be maintained.
So, in this case, even those who advanced this charge of partisanship
were generally ready to concede, that an altered view of Edward’s
character had been not only propounded, but in a great measure
established. Thus the Dean of Chichester, Dr. Hook, while he “differs
widely from some of the author’s conclusions,” admits that “his
argument is always worthy of attention,” and describes the volume as
one in which “everything that can be advanced in favour of Edward is
powerfully stated.”[1] So, too, the Oxford Chichelean Professor of
History (Mr. Montagu Burrows), speaks of the book as “a bold, and
on the whole, successful attempt to reclaim for him; who is perhaps
the only sovereign of England since the Conquest who has a right to
the title of ‘Great,’—that position of which he has been deprived
for more than a century.”[2] And Sir Edward Creasy calls it “an
earnest, elaborate, and eloquent defence of Edward I. against all the
imputations that have been made upon him;” and adds, “my frequent
references to this volume will show how much I value it.”[3]
The success, then, of the author’s attempt to rectify a prevalent
error, has been clear and indisputable. All that he proposed to do has
been done—the estimate of this great king’s character which prevailed a
dozen years ago, has been considerably elevated—the justice which the
writer claimed for him is now almost universally conceded.
But a desire is expressed by most of these critics—and it is a natural
and laudable desire—that, as a result of the whole, a history, in the
ordinary sense, of this great sovereign, and of the remarkable period
in which he lived, might be given to the British public. The writer has
entirely sympathized with this desire, and he has waited several years
in earnest expectation of the appearance of some such work. Nothing of
the kind, however, has yet been given to the world; nor is there any
announcement of such a purpose. It seems to him, therefore, that it
is in some sort his duty to review his former work; to consider how
far it is justly chargeable with “partisanship,” and to reduce it, so
far as he is able, to the proper form and proportions of a permanent
history.
He feels the more impelled to attempt this, from an increasing
conviction that not the sovereign only, but the time in which he lived
and reigned, alike present to the mind of the dispassionate student, a
subject meriting and richly repaying a careful examination. The chief
features of the period in which this prince was born, and in which he
lived, are more remarkable than even that union of great qualities by
which he himself was distinguished.
This fact—the unusual concurrence of many symptoms of advance and of
excellence at that period—has already been noticed by more than one
writer. Lord Macaulay said: “It was during the thirteenth century
that the great English people was formed. _Then_ first appeared with
distinctness that Constitution which has ever since preserved its
identity; then it was that the House of Commons, the archetype of all
the representative assemblies which now meet, held its first sittings;
then it was that the Common Law rose to the dignity of a science; then,
that our most ancient colleges and halls were founded; and then was
formed a language, in force, in richness, and in aptitude inferior to
the tongue of Greece alone.” Another writer adds, that “it was _this_
age of all ages, to which every Englishman ought to look back with the
deepest reverence. In this thirteenth century our Constitution, our
laws, and our language, all assumed a form which left nothing for
future ages to do, but to improve the detail.”
This language is strong, and yet it does not fully describe the
fact. The union of solid and real advance with more ornamental
characteristics is very remarkable. It is true, as the writers whom we
have just cited observe, that this thirteenth century—the life‐time of
Edward the First—saw the rise into existence of the English people,
of the English language, and of the English constitution; but there
were also several other appearances which were stranger than these.
The realm had been, for many years, almost destitute of a settled
government; it had suffered from something nearly approaching to
anarchy. The Norman dukes who domineered over it only vouchsafed to
their province of England an occasional visit; often manifesting very
little care for it. Richard I., out of a reign of nine years, spent
only a few months in this island. His successor was the worst king that
England ever saw, and did his utmost to plunge the realm into ruin and
absolute confusion.
It fills us, therefore, with wonder, to observe that so soon as these
two pernicious rulers had departed, and the land was left in the
hands of a weak and incompetent, but well‐meaning youth, symptoms of
revival of all kinds became perceptible. Not only did the English
people and the English language come to light in this realm, but mind,
and intellect, and taste all uprose together. “It is curious,” says
Lord Campbell, “that in this turbulent reign (of Henry III.) there
should have been given to the world the best treatise upon law of which
England could boast, until the appearance of Blackstone’s Commentaries.
For comprehensiveness, for lucid arrangement, for logical precision,
this author, Henry de Bracton, was unrivalled for many ages.”[4] Nor
did this great lawyer stand alone. The same period gave us Roger Bacon,
and, with him, Antony Beck and Chancellor Burnel, two of the greatest
statesmen that England has ever known.
In the fine arts, also, England, though not yet rid of tumult and
civil war, made equal or still greater advances. Henry really valued
the arts; his wife was a cultivator and a patroness of poetry, and
he himself resolved to raise, at Westminster, a new and splendid
shrine for the remains of the last of the Saxon kings; ornamenting it,
also, with pictures of great Saxon achievements. This royal taste for
architecture was in accordance with the popular feeling. It was in the
latter half of this century that Westminster Abbey, the old St. Paul’s,
the Temple church, and the cathedrals of Salisbury and Norwich were
built, while during the same period, the churches of Lincoln, Ely,
Ripon, Exeter, and Wells, all received important enlargement. Nor was
Edward himself, though a soldier and a statesman, at all indifferent
to these matters. He raised in Westminster Abbey two monuments to his
father and his consort, of which an eminent critic of our own day
says: “Few figures can surpass, in simplicity and beauty, the effigy
of queen Eleanor, and those on the crosses erected to her memory are
almost equally fine.”[5]
The last words remind us, naturally, of another comparison. The king
of England, in A.D. 1290, lost his dearly‐loved consort; and he paid
to her memory every tribute of affection and of sorrow that he could
conceive, or that could be suggested to him. Her funeral “presented one
of the most striking spectacles that England ever witnessed.”[6] And he
then strove to perpetuate that memory by monumental works, both within
the Abbey and in twelve other places. In our own day we have witnessed
a similar bereavement. We have been conscious, too, of the existence of
a sorrow as deep and as enduring as that of the Plantagenet king. But
have we, with all the wealth and all the refinement of this nineteenth
century, been able to exceed, or even to equal, those outward and
permanent expressions of sorrow which king Edward conceived and
compassed in the earliest days of the English people and kingdom?
A consummate judge of these matters has truly said that “The reign
of Edward I. is the period of the most perfect and beautiful Gothic
buildings, when English art attained to the highest eminence it has
ever yet reached.”[7] And do we not all know, as a simple matter of
fact, that if we, after a lapse of six hundred years, wish to raise
a building of more than ordinary beauty, we are compelled to have
recourse to the noble works which were achieved in the days of Edward
I.? there being within our reach no purer or loftier models.
The age, then, in which this great monarch lived was a very
extraordinary age. To ascribe its singular fruitfulness in every
department of human excellence to his influence, would be altogether
irrational and absurd. He himself was only one fact or feature among
many. But it crowns the whole edifice with singular grace, to find—in
the days which produced a Bracton and a Roger Bacon, a statesman
like Burnel, a divine like Grosstête—the throne filled by a man like
Edward, whose first thought was of uprightness,[8] whose mind was a
“legislative mind,”[9] and who wrestled and fought his way through a
period of no common difficulty and trouble, with such “cleanness of
hands” as to leave him, at last, one of the noblest examples that it is
possible to adduce, of a ruler “fearing God and working righteousness.”
* * * * *
Those who are acquainted with the former publication will recognize
in the present, whole pages, sometimes whole chapters, which merely
reproduce what had been therein said. Perhaps one third of the book
is thus composed. Wherever a passage of plain and simple narrative,
disputed by no one, occurred, there seemed to be no good reason for
merely putting it into new phraseology. But all the more important and
controverted questions have been reconsidered, and the chapters which
concern them almost entirely rewritten.
* * * * *
The portrait which faces the title‐page is given because there seems
good reason to think that it is, substantially, a true representation.
England possessed, as we have said, in the days of Edward, good
sculptors as well as good architects; and it is tolerably certain, that
the artist employed to erect at Carnarvon a statue of the king, would
be a man competent to execute that work in a creditable manner. It is
true that at the present moment, the hand of time has nearly destroyed
every feature. But a century and a half ago, the statue was, doubtless,
in a better condition. An artist accustomed to detect, with a practised
eye, not only what _was_, but what _had been_, might gather from the
brow, from the mouth, from the chin, and from the general contour, a
tolerably accurate idea of the general portraiture. George Vertue,
in his researches for the illustration of Rapin’s history, visited
Carnarvon, believed that he gained from the statue a just idea of what
Edward had been, and brought away a drawing of it, which he carefully
engraved. From that portrait the present frontispiece has been taken.
Footnotes:
[1] Lives of Archbishops, vol. iii., p. 401.
[2] Oxford Hist. Society, 1864, p. 322.
[3] History of England, vol. i., p. 406.
[4] Campbell’s Chancellors, vol. i., p. 159.
[5] Parker’s Gothic Architecture, p. 161.
[6] Archæologia, vol. xxix., p. 174.
[7] Parker, p. 253.
[8] “_Pactum serva._”
[9] Mackintosh.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS 1
II. ACCESSION TO THE THRONE—EDWARD’S EARLIEST
PROCEEDINGS 17
III. THE FIRST SEVEN YEARS 36
IV. MIDDLE PERIOD OF EDWARD’S LIFE, A.D. 1279-1290 50
V. RETROSPECTIVE VIEW 87
VI. SCOTTISH AFFAIRS—THE ARBITRATION—THE WAR
A.D. 1291-1296 101
VII. TROUBLES WITH FRANCE—WAR IN SCOTLAND 128
VIII. THE WAR WITH FRANCE, AND VARIOUS TROUBLES
AT HOME, A.D. 1297 157
IX. WILLIAM WALAYS, A.D. 1297, 1298 176
X. PROLONGATION OF TROUBLES IN SCOTLAND—PARLIAMENTARY
DISCUSSIONS IN ENGLAND, A.D. 1299-1302 203
XI. THE DISAFFORESTING QUESTION—THE COMMISSION
OF TRAILBASTON, ETC., ETC., A.D. 1299-1305 226
XII. THE SETTLEMENT OF SCOTLAND, A.D. 1303-1305 265
XIII. BRUCE’S REBELLION: THE WAR WHICH FOLLOWED.—THE
DEATH OF EDWARD: HIS CHARACTER 290
APPENDIX 347
THE
LIFE AND REIGN OF EDWARD I.
I.
BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS.
On the night of June 17-18, 1239, Queen Eleanor, the consort of Henry
III., presented her husband with a son, who was born in the Palace of
Westminster, and who was instantly, says the old chronicler, named
by the king, “Edward, after the glorious king and confessor, whose
body rests in the church of St. Peter,” immediately adjoining. The
event was greeted by the nobles and by the people of London with
great manifestations of joy: by the citizens more especially, because
the young prince was born among them. The streets of the city were
illuminated at night with large lanterns, and music and dancing marked
it as a day of general rejoicing.
Such a birth was a new thing, in those days, to Englishmen. They
had passed nearly two centuries under the dominion of the dukes of
Normandy, whose home was in France, and whose sojourns in England
were merely visits paid to a conquered territory. During the later
years, indeed, of that Norman tyranny, two or three of its princes,
though still deeming themselves Normans, had first seen the light on
English ground;[10] but now, by his own choice, the reigning king had
ordained that his eldest son should receive his birth in the metropolis
of his kingdom, and had named him after the lamented and venerated
“Confessor,” the last of the Saxon sovereigns. All this was gratifying
to the Anglo‐Saxon mind, and how it was received and felt we can
discern in a chronicle of the period, which gladly accepts and records
the birth of an English or Anglo‐Saxon prince, narrating that, “on the
14th day of the calends of July (June 18), Eleanor, queen of England,
gave birth to her eldest son, Edward; whose father was Henry, whose
father was John, whose father was Henry, whose mother was Matilda the
empress, whose mother was Matilda, queen of England, whose mother was
Margaret, queen of Scotland, whose father was Edward, whose father was
Edmund Ironside, who was the son of Ethelred, who was the son of Edgar,
who was the son of Edmund, who was the son of Edward the Elder, who was
the son of Alfred.”[11]
In this manner the chronicler, who doubtless gave utterance to a common
feeling among Englishmen, manages to drop out of view almost entirely
the Norman dukes, who had overrun and subjugated the land for more than
one hundred and fifty years, and whose yoke had been felt to be indeed
an iron one. Among those sovereigns there had been some men of talent
and prowess, and one or two of good and upright intentions; but the
general character of their rule had been hard and despotic. “The people
were oppressed; they rebelled, were subdued, and oppressed again.
After a few years they sank in despair, and yielded to the indignities
of a small body of strangers without resistance. The very name of
Englishman was turned into a reproach; their language, and even the
character in which it was written, were rejected as barbarous. During
a hundred years, none of their race were raised to any dignity in the
State or the Church.”[12] The old “Saxon Chronicle” tells us how the
Norman soldiers “filled the land with castles,—forcing the poor people
to toil in their erection; and then, when these fortresses were built,
they filled them with devils and wicked men. They took those whom they
supposed to have any goods, and shut them up, and inflicted on them
unutterable tortures.”
The dawn of a better state of things was seen, when, in 1204, under the
weakest and worst of all these alien despots, Normandy was separated
from England. To the Norman knights who had settled upon their English
possessions acquired by the sword, this separation must have seemed
a dire calamity, but to Englishmen it was the reverse. England rose
once more to the rank of an independent kingdom. Her sovereigns,
Norman dukes no longer, must henceforward be really kings of England
if they would be anything; and thus Henry III., born at Winchester,
and living all his life in England, came to feel for the land and the
people far differently from any of his progenitors. He was a prince,
too, who, with many faults, had some real virtues. He was kind‐hearted
and liberal. He was, too, the first of his race who knew by experience
the value of home affections. From the Conqueror downwards, all the
Norman kings had been men of license, and their households the abodes
of jealousy, hatred, heart‐burnings, and conspiracies. Henry III. was a
faithful husband and an affectionate father; and he owed it to these
virtues that, after many errors and many follies, he descended at last
into a quiet and not unhonoured grave. The first of all the Conqueror’s
descendants to feel himself merely “king of England,” he was the first,
also, to desire to gain the good will of the English people, and the
first to stand before them as one knowing the value and the duties of
an English home. Henry had married a woman of talent, one who stands
high in mental rank among English queens. One of our old chroniclers
speaks of her as
“The erle’s daughter of Provence; the fairest May of life:
Her name is Helianore, of gentle nurture;
Beyond the seas there was none such creature.”
A poem from her pen is said to be preserved in the Royal library of
Turin; and it is in this reign that we first hear of a poet laureate in
England. It was probably from his consort, to whom he was all his life
devotedly attached, that Henry learned that fondness for the arts and
that cultivated taste which are often discernible in his proceedings.
Painting and architecture, as well as poetry, always interested him.
Over the Confessor’s tomb he resolved to raise a noble edifice; and
to that resolve we owe the Abbey Church of Westminster. Several of
our finest ecclesiastical buildings were commenced about this time,
and it is now that the Norman style of architecture disappears, and
the early English comes in its room. Both the Temple Church, and the
great cathedral of St. Paul which perished in the fire of London, were
upreared in Henry’s reign. There can be no doubt that his liberal
and often lavish expenditure on objects of this kind was one among
the various causes of that long series of pecuniary troubles and
embarrassments, which brought upon him all the chief disasters of
his reign. Thus, in passing through Paris in 1255, Henry thought that
it became him to give a banquet to the French king and his nobles,
at which banquet twenty‐five dukes, twelve bishops, and eighteen
countesses, with a host of illustrious knights, were present; and the
next day he sent to his distinguished guests, at their dwellings,
“rich cups, gold clasps, silken belts, and other princely presents.”
And very naturally, the chronicler next tells us that he landed at
Dover oppressed with a burden of debt, which he himself described as
“horrible to think of.” Then followed exactions, forced loans, and
applications to a “great council” for aid;—mutual reproaches, disputes,
and at last a civil war.
But we must return to our subject—the earlier years of Henry’s
distinguished son. Edward’s childhood appears to have been spent
principally at Windsor. In his third year, 1242, we find an order in
these terms: “Pay out of our treasury, to Hugh Giffard and William
Brun, £200, for the support of Edward our son, and the attendants
residing with him at our castle of Windsor.”[13] Four years later,
Matthew Paris notices the death of this Hugh Giffard, whom he calls
“a nobleman of the household, and preceptor to the princes.” In the
following year, prince Edward was seized with a dangerous illness, and
the king wrote to all the religious houses near London, requesting
their prayers for his recovery.
Of Hugh Giffard’s successor we find no record; but as the prince’s
education now became a matter of importance, we may be sure that a
competent instructor was provided. Two very able men are found in
habits of friendship with him through life, and it is probable that
one or both of them had a share in his early training. Robert Burnel
was the prince’s chaplain and private secretary, and he and Anthony
Beck accompanied Edward in his expedition to Palestine, and were named
executors in the will made at Acre, in 1271, after the attempt on his
life. Burnel afterwards became chancellor and bishop of Bath and Wells,
and Anthony Beck received the bishopric of Durham. But whoever it was
that gave to Edward’s mind its earliest bent and bias, he has a right
to our sincere respect and gratitude.
High and noble principles, both of religion and morals, are exhibited
in every act and word of his after life. He was at all times
devout; frequent in pilgrimages, religious retirements, and similar
observances, and fond of using scripture language and citing scripture
precedents: yet there was nothing of the monk or the ascetic about him.
Throughout his life he was pre‐eminently a man of action, but in every
action recollections of duty and principles of rectitude were always
perceptible.
Young Edward begins now to be spoken of as a youth of fine stature,
often described as “Edward with the flaxen hair.” The king showed great
fondness for him, and evidently felt a natural pride in his son. Long
before the youth could be competent for such a post, he endeavoured to
make him the lieutenant or governor of Gascony, and involved himself
in quarrels both with his brother Richard the earl of Cornwall, and
with earl Simon, by these attempts. He was at last obliged to go over
to Gascony to arrange these quarrels, which had arisen from his own
imprudence; and we read of his embarkation at Portsmouth on the 6th of
August, 1253, when we are told “the prince, after his father had kissed
and wept over him at parting, stood sobbing on the shore, and would
not leave it so long as a sail could be seen.” The deep and ardent
affection which subsisted in both father and son, is visible in many
other incidents of the following twenty years, and it constitutes an
important feature in Edward’s character.
Henry, when in Gascony, had an object in view beyond the adjustment of
the existing differences. He sent two of his confidential servants, the
bishop of Bath and John Mansel his minister, into Spain, to propose to
king Alfonso the Wise a marriage between Alfonso’s young sister Eleanor
and his son Edward. By this marriage certain claims which the Spanish
king had, or was supposed to have, on Gascony, were to be adjusted;
such claims being made over to Eleanor as a kind of dowry. A treaty on
this basis was made, sealed with gold, and brought over to England,
where it is now preserved among our ancient records.
The Castilian monarch, however, with the stateliness and dignity of
his nation, claimed that Edward “should be sent to him, that he might
examine into his skill and knowledge, and confer knighthood upon
him.” The queen of England resolved to visit Alfonso with her son,
and personally to assist at the betrothal. She reached Burgos, with
the young Edward, on the 5th of August, 1254. Alfonso was pleased and
satisfied, and we know, from the after history, that the two persons
most interested in the question became sincerely attached to each
other. Throughout a wedded life of six‐and‐thirty years, we observe
the prince and princess scarcely ever separated. When Edward goes to
Palestine, Eleanor accompanies him; when a painful operation is to
be performed, she can only by force be removed from the apartment.
Wherever he journeys she is ever by his side: when fever seizes her, he
is her faithful attendant; and when at last the tomb must receive her,
he will give her such honours and follow her with such grief, as few
women of the most exalted rank or character have ever been the occasion
of.
The prince and princess reached England in the autumn of 1255, and
took up their abode in the palace of the Savoy. In the following year,
Edward’s sister, the young queen of Scotland, paid them a visit, and
the palace of Woodstock became the scene of royal festivity;—Oxford and
all the neighbouring villages being filled with distinguished guests.
The king had professed to give his son, on his marriage, the government
of Gascony and of Ireland, and the earldom of Chester, guaranteeing
to him a revenue of 15,000 marks, or £10,000, which would be equal to
£150,000 in the present day. But with these great revenues still larger
expenses accrued. In 1257, the Welsh, always unruly, made an inroad
into the English counties on the border, and the king, when appealed
to, threw upon Edward the task of restoring order. The prince was
obliged to borrow of his uncle, the earl of Cornwall, a sum of 4000
marks, and he began to organize a military force. But the Welsh, who
were fond of marauding expeditions into England, were too numerous to
be kept in order by a few hundred horsemen; and the prince began to
understand by painful experience, how unsatisfactory and how injurious
to both countries was the existing state of the relations between Wales
and England.
We shall not dwell upon the last eighteen years of Henry’s reign—years
of trouble, disgrace, dissension, and civil war. The young prince took
just that part in these painful transactions which might have been
expected of him. He was sincerely attached to his father; he was also
a firm supporter and assertor of the royal rights; but his ruling
principle through life was an inflexible adherence to rectitude;—a
resolve to do justice alike to all men.
Hence he could not approve or maintain many of his father’s
proceedings. As early as the period at which we have arrived,
differences arose between the father and the son on these questions.
Henry had professed to make his son the lieutenant or governor of
Gascony. Yet the king’s officers still continued to seize, for the
king’s use, quantities of wine at Bordeaux. The Gascons appealed to the
prince, and he went to the king to claim redress for them. He told his
father plainly that he would not tolerate such proceedings. “The king,”
says the chronicler, “with a sigh exclaimed, ‘My own flesh and blood
assail me; the times of my grandfather, whose children fought against
him, are returning!’” But the prince felt assured of the justice of the
cause he had espoused; he was firm, and Henry was compelled to promise
that these acts of oppression should cease.
This same sort of struggle between the rights of the people and the
assumed privileges or encroachments of the crown, now began to grow
into a serious and prolonged strife in England. One historian remarks,
that “It was not that Henry was by inclination a vicious man; he
had received strong religious impressions; though fond of parade,
he avoided every scandalous excess; and his charity to the poor and
attention to public worship were deservedly admired. But his judgment
was weak, and his will, it must be added, was often at the command of
others.”
He had also the disadvantage of committing faults and falling into
errors, in the presence of one who was well qualified to take advantage
of both.
Simon de Montfort was one of the greatest among the great Norman
knights of that age. It has been well said of this remarkable class
of men, that “The ideal perfection of the knight‐errant was to wander
from land to land in quest of renown; _to gain earldoms, kingdoms, nay,
empires, by the sword_, and to sit down a settler on his acquisitions,
without looking back on the land which gave him life. Every soil was
his country; and he was indifferent to feelings and prejudices which
promote in others patriotic attachments.”[14]
The earls Simon de Montfort, grandfather, father and son, were
pre‐eminently soldiers of this class. In 1165 Simon the Bald obtained
in marriage a daughter of Blanchmaines, earl of Leicester, and his
son and grandson always put forward a claim to that earldom. The son
of Simon the Bald went to France, took up the crusade against the
Albigenses, and died count of Toulouse. One of his sons, calling
himself “earl of Leicester,” came to England and gained, some said
clandestinely, the affections of the princess Eleanor, daughter of king
John, and sister of Henry III. Thus connected with the royal family,
we find him, all through the middle portion of this century, either
trusted and employed by the king, or else heading a combination of the
barons against him. He became at last a popular leader, admired and
sometimes almost idolized by the people; and when he died, he was held
by them to have been a martyr to their cause. We are scarcely able to
form a decided opinion of his whole character. Some of his later acts
are not reconcilable with the obligations of loyalty to his sovereign,
who was also, by marriage, his relation; but we must admit that the
difficulties of his position were considerable. The most favourable
feature in the case is, that this great soldier seems to have possessed
and valued the friendship of Grosstête, “holy bishop Robert,” who is,
perhaps, the purest and brightest character presented to us in the
records of that day.
Up to a certain point the prince concurred with the discontented
faction among the barons, and with earl Simon their leader, whose
consort was his aunt. But, as we might have anticipated, when their
plans and purposes began to border upon treason, Edward, whose
affection for his father never varied, soon withdrew from their
society. “The Barons’ war,” as it has been called, lasted from 1258 to
1265. “A concilium,” held in London in the first of these years, led to
a much larger and more important assembly at Oxford about Midsummer.
The barons came to that city with great numbers of armed retainers, and
forced from the king an assent to “the provisions of Oxford,” which
did, in effect, put the royal authority “into commission,” or share
it with a selected number of great lords. The prince, we are told,
“being brought to it with great difficulty, at last submitted himself
to the ordinance and provision of the barons.” He saw, we cannot
doubt, the degradation of the royal authority which was implied in
those provisions; but he saw no available way of escape. He consented,
therefore, though unwillingly; but a pledge once given was, with him, a
solid reality.
Through life, the motto which, doubtless by his own command, was
afterwards inscribed upon his tomb, was his constant rule: _Pactum
serva_. Having entered into an engagement, he would adhere to it.
Accordingly, we find that in 1259 the poor king was alarmed by rumours
that the prince and the barons were confederating for his dethronement.
One chronicler tells us that certain evil advisers created distrust
between the father and the son; and that when the prince would have
vindicated himself, the king exclaimed, “Let him not approach me, for
if I were to see him, I should not be able to help kissing him.”[15]
Such was the affection which had always existed between the two.
But again we find, about a year later, that the uprightness of the
prince, and his adherence to his engagements, created a new difference
between Henry and his son. Matthew of Westminster tells us, that
“Edward, receiving full information concerning the king’s vain counsels
and counsellors, became enraged against the latter, and withdrew
himself from his father’s sight, and in all good faith declared his
adherence to the barons, in conformity with his oath. The king shut
himself up with his evil advisers in the Tower, and Edward remaining
outside with the barons, things assumed a threatening aspect.”
Two years of fluctuating prospects and of great trouble followed. But
Edward began to see, on the part of earl Simon, designs which he could
not possibly approve or tolerate. The earl, on one occasion, actually
threatened Windsor Castle; and when the prince agreed to meet him at
Kingston to confer upon the position of affairs, the earl “was too
circumspect to allow him to get into Windsor again.” He “detained the
prince” until, to regain his liberty, he consented to surrender the
royal fortress to the earl.
Such proceedings as this must have alienated the prince from earl Simon
and the barons; and at last, in 1263, it was agreed that all questions
should be submitted to king Louis of France (St. Louis), to whose
decision all parties bound themselves to conform. At the commencement
of 1264, Louis held a great court, and heard the arguments on both
sides; and then, by his final sentence on the 23rd of January, he
“annulled and made void the provisions of Oxford,” and discharged all
persons from any obligations to the same.
At last, then, the prince was morally and legally at liberty. The
obligation by which he had so long felt bound was at an end; but earl
Simon and the discontented barons refused to abide by their engagement.
They had sworn that “whatsoever the king of France should ordain
concerning the matters in dispute they would faithfully observe,” but
when the decision was against them, they refused to submit to it. From
this moment Edward takes his place by his father’s side. Hostilities
commenced in April, 1264, and in May a battle was fought at Lewes. The
prince defeated the forces opposed to him, but earl Simon broke up and
dispersed the centre and left wing of the royal army, and forced the
king to shut himself up in the Priory of Lewes. Edward, to extricate
his father, agreed to terms; and for a time both the king and the
prince were in a sort of honourable captivity, attended everywhere by
earl Simon, who now acted in the king’s name, and did, in almost every
matter, merely what he pleased.[16]
This state of things lasted about a year, when at last the prince
escaped from the guards whom earl Simon had placed around him, was
joined by the earl of Gloucester and Roger Mortimer, and once more
raised the royal standard. At Evesham, in August, 1265, the final
struggle took place. Earl Simon, seven lords of his party, and one
hundred and sixty knights, perished, and “the Barons’ war” was ended. A
year or two was required to restore tranquillity; but during the rest
of Henry’s life, which lasted seven years longer, the realm was for the
most part at peace.
A parliament was held at Marlborough in 1267, for the settlement of
questions arising out of the civil war. And now, seeing the country
again in tranquillity, Edward listened to the earnest entreaties of
Louis of France, and consented to accompany him on the last great
Crusade.
He embarked at Portsmouth in the spring of 1270, accompanied by his
faithful Eleanor. The princess was with him when, at Acre, his life
was attempted by an assassin. The romantic story of her extraction of
the poison from the wound with her own lips, is not found in authentic
history; but one chronicler narrates how, when a painful operation
became necessary, the surgeon requested Edward’s brother and the lord
de Vesci to carry the princess away;“so she was carried out, weeping
and crying aloud.”
The support of the French army failing him, Edward quitted Palestine
in July, 1272, and at Sicily he met the news of his father’s death
and of his own accession to the crown of England. The king of Sicily
was surprised at the grief which these news excited—a grief more
poignant and more visible than that caused by an earlier despatch which
mentioned the death of one of Edward’s children. The prince made the
natural reply, that other children might replace the one which he had
lost, but that he never could have another father. The warm and sincere
affection which always subsisted between these two very different men,
is proved by incidents which meet us at every turn; and our estimate of
king Henry’s character is considerably raised by the fervour and the
permanence of his son’s attachment to him.
Of Edward’s own character we have already seen something. In two chief
characteristics, it is fully developed long before he reaches the royal
dignity. He was in a more than ordinary degree a man who could love,
and who was beloved. His father, his mother, his wife, his friends,
were the objects of his unvarying attachment. This feature of his life
is constantly apparent.
But he was also a man of honour and of integrity. He looked, in all
matters, more to the question of _right_ than to that of _expediency_.
Born to wear a crown, he was careful to do nothing to diminish the
royal dignity; but not even for the maintenance of his father’s
privileges, would he do that which he did not believe to be just and
right; and, above all things, the one principle, _Pactum serva_, was
never to be departed from. A prince’s word, once given, must be held
sacred. One other feature in his character is noted by the historians
of his day. He was of an irascible temper, easily excited to anger;
but his anger might be as quickly calmed as it was aroused. Walsingham
tells us how, on one occasion, the prince was amusing himself with his
hawks, and one of the lords in attendance overlooked a falcon which
had made a stoop on a duck among the willows. The prince spoke sharply
to him, and the other answered, with some pertness, that “he was glad
the river was between them.” In a moment Edward had plunged into the
stream, and was urging his horse up the opposite bank, in pursuit of
the offender. But the attendant, knowing with whom he had to deal,
flung off his cap, bared his neck, and threw himself on the prince’s
mercy. Edward’s wrath was gone in a moment, he sheathed his weapon,
gave instant forgiveness, and the two rode home in perfect amity
together.
In like manner, while engaged in the pacification of the country after
“the Barons’ war,” he found, in a forest in Hampshire, a noted captain
of free‐lances, one Adam Gordon, or Gourdon, whose deeds made him
the terror of all the country round. The prince sought him out, and
met with him one evening when he and his followers were returning to
their fastnesses. Edward at once singled Gordon out, and engaged him
in single combat. Both being skilled in arms, and of tried valour, the
contest was an arduous one. At last Gordon was wounded, and yielded
himself. Edward respected his valour and his knightly prowess, received
his submission, had his wounds attended to, took him into his favour,
and presented him that night to his mother, the queen, at Guildford
Castle. Gordon proved faithful, and remained long attached to Edward’s
service.
A similar clemency marked all Edward’s proceedings. To “seek his grace”
was always to find it. The few exceptions, in his whole life, are those
of men who had “broken covenant,” and proved false and treacherous
after confidence had been placed in them. Even Hume, generally
unfriendly to Edward, is obliged to confess of the pacification which
followed the victory of Evesham, that “The clemency of this victory is
remarkable. No blood was shed on the scaffold; no attainders, except of
the Montfort family, were carried into execution.”
And if we examine his conduct through life with an unprejudiced eye,
we shall find this attribute of clemency—a very uncommon one in those
days—distinctly perceptible in all his proceedings. A firm and resolute
and warm‐tempered man, he could sometimes punish; but his general rule
of conduct was once expressed by himself in a hasty exclamation: “_May_
pardon him! Why, I will do that for a dog, if he seeks my grace!”
Footnotes:
[10] Henry I. at Selby, Richard I. at Oxford, and Henry III. at
Winchester.
[11] Florence of Worcester, A.D. 1239.
[12] Macaulay.
[13] Devon’s Issues of the Exchequer, p. 18.
[14] Walter Scott’s Hist. of Scotland, vol. i., p. 68.
[15] “Annals of Dunstable.”
[16] The Chronicle of Mailros describes a messenger coming to Edward
from his sister, the queen of Scotland; and tells how earl Simon
took care to be present, observing every word and gesture that
passed between the two.
II.
ACCESSION TO THE THRONE—EDWARD’S EARLIEST PROCEEDINGS.
The death of Henry III. took place in Westminster on the 16th of
November, 1272, and he was buried on the 20th, in front of the great
altar in that noble church, on the uprearing of which he had lavished
so much treasure. At the close of the funeral, earl Warenne, the earl
of Gloucester, and all the chief of the clergy and laity there present,
went forward to the high altar, and swore fealty to king Edward.
Three guardians or regents immediately entered upon the government
of the realm—namely Edmund, the king’s cousin, son of the late earl
of Cornwall, brother of Henry III.; Walter, the archbishop of York;
and Gilbert, earl of Gloucester. No difficulty of any kind appears to
have occurred; the submission of all classes was entire; and we may
assume that a regular correspondence was at once established between
the regents and the king. We find him showing no signs of haste, but
remaining abroad until sundry matters of importance were arranged, and
then taking his journey homewards with royal state and deliberation.
He was in Sicily when the tidings of his father’s death reached him.
Before his visit to the pope had terminated, he was known throughout
Italy to be king of England; and as he proceeded homewards through
Northern Italy, he met with a royal reception in many of the cities;
the people coming forth to receive him with processions, and blowing
of trumpets, and acclamations of “Long live king Edward.” At Chalons
a grand tournament had been prepared for him; which, however, was
not without sinister design; “the Burgundians bargaining over their
wine‐cups, for some days before, for the horses and armour of the
English knights, whom they confidently reckoned on overcoming.”[17] The
English, however, were not overcome. The gigantic count of Chalons,
failing to dismount Edward, tried, by main force, to pull him from his
horse; but he was thrown to the ground, chastised, and made to give up
his sword. Ill blood and exasperation arose; the English had to fight
their way out of the town; and the tournament was remembered as “the
little battle of Chalons.”
Edward next visited the king of France, and did homage for his French
possessions. Passing into Gascony, he found it needful to subdue and
bring into subjection a fractious noble, Gaston de Bierne. Thence he
proceeded to the courts of the countess of Limousin and the countess
of Flanders, with each of whom he had business to transact. At last,
in July, 1274, he set his face towards England, landing on the 2nd of
August at Dover. The two great earls, Warenne and Gloucester, were
awaiting his arrival, and he became, in turn, the guest of each, at
their castles of Reigate and Tunbridge. Meantime, preparations were
making for his immediate coronation; and, on the 19th, this ceremony
took place. In the abbey‐church of Westminster Edward and Eleanor were
crowned king and queen of England by Robert Kilwardby, archbishop of
Canterbury. There were present, besides all the great men of the realm,
Edward’s two brothers by marriage—Alexander, king of Scotland, and
John, duke of Bretagne—with their consorts, the sisters of the king.
On the following day, king Alexander of Scotland paid his accustomed
homage.[18]
The ceremony was attended with many circumstances of rejoicing and
exhibitions of munificence. While the nobles and citizens made
the conduits flow with wine and the streets gleam with tapestry,
scattering silver in handfuls, the princes showed a royal liberality.
King Alexander of Scotland, “when the king was seated on his throne,
came to do him worship, and with him an hundred knights, mounted and
accoutered; and when they had lighted off their horses, they let the
horses go, and they that could catch them, had them for their own
behoof. And after these came Sir Edmund, the king’s brother, and with
him the earl of Gloucester; and after them the earl of Pembroke and the
earl Warenne, and each of these led an hundred knights, who, when they
alighted, let their horses go, and they that could take them had them
to their liking.”
The feast was a right royal one. We shall find, throughout Edward’s
reign, that none ever practised a truer or a wiser economy. His habits
were simple and plain, his household well regulated. A friend once
expressed wonder at the plainness of his dress. His answer was, “And
what good, think you, would fine clothes do me?” But he well understood
his royal estate and office. When he had to come before the people as
their king, his doings were always kingly. The coronation‐banquet was a
noble one. New buildings were erected in the court‐yard of Westminster,
to accommodate the guests; and the provision made shows how numerous
these guests must have been. The details are still preserved, and we
find that the principal items were—“380 oxen, 430 sheep, 450 pigs, 18
wild boars, 278 flitches, and nearly 20,000 fowls.” Such a prodigious
supply was not provided for one day’s festival; the feast was prolonged
through a whole fortnight. Edward’s friends and chief counsellors, such
as Anthony Beck and Robert Burnel, were churchmen; and we find, in
every part of his personal history, frequent reference to Old Testament
precedents. In the present instance they seem to have followed a
notable example—“At that time Solomon held a feast fourteen days.”—1
Kings viii. 65.
And now Edward was on his throne,—was dwelling in his palace, ruling
over the people of England. The work before him was an arduous one; his
chief advisers were men suited to the times; and his own strength of
purpose, sagacity, and perseverance were precisely what the land needed
at that peculiar juncture.
England had long been in a state of extreme disorder, and it required
a clear head and a strong right arm, to bring it into a condition of
health, and comfort, and security.
One change of vast moment, indeed, had been effected in the course of
the protracted reign which had just ended. From the time of William
until the end of the reign of John, during one hundred and fifty years,
the people had felt that they were under the yoke of alien lords. The
Normans, men of iron, people of another land, and who spoke another
language, ruled over them; but the half‐century of Henry’s reign
gradually lightened, and at last removed the weight of this oppression.