had witnessed the assembling of a parliament. The year 1275 saw the
first of these gatherings which assumed that name, and which placed
upon the statute‐book of England the “Statute of Westminster.” In
October of the same year a second meeting of the same kind took place,
at which the Welsh controversy was discussed. In 1276 a parliament
assembled in Westminster, another at Winchester, and, towards the end
of the year, a third was held in Westminster. In the sessions held this
year, 1276, three new statutes were passed—that of Bigamy, that on the
Office of Coroner, and one concerning Justices. In the next year, 1277,
parliament was again convened, to grant the king an aid. Throughout
the Welsh controversy, as well as on all the other “hard questions”
of his reign, we see the king constantly resorting to the advice of
his parliament. The maxim which he avowed in a public document several
years after this, seems to have governed his thoughts and actions from
the very beginning of his reign—that “what concerns all, should be by
all approved.”
In the year 1278, the war with Wales having terminated, the king
visited Worcester to witness the celebration of the nuptials of
Llewellyn and young Eleanor de Montfort. He then held a parliament in
the neighbouring city of Gloucester, at which the important “Statutes
of Gloucester” were placed upon our statute‐book. One or two of our
historians have described this reign, as if the ratification of the
Great Charter and of the Charter of the Forests had been wrung from the
king with great difficulty, and in the hour of his necessity. But for
such a representation there is no foundation whatever. In 1276, being
in a state of peace and of great popular esteem, the king issued,
entirely of his own accord, a proclamation for the observance of the
Charter of Liberties, and the Charter of the Forests.
At the same time we see in his whole conduct abundant signs of a
feeling that these documents belonged to the past; and that his office
was to open to the realm and people of England views of constitutional
liberty, of which no mere observance of Magna Charta, in its largest
interpretation, could ever have given them any idea.
Footnotes:
[21] “He issued,” says Rapin, “writs of enquiry to two commissioners
in every county, to enquire what his royalties, and the liberties
and prerogatives of his crown were; who were his tenants _in
capito;_ and how many and what fees they held of him. Also of his
tenants in ancient demesne—how they had behaved themselves, and in
what condition the lands were. Also of the sheriffs, coroners, and
bailiffs, and their clerks—whether they had extorted money, or had
wronged any one, or had taken bribes. This first step,” says Rapin,
“produced a wonderful effect upon the people.”
[22] “But Edward never faltered in his purpose, and the inquiry
went on, at intervals, through a period of more than twenty
years.”—Pearson’s Hist. Eng., vol. ii., p. 298.
[23] This appears to us now a punishment of terrible severity. Yet
we ourselves, in the days of George III., were in the habit of
hanging men in great numbers for fabricating imitative bank‐notes.
All our modern civilization, at the beginning of the present
century, had not carried us beyond the usages of Edward’s day.
IV.
MIDDLE PERIOD OF EDWARD’S LIFE.
A.D. 1279-1290.
The prime or maturity of Edward’s life was spent in works of quiet
usefulness. The rebellion and reduction of Wales formed, indeed, an
apparent exception; but the period of actual hostility on this occasion
was very short. Edward was forced by the sudden outbreak of Llewellyn
and David, to draw the sword; but it was returned to its scabbard in a
very few weeks. Prejudiced historians have delighted in describing this
sovereign as a man who, like the great Corsican of the beginning of the
present century, was ever plotting some new acquisition; ever coveting
his neighbour’s possessions. But in the actual records of his reign, we
see him, from his fortieth to his fifty‐second year, dwelling in peace,
and “thinking no evil.” The only instance in which we find him in the
battle‐field is just ‘the exception which proves the rule.’ He took
arms because he was assailed; because his enemy had left him no option.
His fortieth year, the eighth of his reign, was distinguished in the
way in which he best loved to distinguish it—by a great act of wise
and useful legislation. Doubtless we owe its authorship mainly to the
counsel and the legislative skill of Robert Burnel; but we must not
refuse to the king the possession of that sagacious patriotism which
we shall continue to discern in his actions long after that valued
counsellor had been removed from his side.
The king and his chancellor were doubtless religious men. No Wiclif,
no Latimer, had yet appeared; the twilight of the mediæval times was
all the light they had to guide them. But we find Edward, without any
asceticism, often giving days and weeks to religious exercises. His
chancellor was a bishop, but he had been a statesman and a legislator
before he became a bishop, and a statesman and a legislator he remained
still. Both of these clear‐sighted and sagacious men saw the perilous
operation of the mediæval doctrine of Purgatory, and of the assumed
power of the priesthood to open and shut the doors of that fearful
abode. Month after month, and year after year, estates were constantly
passing into the hands of the Church, for the supposed benefit of
departed souls. The king himself could not throw off this belief,
nor abstain from following in the practice which was universal in
his day. When his beloved Eleanor was taken from him, we instantly
hear of various manors given to the priests of Westminster for a long
succession of masses to be said for the benefit of the poor queen’s
soul. And we may be sure that a delusion which ruled over so powerful a
mind as the king’s, was universal among his people, and that no man who
had really loved his lost wife or parents would be backward in showing
his solicitude by such donations of land or money as he could afford,
“for their soul’s benefit.“ As the Church was thus constantly receiving
and never restoring, it seemed inevitable that in process of time it
must become the sole landlord in the realm.
Hume tells us of one period when the clergy held one‐third of the lands
of the kingdom; and it is easy to perceive that had no Reformation
occurred—had no violent redistribution taken place—that course of
continual addition and accumulation must have left, by this time, very
few estates in England in lay hands. The king saw this tendency, and
he desired to check it. But he would not wrong the Church by any act of
tyranny. He himself shared in the ordinary belief, and, as we have just
said, when his queen was taken from him, he gave, like other men, large
estates “for the good of her soul.” But, while he questioned not the
right of men in full possession of their faculties thus to deal with
their own property, he saw an evident and a perilous abuse, grafted
on this general belief and practice. Men in their latest hours—men,
whose minds were clouded or prostrated by disease—bequeathed, they
scarce knew what, out of sheer terror, or, in some cases, at the
demand or dictation of some priest, who was zealous for “the good of
holy Church.” In all probability, Edward had heard the complaints of
disinherited wives or children, who found their hereditary possessions
suddenly wrested from them, and who knew that the expiring parent
who had, they were told, so willed, was, for hours or days before
his departure, scarcely conscious of the meaning of his own words or
actions. Here, then, without interfering with the main question—the
usual and generally admitted theory—was an evident and a very serious
abuse.
A parliament was held in Westminster, in November, 1279, at which a
great statute was passed—the far‐famed law of _Mortmain_. It must
have been passed in the presence and by the consent—apparent at
least—of many prelates, whose desires “for the good of holy Church”
it contravened. But the ascendancy of such a mind and will as that
of Edward,—the legislative authority of the great chancellor, and
the support, doubtless, of the earls and barons by whom the king was
surrounded, prevailed; and the Church was compelled to submit to this
limitation. Henceforth no man should be allowed “with dying hands“ to
will away his possessions “to holy Church.” All such bequests were
declared to be illegal and void. No more necessary statute could have
been passed; and from that day to this—from 1279 to 1870—all England
has honoured the name of the wise sovereign who devised and established
the law of Mortmain.
Soon after this, Edward, finding all things at peace at home, paid
a short visit to the continent. The death of the queen of Castile
transferred to her daughter Eleanor, Edward’s consort, the county of
Ponthieu; and to obtain seizin of this territory, and to do homage for
it, he visited the king of France at Amiens, where, however, his stay
was but short. He brought back with him to England some fine jasper
stones, which became part of the costly monument he was raising in the
church of Westminster to the memory of the king his father. Not long
after his return he found it necessary to repress some of the lofty
pretensions of “holy Church.” John Peckham, who had succeeded Kilwardby
in the see of Canterbury, had convened a synod at Reading, in which
various canons were adopted, tending to separate ecclesiastics and
ecclesiastical property from the laity and their possessions, and to
exempt them from the operation of the statute and common law. These
attempts, fostered by such churchmen as Dunstan and A’Becket, had long
been perplexing all the governments of Christendom. We shall meet
with them, again and again, throughout this king’s reign. But Edward
was both clear‐sighted and resolute, and we cannot doubt that his
chancellor, though himself a prelate, supported him. The archbishop was
at once called before a council, and commanded to revoke and cancel all
canons which assumed or pretended to set aside the laws and ordinances
of the realm.
Ireland began now to claim a share in the king’s attention, and we may
reasonably regret that the affairs of Wales soon drew his thoughts
another way. The fame of the enlightened legislation now going on in
England had probably reached Ireland; for a petition was sent over to
the king that they might be allowed the benefit of the English laws.
They tendered, as a customary fine, or ”benevolence,” the sum of
8000 marks for the enjoyment of this privilege. Edward’s disposition
must have been, to comply at once with this request; but we shall
find him, through his whole life, abstaining from all arbitrary or
sudden decisions, and referring all public questions to his council
or parliament. He wrote, therefore, to Robert de Clifford, chief
justiciary of Ireland, desiring that steps might be taken to comply
with the prayer of the petition. Some sort of an assembly or parliament
was convened for the consideration of the question. But arbitrary power
always finds some advocates, for there are never wanting persons who
can turn it to their own advantage. The chief men in Ireland raised
objections, and succeeded in postponing compliance with the king’s
wishes. Edward wrote a second time, in displeasure, ordering another
council or parliament to be convened. But Wales now began to claim
his attention, and the opponents of a wise and just policy in Ireland
succeeded in their policy of procrastination.
The Principality had now remained at peace for more than four years.
But there were various reasons for Welsh discontent. The king had
established his authority on the border, and had put an end to those
plundering inroads which had troubled the English frontier for many
preceding years. To be thus kept in check would naturally vex and annoy
the half‐civilized tribes who had delighted, for half a century past,
in burning and ravaging the farms and hamlets of the English frontier.
“Edward,” says Carte, “had thrown his newly‐acquired territory into
districts, had appointed sheriffs, and sent judges to administer
justice. These things were not agreeable to the Welsh. They did not
like counties or hundreds, courts or juries, or any institution,
however beneficial, that was derived from England;—in fact, being used
to a roving, disorderly, and plundering sort of life, they did not
care to be kept in order.” Both Llewellyn and David had also private
grievances. The elder brother had a suit against Griffith Gwenwynn
for some lands, and he was summoned to the hearing of the cause at
Montgomery, which he deemed a great indignity. David was sued by one
Venables, before the chief justice of Chester, touching the villages
of Hope and Eston. Irritated by these proceedings, the two brothers
made up their quarrel, and on Palm Sunday in March, 1282, David
surprised the castle of Hawarden, seizing Roger de Clifford in his
bed, wounding him, and carrying him off a prisoner, while several of
the English garrison were put to the sword. The news of this sudden
outbreak was carried to the king, who was keeping Easter at Devizes.
Other messengers soon followed with the intelligence that Llewellyn
had joined his brother, that the castles of Flint and Rhuddlan were
besieged, and that the Welsh were rising in every quarter. Edward
sent off immediately all the force he had with him to the relief of
the besieged castles, and issued orders for the rendezvous of his
military tenants at Worcester on the 17th of May. Before that time
he had himself moved forward, and finding the insurrection to be
growing general, he gave orders for a larger levy than he had at first
intended; ordering his tenants to meet him at Rhuddlan on the 2nd of
August. Llewellyn and his brother retired on his approach, taking
refuge in the fastnesses of Snowdon. The king took the same precaution
as in 1277, by sending a fleet to occupy Anglesea, which island at
once submitted, and the possession of which enclosed Llewellyn on every
side. Meanwhile, the archbishop of Canterbury visited the Welsh prince
and tried to bring him to submission, but all attempts of the kind
were fruitless. Llewellyn handed in a list of grievances, which were
just such as might have been anticipated. “The four cantreds” between
Chester and Conway, formerly the scene of continual strife, had now
been ceded, by the treaty of 1277, to Edward, and the English laws had
been established there. These laws were distasteful to the Welsh. By
their own laws, such offences as murder or arson might be withdrawn
from the courts by a payment to the chief lord of a fine of five
pounds; but the English judges hanged such offenders. No doubt, some
provocation had been given, some injuries inflicted, on both sides. But
Llewellyn, who had twice been Edward’s guest at Westminster, ought to
have appealed to him for redress of any positive wrong. He might have
known that it was not the king’s habit to justify ill‐doing. But the
Welsh preferred to draw the sword, and now, when the archbishop strove
to mediate, he found them obstinate and unbending.
At the outset of the war Edward had stormed and taken Hope Castle, had
relieved Flint and Rhuddlan, and had driven Llewellyn back into the
recesses of Snowdon. In November the English met with a disaster at the
Menai Straits. They had constructed a bridge of boats, and a sudden
attack of the Welsh, who rushed down with loud cries, created a panic;
a rush was made for the bridge, it gave way, and thirteen knights and
about two hundred men were lost in the waters.
Elated at this success, Llewellyn thought that as the bridge was
destroyed, Snowdon was now safe for the winter, and he moved down into
Cardiganshire, intending to rally and succour his friends in South
Wales. Here, on the 10th of December, near Builth in Radnorshire, he
came in contact with a party of the English, and one of them, Adam
Francton, ran him through with a spear, in ignorance of his person or
quality. After lying in the field some time, his body was searched, and
his private signet and certain papers made his person known. His head
was cut off and sent to the king, who, according to the custom of the
period, ordered it to be sent to London and set up over the gate of the
Tower.
The death of their prince seems to have so discouraged the Welsh
that all opposition ceased, and Edward took quiet possession of the
forfeited principality. From that day forward, England and Wales became
one;—subject to the same laws and ruled over by the same government.
“This incorporation,” says Mr. Sharon Turner, “was an unquestionable
blessing to Wales. That country ceased to be the theatre of homicide
and distress, and began to imitate the English habits. It was at
once divided into counties, placed under sheriffs, and admitted to a
participation in the more important of the English institutions.”
The wretched beginner of this second Welsh controversy, David of
Snowdon, contrived, for several months, to lead the life of an outlaw,
and to evade the search of his pursuers. This unyielding contumacy
completed his ruin. Had he frankly and immediately submitted to the
conqueror, and besought mercy, all that we know of Edward assures us
that his life, at least, would have been spared. But he remained an
outlaw, and obdurate; until, after a concealment of several months,
some of his own people seized and surrendered him. Then, when no choice
remained, and when submission had no merit, he entreated to see the
king. But Edward doubted the propriety of granting forgiveness, and
therefore refused to allow him an interview.
No one who has read the history of the ten or twelve succeeding reigns
can doubt that such an offender as this David would, at any time in
the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, been quickly taken before
some convenient tribunal and sent to the scaffold. He was an English
subject; he had accepted wealth and honour at Edward’s hands, and had
then requited his benefactor by raising a rebellion and causing a civil
war. At no period of our history, even in the gentle reign of Victoria,
could such acts have escaped the highest degree of punishment.
But Edward, while he showed, throughout, his sense of the gravity of
David’s offence, never inflicted punishment in haste or in a passionate
spirit. It is also a remarkable feature of his character that, though
a man of unusual firmness and decision, and fitted above most men to
act on his own judgment, he never found himself in the presence of any
question of gravity, without instantly desiring to have it discussed
in a council or parliament, or by conference with others. David’s
guilt and the gravity of his offence were abundantly evident, but the
question of the extent of his punishment Edward desired to leave with
some legal tribunal. He resolved to remit the whole subject to the
decision of a parliament, and to summon that parliament to meet in
Shrewsbury in October, 1283;—David having been given up to him in the
course of June.
This “parliament of Shrewsbury” was one of a novel kind. It had two
new features, and it seems to have held its sittings by adjournment,
in two different places. Edward desired that the case of David should
be considered and decided in a council. This was the first object of
the assembling of that parliament. But his chancellor had seen the
necessity of a new statute on commercial questions, and the framing of
this statute formed the next matter for consideration.
As the first question would be a trial on which life or death depended,
the king summoned no prelates to this parliament; probably feeling
that in the discussion of such matters it was desirable that the
clergy should take no part. The second subject to be brought under
discussion was one relating to trade and commerce, and the king saw in
it an opportunity of giving more form and substance than heretofore
to that idea which had never been absent from his mind,—that, in a
well‐constituted parliament, “the lower as well as the higher estate”
should be represented.
We have already said that we cannot doubt that, in the first parliament
of Westminster, some citizens, under the name of “the commonalty of the
realm,” were present; but we find no record of any formal summoning of
burgesses or borough‐representatives. Now, however, the chancellor had
a particular statute, relating to trade, to bring forward, and now,
therefore, he could advise the king to summon, from the city of London
and from twenty other great towns, from each two representatives, “de
sapientioribus et aptioribus,” for the consideration and discussion of
the said statute. Here we have the real commencement of the borough
representation of England. Let Simon de Montfort have all the merit
which can justly be attributed to him, for having, in 1265, called to a
council in Westminster some burgesses or borough‐representatives:—that
fact must always be taken with two qualifications: first, that earl
Simon needed these borough‐representatives to fill the empty benches,
only five earls and seventeen barons attending at his call; and
secondly, that that council was not what we now understand by the
term, a “parliament,”—no legislation being attempted in it.
Some historians have been too ready to assume or assert, on all
occasions, that our free constitution has been won by the repeated
struggles of the people, who succeeded in wresting from their
sovereigns one privilege after another. The whole course of Edward’s
government clears him from any imputation of this kind. At the opening
of his political life, when he stood as a victorious leader at the head
of an army, we find him again and again asserting the principle, that
in a well‐constituted parliament all classes should be represented;
and now, when he orders these writs to be issued for the summoning of
forty‐two borough representatives to Shrewsbury, it is wholly of his
own free will, and without the slightest “pressure of circumstances,”
that he acts. His chancellor feels the want of a new law for the
regulation of commerce, and at once the idea seems to occur, and is
forthwith acted upon, “Let all the principal towns, where the merchants
and traders dwell—let them send representatives to this parliament, and
let the new statute be passed with their help and in their presence.”
The parliament of Shrewsbury met on the 30th of September, 1283, in
that town. The business to be done consisted, first, of a criminal
trial, and, secondly, of a statute on commercial matters. No prelates,
as we have said, were summoned. To bring them from many distant places
to Shrewsbury would have imposed upon them much trouble and expense,
and for no fitting end. The persons summoned were—eleven earls,
ninety‐nine barons, two knights for each county, and two citizens from
each of twenty‐one great towns; and the writs themselves expressed,
with all Edward’s usual frankness, the purpose and the desire with
which he called together this, the first complete parliament, though
still in outline, that England ever saw. They remind the barons,
knights, and citizens that they had seen “how Llewellyn and David his
brother, spurning the obligations of fidelity into which they had
entered, had, more treacherously than usual, suddenly set fire to
villages, slain some of the inhabitants, burnt others, and shut up
others in prison, savagely shedding innocent blood.” The king desires
those to whom the writs were directed to come to Shrewsbury on the day
indicated, “there to determine what ought to be done with the said
David, whom we received when an exile, nourished when an orphan, and
enriched out of our own lands, placing him among the nobles of our
court.” “We charge you, therefore,” the king concludes, “to meet us at
Shrewsbury, on the day after the feast of St. Michael, to confer upon
this and upon other matters.”
Before this parliament, then, was David of Snowdon impeached.“He was
tried,” says the chronicle of Dunstable, “by the whole baronage of
England.” It is quite clear that Edward desired that others, and not
himself, should decide upon the fate of the unhappy man. He appears
to have retired to his chancellor’s residence of Acton Burnel, and to
have taken no part in these proceedings. The trial was entered upon,
and, according to the custom of those days, the criminal was arraigned
for several crimes, and for each crime a distinct punishment was
ordered. As a traitor to the king, David was to be drawn to the place
of execution; as the murderer of certain knights in Hawarden Castle, he
was to be hanged; having sacrilegiously committed these crimes on Palm
Sunday, he was to be disembowelled; and having conspired the death of
the king in various places, he was to be quartered.[24]