have been the exclamations of modern writers at its cruelty. One of
the most moderate of these critics condemns Edward for “permitting his
nobles and lawyers to devise and carry into effect such a barbarous
sentence.” In like manner is he censured for ordering Llewellyn’s head
to be set up over the gate of the Tower.
Such writers forget that a man must be judged, not by the ideas or
usages of other times, but by those of the age in which he has been
brought up and has lived. In our day, the thought of setting up a gory
head over Temple Bar would horrify all men. But when the last rebellion
was suppressed in England, little more than a century ago, the
government of which lords Hardwicke and Chatham were members, beheaded
men on Kennington Common, and sent their heads to Carlisle, to be set
up over the castle‐gates. Johnson and Goldsmith, Cowper and Whitfield,
were accustomed to see human heads on Temple‐Bar as they passed up and
down Fleet Street.
The mutilation of the criminal’s body is another feature of the case
which shocks our modern notions, but it was a prevalent custom of those
times. In 1238, before Edward was born, a man was found lurking in the
palace, who confessed that his object was to kill the king. He had
been guilty of no overt act, yet for this treasonable design he was
sentenced first to be dragged asunder by horses, then to be beheaded,
and his body to be divided into three parts, to be exposed in three
cities.
Nor were these mutilations ordered in criminal cases only. Robert
Bruce, like many others, ordered his heart to be taken out after his
death and carried to the Holy Land. Edward himself, if ever a man loved
a wife, dearly loved his Eleanor. Yet, on her death, he ordered her
heart to be interred in the church of the Black Friars, her bowels in
Lincoln Minster, and the rest of her body in Westminster Abbey. Such
were the habits and modes of feeling when a king could sleep in the
open air on the night before a battle; when the gory head of an earl
was thought a fitting present for a noble lady; and when even friendly
sports often ended in slaughter.
“Sir Patrick Graham, a Scottish knight, having arrived from Paris, was
invited to supper; and in the midst of the feast, an English knight
turning to him, courteously asked him to run with him three courses.
Next morning in the first course, Graham struck the English knight
through the harness with a mortal wound, so that he died on the spot.
Such were the fierce pastimes of those days.”[25]
The sentence passed on David, then, and the exposure of Llewellyn’s
head, were merely the ordinary modes of procedure in those times; and
would no more strike Edward as cruel, than like sentences inflicted on
the adherents of the Stuarts seemed cruel to the kings and statesmen of
the last century. Hume, however, tries to exaggerate the fact in the
case of David, by styling him “a sovereign prince.” This, however, is
a fiction. Llewellyn did not die childless, and David was, neither in
law nor in fact, his successor. And even had David been the next heir,
there was no succession for him. Llewellyn, as vassal to the English
crown, had committed treason, had forfeited his fief, and the superior
lord was entering into possession. David was nothing more than an
English lord; and as a subject to Edward he had been guilty of open
treason—treason against a sovereign who had been his benefactor. The
justice of his sentence was altogether unimpeachable; the manner of his
execution was merely conformable to the customs of those times. Both
sentence and execution were dictated by the parliament, the king being
merely an assenting party.
This, however, does not quite end the history of the two Welsh princes.
Edward was ever a merciful and compassionate king, and having allowed
justice to have its course with regard to the principal criminals, he
did not forget that they both had children. We find a letter written
by him on the 11th of November, 1283, to the prior and prioress of
Alvingham, in the following terms:—
“Albeit, if we should turn our mind to past events, and should
regard somewhat closely the deserts of certain persons, we should
scarcely be bound to succour the children of Llewellyn, prince of
Wales, or of David his brother, whose perfidy is fresh in the memory
of all; nevertheless having the fear of God before our eyes, and
compassionating their sex and age, lest perchance the innocent and
unconscious should seem to pay the penalties of the crimes of the
impious—we, from regard to charity, have thought fit in wholesome
sort to make provision for them. Wherefore, being persuaded of your
devotion, and specially considering the conversation of your order, we
beseech you, brethren, that you admit to your order, and the habit of
your house, any one or more of the said children of Llewellyn and David
his brother, whom we shall name to you; and that you intimate to us
what you shall think fit to do in this matter, before the feast of the
Nativity next ensuing. Given under our private seal at Ludlow, on the
11th day of November.”
Of the result of the application to the priory of Alvingham we find
no record. But in the tenth year of Edward II. we find Wenciliana, a
daughter of Llewellyn, spoken of as a nun of Sempringham; and we find
her, also, receiving a pension of £20 a year (equal to £300 in the
present day). Peter Langtoft speaks of her as personally known to him,
and he mentions her death in June, 1337. He also mentions “her cousin
Gladous, daughter of David,” who was a nun at Sixille house, and who
died in 1336. Evidently, “the innocent” were not left to suffer.
The first portion of the business allotted to the parliament of
Shrewsbury had now been gone through; but the second remained.
And, whether it was that the scene of an execution was not thought
suitable for festivity, or that the chancellor wished to exhibit a
noble hospitality, we cannot decide, but a removal of the parliament
evidently took place. We find it sitting on the 12th of October,
at Acton Burnel, the chancellor’s home; and there was passed the
Statute of Merchants, denominated by Lord Campbell “that famous law,”
“that most admirable statute.” It doubtless had cost the chancellor
much thought, and he probably wished to connect his name with it.
Accordingly it is sometimes called “the Statute of Acton Burnel.”
So ended the year 1283; but the king had still a great work before
him—a work of the kind in which he most delighted. Wales had been
finally and entirely united to England; but it was still in an almost
barbarous condition. The whole country was a scene of wildness and
disorder, and Edward knew well that the first step in the regeneration
of a country (so far as human government can regenerate it), is
the establishment of just and well‐considered laws. To this work,
therefore, he immediately addressed himself. He did not, however,
proceed as many would have done, by rashly ordaining that the laws of
England should be henceforth the laws of Wales. He saw the necessity
for first acquainting himself with the whole subject. “He was at great
pains to gain a perfect knowledge of its ancient constitution and laws,
and of the manners of its inhabitants.”
With this view, he issued a commission to the bishop of St. David’s and
some others, to investigate these matters in the most careful manner.
No fewer than one hundred and seventy‐two intelligent persons were
examined upon oath by these commissioners, who, upon this evidence,
framed a report. Having thus obtained the necessary information, Edward
held a parliament on the 24th of May, 1284, at Rhuddlan, in Flintshire,
at which the “Statutes of Wales” were passed. The preamble to these
statutes runs as follows:—
“The Divine Providence having now, of its favour, wholly transferred
to our dominion the land of Wales, with its inhabitants, heretofore
subject to us in feudal right, all obstacles ceasing; and having
annexed and united the same unto the crown of the aforesaid realm, as
a member of the same body; we therefore, under the Divine Will, being
desirous that our aforesaid land should be governed with due order, to
the honour and praise of God, and of holy Church, and the advancement
of justice; and that the people of those lands who have submitted
themselves to our will should be protected in security, under fixed
laws and customs, have caused to be rehearsed before us and the nobles
of our realm, the laws and customs in those parts hitherto in use;
which, having fully understood, we have, by the advice of the said
nobles, abolished some of them, some we have allowed, and some we have
corrected; and we have commanded and ordained certain others to be
added thereto.”
It is in deeds and words like these that we see Edward in his real
character. It was in such works that, in his hours of free choice, he
always preferred to employ himself. Legislation—the taking care “that
the people of these lands should be protected in security, under fixed
laws and customs,” “as becometh the office of a king:” this was his
chosen employment. War might sometimes, as in the case of Wales, be
forced upon him; but whenever it was so forced, “slowe to strife” was a
rule which marked his every action.
He saw the necessity for a considerable stay in Wales for the thorough
pacification and regulation of the country. He began at once the
erection of the noble castle of Carnarvon. This work occupied several
years. In 1283 queen Eleanor kept her court in Rhuddlan Castle, but in
1284, a portion of the castle at Carnarvon being completed, she removed
thither, and on the 25th of April she gave birth, in a chamber of the
Eagle Tower, which is still shown, to a prince—afterwards king Edward
II. The king was at this time at Rhuddlan Castle, engaged in affairs
of state. A Welsh gentleman, named Griffith Lloyd, was announced, who
brought him the intelligence of the birth of a prince. Edward, in great
joy, knighted Lloyd on the spot, making him a grant of lands. He soon
hastened to Carnarvon to see his Eleanor and her son; and when a few
days had elapsed, he was able to present to the Welsh chiefs “a prince
born in Wales, and who could not speak a word of English.”
He had now remained in Wales for more than two years, and the great
work of union, and the establishment of peace, and the reign of law,
seemed to be solidly advancing. At Newyn, in Carnarvonshire, in
the summer of 1284, Edward held a grand tournament, with the usual
festivities. Here were assembled, says Matthew of Westminster, “the
great body of the knights of England, with many foreign nobles.” So
splendid a spectacle was, at least, calculated to show the chiefs and
gentry of Wales that the nation with which they had been incorporated
was no mean one, and that the sovereign they had gained was a chief of
might and power.
So ended the king’s transactions in Wales in 1282, 1283, and 1284,
and in the autumn of the latter year he proceeded slowly through
Cardiganshire and Glamorganshire, reaching Bristol before the end of
the year, and celebrating Christmas in that city.
So ends the brief history of the union of Wales with England. This
war had been forced upon Edward, who evidently had no option in the
matter. It was soon ended, and a single criminal—he who had caused the
war—was the only victim claimed by the scaffold. The king’s slowness
and long deliberation show also that, could any reasonable plea for
mercy have been found, even David himself would have been spared. A
rather severe judge of Edward’s whole career, says, of the annexation:
“Never was conquest more merciful.”[26] Yet some of the Scottish
historians, while they endeavour to assume an air of impartiality when
they speak of Edward’s Scottish controversies, are eager to create a
prejudice against him by giving the darkest complexion to his acts in
Wales. Thus Hume, in narrating this portion of Edward’s career, calmly
tells us that “The king, sensible that nothing kept alive the ideas of
military valour and of ancient glory so much as the traditional poetry
of the people, which, assisted by the power of music and the jollity of
festivals, made a deep impression on the minds of the youth, gathered
together all the Welsh bards, and, from a barbarous but not absurd
policy, ordered them to be put to death.” And Gray, accepting the
fiction as a fact, clothed it in noble verse, and his ode beginning
“Ruin seize thee, ruthless king,” fixed the alleged crime in the memory
of every school‐boy and school‐girl in the realm.
And yet the whole charge was a mere calumny. These bards, who were said
to have been extirpated, continued to sing and to write in such sort
that “Mr. Owen Jones, in forming a collection of their productions,
_after the time of Edward_, had to transcribe between fifty and sixty
quarto volumes”; and “the work of transcription,” said Sir Richard
Hoare, “was not even then completed.”[27]
A later Scottish historian than Hume—Sir James Mackintosh—admits the
falsity of the charge. He says, “The massacre of the bards is an act of
cruelty imputed to Edward _without evidence_, and it is inconsistent
with his spirit, which was not infected by wanton ferocity.”
Such an act as this slaughter, had it ever been committed, would have
been nothing less than atrocious. But if so, what are we to say of
a writer who coolly ascribes it to a king whom he dislikes, knowing
that he is asserting it “without evidence,” and in the teeth of such a
practical refutation as Sir Richard Hoare has pointed out?
England was now again at peace, and with the assured prospect that
the strife which had so long infested her western border was at
last permanently ended. “The conquest of Wales,” says Rapin, “and
the universal esteem in which the king was held among his subjects,
produced in England a profound tranquillity.” Hence, as several
questions of importance called Edward abroad, he began, about this
time, to prepare for a visit of some length to various parts of the
continent.
A singular application had been made to him while engaged in the
affairs of Wales. Two princes—Peter of Aragon and Charles of Anjou—had
each advanced a claim to the crown of Sicily. An appeal to arms
appeared inevitable, when it was suggested by Charles, and agreed to
by Peter, that they should decide the question by _single combat_.
Arrangements were seriously made; twelve commissioners were appointed
on each side, and these twenty‐four drew up articles, which were
afterwards ratified by both the princes. It was agreed that the combat
should take place at Bourdeaux, whither the combatants were to repair
on a certain day appointed, each to be accompanied by one hundred
knights. But as all parties agreed in regarding Edward as standing at
the head of the chivalry of Europe, it was made an essential point in
the agreement that he should act as the umpire, and that the combat
should take place in his presence.
These two princes had regarded Edward, evidently, as one of the same
race with him of “the lion heart,” who would, no doubt, have delighted
in such a scheme. They thought of the English king as a man known
to be “mighty in arms,” and who had taken part in most of the great
tournaments of his time. But they had overlooked, or not understood,
that this was only the inferior part of his character; and that his
nobler aspect was his wisdom, his statesmanlike sagacity, and, what
a modern historian calls, “his legislative mind.” The proposal, when
made to Edward, only struck him as being eminently absurd. He was fond
of martial sports and deeds of chivalry, but he had never dreamed that
the affairs of the world could be carried on by tournaments. Questions
concerning kingly rights and disputed successions were handled by him
in courts and parliaments, on the ground of truth, and justice, and
established law, with a deliberateness which disregarded the lapse of
months and years. To leave such matters to be decided by, perchance,
the possession of the strongest horse or the toughest spear, was not
to be for a moment thought of. His instant reply was, “that if he were
to gain by it both the kingdoms of Aragon and Sicily, he would not
appoint the field of battle, or suffer the two princes to fight in any
place within his dominions, nor in any other place, if it were in his
power to hinder it.” But he accompanied his refusal with offers of
friendly mediation, which were afterwards carried into effect.
This frank and decided negative frustrated the whole plan, and Edward
was soon requested to undertake a more pacific arrangement. In fact,
throughout this whole affair, this sovereign of the mediæval times
seems to have acted much as any modern king of sense and proper feeling
would now act. To understand distinctly how great a superiority this
implied over the prejudices and habits of thought of his own time,
we should recal to mind the fact that, more than two centuries after
Edward’s day, two such monarchs as Charles V. and Francis I. actually
contemplated, for a considerable time, a settlement of their disputes
by this same absurd method of a royal combat! In truth, in this, as in
many other passages of his life, Edward evinced the possession, as it
were by intuition, of all the practical wisdom which the experience of
nearly six centuries has given to the public men of our own day.
The king had now returned from Wales, and had received an urgent
invitation from Philip of France to visit him at Amiens, in order that
they might consult on the subject of this dispute. He accordingly set
out on this journey, and had reached Canterbury, on his way to Dover,
when tidings reached him of the illness of his mother, queen Eleanor of
Provence, at the convent of Ambresbury, in Wiltshire. A messenger was
immediately despatched to Amiens, with a letter of apology, and Edward
forthwith turned his steps towards the west. On her recovery the king
paid a religious visit to the abbey of St. Edmund’s‐bury, and spent a
part of the season of Lent in this retreat.
On the 25th of March, 1285, a parliament was held at Westminster, at
which the “Statutes of Westminster II.” were adopted. “These statutes,”
says Delolme, “are the foundations of much of the law of the land, as
it now stands.” “They were framed,” says Lord Campbell, “in a spirit
of enlightened legislation, and admirably accommodated the law to the
changed circumstances of the social system; which ought to be the
object of every wise legislator.”
In October, another parliament was held at Winchester, at which
the “Statute of Winchester” was passed. This important enactment
established an effective system of “watch and ward,” for the protection
of life and property; which, from the laxity prevalent through all the
previous reign, had come to be greatly needed.
Two other parliaments appear to have been held in Westminster, in
February and May, 1286;—in fact, it seems to have been Edward’s desire
to hold, whenever practicable, three or four such meetings in each
year. Now, as he very seldom, in the first twenty years of his reign,
had any occasion to ask his people for money, his object in thus
frequently meeting his parliament must have been that of a frank and
unrestrained interchange of thought and feeling as to public affairs.
This was a characteristic feature of the king’s mind. Weak sovereigns
and hesitating statesmen always _fear_ a parliament, and are eager for
its separation and departure. But Edward knew nothing of fear, and he
had one of the most transparent of minds. Even when vehemently thwarted
and opposed, as by archbishop Winchelsey and earls Bigod and Bohun, his
first thought generally was to send for his opponents to come to him,
for that “the king wished to have a private colloquium with them.” In
the present case there was no quarrel or difference of opinion; but,
in all probability, the chief matter for discussion was the king’s
intended visit to the continent, and the measures to be adopted for
carrying on the government in his absence.
Not until the summer of that year was he able to take his departure.
On the 24th of June, 1286, he embarked, accompanied by his queen, and
attended by a splendid train of bishops, earls, barons, and knights.
He was received with due honour by king Philip, and was conducted to
St. Germain’s, where he remained for several weeks. Many important
questions required to be discussed by these two potent sovereigns.
There were various claims, some of which had been long undecided, on
the part of the crown of England, on Normandy, Limousin, Saintonge,
etc.; there was homage to be paid for possessions in France, to king
Philip; and there was the difficult question, in which Edward had
consented to act as umpire between the houses of Aragon and Anjou,
touching the crown of Sicily.
The various questions arising out of the disputed territory in
Normandy, Limousin, Saintonge, etc., occupied much time. France, now
strong and at peace, felt no disposition to relinquish one foot of
territory. On this point Philip was immoveable; and Edward, though
equally warlike with his grandson, the victor of Crécy, felt none of
the ambitious longings of Edward III. for conquests in France, nor any
desire for such barren honours as those of Agincourt or Poictiers. He
brought the various topics of discussion to a peaceful settlement;
accepting an annual payment in lieu of some territory which Philip was
unwilling to relinquish, and gaining, on the other hand, a concession
of the right of appeal as regarded Gascony.
Quitting the court of France so soon as these discussions were
concluded, Edward passed on to Bourdeaux, where many things required
his presence and his decision. But the chief affair which had brought
him to the continent remained now to be adjusted; and, like many
similar questions referred to the decision of a third party, it opened
a nearly interminable controversy. The two chiefs, the king of Aragon
and the count of Anjou, were equally unworthy of Edward’s solicitude.
He found it very difficult to effect any arrangement, and a task still
more hopeless to induce them to keep their engagements when made.
Like the English barons in 1263, who agreed to refer their dispute
with Henry III. to the arbitration of Louis of France, meaning to
abide by his decision only so far as suited their own purposes,—the
two combatants in the present case could in no way be made to carry
out their own pledges, or to submit to the decision which they had
professed to desire. Edward succeeded at last in making a treaty which
restored the prince of Salerno, Charles’s son, to his liberty; but as
soon as he had returned home, the two rivals treated the rest of their
engagements with mutual disregard.
The king and queen landed at Dover in August, 1289, and Edward’s first
acts were of a religious nature. He had experienced, while abroad,
deliverances of a more than ordinary kind. For several weeks he had
suffered from a dangerous illness, from which, however, he had now
entirely recovered. And on one occasion, while at Bourdeaux, a flash
of lightning entering the room in which he and the queen were sitting,
killed two of the attendants, while the king and his consort remained
untouched. We have already stated that, after the manner of those
times, Edward was a most religious king. Very naturally, therefore,
his first thought on landing was to pay a visit to the abbey of St.
Edmund’s‐bury, there to perform “the vows made while he was in trouble.”