to pronounce a speedy decision in the controversy; and, meanwhile, to
maintain the laws and re‐establish the tranquillity of the country.
The several claimants then affixed their signatures to two important
instruments—the first declaring their consent to receive judgment from
the king as lord paramount; and the second, delivering the land and the
castles of Scotland into Edward’s hands, he engaging to re‐deliver them
to the person who should appear to be justly entitled. Then a list of
eighty commissioners was formed by the candidates themselves, to which
list the king was to add twenty‐four names; and these commissioners
were to receive the claims of the several candidates, and to report
them to the king.
On the 11th of June, the regents of Scotland delivered the kingdom,
and the governors of the castles gave up those fortresses, into
the hands of king Edward, who immediately re‐delivered them to the
regents, promising to give full possession to the rightful claimant,
so soon as the question as to the succession should be decided.
The guardians of the kingdom then swore fealty to Edward, as lord
paramount, and were followed in the same oath by Robert Bruce, by
his son, by John Baliol, and by the earls of Buchan, Mar, Athol,
Angus, Lennox, Menteith, and many other barons and knights. The peace
of king Edward, as lord paramount, was publicly proclaimed, and the
assembly was adjourned until the 2nd of August, then to meet at the
town of Berwick‐upon‐Tweed. On that day it again met; and the claimants
were invited to present their petitions. These, which were twelve in
number, were read; and the king recommended them to the attention of
the commissioners; enjoining them to give in their report to him, at
Berwick, on the 2nd of June, in the next year. Edward was at that time
called to England by the illness of his mother, who was then on her
death‐bed. He had also the disagreeable task before him of suppressing
a violent feud which had broken out between the earls of Hereford
and Gloucester. He probably also anticipated that the investigation
of the claims of so many as twelve candidates, by a large body of
commissioners, would necessarily occupy much time. On these grounds he
postponed the decision until the following summer, and soon took his
departure for England.[52]
In June, 1292, the commissioners assembled, the king and all the
claimants being present. There can be no doubt that it began to be
generally understood by this time that the question must lie between
Robert Bruce and John Baliol, both of whom were descended from
daughters of David, earl of Huntingdon, who was brother of William the
Lion, king of Scotland. The table of affinity is given below.[53]
Some difficulties arising, the king desired further information to
be obtained, and adjourned the further hearing until the 15th of
October. On that day all parties again met, and the king proposed
to the commissioners two questions: first, by what laws or customs
the judgment ought to be regulated? and, secondly, was the kingdom of
Scotland to be regarded as a common fief, and the succession to be
regulated by the same principles which were applicable to earldoms and
baronies? The commissioners replied, that the laws and usages of the
two kingdoms must rule the question; but if none existed to regulate
the case, the king must make a new law for a new emergency; and that
the succession must be decided in the same manner as the succession to
earldoms, baronies, and other indivisible inheritances.
The claimants were then called upon, and each endeavoured to maintain
his own right. The language used by John Baliol, who ultimately
obtained the kingdom, is worthy of notice. He urged “that the claimants
were in the court of the lord paramount, of whose ancestors, from time
immemorial, the realm of Scotland was held by homage; and that the king
of England must give judgment in this case as in the case of other
tenements held of the crown, looking to the laws and established usages
of his kingdom”[54]
The king then required of his great council a final answer to this
question: “By the laws and customs of both kingdoms, ought the issue
of an elder sister, but more remote by one degree, to exclude the
issue of a younger sister, although one degree nearer?” The council
replied, that the issue of the elder sister must be preferred. Another
adjournment then took place, until the 6th of November. On that day
the king declared his judgment, that Bruce’s right must yield to the
superior claim of Baliol. Whereupon a new question was raised: John
de Hastings, descended from the _third_ daughter of David earl of
Huntingdon, alleged that the kingdom of Scotland was partible, and
ought to be divided among the descendants of the three daughters. Bruce
followed, maintaining the same view; and the king referred the question
to his council—“Is the kingdom of Scotland divisible; or are its
escheats and its revenues divisible?” The council replied, that neither
could be divided. One more adjournment then took place, to the 17th of
November, when all parties were commanded again to meet in the castle
of Berwick‐on‐Tweed.
“On that great and important day, the council and parliament of
England, with the nobility of both countries, being met, and the
various competitors appearing, the king solemnly decreed, ‘That the
kingdom of Scotland, being indivisible, and the king of England being
bound to judge of the rights of his subjects according to the laws and
usages of the people over whom he reigns, by which laws the more remote
in degree of the first line of descent is preferable to the nearer in
degree of the second; therefore, John Baliol ought to have seizin of
the kingdom of Scotland, with reservation always of the right of the
king of England, and of his heirs, when they shall think proper to
assert it.’
“After having delivered judgment, Edward exhorted Baliol to be careful
in the government of his people, lest, by giving any just cause of
complaint, he should call down upon himself an interference of the lord
paramount. He then commanded the regents to give him seizin of his
kingdom, and directed orders to the governors of the castles throughout
Scotland to deliver them into the hands of Baliol. The great seal of
Scotland was then broken into four parts, and the pieces ordered to be
deposited in the treasury of the king of England.”[55]
On the following day, Baliol, in the castle of Norham, swore fealty
to Edward, who gave a commission to John St. John to proceed to the
coronation of the new king. This ceremony took place on St. Andrew’s
day; and towards the end of December the king of Scotland visited
Edward in England, and paid homage to him at Newcastle‐on‐Tyne.
So ended this great transaction, and even Hume is obliged to admit,
that “the conduct of Edward, both in the deliberate solemnity
of the proceedings, and in the justice of the award, was so far
unexceptionable.” Other Scotch writers, however, have endeavoured
to impeach Edward’s honour in this affair on two grounds: They have
alleged that he would have decided in Bruce’s favour if Bruce would
have consented to acknowledge his feudal superiority; and they have
surmised, that he gave the preference to Baliol as being mentally the
weaker of the two candidates, and therefore the fitter for his purpose.
The first of these fictions is sufficiently refuted by Hume’s own
statement, that “Bruce was _the first that acknowledged Edward’s
right of superiority_ over Scotland; for even in his petition, in
which he set forth his claim to the crown, he applied to him as liege
lord of the kingdom, a step which was not taken by any other of the
competitors.” So far, then, as submission to Edward’s claims could
merit his favour, Bruce had gone farther than Baliol or any of his
other rivals. And the supposition that Edward’s preference for Baliol
was dictated by selfish motives, is equally opposed to the known facts
of the case. Bruce and Baliol were both English barons, as well as
lords in Scotland; but Bruce was the more English of the two. He, the
competitor, had for many years sat as a judge in Westminster Hall. His
son, the earl of Carrick, had accompanied Edward in his expedition to
Palestine; and in Rymer, under the date of 1281, we find the following
letter:—
“The king, to Bonrunonio de Luk,[56] et sancto Merc´ de Luk, greeting:
Whereas our beloved Robert de Brus, earl of Carrick, is in present need
of money, we request you that you will cause to be advanced or lent to
the said earl or his attorney, for his occasion, forty pounds, and we
will cause them to be repaid to you. And when you have lent to him the
aforesaid money, you shall take from him his letters patent, testifying
his receipt of the same. Witness our hand. Windsor, 10th September,
1281.”[57]
So far, therefore, as we can judge at this distance of time, we should
be inclined to think that the king’s preference was for Bruce, but
that his sense of justice compelled him to give judgment in Baliol’s
favour. No mental weakness, supposed to exist in Baliol, could be more
favourable to Edward’s views than the personal friendship of Bruce and
his son.
Our English king, then, had preserved his integrity throughout this
whole transaction. If any sinister or concealed purposes had been
entertained by him, opportunities of furthering them had not been
wanting. If the subjugation and annexation of Scotland had been then in
his mind, the unwise proposal of some of the competitors—to divide the
kingdom into three—offered him a signal opportunity of advancing his
plans. Hume admits that “his interests seemed to require the partition
of Scotland.” Yet he promptly rejected the proposal. Rapin, another
historian, who is by no means partial to Edward, admits his purity in
these transactions. He says, “It appears from Edward’s whole conduct,
that his intent at first was not to become master of Scotland, but only
to render that kingdom dependent on England, in which he did but follow
the steps of most of his predecessors,” “If he had designed a conquest,
he might have found pretences to place English governors and garrisons
in the fortresses that were put into his hands; or by acceding to the
demand for the partition of the kingdom, he might have so weakened it
as to render its wretchedness and ultimate fall inevitable.”
The judgment of Mr. Sharon Turner, who is a severe critic of Edward’s
whole life, is thus given on the transaction which we have just been
describing:—
“In justice to one of the greatest sovereigns that has swayed
the English sceptre, it is important to remark that, although
the incorporation of Scotland with England became at last his
determination, there are not sufficient grounds to impeach his probity
with this plan before the conduct of the Scotch led him to adopt
it. All that he claimed at the outset was the feudal sovereignty of
Scotland. But so had the king of France been the feudal sovereign of
Normandy and Gascony; and yet the kings of England, who did homage for
these possessions, had enjoyed the government of those countries with
sufficient independence. There is no evidence that when Baliol was
crowned, the king of England projected to abolish the Scottish royalty
or parliament. To be the lord paramount, the feudal sovereign of the
whole island, as the king of France had been of Normandy, Bretagne,
Flanders, and Aquitaine, while these provinces were enjoying their
independent hereditary governments, was the honour to which Edward
aspired; and the great political object which he would have attained by
it would have been, _a termination of the predatory wars_, which had
always desolated the borders of the two kingdoms. It was a species of
impiety and perjury for the liegeman to make war on his feudal lord;
and it exposed him to the loss of life and territory. Scotland becoming
a royal fief of the English crown, a new and sacred bond of amity was
established between the countries. The facts, that for four years
Edward did nothing incompatible with the continuance of the Scottish
royalty, and that it was the wilful hostility of Scotland itself which
forced him into the field against it, afford reasonable evidence that
the line which we have drawn was the limitation of his ambition.”[58]
More recently, Sir Edward Creasy has justly said, that “throughout this
memorable transaction there is not the slightest trace of unfairness or
rapacity on the part of the king.”[59]
We leave Edward, then, at this important crisis of his history,
blameless. No charge can be advanced against him, even by the most
vehement of his Scottish assailants, except that of having embraced an
opportunity which came without his seeking, to assert what he deemed to
be “the rights of the crown of England.” This Hume terms “iniquitous.”
But let it be remembered, that this measure, if successful, involved
consequences of the most beneficial kind, alike to both kingdoms.
Chiefly, it would have terminated “those predatory wars which had so
often desolated the borders of the two kingdoms.” And the opportunity
offered to Edward of accomplishing this great work, must have seemed
one which it would be criminal to neglect. Long before he had
approached Scotland, its chief men directed to him many applications,
in which they treated him as their superior lord. He was sensible of
the prodigious advantages which would result from any scheme which
rendered this state of things permanent. He therefore accepted that
which the Scotch seemed eager to offer. At their request he assumed
the place and the functions which they tendered. Meeting the assembled
barons of Scotland, he frankly and explicitly stated his views.
Allowing them an abundant space for deliberation, he again proposed the
question. And then, without a dissentient voice, Scotland accepted him
as her superior lord. That she, or that some of her barons, afterwards
repented of their deed, and wished to retract it, occasioned many
calamities to both countries. In fact, this unfaithfulness threw the
two realms back into that condition of enmity, from which it had been
Edward’s aim to rescue them. It led to the sacrifice of hundreds of
thousands of lives, and to the long postponement of that union which,
after all, was inevitable. But, for all this, it remains indisputable
that Edward’s aim was a noble and patriotic one; and that the means he
employed were direct, straightforward, and suitable to the occasion.
Footnotes:
[41] Tytler’s History of Scotland, vol. i., p. 61.
[42] Had Edward shown any forwardness in interfering in the affairs
of Scotland, we may be certain that such interference would have
been noticed with censure by all the Scotch historians. Yet, for
merely abstaining from such interference, he is thus criticized
by one of the fairest of the whole, Mr. Tytler:—“Edward contented
himself with observing the turn which matters should take in
Scotland, certain that his power and influence would in the end
induce the different parties to appeal to him; and confident
that the longer time he gave to these factions to quarrel among
themselves and embroil the country, the more advantageously would
this interference take place.” This criticism is a striking
instance of the spirit in which every step taken by Edward
is regarded by Scottish writers. He cannot even abstain from
interference, without being censured for so abstaining! And yet the
whole of this censure rests upon the merest conjecture.
[43] Rymer’s Fœdera, vol. ii., p. 741.
[44] Henry’s History, book iv., c. i.
[45] Tytler’s Scotland, vol. i., p. 84.
[46] Sir James Mackintosh, accepting Hume’s story without
examination, talks of “the circumvention of the estates of
Scotland, at Norham, in 1291.” But in the records of the period
there is not the slightest trace of any “circumvention.” Edward met
the estates of Scotland at their own request. Army he had none,
at that time, with him. He met them on equal terms, for public
conference. He told them frankly, and at once, in what capacity he
came—_i.e._, as superior lord. They demurred. He then gave them
time to deliberate, and appointed a second meeting in the following
month. To speak of these proceedings as a “circumvention” is a mere
abuse of language.
[47] Robertson’s Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. i., p. 373.
[48] Palgrave’s Documents, vol i., p. 25.
[49] Mr. Tytler, in his account of these transactions at Norham,
introduces two quotations, which convey a false idea of their
character. From Fordun, he cites these words: “Now,” said Edward
to the most confidential of his ministers, “the time is at last
arrived when Scotland and its petty kings shall be reduced under my
power.” But Fordun wrote in Scotland just one hundred years after,
and pretends to give a confidential communication of Edward to one
of his ministers, made half a century before he, Fordun, was born.
But (2) the “Annals of Waverley,” says Mr. Tytler, tell us, in
1291, that “the king of England, having assembled his privy council
and chief nobility, told them that he had it in his mind to bring
under his dominion the king and the realm of Scotland, in the same
manner that he had subdued the kingdom of Wales.”
This would be something like evidence, though of a loose kind, if
Mr. Tytler had quoted it fairly. But he has given _only so much_ as
suited his purpose. The passage in the “Annals of Waverley” runs
thus:—
“The king of England, having assembled his privy council and chief
nobility, told them that he had it in his mind to bring under his
dominion the king and the realm of Scotland, in the same manner
that he had subdued the kingdom of Wales. He therefore moved his
army into those parts, where in a short time he gained possession
of the said kingdom of Scotland.”
Thus we see that this passage is only one instance out of hundreds
which might be adduced, showing that the old chroniclers often put
down under the date of one year facts which properly belong to
another. There was, in 1291, no “king” in Scotland to be subdued.
Neither did Edward move an army into Scotland, or gain possession
of Scotland, until 1296. It is probable enough, that shortly
before this, he stated to his council such views as are described
in the “Annals.” But then, this all happened, if at all, in 1296,
_after Baliol had broken faith with him, not in 1291_, when the
conferences as to the succession were still going on.
[50] Pearson’s Hist., vol. ii., 292.
[51] Tytler’s History of Scotland, vol. i., p. 88.
[52] Wyntoun and Fordun, the earliest Scottish historians, writing
at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth
centuries, bring in a fiction at this part of the story, telling
us that Edward, during the arbitration, offered to give the crown
to Bruce, if he would agree to hold it of him as feudal lord. But
the fact is, as sir F. Palgrave has shown, that Bruce had already
accepted the king as his feudal lord _long before this meeting at
Norham_.
[53]
MALCOLM CANMORE, king of Scotland. A.D. 1056-1093.
Married Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling.
|
+--------+-------+---+-------+------------------+
| | | | |
Duncan. Edgar. Alex. I. David I. Matilda—marr. Henry I.
| +-----+
| |
Henry E. of Huntingdon. Empress Matilda.
| |
+----------+---------+---+------------ |
| | | |
Malcolm IV. William David E. of Huntingdon. |
the Lion. | Henry II.
| +--+----------------+ |
| | | +--------+
Alex. II. Margaret. Isabel. |
| | | Rich. I. John.
Alex III. Devorgoil. | |
| | | |
Margaret, | | |
Q. Norway. | Robt. Bruce. Henry III.
| ----------+---------- | |
| Margaret. JOHN BALIOL. | |
Margaret, | | | |
Maid of Norway, | | Rob. Bruce, EDWARD I.
died 1290. | | E. of Carrick.
| | |
John Edward ROBERT I.
Comyn. Baliol. of Scotland.
Macpherson, the editor of Andrew Wyntoun, says, in one of his notes
to that author, “It is very surprising that Edward did not claim
the crown of Scotland for himself, as heir of Malcolm Canmore,
whose grand‐daughter Maud was his great‐great‐grandmother. His
great‐grandson, Henry IV., got the crown of England without having
so good an hereditary title.”
The difference between Edward I. and Henry IV. was, that Edward
was a thoroughly just man, and knew that his title was wholly
inferior to that of Baliol, or Comyn, or Bruce. Hence, while he
never overlooked it, he never advanced it. His unquestionable
claim, in 1296, lay in the one fact, that Baliol, Bruce, Comyn,
and every lord in Scotland, first admitted him as lord paramount,
and then made war against him, the undoubted penalty of which was,
forfeiture.
[54] Tytler’s History of Scotland, vol. i., p. 96.
[55] Tytler’s History of Scotland, vol. i., p. 100.
[56] De Luc or De Luke was a Florentine merchant or banker, and
collector of the Customs.
[57] Rymer’s Fœdera, vol. ii., p. 597. This, probably, is one of the
earliest instances we have of an English king’s _cheque upon his
banker_.
[58] Turner’s History of England, vol. v., p. 75.
[59] History of England, vol. ii., p. 395.
VII.
TROUBLES WITH FRANCE—WAR IN SCOTLAND.
At the close of 1292, Edward returned to England, doubtless with
much content and satisfaction, having, apparently, accomplished one
great object of his life—the unification of the island of Britain.
Its conquest, which is too often described as the end he had in view,
was never desired by him; but to bring the whole land into unity, so
far as to render internal wars impossible, had been his object from
the commencement of his reign. He found Alexander, king of Scotland,
and Llewellyn, prince of Wales, and neither country would ever have
been disturbed by him had their rulers given their fealty and kept
their pledge. But the Welsh were too fond of predatory expeditions
into Herefordshire and Cheshire, and the Scotch hoped some day to
possess Northumberland, and with this view were always ready to form
alliances with France. These Welsh inroads and these Scotch alliances
with France, always ending in an invasion of England, Edward determined
to check. Therefore his language was, “Pay your homage; give me your
fealty; swear, as your fathers have sworn, ‘to be my true man.’ Vow
allegiance, and then keep your vow.”
Scotland had at last, without any coercion, been brought into this
position; and had Scotland observed Edward’s own rule—_Pactum
serva_—she would never have seen the fights of Stirling or Falkirk,
nor the blood‐stained fields of Halidon Hill and Durham, of Dupplin
Moor, or Hamildon Hill, or Flodden, or Pinkie. His great desire was
peace; for that, not for conquest, he thought and planned, he laboured
and contrived. Unhappily, his life was already declining, old age
and death overtook him before the work was accomplished. Scotland
succeeded, under Bruce, in undoing all his work; but that Scotland was
the better for such undoing is, we believe, wherever entertained, a
most mistaken notion.
In carrying forward the story of the arbitration without a break, we
left unnoticed one or two circumstances which occurred in England
during 1291 and 1292. When Edward, in August, 1291, adjourned the
Scottish question until the following June, his most urgent reason for
such postponement was the serious illness of his mother, queen Eleanor
of Provence, who died about the end of that summer at Ambresbury, in
Wiltshire, and at whose funeral he was present early in September,
attended by a great assembly of prelates and nobles, especially
convened for that ceremony.
But there was another matter which still more imperatively demanded
the king’s attention. Two of the chief nobles of the kingdom—Gilbert
earl of Gloucester and Humphrey earl of Hereford—had quarrelled, and
had gone to the extremity of open war. The earl of Gloucester was the
king’s son‐in‐law. Presuming probably upon this, and confident of his
power, he had encroached upon the possessions of the earl of Hereford,
and had begun to build a castle on the lands belonging to this earl.
Bitter contentions and open violence naturally followed, and the king,
hearing of the quarrel, had been obliged to send to the two earls his
commands, reserving the hearing of the matter for his own court, but
enjoining, meanwhile, an abstinence from all violent proceedings.
But the quarrel had gone too far to be so arrested. The followers of
the two earls were everywhere at enmity. Houses were burnt, churches
demolished, and many persons were killed. Hence, without any delay,
on the very morning after the funeral of his mother, the king sat in
council at Ambresbury, whither a large assembly of the nobles had come
for the religious ceremony, and there called the two earls before him.