king’s lieutenants, each in his own district, their first duty was “to
keep the king’s peace,” and to make all other persons keep it. Instead
of which, disregarding the authority of the law, they had plunged into
open violence, and thus, as far as in them lay, had introduced a state
of civil war and utter confusion.
Gloucester, now brought into the presence of law supported by power,
put forward some pleas in justification, which required time for
their establishment or rejection. The king, therefore, directed the
necessary inquiries to be made, and adjourned the further hearing
until January 7th, 1292. On that day it was adjudged by the king’s
council at Westminster—the king himself pronouncing the sentence—that
the two earls were both guilty, that the liberties of Glamorgan and
Brecknock should be forfeited for their respective lives, and that they
themselves should be committed to prison during the king’s pleasure.
The authority of the law was thus vindicated, and two of the greatest
nobles of the realm were shown to be subject to it. After a time the
relaxation which was implied in the terms of the sentence took place.
The earls were set at liberty, and their forfeitures were commuted
for fines proportioned to their respective criminality. Hereford was
ordered to pay 1000 marks, which was equal to about £10,000 of our
present money; but Gloucester, who doubtless had been the aggressor,
and who probably presumed with his connection with the crown, was
subjected to a fine of 10,000 marks, which, according to our present
value, would be equal to £100,000!
During the summer and autumn of that year, 1292, the affairs of
Scotland occupied Edward’s attention. Early in 1293 we find him again
at home, and soon his attention was imperatively demanded to one of
the most disastrous events of his reign—an unnecessary and almost
purposeless war with France. Like many similar contentions, it had one
of the smallest possible beginnings.
A Norman ship and an English one had sent their boats ashore for water
near Bayonne, and a contention arose as to the preference, in which
blows were given, and one of the Normans was killed. Vexed at their
defeat, the Normans carried a complaint to the French king, who, in
a moment of incautious irritation, told them to avenge themselves.
So encouraged, the Normans boarded an English ship in the Channel,
and hanged up one of the sailors as a reprisal for the loss of their
comrade at Bayonne. But the sailors of the Cinque Ports were not
likely to submit to such treatment; fresh encounters soon took place,
and the Channel became the scene of unauthorized and lawless warfare.
Ships were captured and recaptured, and blood was constantly flowing.
Edward at once sent the earl of Lincoln to the court of France, to
desire that some means might be found to put a stop to these disorders;
but Philip was a haughty prince, and disliked to make any admission
of his error. But while the earl waited for his answer, the warfare
on the coast came to its height. A fleet of about two hundred French
ships laden with wine was met with by some sixty or eighty vessels
from the Cinque Ports, and a collision taking place, the French fleet
was nearly destroyed, and several thousands of the seamen killed or
thrown overboard. The news soon found its way to the French court, and
Philip was exceedingly enraged; the more so, doubtless, inasmuch as he
could not but feel conscious that the whole mischief had sprung from
his own hasty and injudicious counsel. But his wounded pride blinded
his reason. He sent an angry message to Edward, demanding immediate
compensation. Edward sent over the bishop of London to represent,
first, that he had his own courts, in which he would see justice done
at all times; secondly, that he was ready to agree to an arbitration,
which should decide the whole question; or, thirdly, he would meet the
king of France himself if any difficulty arose about a settlement. But
Philip was too angry to listen to any reasonable proposals. The bishop
had to leave the French court without an answer; the English students
found it necessary to quit the university of Paris; and generally
throughout France the English travellers and residents saw themselves
in circumstances of peril. Commerce was entirely interrupted, and all
things were falling into confusion. At last Philip cited Edward himself
to appear before him in Paris, there to answer sundry charges. The
king sent his brother Edmund, who had married the mother of the queen
of France. He also took the precaution to send an able commander, St.
John, into Gascony, with instructions to put that province into a state
of defence.
Edmund was received at Paris with apparent kindness, and the queen
and the queen dowager expressed great desire for the restoration of
peace. But they represented to him that Philip was chiefly enraged
at some insults which he had received from the Gascons; and that, if
Edward would give him temporary possession of that province, so as to
vindicate his honour in the sight of that people, he would engage to
restore it immediately, and would accept a very easy satisfaction for
all other injuries. This sort of formal and temporary possession, given
to the superior lord, was not an uncommon thing in those days. We have
already seen that Edward in the Scottish arbitration, had the kingdom
and its castles put into his hands, on his engaging to restore them
to the rightful owner; _and he did so restore them_. In the present
case he does not seem to have supposed it possible that two crowned
queens could be lending themselves to a fraud. “Therefore,” says Hume,
“he sent his brother orders to sign and execute the treaty with the
two queens. Philip solemnly promised to execute his part of it, and
the king’s citation to appear in the court of France was accordingly
recalled. But the French monarch was no sooner put into possession
of Gascony than the citation was renewed; Edward was condemned for
non‐appearance; and the province by a formal sentence was declared to
be forfeited and annexed to the crown.”[60]
To a prince like Edward, this must have been a double mortification.
He was himself the very soul of honour, and to find his equals and
associates capable of fraud and deceit must have been grievous to him.
He also prided himself on maintaining to the full all the rights and
honours of the crown which he wore; and hence to be robbed of a noble
province by mere chicanery and falsehood, would be doubly vexatious.
But to this loss he never for a moment submitted, nor did he cease his
efforts till he finally regained that territory for the British crown.
In the summer of 1294, he prepared a large armament for the recovery
of the province; and appealed to the clergy at Winchester for a liberal
aid, which was readily granted him. A parliament held in November
gave him _a tenth_, which was voted and paid with more than ordinary
readiness; and Edward was preparing to lead his forces in person, when
a new peril called for his presence in another direction. The Welsh
had felt aggrieved a year or two before, by the levy of a fifteenth,
granted by parliament, and collected by English officers in a manner
to which they were, as yet, unaccustomed. Hearing now that the king
was about to sail for Gascony, they deemed it a favourable juncture
for an attempt to throw off the English yoke. It was always their wont
to act by a sudden outbreak. Accordingly, taking advantage of a fair
at Carnarvon, a rendezvous was appointed, and the leaders succeeded in
surprising the castle and in putting all the English to the sword. A
small force, under the earls of Lancaster and Lincoln, advancing into
Denbighshire, was defeated by the Welsh; and on the whole, Edward felt
that it would be unwise to leave England with such a sore unhealed.
He therefore proceeded, in November, into Wales, having placed the
expedition for Gascony under the orders of the earl of Richmond, who
had with him de Vere, St. John, and other officers of distinction. The
king kept his Christmas at Conway; but shortly afterwards, attempting
to penetrate further in spite of the season, he was placed for a short
time in a position of difficulty and peril. He had led the way, with
the vanguard, over a mountain stream, which, rising suddenly, became
impassable, and thus divided the few men who were with the king from
the rest of the army, while the baggage and provisions were still
in the rear. Thus separated from the main body of his forces, the
king was blockaded by the Welsh, and found his little party nearly
destitute of provisions. There was not bread enough for their wants,
and water mixed with honey was the only drink that remained to them.
A single keg of wine was discovered, which the soldiers naturally
proposed to reserve for the king’s use. But Edward rejected the
thought, exclaiming, “No, in a case of need all things should be in
common; and we will all fare alike till God shall give us release.
I, who have led you into this difficulty, will know no preference.”
Happily the waters soon began to subside; the rest of the army found
means to join the king; and the Welsh were quickly put to flight.[61]
We shall see the king, a few years later, in his sixtieth year,
sleeping, the night before the battle of Falkirk, on the open heath,
with his shield for his pillow, and his horse for his companion. And
doubtless it was this soldierly frankness and hardihood, joined with
his knightly fame, and his never‐failing success, which gave him such
remarkable command over his soldiers, and made a campaign under his
leadership so attractive and popular a duty.
This Welsh insurrection did not long detain the king. The leaders of
the outbreak, Morgan and Madoc, were soon reduced to difficulties,
and threw themselves upon Edward’s mercy. Madoc was confined for a
time in the Tower of London; of Morgan we only hear that “he received
mercy.”[62]
Meanwhile, the hostilities between the Normans and the people of
the Cinque Ports raged with augmented fury. The English commanded
the Channel, landed where they pleased in Normandy, and ravaged the
towns and villages near the coast. They took and burnt Cherbourg.
Philip equipped a fleet of three hundred ships, and this large force
succeeded, for a time, in doing some injury to the Kentish coast. But
the French had no great cause for triumph. The “Chronicle of London,”
now in the British Museum, briefly records, under date of the year
1297, that “the Normauns came to Dovarre, and brent a great part of the
towne; _but they were sclayn every moder’s son; ther eschaped none_.”
One French ship, with three hundred soldiers on board, grounded hear
Hythe, and fell into the hands of the Kentish men, ship and crew.
One part of Philip’s plan failed through the detection of one of
his agents. One Thomas de Turberville, a knight of some note in
Glamorganshire, being taken prisoner by the French, offered his
services to Philip, holding out large expectations of aid he could
render to the invaders. He represented that, if released, he could
obtain from Edward the command of one of the Cinque Ports; and could
thus give the French fleet and forces a secure landing‐place. He was
accordingly permitted to return, and began to use his best endeavours
to carry his plans into effect. But probably his anxiety to be employed
on the Kentish coast awakened suspicion; his correspondence was
intercepted, and letters, explanatory of his purposes, were seized.
He was brought to trial; the evidence was conclusive, and he received
sentence of death. And here we see what the real punishment for high
treason at that time was. His guilt was more plain and more heinous
than that of the Jesuit priests, who, in Elizabeth’s reign, conspired
against her life and government, in obedience to their spiritual head
at Rome. They were, not once or twice, but in considerable numbers,
hanged, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered. But this Turberville,
who had conspired, not against his sovereign only, but against his own
people, whom he was willing to sell to a foreign invader, received
the milder sentence of being drawn to the gallows on a hide or
hurdle, there to be hanged and left hanging in chains. In a word, the
punishment actually inflicted in Edward’s time for the crime of high
treason was merely that which, in our own time, has been inflicted for
piracy. And yet many writers have represented again and again that the
terrible punishment for high treason, which was inflicted for several
centuries in England, and which remained on our statute‐book until the
days of Mackintosh and Romily, was devised and appropriated to that
crime in Edward’s reign.
Philip’s wrath, however, grew with his defeats, and he began to form
confederacies with other powers, such as Norway and Scotland, for
the invasion and humiliation of England. And this brings us to the
commencement of the fearful story of the wars between England and
Scotland, which, in the year 1295 began to be contemplated, and in
1296 actually broke out. These wars lasted, in the days of Edward I.
and II., for more than twenty years. They again and again broke out
in subsequent reigns, until the union of the two kingdoms finally
terminated them. The immediate question before us is,—With whom did
they at this time originate?
Hume and several other writers unhesitatingly assume that these wars
were intentionally provoked by Edward, and formed a part of his plan.
Hume says: “His intention plainly was to enrage Baliol by indignities,
to engage him in rebellion, and so to assume the dominion of the state
as the punishment of his treason and felony.”
But upon the very face of the matter, this supposition is manifestly
absurd. The war with France had broken out _before_ Edward took any
hostile measures against Scotland. The Scottish quarrel evidently
occurred at the most inconvenient of all periods, and could never have
been desired or sought by him at that most inopportune moment.
But in proof that Edward desired to provoke the Scotch to resistance,
it is said that “he encouraged all appeals to England; required king
John, by six different summonses, to come to London,” and in this way
“provoked him to vindicate his liberty.”
Strange to say, none of the old Scottish writers thus defend, or
account for, Baliol’s rebellion. Barbour, the earliest of them, has
not a word of this story; Wyntoun speaks only of one appeal, that of
Macduff, the earl of Fife; Buchanan follows him; and even Mr. Tytler,
the latest and best of all the Scottish historians, rests his case
solely upon this appeal of the earl of Fife. No one pretends that
Baliol appeared to any other appeal. The citations alluded to must have
been mere legal formalities. It was the conduct of Edward on Macduff’s
appeal which constituted the real grievance. Mr. Sharon Turner, who
reviews the whole case with an impartial and a lawyer‐like eye, says:
“Edward received an appeal against Baliol’s judgment preferred by a
Scotchman to himself, as lord paramount, and summoned Baliol to his
parliament to answer it, and expressed displeasure when he attempted to
dispute his homage; but _this_, between 1292 and 1296, was the extent
of his adverse conduct. Two other cases, mentioned by lord Hailes,
were, the one, a complaint against Edward’s own officers; the other, an
illegal imprisonment of his officers.”[63]
Beyond this contention about appeals, there was no quarrel between
Baliol and Edward. Before any judgment was pronounced, Baliol asked
for time to consult his parliament. It was granted, adjournment after
adjournment followed, and, in fact, no judgment ever was pronounced.
Meanwhile, Baliol’s claim to the honours and lands of Tyndale, Penrith,
and Sowerby, with a third part of the manor of Huntingdon, was allowed,
and he was generously exempted from a payment of £3,000 due from the
estates of his mother.[64]
The quarrel with Scotland, then, which produced such terrible results,
may be said to have taken its rise, formally, from Edward’s assertion
of the right of receiving appeals. But was this any extravagant or
inordinate pretension on his part?
On the contrary, it was an essential point of his prerogatives as
lord paramount, and it was known to be so, by all parties from the
beginning. For nearly seven years past the Scotch had been appealing
to him. They had sent after him to Gascony, in 1286, to know what
course they should take on their king’s death. In 1290 they had
again applied to him, in the most urgent manner, to come and decide
between the opposing claims of the competitors for the crown. At their
request he met the nobles of Scotland, and at once told them, “I come
as lord paramount; do you recognize me as such?” After some delay,
and therefore without hurry or precipitation, he was so recognized.
And when he had decided the question in Baliol’s favour, he again
distinctly warned him of their mutual relations, counselling him “to
be careful in the government of his people, lest by giving any just
cause of complaint, he should call down the interference of the lord
paramount.” Thus there was never the least concealment or reserve on
Edward’s part. He stated, from the first, what he conceived to be
his rights, and he found nothing but acquiescence on the part of the
Scotch. And it was several weeks after this explicit declaration, that
Baliol came to him at Newcastle, and took the oath of homage, avowing
himself Edward’s liegeman “for the kingdom of Scotland and all its
appurtenances.”
All questions being thus decided between the two, how was Edward to
act when the earl of Fife, in the very next year, lodged an appeal
against one of Baliol’s decisions? To refuse to entertain it would be
to abdicate his functions as lord paramount. Such appeals were not
unusual, or even of rare occurrence. Mr. Tytler himself says: “Edward,
who was a vassal of the king of France, for the duchy of Aquitaine,
became involved with his lord superior in a quarrel similar to that
between himself and Baliol. Philip summoned Edward to appear in his
court at Paris, and there to answer, as his vassal, for the injuries
which he had committed.”[65]
But it may be replied that Edward, when so summoned, refused to go, and
preferred to declare war against the king of France; and that the same
right must be conceded to Baliol. Unquestionably the same right, _if
the cases were the same;_ but all turns, if we are discussing the moral
aspects of the question, on the respective grounds of quarrel.
Edward, as all historians agree, had been grievously wronged by Philip,
and was entitled—and, in fact, was bound, to demand redress for these
wrongs. In his message to the king of France, declaring war against
him, he thus states the grounds of his resistance and hostility:
“The king of England did you homage conditionally—namely, according
to the form of the peace made between your ancestors and his, which
peace you have not kept. Moreover, that all differences between your
subjects and his might be ended, a treaty was made between you and
the lord Edmund, his brother, containing certain articles _which you
have not performed_. And after that, he hath required of you, three
several times, to restore his land of Guienne, and to deliver those of
his subjects whom you detain in prison: all which you have refused.
Wherefore it seems to him that you no longer count him your vassal, and
accordingly he refuses to be so for the future.”
Now no one disputes that as Philip had sinned against Edward, so it
was quite possible that Edward might have sinned against Baliol. But
what are the grievances alleged? There is nothing that deserves the
name; for the reception of Macduff’s appeal was, on Edward’s part, both
a right and a duty. Yet, this reception constitutes the whole case
against him; and upon this ground alone the Scotch threw all their
oaths to the winds, and resolved upon war.
In December, 1292, at Newcastle‐on‐Tyne, John Baliol, after full
warning of the intent and meaning of the homage, had taken the
following oath:—
“My lord, sir Edward, king of England, _sovereign lord of the realm of
Scotland_, I, John Baliol, king of Scotland, become your liegeman for
the kingdom of Scotland and all its appurtenances and appendages; which
kingdom I hold, and ought, of right and claim, to hold by inheritance,
for myself and my heirs, kings of Scotland, of you and your heirs,
kings of England. And faith and loyalty I will bear to you and your
heirs, kings of England, of life and limb, and earthly honour, against
all men that may live and die.”[66]
Such was Baliol’s oath, deliberately taken, with a full knowledge of
its meaning, in December, 1292. The like oath was also taken by all the
nobles of Scotland. Yet, in less than three years after, finding Edward
involved in a war with France, they eagerly seized the opportunity of
freeing themselves from all these obligations. They sent an embassy
to France, and entered into a treaty, engaging to assist Philip by
invading England. Such was the first step in the long and sanguinary
Scottish wars. Mr. Sharon Turner justly places these wars to the
account of the Scotch, remarking that—
“For four years Edward did nothing incompatible with the continuance
of the Scottish royalty; and it was the wilful hostility of Scotland
which forced him into the field. From 1292 to 1296, though he received
an appeal against Baliol’s judgment, and summoned Baliol to his
parliament, to answer it, yet this was the extent of his adverse
conduct. And so far was Edward’s behaviour from being revolting
to Scottish feeling, that Bruce, the competitor of Baliol, having
died, his family desired Edward to receive its homage, and willingly
performed it.”[67]
Edward, then, had done nothing to call forth the hostility of Scotland;
in fact, he had simply carried out his own professions and pretensions,
and expected the Scotch to do the same. Being now involved, by no
fault of his own, in a war with France, he called upon Baliol and the
other Scottish nobles who had sworn fealty to him, to give him their
aid against the hostility of the French. This aid every leading man in
Scotland had solemnly sworn to render; yet, instead of keeping their
oaths, the Scottish barons instantly violated them in the most direct
and flagrant manner. They had sworn “to bear faith and loyalty to
Edward, against all men that may live or die;” instead of which they
deliberately contracted with Philip to raise an army and to fall upon
England, so as to assist the French king’s designs. What share of this
treason and perfidy ought to be allotted to Baliol it is difficult to
determine. The whole power in Scotland seems to have been taken out
of the king’s hands and usurped by a faction of the nobles, who at
first dictated to the king, and at last dethroned him. They assembled a
council, or parliament, at Scone, at which they resolved to dismiss all
Englishmen who were in any public employments; to seize upon all lands
in Scotland which belonged to Englishmen; and even to deprive of their
estates in Scotland those Scotchmen who remained faithful to Edward.
“In this way Robert Bruce lost his lordship of Annandale. It was given
to John Comyn, earl of Buchan, who instantly assumed the rights of a
proprietor, and took possession of Lochmaben Castle.”[68]
But the ruling faction was not even content with wholesale
confiscation. Mr. Tytler continues—“The party who then ruled in the
Scottish parliament, dreading a submission on the part of their king,
secluded him from all power, confined him in a mountain‐fortress, and
placed the management of affairs in the hands of twelve of the leading
nobles.”