the noble and ancient families of Scotland are reduced to the
necessity of tracing their ancestors’ names in the _fifty‐six_
sheets of parchment, which constitute the degrading roll of
submission to Edward I.”
VIII.
THE WAR WITH FRANCE, AND VARIOUS TROUBLES AT HOME, A.D. 1297.
Edward had now, apparently, achieved a great and important object,
and he returned in the autumn of 1296 to his palace of Westminster,
the undisputed sovereign of both islands, and of all the territories
contained within them. But his fifty‐ninth year, to which he was now
approaching, was destined to prove one of the most trying and difficult
conjunctures of his life. He had established his dominion over the
whole realm; had frustrated one of Philip’s main designs, by crushing
the Scottish rebellion; and was now at leisure to deal with that
monarch on the soil of France itself. But as each month of 1297 passed
along, it brought with it some new peril; until, before the year had
closed, a series of troubles and perplexities had so accumulated around
him, that few men but himself could have forced their way through so
many difficulties.
In dealing with France, Edward felt the disadvantages of his position,
arising from the distance of Gascony from England. To convey an army
to that country, of force sufficient to reconquer the province, would
have exhausted both the treasure and the military strength of England;
while, at the same time, neither Wales nor Scotland was in so tranquil
a state as to encourage him to undertake such an enterprise. With his
usual sagacity, therefore, Edward preferred to assail France on its
northern frontier, in the hope of so threatening both the capital and
Normandy as to force Philip to relinquish his hold upon the Gascon
province. On the side of Flanders, too, Edward could obtain several
allies; and its nearness to England rendered the conveyance of both men
and stores less difficult and less expensive. For all these reasons
Edward had determined, in the course of 1296, to endeavour to form a
league between himself, the earls of Flanders, Holland, and Luxembourg,
and the duke of Austria, for a combined attack upon France, on its
north‐eastern frontier. A similar policy was adopted, four centuries
after, by William III. and by Marlborough.
But all schemes of this kind—and England has seen many of
them—inevitably tend to one result: a subsidy. None of these princes
were disposed to go to war with such a kingdom as France, except they
were assisted in their preparations by a liberal supply of English
money.
Having formed the desired confederacy, therefore, Edward was next
obliged to call together his parliament, and to appeal to them for a
supply. The barons, without difficulty, granted him a twelfth; the
burgesses, an eighth. But when the king’s representatives made their
application to the prelates and clergy, an unexpected difficulty at
once presented itself.
Boniface VIII., the reigning pope, and Winchelsey, the primate, were
men of vigorous and aspiring minds, and they evidently desired to tread
in the steps of Hildebrand and Thomas à Becket. They believed that they
saw the king of England in circumstances of difficulty, and that an
opportunity was thus afforded for advancing a new claim on behalf of
the church.
Edward had undoubtedly begun to press with increasing weight upon
the resources of the clergy. Nor was this at all surprising. His own
necessities were now great, and the wealth of the church had long been
visibly and rapidly augmenting. “The possessions of the clergy,” says
Dr. Henry, “never diminishing, but daily increasing, were now swelled
up to an enormous bulk, and threatened to swallow up the whole lands of
the kingdom.” It has been remarked, that in the single reign of Henry
III., as many as eight or nine of our splendid cathedrals were built or
greatly enlarged; and during the same period, no fewer than one hundred
and fifty‐seven abbeys, priories, and other religious houses were
founded.
Of the church’s wealth, however, the court of Rome took care to demand
and to obtain a large proportion. Sometimes the pope required a tenth,
sometimes a fifth, and once as much as one half of all ecclesiastical
incomes. In a few years, in the transactions connected with the crown
of Sicily, the pope was computed to have drawn from England no less
than nine hundred and fifty thousand marks, equal, according to the
values of the time, to above nine millions of our present money! In a
subsequent reign, in 1376, the commons represented to the king, “that
the taxes paid to the pope yearly, amounted to _five times_ as much as
the taxes paid to the crown.” Rome then, depending so largely on the
supplies received from England, would naturally look with jealousy on
the increasing demands of the crown, which must inevitably come into
competition with those which she herself was accustomed to make.
Winchelsey, as we have said, was a man of great ability; and Boniface
was distinguished among the popes. It may be difficult at this distance
of time, to determine with which of these two the idea originated, but
the fact is certain, that just at this moment, when Edward needed and
expected a large supply from the church, the primate produced a bull,
or mandate from the pope, “forbidding the clergy to grant to laymen
any part of the revenues of their benefices, without the permission of
the Holy See.”
This was a sudden and a startling blow. By a few words the king saw
the whole treasures of the church—his main reliance—shut up and sealed
from his touch. He had asked of the clergy a supply of “a fifth.” His
commissioners appeared in the convocation for a reply. The archbishop
rose and said, “You know, sirs, that under Almighty God we have two
lords—the one spiritual, the other temporal. Obedience is due to
both, _but most to the spiritual_. We are willing to do everything in
our power, and will send deputies at our own expense to consult the
pontiff. We entreat you to carry this reply to the king; for we dare
not speak to him ourselves.”
It was clear, that to submit to this novel claim to exemption would
be to prostrate the royal authority at the feet of the papal. Already
had the pope claimed and exercised a co‐ordinate power with the crown,
in taxing ecclesiastical possessions, now rapidly becoming a large
proportion of all the property of the realm; but he here asserted
his sole and supreme power over the whole. In future the king was to
receive aid from the clerical body, only when, and so far as, the pope
should grant his permission.
With either of the two preceding sovereigns such churchmen as Boniface
and Winchelsey might have prevailed, and thus a foreign sovereignty of
the most disastrous kind might have been established in the realm. But,
happily, England had, at this crisis, a ruler equal to the emergency—a
sovereign whom even those historians who are prejudiced against
him,[76] admit to have been a “great statesman,” “the model of a
politic and warlike king.” He saw at a glance, the serious peril which
threatened the realm, and he at once nerved himself to grapple with
it. Yet he never, for an instant, showed the passion or the violence
of a Rufus or a John. Not for a moment was he ever betrayed into any
unworthy measures. “Himself the founder of a stately Cistercian abbey,
and a man whose oblations and alms were a large sum in his yearly
expenses, he displays even as a legislator a genuine anxiety for the
real interests of the Church.”[77] But to yield to this new pretension
would have been to surrender the unquestionable rights of the crown,
and such a surrender as that could never be dreamed of by a king like
Edward. With his usual firmness and sagacity, he took without delay the
most effectual and straightforward course to suppress this new kind of
mutiny. Comprehending at a glance the mutuality of the obligations of
the ruler and the subject, he at once decided that those who refused to
bear their share of the public burdens could have no right to appeal to
the protection of the guardians of the public peace. A deputation of
the prelates waited on him at Castle Acre in Norfolk, to acquaint him
with their determination, and to explain the reasons for it; to whom he
at once declared, that “since the clergy had broken their allegiance
to him, by denying him that assistance which by the tenure of their
estates they were bound to pay, he would no longer feel any obligation
to protect them, or to execute in their favour laws to which they
refused to submit.” At once, therefore, “he consulted the lay peers,
and issued a proclamation of outlawry against the clergy, both regular
and secular”—escheating their lay fees, goods, and chattels to the
use of the crown. And, as Edward was always frank and outspoken, his
chief justice, Sir John Metingham, publicly announced from the bench
in Westminster Hall—“You that appear for the archbishops, bishops,
or clergy, take notice, that in future no justice is to be done them
in the king’s court, in any matter of which they may complain; but,
nevertheless, justice shall still be done to all manner of persons
who have any complaint against them.” “So bold a step,” says Rapin,
“astonished the clergy, who, since the beginning of the monarchy, had
never experienced the like resolution in any king of England.”
We are now at the opening of the year 1297. The strong measures of the
king quickly carried confusion into the ranks of the ecclesiastical
confederacy. The archbishop of York, with all his diocese, and the
bishops of Durham and Carlisle, soon made their peace with Edward, and
paid their “fifth.” It was not long before the bishops of Norwich,
Ely, Lincoln, and Worcester, followed their example. Winchelsey vainly
thundered his sentence of excommunication against all who should
disobey the mandate of the pope. The sentence of outlawry proved to
have the greater force. Tenants refused to pay rent; horses were seized
on the highway; and the law, meanwhile, repudiated all claims of the
ecclesiastical mutineers to avail themselves of its protection. The
inevitable result of such a state of things soon showed itself. The
clergy, and especially the wealthier of them, rapidly fell off from the
archbishop, and sought and obtained the king’s pardon and protection.
But this ecclesiastical rebellion had been only the beginning of
troubles. Suppressed though it was, it led to fresh difficulties of
another kind. The large and greatly‐needed supply upon which the king
had reckoned was withheld, and it now came in only slowly and in
fragments. The “aid” granted by parliament required the customary time
for its collection. Meanwhile, Edward had pledged himself both to pay
large subsidies to his allies in Flanders, and also to bring over a
considerable body of troops. These promises he was now endeavouring, as
was his wont, strictly to perform.
But now appears in England, for the first time, _a parliamentary
opposition_. Hume and Hallam award great praise to the earls of
Hereford and Norfolk for their “firmness and patriotism” in daring to
withstand the king; but they forget to give any credit to Edward for
having introduced that parliamentary system into England which made
such an opposition possible.
It is abundantly clear that the earl of Norfolk disliked the French
war in 1297, just as the duke of Norfolk of the last century disliked
the French war in 1797, and probably each could have assigned very
plausible reasons for his dislike. The important fact, however,
is, that alike in 1297 and in 1797, both of these noblemen were
left at liberty to oppose the war, and both of them did oppose and
obstruct it—the one in the thirteenth and the other in the eighteenth
century—without incurring any loss of life or of property for so
withstanding the king’s views.
There is no reason to doubt that the king had the popular feeling with
him. Even in the present day, when peace is so greatly valued, and
when considerations of utility govern so many, the news that Spain had
surprised and taken Gibraltar, or that France had suddenly seized upon
the Channel Islands, would light up a flame of indignation, and raise
a cry of war throughout the realm. How was it to be expected, then,
that in the days of chivalry, the gentry and burgesses of England could
hear of the fraudulent seizure of such a province as Gascony, without
generally sympathizing with their sovereign’s indignation?
Still, wherever men are free, differences of opinion on all
conceivable questions will show themselves, and we find from the
records of the time that the earls of Norfolk and Hereford did not
heartily concur with the king’s views; and, as we have said, Edward had
always conducted his affairs in such a frank and open manner, as to
give full play to the expression of all such differences of opinion.
Whenever any great public question required solution, his first step
always was to summon a parliament; and when the dissentient party had
thrown all possible obstructions in the way, we next hear of the king’s
writing to the earl of Hereford or the earl of Norfolk, to invite him
to a private interview, that they may freely discuss the matter in hand.
In the present instance Edward resolved to meet his parliament, for the
final decision of all questions concerning the war, at Salisbury, on
the 25th of February. Meanwhile, however, pressed by the demands of his
allies and the requirements of his own armaments, he laid new and heavy
imposts upon wool, and called upon the sheriffs of all the counties
to provide for him each a certain quota of wheat, etc.[78] We do not
suppose that there was anything in these measures which materially
differed from the practice of modern wars, but it is evident that
such claims and demands would often occasion inconvenience and excite
displeasure. The great men of the realm, as well as the merchants and
farmers, would feel these requisitions, and some of them, doubtless,
brought their irritated feelings into the discussions in parliament.
The king’s justification, however, was doubtless rested on the old
adage that “necessity knows no law,”—a rule which often decides
many hard questions in time of war. Shall a general defending a city
be compelled by famine to surrender it, if he knows that one of the
citizens has a great store of corn? No, he will seize upon that corn,
if necessary by the extremest force, rather than lose the city which he
is ordered to defend; but he will take care that the citizen shall be
paid the value of his property at the earliest possible moment. Such
seems to have been Edward’s rule of conduct at this very difficult
crisis.
The earl of Norfolk was the high marshal, and the earl of Hereford
the high constable of England. Edward, purposing himself to go into
Flanders, wished to commit the charge of a distinct force for Gascony
to these two earls; but they objected to undertake this charge,
alleging that their offices only bound them to attend the king’s person
in his wars. Chafed at this backwardness, the king, always excitable,
grew angry, and is reported to have said that they should either go
or hang. To which Norfolk rejoined that “he would neither go nor
hang.”[79] The constable and marshal after this withdrew, followed by a
large body of knights, their retainers.
We know not much of the other proceedings of that parliament. The king
was evidently in a position of great difficulty. Opposed by a large
body of the clergy, and now opposed also by two of the greatest earls
in the realm, he had still the war with France on his hands, and from
it he could not in honour withdraw. Surely we might rather expect
the sympathies of Englishmen to be with the king, in this critical
juncture, than with the two dissentient earls. Edward, in resisting the
wrong done to him by Philip, was merely discharging a plain duty. How,
then, can it be deemed “patriotism” in these two great nobles to desert
their sovereign in this emergency, and even to throw obstacles in his
path?
It seems tolerably clear that the discussions at Salisbury were
prolonged, and that the secession of Hereford and Norfolk obliged the
king to abandon his purpose of sending a fresh expedition to the relief
of Gascony. The 7th of March found the king still at Salisbury, and on
that day Winchelsey paid him a visit in that city. It was so much the
king’s habit to have his opponents “face to face,” that it seems most
probable that the archbishop waited on him there at his own desire.
The king, when the archbishop arrived, was attending the service in the
cathedral. When this was over, Winchelsey had a private audience, the
king desiring him to say freely what he would. The archbishop spoke at
some length, and was heard patiently and without any interruption. The
king, in reply, told him that “if the pope himself had any temporal
possessions in the realm of England, he believed that he, the king,
might lawfully take of them for the defence of his realm and of the
church of England.” He added that “this was a cause in which he could
dare to die; since he felt that he was doing nothing unlawful, but was
obeying a dire necessity which lay upon him and the kingdom.” Surely in
the frankness, the wisdom, and the calm resolution of the king, there
is nothing wanting of the characteristics of true nobleness of mind.
No actual reconciliation then took place—the primate being unwilling
to abandon his ground, and the king being resolved never to relinquish
his; but Winchelsey promised to send messengers of his own to the
pope, and the king at his request promised to show leniency to those
of the clergy who had committed themselves on the papal side. On the
25th of March a synod was held at St. Paul’s, in which no positive
resolution was adopted, but the archbishop and those bishops who acted
with him agreed to connive at those of the clergy who should make
their peace with the king, though in doing so they disobeyed the pope;
and Edward, in April, began to show mercy to those of the recusant
clergy who had published the bull in defiance of his orders, and who
had been imprisoned for that offence. In May and June he was occupied
in assembling his troops, and in providing a sufficient naval force.
On the 8th of July, the military tenants of the crown were summoned
to meet in London to do their accustomed suit and service. The high
constable and marshal attended; but as they had objected at Salisbury
to go to Gascony, because the king did not propose to accompany that
expedition, so now they objected to go with the king to Flanders,
because, as they said, they could not find that any of their ancestors
had ever performed any service in that country.
The absurdity of this plea was self‐evident; it assumed that the king
must not make war in any country except those in which his ancestors
had made war. Evidently these two earls had no stomach for the war on
any terms. Doubtless they were at liberty to form their own opinion of
its expediency or inexpediency, and to a certain extent to act upon
it; but it is impossible to estimate very highly the patriotism of two
great nobles, who, when such a captain as Edward was embarked in a
national contest, could leave him to fight it out without their aid.
Still so it was; they begged the king to appoint other officers in
their room. Edward, therefore, named Thomas de Berkeley as substitute
for the earl of Hereford, and Geoffrey de Geneville for the earl of
Norfolk. In thus tolerating the conduct of these two earls, the king
showed that self‐control and practical wisdom which distinguished him
through life; but he was about to go much further. He was on the point
of quitting home to open a war, the length and the difficulties of
which he could not foresee. He desired, therefore, to leave England,
as far as possible, an united and peaceful kingdom during his absence.
With this view, having broken up the ecclesiastical confederacy, he
announced to Winchelsey and his followers an amnesty for the past, with
a pardon for all who were suffering any penalties for their recusancy;
and to make his desire for peace and harmony as manifest as possible,
he convened a large assembly in or at the entrance of Westminster Hall.
Here, on the 14th of July, the king presented himself on a raised
platform, accompanied by his son, then in his fourteenth year, the
archbishop, the earl of Warwick, and other lords. He then addressed
the assembly, first alluding to the burdens which, in the preparation
of his armament, he had been obliged to lay upon them. “He owned that
these burdens were heavy, but declared that it had been as painful
for him to impose those burdens as it must have been for them to bear
them. He had taken a part in order to secure the remainder. His sole
object was to protect the country from its enemies, and from those who
sought its ruin.” “And now,” he added, “I am going once more to face
the dangers of war for England’s sake. If I return, receive me again as
you have received me to‐day, and I will make you full amends. If not,
here is my son; place him on my throne, and his gratitude will reward
your fidelity.” Edward could not conclude without visible emotion;
the archbishop was equally affected; and the whole assembly, with
outstretched hands, vowed unshaken fidelity.[80]
A fortnight after, a great council was held, at which the king openly
received the archbishop to his favour, and nominated him one of the
council of the young prince, to whom he then desired all present to
take an oath of fidelity as the heir to the kingdom.
There is something in these proceedings which seems to require
explanation. How could a warm‐hearted, impetuous ruler, in dealing with
such opponents as Winchelsey, Bohun, and Bigod, so constantly avoid any
actual collision, any resort to force on either side? We read, with
some pain, the account of the scene at Salisbury, in which high words
arose; but the circumstance stands alone. Edward, though irascible,
“had the rule over his own spirit.” He was placed, for several weeks,
in circumstances of great difficulty; but his skill, and judgment,
and discretion carried him through them all. On the 10th of August
the prelates made another attempt on his firmness. They requested his
permission “to send to the pope for his license to grant the king an
aid.” The king, however, was neither to be frightened nor persuaded
into any step which would imply his assent to the papal claim. He
refused to give any such permission, but he continued to treat the
clergy with kindness; and shortly after took leave of the primate, and
departed for Winchelsea, where his armament was now assembled.
At this place, in the middle of August, he received from the two earls
and their adherents, a remonstrance, in which they alleged—“1. That
they conceive that they ought not to be called upon to do service in
Flanders (for the reasons which we have already described). 2. That
they have been aggrieved and impoverished by the talliages, aids, and
requisitions already levied. 3. That Magna Charta has not been properly
observed. 4. That the Charter of Forests is also violated by the
king’s officers. 5. That they are aggrieved by the tax on wool. And,
lastly, desiring the honour and safety of our lord the king, it does
not seem good unto them that he pass over into Flanders.”