father to the charter of Runnymede, and to consider his barons as
enemies leagued in a conspiracy to deprive him of the legitimate
prerogatives of the crown. He watched with jealousy all their
proceedings, refused their advice, and confided in the fidelity of
foreigners more than in the affection of his own subjects. Such
conduct naturally alienated the minds of the nobles, who boldly
asserted that the great offices of state were their right, and entered
into associations for the support of their pretensions. Had the King
possessed the immense revenues of his predecessors he might perhaps
have set their enmity at defiance; but during the wars between Stephen
and Maud, and afterward between John and his barons, the royal
demesnes had been considerably diminished; and the occasional
extravagance of Henry, joined to his impolitic generosity to his
favorites, repeatedly compelled him to throw himself on the voluntary
benevolence of the nation. Year after year the King petitioned for a
subsidy, and each petition was met with a contemptuous refusal. If the
barons at last relented, it was always on conditions most painful to
his feelings. They obliged him to acknowledge his former misconduct,
to confirm anew the two charters, and to promise the immediate
dismissal of the foreigners.[60] But Henry looked only to the present
moment: no sooner were his coffers replenished than he forgot his
promises and laughed at their credulity. Distress again forced him to
solicit relief, and to offer the same conditions. Unwilling to be
duped a second time, the barons required his oath. He swore, and then
violated his oath with as much indifference as he had violated his
promise. His next applications were treated with scorn; but he
softened their opposition by offering to submit to excommunication if
he should fail to observe his engagements. In the great hall of
Westminster the King, barons, and prelates assembled; the sentence was
pronounced by the bishops with the usual solemnity; and Henry, placing
his hand on his breast, added, "So help me God, I will observe these
charters, as I am a Christian, a knight, and a king crowned and
anointed." The aid was granted, and the King reverted to his former
habits.
It was not, however, that he was by inclination a vicious man. He had
received strong religious impressions; though fond of parade, he
cautiously avoided every scandalous excess; and his charity to the
poor and attention to the public worship were deservedly admired. But
his judgment was weak. He had never emancipated his mind from the
tutelage in which it had been held in his youth, and easily suffered
himself to be persuaded by his favorites that his promises were not to
be kept, because they had been compulsory and extorted from him in
opposition to the just claims of his crown.
On the fall of Hubert de Burgh the King had given his confidence to
his former tutor, Peter the Poitevin, Bishop of Winchester. That the
removal of the minister would be followed by the dismissal of the
other officers of government, and that the favorite would employ the
opportunity to raise and enrich his relatives and friends, is not
improbable; but it is difficult to believe, on the unsupported
assertion of a censorious chronicler, that Peter could be such an
enemy to his own interest as to prevail on the King to expel all
Englishmen from his court, and confide to Poitevins and Bretons the
guard of his person, the receipt of his revenue, the administration of
justice, the custody of all the royal castles, the wardship of all the
young nobility, and the marriages of the principal heiresses. But the
ascendency of the foreigners, however great it might be, was not of
very long duration. The barons refused to obey the royal summons to
come to the council: the Earl Marshal unfurled the standard of
rebellion in Wales, and the clergy joined with the laity in censuring
the measures of government. Edmund, the new archbishop of Canterbury,
attended by several other prelates, waited on Henry. He reminded the
King that his father, by pursuing similar counsels, had nearly
forfeited the crown; assured him that the English would never submit
to be trampled upon by strangers in their own country; and declared
that he should conceive it his duty to excommunicate every individual,
whoever he might be, that should oppose the reform of the government
and the welfare of the nation. Henry was alarmed, and promised to give
him an answer in a few weeks. A parliament of the barons was called,
and Edmund renewed his remonstrance. The Poitevins were instantly
dismissed, the insurgents restored to favor, and ministers appointed
who possessed the confidence of the nation.
At the age of twenty-nine the King had married Eleanor, the daughter
of Raymond, Count of Provence. The ceremony of her coronation, the
offices of the barons, the order of the banquet, and the rejoicings of
the people are minutely described by the historian, who, in the warmth
of his admiration, declares that the whole world could not produce a
more glorious and ravishing spectacle. Eleanor had been accompanied to
England by her uncle William, Bishop-elect of Valence, who soon became
the King's favorite, was admitted into the council, and assumed the
ascendency in the administration. The barons took the first
opportunity to remonstrate; but Henry mollified their anger by adding
three of their number to the council, and, that he might be the more
secure from their machinations, obtained from the Pope a legate to
reside near his person. This was the cardinal Otho, who employed his
influence to reconcile Henry with the most discontented of the barons.
By his advice William returned to the Continent. He died in Italy, but
the King, mindful of his interests, had previously procured his
election to the see of Winchester, vacant by the death of Peter des
Roches.
The next favorites were two other uncles of the Queen, Peter de Savoy,
to whom Henry gave the honor of Richmond, and Boniface de Savoy, who,
at the death of Edmund, was chosen archbishop of Canterbury. The
natives renewed their complaints, and waited with impatience for the
return of Richard, the King's brother, from Palestine; but that Prince
was induced to espouse the cause of the foreigners, and to marry
Sanchia, another of the daughters of Raymond. But now Isabella, the
Queen-mother, dissatisfied that the family of Provence should
monopolize the royal favor, sent over her children by her second
husband, the Count de la Marche, to make their fortunes in England.
Alice, her daughter, was married to the young Earl of Warenne; Guy,
the eldest son, received some valuable presents and returned to
France; William de Valence, with the order of knighthood, obtained an
annuity and the honor of Hertford; and Aymar was sent to Oxford,
preferred to several benefices, and at last made bishop of Winchester.
Associations were formed to redress the grievances of the nation:
under the decent pretext of preventing the misapplication of the
revenue, a demand was repeatedly made that the appointment of the
officers of state should be vested in the great council; and at length
the constitution was entirely overturned by the bold ambition of Simon
de Montfort, Earl of Leicester.
Simon was the younger of the two sons of the Count de Montfort, a name
celebrated in the annals of religious warfare. By the resignation of
Amauri, his brother, the constable of France, he had succeeded to the
estates of his mother Amicia, the elder of the two sisters and
coheiresses of the late Earl of Leicester: his subsequent marriage
with Eleanor, the King's sister, had brought within his view the
prospect of a crown; and his marked opposition to the extortions of
the King and the pontiffs had secured to him, though a foreigner, the
affection of the nobility, the clergy, and the people. Policy required
that the King should not provoke, nor should oppress, so formidable a
subject. But Henry did neither: he on some occasions employed the Earl
in offices of trust and importance; on others, by a succession of
petty affronts, irritated instead of subduing his spirit. Among the
inhabitants of Guienne there were many whose wavering fidelity proved
a subject of constant solicitude; and Simon had been appointed, by
patent, governor of the province for five years, with the hope that
his activity and resolution would crush the disaffected and secure the
allegiance of the natives. They were to the earl years of continual
exertion: his conduct necessarily begot enemies; and he was repeatedly
accused to the King of peculation, tyranny, and cruelty. How far the
charges were true it is impossible to determine; but his accusers were
the Archbishop of Bordeaux and the chief of the Gascon nobility, who
declared that, unless justice were done to their complaints, their
countrymen would seek the protection of a different sovereign. When
Simon appeared before his peers, he was accompanied by Richard, the
King's brother, and the earls of Gloucester and Hereford, who had
engaged to screen him from the royal resentment; and the King,
perceiving that he could not procure the condemnation of the accused,
vented his passion in intemperate language. In the course of the
altercation the word "traitor" inadvertently fell from his lips.
"Traitor!" exclaimed the earl; "if you were not a king, you should
repent of that insult."
"I shall never repent of anything so much," replied Henry, "as that I
allowed you to grow and fatten within my dominions." By the
interposition of their common friends they were parted. Henry
conferred the duchy and government of Guienne on his son Edward, but
the earl returned to the province, nor would he yield up his patent
without a considerable sum as a compensation for the remaining years
of the grant. Fearing the King's enmity, he retired into France, and
was afterward reconciled to him through the mediation of the Bishop of
Lincoln.
Though Richard had frequently joined the barons in opposing his
brother, he could never be induced to invade the just rights of the
crown. He was as much distinguished by his economy as Henry was by his
profusion; and the care with which he husbanded his income gave him
the reputation of being the most opulent prince of Europe. Yet he
allowed himself to be dazzled with the splendor of royalty, and
incautiously sacrificed his fortune to his ambition. In the beginning
of the year 1256 the archbishops of Cologne and Mainz, with the
Elector Palatine, chose him at Frankfort king of the Romans; and a few
weeks later the Archbishop of Triers, the King of Bohemia, the Duke of
Saxony, and the Marquis of Brandenburg, the other four electors, gave
their suffrages in favor of Alphonso, King of Castile. It was,
however, in an evil hour for Henry that Richard departed for Germany.
The discontented barons, no longer awed by his presence, associated to
reform the State, under the guidance of the Earl of Leicester, high
steward, the Earl of Hereford, high constable, the Earl Marshal, and
the Earl of Gloucester. The circumstances of the times were favorable
to their views. An unproductive harvest had been followed by a general
scarcity, and the people were willing to attribute their misery, not
to the inclemency of the seasons, but to the incapacity of their
governors. Henry called a great council at Westminster, and on the
third day the barons assembled in the hall in complete armor. When the
King entered, they put aside their swords; but Henry, alarmed at their
unusual appearance, exclaimed, "Am I then your prisoner?" "No, sire,"
replied Roger Bigod, "but by your partiality to foreigners, and your
own prodigality, the realm is involved in misery. Wherefore we demand
that the powers of government be delegated to a committee of barons
and prelates, who may correct abuses and enact salutary laws." Some
altercation ensued, and high words passed between the Earl of
Leicester and William de Valence, one of the King's brothers. Henry,
however, found it necessary to submit; and it was finally agreed that
he should solicit the Pope to send a legate to England and modify the
terms on which he had accepted the kingdom of Sicily; that he should
give a commission to reform the State to twenty-four prelates and
barons, of whom one-half had been already selected from his council,
the other half should be named by the barons themselves in a
parliament to be held at Oxford; and that, if he faithfully observed
these conditions, measures should be taken to pay his debts, and to
prosecute the claim of Edmund to the crown of the two Sicilies.
At the appointed day the great council, distinguished in our annals by
the appellation of the "Mad Parliament," assembled at Oxford. The
barons, to intimidate their opponents, were attended by their military
tenants, and took an oath to stand faithfully by each other, and to
treat as "a mortal enemy" every man who should abandon their cause.
The committee of reform was appointed. Among the twelve selected by
Henry were his nephew the son of Richard, two of his half-brothers,
and the great officers of state; the leaders of the faction were
included in the twelve named by the barons. Every member was sworn to
reform the state of the realm, to the honor of God, the service of the
King, and the benefit of the people; and to allow no consideration,
"neither of gift nor promise, profit nor loss, love nor hatred nor
fear," to influence him in the discharge of his duty. Each twelve then
selected two of their opponents; and to the four thus selected was
intrusted the charge of appointing fifteen persons to form the council
of state. Having obtained the royal permission, they proceeded to make
the choice with apparent impartiality. Both parties furnished an equal
number; and at their head was placed Boniface, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, who, if he were connected with the court from his
relationship to the Queen, was also known to lean to the popular
faction, through his jealousy of the superior influence of the King's
half-brothers. In reality, however, these elections proved the
declining influence of the Crown; for, while the chiefs of the
reformers were named, Henry's principal friends, his nephew and his
brothers, had been carefully excluded. In a short time the triumph of
Leicester was complete. The justiciary, the chancellor, the treasurer,
all the sheriffs, and the governors of the principal castles belonging
to the King, twenty in number, were removed, and their places were
supplied by the chiefs of the reformers, or the most devoted of their
adherents. The new justiciary took an oath to administer justice to
all persons, according to the ordinances of the committee; the
chancellor not to put the great seal to any writ which had not the
approbation of the King and the privy council, nor to any grant
without the consent of the great council, nor to any instrument
whatever which was not in conformity with the regulations of the
committee; the governors of the castles to keep them faithfully for
the use of the King, and to restore them to him or his heirs, and no
others, on the receipt of an order from the council; and at the
expiration of twelve years to surrender them loyally on the demand of
the King. Having thus secured to themselves the sovereign authority,
and divested Henry of the power of resistance, the committee began the
work of reform by ordaining: 1. That four knights should be chosen by
the freeholders of each county to ascertain and lay before the
parliament the trespasses, excesses, and injuries committed within the
county under the royal administration; 2. That a new high sheriff
should be annually appointed for each county by the votes of the
freeholders; 3. That all sheriffs, and the treasurer, chancellor, and
justiciary should annually give in their accounts; 4. And that
parliaments should meet thrice in the year, in the beginning of the
months of February, June, and October. They were, however, careful
that these assemblies should consist entirely of their own partisans.
Under the pretext of exonerating the other members from the trouble
and expense of such frequent journeys, twelve persons were appointed
as representatives of the commonalty, that is, the whole body of
earls, barons, and tenants of the Crown; and it was enacted that
whatever these twelve should determine, in conjunction with the
council of state, should be considered as the act of the whole body.
These innovations did not, however, pass without opposition. Henry,
the son of the King of the Romans, Aymar, Guy and William,
half-brothers to the King, and the Earl of Warenne, members of the
committee, though they were unable to prevent, considerably retarded,
the measures of the reformers, and nourished in the friends of the
monarch a spirit of resistance which might ultimately prove fatal to
the projects of Leicester and his associates. It was resolved to
silence them by intimidation. They were required to swear obedience to
the ordinances of the majority of the members; proposals were made to
resume all grants of the crown, from which the three brothers derived
their support; and several charges of extortion and trespass were made
in the king's courts not only against them, but also against the
fourth brother, Geoffrey de Valence. Fearing for their liberty or
lives, they all retired secretly from Oxford, and fled to Wolvesham, a
castle belonging to Aymar, as bishop-elect of Winchester. They were
pursued and surrounded by the barons: their offer to take the oath of
submission was now refused; and of the conditions proposed to them the
four brothers accepted as the most eligible, to leave the kingdom,
taking with them six thousand marks, and trusting the remainder of
their treasures and the rents of their lands to the honor of their
adversaries.
Their departure broke the spirit of the dissidents. John de Warenne
and Prince Henry successively took the oath: even Edward, the King's
eldest son, reluctantly followed their example, and was compelled to
recall the grants which he had made to his uncles of revenues in
Guienne, and to admit of four reformers as his council for the
administration of that duchy. To secure their triumph a royal order
was published that all the lieges should swear to observe the
ordinances of the council; and a letter was written to the Pope in the
name of the parliament, complaining of the King's brothers, soliciting
the deposition of the Bishop of Winchester, and requesting the aid of
a legate to coöperate with them in the important task of reforming the
state of the kingdom.
In a short time Leicester was alarmed by the approach of a dangerous
visitor, Richard, King of the Romans. That Prince had squandered away
an immense mass of treasure in Germany, and was returning to replenish
his coffers by raising money on his English estates. At St. Omer, to
his surprise, he received a prohibition to land before he had taken an
oath to observe the provisions of reform, and not to bring the King's
brothers in his suite. His pride deemed the message an insult; but his
necessities required the prosecution of his journey, and he gave a
reluctant promise to comply as soon as he should receive the King's
permission. At Canterbury Henry signified his commands, and Richard
took the oath.
Henry had been for two years the mere shadow of a king. The acts of
government, indeed, ran in his name; but the sovereign authority was
exercised without control by the lords of the council; and obedience
to the royal orders--when the King ventured to issue any orders--was
severely punished as a crime against the safety of the State. But if
he were a silent, he was not an inattentive, observer of the passing
events. The discontent of the people did not escape his notice; and he
saw with pleasure the intestine dissensions which daily undermined the
power of the faction. The earls of Leicester and Gloucester pursued
opposite interests and formed two opposite parties. Leicester,
unwilling to behold the ascendency of his rival, retired into France;
and Gloucester discovered an inclination to be reconciled to his
sovereign. But to balance this advantage Prince Edward, who had
formerly displayed so much spirit in vindicating the rights of the
crown, joined the Earl of Leicester, their most dangerous enemy; and
this unexpected connection awakened in the King's mind the suspicion
of a design to depose him and place his son on the throne. In these
dispositions of enmity, jealousy, and distrust the barons assembled in
London to meet Henry in parliament. But each member was attended by a
military guard; his lodgings were fortified to prevent a surprise; the
apprehension of hostilities confined the citizens within their houses;
and the concerns of trade with the usual intercourse of society were
totally suspended. After many attempts, the good offices of the King
of the Romans effected a specious but treacherous pacification; and
the different leaders left the parliament friends in open show, but
with the same feelings of animosity rankling in their breasts, and
with the same projects for their own aggrandizement and the depression
of their opponents.
At length Henry persuaded himself that the time had arrived when he
might resume his authority. He unexpectedly entered the council, and
in a tone of dignity reproached the members with their affected delays
and their breach of trust. They had been established to reform the
State, improve the revenue, and discharge his debts; but they had
neglected these objects, and had labored only to enrich themselves and
to perpetuate their own power. He should, therefore, no longer
consider them as his council, but employ such other remedies as he
thought proper. He immediately repaired to the Tower, which had lately
been fortified; seized on the treasure in the mint; ordered the gates
of London to be closed; compelled all the citizens above twelve years
of age to swear fealty in their respective wardmotes; and by
proclamation commanded the knights of the several counties to attend
the next parliament in arms. The barons immediately assembled their
retainers, and marched to the neighborhood of the capital; but each
party, diffident of its strength, betrayed an unwillingness to begin
hostilities; and it was unanimously agreed to postpone the discussion
of their differences till the return of Prince Edward, who was in
France displaying his prowess at a tournament. He returned in haste,
and, to the astonishment of all who were not in the secret, embraced
the interests of the barons.
Henry, however, persevered in his resolution. By repeated desertions
the party of his enemies had been reduced to the two earls of
Leicester and Gloucester, the grand justiciary, the Bishop of
Worcester, and Hugh de Montfort, whose principal dependence was on the
oath which the King and the nation had taken to observe the Provisions
of Oxford. To this argument it was replied that the same authority
which enacted the law was competent to repeal it; and that an oath
which should deprive the parliament of such right was in its own
nature unjust and consequently invalid. For greater security, however,
the King applied to Pope Alexander, who by several bulls released both
him and the nation from their oaths, on the principle that the
Provisions of Oxford were injurious to the State, and therefore
incompatible with their previous obligations. These bulls Henry
published, appointed a new justiciary and chancellor, removed the
officers of his household, revoked to himself the custody of the royal
castles, named new sheriffs in the counties, and by proclamation
announced that he had resumed the exercise of the royal authority.
This was followed by another proclamation to refute the false reports
circulated by the barons.