all his faults of temper and judgment, he had shown himself a man of
courage and capacity, who identified his own cause with his people's.
But David, though now implicated in the rebellion beyond hope of
pardon, had fought under the English banner against his countrymen,
with the wish to dismember the principality. The Welsh cannot be
accused of fickleness if they became languid in a struggle against
overwhelming power and a king who had shown them more tenderness than
their leader for the time. David's one castle of Bere was starved into
surrender by the Earl of Pembroke, and David himself taken in a bog by
some Welsh in the English interest. His last remaining adherent, Rees
ap Walwayn, surrendered, on hearing of his lord's captivity, and was
sent prisoner to the Tower. For David himself a sadder fate was
reserved. His request for a personal interview with his injured
sovereign was refused. Edward did not care to speak with a man whom he
had no thought of pardoning. He at once summoned a parliament of
barons, judges, and burgesses to meet at Shrewsbury, September 29th,
and decide on the prisoner's fate. It is evident that Edward was
incensed in no common measure against the traitor whom, as he
expressed it, he had "taken up as an exile, nourished as an orphan,
endowed from his own lands, and placed among the lords of our palace,"
and who had repaid these benefits by a sudden and savage war.
Nevertheless, the King, from policy or from temperament, resolved to
associate the whole nation in a great act of justice on a man of
princely lineage. The sentence, which excited no horror at the time,
was probably passed without a dissentient voice. David was sentenced,
as a traitor, to be drawn slowly to the gallows; as a murderer, to be
hanged; as one who had shed blood during Passion-tide, to be
disembowelled after death; and for plotting the King's death, his
dismembered limbs were to be sent to Winchester, York, Northampton,
and Bristol. Seldom has a shameful and violent death been better
merited than by a double-dyed traitor like David, false by turns to
his country and his king; nor could justice be better honored than by
making the last penalty of rebellion fall upon the guilty Prince,
rather than on his followers.
The form of punishment in itself was mitigated from the extreme
penalty of the law, which prescribed burning for traitors. Compared
with the execution under the Tudors and Stuarts, or with the reprisal
taken after Culloden, the single sentence of death carried out on
David seems scarcely to challenge criticism. Yet it marks a decline
from the almost bloodless policy of former kings. Since the times of
William Rufus no English noble, except under John, had paid the
penalty of rebellion with life. In particular, during the late reign,
Fawkes de Breaute and the adherents of Simon de Montfort had been
spared by men flushed with victory and exasperated with a long strife.
There were some circumstances to palliate David's treachery, if, as is
probable, his charges against the English justiciary have any truth.
We may well acquit Edward of that vilest infirmity of weak minds,
which confounds strength with ferocity and thinks that the foundations
of law can be laid in blood. He probably received David's execution as
a measure demanded by justice and statesmanship, and in which the
whole nation was to be associated with its king. Never was court of
justice more formally constituted; but it was a fatal precedent for
himself, and the weaker, worse men who succeeded him. From that time,
till within the last century, the axe of the executioner has never
been absent from English history.
Edward was resolved to incorporate Wales with England. The children of
Llewelyn and David were honorably and safely disposed of in
monasteries, from which they never seem to have emerged. The great
Welsh lords who had joined the rebellion were punished with
deprivation of all their lands. Out of the conquered territory Denbigh
and Ruthyn seem to have been made into march lordships under powerful
Englishmen. Anglesey and the land of Snowdon, Llewelyn's territories
of Carnarvon and Merionethshire, with Flint, Cardigan, and
Carmarthenshire, were kept in the hands of the Crown. The Welsh
divisions of commotes were retained, and several of these constituted
a sheriffdom, which bore pretty much the same relation to an English
shire that a Territory bears to a State in the American Union. The new
districts were also brought more completely under English law than the
marches, which retained their privileges and customs.
The changes, where we can trace them, seem to have been for the
better. The blood-feud was abolished; widows obtained a dower;
bastards were no longer to inherit; and in default of heirs male in
the direct line, daughters were allowed to inherit. On the other hand,
fines were to be assessed according to local custom; compurgation was
retained for unimportant cases and inheritances were to remain
divisible among all heirs male.
The ordinance that contains these dispositions is no parliamentary
statute, but seems to have been drawn up by the King in council, March
24, 1284. It was based on the report of a commission which examined
one hundred and seventy-two witnesses. Soon afterward an inquest was
ordered to ascertain the losses sustained by the Church in Wales, with
a view to giving it compensation.
Nor did Edward neglect appeals to the national sentiment. The supposed
body of Constantine was disinterred at Carnarvon, and received
honorable burial in a church. The crown of Arthur and a piece of the
holy Cross, once the property of the Welsh princes, were added to the
King's regalia. It was probably by design that Queen Eleanor was
confined at Carnarvon, April 25, 1284, of a prince whom the Welsh
might claim as a countryman.[74] At last, having lingered for more
than a year about the principality, Edward celebrated the consummation
of his conquests, August 1, 1284, by a splendid tournament at Nefyn,
to which nobles and knights flocked from every part of England and
even from Gascony. It was even more a demonstration of strength than a
pageant.
The cost of the Welsh campaign must have been enormous, and it is
difficult to understand how Edward met it. But no sort of expedient
was spared. Commissioners were sent through England and Ireland to beg
money of clergy and laity. Next, the cities of Guienne and Gascony
were applied to; then, the money that had been collected for a crusade
was taken out of the consecrated places where it was deposited. The
treasures put in the Welsh churches were freely confiscated.
Nevertheless, the Parliament of Shrewsbury granted the King a
thirtieth, from which, however, the loans previously advanced were
deducted. In return for this the King passed the Statute of Merchants,
which made provisions for the registration of merchants' debts, their
recovery by distraint, and the debtor's imprisonment. The clergy had
at first been less compliant when the King applied to them for a
tenth. The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, April, 1283,
replied that they were impoverished; that they still owed a fifteenth,
and that they expected to be taxed again by the Pope. They also
reminded him bitterly of the Statute of Mortmain. Ultimately the
matter was compromised by the grant of a twentieth, November, 1283.
[Illustration: King Edward I fulfills his promise of giving the Welsh
"a native prince who could not speak one word of English" Painting by
Ph. Morris.]
[Illustration.]
For a few years Wales was still an insecure portion of the English
dominion. In 1287, Rees ap Meredith, whose services to Edward had been
largely rewarded with grants of land and a noble English wife,
commenced levying war against the king's sheriff. His excuse was that
his baronial rights had been encroached upon; but as he had once
risked forfeiture by preferring a forcible entry to the execution of
the king's writ which had been granted him, we may probably assume
that he claimed powers inconsistent with English sovereignty. After
foiling the Earl of Cornwall in a costly campaign, Rees, finding
himself outlawed, fled, by the Earl of Gloucester's complicity, into
Ireland. Some years later he returned to resume his war with Robert de
Tiptoft, but this time was taken prisoner and executed at York by
Edward's orders, 1292.
More dangerous by far was the insurrection of two years later, 1294,
when the Welsh, irritated by a tax, and believing that Edward had
sailed for France, rose up throughout the crown lands and slew one of
the collectors, Roger de Pulesdon. Madoc, a kinsman of Llewelyn, was
put forward as king, and his troops burned Carnarvon castle and
inflicted a severe defeat on the English forces sent to relieve
Denbigh, November 10th. Edward now took the field in person, and
resumed his old policy of cutting down the forests as he forced his
way into the interior. The Welsh fought well, and between disease and
fighting the English lost many hundred men. Once the King was
surrounded at Conway, his provisions intercepted, and his road barred
by a flood; but his men could not prevail on him to drink out of the
one cask of wine that had been saved. "We will all share alike," he
said, "and I, who have brought you into this strait, will have no
advantage of you in food." The flood soon abated, and, reinforcements
coming up, the Welsh were dispersed. Faithful to his policy of mercy,
the King spared the people everywhere, but hanged three of their
captains who were taken prisoners. Madoc lost heart, made submission,
and was admitted to terms. Meanwhile, Morgan, another Welshman of
princely blood, had headed a war in the marches against the Earl of
Gloucester, who was personally unpopular with his vassals. Two years
before the earldom had been confiscated into the King's hands, and it
is some evidence that Edward's rule was not oppressive, by comparison
with that of his lords, that the marchmen now desired to be made
vassals of the crown. Morgan is said to have been hunted down by his
old confederate, Madoc, but it seems more probable that he was the
first to sue for peace. He was pardoned without reserve.
As there was then war with Scotland, hostages were taken from the
Welsh chiefs, and were kept in English castles for several years. But
the last lesson had proved effectual. The Welsh settled down peaceably
on their lands and generally adopted the English customs. Except a few
great lords, their gentry were still the representatives of their old
families. Only five men in all had received the last punishment of the
law for sanguinary rebellions extending over eighteen years of the
King's reign. Of any massacre of the bards, or any measures taken to
repress them, history knows nothing.
Never was conquest more merciful than Edward's, and the fault lies
with his officers, not with the King, if many years still passed
before the old quarrel between Wales and England was obliterated from
the hearts of the conquered people.
JAPANESE REPEL THE TARTARS
A.D. 1281
E.H. PARKER
MARCO POLO
Kublai Khan, the first of the Mongol emperors who reigned at
Peking, and Kameyama, the ninetieth emperor--as reputed--of
Japan, are supposed to have come to their respective thrones
in the same year, 1260. At this period the Japanese rulers
(_mikados_) were mere puppets in the hands of their
_shoguns_--hereditary commanders-in-chief of the army--and
the shoguns themselves were tools of the regents of the Hojo
dynasty.
Corea had lately been made tributary to the Tartar or Mongol
power, when some of the Coreans in the service of Kublai
Khan suggested to him that his way was now open to Japan,
1265. Next year Kublai selected a chief envoy whose name, as
Parker says, appears in Chinese characters precisely the
same as that of Sir Robert Hart,[75] and whom the author of
the narrative immediately following, in order to avoid
uncouth names, designates as "Hart." By this envoy Kublai
sent a letter to Japan, and this act was the beginning of
the execution of his designs against that country, formed
upon the advice of the Coreans. In this letter the Mongol
Emperor called upon Japan to return to the vassal duty which
for centuries, he claimed, she had formerly owned to China.
--EDWARD HARPER PARKER
The King of Corea, who had meanwhile been instructed to show the road
to the Mongol mission, provided it with two high officers as escort.
In 1267, however, Hart and his staff returned to Peking from their
wanderings, _re injecta_, faithfully accompanied by their Corean
guides, whose explanations as to why the goal had not been reached
were by no means satisfactory to Kublai. The whole party was
despatched once more to Corea, carrying with them to the King positive
instructions "to succeed better this time."
The wily King of Corea now adopted another tack. He pleaded that the
sea-route was beset with dangers to which it would be unseemly to
expose the person of an imperial envoy, but he accommodatingly sent
the Emperor's letter on to Japan by an envoy of his own. This Corean
envoy was detained half a year by the Japanese, but he had also to
return empty-handed. Meanwhile the King of Corea sent his own brother
on a special mission to Kublai, to endeavor to mollify his Tartar
majesty.
In the autumn of 1268 Hart and his former assistant colleague were
sent a third time. As a surveying party had meanwhile been examining
the sea-route by way of Quelpaert Island, the mission was enabled to
reach the Tsushima Islands this time; but the local authority would
not suffer them to land, or at least to stay, nor were the letters
accepted, as, in the opinion of the Japanese, "the phraseology was not
considered sufficiently modest." Once more the unsuccessful mission
returned to Peking, but on this occasion it was with two Japanese
"captives"--probably spies; for there is plenty of evidence that even
then the art was well understood in Japan. In the summer of 1269 it
was resolved to utilize these captives as a peg whereon to hang the
conciliatory and virtuous act of returning them. Coreans were
intrusted with this mission; but even this letter the Japanese
declined to receive, and the envoys were detained a considerable time
in the official prisons at Dazai Fu (in Chikuzen).
Early in the year 1270 a Manchu Tartar in Kublai's employ, named
Djuyaoka, who had already been employed as a kind of resident or
adviser at the court of the King of Corea, was despatched on a solemn
mission to Japan, having earnestly volunteered for his new service in
spite of his gray hairs. The King of Corea was again ordered to
assist, and a Corean in Chinese employ, named Hung Ts'a-k'iu (Marco
Polo's Von-Sanichin), was told to demonstrate with a fleet around the
Liao-Tung and Corean peninsulas. The envoy is usually called by his
adopted Chinese name of Chao Liang-Pih. The mission landed in the
spring of 1271 at an island called Golden Ford, which, according to
the Chinese characters, ought, I suppose, to be pronounced Kananari in
Japanese. Here the strangers met with a very rough reception. The
Tartar, however, kept his head well during the various attempts which
were made to frighten him; he pointed out the historical precedents to
be found in the annals of previous Chinese dynasties, and firmly
declined to surrender his credentials except at the chief seat of
government, and to the king or ruler in person. It seems that even the
Japanese now began to see that the "honest broker," Corea, was playing
false to both sides; at all events, they said that "Corea had reported
the imminence of a Chinese attack, whereas Kublai's language seemed to
deprecate war." Officials from head-quarters explained that "from
ancient times till now, no foreign envoy has ever gone east of the
Dazai Fu." The reply to this was: "If I cannot see your ruler, you had
better take him my head; but you shall not have my documents." The
Japanese pleaded that it was too far to the ruler's capital, but that
in the mean time they would send officers back with him to China. He
was thereupon sent back to await events at Tsushima, and, having
remained there a year, he arrived back in Peking in the summer of
1273. In escorting him to Tsushima, the Japanese had sent with him a
number of secondary officials to have an audience of Kublai; it
appears that the Japanese had been alarmed at the establishment of a
Mongol garrison at Kin Chow (I suppose the one near Port Arthur, then
within Corean dominions); and the Tartar envoy, during his stay in
Tsushima, now sent on these Japanese "envoys" (or spies) in advance,
advising Kublai at the same time to humor Japanese susceptibilities by
removing the Kin Chow garrison. The cabinet council suggested to
Kublai that it would be a good thing to explain to the Japanese envoys
that the occupation of Kin Chow was "only temporary," and would be
removed so soon as the operations now in process against Quelpaert
were at an end. It is related that the "Japanese interpreters"--which
probably means Chinese accompanying the Japanese--explained to Kublai
that it was quite unnecessary to go round via Corea, and that with a
good wind it was possible to reach Japan in a very short time. Kublai
said, "Then I must think it over afresh." Late in the year 1273 the
same Tartar envoy was once more sent to Japan, but it is not stated by
what route or where he first landed; this time he really reached the
Dazai Fu, or capital of Chikuzen. In the same year, and possibly in
connection with the above mission, a Chinese general, Lu T'ung, with a
force of forty thousand men in nine hundred boats, defeated one
hundred thousand Japanese--it is not stated where. I am inclined to
think, from the consonance of the word Liu and the nine hundred boats,
that this must be the affair mentioned lower down. The Manchu Tartar
envoy seems to have been a very sensible sort of man, for not only did
he bring back with him full details of the names and titles of the
Mikado and his ministers, descriptions of the cities and districts,
particulars of national customs, local products, etc., but also
strongly dissuaded Kublai from engaging in a useless war with Japan;
and he also gave some excellent advice to the celebrated Mongol
general Bayen, who was just then preparing to "finish off" the
southern provinces of China. It may not be generally known, but it is
a fact that Bayen himself, in the late autumn of 1273, had been
originally destined for the Japanese expedition, and the prisoners
captured at the first attack on Siaag-yang Fu (Marco Polo's Sa-yan Fu)
had already been handed over to him for service in Japan. The Mongol
history also gives a full copy of the letter sent to Japan on this
occasion. In it Kublai expresses his surprise at the persistent
ignoring by Japan of his successive missions; he charitably suggests
that "perhaps the fresh troubles and revolutions in Corea, which have
now once more been settled, are more to blame than your own deliberate
intentions." The menace of war was a little stronger than in the
letter of 1266, but was still decently veiled and somewhat guarded.
Before starting, the Manchu had requested that the etiquette to be
observed at his audience with the ruler might be laid down. The
cabinet council, to be on the safe side, advised: "As the relative
ranks prevailing in the country are unknown to us, we have no definite
etiquette to specify." On the other hand, both Kublai and his
ministers were much too sharp to believe in the power of the
"guard-house west of the Dazai Fu," and they came to the sensible
conclusion that the Japanese "envoys" were simply war-spies sent by
the supreme Japanese government itself.
Chinese history does not explain why, amid the conflicting counsels
exposed above, and others mentioned in biographical chapters, Kublai
decided to attack Japan at the very moment when Bayen was marching
upon South China; but, anyway, during the year 1274, large numbers of
Manchus were raised for service in Japan, and placed under General
Hung. (Sani-chin may perhaps stand for the Chinese word Tsiang-chun,
or "general.") It appears that, toward the end of that year, fifteen
thousand men in nine hundred ships made a raid upon some point in
Japan; but, although "a victory" is claimed, no details whatever are
given beyond the facts that "our army showed a lack of order; the
arrows were exhausted; we achieved nothing beyond plundering." The
three islands raided were Tsushima, Iki, and one I cannot identify,
described in Chinese as I-man.
The Japanese annals confirm the attack upon Tsushima and Iki, adding
that the enemy slew all the males and carried off all the females in
the two islands, but were unsuccessful in their advance upon the Dazai
Fu. The enemy's general, Liu Fu-heng, was slain; the enemy numbered
thirty thousand. The slain officer was, perhaps, a relative of Liu
T'ung, who served again in China.
In the year 1275 two more envoys bearing Chinese names were sent with
letters to Japan, "but they also got no reply." The Japanese annals
confirm this, and add that "they came to discuss terms of peace, but
their envoy, Tu Shi-chung--whose name corresponds--was decapitated."
This is true, but he was not decapitated until 1280, and, as is well
known to competent students, Japanese history is always open to
suspicion when it conflicts with Chinese, and too often "touches up"
from Chinese.
In 1277 some merchants from Japan appeared in China with a quantity of
gold, which they desired to exchange for copper _cash_. The following
year the "coast authorities"--probably meaning at Ningpo and Wenchow,
where even now, as I found in 1884, immense quantities of old Japanese
copper cash are in daily use--were instructed to permit Japanese
trade. But preparations for war still went on, and the head-quarters
of the army were fixed at Liao-yang, where General Kuropatkin fixed
his more recently. Naval preparations were particularly active during
1279, and Corea was invited to make arrangements for boats to be built
in that country, where timber was so plentiful--evidently alluding to
the Russian "concessions" on the Yalu. Large numbers of ships were
also constructed in Central China. During this year a defeated Chinese
general in Mongol employ, named Fan Wen-hu, advised that the war
against Japan should be postponed "until the result of our mission,
accompanied by the Japanese priest carrying our letters, shall be
known." When this priest was appointed, by whom, and to do what, there
is nothing to show. To a certain extent this enigmatical sentence is
supported by the Japanese annals, which announce that "in the summer
of 1279 the Mongol generals Hia Kwei and Fan Wen-hu came and sent
_aides-de-camp_ to Dazai Fu to discuss peace, but Tokimune (the
regent) had them decapitated at Hakata in Chikuzen."
Hia Kwei was certainly another defeated Chinese general, but I do not
think he ever went to Japan. It is in the spring of 1280 that the
Chinese record the execution by the Japanese of "Tu Shi-chung," etc.
But it is quite evident that Fan Wen-hu cannot possibly have been
executed in 1279, for later on, in 1280, after Hung Ts'a-k'iu and
others had been appointed to the Japan expedition, "it was decided to
wait a little, and Fan Wen-hu was consulted as to the best means of
attack; meanwhile prisoners of war, criminals, Mussulmans, etc., were
enlisted, and volunteers were called for." It is difficult to account
for "Mussulmans" in such company, for the villanous "Saracen" Achmat
was just then at the height of his power. The King of Corea meanwhile
personally paid a visit to Peking, and gave the assurance that he was
raising thirty thousand extra soldiers to serve in the Japan war. Fan
Wen-hu was now placed in supreme command of one hundred thousand men.
"The King of Corea with ten thousand soldiers, fifteen thousand
sea-men, nine hundred war-ships, and one hundred and ten thousand
hundred-weight of grain, proceeded against Japan. Hung Ts'a-k'iu and
his colleagues were provided with weapons, Corean armor, jackets, etc.
The troops were given strict instructions not to harass the
inhabitants of Corea. Corean generals received high rank, and the King
was given extra honors."
In 1281 the generals Hung Ts'a-k'iu and Hintu (a Ouigour Turk) went in
command of a naval force of forty thousand men via "Kin Chouin Corea."
Another force of one hundred thousand men was sent across the sea from
modern Ningpo and Tinghai, the two forces arranging to meet at the
islands of Iki and Hirado.