Malleus Scotorum
Edward I. (1272-1307.)
Edward II. (1307-1327.)
The English fleet was speeding towards the coast of Tunis, to
which place the policy of Charles of Anjou had taken Louis IX.
Prince Edward was already rejoicing at the idea of going back to
his uncle, to gain instruction in Christian chivalry. But with
the land appearing in the horizon, when approaching the port, the
French vessels were seen in mourning, the flag being at
half-mast. A feeling of uneasiness spread through the fleet. A
little bark put out from shore; she came alongside the prince's
vessel. "The holy king is dead," said the sailors, and they burst
into tears. Prince Edward was in despair; he landed, but in
imagination seemed to be walking among ghosts. The French
soldiers, discouraged, sick, and disheartened, resolved to give
up an enterprise the commencement of which had been so
disastrous. The young King of France, Philip the Bold, urged
Prince Edward to return like himself to his country; but Edward
was inflexible. "I would go," said he, "even had I only with me
Torvac, my equerry." As far as Trapani, in Sicily, he accompanied
the funeral procession of King Philip, bearing the coffins of his
father and brother. When he reached France the unfortunate young
monarch had added to these the biers of his wife, his sister, and
his brother-in-law, the King of Navarre.
{239}
Prince Edward left Sicily in the spring of 1271, making sail
towards Acre, the only place which still remained in the hands of
the Christians. He commanded a small band of troops, and the
European knights who were in Palestine did not respond very
readily to his appeal. An attack on Nazareth, followed by the
massacre of the Mussulman garrison, and the repair of the walls
round Acre, was the result of the Seventh Crusade, when Edward
himself nearly fell a victim. He was in his camp, on the Friday
after Whit-Sunday, towards the time of vespers; overcome by the
heat, he was resting upon a couch, when a messenger from the Emir
of Jaffa presented himself at the door of the tent. He was in
frequent communication with the prince, and was, therefore,
allowed to enter. The Arab presented his papers; then, suddenly
drawing a dagger from his long sleeve, he stabbed the Prince in
the region of the heart. Edward sprang up from his couch, and,
knocking down the assassin, fractured his skull with a stool.
Then, repressing with a sign the violence of his attendants, who
had appeared on hearing the commotion, and who were mutilating
the assassin's body,--"Of what use is it," he asked, "to strike a
dead man?"
The prince's wound was slight, but the idea of poison presented
itself to everybody's mind. The Spanish legend relates that
Eleanor of Castile kneeled down before her husband, and, applying
her lips to the wound, sucked the poison from the wound. This
noble instance of conjugal love is disbelieved, however, by some
historians. An English surgeon was called, who commenced a cruel
operation.
{240}
Eleanor was very pale, and her brother-in-law dragged her out of
the tent. She struggled with him, weeping all the while. "It is
better that you should cry," he said abruptly, "than that all
England should be in mourning." Edward's wound was soon healed.
As soon as his wife had recovered, after the birth of a little
girl, called Joan of Acre, in token of her birthplace, the
English troops set sail again, promising themselves, as King
Richard had done, to come back to the Holy Land with larger
forces. But the ardor for the crusades had died out. Saint Louis
and Prince Edward of England were the last crusaders, and
eighteen years later, in 1291, the last remains of Christian
power in the East disappeared in its turn. Acre was retaken from
the Templars by the Sultan Keladeen. The Holy Sepulchre
thenceforth remained in the hands of the infidels.
Prince Edward passed through Italy and paid a visit at Rome to
Pope Gregory X., formerly Archdeacon of Liege, a friend of the
prince, and while with him received tidings of the death of the
king his father. The grief which this loss caused him was so
violent that Charles of Anjou was astonished; a throne would
readily have consoled him for the death of the weak Henry of
Winchester. "You lost two children," he remarked, "without
displaying as much grief." "The Lord who gave me my children, can
give me others," rejoined Edward; "but who can give me back a
father?"
The new king was in no hurry to return to his kingdom. He stayed
in Italy to obtain justice for the murder of Henry of Almagne;
but Simon of Montfort was already dead, and Guy was subjected
only to a term of imprisonment, but contrived to elude his
gaolers. Edward then proceeded to France to do homage for Guienne
to King Philip the Bold; he at the same time visited his
possessions, being apprehensive, no doubt, that some plot might
be on foot to deprive him of them.
{241}
On his return he was challenged to single combat in a tournament
by the Count of Ch√¢lons. Edward was warned by the Pope that that
nobleman sought his life. He was by nature distrustful, and when
he saw at Ch√¢lons a larger number of knights than he possessed
himself, his suspicions were aroused, and the tournament became a
battle. The English gained the victory; the Count of Ch√¢lons
himself was for a moment in danger; Edward compelling him to save
his life by surrendering to a mere man-at-arms.
On the 2nd of August, 1274, the King of England at length landed
at Dover, and on the 19th of the same month was crowned at
Westminster, to the great delight of the people. The nation was
proud of its young king, of his reputation for courage and
virtue, of his exploits and perils in the Holy Land. His reign
commenced under happy auspices. The Jews alone disliked the
accession of a prince so renowned for his austere piety and for
his zeal against the infidels. Their instinct had not deceived
them; Edward was always violently hostile to them, and one of the
first acts of his government, on his return from the crusade, was
to hang all the Jews who were in possession of sweated coin. More
than two hundred of them perished in London alone for this
offence, common among both the Jews and the Christians. It was
but the beginning of their grievances. Persecuted, plundered,
imprisoned, the unlucky Israelites were finally banished from the
country in 1290, and all the property which they were obliged to
leave behind them was confiscated.
While the king was hanging the Jews, he was also instituting a
commission instructed to inquire into the state of landed
property in the kingdom, in order to put to a test the
title-deeds of the Christians.
{242}
When proofs were wanting the king exacted a fine before granting
fresh letters patent; but this useful device was not always
practicable. When Earl Warren was called upon to produce his
documents, he drew his sword. "That is the title by which I hold
my lands," he said, "and that will suffice me to defend them. Our
fathers who came over with William the Bastard acquired the land
with their good lances; he did not conquer the country
unassisted; he was supported by others, and his supporters shared
the spoil with him." The earl's title deeds were deemed
sufficient.
The prosperity of England was great at this time; several years
of rest had allowed its commerce to develope itself. The king
respected the charters in all important particulars; his zealous
judicial administration had diminished the number of robbers who
infested the highways, and secured the integrity of the
magistrates; and in consequence he was popular among his
subjects. But this peaceful glory did not suffice for Edward I.
As ambitious as his ancestors, he had a desire to make conquests
in other quarters. Instead of looking with an envious eye on the
Continent, he had conceived the project of subjecting the whole
of Great Britain to his dominion. Scotland was far off, and he
could find no pretext for declaring war in that direction. Wales
had never recognized anything but a partial authority of the
kings of England, and the reigning prince, Llewellyn, had
neglected to do homage to Edward I. on his accession to the
throne. It was in this direction then that the king turned his
attention. He advanced towards the frontiers of Wales towards the
end of the year 1276. All attempts at negotiation failed, and
Llewellyn was declared a rebel in that part of the year when the
snow was beginning to cover the mountains. The war could not
possibly begin for several months.
[Image]
"That is the title by which I hold my lands."
{243}
Edward however, did not lose time. David, the younger brother of
Llewellyn, had been deprived by the latter of all his property;
the King of England conferred many favors upon him, and the
prince, out of gratitude, summoned all his partisans under the
standard of England. Hostilities began in the summer; Edward
entered the enemy's territory, while his fleet took possession of
the Isle of Anglesey, and, driving Llewellyn from castle to
castle, from retreat to retreat, he reduced him in a short time
to famine in the depths of the forests. The Welsh prince was
obliged to surrender, hard as were the conditions which were
imposed upon him. But Edward was generous, although severe; he
remitted his demands one by one, and ended by consenting to the
marriage of Llewellyn with Eleanor of Montfort, daughter of the
Earl of Leicester; she had for some time been affianced to him,
and had been captured at sea in the preceding year, when she was
proceeding to Wales. David had received a large gift of property.
Edward withdrew his armies, leaving in Wales only some soldiers
in the castles, and the Chief Justice, Roger Clifford, who was
entrusted with the government of the new conquest.
The King of England had not taken into account the patriotic
spirit which endeared their national independence to the Welsh
people. In vain had he raised David to the rank of earl; in vain
had he given him an English wife; as soon as the Welsh prince
found himself in his mountains again, he remembered only that his
country was formerly free and that he had contributed towards
reducing it to subjection. The civil and military measures
ordained by Edward were obnoxious to the people; the highways
which were opened up across forests, the executions of criminals
for crimes which had formerly been punished by fines, according
to the Welsh laws; the encroachments of the king's officers upon
the rights of the Welsh nobility; so many grievances easily
furnished pretexts for David's new resolve.
{244}
He persuaded his brother to break all his engagements with
Edward. An old prophecy of Merlin began to circulate again
throughout the mountains; it was to the effect that the Prince of
Wales would be crowned in London when the money in that town
should be round, and it was rumored in Wales that it was
forbidden to cut in halves the new coin which had recently been
struck in England, as had hitherto been the practice. The day of
victory seemed at length to have arrived.
It was on Palm Sunday, 1282; dark night had come on, and a
violent storm was raging in the forests. David suddenly attacked
Hawarden Castle, where the chief justicier resided. The latter
was seized in his bed, wounded, and dragged into the mountains.
All the country rose; Llewellyn joined his brother and laid siege
to the castles of Flint and Rhuddlam; the English settlers were
everywhere murdered. All Wales was up in arms when tidings of the
insurrection reached the king.
Edward pretended not to believe in the magnitude of the
rebellion; but he adopted active measures to repress it. He soon
arrived in the mountains; the autumn had come, the bad weather
was beginning, and the English suffered greatly from the
inclemency of the climate. A portion of the army who tried to
make use of the temporary bridge uniting the Isle of Anglesey to
the mainland, were attacked by the insurgents and completely
destroyed. Edward himself was several times obliged to retreat.
Llewellyn, emboldened by his success, entrusted David to defend
the defiles of the mountains, and marched to meet the king, who
had gathered large forces near Carmarthen. A detachment
encountered the Welsh prince in a farm where he had slept, and,
without knowing him, an English knight engaged in a combat with
him.
{245}
Llewellyn was killed; the struggle was then carried on between
the English and the Welsh who had come to join their prince. When
the dead were despoiled after the battle, Llewellyn was
recognized, and his head was sent to Edward in token of victory.
David still held his position in the mountains; at length he was
betrayed, delivered up to the English, and imprisoned in Durham
Castle with his wife and children. In the month of September,
1283, the English Parliament condemned him to death as guilty of
high treason, while Edward promised a new prince to the country
which he had just subdued. Queen Eleanor was at Carnarvon Castle,
waiting to be delivered of a child; she gave birth to a son on
the 25th of April, 1284. The child was immediately called Edward
Prince of Wales; and when he found himself heir presumptive to
the throne, by the death of his elder brother Alphonsus, his
title became the appanage of the eldest son of the King of
England, thus perpetuating the remembrance of the definitive
subjection of the Welsh people and the feeble consolation which
the conqueror had offered to them.
A few years of peace followed the conquest of Wales. The king had
been recalled on the Continent to serve as an arbitrator on the
claims of the houses of France, of Arragon, and of Anjou to the
crown of Sicily. His English subjects were clamoring for his
return, and they ended by refusing him the necessary subsidies.
The king then returned to England; but a great misfortune awaited
him; Queen Eleanor died on the 29th of November, 1292. With her
disappeared the softening influence which had modified the
haughty character and ambitious views of the king; and just at
this moment a great temptation offered itself to him.
{246}
The King of Scotland, Alexander III., had died in 1286, leaving
no other heir than his granddaughter Margaret, princess of
Norway. She was still a child, and her father had kept her for
some time past with him. She at length sailed for Scotland in
1290; but she died during the passage, and Scotland became a prey
to all the evils of a contested succession. Thirteen noblemen,
descendants of members of the royal family, set up claims to the
throne simultaneously; but two of them had prospects very much
better than those of any of the others: these were John Baliol
and Robert Bruce, grandson and son of two elder daughters of
David, earl of Huntingdon, the younger brother of King William
the Lion; but no one possessed claims sufficiently strong to
impress the people in their favor. The Scotch, troubled by the
prospect of anarchy without result, sent an embassy to King
Edward to ask him to act as arbitrator in this serious aspect of
affairs, and to decide who should be King of Scotland.
Edward received the deputation at Norham on the 10th of May,
1291, and from the first declared that, as liege lord of
Scotland, he would settle the question of the succession,
insisting, first of all, upon the recognition of his rights of
superiority by the pretenders. The Scotch people hesitated; they
asked for a delay. "By St. Edward, from whom I hold my crown,"
cried the King of England, "I will establish my just rights, or
perish in the attempt." And the assembly was adjourned until the
2nd of June following. Edward had convoked all the barons.
On the appointed day, eight claimants had met near Norham, in the
plain of Hollywell-Haugh, on the Scotch territory. When the
Chancellor of England asked the pretenders, among whom was Robert
Bruce, whether they were willing to abide by the decision of
Edward, king of England, as liege lord of Scotland, Bruce
recognized with out hesitation the rights of the powerful monarch
who could award the crown to him.
{247}
His rivals did likewise, and John Baliol, who arrived on the
morrow, was the more willing to compromise the safety of his
country as he believed he had secured the favor of Edward. The
chancellor had taken care to announce, in the name of his master,
that the right of the king as liege lord, which had just been
recognized, in no way affected the titles to property which he
might think proper to proclaim valid thereafter. On the 3rd of
June, a commission was appointed to examine the rights of the two
great pretenders, and the regents of Scotland consigned all the
royal castles to Edward, on condition that he should give them up
two months after the decision between Bruce and Baliol. On the
15th of the same month, the pretenders took the oath of
allegiance to Edward, as did also a great number of Scotch
barons, and peace was proclaimed in his name, as liege lord of
Scotland. The first step in the path of dependence had been made.
The second act of the drama was enacted at Berwick Castle, on the
17th of November, 1292. There King Edward, having made a scrutiny
of the rights of all the pretenders, and having consulted the
Parliament of Scotland, at length declared that the grandson of
the elder daughter had a prior claim to that of the son of the
younger daughter, thus deciding in favor of Baliol to the
exclusion of Bruce. On the 19th the governors of the castles
received instructions to give up their keys to the new king, and
on the morrow Baliol swore fidelity to Edward at Norham. Having
been crowned on the 30th at Scone, he proceeded to England,
whither King Edward had been called in consequence of the illness
and death of Eleanor of Castile; the new king did homage for the
kingdom of Scotland on the 26th of November, at Newcastle. The
King of England again reserved his rights of property.
{248}
While Edward was laboring to subject the Scotch people, King
Philip the Fair was secretly plotting with the intention of
driving the English from the French soil and depriving them of
Aquitaine. An encounter had taken place between the English and
Norman sailors on the coast of Guienne; the merchantmen of the
two countries taking sides warmly, had been engaged in several
fights with each other. The King of France seized the
opportunity, some outrages having been committed on his subjects,
to summon King Edward to appear at his court, as Duke of
Aquitaine, in order to answer before his peers for the offences
committed against his liege lord. Edward sent his brother Edmund,
who weakly consented to satisfy the feudal honor of King Philip
by placing in the hands of the French officers the duchy of
Gascony for a period of forty days. The conditions were agreed
to. The question was not one of territorial aggrandisement but of
reparation. The English prince waited for forty days. This period
of time having elapsed, he came to claim the restoration of his
domains; the King of France laughed, and declared that the Duke
of Aquitaine had forfeited his rights as a vassal by not
presenting himself personally before his liege lord. The grand
constable was at once sent to all the towns and castles belonging
to King Edward; a large number of them opened their gates to him;
the duchy of Aquitaine was returning, it was said, to the crown.
Edward I., however, had commenced his preparations for reclaiming
his provinces by force of arms. The English ships were about to
weigh anchor, when a violent insurrection broke out in Wales. The
king despatched a little body of troops into Gascony, sent his
fleet to hover round the coasts and seize all the French ships
which might come in their way, and despatched the greater portion
of his forces to Wales.
{249}
In spite of the winter, the snow, the mountains, the impenetrable
forests, and the obstinacy of the insurgents, Edward pursued his
enemies in all directions, and contrived to subdue them. Madoc,
the ringleader, laid down his arms; the most intractable chiefs
were sentenced to be imprisoned for life, and the king,
triumphant, left Wales to embark for France. The Scotch did not
allow him time, however, to accomplish his intention.
Since Edward had placed the feeble Baliol upon the throne of
Scotland, he had spared him no humiliation. Every time that a
petitioner, dissatisfied with the justice of the King of
Scotland, thought proper to appeal to the liege lord, Edward
would summon Baliol to appear at his court to render an account
of his judgment, and this summons was repeated four times during
the first year of his reign. At length, in 1293, in the matter of
a complaint of the Earl of Fife, Baliol, who was tired of these
proceedings, declared that the question concerned his subjects,
and that he could not reply to the appeal without consulting his
people. "What!" cried Edward; "you are my vassal, you have done
homage to me, and it is to answer to me for your acts that you
are here." Baliol persisted; the English Parliament condemned his
conduct, and King Edward only consented to retard by some months
the pronouncing of the sentence. In the interval, the difficulty
about Guienne occurred, and King Edward, occupied with his
struggles against his own liege lord, soon learnt that his
vassal, the King of Scotland, led on by the national movement in
his country, had contracted with King Philip an alliance cemented
by a promise of marriage between his young son Edward and Jane of
Valois, niece of the King of France.
{250}
A short time before, the Parliament of Scotland had decided on
sending back all the Englishmen employed at the court and formed
a council consisting of four earls, four bishops, and four
barons, who were entrusted with the management of the affairs of
the kingdom. Baliol was held by his subjects in a kind of
captivity.
The suspicions which King Edward had conceived, and which had
kept him in England, while he sent his brother into Guienne, were
soon justified. The Scotch invaded the county of Cumberland with
a large army, but were easily repulsed. Edward soon advanced
towards the frontier, marching first of all against Berwick. He
attacked the town by land and sea, and all resistance was
useless. The king, mounted upon his horse Bayard, was the first
to spring across the dyke which protected the town. A fearful
massacre took place; neither age nor sex excited any pity. It was
on the 30th of March, 1296. On the 5th of April, the abbot of
Arbroath presented himself at the English camp; he brought
Baliol's renunciation of all homage towards the King of England.
Edward had a short time before addressed a similar communication
to Philip, king of France; but this coincidence did not appease
his anger. "Ah! then the scoundrel has dared to defy me!" he
cried; "if he will not come to us, we will go to him." And he
marched forward, taking possession on his way of the castles
which resisted him. Dunbar, Roxburgh, Dunbarton, Jedburgh,
Edinburgh, Stirling, had already fallen into Edward's hands, when
a fresh message from Baliol was brought to him. He humbly begged
for peace. The king did not do his revolted vassal the honor of
treating him as a sovereign and of negotiating personally with
him; he ordered Baliol to proceed to the castle of Brechin, to
which place he despatched the Bishop of Durham.
{251}
A few days later, on the 7th of June, 1296, Baliol, deprived of
all his regal insignia, with a white rod in his hand, presented
himself at the cemetery of Strathkathro, in the county of Angus,
acknowledging that he had violated all his obligations towards
his liege lord, who had very justly invaded his fief. After this
act of self-abasement and renunciation, tired, he said, of the
malice and ingratitude of men, he was sent to the Tower in
honorable captivity, and subsequently ended his life in his
domains of Normandy, forgotten or despised by all.
Robert Bruce at once claimed the crown. "Do you think that I have
nothing else to do but to conquer kingdoms for you?" King Edward
harshly replied; and he marched towards the north, receiving
everywhere the homage of the Scotch nobility. He had convened a
Parliament at Berwick; he proceeded there on the 28th of August,
in order to arrange the government of his new acquisition. He
displayed on this occasion great prudence and moderation; he
returned to the Church all property which had been confiscated
from it, and left the inferior offices in the hands of the
functionaries who occupied them; but the guardianship of the
castles was confided to the English. Warren, earl of Surrey, was
nominated governor; Hugh de Cressingham, treasurer; and William
Ormesby, chief justicier. Scotland was treated as a conquered
country. King Edward now thought himself at leisure to devote his
attention to his affairs in France and to prepare to cross the
Channel.
The allies of England upon the Continent were in urgent need of
his help. The Earl of Bar, the son-in-law of Edward, had been
defeated and made a prisoner in an attempt against Champagne, and
his wife, being unable to regain her liberty, had died of grief.
{252}
Guy, count of Flanders, had been attracted to Paris under false
pretences, together with his wife and his daughter Philippa, who
was affianced to Prince Edward of England; all three had been
thrown into prison, and, although the count succeeded in buying
his freedom, he had been compelled to leave his daughter in the
hands of Philip the Fair, who denied the right of vassals to give
their daughters in marriage without the authority of their lord.
King Edward would have had great difficulty in helping his
foreign allies, for he was engaged in a struggle against his
English subjects. The conquest of the countries of Wales and
Scotland had required great efforts, and the nation had borne its
heavy burdens without murmuring. In 1295, however, on a demand of
the king, who required one-half of their revenues, the clergy
appealed to Pope Boniface VIII., who issued a bull in their
favor. But the ecclesiastical thunders had begun to lose their
terrors; Edward had seized upon the property of the clergy, and
the bishops had ended by giving in. The merchants and citizens
were more obstinate than the priests, and when the king, in 1297,
conceived the idea of imposing an enormous tax upon every bale of
wool, making at the same time large requisitions for grain, the
complaints became loud. From remonstrance, the people had arrived
at overt resistance, when the king seized at all the ports the
wool and skins intended for exportation, and sold them for his
own benefit. The merchants met together, protested against this
"evil toll," as they called it, and declared that the Magna
Charta ordered that the English people were not to be taxed
without their own consent. A certain number of powerful noblemen
supported the citizens in this movement.
{253}
King Edward had raised two armies: one was to march to Guienne,
and the other to Flanders, to help the Count Guy, who was anxious
to avenge his injuries on King Philip. Edmund, King Edward's
brother, had died in Guienne. The king himself reckoned upon
commanding the expedition in Flanders. He summoned to Salisbury
Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford and constable of England, and
Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk, field-marshal, to entrust to them
the command of the army of Guienne. Both replied that their
offices compelled them to remain near the king's person during
the war, and that they would not proceed to Guienne without him.
"By the Lord God Almighty, my lord earl!" cried Edward,
addressing himself to Bigod, "You shall go, or you shall be
hanged." "By the Lord God Almighty, Sire king," replied the proud
baron, calmly, "I shall not go, neither shall I be hanged." And
both retired to their estates, immediately followed by thirty
bannerets and by fifteen hundred knights, who everywhere created
an opposition to the levying of the taxes.
The king was in an awkward position. He convoked in London a
popular assembly, having taken care first of all to become
reconciled with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Winchelsea, who had
been the prime mover in the resistance of the clergy, and had
found himself deprived of all his revenues in consequence; then,
accompanied by the prelate, the Earl of Warwick, and Prince
Edward, the king appealed directly to the people, assuring them
that nothing was more disagreeable to him than to impose heavy
burdens upon his well-beloved subjects; but that he had been
compelled to do so in order to defend them against the Scotch,
the Welsh, and the French. "I am now going to expose myself for
you to the risks of war," said he; "if I return alive, I will
repay you for everything; if I should die, there is my son: place
him upon the throne, and his gratitude will reward your
fidelity." The king was weeping, and all those who were present
were profoundly touched.
{254}
Prince Edward was declared regent amid public acclamation; the
Archbishop of Canterbury was nominated as his adviser, and the
king marched towards the coast. He had only arrived at
Winchester, when he was stopped, on the 12th of August, by a
remonstrance from the prelates, the earls, the barons, and the
commoners of England, declaring that they were not obliged to
accompany him into Flanders, their ancestors not having served
the kings of England in that country; and they added that, even
were they so disposed, the poverty to which they had been reduced
did not allow them to do so. "The king," they said, "had already
violated on several occasions the charters which he had solemnly
ratified; his 'evil toll' was intolerable, and his absence was
about to leave the country a prey to the invasions of the Scotch
and the Welsh." The king made an evasive reply to this
declaration; reckoning upon the affection of the common people,
he made sail with the troops who remained with him, and
disembarked at Sluys towards the end of August.
Scarcely had Edward left the coasts of England when Bigod and
Bohun entered London, on the 24th of August, at the head of
considerable forces. The strictest discipline prevailed in the
ranks of their followers. They went straight to the treasury, and
deposited their complaints against the arbitrary exactions and
the violations of Magna Charta committed by the king; then,
proceeding to Guildhall, they exhorted the citizens of London to
maintain their rights. The young regent, being alarmed, convoked
a Parliament, which abolished the impost upon wool, and decreed
that no tax whatever should in future be raised without the
consent of the bishops, peers, citizens, and freemen of the
kingdom, and that the king should not seize upon any goods
without the authority of the owners.
{255}
Orders were sent out to read the Magna Charta in all the churches
once a year, under pain of excommunication against those who
should endeavor to prevent it. This law was to be proclaimed
every Sunday in all the churches.
The act, signed in London, was sent to Ghent, where King Edward
was at the time. They demanded that it should be ratified. The
barons undertook to join the king in Flanders, or to march
against Scotland, where the people had again risen, according to
his pleasure. During three days, the pride of King Edward
resisted; at length he signed the document, promising himself to
make all his concessions void afterwards. As soon as they were
secure in their victory, the barons set out for Scotland.
Edward needed the support and good will of his English subjects,
for he had gained but little success in Flanders. After having
with difficulty quelled the violent rivalries which had occurred
in his fleet between the sailors of the different ports, he had
found a great number of Flemish towns occupied by the French,
supported by a party powerful in the country itself. The Count
Guy had again fallen into the hands of the King of France. The
Flemish and English would often engage in struggles against each
other, after having fought together against the French; Edward's
foreign allies, the Emperor, the Duke of Austria, and the Duke of
Brabant, sent no help, believing they had done their share in
receiving the subsidies of England. King Edward listened to the
overtures of Pope Boniface VIII., who was endeavoring to
re-establish peace. He left Guy of Flanders in prison, where the
latter, as well as his daughter, afterwards died. He affianced
his son Edward to Isabel of France, thus laying the foundation of
the misfortune of his lifetime, and himself married Princess
Margaret, who was then seventeen years of age, contenting himself
with recovering Aquitaine, while Guienne still remained in the
hands of Philip the Fair.
{256}
Peace being thus concluded, Edward started on his return to his
kingdom, where the position of affairs imperatively required his
presence.
The great Scotch noblemen had taken the oath of allegiance to the
King of England, but the less powerful ones had not had the honor
of accomplishing that act of submission. Sir Malcolm Wallace, of
Ellerslie, had not taken the oath, nor had his second son,
William Wallace, who was already outlawed for the murder of an
English soldier in consequence of a dispute. He had lived since
then in the mountains; but, having one day appeared at the market
in Lanark, he was insulted by an Englishman, whom he killed. He
found a friendly shelter, and contrived to escape; but the house
which had protected him was burnt, and the mistress of it lost
her life. Wallace swore to wreak a terrible revenge upon the
English.
Soon, all the adventurers, outlaws, and bold spirits, weary of
subjection, rallied round Wallace. At the moment when King Edward
started for Flanders, the Scottish leader had already become a
dangerous partisan, attacking the English when he met them in
small numbers, and plundering the country under their authority.
His forces were increasing in number; many noblemen had joined
him, and were raising their standards in favor of John, king of
Scotland. A certain number of powerful noblemen followed them.
Robert Bruce himself, grandson of him who had contested the crown
against Baliol, had come over to the national party. "The Pope
will absolve me from all the oaths which I have involuntarily
sworn in favor of King Edward," said the future deliverer of
Scotland. The Earl of Surrey was raising forces in the southern
part of the kingdom.
{257}
When the two armies came in sight of each other, near the town of
Irvine, in the county of Ayr, they were about equal in numbers;
but the English troops were well drilled and obedient to a single
general; Wallace's army was disorderly, divided, led by rival
chiefs, and little disposed to admit the superiority of an outlaw
of low origin. No encounter took place. On the 9th of July, the
great Scotch noblemen laid down their arms and tendered their
submission to King Edward. One baron alone. Sir Andrew Moray of
Bothwell, remained faithful to the national party; but Wallace
took with him a large number of vassals of the noblemen who had
surrendered, and his raids upon the territory occupied by the
English became bolder and bolder every day.
Stirling was seriously threatened by the insurgents, when the
Earls of Surrey and Cressingham advanced with large forces. The
two parties occupied the opposite banks of the Forth; Wallace's
position was excellent, and he was offered terms. "Tell your
masters," he replied to the envoy, "that we are not here to
parley, but to assert our rights and to deliver Scotland. Let
them advance, we are ready." The English hesitated. Surrey deemed
the attack dangerous, but Cressingham, like a true financier, was
complaining loudly of the ravages made upon the king's treasury
by an army which did not fight, and the general yielded. At
daybreak, on the 11th of September, 1297, the English army began
marching across the bridge. It was narrow, and the soldiers
passed over it slowly. When one portion of the army had crossed,
Wallace caused the bridge to be occupied by a detachment, and he
attacked the English, who had not yet had time to form in order
of battle. The slaughter was fearful. Among the dead bodies was
found Cressingham, who was odious to the Scotch by reason of the
severity of his administration.
{258}
His savage enemies flayed him, in order to preserve his skin in
remembrance of their revenge. Surrey retreated with the remainder
of his forces. But Wallace's success had delivered Scotland for
the time being; the castles were surrendering in every direction;
the popular champion entered Northumberland and pillaged the
English territory, while famine kept him away from Scotland. When
he reappeared in his country, laden with plunder, an assembly of
noblemen awarded to him the title of governor of the kingdom and
commander-in-chief of King John's forces. Baliol, still
imprisoned in England, smiled bitterly at this use of his name.
Meanwhile, King Edward had recrossed the sea, and his orders for
the levying of a large army had preceded him. In the eyes of the
conqueror of Scotland the insurrection led by Wallace was a
rebellion, not a patriotic movement. Scarcely had he set foot in
England than he marched towards the North. Having halted for a
while at York, where he was to have convened a Parliament, the
barons who had formerly placed themselves at the head of the
popular resistance came and met him to demand the ratification of
the concessions granted at Ghent. "By and by," cried Edward; "I
have no leisure time just now; I must first of all reduce the
Scotch rebels to obedience." And he swore before three bishops
that he would occupy himself with the liberties of his English
subjects when he should have riveted the chains of his Scottish
subjects. Bigod and Bohun were satisfied with this promise, and
followed him into Scotland.
The king's vessels were delayed. He was detained between
Edinburgh and Linlithgow, when an insurrection broke out in his
camp. The Welsh troops threatened to leave him and to go over to
the Scotch. "I care little," said Edward, "if my enemies join my
enemies; I will punish them all in one day."
{259}
The provisions began to run short, and a retreat was spoken of,
when the Bishop of Durham was warned, on the 10th of July, 1298,
that the Scotch army was encamped in the forest of Falkirk, and
was preparing to attack the English troops. "Glory be to God,"
cried Edward. "He has delivered me up to the present from all
dangers. They need not follow me, for I will go to them." And,
raising his camp, he marched against the Scotch troops. It is
related that, during the night before the battle, being asleep by
the side of his horse, the king had two ribs broken by a kick
from the animal. This circumstance created a profound sensation
throughout the army; it was said that the king was dying through
some treachery. Edward donned his armor, mounted his horse, and
continued the march. The Scotch army was at length in sight. In
front of them was a marsh, and the archers and pikemen were
protected by a palisade. When Wallace saw the lances of the enemy
glistening in the sun, he called out to his men, "I have led you
to the dance, now hop if you can." The Scottish infantry
valiantly withstood the shock of the two army corps led by Bigod,
Bohun, and the bellicose Bishop of Durham, but the cavalry were
terrified on seeing the superior forces of the English, and fled
in confusion. The pikemen and archers began to give way; the
palisades were trampled down, and the victory was complete. The
field of the battle of Falkirk was strewn with the corpses of the
Scottish soldiers, when Wallace contrived to fall back upon
Stirling with the remainder of his army. The English followed him
there; but they found the town burnt. Wallace had disappeared.
King Edward was desolating the country by fire and sword; the
inhabitants of the towns were flying at his approach; St.
Andrew's was deserted when the king set fire to it.
{260}
The citizens of Perth burnt their own town. Provisions were now
scarce; Edward was obliged to retreat towards the end of
September, 1298, leaving all the north of Scotland in the hands
of the patriots, who had just constituted a council of the
regency, at the head of which was John Comyn. Scarcely had the
king crossed the frontier when his enemies threatened Stirling
Castle.
Other troubles awaited Edward in England; he had convoked the
Parliament at Westminster for the month of March, 1299; the
barons claimed the fulfilment of his promises, and the
ratification of the new liberties added by them to the Magna
Charta. The king still delayed, denying the validity of a
confirmation made in a foreign country; he experienced, he said,
displeasure at finding himself thus pressed to grant a favor
against his inclination. The barons, however, insisting, the king
left London, almost secretly, and went into the country under
pretence of being indisposed; the barons followed him there,
renewing their demands. At length the king, wearied of this, sent
to the Parliament the required ratification; but, with a puerile
want of good faith, he added to the concessions so hardly won
this little sentence: "Saving the rights of the crown." The
barons, indignant, left London in their turn, but to prepare for
resistance. The king still reckoned upon the devotion of the
people of the city; he ordered the sheriffs to cause the charter
to be read at the cross of St. Paul's; an immense crowd was
assembled, hailing with applause each of the clauses which
guaranteed the rights of the people; but when the reader came to
the phrase, "Saving the rights of the crown," his voice was
drowned by whistling, shouting, and loud menaces.
{261}
Edward was too shrewd and sagacious to resist the will of the
people when expressed in such an unmistakable manner; he convened
a fresh Parliament, solemnly ratified all the concessions,
without mentioning the rights of the crown, and nominated a
commission of three bishops, three earls, and three barons, to
prepare a charter limiting the royal forests, which had hitherto
been extended at times into private property. This charter was
ratified in the year 1300. Bohun had just died; but Bigod was
still alive, and the victory was definitively assured to the
Barons, in spite of the efforts which the king was still making
to deliver himself from a yoke which was insupportable to his
haughty character and his ambitious projects.
The marriage of King Edward with Margaret of France had taken
place, as had also his son's betrothal to Isabel (September,
1299), and two little incursions into Scotland had produced no
other result than an intervention on the part of Pope Boniface
VIII. in favor of the Scotch, by virtue of the rights which he
claimed over that kingdom. Although haughtily refusing to
recognize this strange pretension, the King of England had three
times granted a truce to the insurgents. The third had just
expired, when the treaty of Montreuil, made between England and
France on the 30th of May, 1303, gave up Guienne to Edward, who
abandoned his Flemish allies as Philip the Fair did his Scottish
allies. Freed from care on the score of continental affairs,
Edward, on the day following the ratification of the treaty,
marched into Scotland. He was already at Edinburgh on the 4th of
June, and his progress across the northern counties resembled a
triumphal march; all the fortresses opened their gates; Buchan
Castle alone remained closed. While the English were attacking,
Sir Thomas Maule, the governor, was marching up and down the
ramparts, with a handkerchief in his hand, wiping off the dust
raised by the battering-rams. On the twentieth day of the siege
he was struck with an arrow, and, when dying, stigmatized the
soldiers as cowards, who were asking permission of him to
surrender.
{262}
Scarcely had the valiant champion breathed his last when his
castle was given up to the English forces. The king established
himself in winter quarters in the abbey of Dunfermline, and it
was there that the Scotch barons came to negotiate for peace;
each one had drawn up his own conditions. Wallace had disappeared
since the battle of Falkirk; the noblemen had supplanted him in
the government of the country, which he had delivered without
their aid. The king caused a proclamation to be made that the
outlaw should surrender at discretion. Wallace, however, took no
notice, but remained in the mountains. The Castle of Stirling now
alone offered any resistance, in spite of the injunctions of the
Scottish Parliament assembled by Edward. Sir William Oliphant,
who commanded it, was compelled to surrender on the 26th of July,
1304.
A last blow was about to strike the patriotic party in Scotland.
Wallace, betrayed by his friend Monteith, was delivered into the
hands of the English in the month of August, 1305. King Edward
had not the generosity to pardon the proud patriot who had so
long resisted him. Wallace had broken no oath; he had never sworn
allegiance to King Edward, and he had fought for the independence
of his country, but he was nevertheless condemned to suffer a
traitor's death. He was executed at Smithfield, on the 23rd of
August, and the portions of his dismembered body were sent to
different towns in Scotland, where, however, the people were more
inclined to treat them as sacred relics than to consider them as
emblems of disgrace. Wallace had kindled a fire which was not
destined to die out, and it was in vain that Edward had thought
to stifle it by severe punishment.
[Image]
Bruce Warned By Gilbert De Clare.
{263}
Scarcely had the government of Scotland been constituted by a
commission of prelates and Scottish barons, pursuing their labors
in London in conjunction with the English members of Parliament,
when a fresh insurrection broke out in Scotland. A new chief
presented himself for the cause of independence, one who was
destined to achieve the task begun by Wallace; it was Robert
Bruce, Earl of Carrick.
For a long time Bruce had vacillated between the two parties;
having been engaged during his youth in the service of Edward by
his father, he had sworn allegiance, then violated his oath, but
finally determined to observe his old professions. After the fall
of Baliol, he had proposed to Comyn, surnamed the Red, a powerful
Scottish lord, and one of his neighbors, that whichever of the
two should establish his claim to the crown should bequeath the
kingdom to the other as an indemnity. Comyn had pretended to
accept the bargain, but had secretly warned Edward of the
conspiracy. Bruce, who was in England, was about to be arrested,
in spite of his kinship to the royal family (he had married Joan
of Valence, Edward's cousin), when Gilbert de Clare sent a pair
of spurs to him by a messenger. Bruce took the hint and
immediately mounted his horse; he did not know what danger
threatened him, or who had betrayed him, yet he was careful to
conceal his traces. Meeting with a servant of Comyn, who was
carrying fresh communications to Edward, he seized the missives
and assured himself of Comyn's treachery, then hastened back to
Scotland. A few days later, on the 10th of February, 1306, these
two enemies met at Dumfries, and Bruce called Comyn into a chapel
of the Minorites, in order to demand an explanation of his
conduct. They were alone; the dispute became furious. Bruce drew
his dagger and struck Comyn, who fell upon the steps of the high
altar. Pale and agitated, Bruce left the chapel hurriedly; his
haggard appearance struck his friends who were in attendance upon
him.
{264}
"What have you done?" Fitz-Patrick of Colesburn asked him. "I
think I have killed Comyn." "You think?" cried Fitz-Patrick,
"then I will make sure of it." And, re-entering the holy place,
he struck the wounded man another blow; killed the latter's
uncle, Sir Robert Comyn, who tried to defend his nephew, and
returned to Bruce. The little band hurried away at a gallop.
Bruce had only one course before him now; he was henceforth an
outlaw, and the boldest action became necessary. But the fire was
smouldering in all the noble hearts of Scotland. As soon as Bruce
raised the standard of independence, some priests and lords
gathered round him and boldly crowned him at Scone. On the day of
the Annunciation (1306) Scotland had a king; Edward I. heard of
it at Winchester a few days later.
In the eyes of the King of England Bruce was a rebel, and was,
moreover, a man who must be punished for having committed
sacrilege; he sent a small army into Scotland under the command
of the Earl of Pembroke, and, tired and sick as he was, began to
make extensive preparations for marching personally against the
insurgents. Prince Edward, his son, was twenty-two years of age,
and had not yet been knighted. On the 23rd of May, during
Whitsuntide, the young man, having received his spurs from the
hands of his father, conferred the same distinction upon two
hundred and seventy young lords, companions of his pleasures, who
were about to become his comrades in arms. All the company then
met at a magnificent banquet; a golden filet was brought upon a
table, containing two swans, emblems of constancy and fidelity;
then the king, placing his hand upon their heads, swore to avenge
the death of Comyn and to punish the rebels of Scotland, without
sleeping for two nights in the same place, and to start
immediately afterwards for Palestine in order to rescue the Holy
Sepulchre.
{265}
The young men swore the same oath as the king, and the latter
made them promise if he should die during the war in Scotland,
not to bury his body until the conquest should have been
achieved. The prince immediately afterwards started for the
frontiers with his companions. The king followed less rapidly, as
he could only travel upon a litter.
Meanwhile Bruce's forces had increased rapidly; the
malcontents--and they were very numerous--were beginning to
declare themselves and to rally round the new king. When the Earl
of Pembroke arrived in Scotland, the insurgents were in high
spirits; but a battle was fought on the 19th of June, near the
woods of Methven, which destroyed their illusions; many Scots
were killed, the prisoners were put to death, and Bruce retired
into the mountains of Athol with five hundred men. Too ill to
proceed further, King Edward had been obliged to stop at
Carlisle, but he was directing all the operations of his troops,
and ordering the execution of the prisoners, thus bearing witness
to his deep-rooted resentment against Scotland. Bruce was leading
the life of a roaming knight in the forests, hunting and fishing,
accompanied only by a few faithful friends; his wife, his two
sisters, and the Countess of Buchan shared with him his
adventurous existence, which the fine weather rendered tolerable,
even in Scotland.
Meanwhile, winter was coming on, and it became necessary to seek
more civilized quarters. Bruce's little band was attacked by Lord
de Lorn, a relation of Comyn's, and a mortal enemy of Bruce. The
King of Scotland's companions were falling under the battle-axes
of Lochaber, when he sounded the retreat, and, clad in armor and
mounted upon a good war-horse, took up his position in a defile,
and defended the approach single-handed.
{266}
Lorn's mountaineers hesitated, being terrified at the immovable
countenance, the long sword always on guard, and the bright eyes
glistening under the helmet; at length three men, a father and
two sons, named Mac-Androsser, famous in their clan for their
strength and courage, sprang forward together upon the royal
champion; one seized the bridle of the horse, and his arm fell at
his side, his hand being severed; another fastened himself to the
leg of the horseman: the horse pranced about, and the unhappy
warrior had his head split open by a sword-stroke. The father,
who was more skilful, as well as maddened at the fate of his
sons, clutched the king's cloak; he was still holding it after
his death, and Bruce was compelled to leave in the hands of the
corpse this token of the desperate struggle. The king had
retreated without being wounded, but it was necessary to place
his wife and sisters in safety, and the castle of Keldrummie
afforded them a shelter, while Bruce took refuge in the Hebrides.
The separation was doomed to be a sad and long one, for the
castle was taken, and Nigel Bruce, Robert's younger brother, was
cruelly put to death. The Queen of Scotland was sent to England,
and Bruce's sisters-in-law, shut up in wooden cages, were exposed
to the public sight of Berwick and Roxburgh. Every time that any
of the adherents of Bruce fell into the hands of the English
troops they were put to death; the king himself, who was now
excommunicated and proscribed, had taken refuge in the little
island of Rachrin. His retreat was unknown to his enemies, and a
reward was offered in Scotland to whoever would give news of
Robert Bruce, who was "lost, stolen, or strayed."
{267}
It was in the spring of 1307, that Bruce suddenly reappeared,
supported by some ships which had been lent to him by Christiana,
Lady of the Isles. Deceived by a false indication, he attacked
Henry Percy, to whom King Edward had recently given the castle of
Carrick, Bruce's own property; and, taking his enemies by
surprise, he defeated them, caused great slaughter, and returned
in triumph to the castle, which however he could not hold for any
length of time, surrounded as he was on all sides, not only by
the English forces, but by his personal enemies, and all the
family of Comyn.
The capture of Carrick Castle was nevertheless Robert's first
step upon the ladder of fortune; but yesterday a fugitive, he was
now rejoined by his scattered supporters: after his success,
warriors who had previously been undecided, embraced the cause of
Bruce, whose forces became so formidable, that Edward, who was
furious, resolved to leave Carlisle to march in person against
the rebels. He caused his litter to be hung up in York cathedral
in memory of his sickness, and was about to mount his horse when
he heard that the Earl of Pembroke had been defeated on the 10th
of May by Bruce at Loudon Hill; the rage of the king lent him
strength for awhile; he started out for Carlisle at the head of a
large corps; but the journey was cut short, and he was obliged to
stop. When not more than three leagues from Carlisle, death came
and chilled the proud heart and the indomitable spirit, once
animated by the noblest and most chivalrous desires, but for
several years absorbed in ambitious projects and cruel schemes of
revenge. His last words were a recommendation to his son to
finish the task which had been begun, to be good to his young
brothers, and to maintain three hundred knights in the Holy Land.
When he was buried at Westminster an inscription was placed upon
his tomb, covered by a block of stone brought from Palestine:--
Eduardus Primus.
Edward I.
Malleus Scotorum.
The Scourge of the Scots,
1307 Pactum Serva.
1307 Keep the Covenant.
{268}
Among the sovereigns who had governed England, very few had held
the power with a firmer hand than Edward I.; very few, however,
saw the foundation of more liberties. In vain, in 1307, when the
king had thought the conquest of Scotland assured, had he hoped
to effect his deliverance from the yoke which his people had
imposed upon him; in vain had he obtained from the Pope a bull on
the 4th of January, 1305, which relieved him of his oaths and
annulled the charters which he had ratified, forbidding any one,
under pain of excommunication, to claim their fulfilment; in
vain, Bohun being dead, had Edward's threats succeeded in
intimidating old Bigod and his faithful ally, the Archbishop of
Canterbury; the attitude taken by the entire nation had caused
the king to hesitate, and he had not yet made public the Papal
bull, when the insurrection in Scotland absorbed all his
attention and necessitated the assistance of Parliament. The
liberties acquired by the barons now had a durable guarantee; the
great lords were not obliged to resort incessantly to arms.
Parliaments having been instituted. We have seen the deputies of
the towns summoned to Parliament for the first time by the Earl
of Leicester. Under King Edward I. the barons began to hold their
deliberations privately, and the knights from the shires and the
deputies from the towns who were summoned less frequently, formed
a second chamber. From this time dates the origin of the House of
Lords and the House of Commons. The most complete Parliament
which had yet sat, was that of 1295, convened by King Edward
before his campaign in Flanders: an Ecclesiastical Parliament had
been convoked at the same time. The subsidies which were then
granted, and which the king endeavored to increase by acts of
extortion, were the cause of the opposition of Bigod and Bohun.
{269}
At the death of Edward, the charters had been so firmly
established in England, that no monarch dreamt of disturbing them
again, until the unhappy days of Charles I. The liberties of the
nation were assured by the frequent meeting of the Parliaments,
their faithful and natural guardians. The constitution of England
was founded.
The burdensome inheritance left by the king who had just died
fell into hands too feeble to support it. Edward II. was
twenty-three years of age when he succeeded his father; the
latter had had six sons, of whom three only survived him; the
young king had already shown signs of frivolity and obstinacy
which augured the misfortunes of his reign. Brought up from
childhood with a young Aquitanian, Piers Gaveston, he had
conceived for this companion so strong an affection, that the
king, his father, had been alarmed thereat, and had on several
occasions banished the young favorite. At the death of Edward I.
Gaveston was in exile; but at the news of the accession of his
young master, he hastened to him, and the first act of the king
was to confer upon him the Earldom of Cornwall, which had
previously been deemed a position sufficiently conspicuous for
princes of the royal blood. Edward did not content himself with
this; while he was pretending to carry on a campaign in Scotland,
the great officers of the crown were changed; the Lord Treasurer,
the Bishop of Lichfield, was even deprived of his property and
cast into prison. In spite of the oath which the old king had
exacted from his son, the latter had returned to London to inter
his father, leaving Bruce free to pursue his successes. Gaveston,
who had lately married Margaret, a niece of the king, was
nominated regent of the kingdom in the month of January, 1308, by
the king, who went over to France to marry the Princess Isabel,
according to Froissart, one of the most beautiful women in the
world.
{270}
King Philip the Fair had just caused the dissolution of the order
of Templars in France, an iniquitous proceeding, inspired rather
by the prince's greed than by the offences of the order. Philip
thereby obtained for the King of England the dowry promised to
the latter, and persuaded him, without great difficulty, to
withhold his protection from the Templars established in England.
A short time afterwards they were prosecuted. Edward set sail on
the 7th of February to return to England; he was accompanied by a
numerous suite of French noblemen, at the head of whom were two
uncles of the Queen. Gaveston came to meet the king, and as soon
as Edward perceived him, forgetting his young wife and his noble
followers, he threw himself into the arms of the favorite,
embracing him and calling him brother, to the great indignation
of Isabel and all the beholders. Their indignation was increased
when they saw Gaveston decked out with all the jewels which the
King of France had recently given Edward. The discontent reached
its height, when, at the ceremony of the coronation, which took
place with great splendor on the 14th of February, Piers
Gaveston, as the people persisted in calling him, in spite of his
elevation to the Earldom of Cornwall, was entrusted with the task
of carrying before the king the crown of St. Edward, to the
exclusion of the highest noblemen of the kingdom, who were all
anxious for this honor.
Isabel had already begun to complain to her father of her husband
and the favorite, when the barons came to the king four days
after his coronation. "Sire," they said, "send back this stranger
who has no business here."
{271}
The king promised to give his reply on the assembling of
Parliament after Easter: meanwhile, he endeavored to lessen the
resentment of the noblemen towards his friend. But Piers was most
imprudent, frivolous and vain; he loved to make a show of his
talent for chivalrous exercises, and threw successively from
their horses in several tournaments the Earls of Lancaster,
Hereford, Pembroke, and Warren, whose wounded pride was added to
the many serious causes of resentment against him. On the
assembling of Parliament, the annoyance of the barons was so
great, that the king was constrained to give way and to banish
Gaveston; he loaded him with presents on his departure, giving
him all the jewels which he had received from Queen Isabel, and
accompanied him as far as Bristol to bid him farewell. Gaveston
was believed to be in Aquitaine, when news came that the king had
appointed him governor of Ireland, and that he had just
established himself there with a degree of splendor almost regal.
The king longed to recall his favorite; he lavished favors upon
the great lords in order to win them over, and, when he had been
relieved by the Pope of the oath which he had sworn never to
recall Gaveston to England, he sent for his friend, and went as
far as Chester to meet him, publicly announcing that the Earl of
Cornwall had been unjustly banished, and that justice demanded a
fresh examination of his conduct. On the other hand, the barons
declared that the king had violated his oath and would not
scruple to break all those which he had sworn for the maintenance
of the public liberties. The discontent was increasing; the queen
complained of the desertion of her husband; the Countess of
Cornwall was representing to her brother, the Earl of Gloucester,
Gaveston's unworthy conduct towards her. The king and his
favorite did not heed the storm which was about to burst; feasts,
dances, and tournaments succeeded each other without intermission
at the court. The king's funds meanwhile had run low, and, in the
month of August, 1311, he found himself compelled to convene
Parliament at Westminster.
{272}
The barons came, discontented but resolute; old Archbishop
Winchelsea had exhorted them to deliver the kingdom from the
power of the favorite; the Earl of Lincoln, when dying, had sent
for his son-in-law, the Earl of Lancaster. "Do not abandon
England to the king and the Pope," he said; "do as the ancient
barons did, and stand firmly by your privileges." Scarcely had
the barons arrived at Westminster, when they renewed the
stipulations of the "Mad Parliament" of Oxford; they demanded the
formation of a temporal council entrusted with the task of
providing for the government of the kingdom; one of the new
concessions forced from the king was that he should convoke
Parliament at least once a year.
The barons had brought with them their men-at-arms. Edward II.
signed all that they demanded, and Gaveston was once more obliged
to leave the country. The king then proceeded to the North, and
was busy raising an army, when his favorite suddenly appeared at
his side. Such daring was beyond endurance. The Earl of
Lancaster, the king's cousin, came unexpectedly upon Edward; the
king only had time to escape with Gaveston, leaving the queen in
the hands of the barons, who treated her with great respect. The
king and his friend had set out in a little bark; they landed at
Scarborough, and Piers shut himself up in the fortress there,
while the king proceeded to York in the hope of joining his army.
But the barons had already set out for Scarborough. Being
besieged in the castle, Gaveston surrendered, on the 17th of May,
to the Earl of Pembroke and Lord Henry Percy, who promised to
spare his life, and then undertook to take him to his castle of
Wallingford.
{273}
The little band started on their journey; but when they arrived
at Dedington, the Earl of Pembroke left his prisoner to go and
see his wife, who was in the neighborhood. On the morning of the
19th, Gaveston received orders to dress himself at once; he
descended into the courtyard, and found that his guards had been
changed; the Earl of Warwick, the "black dog of the Ardennes," as
the favorite called him when jesting with the king, had arrived
during the night; the prisoner was tied on the back of a mule and
led to Warwick Castle. The Earl of Lancaster was there. Piers was
accustomed to call this nobleman the "old boar," but he now threw
himself at his feet, begging for mercy. The judges were
inflexible; he was hastily tried, and being condemned, the
unlucky Piers was conducted to Blacklow Hill, between Warwick and
Coventry, where a scaffold had been erected; the executioners
hesitated for a moment to accomplish so horrible a deed. "You
have caught the fox; if you let him go, you will have to give
chase to him again," cried a voice from among the crowd, and the
favorite's head fell; he was only thirty-three years of age.
While Edward II. was mourning for his murdered friend, Robert
Bruce was slowly conquering Scotland; twice had the king of
England attempted an expedition in support of the power which was
slipping from his hands, and twice he had returned without
result; the authority of Bruce was being established everywhere
in his country; the castles of Perth, Jedburgh, Dunbar, Edinburgh
were in his hands; he was besieging the fortress of Stirling,
when the governor, Sir Philip Mowbray, contrived to make his
appeals for succor reach the king; Edward aroused himself for a
moment from his natural indolence and raised a large army to
march against Scotland; he started from Berwick on the 11th of
June, 1313.
{274}
The forces of the King of England amounted, it is said, to nearly
a hundred thousand men. While they were marching with their
banners flying, the sun, which was glistening upon the armor and
the lances, appeared to inundate the country with a flood of
light. King Robert was concealed in the forests with an army of
forty thousand men, nearly all on foot, awaiting the enemy, and
preparing barriers which were intended to check the onslaught of
the English troops, on the only spot open to attack. On the
morning of the 23rd of June, 1313, the two armies met near
Bannockburn.
The English had hastened their march, and had arrived in some
disorder, in front of the Scottish army. Lord Clifford, who
attempted an ambuscade, was repulsed by Randolph, earl of Moray,
nephew of King Robert and one of his best knights; the king
himself, with a golden crown on his helmet, was marching slowly
along the line of his troops. A relative of the Earl of
Hereford's, Sir Henry Bohun, sprang forward against the "Scottish
traitor," reckoning upon throwing him by the weight of his horse
alone, Bruce being mounted upon one of the small horses of the
country.
The king did not expect the shock; he turned, however, with great
skill, and Bohun's lance passed close by his side without
inflicting any injury upon him. Raising himself up in his
stirrups and displaying his gigantic figure, he struck the rash
Englishman a terrible blow with his battle-axe: the helmet was
shattered by his powerful arm, and Sir Henry Bohun, whose skull
was fractured, was carried off by his horse dead. Bruce returned
slowly to the spot where the greater part of his forces was
concentrated. While his friends were surrounding him, reproaching
him for running so great a risk, the Scottish hero was looking
sorrowfully at his notched axe, and laughingly answered, "I have
spoilt my good battle-axe."
[Image]
Robert Bruce Regretting His Battle-axe.
{275}
The night had been passed in prayer in the Scottish camp and in
feasting and debauchery by the English. King Edward had not
expected a battle, and held his forces assembled in such a manner
as to render any manœuvres impossible. At daybreak the young king
was astonished at the good order observed in the Scottish ranks.
"Do you think they will fight?" he asked of his marshal, Sir
Ingeltram d'Umfreville. At the same moment the Abbot Maurice
d'Inchaffray appeared before the Scottish troops holding a
crucifix in his hand. All bent their knees, all uncovered their
heads. "They are asking for mercy," cried Edward. Umfreville
smiled bitterly. "Of God, not of us, Sire," said he; "these men
will win the battle or die at their posts." "So be it!" replied
the king, as he gave the signal for the attack.
The struggle was furious from the commencement; the Earls of
Gloucester and Hereford sprang towards the Scottish infantry,
which remained firm; their long lances withstood the onslaught of
the English knights. Randolph was still advancing with his best
regiment. Keith was attacking with five hundred mounted
men-at-arms, the English archers, who could not fight at close
quarters and were trampled under foot by the horses. Banners were
torn and lances and swords were shattered to pieces; the feet of
the combatants were slipping in the blood; the majority of the
English began to hesitate. "They fly, they fly!" cried the
Scotch. At the same moment a loud noise was heard behind them
upon the hill; the camp followers and the sick and the wounded
soldiers, excited by the ardor of the struggle, were descending
in a mass towards the scene of action. The English imagined
themselves attacked by a fresh army; a disorderly retreat had
begun, when Robert Bruce, charging with his reserve, decided the
fate of the day beyond the possibility of a doubt.
{276}
The Earl of Gloucester was killed while attacking Edward Bruce,
Robert's brother. Clifford and twenty-seven other barons fell by
the king's side. The Earl of Pembroke seized the bridle of
Edward's horse and dragged him away from the battlefield. Sir
Giles d'Argentine accompanied him out of the crowd, then retraced
his steps, exclaiming, "It is not my custom to fly!" and was
killed by Bruce's soldiers.
Never had a victory been more complete: the fortress of Stirling
surrendered immediately; the Earl of Hereford, who had shut
himself up in Bothwell Castle, offered to capitulate, and was
exchanged for the wife, the sister, and the daughter of the King
of Scotland, who had been detained for several years in England.
There still remained a great deal of territory to conquer, but
the work of Edward the First was destroyed, and Scotland was no
longer a dependency of England.
Edward Bruce's ambition was not satisfied; he had assisted his
brother in conquering a kingdom, and he now wished to secure a
crown for himself. On the 23rd of May, 1315, while England was
beginning to feel the miseries of a famine which was soon to be
followed by a plague, he landed at Carrickfergus in Ireland at
the head of six thousand men. He was soon joined by a large
number of Irish chiefs; and they then proceeded to ravage the
territory of the English colonists there, pillaging and burning
the towns. At length he caused himself to be crowned King of
Ireland on the 2nd of May, 1316. His brother Robert came to his
assistance, and, in spite of the resistance of the English, who
held Dublin and several other important towns, the invading army
overran the whole of Ireland. The northern portion of the country
had been completely subjugated by Edward Bruce, when King Robert
was called back to his kingdom, in consequence of the incursions
of the English.
{277}
Nineteen pitched battles besides numberless skirmishes had been
fought, and had exhausted the resources of the rash conqueror,
when, on the 5th of October, 1318, Edward Bruce was at length
defeated and killed at Fagher, near Dundalk, and the little body
of Scots who escaped returned to Scotland. The death of one man
had sufficed to overthrow the slender edifice, which for three
years he had been striving to raise. The independence of Scotland
was more firmly established than the conquest of Ireland.
Berwick had at length fallen into the power of the Scotch; King
Edward II. resolved, in 1319, to make a fresh effort to regain
that town and to recommence his attempts against Scotland. On the
1st of September he laid siege to Berwick, by land and by sea;
but while he was detained there by the obstinate resistance of
the Lord Stewart of Scotland, Douglas and Randolph, King Robert's
most faithful companions, had crossed the borders into England
with fifteen thousand men, carrying their ravages as far as York,
so that Edward was obliged to abandon Berwick and march against
the invaders of his own dominions. The Scots escaped from him and
re-entered their country; a truce of two years was concluded,
and, in 1323, after several renewals of hostilities, it was
followed by a new treaty which restored peace to the two
countries; not, however, without leaving in England a feeling of
animosity against the little country whose proud independence of
spirit all their power had not been able to subdue.
King Edward had not taken warning by the fate of Piers Gaveston;
he had become attached to a young man at his court, Hugh le
Despencer, who had been placed at his side by his cousin the Earl
of Lancaster, and whom he soon elevated to the dignity of
chamberlain.
{278}
A short time afterwards he married him to Eleanor de Clare,
sister of the young Earl of Gloucester, who had been killed at
Bannockburn; she brought him an enormous estate upon the borders
of Wales. His aunt, Margaret de Clare, had enriched Gaveston in
the same manner. Le Despencer was an Englishman, and Edward had
perhaps hoped to enjoy his friendship in peace; but the benefits
which he heaped upon his new favorite soon excited the jealousy
of the barons. At their head was the Earl of Lancaster, who was
enraged at seeing preferred to himself a man who had formerly
been a member of his own household. An abuse of the royal
authority for the benefit of the royal favorite soon furnished a
pretext to the great noblemen for resisting the king's authority.
They armed their vassals; the lands of the Despencers were
pillaged and their castles destroyed, in 1321. Lancaster joined
the insurrection, swearing not to lay down his arms before
banishing the favorite. They advanced as far as St Alban's, and
the earl sent a messenger to the king to announce the conditions
of peace. Edward was as timid as he was stubborn; he defended his
friends as well as he was able, and declared that they could not
be condemned without a trial. The barons marched towards London
and took up their quarters in the suburbs; Parliament was
convened at Westminster; and with their arms in their hands, the
Earl of Lancaster and his friends accused Hugh le Despencer and
his father of having usurped the royal authority, kept the king
away from his faithful barons, and illegally imposed taxes, &c.
At length they demanded that they should be banished. The bishops
protested that the sentence was irregular; the king gave in; the
two Le Despencers left England, and the barons became so
arrogant, that Queen Isabel, when making a pilgrimage to
Canterbury, was refused admittance to Leeds Castle, in the county
of Kent, although that fortress belonged to the crown. The
governor's wife, Lady Badlesmere, even caused several arrows to
be shot at the royal suite, and several of the queen's attendants
were killed.
{279}
This insolence enraged the king. He punished Lord and Lady
Badlesmere, and at the same time recalled the Despencers.
Lancaster rallied round him all his friends and entered into a
correspondence with the Scots, who promised to invade the
northern provinces. This negotiation had no other effect than to
crush the popularity of the Earl of Lancaster, the Scots being so
much detested. The king had already attacked and defeated the
Earl of Hereford and his ally, Roger Mortimer, and the latter was
a prisoner in the Tower. Hereford had joined Lancaster, and the
king was marching against them. The two earls had raised the
siege of Tichnall Castle and were retreating before the royal
army, when at Boroughbridge, on the borders of the Urc, Lancaster
found the Governors of York and Carlisle with a body of troops,
prepared to dispute his passage. Hereford was killed upon the
bridge, and during the retreat which followed, Lancaster was made
a prisoner. He was brought back in triumph to his Castle of
Pontefract, and the king soon joined him there. Lancaster foresaw
the fate which awaited him. "Lord," he said on being captured,
kneeling before a crucifix, "I surrender to Thee, and throw
myself upon Thy mercy." His conviction was certain, his treason
being flagrant. Lancaster was condemned by six earls and six
barons. The people insulted him while he was being led to the
scaffold. He lifted his pinioned hands towards heaven. "Heavenly
King, have mercy on me," he cried, "for the king of earth has
abandoned me." He was beheaded on the 22nd of March, 1322.
Fourteen bannerets and as many knights also suffered the extreme
penalty. Mortimer was condemned to imprisonment for life.
{280}
The Despencers enriched themselves with the spoils taken from the
victims; the father was created Earl of Winchester, and the
enmity of the people towards the favorites was increased by the
compassion which the condemned men inspired. It was found
necessary to forbid the people to kneel before the portrait of
the Earl of Lancaster in St. Paul's Cathedral, and rumors of
miracles which had taken place at his tomb were spread throughout
England, as had formerly been the case with Simon of Montfort,
Earl of Leicester.
Roger Mortimer had succeeded in escaping from prison, probably
not without having held some communication with Queen Isabel, who
resided at the Tower during his captivity. He was in France and
had just entered the service of Charles the Beautiful. The queen
was enraged at the execution of his uncle, the Earl of Lancaster.
When her husband came back from the expedition in the North, she
received him haughtily, and manifested towards the Despencers the
same hostility which she had formerly displayed towards Piers
Gaveston. The King of France, Charles the Beautiful, seized the
pretext of the grievances of Isabel, to take possession of the
greater number of the towns and castles belonging to Edward. The
latter, in return, seized upon all the property which the queen
held in England, declaring that she should possess nothing while
in communication with his enemies.
Isabel immediately proposed to act as mediator between her
brother and her husband. The weak king fell into the trap, and
allowed her to depart. She was received in France with open arms,
and soon informed her husband that he would have to come and do
homage to the King of France for his duchy of Aquitaine. Edward
was preparing to start when he was detained in England in
consequence of indisposition.
{281}
The Despencers, who did not dare to accompany him into France,
but who would not lose sight of him, persuaded the weak monarch
to cede Guienne and Ponthieu to his son, Prince Edward, the King
of France promising to content himself with receiving homage from
the young man. The Prince of Wales therefore followed his mother
into France. But in vain did the king await the return of his
wife and son, the queen was continually delaying; at length, she
haughtily declared that her life was not safe in England and that
the Despencers were plotting against her and her son.
King Edward, astounded, defended himself as well as he was able,
causing all the prelates in England to write and reassure the
queen; but she would not be convinced, and when King Charles the
Beautiful, tired, no doubt, of the bad conduct of Isabel, and of
the injunctions which he received from England, told his sister
that he could no longer keep her at his court; she set out,
surrounded by the knights who had embraced her cause, the Earl of
Kent, her husband's brother, D'Artois, John of Hainault, and,
still accompanied by her favorite, Mortimer, she embarked at Dort
with a little army of Frenchmen and Brabantines, to land at
Orcewell in Suffolk, on the 24th of September. Scarcely had she
set foot upon English soil with her son, when, in spite of all
the damaging rumors which were afloat concerning her, a large
number of knights flocked round her standard. The people were
tired of the weakness of King Edward, of the avidity of his
favorites, and of the disorder which reigned over the kingdom.
When Edward sent and asked for the assistance of the citizens of
London, they replied that by their charters they were not obliged
to follow him into battle, but that they would be faithful to the
king, the queen, and the princes, by closing their gates to the
foreigners. Edward was alone with the two Despencers, the
Chancellor Baldock and a few knights.
{282}
Scarcely had he set out for Wales, when the people of London
rose, murdered the Bishop of Exeter, who had been elevated by the
king to the position of governor, and sent his head to the queen.
Edward had halted at Gloucester, whence he had sent old Despencer
to defend Bristol; the citizens revolted, and Despencer was
compelled to surrender at the discretion of Isabel. She
immediately caused him to be executed as a traitor, and the old
man's head was exposed to the public sight at Winchester. Hugh le
Despencer and Chancellor Baldock, as well as the king, were
wandering in the county of Glamorgan, where they had been
shipwrecked, after having ineffectually endeavored to take refuge
in Ireland. Le Despencer and the chancellor were recognized and
arrested. The king immediately surrendered to his enemies, having
decided to share the fate of those who loved him, and who were
already condemned in anticipation.
Baldock soon died of ill-treatment, and it was necessary to
hasten the execution of Hugh le Despencer. He had refused to take
any food since his arrest, and he was half dead when he was
dragged to the scaffold to suffer the same fate as his father.
The Earl of Arundel, who had been at the head of the judges who
condemned Lancaster, was beheaded with two of his friends, and
their property was given to Mortimer.
The queen had arrived in London, Parliament had just met; and, on
the 7th of January, 1327, the Bishop of Hereford, Adam Orleton,
Isabel's adviser and able agent, asked this question of the
assembly: "Should the father be re-established upon the throne,
or ought the son to replace him?" He dwelt upon the weakness, the
bad deeds, the treacherous acts of King Edward, and asked the
lords to reply on the morrow to his question.
{283}
The decision was not doubtful. While the barons were pronouncing,
in the great hall of Westminster, the fall of Edward II., King of
England, the people of London, assembled in crowds at the doors
of the palace, loudly demanded his immediate condemnation.
Several bishops alone had the courage to speak in favor of the
unhappy king, who had not seen a sword drawn nor a bow stretched
in his defence: they were insulted, and the Bishop of Rochester
was trampled in the mud on leaving the palace. The young prince
was proclaimed king by the public voice, and all the peers who
were present swore allegiance to him on the spot.
When the queen was informed of the success of all her schemes,
she cried bitterly. "Alas!" she said, "they have deposed my
husband the king. Parliament has overstepped its authority."
These hypocritical tears did not deceive anybody; the young
prince, Edward, alone was touched at them. "Do not be afraid,
mother," said he, "I will never deprive my father of his crown."
A deputation was therefore sent to the poor king, who was a
prisoner in Kenilworth Castle. When Edward II. perceived the
Bishop of Hereford at the head of the embassadors, he fell to the
ground, stricken with grief. The judge who had condemned the two
Despencers, Sir William Trussel, advanced in the name of the
Parliament, and, taking his turn to speak, told Edward that he
was no longer King of England. At the same moment, Sir Thomas
Blount, steward of the royal household, broke his baton,
renouncing his allegiance to the king. Edward listened without
complaining, and without urging anything on his own behalf,
simply thanked the Parliament for having recognized the rights of
his son. On the 24th of January, 1327, King Edward III. was
proclaimed throughout the kingdom. Edward II. was, according to
the decree of Parliament, deposed from the throne by the lords
and commons, and the power was entrusted to Queen Isabel, who was
to administer the affairs of the kingdom for her son, then only
fifteen years of age.
{284}
Isabel was herself under the influence of Mortimer. Edward II.
being dethroned could not hope to live long. The power of the
favorite over the queen became a matter for alarm; several monks
preached against him; the Earl of Lancaster, to whose keeping the
deposed king had been entrusted, seemed to have conceived a
feeling of pity for his prisoner, so the latter was removed to
another place. Being consigned to the charge of Lord Berkeley and
Sir John Maltravers, he was taken to Bristol, where also the
people began to be touched at his fate. Two scoundrels who had
been sent to him as gaolers, dragged him out half naked and took
him to Corfe Castle. The poor king asked to be allowed to dress
himself; some dirty water was brought him in a helmet. Tears
rolled down his cheeks. "I have some purer water, in spite of
you," he said. A crown of dry herbs had been placed upon his
head. At length, moving from place to place, the dethroned
monarch was brought to Berkeley Castle, on the river Severn,
where an attempt was made to poison him, but without success. At
length, one night, the governor of the castle being away,
piercing cries were heard, and immediately afterwards all was
silent again. The inhabitants of the neighborhood shuddered on
hearing them. On the morrow, when the doors were opened, the
death of Edward II. was announced, and the country people were
admitted to view the corpse of him who had been their king. The
expression of agony which rested upon the once handsome features
of the unhappy monarch, terrified all who saw it. The body was
taken to the abbey of Gloucester and buried soon afterwards; but
the people went in crowds to the tomb of this king whom no one
had defended during his life-time.
{285}
The offerings made in his honor at the convent were so
considerable that the monks were enabled to add an aisle to their
church. This unfortunate monarch, so weak and so frivolous,
consistent only in his affection, so harshly abandoned and so
cruelly murdered, was not yet forty-three years of age when he
expired on the 21st of September, 1327.