EDWARD I.
1272-1307.
[Sidenote: =Immediate accession of Edward.=]
The confidence and admiration which the English nation felt for
Prince Edward were well shown by the fact that he was proclaimed
king on the day of his father's death without any form of election
by the Parliament. This was the first time that the English crown
was transferred by strict hereditary succession, and that the old
traditions of the solemn choice by the Great Council were neglected.
Edward was still absent in Palestine, but the government was carried on
in his name without trouble or friction till he landed in England on
August 2, 1274. It was nineteen months since his father had died, yet
nothing had gone amiss in the interval, so great was the belief of the
English in the wisdom and justice of the coming king.
[Sidenote: =His character.=]
Edward was probably the best and greatest ruler, save Alfred, that
England has ever known. He was a most extraordinary contrast to his
shifty father, and his cruel, treacherous grandsire. His private life
was a model to all men; nothing could have shown a better conception
of the respective claims of patriotism and of filial duty than his
conduct during the civil war. His court was grave and virtuous, and his
faithful wife, Eleanor of Castile, was the object of his chivalrous
devotion. Edward was religious without superstition, liberal without
unthriftiness, resolute without obstinacy. But the most striking
feature of his character was his love of good faith and justice. His
favourite device was _Pactum serva_, "Keep your promise," and in all
his doings he strove to carry it out. It was this that made him such
an admirable king for a country where constitutional liberty was just
beginning to develop itself. If he promised his Parliament to abandon
any custom or introduce any reform, he might be trusted honestly to do
his best to adhere to his engagement. It must not be supposed that he
never fell out with his subjects; his conceptions of the rights and
duties of a king were so high that it was impossible for him to avoid
collisions with Parliament. But when such collisions occurred, though
he fought them out with firmness, yet, if beaten, he accepted his
defeat without rancour. His justice was perhaps too severe: he could
pardon on occasion, but he had a stern way of dealing with those whom
he regarded as traitors or oath-breakers; the chief blots on his reign
are instances of merciless severity to conquered rebels. Edward has
been accused of having some times adhered too closely to the letter of
the law, when it told in his own favour, but there seems little reason
to doubt that he was honestly following his own lights. Compared with
any contemporary sovereign, he was a very mirror of justice and equity.
[Sidenote: =Edward as a general.=]
In addition to showing great merits as administrator, Edward was
notable both as a good soldier and a wise general. His tall and robust
frame and dauntless courage made him one of the best knights of his
day. Yet he was no mere fighting man, but a skilled tactician. He had
long forgotten the reckless impulsiveness that lost the day at Lewes,
and had become one of the best captains of his age. He deserves a
prominent place in the history of the art of war for being the first
who discovered the military value of the English long-bowmen, and
turned them to good account in his battles. Hitherto English generals,
like continental, had been trusting entirely to the charge of their
mailed cavalry. Edward, as we shall see at Falkirk, had learnt that the
bowman was no less effective than the knight in the deciding of battles.
The years of Edward's long and eventful reign are full of interest and
importance both within and without the bounds of England. The history
of his legislation and of the development of the power of Parliament
under him deserve close observation no less than his successful
dealings with Wales, and his almost successful scheme for the conquest
of Scotland. Nor can his relations with France be left without remark.
[Sidenote: =Edward and the Church.--Statute of Mortmain.=]
His legislation, most of which falls into the earlier years of his
reign, requires the first notice. Throughout the whole of it we trace
a consistent purpose of strengthening the crown by restricting the
rights both of the Church and the baronage. His first collision with
the Church dates from 1279, when Archbishop Peckham made an attempt to
reassert some of Becket's old doctrines as to the complete independence
and wide scope of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. When Peckham summoned
a national council of clergy at Reading in 1279, and issued certain
"canons" in support of the independence of the Church courts, Edward
replied not merely by compelling him to withdraw the objectionable
document, but by passing the celebrated _Statute of Mortmain_, or _De
Religiosis_, as it is sometimes called. This was a measure destined to
prevent the further accumulation of estates in the "dead hand" (_in
mortua manu_) of the Church. It was estimated that a fourth of the
surface of England was already in the possession of the clerical body,
and this land no longer paid its fair proportion of the taxes of the
realm. For a large share of the king's revenue came from _reliefs_, or
death-duties, and _escheats_, or resumption of lands to which there
was no heir, and as a monastery or bishopric never died, the king got
neither reliefs nor escheats from them. The statute prevented any man
from alienating his land to the monasteries, and specially forbade
the fraudulent practice of making ostensible gifts to the Church and
receiving them back. For landholders had sometimes pretended to make
over their estates to a monastery, in order to escape the taxation due
on feudal fiefs, while really, by a corrupt agreement with the monks,
they kept the property in their own power, and so enjoyed it tax-free.
For the future land rarely fell into the "dead hand," since it could
not be given away without the king's consent. Very few new monasteries
were built or endowed after the passing of this statute, but the crown
not unfrequently relaxed the rule in favour of the colleges in the
universities, which were just now beginning to spring up.
[Sidenote: =Edward and the baronage.--Writ of Quo Warranto.=]
Edward's dealings with the baronage are even more important in the
history of the English constitution than his contest with the clerical
body. He showed a consistent purpose of defending the rights of the
crown against the great feudal lords, and of bringing all holders of
land into close dependence on himself. His first attempt of the kind
was the issue of the writ _Quo Warranto_ in 1278. This writ was a royal
mandate ordering an inquiry "by what warrant" many of the old royal
estates had come into private hands, for the king thought that much
state property had passed illegally out of the possession of the crown,
by the thriftlessness of his father and the disorder of the civil wars
of 1262-65. This project for an inquiry into old rights and documents
both vexed and frightened the baronage. They murmured loudly. The
tale is well known how John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, when asked to
produce the evidence of his right to certain lands, dashed down an old
rusty sword before the commissioners, crying, "This is my title-deed.
My ancestors came over with King William, and won their lands by the
sword, and with this same sword I will maintain them against any one
who tries to take them from me." The whole baronage showed such a
hostile feeling against Edward's proposal that he finally contented
himself with making a complete list of the still remaining crown lands,
but did not raise the question of the resumption of long-alienated
estates.
Another device of the king's for binding the landholders of the realm
more closely to himself, was his scheme for making knights of all
persons who held estates worth more than £20 a year. His object was not
so much to gain the fees due from those who received knighthood, as to
bring all the middle class of landholders, who held under the great
feudal lords, into closer relation with himself through the homage and
oath which they made to him after receiving the honour (1278).
[Sidenote: =The statute "De Donis."=]
In subsequent legislation Edward took care to conciliate the baronage
by strengthening not only his rights over them, but their rights over
their vassals. The most important of these was "_escheat_," the right
of resuming possession of land when its holder died without an heir.
This right was always liable to be defeated by the tenant selling his
land; and its value was yet more diminished if he could dispose of part
of the land, in such a way that the buyer became his own sub-tenant.
A clause in Magna Charta had restricted this process, but the barons
wished to limit even more their tenants' power of parting with land. On
the other hand, as society became more industrial, and less warlike,
it became more desirable that land should pass freely from man to
man These conflicting interests resulted in two enactments, which
are landmarks in English History. The first, the _Second Statute of
Westminster_, contains the famous clauses '_De Donis Conditionalibus_.'
It forbade the alienation of land granted to a person and his actual
lineal descendants, or to use a modern phrase, it made possible the
creation of perpetual entails. The barons soon saw that it enabled
them to settle their lands on their own families, and it was regularly
employed for this purpose for about 200 years, till at last a legal
fiction was invented which greatly cut down the power of tying up land.
[Sidenote: =The statute "Quia Emptores."=]
On the other hand, the statute _Quia Emptores_ (1290), far from
restricting the power of alienation, expressly allowed it in all cases
not coming within the statute _De Donis_: but at the same time it
enacted that the purchaser, whether of the whole or part of an estate,
should become the tenant, not of the seller, but of the seller's lord;
in other words, it put an end to subinfeudation. This led, in the end,
to the enormous multiplication of the lesser vassals of the crown, and
tended to the ultimate extinction of all subtenancies, so that the
king was the gainer in the long run, since whenever a great estate was
broken up, he became the immediate lord of all those among whom it was
dispersed.
[Sidenote: =The Statute of Winchester.=]
Besides the great statutes we have already named, several other items
of King Edward's legislation demand a word of notice. _The Statute of
Winchester_ (1285) reorganized the national militia, the descendant
of the old fyrd, ordaining what arms each man, according to his rank
and wealth, should furnish for himself. It also provided for the
establishment of a _watch_ or local police for the suppression of
robbers and outlaws.
[Sidenote: =Expulsion of the Jews.=]
But all the king's doings were not so wise; to his discredit must be
named his intolerant edict for the expulsion of the Jews from England
in 1290. Edward seems to have picked up in his crusading days a blind
horror of infidels of all sorts. He disliked the Jews, somewhat for
being inveterate clippers and debasers of the coinage, more for being
usurers at extortionate rates in days when usury was held to be a
deadly sin, but most of all for the mere reason that they were not
Christians. To his own great loss--for the taxes of the Jews were a
considerable item in his revenues--he banished them all from the land,
giving them three months to sell their houses and realize their debts.
It was 360 years before they were again allowed to return to the realm.
[Sidenote: =Parliamentary representation.=]
The same years that are notable for the passing of the statutes of
Mortmain and Quia Emptores, and for the expulsion of the Jews, were
those in which the English Parliament was gradually growing into
its permanent shape. We have already told how Simon de Montfort
summoned in 1265 the first assembly which corresponds to our modern
idea of a Parliament, by containing representatives from shires and
boroughs, as well as a muster of the great barons and bishops who
were tenants-in-chief of the crown. As it chanced Edward did not
call a Great Council in exactly that same form till 1295, but in the
intervening years he generally summoned knights of the shire to attend
the deliberation of his lords, and consent to the granting of money.
On two occasions in 1283 the cities and boroughs were also bidden to
send their representatives, but these were not full Parliaments, for at
the first, held at Northampton, no barons were present, while at the
second, which sat at Acton-Burnell, the clergy had not been summoned.
It was not till 1295 that Edward, then in the thick of his Scotch
and French wars, summoned barons, clergy, knights of the shire, and
citizens, all to meet him, "because that which touches all should be
approved by all." But the complete form of Parliament was found to work
so well that it was always summoned in that shape for the future.
[Sidenote: =Condition of Wales.=]
We may now turn to Edward's political doings. The affairs of Wales
require the first notice. We have already mentioned in earlier chapters
how the southern districts of that country had long ago passed, partly
by conquest, partly by intermarriage with the families of native
chiefs, into the hands of various Anglo-Norman barons. These nobles
of the Welsh Marchland, or _Lords Marchers_ as they were called, had
as their main duty the task of overawing and restraining the princes
of North Wales, where Celtic anarchy still reigned supreme. Anglesea,
the mountain lands of Snowdon, Merioneth, and the valley of the Dee
were the last home of the native Welsh. In this land of Gwynedd native
princes still ruled, and proved most unruly vassals to the English
crown. Whenever England was vexed by civil war, the Welsh descended
from their hills, attacked the Lords Marchers, and pushed their
incursions into Cheshire and Shropshire. Sometimes they pushed even
further afield; in 1257 they ravaged as far as Cardiff and Hereford. If
it had not been that the princes of North Wales were even more given to
murderous family feuds than to raids on the English border, they would
have been an intolerable pest; but their interminable petty strife with
each other generally kept them quiet.
[Illustration: WALES IN 1282.]
[Sidenote: =Invasion of Wales.=]
In 1272, the ruler of North Wales was Llewellyn-ap-Gruffyd, a bold
and stirring prince, who had put down all his rebellious brothers and
cousins, and united the whole of Gwynedd under his sword. Following
the example of his ancestors, Llewellyn had plunged with alacrity
into the English civil wars of the time of Henry III. He had allied
himself with Simon de Montfort, and under cover of this alliance had
made cruel ravages on the lands of the Lords Marchers in South Wales.
He held out long after Simon fell at Evesham, and only made peace
in 1267, when he was admitted to very favourable terms and confirmed
in the full possession of his principality. When Edward ascended his
father's throne, he bade Llewellyn come to his court and do him homage,
such as the ancient princes of Wales had been accustomed to offer. But
he was met with repeated refusals; six times he summoned the Welshman
to appear, and six times he was denied, for Llewellyn said that he
would not leave his hills unless he was given as hostages the king's
brother, Edmund of Lancaster, and the Justiciar Ralph of Hengham.
He feared for his life, he said, and would not trust himself in his
suzerain's hands. Edward was not accustomed to have his word doubted,
and, being conscious of his own honest intentions, was bitterly angered
at his vassal's distrust and contumacious answers. But the king's wrath
reached its highest pitch in 1275, when he found that Llewellyn had
put himself in communication with France, and sent to the French court
for Eleanor de Montfort, Earl Simon's daughter, to take her to wife.
The ship that carried the bride was captured off the Scilly Isles by a
Bristol privateer, and she with her brother, Amaury of Montfort, fell
into Edward's hands. After Llewellyn had made one further refusal to do
homage, Edward raised a great army and invaded Wales. The prince and
his wild tribesmen took refuge in the fastnesses of Snowdon, but Edward
blockaded all the outlets from the hills, and in a few months the
Welsh were starved into submission. Llewellyn was forced to surrender
himself into his suzerain's hands, but received better terms than
might have been expected. He was made to do homage, and to give up the
land between Conway and the Dee, the modern shire of Denbigh, but was
allowed to retain the rest of his dominions, and received his bride
from Edward's hands. He was also reconciled to his brothers, whom he
had long before driven away from Wales, and David--the eldest of these
exiles--was given a great barony cut out of the ceded lands on the Dee
(1277).
[Sidenote: =Rebellion of Llewellyn and David of Wales.=]
Though he had felt the weight of Edward's hand, the Prince of Wales was
unwise enough to provoke his suzerain the second time. Finding that
there was much discontent in the ceded districts of Wales, because the
king was systematically substituting English laws and customs for the
old Celtic usages, Llewellyn resolved to make a sudden attempt to free
them and to throw off his allegiance. His brother David joined in the
plot, though he had always been protected by Edward, and owed all that
he possessed to English aid. On Palm Sunday, 1282, the two brothers
secretly took arms without any declaration of war. David surprised
Hawarden Castle, captured the chief justice of Wales, and slew the
garrison, while Llewellyn swept the whole coast-land as far as the
gates of Chester with fire and sword.
This treacherous and unprovoked rebellion deeply angered the king; he
swore that he would make an end of the troublesome principality, and
raised an army and a fleet greater than any that had ever been sent
against the Welsh. After some slight engagements, the English once more
drove Llewellyn and his host into the crags of Snowdon. Convinced of
his folly, the prince sent to ask for peace; but Edward would not again
grant the easy terms that he had given in 1277. Llewellyn should become
an English earl, he said, and be granted lands worth £1000 a year; but
the independent principality of North Wales had been tried and found
wanting--it should be abolished and annexed to England.
[Sidenote: =Death of Llewellyn.--Execution of David.=]
Llewellyn, though in the sorest straits, refused these terms. By a
dangerous night march he slipped through the English lines with a few
chosen followers, and hastened into mid-Wales, to stir up rebellion in
Brecknock. But near Builth he fell in with a small party of English,
and was slain in the skirmish which followed by an esquire named
Adam of Frankton, who knew not with whom he was fighting. David, his
brother, now proclaimed himself Prince of Wales, and held out in
Snowdon for some months longer. But he was ultimately betrayed to the
king by his own starving followers. He was taken over the border to be
tried before the English Parliament, which met at Acton Burnell, just
outside the walls of Shrewsbury. There was far more dislike felt for
him than for his brother. Llewellyn had always been an open enemy, but
David had long served at the English court, and had been granted his
barony by Edward's special favour. Hence it came that the Parliament
passed the death-sentence for treason on the last Prince of Wales, and
he was executed at Shrewsbury, with all the horrid details of hanging,
drawing, and quartering, which were the traitor's lot in those days.
The harshness of his punishment almost makes us forget the provocation
that he had given the king; mercy for traitors was not characteristic
of Edward's temper (1283).
[Sidenote: =Settlement of Wales.=]
Edward stayed for nearly two years in Wales after the fighting had
ended; he devoted himself to reorganizing the principality, on the
English model. Llewellyn's dominions were cut up into the new counties
of Anglesea, Merioneth, and Carnarvon. Strong castles were built at
Conway, Beaumaris, Carnarvon, and Harlech, to hold them down, and
colonies of English were tempted by liberal grants and charters to
settle in the towns which grew up at points suitable for centres of
commerce. For the future governance of the land Edward drew up the
"Statute of Wales," issued at Rhuddlan in 1284; he allowed a certain
amount of the old Celtic customary law to survive, but introduced
English legal usages to a much larger extent. The Welsh murmured
bitterly against the new customs, but found them in the end a great
improvement. Edward endeavoured to solace their discontent by placing
many of the administrative posts in Welsh hands, and their national
pride by reviving the ancient name of the principality. For in 1301
he gave his heir Edward, who had been born at Carnarvon, the title
of Prince of Wales, solemnly invested him with the rule of the
principality at a great meeting of all the Welsh chiefs, and set him
to govern the land. Later kings of England have followed the custom,
and the title of Prince of Wales has become stereotyped as that of the
heir to the English crown. It must not be supposed that Wales settled
down easily and without friction beneath Edward's sceptre. There were
three or four risings against his authority, headed by chiefs who
thought that they had some claim to inherit the old principality. One
of these insurrections was a really formidable affair; in 1294, Madoc,
the son of Llewellyn, raised half North Wales to follow him, beat the
Earl of Lincoln in open battle, and ravaged the English border. The
king himself, though sorely vexed at the moment by wars in Gascony and
Scotland, marched against him at mid-winter, but had to retire, foiled
by the snows and torrents of the Welsh mountains. But next spring Madoc
was pursued and captured, and sent to spend the rest of his life as a
captive in the Tower of London (1295).
[Sidenote: =Foreign affairs.=]
For a few years after the annexation of Wales, the annals of England
are comparatively uneventful. Some of Edward's legislation, with which
we have already dealt, falls into this period, but the king's attention
was mainly taken up with foreign politics, into which he was drawn
by his position as Duke of Aquitaine. He spent some time in Guienne,
succeeded by careful diplomacy in keeping out of the wars between
France and Aragon, which were raging near him, and introduced a measure
of good government among his Gascon subjects. But more important events
nearer home were soon to attract his attention.
[Sidenote: =Scotland.--Accession of Margaret of Norway.=]
In 1286 perished Alexander III., King of Scotland, cast over the cliffs
of Kinghorn by the leap of an unruly horse. He was the last male of the
old royal house that descended from Malcolm Canmore and the sainted
Queen Margaret. Three children, two sons and a daughter, had been born
to him, but they had all died young, and his only living descendant was
his daughter's daughter, a child of four years. Her mother had wedded
Eric, King of Norway, and it was at the Norwegian court that the little
heiress was living when her grandfather died. Though Scotland had
never before obeyed a queen-regnant, her nobles made no difficulty in
accepting the child Margaret, the "maid of Norway" as they called her,
for their sovereign. A regency was appointed in her name, and the whole
nation accepted her sway.
[Sidenote: =Scheme for uniting the two crowns.=]
Now Edward of England saw, in the accession of a young girl to the
Scottish throne, a unique opportunity for bringing about a closer
union of England and Scotland. There was no rational objection to the
scheme: a century had elapsed since the two countries had been at
war, their baronages had become united by constant intermarriage; the
Lowlands--the more important half of the Scotch realm--were English in
speech and manners. Most important of all, there were as yet few or no
national grudges between the races on either bank of the Tweed. Of the
rancorous hostility which was to divide them in the next century no man
had any presage.
When the little Queen of Scotland had reached her seventh year, the
king proposed to the Scots' regents that she should be married to his
own son and heir, Edward of Carnarvon. He pledged himself that the
kingdoms should not be forcibly united; Scotland should keep all
its laws and liberties and be administered by Scots alone, without
any interference from England. The regents did not mislike the
scheme; they summoned the Parliament of the northern realm to meet at
Brigham-on-Tweed, and there Edward's offers were accepted and ratified
with the consent of the whole realm (July, 1290).
[Sidenote: =Death of Margaret.=]
The next step was to send to Norway for the young queen, for she had
been living at her father's court till now, and had never visited her
own kingdom. She set sail for Scotland in the autumn of the year 1290,
but adverse winds kept her vessel tossed for weeks in the wild North
Sea. The strain was too much for the frail child; when at last she came
ashore at Kirkwall in the Orkneys, it was only to die. With her life
ended the fairest opportunity of uniting the two realms on equal terms
that had ever been known.
[Sidenote: =Extinction of the royal line.--Rival claimants.=]
Edward's scheme had fallen through, and his grief was great; but much
greater was the dismay in Scotland, where the regents found themselves
face to face with the calamity of the extinction of the whole royal
house. There was no longer any king or queen in whose name the law
of the realm could run, or the simplest duties of government be
discharged. Gradually claimants for the crown began to step forward,
basing their demands on ancient alliances with the old kingly line,
but the nearest of these connections went back more than a hundred
years, to female descendants of King David, who had died in 1153. In
this strait the Scots determined to appeal to King Edward as arbitrator
between the pretenders, whose rivalry seemed likely to split the
kingdom up into a group of disorderly feudal principalities. Edward
readily consented, seeing that in the capacity of arbitrator he could
find an opportunity of making more real the old English right of
suzerainty over the kingdom of Scotland. It will be remembered that
as far back as the tenth century, the kings of the Scots had done
homage to Edward the elder, and that they held the more important
half of their realm, Lothian and Strathclyde, which together form the
Lowlands, as grants under feudal obligations from the English crown.
But the exact degree of dependence of Scotland on England had never
been accurately fixed, though Scottish kings had often sat in English
Parliaments, and sometimes served in the English armies. It might
be pleaded by a patriotic Scot that, as Earl of Lothian, his king
had certain obligations to the English sovereign, but that for his
lands north of the Forth and Clyde he was liable to no such duties.
This depended on the nature of the discharge given by Richard I. to
William the Lion in 1190, when he sold the Scottish king a release
of certain duties of homage in return for the sum of 10,000 marks.
But the agreement of Richard and William had been drawn up in such an
unbusiness-like manner that no one could say exactly what it covered.
[Sidenote: =Edward's arbitration.--Balliol and Bruce.=]
King Edward was determined to put an end to this uncertainty, and,
as a preliminary to accepting the post of arbitrator in the Scottish
succession dispute, required that the regents and all the nobles of
the northern realm should acknowledge his complete suzerainty over the
whole kingdom. After some hesitation they consented. Edward made a tour
through Edinburgh, Stirling, and St. Andrews, and there received the
homage of the whole nobility of Scotland. He then appointed a court
of arbitration to sit at Berwick, and adjudicate on the rights of the
thirteen claimants to the crown; it consisted of eighty Scots and
twenty-four Englishmen.
The court found that of serious claims to the crown there were only
two--those of John Balliol and Robert Bruce, each of whom descended
in the female line from the old King David I., who had died in 1153.
The positions of Balliol and Bruce were closely similar: they were
descended from two Anglo-Norman barons of the north country, who had
married two sisters, Margaret and Isabella, the great-granddaughters
of David I. Both of them were as much English as Scotch in blood and
breeding. Balliol was Lord of Barnard Castle, in Durham; Bruce had been
Sheriff of Cumberland, and had long served King Edward as chief justice
of the King's Bench. Like so many of the Scottish barons, they were
equally at home on either side of the border. The point of difficulty
to decide between them was that, while Balliol descended from the elder
of the two co-heiresses, Bruce was a generation nearer to the parent
stem, and claimed to have a preference on this account by Scottish
usage.
THE SCOTTISH SUCCESSION IN 1292.
DAVID I., = Matilda,
1124-1153. | daughter of Waltheof,
| Earl of Huntingdon.
|
Henry,
Earl of Northumberland and Huntingdon,
died 1152.
|
+----------------+------+----------------+
| | |
MALCOLM IV., WILLIAM THE LION, David,
1153-1165. 1165-1214. Earl of Huntingdon.
| |
+-------------+ +-----+-----+
| | |
ALEXANDER II., Alan, = Margaret. Isabella = Robert
1214-1249. Lord of | | Bruce,
| Galloway. | | Lord of
ALEXANDER III., | | Annandale.
1249-1286. | |
| | +----+
| | |
| Devorguilla, = John Robert
| heiress of | Balliol, Bruce,
+-----+------------+ Galloway. | Lord of [Claimant
| | | Barnard in 1292]
Eric of = Margaret, Alexander, | Castle. died 1295.
Norway | died 1283. died 1283. | |
| | |
| +----------+--------+ +--------+
| | | |
MARGARET, JOHN Margaret = John Robert = Margaret,
the Maid BALLIOL, Balliol. | Comyn. Bruce | Countess
of Norway, king | died | of
1286-1290. 1292-1296. | 1305. | Carrick.
| | |
EDWARD John, ROBERT BRUCE,
BALLIOL, "The Red Comyn," king 1306-1329.
king slain 1306. |
1332-1334. DAVID II.,
1329-1370.
[Sidenote: =Edward's decision.--His claims of suzerainty.=]
The court of arbitration decided that this plea of Bruce's was unsound,
and that his rival's right was undoubted. Edward therefore decided
in favour of Balliol, who straightway did him homage as King of all
Scotland, and was duly crowned at Scone (1292). So far the King of
England's conduct had been unexceptionable; he had acted as an honest
umpire, and had handed over the disputed realms to the rightful heir.
But Edward's legal mind saw further consequences in the acknowledgment
of allegiance which Balliol had made. This soon became evident when
he began to allow persons who had been defeated in the Scottish law
courts to appeal for a further decision to those of England, in virtue
of the suzerainty of the latter country. Such a claim was valid in
feudal law, and Edward as Duke of Aquitaine had often seen his Gascon
subjects make an appeal from the courts of Bordeaux to those of Paris.
But to the Scots the idea was new, for no such custom had prevailed
between England and Scotland, and they complained that Edward was
breaking the promise which he had made at the time of the arbitration,
to respect all the old privileges of the Scotch crown. In this they
were practically right, for ancient usage was on their side. Balliol
was a weak man, and might have yielded to Edward's demand; but his
barons refused to hear of it, and bound him to do nothing save with
the consent of a council of twelve advisers, who were to determine his
course of action. The discontent of the Scots was soon to have most
deplorable consequences for both realms.
[Sidenote: =War with Philip of France.=]
At this time Edward was just becoming involved in a bitter quarrel with
Philip the Fair, the young King of France. Philip coveted Aquitaine,
and was determined to have it. He picked a quarrel with the King of
England about the piratical doings of certain English seamen in the
Channel. The mariners of the Cinque Ports and of Normandy had long
been sworn foes; they fought whenever they met, without any concern
as to whether England and France were at war or not. In 1293 there
was a regular pitched battle between them, off St. Mahé, in Brittany;
the Normans had the worse, and many of them were slain. This affray
seemed to King Philip an admirable excuse for attacking his neighbour.
He summoned Edward to Paris, as Duke of Aquitaine, to answer before
his feudal lord for the misdoings of the English seamen. The King of
England was not averse to giving satisfaction, and sent to offer to
submit to an arbitration, in which the damages done by his subjects
should be assessed. But Philip was not seeking damages, but an excuse
for war; he at once declared Edward contumacious for not appearing in
person, and proclaimed the forfeiture of the whole duchy of Aquitaine.
Hardly realizing the French king's intentions, Edward despatched his
brother Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, to endeavour to satisfy his offended
suzerain. Philip then declared that he would consider himself satisfied
if Edward surrendered into his hand, as a token of submission, the
chief fortresses of Gascony: they should be restored the moment that
compensation had been made for the doings at St. Mahé. Earl Edmund
accepted the offer, and the castles were duly placed in Philip's hands.
Then, with a barefaced effrontery that disgusted even his own nobles,
the French king repudiated the agreement, and declared that he should
retain Guienne permanently. Edward was thus committed to an unexpected
war, while all his strongholds in Aquitaine were already in the enemy's
hands. He began to arm in great wrath, and sent ambassadors abroad
to gather allies among Philip's continental foes, chief of whom were
the Emperor Adolf of Nassau and the Counts of Brabant, Holland, and
Flanders.
[Sidenote: =Alliance of Philip with the Welsh and Scots.=]
But Philip also had looked about him for allies. At this moment
Madoc-ap-Llewellyn rose in rebellion in North Wales, relying on French
aid, and, what was of far greater importance, the discontent of the
Scots took the form of open war with England. John Balliol embraced the
French alliance, promised to wed his son to Philip's daughter, and sent
raiding bands across the border to harry Cumberland and Northumberland.
[Sidenote: =Edward invades Scotland.--Balliol gives up his crown.=]
Edward resolved at once to ward off the nearer dangers before taking
in hand the reconquest of Guienne. How he put down the dangerous
rebellion of Madoc the Welshman, we have related in an earlier page.
That campaign had taken up the best part of the year 1295; in the next
spring the turn of Balliol came. He was summoned to appear before his
suzerain at Newcastle, and when he did not obey, Edward crossed the
Tweed with a great host. Berwick, the frontier fortress and chief port
of Scotland, was stormed after a very short siege, and three weeks
later the Scottish king was completely routed at the battle of Dunbar
(April 27, 1296). So unskilfully did the Scots fight, that they were
beaten by Edward's vanguard under John de Warenne--the hero of the
rusty sword at the _Quo Warranto_ inquest--before the king and the
main body of the English army came upon the field. One after another,
Edinburgh, Perth, Stirling, and all the chief towns of Scotland
yielded themselves, and ere long the craven-spirited king of the north
surrendered himself, and gave up his crown into Edward's hands, asking
pardon as one who had been misled and coerced by evil counsellors.
Edward then held a Parliament of all the Scottish barons, and received
their homage, being resolved to reign himself as king north as well as
south of the Tweed. He told the assembled nobles that none of the old
laws of Scotland should be changed, and issued an amnesty to Balliol's
late partisans. It seemed that all resistance was at an end, and that
the union of the crowns was to take place with no further trouble
or bloodshed. John de Warenne--the victor of Dunbar--was appointed
guardian of the realm, and Edward turned southward in triumph, taking
with him the Scottish regalia, and the Holy Stone of Scone, on which
the Kings of Scotland were wont to be crowned. That famous relic still
remains at Westminster, where Edward placed it, and serves as the
pedestal of the coronation chair of the Kings of England to this day.
[Sidenote: =The expedition to Guienne.=]
The king thought that Scotland was tamed even as Wales had been,
forgetting that the Scots had hardly tried their strength against him,
and had yielded so easily mainly because their craven king had deserted
them. Dismissing northern affairs from his mind, he now turned to the
long-deferred expedition to Guienne. The greater part of that duchy
was still in King Philip's greedy hands, and only Bayonne and a few
other towns were holding out against him. Edward determined to land
in Flanders himself, and there to stir up his German allies against
France, but to send the great bulk of the English levies to Gascony,
under the Marshal, Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk.
[Sidenote: =Illegal taxation.--Conflict with the Church.=]
But the expedition was not to take place without much preliminary
trouble and difficulty. Edward was in grave need of money to furnish
forth his great army, and tried to levy new taxes without any formal
grants from Parliament. This at once brought him into conflict
with the clergy and the baronage. The arrogant Pope Boniface VIII.
had just published a bull named _Clericis Laicos_, from its opening
words. It forbade the clergy to pay any taxes to the crown from their
ecclesiastical revenues. Archbishop Winchelsey thought himself bound
to carry out the Pope's command, and refused, in the name of all his
order, to assent to any portion of the national taxation falling
on Church land. The king, who was in no mood to stand objections,
was moved to great wrath at this unreasonable claim. He copied the
behaviour of his grandfather, King John, in a similar crisis, and by
his behest the judges proclaimed that no cleric should have law in
the king's courts till the refusal to pay taxes was rescinded. Edward
himself sequestrated the lands of the see of Canterbury, and intimated
to all tenants on the estates of the clergy that nothing should be done
against them if they refused to pay their rents. Many ecclesiastics
thereupon withdrew their refusal to contribute to the national
expenses; but the archbishop held out, and the quarrel ran on for some
time. At last Boniface VIII. was induced to so far modify his bull as
to admit that the Church might make voluntary grants for the purpose
of national defence. Winchelsey therefore promised the king that he
would endeavour to induce the clergy to make large contributions of
their own free will, if Edward on his side would confirm the Great
Charter, and swear to take no further measures against Church property.
To this offer Edward could not refuse his consent; he was in urgent
need of money, and, although it was a bad precedent to allow the clergy
to assess their own taxation outside Parliament, and on a different
scale from the contributions of the rest of the realm, he accepted
Winchelsey's compromise.
[Sidenote: =Conflict with Parliament.--Confirmatio Cartarum.=]
But this struggle of the king and the Church was but one important
episode of a contention between the king and the whole nation, which
filled the years 1296-7. Edward had provoked the barons and the
merchants of England no less than the clergy--the former by bidding
them sail for Gascony in the winter, and pay him a heavy tax; the
latter by seizing all their wool--England's greatest export--as it lay
in harbour, and forcing them to pay a heavy fine, the _mal-tolt_, or
evil tax, as it was called, before he would let it be sent over-sea.
All this had been done without the consent of Parliament. The barons,
headed by Roger Bigod, who had been told off to head the expedition
to Guienne, refused to go abroad unless the king himself should lead
them, urging that their feudal duty was only to defend the kingdom, and
not to wage wars beyond it. Bigod flatly refused to set out unless the
king went with him. "By God, Sir Earl, thou shalt either go or hang!"
exclaimed Edward, irritated at the contumacy of one who, as Marshal of
England, was bound to hold the most responsible post in the army that
he was striving to raise. "And by God, Sir King, I will neither go nor
hang!" shouted the equally enraged Earl Marshal. He flung himself out
of the king's presence, and with the aid of his friend Bohun, the Earl
of Hereford, gathered a great host, and prepared to withstand the king,
if he should persist in endeavouring to carry out his design. Edward,
however, sailed himself for the continent without forcing the barons to
follow him. When he was gone, a Parliament met. Archbishop Winchelsey
and the Earls of Norfolk and Hereford took the lead in protesting
against the king's late arbitrary action, and by their council a
recapitulation of the Great Charter was drawn up, with certain articles
added at the end which expressly stipulated that the king should never
raise any tax or impost without the consent of lords and commons in
Parliament assembled--so that such an exaction as the late _mal-tolt_
would be in future illegal. The document, which is generally known as
the _Confirmatio Cartarum_, was sent over-sea to the king. He received
it at Ghent, and after much doubting signed it, for he always wished to
have the good-will of the nation, and knew that a persistence in the
exercise of his royal prerogative would bring on a rebellion such as
that which had overturned his father in 1263. From this moment dates
the first practical control of the Parliament over the royal revenue,
for the clause in Magna Carta which stipulates for such a right had
been so often violated both by Henry III. and his son, that it required
to be fully vindicated by the _Confirmatio Cartarum_ before it was
recognized as binding both by king and people.
Meanwhile Edward got little aid in Flanders from his German allies,
and found that he had small chance of punishing King Philip by their
arms. He saw Bruges and Lille taken by the French, and finally returned
foiled to England, called thither by evil news from the north.
[Sidenote: =Rising of the Scots.--William Wallace.=]
Scotland was once more up in arms. Though the Anglo-Norman lords who
formed the bulk of the baronage had readily done homage to the English
monarch, the mass of the nation were far less satisfied with the new
condition of affairs. They felt that their king and nobles had betrayed
them to the foreigner--for to many of them, notably the Highlanders,
the Galloway men, and the Welsh of Strathclyde, the Englishman still
seemed foreign. Edward had not made a very wise choice in the ministers
whom he left behind in Scotland; Ormesby, the chief justice, and
Cressingham, the treasurer, both made themselves hated by their harsh
and unbending persistence in endeavouring to introduce English laws
and English taxes. In the spring of 1297 an insurrection broke out
in the West Lowlands, headed by a Strathclyde knight, named William
Wallace (or le Walleys, _i.e._ the Welshman). He had been wronged by
the Sheriff of Lanark, took to the hills, and was outlawed. His small
band of followers soon swelled to a multitude, and the regent, John
de Warenne, was obliged to march against him in person. Despising
the tumultuary array of the rebels, who got no real help from the
self-seeking barons of Scotland, the earl marched carelessly out of
Stirling to attack Wallace, who lay on the hill across the river,
beyond Cambuskenneth bridge. Instead of waiting to be attacked, Wallace
charged when a third of the English host had crossed the stream. This
vanguard was overwhelmed and driven into the Forth, while de Warenne
could not bring up his reserves across the crowded bridge. He withdrew
into Stirling, leaving several thousand dead on the field, among them
the hated treasurer Cressingham, out of whose skin the victorious Scots
are said to have cut straps and belts.
This unexpected victory caused a general rising: some of the barons
and many of the gentry joined the insurgents. Wallace, Andrew Murray,
and the Seneschal of Scotland, were proclaimed wardens of the realm in
behalf of the absent John Balliol, and their authority was generally
acknowledged. Warenne could do nothing against them, and prayed his
master to come over-sea to his help. Meanwhile, Wallace crossed
the Tweed at the head of a great band of marauders, and harried
Northumberland with a wanton cruelty which was to lead to bitter
reprisals later on.
[Sidenote: =Edward in Scotland.--Battle of Falkirk.=]
It was not till 1298 that Edward returned to England, and took in hand
the suppression of the rebellion. He crossed the border with the whole
feudal levy of England, twenty thousand bowmen, and a great horde of
Welsh light infantry; soon he was joined by many Scots of the English
faction. Wallace burnt the Lothians behind him, and retired northward
for some time without fighting. Edward's great host was almost forced
to retire for want of provisions, but when the news was brought him
that Wallace had pitched his camp at Falkirk, he pressed on to bring
the Scots to action. He found them drawn up behind a morass, formed
in four great clumps of pikemen, with archers in the intervals, and a
few cavalry in the reserve. The first charge of the English horse was
checked by the bog; the second was beaten back by the steady infantry
of the Scots. Then Edward brought forward his archers, and bade them
riddle the heavy masses of the enemy with ceaseless arrow-flights, till
a gap was made. Then the English horse charged again; the Scottish
knights in reserve fled without attempting to save the day, and the
greater part of the squares of pikemen were ridden down and cut to
pieces. Wallace fled to the hills, and the English cruelly ravaged all
the Lowlands. But the Scots did not yet submit; the barons deposed
Wallace, of whom they had always been jealous, and named a regency to
supersede him, under John Comyn, the nephew of their exiled king. The
struggle lingered on for several years more, for Edward was hindered
from completing his work by the continual pressure of the French war.
It was not till 1301-2 that he resumed and finished the conquest of
the Lowlands. But in 1303 he was at length able to make a definitive
peace with Philip IV., who restored to him all the lost fortresses
of Guienne. Free at last from his continental troubles, Edward swept
over Scotland from end to end, carrying his arms into the north as
far as Elgin and Banff. The regent Comyn and all the barons of the
land submitted to him, and by the capture of Stirling in 1304 the last
embers of resistance were quenched.
[Sidenote: =Subjection of Scotland.--Wallace executed.=]
Scotland was apparently crushed: the king reorganized the whole
country, cutting it up into counties and sheriffdoms like England,
providing for its representation in the English Parliament, and setting
up new judges and governors throughout the land. The administration
was, for the most part, left in the hands of Scots, though the king's
nephew, John of Brittany, was appointed regent and warden of the land.
The last hope of the survival of Scottish independence seemed to vanish
in 1305, when Wallace, who had maintained himself as an outlaw in the
hills long after the rest of his countrymen had submitted, fell into
the hands of the English. He was betrayed by some of his own men to Sir
John Menteith, one of Edward's Scottish officials. Menteith sent him
to London, where he was executed as a traitor, with all the cruelties
that were prescribed for men guilty of high treason. It would have been
better for the king's good name if he--like so many other Scots--had
been pardoned; but Edward could not forgive the prime mover of the
insurrection, and the cruel waster of the English border.
[Sidenote: =Robert Bruce.--Murder of John Comyn.=]
For some two years Scotland was governed as part of Edward's realm,
but the nation submitted from sheer necessity, not from any good
will. In 1306 the troubles broke out again, owing to the ambition of
a single man. Robert Bruce, the grandson of the Bruce who had striven
with Balliol in 1292, was the leader in the new rising. Like his
grandfather, he was more of an English baron than a pure Scot. He had
taken Edward's side in the civil wars, and seems to have hoped that
his fidelity might be rewarded by the gift of the Scottish crown when
the Balliols were finally dismissed. Receiving no such guerdon, he
conspired with some of his kinsfolk and a few of the Scottish earls,
and endeavoured to get John Comyn, the late regent of Scotland, to join
him. But when Comyn refused--at an interview in the Greyfriars Kirk at
Dumfries--to break his newly sworn faith to King Edward, Bruce slew
him with his own hand before the altar, and fled to the north. There
was method in this murder, for, after the Balliols, Comyn had the best
hereditary claim to the Scottish throne.[18]
[Sidenote: =Severity of Edward.=]
Gathering his followers at Scone, Bruce had himself crowned King of
Scotland. But his royalty was of the most ephemeral nature; few of the
Scots would join one whose past record was so unsatisfactory, and his
army was beaten and dispersed by de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, whom
King Edward sent against him. Bruce had to take to the hills almost
alone, and for many months was chased about the woods and lochs of
Perthshire and Argyleshire by Highland chiefs eager to earn the price
that Edward had set upon his head. His kinsmen, Nigel, Alexander, and
Thomas, with most of his chief followers, were captured, tried and
executed, for Edward was driven to wild anger by the unprovoked rising
of one who had hitherto been his hot partisan. Even the ladies of
Bruce's house were cast into dungeons, and the Countess of Buchan, who
had crowned him at Scone, was shut up in an iron cage. The king's hand
fell far more heavily on Scotland than before: the lands of Bruce's
partisans were confiscated and given to Englishmen, and all who had
favoured him were slain or outlawed.
[Sidenote: =Death of Edward.=]
Unhappily for the king, these harsh measures had a very different
result from that which he had expected. The hangings and confiscations
gave Bruce many new partisans, and his misfortunes made him the
nation's favourite. When he left his island refuge in Argyleshire
in the spring of 1307 and landed in Carrick, he was joined by a
considerable force. Edward, though now an old man, and stricken down by
disease, swore that he would make an end of the traitor. He mounted his
horse for the last time at Carlisle, and rode as far as Burgh-on-Sands,
where bodily weakness forced him to stop. Feeling the hand of death
upon him, he made his son Edward of Carnarvon swear to persevere in the
expedition against Bruce. He even bade him bear his coffin forward into
Scotland, for his very bones, he said, would make the Scots quake. Four
days of illness ended his laborious life (July 17, 1307). His unworthy
son at once broke up the army, leaving Bruce to make head unopposed,
and used his father's funeral as an excuse for returning home. Edward
was buried under a plain marble slab at Westminster, with the short
inscription--
"EDWARDVS PRIMVS MALLEVS SCOTORVM HIC EST.
PACTVM SERVA."
FOOTNOTE:
[18] See table on p. 160.