s % (Smmll Mnivmity |ptag BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND -THE GIFT OF /Hettrg W. Sage .ft l8gI A'j.SAl.ZJ: ^c/3//9 A ^ DA 229." UniVersity Library Ed Ti?iiniii!i™I , ™flffii 1 li Edward '•) ,he Enoli 3 1924 027 923 113 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924027923113 Heroes of the Nations Series of Biographical Studies presenting the lives and work of certain representative histori- cal characters, about whom have gathered the traditions of the nations to which they belong, and who have, in the majority of instances, been accepted as types of the several national ideals. 12°, Illustrated, cloth, each . . $1.50 Half Leather, gilt top, each . . $1-75 Nos. 33 and following Nos. . . net $1.35 Each . . . (By mail, $1.50) Half Leather, gilt top . . . net $1.60 (By mail, $1.75) FOR FULL LIST SEE END OF THIS VOLUME Heroes of tbe IRations EDITED BY Evelyn Bbbott, 0>.B. FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD FACTA DUCI8 VIVCNT, OPEROSAQUE GLORIA RERUM.— OVID, IN LIVIAM 265. THE HERO'B DEEDS AND MAUD-WON FAME SHALL LIVE. EDWARD PLANTAGENET (EDWARD I.) EDWARD I. {From ''''Fcedera" Rytner Edition.} Edward Plantagenet (EDWARD I.) THE ENGLISH JUSTINIAN OR THE MAKING OF THE COMMON LAW EDWARD JENKS, M.A. (oxon. et cantab.) READER IN ENGLISH LAW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD TUTOR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE AUTHOR OF "LAW AND POLITICS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 1 * "A SHORT HISTORY OF POLITICS," ETC. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK LONDON 27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET STRAND %\t Knickerbocker Jpress 1902 M A. is-^o-q Copyright, 1901 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Ube Tfcnfcfcerbocker (press, •Rew Boris PREFACE IF ever there was a national hero, it was Edward of England. In his person, his character, his posi- tion, and his policy, are summed up the essential elements of that great English nation which came into existence during his lifetime. How far Edward was its creator, how far its creature, is a shrewd question, which each student of history must answer for himself; but I trust that this little book may help him to form a sound conclusion. Whatever be the answer, there can be little doubt, that it would be impossible to find a truer symbol of the English nation, in the days of its glorious youth, than the king whose life is sketched in the following pages. Perhaps it is necessary that I should offer a word of apology for the intrusion of a mere lawyer upon a scene so dominated by great historians. My ex- planation is, that I have long been unable to un- derstand, how any one but a lawyer can possibly appreciate the true inwardness of Edward's reign. The Common Law which came into existence during his lifetime was, and is, the very picture of English national life, the concrete form into which the na- tional spirit crystallises with the moving centuries. iv Preface Some of Edward's most brilliant achievements in legislation and statecraft are wholly missed by lay historians, simply because these achievements are expressed in highly technical language. If I have essayed the perilous task of striving to make techni- cal matters clear to the general reader, as in Chapters IX. and XIII., I have done so because I have felt, that it was idle to attempt, in any other way, to bring out Edward's real greatness. But, even with this conviction, I should hardly have ventured the task, had I not been encouraged, by those whose opinions are entitled to greater weight than my own, to hope that I might in some degree succeed in persuading my readers, that Law is a dull subject only to those who do not understand it. Although I have not thought it advisable, in a work intended for the general reader, to cumber my pages with references, I trust that I shall be believed when I assert, that the book is written absolutely from first-hand sources, a few of which will be found enumerated in the List of Authorities. The one exception to this rule has been in the matter of military details, of which I know very little, and in which I have been content to follow the learned authority of Professor Oman, to whose work, A History of the Art of War, I am greatly indebted. To my colleague, Professor Goudy, I owe thanks for his kindness in discussing with me the Roman side of our legal history ; and to my friend, Mr. R. Lane Poole, for his constant readiness to place at my disposal his stores of medieval learning. Finally, my former colleague, Professor Tout, of the Owens Preface College, Manchester, has laid me under deep obliga- tion, by bringing his great knowledge of all things connected with Edward I. to bear upon my proof- sheets, to the great advantage of my readers and myself. Oxford, August, igoi. E. J. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE iii LIST OF MAPS, PLANS, AND PEDIGREES . . . xiii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ..... XV CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS . . . xvii CONTEMPORARY RULERS OF CHRISTENDOM (1239- 1307) ........ xxiii CHAPTER I. THE MIDDLE AGES IN EUROPE .... I The study of history — Barbarism of medieval Europe — The struggle for supremacy — The battle of Tours — The Empire of Charles the Great — Its decay — Feudalism — Hereditary offices — The warrior and the peasant — The legacy of the Frankish Empire — The homestead and the castle — Monasticism — Benedict of Nursia — The scriptorium — Decay of monastic influence — The new orders — Cluniac, Carthusian, Cistercian. CHAPTER II. THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN EUROPE ... 23 Formation of modern Europe — France, Germany, Spain, Scandinavia, England — The Holy Roman Empire — Gregory VII. (Hildebrand) — The Crusades — The Moslems — The Mongols — Zenghis Khan and his conquests — Ogodai — The policy of Europe — Growth of commerce — New routes — Venetians and Genoese — Mortgages of feu- dal estates — Decay of feudalism — Awakening of thought. vin moments CHAPTER III. ENGLAND IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY . . 45 Agriculture — The medieval village — Open fields — The lord and the serf — Isolation of the village — Agricultural reform — The ' ' three-field " system — Money rents — Day labourers — The castle — Defence stronger than attack — The foot soldier — The long bow — The clergy — Non-residence and pluralities — The Mendicant Orders — Heresy in south- ern France — The Dominicans — The Franciscans. CHAPTER IV. BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS 70 The marriages of Count Raymond's daughters — The Savoyards and the Poitevins — Birth of Edward — His father's quarrels — The City of London — Wales — Scotland — Marriage of Margaret, Edward's sister — The French war — Simon of Montfort — The Committee of Twelve — The lieutenancy of Gascony — Simon's administration — Edward appointed to succeed him — Edward's marriage and settle- ment — Henry's acceptance of the crown of Sicily for his son Edmund — Richard of Cornwall made King of the Romans — Edward and the island of Oleron. CHAPTER V. THE GATHERING STORM 96 Causes of discontent — The foreigners — Extravagance of the King — Papal exactions — The crisis of 1258 — The Pro- visions of Oxford — The new ministers — Quarrel in the re- forming party — Appearance of the "bachelors" — The Provision of Westminster — Henry obtains Papal release from his oath. CHAPTER VI. THE BARONS' WAR 122 Diplomatic efforts — Death of the elder Gloucester — Re- newal of the Welsh war — Split in the Welsh camp — The Contents ix PAGE war breaks out — First stage — The Mise of Amiens — Re- ceived with indignation — Second stage of the war — Success of the royalists in the west and midlands — -Their utter defeat at Lewes — The Mise of Lewes — Threat of foreign invasion — Simon's Great Parliament — Quarrel of Simon and (the younger) Gloucester — Escape of Edward — Third stage of the war, the campaign and battle of Evesham — Death of Earl Simon — His character — New position of Edward. CHAPTER VII. THE COMING OF THE KING 148 Gifts to the Prince — Clearing up after the war — Edward takes the Cross — Death of St. Louis — The Crusade aband- oned by the French and Spaniards — Edward pursues it- Battles of Nazareth and Kerak — Narrow escape from assassination — Death of King Henry — Edward's leisurely journey to England — Coronation — Great enquiry concern- ing the franchises — The Hundred Rolls — The Quo War. ranto proceedings — The compromise — Enquiry concerning the royal officials — The Statute of Westminster I. CHAPTER VIII. WALES 176 Early history of Wales — Llywelyn ab Jorwerth and John Lackland — Llywelyn ab Gruffyth and Henry III. — Llywelyn's defiance — Successful Welsh campaign — Treaty of Aberconway — Renewal of the war — Capture of Anglesey — Battle of Orewin Bridge — Deaths of Llywelyn and David — Settlement of Wales — The new counties — "North Wales" and "West Wales" — Welsh private law retained. CHAPTER IX. THE ENGLISH JUSTINIAN 200 The Statute of Merchants (Acton Burnell) — Position of the merchant class — Imperfect machinery for the enforcement Contents PAGE of debts — Causes of this state of things — Remedy of the statute — The Statute of Entails (De Dams) — Its fortunate failure — The Statute of Westminster II. — Feudal abuses — Official abuses — The Exchequer Ordinances — Abuses of private litigation — The " like case " clause — The Statute of Winchester — The three universal duties of citizenship — Commissions under the statute — The Statute Circumspecte Agatis — Mortmain — The Ordinance for London. CHAPTER X. SCOTLAND 228 The judicial scandal — Adam of Stratton — Quarrel between Gloucester and Hereford — The Scottish kingdom — Re- lations between the English and Scottish royal families — Deaths of Alexander III. and his children — The treaties of Salisbury and Brigham — Death of the Maid of Norway — Disturbances in Scotland — Robert Bruce — The League of Turnberry — Edward moves northwards — Death of the Queen — Renewal of the Scottish negotiations — The com- petitors submit to Edward's arbitration — The trial begins at Norham — Adjournment — The questions involved — Answered by the magnates — Edward awards the crown to Balliol — Returns to England — Quarrel with Balliol. CHAPTER XI. THE FRENCH WAR - 253 Fighting in the Channel — Philip summons Edward to ex- plain the proceedings — Seizes Gascony — Edward's prepar- ations — Quarrel with the clergy — Welsh rising — The English army in Gascony — Election of Pope Boniface VIII. — Mission of the Papal envoys to England — Discovery of the league between Scotland and France — Organization of the coast guard — The "Model" Parliament — Its im- portance and permanence — The Scots under Comyn invade England — Edward's victorious campaign — Harsh treatment of Scotland — Failure of Gascon expedition — The Bull Clericis Laicos — The clergy refuse a grant — They are out- Contents xi PAGE lawed — They give way — Quarrel with the earls — The Statute Quia Emptores — The earls refuse to go to Gascony — The King appeals to the people — The Confirmation of the Charters — Peace with France. CHAPTER XII. CLOSING YEARS 281 National rising in Scotland — William Wallace — Cambus- kenneth — Edward marches north — Wins the battle of Fal- kirk — Discontent in England — The Pope claims Scotland — The Articles upon the Charters — The Parliament of Lincoln — Repudiation of the Papal claim on Scotland — Defeat of the French at Courtrai — Disturbances in England — Renewal of the Scottish campaign — Rosslyn — The Carta Mercatoria and the ' ' New Custom " — Siege of Stirling Castle — Capture and execution of Wallace — Parliament of 1305 — Petitions — Conference on Scottish affairs — Settle- ment of Scotland — Rising under Bruce — Knighthood of Prince Edward — Methven — The Parliament of Carlisle — Petition against Papal exactions — Defeat of the English at Loudon Hill — Edward moves to attack Bruce — His death and burial. CHAPTER XIII. THE KING AND HIS WORK 305 Edward's position in history — His private character — Gas- cony — Ireland — Early history — Palatine lordships — Ex- chequer and Law Courts — Dublin and other boroughs — The Friars — The Irish Magna Charta — Edward becomes Lord of Ireland — His administration — Scotland — Wales — England — Military — Administrative — Revenue — Fall in the value of money — Devices for raising supplies — The Jews — Church revenues — The merchants — Parliamentary taxation — Parliament — The Feudal Council — The "Ordi- nary " or " Privy " Council — • The Great Council of the Magnates — The Common Council of the Kingdom — The Exchequer — The Common Bench — The Upper Bench — Developments of Parliament — Its Functions — Supply — xu Contents Grievances — Legislation — The English Justinian — The Corpus jfuris of Byzantium — The Canon Law — Roman Law in Spain, France, Germany, Scotland — Its rejection by England— Causes — Three conceptions of Law — That adopted by England — The Common Law — Collection of materials — The work of Bracton — The work of Edward. APPENDIX A . LIST OF AUTHORITIES . INDEX .... 347 349 353 LIST OF MAPS, PLANS, AND PEDIGREES MAP. ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN 1259 . PACING PAGE 256 PLANS. PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF LEWES PLAN OF THE EVESHAM CAMPAIGN 132 140 PEDIGREES. MARRIAGES OF THE DAUGHTERS OF COUNT RAY MOND BERENGER .... HENRY III. AND HIS FOREIGN CONNECTIONS THE WELSH PRINCES .... THE KINGS OF SCOTLAND THE CLAIMANTS TO THE SCOTTISH THRONE MARRIAGES OF EDWARD'S CHILDREN xiii 72 98 l8l 234 242 306 ILLUSTRATIONS edward i. 1 . . . . Frontispiece BENEDICTINE MONK. 2 l8 BENEDICTINE NUN. 2 ...... 20 CLUNIAC MONK. 2 ....... 22 CARTHUSIAN MONK. 2 ...... 24 CISTERCIAN MONK. 2 ...... 26 CRUSADING GALLEY. 3 ...... 28 A TEMPLAR." ....... 32 ENGLISH SOLDIERS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY. 5 . 42 ENGLISH ARTISANS OF THE THIRTEENTH CEN- TURY." 52 HELMETS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 6 . . 54 GROUND PLAN OF THE CASTLE OF COUCY.' . . 56 PEASANT WOMAN CHURNING. 8 . . . . 70 GREAT SEAL OF HENRY III." 72 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 74 1 From " Fcedera," Rymer Edition. 5 From Dugdale's " Monasticon." 3 From Viollet le Due's " Diet, du Mobilier Francais." 4 From Stothard's " Monumental Effigies." E From Hewitt's "Ancient Armour." 6 From Strutt's " Dress and Habits." 'From Viollet le Due's " Descript. Chateau de Coucy." 8 From Fairholt's " Costumes." "From Crull's "Antiquities of St. Peter's." xv XVI Illustrations PAGE FRENCH LADY.' 82 (Thirteenth Century.) GASCON PEASANT WOMAN. 1 88 (Thirteenth Century.) ELEANOR OF CASTILE." 9 2 (Wife of Edward I.) WILLIAM OF VALENCE." 9 8 CLERK OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 1 . . 104 FRENCH MAGISTRATE. 1 1 28 ( Thirteenth Century.) ISABELLA OF ANGOULKME. 2 . ' . . • • 134 ( I rife of King John.) RUINS OF EVESHAM ABBEY.' 142 FURNESS ABBEY. 3 160 ROGER OF SALISBURY. 2 170 (Organiser of the Exchequer.) SERGEANT-AT-ARMS. 1 I92 ( Thirteenth Century. ) GILBERTINE NUN. 1 ...... 194 SEAL OF THE CHANCERY AT CAERMARTHEN. 4 . 196 (Temp. Ric. II.) FRENCH KNIGHT OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 1 258 SIEGE WEAPONS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 1 . 294 GREAT SEAL OF EDWARD I.* . . . . . 305 VIOL OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.' . . . 309 1 From Viollet le Due's " Diet, du Mobilier Francais." 'From Stothard's " Monumental Effigies." 3 From Dugdale"s " Monasticon." 4 From Nicholas' " Annals of Wales. 5 From Hewitt's " Ancient Armour." CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY. 1239 June 17. Edward born. 1240 Death of Llywelyn ab Jorwerth, and Edmund Rich (archbishop). 1241 Successful invasion of Wales by King Henry. Treaty of Rhuddlan. Death of Pope Gregory IX. Great victories of the Tartars in Hungary and Poland. 1242 Outbreak of the French war ; Henry defeated at Taillebourg and Saintes. 1243 Election (after interval of two years) of Innocent IV. (Fieschi). 1244 War with Wales and Scotland. Death of Gruff yth ab Llywelyn. 1245 Council of Lyons. Renewal of quarrel between Papacy and Empire. 1246 Death of David ab Llywelyn. The Pope turns a deaf ear to complaints of Papal taxation. 1248 Montfort made viceroy of Gascony. 1249 Death of Alexander II. of Scotland. 1250 Defeat of French Crusaders at Mansourah, and capture of St. Louis. Death of the Emperor Frederick II. 125 1 Marriage of Edward's sister, Margaret, with Alex- ander (III.) of Scotland. 1252 Complaints of Montfort's government in Gascony. 1253 Civil war in Gascony. Disastrous campaign of Henry. Betrothal of Edward to Eleanor of Castile. Death of Bishop Greathead. xviii Chronological Summary 1254 Ireland, Wales, Gascony, Channel Islands, Ches- ter, etc., settled on Edward. Henry accepts kingdom of Sicily ("Apulia") for his second son Edmund. Edward's marriage. Death of Innocent IV., succeeded by Alexander IV. 1256 Revival of Welsh war. Richard of Cornwall made King of the Romans. 1258 League of Scotland and Wales against Henry. The Parliament and Provisions of Oxford. 1259 Henry renounces his claims to the lost possessions of his father. Quarrel between Montfort and Gloucester. 1260 Birth of Margaret of Scotland (Edward's niece). Provisions of Westminster . 1261 Henry obtains Papal absolution from the Pro- visions of Oxford ; Edward refuses. Montfort and Gloucester reconciled. Montfort summons knights of shire to St. Alban's ; the King bids them assemble at Windsor. 1262 Death of the Earl of Gloucester. 1263 Disastrous Welsh campaign. Massacre of foreign- ers and outbreak of the Barons' War. Tem- porary reconciliation ; St. Louis to arbitrate. 1264 Jan. 23. Mise of Amiens. The barons decline to accept it. The Londoners pillage the house of Richard, the King's brother. Renewal of the Barons' War. (May 14.) Battle of Lewes ; defeat of the King. Montfort governs in King's name. 1265 First Parliament with special members for the boroughs. Quarrel of Montfort and (the young- er) Gloucester. Edward makes a party in the west. Campaign on the Severn. Edward captures Kenilworth and wins the battle of Evesham (Aug. 4). Montfort and many of the baronial leaders slain. 1266 Grant of the Customs revenue to Edward. 1267 Treaty of Shrewsbury (or Montgomery) with Llywelyn. Statute of Marlborough (modified version of the Provisions of Oxford). Chronological Summary xix 1270 Edward starts on crusade. Death of St. Louis before Tunis. Edward in Sicily. 1271 Murder of Henry of Cornwall by the Montforts. Edward at Acre. 1272 Death of Richard of Cornwall. Attempt to assassinate Edward. Robert Kilwardby, Pro- vincial of Franciscans, made Primate by Pope, Death of King Henry. 1273 Llywelyn refuses to do homage to Edward's re- presentatives. Edward journeys leisurely home. Renews the charters. Visits Gascony and Paris. 1274 Council of Lyons ; nominal reunion of Greek and Latin churches. Peace between England and Flanders. Edward lands in England (23 July). Great enquiry into private franchises. 1275 Statute of Westminster the First. Permanent grant of the "ancient" Customs. Llywelyn again refuses to do homage. Eleanor of Mont- fort (his betrothed) captured off the Welsh coast. The Hundred Rolls. 1276 War declared against Llywelyn. 1277 Victorious campaign in Wales. Treaty of Aber- conway. 1278 Kilwardby made Cardinal, and Peckham ap- pointed Primate by Pope. Alexander III. of Scotland does homage to Edward. The Statute of Gloucester. 1279 The Quo Warranto enquiry. Edward acquires Ponthieu by the death of his mother-in-law. Provincial council at Reading. The Statute of Mortmain. 1280 Marriage of Margaret of Scotland (Edward's niece) with Eric of Norway. (Michaelmas) Important direction concerning Parliamentary petitions. 1282 Renewal of Welsh rising. The English defeated at Menai Straits (Nov. 6). Victorious at Orewin Bridge (December 11). Llywelyn slain. xx Chronological Summary 1283 Death of Margaret of Scotland (Queen of Nor- way) leaving an infant daughter (the " Maid of Norway.") Parliament of Shrewsbury. David of Wales condemned and executed. Statute of Merchants (or Acton Burnel). 1284 Statute of Rhuddlan (settlement of Wales). 1285 Statutes of Westminster the Second and Winchester. 1286 Death of Alexander III. of Scotland (March 19). The League of Turnberry. 1287 Conservators of the Peace to enforce the Statute of Winchester. 1288 Edward in Gascony. Narrow escape from death by lightning. Valuation of Pope Nicholas IV. 1289 Treaty of Salisbury (concerning the "Maid of Norway.") 1290 Treaty of Brigham (" Maid of Norway" to marry Edward's son). Great punishment of corrupt officials. Quarrel between Hereford and Glou- cester. Expulsion of the Jews from England. Death of the " Maid of Norway" and of Ed- ward's wife, Eleanor of Castile. 1291 Formal submission of the Scottish succession to Edward. The trial begins at Norham. Deaths of Edward's mother, Eleanor of Provence, and of Robert Burnel. 1292 Completion of the Scottish trial. Award in favour of Balliol. The Normans attack Dover, and the Channel fleets drift into war. 1293 Philip of France, having obtained temporary sur- render of Aquitaine (Gascony) from Edmund, King's brother, refuses to restore it. War is declared. 1294 Seizure of clerical treasure. The "maletolte" on wool. Great military preparations. Win- chelsey made Primate by the Pope. Chronological Summary xxi 1295 Election of Boniface VIII. Death of the elder Bruce. Balliol enters into a league with France and Norway against England. Organization of the Coast Guard. Meeting of the Model Parliament (Nov. 27). 1296 The Bull Clericis Laicos. Balliol renounces fealty. Edward invades Scotland. Battle of Dunbar. (June.) At Parliament of Bury St. Edmund's, the clergy refuse a grant. 1297 The clergy are outlawed. Quarrel between Ed- ward and the earls. The clergy submit. The earls refuse. Farewell at Westminster. Ed- ward in Flanders. Confirmation of the Charters. Reconciliation between Prince Edward and the earls. 1298 Peace between England and France on terms suggested by Pope Boniface. The Scots rise under William Wallace, and harry the north. Totally routed by Edward at Falkirk. (July 22.) 1299 Edward marries Margaret of France. Pope Boni- face claims Scotland as a fief of the Papal See. 1300 Great reformation of the coinage. Commission of Trailbaston. Enquiry as to forest grievances. Articles upon the Charters. 1301 Great Parliament at Lincoln. The magnates repudiate the Papal claim on Scotland. In- effectual campaign in Scotland. 1302 Crushing defeat of the French by the Flemings at Courtrai. 1303 Segrave and the English defeated at Rosslyn. The Scots capture Stirling. Edward obtains grant of " new " Customs from foreign mer- chants ; the native merchants refuse. 1304 Many of the Scottish nobles submit to Edward. Siege and capture of Stirling castle by the King. Second Commission of Trailbaston. XX 11 Chronological Summary 1305 1306 1307 Important Parliament. Capture and execution of Wallace. Meeting of English and Scottish representatives in London, and scheme for gov- ernment of Scotland (Sep. 15). New Pope (Clement V.) releases Edward from his oath to the charters. Scottish rising under Bruce (grandson of the Com- petitor). Murder of John Comyn. Prince Edward knighted with great pomp. Great ex- pedition to Scotland. Bruce defeated at Meth- ven (June 25). The Pope makes large grants of ecclesiastical revenues to Edward. Execution of Earl of Athol and two Bruces. Parliament of Carlisle. Statute against Papal taxation. Banishment of Piers Gaveston. Bruce defeats the English at Loudon Hill. Edward starts out to meet him, and dies on the road (July 7). Buried at Westminster (Oct. 18). RULERS OF CHRISTENDOM 1239-1307 England. Henry III. Aragon. James I. 1272. Edward I. 1276. Peter III. 1285. Alfonso III. Scotland. Alexander II. 1291. James II. 1249. Alexander III. 1286. The Maid. Navarre. Theobald I. 1290-2. Interregnum. I253- Theobald II. 1292. John Balliol. 1270. Henry I. 1 296-1 306 . Interregnum. 1274- Jeanne (m. Philip 1306. Robert Bruce. IV. of France. France. 1270. St. Louis (IX). Philip III. 1305- ob. 1314). Louis (X. f France). 1285. Philip IV. Empire. Frederick II. Hungary. Bella IV. William of Nassau 1270. Stephen IV. (1248). 1272. Ladislas IV. 1250. Richard of Corn- 1292. Andrew III. wall (opp. by Al- 1 301-5. Wenceslas. fonso of Castile). i3°5- Otto I. 1273. Rudolf of Habs- Bohemia. Wenceslas I. burg. 1278. i3°5- 1306. Wenceslas II. 1292. Adolf of Nassau. Wenceslas III. 1298. Albert of Austria. Henry of Carinthia Castile. Ferdinand III. m. Anne of Bohe- 1252. Alfonso X. mia (opp. by 1284. Sancho IV. Rudolf of Aus- 1295. Ferdinand IV. tria). XXIV Rulers of Christendom Norway. Hakon IV. 1268-71 Vacancy. 1263. Magnus VI. 1271. Gregory X. 1281. Eric II. 1276. Innocent V. 1299. Hakon V. Adrian V. Sweden. Eric III. 1277. John XXI. Nicholas III. 1250. Birger Jarl. (Orsini.) 1266. Waldemar. 1285. Honorius IV. 1279. Magnus I. (Savelli.) 1290. Birger II. 1288. Nicholas IV. Denmark. 1241. 1250. 1252. 1259. Waldemar II. Eric IV. Abel. Christopher. Eric V. 1294. 1303. Celestine V. (Morrone.) Boniface VIII. (Gaetani.) Benedict XL 1286. Eric VI. 1305. (Bocasi.) Clement V. Popes. Gregory IX. (Goth.) At Avi- (Ugolino.) gnon. 1243. Innocent IV. (Fieschi.) Eastern Empire. 1254. Alexander IV. John III. 1261. Urban IV. 1254. Theodore II. (Pantaleone.) 1258. John IV. 1265. Clement IV. 1261. Michael VIII. (Foulquois.) 1282. Andronicus II. EDWARD PLANTAGENET EDWARD PLANTAGENET CHAPTER I THE MIDDLE AGES IN EUROPE THE first lesson to be learnt by the student of the past is, resolutely to close his eyes against the conditions of the present. Just as the wise traveller leaves behind him his home life, adopts, so far as possible, the ways and thoughts of the people amongst whom he sojourns, and becomes, for the time being, a stranger to his own country, so the stu- dent of history must strive by all means to reach the point of view of the period which he studies, to be- come, as far as possible, a man of the age on which his eyes are fixed. The objects of study and travel are very much alike. They aim at widening the view, storing the mind, deepening the experience of life. It is common knowledge, that much of the keenest pleasure of travel comes when the travel is over, and the traveller, safely returned, studies the familiar objects with an eye sharpened by the force of contrast. So with the student of history. Edward Plantagenet Returned from his visit to the thirteenth century, he will be the better able to understand the twentieth. And the more completely he has forgotten, for a time, the century in which he lives, the more forcibly will it appeal to him on his return. For this is one of the secrets of history, that in studying the past we also unconsciously study the present. And so, in turning our eyes upon Europe in the Middle Ages, we must try to grasp a fact so Barbarism of a li en from present ideas that the first effort medieval will probably be in vain. We have for so long looked upon Europe as the centre of civilisation, that we cannot, at first, realise it as the home of barbarism. To us, the East has so long been the prey of the European adventurer, the easy plunder of European courage and brains, that we cannot think of the positions reversed. Although our book of books, the Holy Bible, is admittedly a gift from East to West, yet we look upon our science, our literature, our art, our thought — in a word, our civilisation generally, as immeasurably superior to anything which the East can shew. As for our ma- terial resources, we should smile with contempt if any benighted Oriental ventured to dispute our supremacy. And yet, in the ninth century Eu- rope was to Asia, very much what Central and Southern Africa now are to Europe. The Middle Much of this difficulty arises, no doubt, AfJea - from certain phrases which we absorb unconsciously in the days of which nothing is forgot- ten. We speak of the ' Middle Ages,' till we con- vince ourselves that they are a stage in the onward The Middle Ages in Europe march from the civilisation of Greece and Rome to the civilisation of England and America. The phrase is really an accident of chronology. The Mid- dle Ages began when Constantine moved the seat of his empire from Rome to Constan- tinople ; but that very step transferred the centre of Roman civilisation to the borders of Asia, and left Western Europe helpless before the inroads of the barbarians. Even the Greek civilisation, with all its intellectual and physical beauty, was never a great material civilisation ; and no civilisation which is not material can hope to win the masses of men. At any rate, when the Roman Empire fell, the treasures of Greek life and thought became sealed to Europe for many centuries. With the Middle Ages then, we begin the history of Western Europe ; for history is the record of civilisations, not the mere annals of different lands. The downfall of the Roman Empire left all Europe north of the Alps as truly a prey to adventurers as ever was America in the sixteenth century, The set Australia in the eighteenth, or Africa tiement of in the nineteenth. The thin varnish of material civilisation spread over it by the empire of the Caesars, only made the prize more tempting. The dying organisation of the Roman government was powerless to withstand the westward march of the barbarians. For the space of five hundred years, from the fifth century to the tenth, the history of Europe is little more than one prolonged scramble for the land ; and the only question of serious inter- est is — who will come out victorious ? £. award l-'lantagenet At first there seems to be no clue to the dazzling mass of confusion which seethed in Europe during those years. Kings and chiefs come and go, lands are conquered and exchanged, aimless battles disturb the peace, family quarrels breed long wars which seem to end in nothing. Bands of warriors, led by fierce adventurers, burst through the Alps, swoop down on the remains of Italian industry, eat the land bare, hurry on into Gaul, meet other bands of war- riors, plunge into deadly conflict, disappear from sight. A swarm of pirates, coming from the un- known North, sails up the mouth of a great river, harrying, burning, plundering. Allured by the charms of the land, these pirates may send for their wives and children, or intermarry with their wretched victims, and found a permanent State. Or, again, fired by rumours of yet richer booty, they may sail away when the spring comes, and be heard of no more. What is to be the end of it no one can fore- see ; only one thing is clear, that neither by land nor by sea is there safety for honest labour. The peas- ant sows his corn; but the warrior devours his crops. The trader ventures all on his voyage ; the ship is captured ere she reaches port. But, looking steadily at this confusion, we can see at last what is the great question that is settling The dividing itself amid so much suffering and wreck, lines. -phe man y rivals for the soil of Europe are seen to fall into two great groups, divided from each other by two great barriers, one of Climate. ° ' climate, the other of religion. On the one hand are the pale races of the North, not of Europe The Middle Ages in Europe only but of Asia, — Scandinavians, Goths, Lombards, Franks, Saxons, Lithuanians, Poles, Avars, Bulgari- ans, — representing roughly, the cold or temperate climates of the world. On the other are the dark races of the South, the Arabs, Moors, and Syrians, the fierce and subtle products of the burning deserts of northern Africa and Asia. In a sense, all were un- civilised races ; the true civilisations of the world as it then stood, the Egyptian, Hindu, and the distant Chinese, stood aloof from the scramble. But the southern races had acquired from their contact with these a thin covering of arts and sciences, to which the rude tribes of the North could lay no claim. The other barrier which divided these contending groups, was the barrier of religion. The efforts of the Christian missionaries had succeeded, 11 i r i • i • Religion. by the end of the ninth century, m con- verting at least to a nominal acceptance of the Christian faith, the lands of Western and Northern Europe. The limits of Christendom included the countries now known as Italy, France, Western Ger- many, Denmark, England, and Northern conversion of Spain. The conversion of the conquering the Franks - Franks at the end of the fifth century had set an irresistible impulse at work; and, as the Frankish power grew, it was natural that men should begin to think of an united Christendom under the dual leadership of the Frankish King and of that great ecclesiastic of the West who still dwelt in the city of the Caesars, the Pope of Rome. The union was for a long time very slight ; its members quarrelled and fought among themselves. But as the struggle Edward Plantagenet with the invaders from the South became more and more terrible, men came slowly to realise that this was a fight, not only for lands and homes, but for the faith of Christ against the followers of the Prophet. For the real danger of the invasion from the South lay in the fact that it at last ceased to be a mere Mahomet, rabble of scattered bands, each bent on anism. plunder; it became an organised devel- opment of a great religious system. The triumphs of Mahomet had not ended with his death. Within fifty years of that event, the mighty Caliphate of the Omayyads had been founded at Damascus ; and in the eighth century its conquests spread rapidly over Asia Minor, India, Northern Africa, and Spain. It was this last and most daring development which finally roused a militant Christendom ; and Charles Martel, Chief of the Franks, fairly earned his title as leader of Christ- ian Europe and champion of the northern races, by defeating the Saracen hosts at Tours, just a century after the death of the Prophet. Not that we are to suppose any definite recognition of his claims by his northern rivals. The hands of Charles' predecessors had been heavy on their neighbours ; and his successors continued the tra- dition. But, almost unconsciously, the Frankish King drifted into the position of champion of Christ- ianity ; and every enlargement of the Frankish borders, against Avars, Bohemians, Saxons, and Lombards, meant an increase of the boundaries of Christendom. At length the great idea, which had The Middle Ages in Europe been so long vaguely floating in the minds of men, was seized and made material by a great Leo Pope and a great warrior ; and Charles the Great was solemnly crowned in Rome, on Christ- mas Day, 800, not as German King, but as Emperor and King of the Romans, the destined reviver of the Christian Empire of Rome, under whose sway the world had once enjoyed peace. The Christian Church of the West had broken away from the Eastern Church at Constantinople ; the Pope had renounced allegiance to the Eastern Emperor. The desertion of four hundred years was to be avenged. Once more the seat of Empire was to be on the Seven Hills. And if the secular rulers of the Empire were to be found oftener at Aachen, or Trier, or Koln, on the march or in the camp, than in the palaces of the Caesars, still, in the person of the Pope the spiritual head of the Empire would still watch over the Eter- nal City, and guard the gates of Christendom. The Sword of the Flesh would be aided by the Sword of the Spirit.* It was a brilliant idea, perhaps the most brilliant ever conceived by the Western mind ; but it was only possible in a world in which fiction The Empire was stronger than fact, which lived in the of Charles. dim tradition of the past, rather than in the steady light of the present. Charles himself had been a man of genius ; and the very essence of genius is its rarity. He had carried his victorious arms from the Spanish Mark to the Elbe and the Weser, from * For a full account of the life and reign of Charles the Great, the reader is referred to the work by Mr. Carless Davis in this series. 8 Edward Plantagenet Hungary to the western shores of Gaul. He had even, with more doubtful right, absorbed the Christian kingdom of Lombardy, whose heresy was an eyesore to the neighbouring Popes. And during his lifetime, he somehow held together, by an elaborate revival of the Roman provincial system, the vast territories which owned his sway. But his empire perished, as all revivals must, when the sudden enthusiasm died, which called it into being. In less than a century from the death of Charles, it seemed as though all his work were to do over again. The mighty structure he had reared fell all to pieces. Once more Europe was a mass of petty chiefships and communities, each doing that which was right (or wrong) in its own eyes. Once more was it girt by a ring of threatening heathenism, — northern pirates, eastern Wends, and Magyar horsemen, worst of all, in the south, by the dread Moslems. In the eighth century the Omayyad Caliphate of Damascus had fallen, only to be replaced by the still more splendid Abbaside Caliphate of Bagdad. The great Harun al Rashid had sought the friend- ship of the great Emperor Charles ; but would his successors respect the petty princes who divided the empire of Charles amongst them ? True, Mahom- etanism was not so strong as it seemed. The Emir of Cordova refused to acknowledge the Caliph at Bagdad ; and the latter, in his anxiety to maintain his dynasty, had taken a step which was at last to prove its ruin, by arming the Turcoman tribes on his border, and enlisting them under the banner of the Prophet. Like the Praetorians of old Rome, The Middle Ages in Europe these had turned against their masters. But against the foes of Islam they were a new and awful terror. Not without reason have historians agreed to call the two centuries which followed the death of Charles the Great, emphatically, the Dark Ages. The reign of peace seemed as far off as ever. Out of the wreck there arose the two great pillars on which were laid the foundations of modern civilisa- tion, — feudalism and monasticism. The . , , _ , . Feudalism. vast empire of Charles the Great could not be governed from a single centre ; it needed an elab- orate system of local officials, entrusted with great powers. In his scheme of government, Charles had, no doubt, been guided largely by the only model within his reach, that Roman Empire which he be- lieved, at the last, that it was his mission to revive. Whether his eyes were fixed more on the old Western Empire of Marcus Aurelius and Alexander Severus, or on the later Eastern Empire of Theodo- sius and Justinian, it is difficult, without a minute study of the period, to determine. But it is fairly clear, that the system of Charles contained fatal de- fects, from which the Roman system, in its better days, had been free. In the first place, the great officials of the Roman provinces had been Defectsofthe sent out from the seat of Empire, and caroiingian kept carefully free from local influences. They were not allowed to marry among their pro- vincial subjects, nor to acquire landed property within the limits of their governments. L ocaiinflu. Charles' officials, on the other hand, ences - were often chosen from among the very chiefs and io Edward Plantagenet petty rulers whom he had subdued, and who bore against him an undying grudge for their loss of in- dependence. No doubt the plan seemed an easy solution of a difficulty; no doubt a conquered territory accepted the rule of its old chiefs with less bitterness than the government of strange officials. But it was fatal to the central power. For, while the dukes and counts of Charles' Empire were will- ing enough to overawe their dependents by the use of imperial titles and symbols, they were still more willing to use their old local influence to defy the orders of the Imperial Court, and to scheme for the recovery of their lost independence. Again, such officials as these could not be treated as mere tem- porary agents, who could be recalled at pleasure and transferred to distant posts. The wise Roman ad- ministration never allowed a provincial governor to grow warm in his seat. To the cosmopolitan Roman or Byzantine, all countries were more or less alike, or rather, his preference for this or that sphere of labour was dictated solely by prudence. But the barbarian chief, transported from his native soil and his own folk, would have been a wretched exile among a people whose language he did not under- stand, and whose country and mode of life were utterly alien from him. And so, almost inevitably, the officials of Charles and his successors became per- manent in their offices. Charles himself refused to give them anything more than a life tenure ; but his Heritable of- weak successors went further, and ad- fices. mitted the right of a son to succeed to his father's position. The date usually assigned to this The Middle Ages in Europe 1 1 vital mistake is the year 877 ; but it is more than likely that the decree of that year only recognises a practice which appeared so soon as the strong hand of Charles himself was withdrawn by death. Add to this the fact, that the Frankish system, again unwisely (but perhaps inevitably) departing from the Roman model, provided no sala- ries for its local officials, but allowed them to retain a fixed proportion of the revenue arising from their districts — the fines for bloodshed and dis- turbances, such scanty remains of the Ro- payment man system of tribute as were still enforced, by results - and the various other claims of the imperial treasury. This fatal practice was even formally sanctioned by Charles the Great himself, on his conquest of Lombardy, though with many strict safeguards. But it soon spread far beyond the limits which he assigned to it.; for it descended to the European system as one of the worst legacies of the Middle Ages. Again it seemed so obvious, to encourage the activity of the imperial officer by re- warding him according to the fruit of his labours; but again the practice proved fatal to the central government. The ideas to which it gave rise were fostered too by another practice of the Frankish monarchs, which allowed their officials to farm the royal domains within their districts at profitable rates, in the hope that they would thus be tempted to keep the land in good order. The result was, of course, that the officials, while carefully guarding themselves against any admission of larger profit, strove by every means to increase that part of the 1 2 Edward Plantagenet revenue which fell to their share. And so it was not very wonderful that, in less than a century from the death of Charles, the governors whom he had set up, the dukes, marquises, and counts of the Frankish Empire, had come to look upon themselves, not as officials to carry out the orders of a central govern- ment, but as proprietors, or, as the ideas of the time had it, lords, of fiefs or benefices. These they held at a fixed rent or " render " from their suzerain, to whom they owed nominal allegiance ; but in them they acted as independent rulers, and from them they and their heirs could only be displaced on one or two well-defined grounds, and then only if the central government happened to be strong enough to enforce its rights. The final touch to the position of the feudal noble was given by his military duties. In the Roman Military system, the civil administrator had no- authority, thing, at least in later days, to do with the soldiery. The armies of the later Roman Em- pire were professional, and were placed under the command of purely military officials, kept care- fully apart from the ordinary provincial govern- ors. Dangerous as the principle may have been on general grounds, it at least was a great safeguard against the evils of feudalism, the very essence of which is, that all the powers of government, military and civil, shall be concentrated in the hands of a single ruler, permanently fixed in a certain district. The military policy of the Franks led precisely to this result ; for, reverting to the older idea of citizen service, they demanded of all their free subjects The Middle Ages in Europe 1 3 unpaid service in the host, and left the enforcement of their demands to those same officials to whom they also entrusted the collection of their revenues, and the maintenance of order. Again, as inevitably happens in primitive systems of government, the number of soldiers to be furnished by each official to the host, soon' became fixed by custom ; and, so long as he was ready on demand with the prescribed number, no questions were asked about his mode of raising them. Thus the famous distinction between feudal and militia service grew up. The feudal official retained in his pay the regular number of fighting men, either humbler officials who, in their subordinate places, repeated his position, or simple retainers, men-at-arms who lived at his table and fought in his quarrels without asking questions. Only in great crises, and in well-governed countries, was the levy of the peasantry revived. The continual, ordinary, fighting which went on, was done by the professional fighting class, noble, knightly, or merely hireling ; the peasant had other work to do in the social scheme. Thus it is not hard to understand how Europe once more fell to pieces after the deaths of the great Frank- ish rulers. The Frankish Empire was so The Dark brilliant in its day, that the shortness of its Ages - life is not always recognised. From the coronation of Pepin the Short, at Soissons, to the 752. death of Lewis the Pious, are less than one hundred years ; and these are liberal limits for the Frankish Empire. What wonder that the great Charles himself only succeeded in keeping 14 Edward Plantagenet his Empire together by the use of vigorous measures, by the steady supervision of his distant domains through his missi, or confidential officials, by his in- sistence on his local deputies making frequent jour- neys to his court to report upon the state of their districts. Under the feeble rule of his son, the great building rocked to its foundations ; at his death it fell to pieces. Even the partition of Verdun failed to check the rush of dissolution. Once more Christendom became a mass of warring chiefdoms, the throne of Charles the Great an empty honor, which carried no real power. But the brilliant episode of the Frankish Empire was not without results. Not only had it revived a .. , f great idea, which for centuries haunted The legacy of ° the Frankish the mind of Europe, and, on the whole, Empire. worked for good ; it had contributed to the practice of men two definite rules, which did much to help the cause of progress, and to redeem the anarchy of the ninth and tenth centuries from the utter hopelessness of the sixth and seventh. The home- The first of these was fixity of abode. stead. The homestead, with all the possibilities which it implies, was largely the result of the fostering care of Charles the Great. The wild races who had invaded Europe in the fifth and sixth centuries had really been shepherds, not farmers. Among the dim causes which started the westward march of the northern hordes, certainly was that hunger for broad pastures which, as population increases, is sure to beset a pastoral folk. But as Europe filled up, the same trouble reappeared, and The Middle Ages in Europe 15 this time the choice lay between the Atlantic and a new scheme of life, which should enable the land to feed the increase of people. In those days the Atlan- tic was, of course, a barrier which none might pass. Instinctively men felt that there was no turning back. East and north were blocked by fierce races, only too willing to repeat the history of those who had gone before them. Under the eyes of men lay the answer to the problem, in the vineyards and cornfields of the Roman provincials. At first these were, of course, mere plunder, to be harried and consumed in reck- less waste. And as each barbaric horde ate a con- quered district bare, it rushed off on one of those wild raids which are the most terrible features of the early Middle Ages. But slowly the lesson was learned. In one code of barbarian customs we are shewn a formal, if simple, system by which the bar- baric conqueror is quartered on his provincial " host," who renders him a fixed share of the produce in re- turn for his protection against other foes. From re- garding agriculture as a mere chance of plunder, the barbarian came to protect it as a source of wealth, or, at least, of existence. The brief Peace of the Frank- ish Empire was the turning-point in the change. With all his power Charles the Great strove to pro- tect the husbandman, and to revive in his domains those priceless relics of Roman agriculture, which had well-nigh perished in the chaos of the invasions. But a good system of farming means years, perhaps centuries, of patient work at the same land. The rough scratching of the soil by a migrating tribe, which is here one year and gone the next, is worthy 1 6 Edward Plantagenet only of barbarians. And so, under the fostering care of Charles, the village homestead, with the peaceful life of unvaried toil, became the ideal of life for humble folk. All men who were not warriors or clerks, spent their lives in tilling the soil. The other result of the Frankish Empire was, as we have said before, the warrior class, formed in the The long wars of Charles Martel, of Pepin, and warrior. { Charles the Great himself, and organ- ised by the great emperor into a definite scheme for the guard of his borders against the heathen. No doubt the old Frankish idea of the host, the assem- bly of the freemen, survived as a refuge against over- whelming danger. At the royal ban, every free subject of the Empire was bound to appear before the royal presence. But, as the Empire grew, it came inevitably to rely more and more on the professional soldier, and less and less on the armed peasant. And so the great bargain of the later Middle Ages was struck, — the peasant to till the land and provide food for the warrior, the warrior to protect the peasant against the hostile raid. Each village of farmers had its lord, whose grim castle looked down upon it from a neighbouring height. The king or emperor was far off ; the lord was near. Even if he were a harsh lord, he would, for his own sake, see that no one else plundered his villages. If he were a great lord, so much the better ; his arm would be stronger for defence, and, being a great lord, he would not look so sharply after his dues of labour and of corn. But if he were a small lord, he might still have over him a great lord, who would protect his vassal's villages. The Middle Ages in Europe 1 7 Thus, when the Empire of Charles fell into fragments, each fragment, each fief (as it was called) was, in a sense, a real unit, capable of making some defence, however feeble, against the dangers of life. And so the feudalism of the ninth and tenth centuries, anar- chic though it was, was not the hopeless anarchy of the sixth and seventh. Though, to all seeming, a re- action against the brilliant progress of the Frankish Empire, it was yet a real step in advance, all the safer that it did not make too great demands on human nature. It was only the retreating curve of the spiral. Of the other great pillar of later medieval civilisa- tion we can speak but briefly. There are by nature, and have always been, men fit neither J Monasticism. for the hard life of the peasant, nor for the career of the soldier. For these the one home during the Middle Ages was the monastery. The ordinary parish priest was himself much as the peasantry amongst whom he laboured. He was, in fact, part of the village life. Taking his tithes " as the plough traversed the tenth acre," he worked in the physical, no less than in the spiritual field. Until the reforms of Pope Gregory VIL in the eleventh century, he married, and begat children, who, likely enough, succeeded to his own office. He spoke the tongue of his people, and was a true son of the soil. His clerkship sat lightly upon him; and, if he could read his breviary, he had enough learning to command the respect of his parishioners. The great ecclesiastic, on the other hand, the arch- bishop or bishop, was of the knightly class, statesman and warrior in one, the companion of kings and 1 8 Edward Plantagenet princes, at home in court and camp. He fitted well enough into the framework of feudalism. But for many men the recluse life seemed the only refuge from the anarchy of the world. Coming originally from the East, where the life of the body is easily sustained, and where the long hours of leisure foster a tendency to meditation and retirement, monasti- cism made its appearance in the West, even before st Benedict ^ e ^ °^ R° me - But it was in the dark days of the sixth century that Benedict of Nursia fixed his cell on Monte Cassino, and planted the fruitful seed which was so 528. r soon to grow into a mighty tree. His Rule, or Order of Life, seems to us almost common- place, so thoroughly does it accord in most respects with modern ideals, if not with modern practice. But, to the men of the sixth century, it must have appeared a scheme of almost impossible holiness. It was the Rule of a community, not of a solitary ascetic. Chastity, obedience, temperance, frugality, religious exercises are enjoined ; but hospitality and a modest enjoyment of the pleasures of the table are permitted, and, above all, the value of honest labour manual and mental, is insisted upon. The words of the Rule are well known, but will bear repetition. " Idleness is the enemy of the soul. And therefore ought the brethren to be employed at fixed hours in labour of their hands ; and again at other hours in the study of things divine." And then the Saint goes on to prescribe regular hours for meals, labour, study, and worship, with a minuteness necessary in days of universal scepticism, when men longed for the BENEDICTINE MONK. {From Dugdalis " Monasticon") The Middle Ages in Europe T9 simple voice of command to lead them in the right way. Noble results flowed from the Rule of St. Bene- dict, which spread over all Europe in the two centuries that followed his death, and which planted in many a fertile valley, as a foil to the frowning castle on the height, a house of labour, sacred and profane. The services of the Benedictines to the cause of learning in those dark times have been told by one well qualified to speak.* In the scriptorium of the abbey, the priceless relics of ancient literature were preserved from fire and water, and multiplied for succeeding ages. In the same place, the chronicle of deeds, good and evil, slowly growing from year to year, has preserved for us our chief literary record of the ages gone by. From the charter room of the abbey came also those priceless examples of early legal docu- ments, to which we are indebted for almost all that we know of the social life of the early Middle Ages. Round the abbey sprang up schools, grammar schools, and, later, schools of philosophy and science, as well as schools of theology. Charles the Great himself, urged on by one of the noblest of England's sons, Alcuin of York, shaped the good custom into a sys- tem, and regulated it by ordinance. But the labour of the hands was not forgotten. Priceless as were the services of the monastery to learning, they were no less vital to agriculture. The Roman tradition, where it survived at all, probably survived through the channel of a great religious house. One of St. *G. H. Putnam. Books and their Makers in the Middle Ages, Part I., Cap. I. 20 Edward Plantagenet Benedict's cherished objects had been, to replace the wandering groups of monks which infested Italy in his day, by communities of ordered and settled men and women, cleric and lay. Of the wandering monks he cannot speak strongly enough, of their idle, aimless life, given up to the pursuit of pleasure and unlawful self-will ; and therefore he thinks it bet- ter to be silent. His monks are to set an example of settled, organised life, under the permanent rule of abbots, whom they may, indeed, elect for themselves, but whom, having elected, they must implicitly obey. They are to make the wilderness blossom as the rose, and to bring order out of chaos. And so the monasteries appeared as little centres of peace, discipline, industry, and labour, in a stormy Decay of a 2 e- But as they prospered and became monastic rich, they shewed the same tendency to break loose from all control as the secular princes who were their rivals. From Gregory the Great, at the Lateran Synod of 60 1, some had pro- cured freedom from episcopal visitation — a doubtful boon, and afterwards the cause of fierce dispute. From the Frankish kings and emperors they secured immunity from the control of feudal officials. In all this they were thoroughly in accord with the spirit of the times. And so, alongside the great fief with its domains and villages appeared the great abbey with its villages and domains; and the abbot sat in his judgment seat and levied his taxes, and collected his men at the royal ban, and maintained his pomp and luxury, even as the neighbouring baron did. But the domains of the abbot compared well with the land BENEDICTINE NUN. (From Dugdale's " Monasticon") The Middle Ages in Europe 2 1 of the baron ; and the justice of the abbey was bet- ter than the justice of the castle. It is not a little curious that the fall of the Frank- ish Empire was followed by a great revival of mon- asticism. In the peaceful years of the Revival of Empire, the Benedictine Order, rich and ™ M!ticism ' prosperous, had sunk into sloth. The Rule had been forgotten, or explained away. Eioting and luxury took the place of modest hospitality. Stately build- ings, jewelled furniture, costly plate, were in strange contrast with the homely simplicity of the little chapel on Monte Cassino. But, in the evil days that followed the fall of the Frankish Empire, men's minds turned once more to the earlier and purer days of the Order. In the famous abbey of Cluny, founded by William of Aquitaine, Berno, gio. its first abbot, began a mighty reform which, a century later, spread the Cluniac houses through France, Spain, Italy, and England. More than this, there was to be no more isolation. The old Benedictine houses had allowed no interference from without ; theirs was the true barbaric ideal of inde- pendence. But the Cluniac foundations preserved the spirit of the Frankish Empire, and the priors of the daughter houses owed fealty and obedience to the "Abbot of Abbots" at the mother house of Cluny. The exaggeration of chroniclers fixed the number of priors attending a Cluniac General Chapter at three thousand. Making all allowances, we can realise the force wielded by such a power. A still further reaction against the decay of primitive ideals, brought into ex- istence, in the eleventh century, the ascetic Order of 2 2 Edward Plantagenet the Carthusians, and the still more ascetic Order of the Cistercians. The last is of special interest 1084. to English-speaking folk, for it owes IO &- its foundation to an Englishman, St. Stephen Harding ; though the fame of its founder has been overshadowed by the greater fame of his il- lustrious disciple, St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Still, it was an Englishman whose dogged perseverence car- ried the little community, in the swamps near Dijon, through the hard years of its early life, and estab- lished the White Monks with their Charter of Char- ity, which received the Papal sanction in 1127. By the Rule of St. Stephen the growing idea of union is still further expressed. Not only is any simple monk of the Order eligible for the abbacy of any house, but at the annual General Chapter, held at Citeaux, the assembled abbots control the policy of the whole Order, even, it may be, to the removal of the Father Abbot himself. Thus we have something very near a system of representative government. And thus we are prepared to trace the working of a new spirit in the affairs of western Europe. CLUNIAC MONK. {From Dugda&s " Monasticon") CHAPTER II THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN EUROPE 850-1250 SLOWLY, very slowly, the outlines of modern Europe began to emerge from the chaos of the earlier Middle Ages. This time, the power making for peace and order had the better chance of success, in that it came from below, not from above. Modern Europe was at last formed, not by the hand of an universal conqueror, but by the slow and halt- ing unions of petty tribes and fiefs against heathen foes. In the north-west, the citi- zens of Paris, hard pressed by the plundering North- men, threw off the nominal yoke of the degenerate successor of Charles the Great, and chose their valiant Count Odo (Eudes) as King of Paris. The plan was taken up, with some misgiv- ings, by the feudal chiefs of Western Europe ( " the Frank, Burgundian, and Aquitanian princes," as they are called by a chronicler of the times), and, after some little wavering, the descendants of Odo became recognised as lawful kings of the Western Franks. Thus the future kingdom of France, the country west 23 24 Edward Plantagenet [850- of the Meuse and north of the Pyrenees, (a Latin- speaking country with a German name,) became an ideal to be striven for by the Kings at Paris. But for long generations it was a mere league of very independent princes, who had chosen Hugh Capet to lead their defence against the "unbelieving nation of the Huns" (i. e., the Northmen), which, "drunk with slaughter, rapine, and all kinds of cruelty, poured itself over the Gauls." How hard his task, may be judged from the fact that the Northmen had already, when Hugh was chosen King, made good their claim to one of the most fertile tracts of Gaul, and form- QI2. ally established the almost independent province of Normandy. East of the Rhine, the no less terrible dread of the Magyars, the founders of modern Hungary, Germany, s °o n led to the choice of Conrad the 911-919. Franconian, and, after his death, of Henry the Fowler, by the feudal princes of what we should now call Germany, but which was destined, for nearly a thousand years, to be still a mass of petty princedoms, held together only in vaguest fashion by a nominal allegiance to a titular emperor. Thus we see the foreshadowing of two of . the great States of modern Europe. Far Spain. . - 1 away, in the south, the heroic Counts of Castile, often hard pressed in those fortresses (cas- tillos) from which their land takes its name, were waging a gallant struggle against the Moslem, who held the richest part of what we now call Spain. For long centuries here, also, the balance of power CARTHUSIAN MONK. {From Dugdalis " Monasticon") 1250] The Emergence of Modern Europe 25 was destined to vibrate among a crowd of little principalities — Castile, Galicia, Leon, Barcelona, Na- varre, Aragon ; but here, also, we can see the begin- ning of the movement which was to result, in the sixteenth century, in the brilliant kingdom of Spain. The long agony of the process of union is revealed by the solemn list of titles appended, even in the thir- teenth century, to the official style of the King of Castile, who must be addressed, in all formal docu- ments, as " King of Castile, Toledo, Leon, Galicia, Seville, Cordova, Murcia, Guienne, and Algarve." Far away again, in the north, the three kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Nor- way slowly emerged, not, it is to be feared, without much hard fighting and bloodshed,* out of the mass of petty chiefships. And, not least, Eng- land, after centuries of internal strife, and harryings by northern pirates, was being rapidly welded into a strong and compact State by the genius of her Norman kings. Strangely enough, it was in Italy, the true home of European empire, that the anarchy of the Middle Ages lingered longest. Perhaps the prize was too rich, or the claimants too many. But with wars of Norman and Lombard, rivalries of Pope and Em- peror, incursions of Saracens, and dying struggles of the Eastern Empire, Italy was destined long to re- main a standing menace to the peace of Europe. The movement for union, once started, soon * One of the by-products of the struggle was the foundation of the little colony of Iceland, by men who loved the old anarchic days, and had no fancy for a strong government. 26 Edward Plantagenet [8§0- caught the imaginations of men. While, on its prac- tical side, it was being slowly adopted in the pain- The Hoiy M consolidation of the States of Europe, Roman on its ideal side it had again a brilliant and adventurous career. The empire of Charles the Great still haunted men's thoughts, and it needed but the electric spark to fire the sleeping mine. The gallant adventures and generous aims of Otto the Great, who succeeded his father as German King in 936, proved to be the magic spark ; and, again, as it were out of nothing, sprang the dream of universal empire. Otto was crowned Emperor in Rome, not an Emperor, but the Emperor, the successor of Charles the Great and the Caesars. But the dream was far less perfect this time. Though still the Emperor retained, by the glory of his name and office, the precedence and re- spect due to the first potentate in Europe, though he still, in theory, exercised rights which nothing short of imperial power could sanction, he was, in fact, little more than a German prince with a mag- nificent title. He was not King, even of Germany ; he was but Duke of Saxony and King of the Ger- mans. The Western Franks, the French as we should now call them, regarded themselves 987. ° as freed for ever from the rule of German Emperors, by the final election of Hugh Capet. " And so " (says the French chronicle) " the king- dom of the Franks was disjoined from the line of Charles the Great, Emperor and King of the Franks." It seems to us a subtle difference ; but it pointed to a momentous fact, the definite separation of the CISTERCIAN MONK. (.From Dugdale's " Monasticon.'") 1250] The Emergence of Modern Europe 27 peoples east and west of the Rhine. With France closed to his troops, the Emperor could do nothing with Spain ; the most romantic of all the deeds of Charles the Great, the defence of Roncesvalles, passed from German to Spanish history, and the glories of Charles' paladins were eclipsed by the glories of Cid Campeador. In later centuries, a Spanish King (Charles V.) might become Emperor ; but Spain remained outside the Empire. From the very first, the Norman Kings of England openly disavowed all allegiance, both to their former over- lords at Paris, and to their ancient suzerains at Aachen. They were, as they and their statesmen proudly claimed, " absolute," i. e., independent of any foreign power. Scandinavia never acknow- ledged the Empire, even though Otto carried his victorious arms into Denmark. So the empire of Otto, the " Holy Roman Empire," was a very dif- ferent thing from the empire of Charles the Great : Roman only by virtue of its shadowy claims on the Lombard lands, Holy only by virtue of its alliance with the Pope. And when, in the year •-\ • 1 Quarrels after Otto s coronation, men saw the of p ope and strange sight of the Emperor deposing Emperor, the very Pope (John XII.) who had crowned him, and, in later years, saw Europe con- vulsed by the quarrels of Gregory VII. and Henry IV., and by the implacable hatreds of 1227-1240. Gregory IX. and Frederick II., such odour of sanctity as the Holy Roman Empire once en- joyed vanished from it; and Pope and Emperor became little more than earthly potentates of the 28 Edward Plantagenet [850- ordinary self-seeking type. Poets like Dante might dream again of a beneficent world-swaying Empire, working in spiritual harmony with the 1265-1321. ,, 11 Papacy. But common men saw only the petty and purely mundane strife of Guelf and Ghi- bellin. Far more powerful in advancing the cause of European unity, and the march of European civilis- The ation, was the movement which resulted in the Crusades. The reforming zeal Hiidebrand, of Gregory 'VII. (Hildebrand) had not 1073-1085. ceased with his victory over the Empire. He had been the first to realise the magnificent possibilities dormant in the institutions of the Church. He saw that by uniting, organising, above all by reforming and purifying the existing ma- terials, he and his successors might raise up a power, beside which any one of the struggling States of Europe would be as dust in the balance, a power which, by playing off one of these States against another, or by combining them all under one direc- tion, might render itself supreme in Europe. Greg- ory had that rare union of imagination with hard practical sense, which makes the ruler of men. He did not despise the secular arm ; he could make use of Norman soldiers if necessary. But he realised the great truth, that the world is ruled by ideas rather than by armies; and he deliberately pitted the frock of the priest against the armour of the knight. The scene in the courtyard of Canossa, where the Emperor meekly awaited the absolution of the Pope, shews the result in a flash. By insisting on 1250] The Emergence of Modern Europe 29 the celibacy of the clergy, Gregory raised up in all the countries of Christendom a host of agents, de- tached from worldly ties, and looking ever more and more, for direction and reward, to the Chair of St. Peter. By sternly denying, or, at least, limiting the secular rights in the matter of patronage, he not only purged the grosser scandals of simony in the Church, but created a vast source of wealth for the furtherance of his policy. By forcing the too sec- ular bishops to submit to the visits of his legates, sent direct from headquarters, he revived the famous tnissi of Charles the Great, and established a firm hold over his nominal subordinates. The religious Orders were ready to his hand ; he himself had been a monk of the famous Abbey of Cluny. By foster- ing the growth and ordering of a great system of Canon Law, he made the Church a formidable rival to the growing power of the royal administration of justice. In the long run, his policy proved fatal to the unity of that Church which it was his one object to exalt. But, for the time, his twelve brief years of power changed the face of Europe. In the midst of Gregory's great career came news which struck Christendom to the heart. The Turks under Malek Shah captured Jerusalem, capture of and, though Malek's rule was great, and Jerusalem, professedly founded on justice and mercy, '"'" the Christian world believed, rightly or wrongly, that the Christian pilgrims to the Holy Places were treated with brutal cruelty by the Moslem conquerors. Here was Gregory's chance. With a curious blending of materialism and imagination, so typical of the Middle 30 Edward Plantagenet [850- Ages, the Christian world had become more and more passionately attached to the physical relics of the life of Christ on earth. And a pilgrimage to Jeru- salem was becoming almost as much a duty of the Christian as a pilgrimage to Mecca of the good Moslem. Gregory saw, that if he could work up the passionate frenzy of Europe into a practical rescue of Jerusalem, the Papacy would come out of the enterprise unquestioned leader of Christendom in matters temporal and spiritual. The struggle with the Empire disappointed his hopes; but he be- queathed the plan to his successors, and, aided by the fiery zeal of Peter the Hermit, Urban II. suc- ceeded in organising, less than a quarter of a century from Gregory's death, the armies of the first Crusade. This is not the place in which to record the strange story of the Crusades. Like all things medieval, The crusade P er ^ a P s ^k e a ^ things human, it is a strange mixture of high motives and base, of good and evil. Side by side with the purest devo- tion, the loftiest self-denial, the most patient endur- ance, went the most sordid self-seeking, the most open indulgence in sensual pleasures, the utter reck- lessness of the adventurer, and the bitter jealousy of the disappointed miser. The tale of the Crusades reads like the story of a dream. Old men, women, even children, jostle side by side with armoured knights and brutal men-at-arms. The Christians go to free the pilgrim's way, and they set up feudal principalities in the Holy Land, and perfect the maxims of feudal law under the shadow of the Tern- 1250] The Emergence of Modern Europe 31 pie. They go to uphold the banner of Christ against the infidel, and by the way they overthrow the one Christian Power of the East, the Empire of Con- stantine and Justinian, which still claimed to be the Roman Empire. Two great religious Orders are founded to succour Christian pilgrims, the Knights Templars and the Knights Hospitallers of John ; and they are found to turn their arms against each other in pitched battle. A third Crusading Order, the Teutonic Knights, is destined to find its lasting work in the wresting of lands from the heathen Prussians, and in the establishing of a Christian State on the shores of the Baltic. But, in spite of all these dazzling inconsistencies, the Crusades mark, in more ways than one, the beginning of modern Europe. In the Results of first place, they are the turning of the tide crusades, which at last, after thousands of years, shifted the centre of human progress from East to West. For the second time in the world's history, the West had turned upon that prolific East, which was ever sending out her countless hordes to ravage and enslave the peoples of Europe. And if the political results of the Crusades in the East were not so striking or apparently so lasting as those of the invasions of Alexander the Great, yet, in fact, they were more profound. Europe had found her cour- age at last ; and it can hardly be doubted, that she learned in the Crusades the real weakness of the East, and so came to challenge, finally to despise and plunder, her ancient foe. Yet here again, it is to be feared, too many of us 32 Edward Plantagenet [850- miss the real danger which threatened European civilisation at the close of the Middle Ages. We The Mongol have heard of the great Saladin * ; and danger. we j cnow how our Crusaders were hard put to it to maintain their hold on Jerusalem against him — nay, how they failed at last, and how Jerusalem fell again into the hands of the Moslem, after the battle of Tiberias. The pages of Scott have made us familiar from our school-days with the battles of the two great heroes of Eastern and Western chivalry, Saladin 1191-2. , and Richard Cceur de Lion. As we come to read of St. Louis, we shall see how he, in one sense the greatest of all the Crusaders, was foiled by the Mameluke Emir Bibars in Egypt. But, before the defeat at Mansourah, the Eastern danger to Europe had apparently passed from the Saracens to the Mongols ; and it was only by a series of almost miraculous events, that Europe was saved from the horrors of a Yellow invasion. The Mongols occupy a middle rank between the fair northern races and the dark southern races, zengnis which have threatened Europe from the Khan. East. Their original home seems to have been somewhere in what we should now call southern Siberia, or northern China, far away to the extreme East. They seem to have been almost the earliest of the wandering races to start for the plun- der of the West ; for we hear of them attacking the rich provinces of China about two hundred years * The story of his life is told in No. XXIV. of this series, by Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole. A TEMPLAR. {From Stotkard^s u Monumental Effigies." 1 *} 1250] The Emergence of Modern Europe 33 before the birth of Christ. Driven back by the native rulers, who built the Great Wall to defend themselves against their attacks, they then retired for some centuries to their ancient seats, in the wild mountain country. Sallying out again in the fifth century after Christ, they dashed with resistless force westward across Asia, and, under their great chief, Attila, burst like a whirlwind upon the dying Roman Empire, by whose general they were, however, at last defeated, at the great battle of Chalons- sur-Marne. With the death of Attila, they disappeared almost as suddenly as they had come, leaving, it may be, some traces of their presence in the Avars and Magyars of Hungary, and, it may be, in the Turkoman tribes which afterwards became the great fighting force of the Mahometan Caliphs. Again were they buried in obscurity for nearly seven hundred years, and then once more they emerged into terrible fame under their ruler, Zenghis Khan, who, having inherited the vague leadership of a few scattered tribes, succeeded, in the early years of the thirteenth century, in hammering these into a compact fighting mass. Then he turned fiercely to a career of conquest. The Tartar Mongols, like their forerunners, the Huns, were no builders of States. Theirs was simply a fighting power, which quartered itself on the wealthiest countries within its reach, and lived at free quarters while the plunder lasted. Un- like the followers of Mahomet, they had no faith to preach, save the gospel of slaughter and rapine. In their own land they had been shepherds, worshipping, like true patriarchal folk, the spirits of their ancestors. 34 Edward Plantagenet [850- Issuing from his native mountains, the Khan swooped first on the tempting prize of China, Attacks already trembling before the impending China. rumours of Tartar invasion. By the year 1215, the Tartar conquest of China was as complete as such conquerors could make it ; and China has been the one conquest which the Tartars have per- manently retained, imparting to the policy of the Celestial Empire that savage ferocity whose period- ical outbursts horrify the world, and which is wholly alien from its native character. At this point, the Khan seems to have hesitated between an attack on the South and a march to the invades West. He even made offers of friend- Persia. g^jp to fa e Mahometan rulers of Persia, the Khorasmian dynasty, one of the fragments into which the mighty Mahometan Empire of Haroun al Raschid had dissolved in the twelfth century. Happily for Europe, his advances were met with insult, and the furious Tartar, swayed by the im- pulse of the moment, plunged into a deadly struggle with the Mahometan power. Nothing could with- stand the shock of his invasions ; Persia fell before him, and, after a few fierce battles, he took and pillaged the cities of Otrar, Khogend, Tashkend, Bokhara, and Samarcand. Then, turning south, he pursued the last representa- tive of the once mighty kingdom of Alp Arslan, at Merv, into Afghanistan and North-West- India. em India, leaving traces of his presence in Ghazni and the ruined city of Herat, and fore- shadowing that terrible invasion of his race which, in 1250] The Emergence of Modern Europe 35 the next century, carried devastation under Tamer- lane into the fairest provinces of India, and finally resulted in the establishment of the Moghul Empire of Akbar. Meanwhile, the Khan's generals had marched westward, and, carrying their arms beyond the Caucasus, had inflicted a terrible defeat Russia, on the Russians near Kazan. Having ""• completed his conquest of China, the great Khan was about to follow up the new track opened out by his generals, when his superstition was alarmed by an unfavorable appear- ance of the planets, and he turned home to die. But his successors only awaited his death to carry on the system of conquests which were to make the name of Tartar a sound of Ogodai. terror, from the China Sea to the Danube. Zenghis' son Ogodai was hardly inferior to his father in warlike prowess, and, only waiting to secure his hold on China, he dashed across Turkestan into Asia Minor, capturing Tiflis and Kars, and ravaging Georgia and Armenia. Here he detached his nephew and general, Batu, for the conquest of Europe, and the latter's lieutenant over- ran Bulgaria, while the main body of the host, under Batu himself, charged into Russia, capturing Riazan, Moscow, Vladimir, Kozelsk, and Kieff, and inflicting unheard-of atrocities on the wretched inhabitants. By this time, Europe was at least partly awake to the awful danger which threatened it ; and the Emperor Frederick II. issued a general appeal which, whatever may have been his motives, and 36 Edward Plantagenet [850- however turgid his style, shews him to have been by far the ablest and most far-seeing statesman of his day. He even maintained an army under his son Conrad to watch the threatened invasion ; but, in spite of all his efforts, and the exhortations of the Popes, the armies of Batu inflicted a 1241. crushing defeat on the Hungarians at Mohi, sacking Pesth and Gran ; and, in the same year, carried their victorious arms into Poland, de- feating Duke Henry of Silesia at Liegnitz, with terrible slaughter. It now seemed as though nothing could save Eu- rope but a desperate victory, such as that which Death of had turned back Attila from the plains of ogodai. Chalons, eight hundred years before. But again the hand of Providence interfered on behalf of Christendom ; and the death of Ogodai, 1141. a in the very year of Mohi and Liegnitz, drove the Tartar generals hurrying back to the head camp in Asia, to take part in the choice of a suc- cessor to the great Khan. A mere conquering horde like that of Zenghis loses its conquests as soon as its leaders disappear ; and, in the brief breathing-space The policy of afforded by the death of Ogodai, Europe Europe. adopted a policy which, in the long run, saved it from Tartar conquest. Instinctively the Moslems felt, that neither they nor the Christians were strong enough to stand alone against the looming storm, and they so far sank their quarrels as to offer alliance against the common foe. But Christendom could not so far forget its traditions as to accept help from the Power which held the Holy 1250] The Emergence of Modern Europe 37 Places. An alliance between the Head of Christen- dom and the descendant of the Prophet would have been regarded with horror. One of the gravest charges brought against the Emperor Frederick himself was, that he had tampered with the faith of Christendom. Better by far make common cause with the barbaric Mongol, who might be won to the faith of Christ, and who, as a fact, had proved him- self a marvel of tolerance, or, at least, indifference, in matters of religion, protecting at his court Buddhist, Christian, and Mahometan teachers, with cynical impartiality. And so mission after mission was despatched to the Khans by Popes and Emperors, and, in the end, however crude their diplomacy may seem to us, they succeeded in their objects. The Tartars did not loose their hold on Russia till the days of Peter the Great, and their conquests in Asia forced the Ottoman Turks into Asia Minor and south-eastern Europe, which lived in terror of their name till the days of the heroic John Sobieski. Thus the Tartars may be said to have left, as their legacy to Europe, the two great Eastern Questions, the problem of Constantinople and the problem of Pekin. But the weight of their fury was turned against the Mahometan South, and the invasion of Hulagu, the grandson of Zenghis, resulted in the capture and sack of Bag- dad, and the shearing away of the rich eastern domains of the Caliphs. After this, the centre of Mahometanism was shifted for a while to Africa, where it was far less dangerous to the exist- ence of Europe ; and the greedy eyes of the Tartar 38 Edward Plantagenet [850- chiefs were turned on the riches of India. Thus to the West, at last, came, in some degree, the blessings of peace. There can be no doubt that the instinct of Europe was right. From the rude Mongol the Christ- ian had nothing to fear beyond physical suffering and destruction ; and from these a prudent alliance might save him. From a friendship with the subtle Moslem, he had to fear the far more deadly risk of the undermining of his faith, and the degradation of his life. And from these no treaty could save him. To the Crusades Europe owes also that expansion of trade and commerce, which did so much to break up the crust of feudalism. As the earliest Commerce. . home of civilisation had been the East, so the earliest trade routes had run from east to west. Even before the fall of the Roman Empire, caravans brought the riches of China (Cathay) and India across the deserts to Egypt and Syria, whence they were carried by Phenician sailors to the mouth of the Danube, and the ports of Italy and southern Gaul. But the anarchy which set in with the Mid- dle Ages had delivered over the Mediterranean and the Euxine to pirates ; and the selfish policy of the Emperors at Constantinople had made the land route through Asia Minor costly and slow. The Eastern Emperors sat at the gate of Asia, and took heavy toll of the supplies of Europe. Such scanty The new commerce as Europe enjoyed struggled routes. slowly up the Danube, through the walled cities of Ratisbon, Forchheim, Erfurt, and Magdeburg. But the Crusades opened up new routes. The Venetians, who had already broken in 1250] The Emergence of Modern Europe 39 upon the trading monopoly of the Eastern Empire, dealt a master stroke when, in 1 198, they came to the rescue of the Crusaders with an offer of ships to convey the hosts to Palestine. The needy Cru- saders were unable to find all the money demanded by the Republic, and the Doge, playing skilfully upon their hopes and fears, involved them in a quarrel with the Eastern Empire. This led to the Latin conquest of Constantinople, and the rise of Venice as a sea power. The invaders even offered the Empire to the aged Dandolo ; but he wisely preferred for his city the substantial privileges of the carrying-trade. Venetian factories were established in Asia Minor, and even, following in the wake of the Crusaders, in Mahometan lands. Thousands of ships brought the treasures of the East to Venice, whence they were sent through the Alpine passes into Ger- many, thus avoiding the long Danube route. Augs- burg, Nuremburg, and other cities sprang up as centres of distribution ; and the merchants of the Teutonic Hanse built their houses in all the great cities of Northern Europe. When the Eastern Em- pire was restored in 1261, Michael Palaeologus, burn- ing to revenge the injuries inflicted on his line by the Venetians, transferred their trading privileges in his dominions to the Genoese, their great rivals in the Mediterranean. The Venetians retaliated by open- ing up a new route from India, through Arabia, by the coasts of the Red Sea and the Isthmus of Suez, through Cairo to Alexandria. But Genoa became also a mighty port, and behind her and Marseilles sprang up the trade of Avignon, Nismes, and Lyons, 4-0 Edward Plantagenet [850- with the fairs of Champagne and Burgundy. Finally, even the Atlantic coasting route, used long ages before by the Phenician merchants who came to The great Cornwall for tin, was revived; and the commercial wines of Gascony found their way into the cellars of the London vintners. The ex- pansion of commerce was shewn in the rise of the great houses of the Italian cities, half merchants, half bankers, — the Spini, the Friscobaldi, the Medici, and the Aldobrandini of Florence, the Ricardi, the Bal- lardi, and the Betti of Lucca, — and of the many Jews, to whom the Christian dislike of usury had opened the possibilities of finance. To these, and to the great religious houses, many of the Crusading nobles had pledged their lands, to procure outfit for the journey, and, as often as not, had failed to redeem them. In both cases, the results were fatal to the spirit of feudalism, the essence of which was that each acre of land should represent a definite liability to military service. The monks themselves were, of course, exempt from military duty ; and, though they admitted, in theory, a liability to provide as many soldiers as the baron whose lands they held, yet, in practice, by a skilful confusion of lands thus acquired with lands given to them by pious founders " in free alms," they evaded the liability. Hence the bitter Mortmain. P olicv of " mortmain," by which kings and princes strove to hinder the acquisition of lands by the Church* The merchant and the Jew * The rule against mortmain strictly forbade the alienation of land to any person or body having perpetual succession, i. e. , as we should now say, to any "corporation." The word " mortmain " (mortua manus) refers to the " dead hand " of the patron saint. 1250] The Emergence of Modern Europe 41 creditor, of course, merely looked upon the pledged land as so much money value. Though the Jew, as an alien, could not himself become tenant of the soil, he could and did succeed in breaking down the laws aimed at restricting the free alienation of land ; and thus the great estates were broken up. Unable to enforce their feudal claims, kings and Decay of rulers accepted money payments instead, feudalism, and thus the money rent took the place of per- sonal service. With the money obtained, the kings hired mercenary troops, and the feudal knight, with his tenants marching under his pennon, threatened to become almost as rare as the armed peasant of the old militia. His place was taken by the Italian condlttiere, the German lanzknecht, and the Brabancon pikeman, who would go anywhere, and fight for anyone, if the prospects of pay and plunder were good. Though the great development of in- dustry did not take place till the fourteenth century, the increased supply of Eastern luxuries, — silk, spices, dyes, jewels, ivory, and gold, — created a new and higher class of craftsmen, — silk-weavers, gold- smiths, confectioners, and tailors, — whose pro- ductions and whose guilds, or clubs, added another attraction to the growing life of the towns. But the effect of the Crusades was not wholly material. Under the enlightened rule of the great Moslem Caliphs and Sultans, the science T he new and the philosophy of the East had flour- i«™ing. ished ; and Arabian learning, in spite of the evil taint of heresy which clung to it, spread widely among the awakened spirits of Europe. The 42 Edward Plantagenet [850- capture of Constantinople by the Franks had dis- persed a host of treasures, the priceless manuscripts containing the literature of the great days of Greece and Rome, which Europe was now just beginning to understand. No doubt, at first, the new learning tended to rivet still tighter the fetters of that schol- astic philosophy which then bound the intellect of Europe, and which was destined to flourish for nearly two centuries more. But, alongside the philosophy of the ancients, the first beginnings of experimental science began to make their way in from Arabia ; and mathematics, astronomy, botany, chemistry, and medicine, though long disguised by the mists of wonder and superstition which always accompany the birth of new sciences, sowed the seed of that mighty tree of knowledge which is but now putting out its fairest fruit. Before the years of the thir- teenth century had run out, Marco Polo had made his wonderful voyages from Venice to the far East, and lifted the veil which had so long hidden from Europe the wonders of the Orient, while Roger Bacon had laid the foundations of modern experi- mental science. The Crusades too had brought to Europe one work of priceless value, destined, during the next few The centuries, to exercise a profound influ- Roman Law. ence over t ^ e m i nc j s f men. The Law of the Roman Empire, the slow accretion of cent- uries, which was. in truth, the great bequest of that Empire to modern civilisation, had hitherto been studied only in the garbled versions of the Bar- barian Codes. The Roman Law of the Burgun- ENGLISH SOLDIERS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY. (From Hewitt's "Ancient Armour") 1250] The Emergence of Modern Europe 43 dians, of the Visigoths, of the Ostrogoths under Theodoric, had been barbarous travesties of the treatise of Gaius and of the Code of Theodosius, cut and hacked about to suit the needs of barbarian warriors. The full, harmonious splendour of the Roman ideal of citizenship was to be found in the Corpus Juris of Justinian, given to the world long ages after the seat of empire had passed from Rome to Constantinople. In it the writings of the golden age of Roman Law, the days of Paulus, Ulpianus, Modestinus, Papinianus, Gaius, Pomponius, had been polished and harmonised by subtle Greek casuistry into the Digest or Pandects, that store- house of moot cases in which, as it seemed to the student of the thirteenth century, every conceivable difficulty had been anticipated and explained. Alongside of this priceless effort of practical philo- sophy came the mighty Code of statutes, in which a long succession of emperors had provided for the daily needs of the world which they governed. It may well be that the vague survival of the Empire in Europe, through the hands of Charles the Great and Otto, conferred upon the Imperial Code the quasi-sanctity of historical tradition. But the mod- ern conception of Law, as the command of sovereign authority, to be obeyed as such, regardless of its in- herent virtue or vice, was a conception alien from the common ideas of medieval Europe. The Roman Law claimed the devotion and the study of men, just as, but much more than, their own local customs claimed their obedience and respect, because it seemed to them to express the highest possible 44 Edward Plantagenet [850-1250] results of earthly wisdom. It was the Bible of the layman, just as the Sacred Scriptures were the Bible of the cleric, — a thing to be pored over, studied, glossed, expounded, and preached, with all the fervour of missionary zeal. And when the jealousy of the Church strove to ostracise it in favour of her own Canon Law, which, to no small degree, was borrowed from it, the sting of persecution only added zest to the study ; and the Church made a grave mistake when she forced into existence, alongside of her own clerks, who had long enjoyed a monopoly of intellectual work, a second and rapidly growing profession of lawyers, none too friendly to the Order from which they had seceded, and destined, in the long run, to oust that Order from its most valued and profitable offices. Of the fate of the Roman Law in Europe we shall have more to say at a later stage ; but here it is well to remember, that the enthusiastic reception given to it in the newly founded universities, or homes of higher learning, in Bologna, Siena, Padua, Paris, and Oxford, proves beyond a doubt, if proof were needed, that, with the thirteenth century, the long night of the Dark Ages of Europe had passed into a brilliant dawn, and that the mind of Europe was emerging into the full vigour of manhood. ^£*£SiEE CHAPTER III ENGLAND IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY IF we pass now, from the general picture of Europe in the thirteenth century, to that of England, we begin naturally with the condition of the peasant. For, in spite of the stirrings of foreign trade, and the growth of town life which had already begun, England in the A e ncuUure - thirteenth century was still an almost purely agri- cultural country. Bread and ale were the great necessaries of life ; and these could only be produced by the ploughing of fields and the reaping of corn. Food-supply from abroad was still a thing undreamt of; and such was the isolation of life in the villages, that even a famine in Norfolk hardly brought corn from Kent. Owing, also, to the still primitive farm- ing, the return of the farmer was, to our ideas, very small. Walter of Henley, a famous au- waiter of thority on farming in the thirteenth cent- Heniey. ury, considers threefold to be an average harvest ; in poor years, if the farmer gets back his seed corn with as much again, he may count himself lucky. So that, to feed the two millions of people, or there- 45 46 Edward Plantagenet abouts, in the England of the thirteenth century, not much less than five-sixths of the entire popula- tion must have been directly at work, for part of the year at least, on the soil. And so, above all things, we must think of the England of the thir- teenth century, not as a land of mighty cities and trim villas, but as a land of fields and villages, in which everything centred round the great event of the year, the corn harvest. Picking our way slowly along the road which, if it be not one of the great trunk routes maintained The medieval for the passage of the royal armies, is village. probably a mere track in the forest, we arrive at last at the village of which we are in search. The cottages of the peasants are huddled together in the centre; and we notice at once how roughly they are built, and how they all appear of much the same size. Perhaps a larger house, built of brick and timber instead of wattle and clay, and roofed with shingles instead of thatch, marks the dwelling of the bailiff; possibly another substantial house is the rectory, but it is an even chance that there is no resident parson. Mayhap the church, lately rebuilt in that glorious Gothic which is one of the surest marks of the greatness of the time, stands in the centre of the village ; but, as likely as not, it cowers under the shadow of the castle or manor-house hard by. If it be not one of those saints' days * which were, * Walter of Henley reckons the number of holidays in the year at fifty-six. The enormous stimulus given to money-getting by the Puritan attitude towards saints 1 days has never been fully appreciated. England in the Thirteenth Century 47 as their name implies, the " holidays " of the time, and which, with their frequent recurrence, earned for the country, in pre-Reformation times, the title of " merrie England," °P enfUlds - we will follow the villagers afield, and watch them at their tasks. The first thing which strikes us is the absence of those lovely hedges, thick with burst- ing shoots, and studded with wild flowers, which, in the spring and summer, are now the chief glory of the English countryside. In their places we see only great balks, or strips of unploughed turf, dotted with trees, under which sheep are lazily feed- ing, and with those uncouth windmills which, in the thirteenth century, are just being introduced as an Eastern novelty. But these balks by no means take the place of the modern hedges. They are far fewer in number, and, practically, only divide the ploughed land of the village into three great fields (or, it may be, only two), while these are left en- tirely open, being merely intersected by wandering footpaths. If it is during the time of haygrowth, from Hokeday * to Lammas, f the meadows may be divided off into sections by a sort of rude fencing, which consists, probably, only of long poles laid across heaps of stones — the ancestors of the modern " post-and-rail." % But after hay harvest even these are removed; and all the winter long the fields of the village are as open as a chessboard. * The second Tuesday after Easter. f August 1st. , % This temporary fencing may be seen in Sweden at the present day. 48 Edward Plantagenet Beyond the arable and the meadow, there is fairly sure to be a wide expanse of scrub and woodland, which shuts the village off from the outer The waste. wor i ( j j anc j w hich provides rough food for its humbler inmates — the hogs which rout up the acorns, and the geese which pick the coarse grass from the waste. Looking again at the villagers as they work, we shall notice further points of difference from the The village countryside of to-day. Instead of the at work. light plough, guided by a single plough- man, with, maybe, a lad to lead the pair of horses which draw it easily along the clean land, we see huge wooden frames, drawn by six or even eight oxen, each yoke guided by its master ; for the land is heavy, and thick with coarse weeds. Oxen are cheaper to work with than horses ; they eat less in the winter, and they do not require shoeing. Each villager of the better sort has his yoke of oxen, which he will bring to the common ploughing in due turn. As to the ploughs, no one exactly knows to whom they belong: there have been ploughs in the village from time immemorial, and, when they need repair, they are mended by the village carpen- ter or the village smith, who, in turn, receives a cer- tain amount of corn from each of the husbandmen. The seed corn is probably provided by the " lord " of the village, whose land lies intermixed with that of the villagers in the open fields, and whose bailiff watches the daily labour of the villagers, to see that the " demesne" receives its due share of plough- ing, weeding, and reaping. The oxen, sheep, and England in the Thirteenth Cenhiry 49 pigs of the villagers feed together on the com- mon wastes; and are looked after, not by their respective owners, but by officials acting on be- half of the village as a whole, and maintained by the produce of certain strips of land set aside for the purpose from time immemorial. In the rare event of any new departure from the tradi- tional arrangements, the matter is discussed by the villagers gathered around the moot tree. But the real guiding and controlling force, checked only by the impenetrable thicket of custom, is the " lord." For the distinction between capital and labour was just as clear in the English village of the thir- teenth century as in the English village t/ . . . The lord. of to-day. But it was in an earlier stage of development, which is both interesting and sug- gestive. It depended, not on contract, but on cus- tom. In some mysterious way, the precise nature of which is still a matter of grand dis- r , . 1 , , The serf. pute, the forces which went to the mak- ing of feudalism had resulted in binding the peas- ant to the soil, and rendering him the servant, the " serf," of the neighbouring noble or knight. No doubt it was part of the unconscious bargain struck in the evil days of Continental anarchy, when the one hope of safety for the husbandman lay in placing himself under the protection of the strong man armed. In return for this protection, the peas- ant set aside part of his holding for the support of the lord's household ; and this in time became re- garded, quite naturally, as the " demesne " or own 5 rt o 3° A o a-*- «S2 O "> -•gtn V d M J3'*-' _• u S3 S 2 y oaL ■s-fl S* IH P E? o> o < 3 rt « « 5 < _UC0 I — S3 W ' "5«*« <2 flu- j V o Hll 1 la s 71 72 Edward Plantagenet [1239- and all of them entitled, in the long run, to call them- selves Queens — struck the popular imagination. And, as it really did influence the foreign politics of the time, it may be well to set it out in tabular form, for convenience of memory. {See p. 71.) Provence itself (the Roman Provincia) had once been a fief of the Carolingian Empire ; but, in the break-up of the ninth and tenth centuries, it had become an independent and hereditary county, own- ing no allegiance (and this fact should be remem- bered) to the Crown of France. As it contained the wealthy cities of Aix, Aries, and Marseilles, the two latter of which gave easy access to the sea, it was naturally watched with eager eyes by the neighbouring rulers, who saw, in the prospect of female succession, a good opportunity of plunder. The chief claimants were the Kings of Aragon, from whom the reigning court was descended, the neigh- bouring Counts of Toulouse and Savoy, and the Kings at Paris, these last already scheming for a kingdom which should absorb all the petty prince- doms west of the Rhine and north of the Pyrenees. The marriage of Henry III. brought another rival on a scene already full of intrigue; for, in spite of the losses of John Lackland, the great neighbouring duchy of Guienne or Aquitaine still belonged to the English Crown, and the addition of the rich county of Provence would have done much to atone for the losses of Perigord and the Limousin in the north. For reasons best known to himself, Amadeus of Savoy, the uncle of Eleanor, had favoured his GREAT SEAL OF HENRY III. (From Hewitt's " Ancient Armoury) 1257] Birth and Early Years 73 niece's marriage with Henry. But he expected to be well paid for his services. He had a quartette of greedy brothers, Thomas and Peter, Savoyards. Philip and Boniface ; and these fixed their eyes longingly upon England, where rich benefices and grants of land seemed to them naturally to await a queen's relatives. England was already groaning under utterly unreasonable claims of a similar kind, for the King's widowed mother, Isa- bella of Angouleme, had married Hugh of Lu- signan, Count of La Marche; and Henry, with his usual readiness to sacrifice his country to his personal feelings, was scheming to provide one of his half-brothers with a rich bishopric, while for another was destined the splendid earldom of Pem- broke, recently vacated by the death of the younger Marshal. The evil influence of Peter des Roches, the Poitevin favourite of Isabella, was still remem- bered, though the King had been forced to dismiss him from office. Nevertheless, Henry persisted in his marriage plans; and Peter of Savoy received the earldom of Richmond in Peterof 1241, while his younger brother, Boniface, v reached the great prize of ecclesiastical ambition in England, being made Archbishop of Canterbury, in spite of strenuous opposi- tion, in 1245. These will be names of evil omen in England during the next quarter of a century. To add to its other evils, the marriage of Henry and Eleanor threatened to be childless. Birth of But this last blow was averted by the Edward. birth of a son at Westminster, on the 17th-! 8th of 74 Edward Plantagenet [1239- June, 1239. The child was called after an English King whose name dwelt fondly in the memories of the people, and whose body, after resting for nearly a century, had been translated by another English saint, Thomas of Canterbury, to a more splendid tomb in that abbey of St. Peter at Westminster, on which the Confessor himself had lavished such tender care, and which Henry was now rebuilding with great magnificence. Three days after his birth the little prince was baptised in the abbey, amongst his sponsors being his uncle Richard, the future King of the Romans, and his uncle by marriage, the great Simon of Montfort. On the same day he was also confirmed by the saintly Archbishop of Canter- bury, Edmund Rich. The times were unhappy. The King had a fatal knack of becoming involved in petty quarrels, which London and led to no decisive results, except that the King. they gradually embittered against him one section after another of his subjects. At this time he was engaged in a standing feud with the citizens of London, then rapidly rising in wealth and power, and perfectly willing to act as loyal sub- jects of the King, if he would but let them. On Henry's part there seems to have been little cause for quarrel, except an unworthy jealousy of the growing importance of the city, and a fear for his own dignity. The citizens had gained an important step just half a century before, when, at the corona- tion of Richard Cceur de Lion, who was anxious to get money for his Crusade, they had obtained leave to elect their own mayor and sheriffs, a privilege 1257] Birth and Early Years 75 confirmed by John and by Henry of Winchester himself. The practice had wavered a good deal since the days of Richard Fitzaylwin, the first mayor, who dwelt in a very fair house on Richard the north side of St. Swithin's Church, Kt«ayiwta. in Cannon or Candlewick Street, near the ancient London Stone. He had held the mayoralty till his death, in the year 1212. But, by the year of the little Edward's birth, it had come to be accepted as the proper thing, that mayor and sheriffs should be elected annually on the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude, and presented to the King for ap- \ • , , tt , a8th October. proval as soon as might be. Henry, how- ever, could not bring himself to accept, fairly and fully, the new order of things. He hankered after the days when the King's bailiff and the Bishop's portreeve held the city in check, and when the citi- zens in their Guildhall might protest, but could not carry their protests into effect. On the slightest pretext, the liberties of the city were seized into the King's hand, and a warden and bailiff, appointed by the King, replaced the elected mayor and sheriffs. When, in 1240, Gerard Bat, the choice of the citi- zens, went to Woodstock to obtain the royal approval, the King, who had no pretext for refusal ready, made him swear to return everything received during his previous tenure of office, and not to accept the usual forty pounds' allowance for expenses. Bat gave way ; but as he withdrew he could not help a regretful murmur — " Alas, my lord, with them I might have mar- ried my daughter." Whereupon the King, adding yd Edward Plantagenet [1239- insult to injury, swore by the bones of St. Edward, and stammered out: " Thou shalt not be mayor this year, and for a trifle I would say, never. Away with thee ! " The King and the citizens were always quarrelling over the coinage, which the King ap- parently desired to regulate by principles of artistic beauty, while the citizens, nat- urally, preferred to consider practical needs. In the year 1258, a battle royal took place over a charges of mysterious roll, sealed with green wax, oppression, alleged to have been found in the King's wardrobe at Windsor. This precious document, probably the work of some partisan in the internal struggle between the Court and the popular parties in the Guildhall, was supposed to contain a list of oppressions committed by the mayor and aldermen in the collection of the royal taxes. John Mansel, the famous clerical pluralist and confidential adviser of the King, came down into the city, and insisted on an inquest, with great show of fair play, but very little reality. The inquisitors pleaded the privilege of the city, that no inquest should be held within its limits, and urged that the accused should be allowed to clear themselves in the accustomed way, by the oaths of their witnesses. The King's messengers, however, called a folkmoot at the Guildhall, and, by the use of wily words, persuaded the populace to shout " Ya, ya," in answer to a proposal of condemnation. Once more the victims pleaded the customs of the city ; but the royalists, now thoroughly convinced of their power, sum- moned another folkmoot at St. Paul's, and asked 1257] Birth and Early Years jy whether people accused of bringing all sorts of evil on their fellow-citizens ought to be allowed to de- fend themselves by mere oath. Thereupon, with- out any decent discussion, and " by the mouths of the scum of the people, sons of strange mothers, and some of servile rank," the crowd answered, " Nay, nay, nay"; and the accused were deprived of their offices, fined, arrested, and forbidden to seek any office again without the King's leave. Equally petulant and unjust was the behaviour of the King over the great reconsecration _ b ° Translation of the shrine of the Confessor in 1269. of the The citizens were genuinely anxious to do Confessor - honour to the proceedings, and had gone to great expense in the preparation of scarlet cloth " and other decent garments." But, at the last moment, Henry refused to wear his crown, and insolently said, that those who liked might come to dinner, but they should not take any part in the ceremony. It is not surprising to find London steadily against the King all through the Barons' War ; and it is not difficult to understand how a ruler, who could treat a rising interest in such a way, should fail to secure the respect of his subjects. Unhappily, the dislike which he naturally felt towards the city which he had injured extended itself to his son Edward, who never forgave the citizens for an attack made on his mother's barge as it passed under London Bridge in the year 1263. The cause alleged by the citizens for the outrage was palpably false, being an absurd revival of the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Fair Rosamond. But that it should have been yS Edward Plantagenet [1239- believed, shews the bad odour into which the Court of Henry III. had fallen. In the year 1240 died Llywelyn ab Jorwerth, the last, or last but one, of the independent princes of North Wales. His two sons, Gruffyth Wales the older, and David " the more legiti- mate," quarrelled over the succession, and agreed to submit their differences to the arbitration of the Bishop of Bangor. David, however, seized his brother by treachery, and imprisoned him at Criccieth. Regardless of consequences, Gruffyth appealed for help to Henry, and the latter's vanity would not permit him to withhold his interference. As a matter of fact, the expedition which followed was one of the very few successful achievements of Henry's reign. The King invaded Wales with a large army, and impressed David so much, that he agreed to come to London to discuss his claims, 29th August, while Gruffyth was removed to the custo- i24«- dy of the Tower of London. Ultimately, a treaty was signed, which professed to recognise the Treaty of legal suzerainty of the English Crown Rhuddian. over t jj e princes of Wales, to restore the lands alleged to have been filched from the earldom of Chester, and to secure compensation for the ex- penses of the war. But the treaty did not settle the dispute. David obtained of the Pope absolu- tion from his allegiance, and though this was revoked, the death of Gruffyth in an attempt to escape from the Tower, and the failure of an unprovoked attack on Scotland in which Henry indulged in the same year, led to a re^ 1257] Birth and Early Years 79 newal of the Welsh war. An expedition in 1245 was considered, at least by the Welsh chroniclers, as a disastrous failure ; and only the death of David in the following year, along with that of Ralph Mortimer, the Marcher Earl, who had married David's sister, Gladys the Dark, gave Henry a re- spite from a troublesome foe. With characteristic cowardice, Henry, on his son's marriage, handed over Wales to his care, refusing thenceforward to own any responsibility in the matter. About the dealings of Edward with Wales something must hereafter be said. As has been before hinted, Henry's conduct with regard to Scotland was equally open to criticism. The Scottish throne was at this time oc- cupied by Alexander II., who had mar- ried Henry's sister Joanna. Notwithstanding the close tie thus existing, Henry protected the mur- derer of the young Earl of Athol, who fled south in 1242, and he chose to be offended because, on the death of Joanna, whose marriage had been childless, the Scottish King ventured to marry the daughter of Engilramm of Coucy. Summoning to his aid his brother in-law, the Savoyard Count of Flanders, who came with a hundred knights and Threatened sixty sergeants, and joined later by the invasion, future Archbishop of Canterbury, Boniface of Savoy, the King marched north on a plundering expedition. But at Newcastle a peace Trea tyof was patched up by Richard of Cornwall, Newcastle, on the basis of a marriage between Alex- July ' I244 ' ander, the infant son of the Scottish King and Mary 80 Edward Plantagenet [1239- of Coucy, with Henry's little daughter Margaret, a child of two years old. The marriage was actu- ally solemnised in 1251; and it was probably the , first public function since his baptism in Marriage of * *■ the Princess which Prince Edward played a prominent Margaret. p ar f.. ^ ma y therefore be of some in- terest to know that his costume on the occasion comprised a tabard of scarlet cloth, embroidered with leopards and furred with miniver, a supertunic parted with cloth of gold and furred, and a tunic of sendal or striped silk. Presumably there were hose and hat to match. Unhappily, details of the bride's costume do not survive, though we know that it was to cost the respectable sum of two hundred marks. Full particulars, however, of the plate, jewellery, and saddlery ordered for the occasion are preserved in the official documents, which are care- ful also to inform us of the gifts of rich robes to various ecclesiastical persons. Huge preparations of food and drink were made, and there was much feasting in York at the Christmas of 1251. It was on occasions like this that Henry was seen at his best. His love of display, his real affection for his children, his reverence for the externals of religion, his impulsive and somewhat superficial charity, united to make him an excellent master of cere- monies. The young prince seems to have made a good impression ; and his tall, slender figure, which afterwards earned for him the nickname of Long- shanks, his fair hair and ruddy cheeks, which re- minded men of that Saxon descent which his name also pointedly recalled, combined to win him pop- 1257] Birth and Early Years 81 ular favour. He seems to have passed a delicate childhood ; but, as often happens, the delicate child grew up into a vigorous manhood, capable of endless fatigue and work, delighting in martial exercises and the chase, and finally into a green and vigorous old age, which did not shrink from undertakings that might have overtasked the strength of a man in his prime. The serious duties of life now began to thicken around the young prince. His father's folly had embroiled England with the growing Gascony. power of France, and had endangered the rich province of Guienne, or Aquitaine, which, with its dependent lordship of Gascony,* was all that survived to Henry of the once magnificent Con- tinental domains of his Angevin grandfather, who had ruled from the Cheviots to the Pyrenees. In the reign of Philip Augustus, the great 1179-1223. Norman inheritance of the Conqueror's descendants, as well as the hereditary domains of Henry of Anjou, had been wrested, bit by bit, from the feeble John; and although, during the reign of his son, Louis VIII., and the minority of St. Louis, Henry had made at least one foolish at- tempt to recover his lost dominions, he had merely wasted money without good results. In the year 1242, he allowed himself to be drawn into a feudal quarrel of the worst type between his step-father, * The names are used indiscriminately in the documents of the period. Gascony, the country of the Wasques or Basques, really was only an appendage of the great feudal duchy of Aquitaine, to whose ruler it had passed on the extinction of the native line of Gascon dukes, in 1054. 82 Edward Plantagenet [1239- Hugh of La Marche, and Alfonso of Poitou,* Hugh's liege lord, and brother of St. Louis, who, by his marriage with Jeanne, daughter of Raymond of Toulouse, was scheming to attach that great county also to the throne of France. This latter power was now very different from what it had been in the days of Henry of Anjou, when, what- ever his shadowy claims to overlordship of the Western feudatories, the actual domains of the French King consisted only of a narrow strip of land running from Arras in the north to Bourges in the south, — very little more, in fact, than the fiefs of the old Counts of Paris. The conquests of Philip Augustus had added Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Auvergne to the direct domains of the Crown, while the great provinces of Brittany, Champagne, Burgundy, and Toulouse acknowledged themselves to depend directly on the kings of France. The rich county of Artois had been acquired by the marriage of Philip Augustus with Isabella of Hainault, and though it, like the county of Poitou, was held, as appanage, by a brother of the reigning monarch, such alienation was only temporary, and, as a fact, the " appan- ages" seldom long remained separated from the Crown. It will thus be seen, that the poor remain- der of the great possessions of Henry of Anjou was hemmed in on two sides by the lands of Henry's most formidable rival, now fully conscious, saint * Poitou had just assumed a new political existence as an appanage, created for the second son of Louis VIII, mostly out of the con- quests effected by Philip Augustus at the expense of John of England. FRENCH LADY. (thirteenth century.) (From Viollet le Due's " Diet, du Mobilier Franfais") 1257] Birth and Early Years 83 though he was, of the great political mission which lay before the Kings at Paris. If anything could have taught Henry wisdom, it was surely such a position as this. Nevertheless, he plunged rashly into the quarrel, and, having failed to obtain a grant of money from his Council, extorted sufficient for his immediate needs in what is significantly called " the Roman fashion," and set sail, in mid-May, with his queen and brother Richard, for Bordeaux, the capital of Aquitaine. Louis at first offered peace, but, this being scornfully refused by Henry, he un- furled the orifiamme and marched on Poitou. The Kings met at Taillebourg on the Taiiiebourg, Charente,* and Henry sustained a dis- July ' " 42 - graceful defeat, which he tried to explain away by unworthy accusations against his allies. These were, no doubt, worthless enough; but Henry's flight to Saintes and subsequent second Saintes defeat ill accorded with the boastful professions of a few weeks before. The English army was really saved from destruction only by a mysterious sickness which appeared in the French camp, causing Louis to offer a truce for five years, which was eagerly accepted, and which at any rate released Henry from his stupid promise to pay seven thousand marks a year to the Poitevin rebels. Henry retired to Bordeaux, where a daughter (Beatrice, the future wife of John of Brittany, Ed- ward's trusted ally) had been born to him in June. * See an excellent account of this battle in Professor Oman's His- tory of the Art of War, vol. ii., pp. 413-414. 84 Edward Plantagenet [1239- Here he wasted the autumn, some accounts say also the winter, in foolish extravagance. When the truce expired, Louis was absorbed in his prepara- tions for the Eighth Crusade, and Gascony was left unmolested by the French. The interval was occupied by a series of events which must have brought the young prince into simon of closest contact with a man who was de- Montfort. ' stined to exercise, perhaps more than any- one else, an abiding influence on his mind and character. Simon of Montfort was the youngest son of Simon, conqueror of the Albigenses, who could boast descent not only from the Counts of Evreux, through whom he claimed the constable- ship of France, but, with the help of the bend sin- ister, from the royal house of Paris itself. The elder Simon had married Amicia, daugh- 1165. & ter of Robert, Earl of Leicester, who claimed the high office of Steward of England, through his marriage with Petronilla, a descendant of the ancient house of Grantesmenil. On the elder Simon's death, his great possessions were divided between his three sons — Aymer or Amauri, who succeeded to the office of Constable of France and to the ancient domains of the house of Montfort in Normandy, Guy, Count of Bigorre, who took such of the Albigensian conquests of his father as the ingratitude of Philip Augustus had left to him, and Simon, who, in the year 1229, came to England to claim his mother's inheritance. The young man was successful in his quest, through the favour of the King, notwithstanding that the hand 1257] Birth and Early Years 85 of Ranulph of Chester was already on the Leicester earldom. His mother's sister, Margaret, who had married Saer of Quency, seems to have made no claim to the title, though she obtained her share of the lands; and Simon became Earl of Leicester. By his descent from illustrious houses on both sides of the Channel, he was already entitled to rank among the proudest of the English aristocracy ; and, in spite of the opposition of Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, he seems to have officiated as High Steward at the Queen's coronation. But he made a bid 1236. for yet higher place, and incurred the fierce resentment of the Court, by his secret mar- riage with the King's sister, Eleanor, the Marria e widow of William Marshal (the son of the with Henry's famous Regent), who had died in 1231. sister ' I238 - It was evident now, that Simon's ambition went be- yond that of an ordinary feudal baron ; and Richard of Cornwall, the King's brother, openly quarrelled with Henry on his account. There were ugly scan- dals concerning the manner in which Simon had won his bride; but he probably owed his success, partly to his own character and position, partly to the friendship of the King. The latter, however, he soon lost; and a quarrel with Henry Q uar reiwith was followed by a voluntary exile to the Henry. Holy Land, whence Simon returned to France at the beginning of the year 1241. He served with the English army in the disastrous campaign of Poitou ; but, before reconciling himself In the with Henry, he exacted from him a bond F rench war - for the payment of sums which he alleged to be due 86 Edward Plantagenet [1239- from the King. He spent the following winter in Gascony with his royal brother-in-law, and there, no in Gascony, doubt, formed those plans for the govern- 1242-43. ment of the province which were to ex- cite such a storm when put into practice. He could hardly feel himself to be amongst strangers in the country of the Languedoc, where the fame of his father's exploits was still fresh. The county of Bigorre was still in his brother's family; and a cousin had married the famous Gaston of Beam, one of the most powerful lords of Gascony. On the other hand, the King of Aragon and the Count of Toulouse had no kindly feelings towards the son of the northern interloper. Returned to England, Simon seems to have passed an uneventful period of five years, occupied, no doubt, in studying the political horizon, and, it m England, may be, in impressing on the youthful 1243-1248. Edward those lessons of wisdom and skill which he afterwards claimed as his own work. One significant incident suggests, that he was already inclined towards that opposition to royal misdeeds which was to bring him so much renown in after years. On his return from Gascony, the King found The com- himself miserably in debt ; and a personal mitteeof demand for money made to the Council, which met at Westminster in February, 1244, produced the first of the long series of politi- cal experiments which are such a striking feature of the reign of Henry III. The demand was met by the appointment, by the Council, of a Committee of Twelve, upon whose report the King was invited 1257] Birth and Early Years 87 to place the choice of his chief ministers in the hands of the Council, as the price of a subsidy. The scheme came to naught ; but it is interesting to find that the name of Simon appears among the baronial representatives. He could not, however, have acted very decidedly against his royal brother-in-law ; for we find the latter employing him, at the second session of the Council in the same year, as his mes- senger in a last despairing appeal for funds. More- over, a committee which comprised also Richard of Cornwall and Peter of Savoy can hardly have been violently hostile to Henry. The way was thus prepared for the step which was to prove, in many ways, the turning-point in Simon's career — his appointment to the Thegovcrn . lieutenancy of Gascony. The difficulties mem of of this post, and Henry's lack of judgment in filling it, may be gathered from the fact, that no less than twenty-eight changes were made in it during the reign. There had been no resident ruler since the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine with Louis VII. of France; and the Gascon nobles, — the II37. Counts of Bigorre and Perigord, the Vis- counts of Beam, Grammont, and Fronsac, the Lords of Albret and Bergerac, — secretly helped by the neighbouring Kings of Navarre, Aragon, and Cas- tile, plundered the royal domains, under pretence of exercising the cherished feudal privilege of private war. The rich cities, on the other hand, secure within their walls, had wrested one privilege after another from the wretched seneschals at Bor- deaux; and the consuls and commune of Limoges, 88 Edward Plantagenet [1239- the mayor and jurats of Dax, and the good men of Bayonne, looked upon the distant king in London rather as an easy customer for their wines than as a ruler to be feared and obeyed. Simon was in no hurry to accept the position. He seems to have foreseen that Henry would be likely Simon to use him as a scapegoat if things went appointed, wrong, while anxious enough to exact the last penny to be raised from a successful admin- istration of the province. He insisted on a seven years' tenure of office; he was to be no seneschal, but a vicegerent with royal powers ; all the revenues of the province were to be placed at his disposal, and, if these were insufficient, the King was to re- coup him his further expenses ; if he were attacked by any of the hostile forces on his border, the King was to send him aid. All these demands were solemnly granted. It was a great opportunity for a ruler of genius ; but Simon was deficient in the higher qualities of simon sets statesmanship. He had courage, perse- out - verance, vigour, and uprightness; he soon made a great impression on the province. At the end of three months he returned to England in triumph, and this triumph was repeated in the two following years. But, although the con- Jan., 1249. ° nicting reports of the time render the de- tails obscure, it is not difficult to see, that Simon's haughty manners, his hasty brushing aside of privi- leges which stood in his way, his avowed partialities, and his headstrong self-will, were bringing a terrible tempest upon his head. Louder and louder grew GASCON PEASANT WOMAN. (thirteenth century.) {From Viollet le Due's " Diet, du Mobilier Fr unguis") 1257] Birth and Early Years 89 the complaints from Gascony. The King began to believe them. The Council of May, 1252, was occu- pied in hearing the impassioned addresses - - _ ° . Complaints of the Gascon deputies, who represented reach almost all classes of the discontented England, subjects of Simon — nobles, merchants, peasants. Even churchmen, usually Simon's staunch allies, had their complaints to make against the viceroy. But the most singular feature of the petitions of complaint is, that more than one of them demand, not merely the recall of Simon, but the substitution of Edward, the King's son, in his place. We can- not suppose that Edward's personal qualities were yet known to the citizens of Bazas or Bayonne; probably they thought that a lad of thirteen would prove an easier ruler than the stern Earl of Leices- ter. But Henry, perplexed and impetuous, caught at the suggestion, and, without going fairly into Simon's defence, presented the young prince to an assembly of Gascons in London, as their ruler. He was received with huge delight, for the act vir- tually meant the condemnation of the hated viceroy. It is possible that Simon never quite forgave the young prince for the turn which affairs had taken. He angrily repudiated the charges which had been brought against him, and with such sue- pri nce cess, that the balance of opinion in Eng- Edward land turned in his favour. The aged a PP° m e Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Greathead, remained his friend to the last; Adam of Marsh, the " Illustrious Doctor," was wholly in hisfavour. Men of affairs like Richard of Cornwall and Gilbert of Gloucester, go Edward Plantagenet [1239- none too favourable towards Simon, took his part. The Earl, after the first outburst of indignation, was not unreasonable. He offered either (i) to make his own terms with his accusers and to return and govern his province in peace, or (2) to carry on a vigorous war against those who were, as he alleged, disturbers of the peace, or (3) to resign his government on being indemnified for the expenses incurred. The King virtually accepted the third alternative; but forgot its condition. The prince received from Simon a formal surrender of the gov- simon ernment, and the castles which he had resigns. fortified, on a promise to pay seven thou- sand marks, and an undertaking to hold Simon harm- less from the debts incurred by him. The earl was allowed to retain the prisoners whom he had captured outside the limits of Gascony. Simon withdrew to France, where he was received with open arms, and where the most brilliant offers of service were made to him. Henry set out in the summer of 1253, with a well-found army, to reduce the Gascons to submission; but the task proved harder than he had anticipated. Alfonso of Castile began to revive ancient claims ; many of the Gascon nobles inclined to side with him. With incredible meanness, Henry summoned to his help the man whom he had just disgraced; but Simon refused to come. In the end, Henry determined to follow the Welsh precedent, and hand over to his youthful son a matter too hard for himself to manage. The opportunity was taken to establish Edward in a definite position. According to the ideas of 1257] Birth and Early Years 91 the time he, as the heir to the throne (and Henry had but one other son), was of an age when marriage was a duty. There had already been one Edward's scheme in connection with a daughter of marriage, the Duke of Brabant. But now the pressing needs of Gascony were foremost, and the young prince was betrothed and quickly married to Eleanor, daughter of Ferdinand III. of Castile, and half-sister of the reigning monarch, Alfonso X., who, in con- sideration of the marriage, transferred to Edward all his claims on Gascony. The marriage is the best proof that Edward's prospects, despite the disas- trous half-century of English history which was just closing, were deemed of high value in the political market. For Eleanor was a beauty and an heiress, heiress in her mother's right to the counties of Ponthieu and Montreuil,* while her brother Alfonso was one of the most aspiring princes in Europe. On the other hand, Edward only settled upon his bride the modest dowry of ^"1000 a year, to be increased to ^1500 on his father's death. But his own pro- vision was splendid, and raised him at once to a position of independence. Henry conferred on his son not only the duchy of Aquitaine'and Gascony, but the earldom of Chester, the lordships of Wales and Ireland, and the cities of Bristol, Stamford, and Grantham. The marriage was happy and fruitful ; Edward and his wife lived together in peace till her death in 1290, and the series of crosses erected by Edward on each spot where her corpse rested on * These counties, on the channel coast, were highly valuable to any rival of the French king. 92 Edward Plantagenet [1239- its way from Lincolnshire to Westminster, is one of the best-known memorials of royal affection. If Henry of Winchester really did arrange his son's marriage, he is entitled to the credit of at least one thoroughly successful act. Of the other foreign politics of this period, there is not much of direct interest for Edward's career. Germany and His birth had been almost coincident the pope. vvlth the excommunication of the Em- peror Frederick by Gregory IX., and the renewal of a long and bitter warfare which convulsed „ 3 g. Europe. The death of Gregory made 1241. little difference to the struggle ; Innocent IV. (Sinibaldo Fieschi) took up the task with ardour, and, hard pressed by the Emperor, looked about him for allies. He soon secured the Landgrave of Thuringia, formerly a candidate for the Empire, (who inflicted a severe defeat on the Emperor's son, 1246. Conrad,) and William, Count of Holland, «47. whom, on the Landgrave's death, he set up as a rival Emperor. The death of Frederick in 1250 did not bring peace, for the Pope pursued the cam- paign against his children with unrelenting violence. During Frederick's lifetime, Henry could not well move against him, for Frederick had married, as his third wife, Isabella of England, Henry ac- , ° cepts Sicily Henrys own sister. But, on Conrad's for his death, Henry felt no scruples in accept- second son. ** r * ing, on behalf of his second son, Edmund, "54- ., ...... . . „ the crown of Sicily, in opposition to Con- radin, the Emperor Conrad's son by Elizabeth of Bavaria. It was, perhaps, the wildest act of folly ELEANOR OF CASTILE. (WIFE OF EDWARD 1.1 (.From Stothard's " Monumental Effigies.") 1257] Birth and Early Years 93 committed, even by Henry of Winchester. His brother, Richard of Cornwall, despite his enormous wealth and his hankering after titles, had refused the treacherous gift. For the next few years the Popes simply carried on the war against the Hohen- staufen in their own way, and for their own ends, and sent in the bills to Henry. Frederick II. 's de- scendants determined to fight for the remnants of their predecessor's territory; and the crown of Sicily had to be won from them. A demand of four thousand livres from the Abbot of Westminster for the expenses of the Sicilian war was but the beginning of new troubles. In the following year came fresh demands from Italy : in 1257 there was already talk of resigning the costly bauble; in 1258 the talk was stimulated by a further demand of four thousand five hundred marks. Meanwhile, Manfred, an illegitimate son of Frederick, had crushed the Papal army at Nocera, established himself as ruler of Sicily, and 1255. carried the war on to the mainland. Finally the Pope, having drained Henry's coffers dry, handed over the lands of Apulia and Sicily to Charles of Anjou, who, in the two battles „ 66 . of Benevento and Tagliacozzo, crushed " 68 - the last remnants of the house of Hohenstaufen. In the year 1256, the vanity of Richard of Corn- wall had succumbed to the charms of an Imperial title, and he allowed himself to be The King of elected, by a narrow majority, King of the Romans, the Romans, and Emperor in prospect. " s6 - The occasion is interesting, for it was the first on 94 Edward Mantagenet [1239- which the exclusive claim of the college of seven Electoral Princes was definitely recognised. But the Holy Roman Empire had long ceased to have much territorial existence, and, as a fact, Richard had some difficulty in procuring admission to his coronation city of Aachen. He was never crowned at Rome, and so is generally spoken of in contem- porary documents as King of the Romans only, not as Emperor. But, with the accession of Charles of Anjou to the throne of Sicily, the social success of Raymond Berenger's daughters was complete ; the four sisters were now four queens. Also Richard's election is supposed to have opened up German trade with England, and certainly we find Henry, at his request, conferring privileges on the Teutonic Hanse in London. To offer any effectual resistance to the Mongol war-storm, now apparently about to burst over Europe, was, of course, far beyond Richard's powers. Of the personal doings of Edward, we still hear but little. He returned to London with his bride in the year 1255, and was well re- The Prince. . ' ■'■" ceived by the citizens, who had not at this time given him any cause of offence. His Welsh territories brought him a good deal of trouble, and he had to appeal to his father for aid. His Irish administration seems to have been a reality; and of this something must be said in another chapter. On the election of his uncle Richard as King of the Romans, he received from the newly elected potentate a letter containing a full account of the proceedings, together with moral 1257] Birth and Early Years 95 "57. reflections on the conduct of turbulent German archbishops. In the following year he sustained from his father a very just rebuke for be- stowing upon his uncle, Guy of Lusignan, the valuable island of Oleron, part of his Gascon province. The King, in fact, quashed the gift, and Edward had to submit. But the evils of the reign of Henry of Winchester were now approaching their climax in England, and to home affairs we must again turn our eyes. CHAPTER V THE GATHERING STORM I258-I261 FROM the general mass of folly and inca- pacity which drove the subjects of Henry into revolt, three chief grievances are re- vealed to us beyond mistake by the records of the times. First and foremost was the favour shown to the hated foreigners. It may seem, at first sight, odd, The that a country whose nobles were almost foreigners. a \\ f French descent, whose courtiers and scribes spoke the French tongue, and whose official affairs were conducted, either in that Latin, which was the universal language of educated Europe for a thousand years, or in the French imported by the clerks of the kings of the Angevin line, should display any strong feeling of nationality. Among the thousands of documents which contain the official history of the period, there is but one which betrays any acquaintance with the Saxon speech of England. The few technical terms which survived from the legal system of Edward the 96 1258-61] The Gathering Storm 97 Confessor had become mere gibberish, even to skilled clerks. Even the records of the growing towns are written in Latin or in French, though an occasional survival of " Ya, ya," and " Nay, nay," reveals the fact that, in moments of excitement or of popular action, the citizen relapsed into his mother speech. But the truth is, that the alien race, which had come with William of Normandy, was fast losing its separate existence in the mass of the people which it ruled and plundered. The boundary between State and Folk was being rapidly broken down ; and a new Nation, which comprised both, was coming into existence. Doubtless, the feelings with which the great English barons re- garded the Savoyards and the Poitevins were, mainly, personal feelings of rivalry and jealousy. They dreaded to see these new-comers invested with the fiefs and offices which they desired for them- selves. But their hostility was backed by the grow- ing strength of the shiremoot and the town's meeting, where men spoke the native English speech, and had a genuine fear and hatred of the foreign noble whose aim was to bring back the evil days of Stephen, when peasant and burgher lived in daily terror of their lives. The strong hand of Henry of Anjou had done far more than build up a central government firm enough to hold the barons in check. It had taught the mass of Englishmen what good rule meant, and rendered them unwilling to brook the lawless oppression either of king or baron. It was this that had given force to the movement which had wrung the Great Charter from 98 Edward Plantagenet [1258- John, and, for the first time in English history, ranged the people against the Crown. The lesson might have appealed, even to such a man as Henry of Winchester. It was a sign of his incurable folly, that he thought lightly of provoking again the com- bined hostility of nobles and people. The will of the nation had been shown clearly in the choice of Hubert Burgh as Regent on the death of Henry's father, and the exploits of Falkes of Breaute" had Faikesof surely been an ample warning of the Breaute. danger to be expected from entrusting office to foreign adventurers. Yet, on the fall of the Regent, Henry had not shrunk from recalling to his Peter of counsels Peter des Roches, the Poitevin Roches. Bishop of Winchester, who had caused "3i- so much trouble, in the early years of the reign, by his steady opposition to the great Regent. Peter's object was so very clearly to govern the land by Poitevin methods, and he brought over so many of his countrymen, that a storm arose, which drove him into retirement. On his death, Henry strove to continue the foreign suc- cession in the rich see of Winchester by claiming it for his half-brother, Aymer of Valence, a son of his Aymer of mother's scandalous second marriage with valence. Hugh of Lusignan ; and, though it took him twenty years to accomplish his project, he suc- ceeded in the end. Meanwhile, William of Valence, wnuam or another of the King's half-brothers, had valence. received in marriage Joan of Munchensey, one of the co-heiresses of the great Marshal in- heritance, and with her the lordships of Pembroke HENRY III. AND HIS FOREIGN CONNECTIONS Thomas C. of Savoy Amadeus Thomas Peter Philip Boniface Beatrix— Raymond Berenger j IV. of Provence John Lackland=p Isabella of Angouleme=Hugh of La Marche 111! I f ! I I ! I Alexander II. (i)^ Joanna Henry III. —Eleanor Margaret==St. Louis ^Isabella Marsh al^=Richard=Sanchia WiIham=Eleanor==S. of Montfort Hugh Guy of William of Valence Aymer, " Elect, of Scotland (a)=Mary of Coucy "of France E. of ! E. of Pembroke Lusignan " E. of Pembroke " of Winchester " I Cornwall \ \ ' j | I II J ) | j ~ | | Aymer (victor of Methven) Alexander III.=Margaret Edward I. Edmund Philip Henry of Edmund Guy Henry Simon Richard Aymer Eleanor=Llywelyn of Wales the King's the country was too strong. Pleading the party. excuse of war on the Welsh borders, the Reformers had come armed and attended to Ox- , ford ; the city swarmed with their supporters. Earl Simon took the lead at once, and singled out for attack William, the Poitevin Lord of Pembroke, whose pride towered above that of the others. " You may take your choice," said Simon, " be- tween giving up the royal castles which you hold, and losing your head." There was no mistaking the position. The King's advisers sought the pro- tection of Aymer of Valence, the Bishop of Win- FHghtofthe Chester, and shut themselves up in his foreigners, castle. They were pursued by the Re- formers, and fled to the Bishop's house in South- ward But London was hostile to the foreigners, and they were glad enough to escape with a safe- conduct, and a part of their ill-gotten treasure. Of this, however, they were relieved by the vigilance of Richard Gray, the new baronial warden of Dover Castle, and they with difficulty reached Bou- logne. Here fresh evils awaited them, for Louis of France, annoyed by the hostility displayed towards his sister-in-law, Henry's queen, by Henry's Poite- vin half-brothers, refused them a safe-conduct through his territory. Seizing his opportunity, the fiery young Henry of Montfort, unknown to the 1261] The Gathering Storm 115 leaders of the baronial party, crossed the sea to avenge the insult of ' ' old traitor ' ' hurled by William of Valence at his father, and kept the fugitives strictly shut up in Boulogne. Thus the Reformers appeared to be completely successful. Delighted to have got rid of the hated foreigners, they composed a long and Successof careful letter to the Pope (Alexander IV. ), the justifying their proceedings, and begging Relcrm " s - him to keep the "elect of Winchester" (they would not admit the validity of the appointment of Aymer of Valence *) out of harm's way. The real fear of the Reformers seems to have been lest the young Edward, whose abilities they already recog- nised, should be won over to hostility by his foreign relations, and thus we may take it that the prince, though not officially appointed one of his father's representatives, was inclined (very natur- ally) to side with him. This view is confirmed by the existence of a contemporary writ, addressed to Alan Zouche, the Justitiar of Ireland, bidding him take no notice of Edward's orders unless they were confirmed by letters-patent of the King, issued with the assent of the Council. It perhaps also accounts for the revocation of the grant to Guy of Lusignan of the island of Oleron. Thus encouraged, the Re- formers proceeded to hold a searching inquisition into local abuses. The Londoners joyfully accepted the Provisions of Oxford, as the new scheme of gov- ernment was called; even Prince Edward was at last * As a matter of fact, he was not consecrated until 1260 ; and so could not be full bishop. n6 Edward Plantagenet [1258- induced to give in his adhesion, and finally, on Oc- tober 1 8th, the new system was solemnly proclaimed urbi et orbi, the occasion being marked by the ap- pearance of the one formal document of the period which condescends to use the speech of the common Englishman. But dangers were at hand. Henry was not the man to submit honestly to a reform which placed galling fetters upon his liberty. Already Dangers. . ... , t-» he was scheming to obtain from the Pope an absolution from his solemn oath of adherence to the Provisions. Elements of discord began to ap- pear among the Reformers, and we can- Quarrel be- . . . . tweenMont- n °t entirely acquit the young prince of fort and seizing on these for his own ends. In Gloucester. , February of the year 1259, Richard of Cornwall, the King's brother, returned from abroad, and this fact boded no good to the Reformers. In the Parliament held during the same month, a vio- lent quarrel, the true origin of which has never been ascertained, broke out between Earl Simon and the Earl of Gloucester. Perhaps it was personal jealousy, perhaps a genuine difference of policy. At any rate, Simon was provoked beyond measure, and burst out with the hasty words : "I care naught to live and walk with men so fickle and false. These things, which you now dispute, have we agreed on and sworn to observe. And you, my lord of Gloucester, as you are greater than all, so are you more bound to a wise policy." And he left the kingdom in wrath. Two facts seem to throw light on this mysterious affair, which, in a sense, was the turning-point of 1261] The Gathering Storm 117 the Reform movement. One is, that the rank and file of the party, during Simon's absence, put such strong pressure upon Gloucester, that he Merits of the gave way and professed an anxiety to be quarrel. reconciled with his rival. This looks as though the fault were Gloucester's. On the other hand, it seems quite certain that the peace negotiations with France, which were proceeding in the spring of the same year, were delayed by the refusal of Simon, 1259. acting on behalf of his wife, the daughter of King John, to give up her hereditary claims on Normandy. This looks as though Simon could be unreasonable too, and could find leisure, in times of national crisis, to urge his own private interests. Be this as it may, the French treaty proceeded, and was definitely concluded in May, 1259, Henry undertaking to be personally responsible Treaty of to his sister, Simon's wife, for her claims. Paris> The English King finally renounced the ancient title of his house to the provinces of Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Poitou, and Touraine, save that he retained the bishoprics and cities of Limoges, Cahors, and Perigord, and the Agenais.* A quest- ion of the dowry lands of the Countess Jeanne of Poitiers, the granddaughter of Joanna, sister of Richard Cceur de Lion.f was left open for settle- * The Agenais was not handed over for some years to come ; but its annual value was paid in cash. f Joanna had married Count Raymond of Toulouse, and Richard had given her southern Querci as dower. The county of Toulouse had passed to the French Crown by the marriage of Jeanne with Alfonso of Poitiers, brother of Louis IX. The dower of Joanna had not been returned on her death. u8 Edward Plantagenet M258- ment. Henry received from Louis a sum of money which the French King intended to be used for the approaching Crusade, but for which Henry found, doubtless, a more pressing use. The terms of the treaty were distinctly favourable to England; the Norman and the Angevin inheritances were gone beyond hope, northern Gascony was really in French hands. But Louis had suffered severely at the disastrous battle of Mansourah, and in his sub- sequent captivity ; he was by nature and family ties friendly towards Henry; he had views of the sacredness of hereditary titles, which made him uneasy even in retaining the conquests of Philip Augustus and Louis VIII. The treaty was solemnised by magnificent fetes held in Paris at the conclusion of the year. Henry in person did homage for his French fiefs. Meantime, Prince Edward had taken at home a very significant step. In the October Parliament of Edward's I2 59> " the community of the bachelors move - of England," i. e., the smaller land- owners, or knights, presented a petition to the heir- apparent, urging that the baronial party, having got the power into its own hands, was neglecting the reforms which it professed to advocate. These re- forms had been specified in detail in the petition of 1258, on which the Provisions of Oxford were founded. There could therefore be no dispute about their terms. There can be also little doubt that the " bachelors " felt sure of a favourable an- swer, but it is difficult to be certain whether the move had been prompted by Earl Simon from 1261] The Gathering Storm 119 abroad, or whether the young Edward had himself conceived the idea of organising a new and inde- pendent interest, to play off against the great feudal barons. The knights were a rising, but as yet un- organised class, the natural leaders, in the shire- moot, of the wealthy farming interest, which the rapid development of capitalist agriculture was bringing into existence. As their name implies, they, or some of them, had originally been the "knights" or servitors of the great landowners, enfeoffed by them with lands to hold on feudal service. But the growing practice of commutation, both of military and agricultural services, was, as we have seen, producing in the country a great middle class of small landowners, really com- pounded of various elements, but alike in boasting a security of tenure protected by the royal courts, and a growing interest in agriculture as the chief pursuit of their lives. In 1259 their normal sphere of political action was, as we have said, the shiremoot ; but already, on more than one occasion, deputies from the shiremoot had been summoned, for various purposes, to a central assembly. Edward, or his advisers, were, therefore, working on thoroughly sound lines, when they gave the hint to the " bache- lors " to intervene in the struggle. The baronial leaders were completely checked. They could hardly refuse such a petition, backed, as The pro it was, by such a hand. But their dis- visions of gust may be imagined, when it is real- ised, that the Provisions of Westminster, which they issued in response to the appeal, and which were 1 20 Edward Plantagenet [1258- solemnly published on the Feast of St. Edward, were directed chiefly at abolishing abuses of feudal jurisdiction, such as the distraint of free 5 Jan., 1260. tenants to attend at the manorial courts, the plunder of the lands of their wards by feudal guardians, the seizure of goods for default of service outside the limits of the manor, and the attempt to compel freeholders to sit on juries in the feudal courts — a privilege belonging strictly to the royal jurisdiction. There are even traces of still further reforms, but the document in which they are em- bodied was not enrolled, and was probably put aside by the baronial leaders. The result of this move was, for the moment, a bewildering change of parties. The King seems Results of to have quarrelled with his son, and to the step. have thrown himself into the arms of Gloucester. At any rate, the two are found to- gether at London at the close of April, 1260. Ap- parently, the prince and Gloucester were on bad terms, for the prudent citizens of London would not allow both to lodge within the walls. Edward, ac- cordingly, took up his quarters in Southwark, where he was joined by Earl Simon, who had just landed from abroad, having been preceded by rumours which accused him of intending an armed invasion. Richard of Cornwall tried to play the part of peace- maker from his lodgings at Westminster, but his efforts only led to a hollow truce. Elated by the 24 April, split in the Reforming party, the King was 1261. actually in correspondence with the Pope for a release from his oath, and, with incredible folly, 1261] The Gathering Storm 121 shewed his hand, by removing the newly appointed baronial Justitiar, putting in his place a creature of his own. This step was followed by the triumphant production of a Papal bull, which solemnly absolved Henry from his oath to observe the Pro- 12 June, visions of Oxford, and threatened excom- I2fiI - munication against all who should question it. A gleam of hope appeared, in the steady refusal of the young prince to be a party to his father's act of treachery, and in the opportune death of the hated bishop of Winchester. But the latter good fortune was more than outweighed by the return Dec, 1260. of the late prelate's brother, William of Easter > " & - Valence, and by the determination of the new Pope (Urban IV.) to adhere to his predecessor's policy. Disturbances at the universities heralded the ap- proach of a storm ; a secession of the February, Oxford scholars to Northampton was " 6l - known to have been favoured by the King, in his hatred of the forward policy of the university. In defiance of the Provisions, the King attempted to send an " eyre," or general commission of financial enquiry, throughout the kingdom. The last warning was the arrival of troops under the Count of St. Pol and Gerard of Ross, sent by Saint Louis to the help of his brother-in-law. Simon and Gloucester buried their feud in the face of the common danger. Richard of Cornwall and the prince professed hesit- ation, but it was not difficult to foresee that the tie of blood would prove too strong for the triumph of justice. The King sent the Crown jewels for safety to Paris. It was clear that war was at hand. CHAPTER VI THE BARONS' WAR 1261-1267 IT is not surprising that, even at this crisis, the rival parties hesitated to light the flame of civil war. Although it was nearly a hundred years since the days of Stephen and the Empress Maud, the tradition of those evil times, when people said openly that "God and His saints slept," was strong in the land. On both sides the leaders were really humane men. With all his follies, Henry of Win- chester was personally kind and affectionate, loving to see happy faces around him. The young prince, whose influence was daily increasing, could not be blind to the evils of domestic war 5 and his whole conduct shews that he was no advocate of rash measures. Earl Simon, and even the rough old Earl of Gloucester, were no brutal plunderers. The real danger, so far as the characters of the rivals were concerned, lay in the foreign element, in the Queen, with her passionate southern blood, and her utter indifference to popular feelings, and in the newly returned William of Valence, whose senes- [1261-67] The Barons War 123 chal, rebuked for a wanton outrage, is reported to have said: "If I do you a wrong, who will right you ? Our Lord the King wishes whatever my master wishes, but my master does not wish what- ever our Lord the King wishes or orders." There spoke the true spirit of feudal turbulence, and no- thing could have been better calculated to stir up in England that lurid hatred of oppression, which is slow to burst into flame, but which, when it once breaks out, is apt, like a devouring fire, to lick up everything that crosses its path. . And so we are prepared to find the next eighteen months occupied with fruitless negotiations and manifestos. In July, 1261, the many 1 . ,1 1 Diplomacy. personal questions, most of them relating to money, outstanding between Henry and Simon, were referred to the nominal decision of Queen Mar- garet of France, really to a board of arbitrators pre- sided over by the Duke of Burgundy (Hugh IV.) and Peter, the Chamberlain of France. Such a tri- bunal was not calculated to produce a decisive re- sult, and we hear little more of it. Henry then issued a long manifesto, which he distributed throughout the country by the hands of l6 August, the newly appointed sheriffs. So far as " 6l - it is anything more than a vague protest against the policy of the Reform party, it is an appeal to the country to trust the King's foreign favourites rather than its hereditary oppressors. The Reformers re- taliated by refusing to give up any castles without the express orders of the Council, and by replacing the newly appointed sheriffs by " wardens of the 124 Edward Plantagenet [1261- counties," chosen by themselves. Herein they were clearly going beyond the bounds of legality, and Richard of Cornwall, to whom the question was re- ferred, was justified in pronouncing in favour of the King. Meanwhile, an assembly of three knights 29th Jan., from each shire, summoned by the Re- 1262. form leaders to St. Alban's, had been ad- journed by the King to Windsor; but nothing came of its deliberations. The year 1261 closed without bloodshed, but without any real hopes of peace. The troubles in the kingdom were inviting the very real danger of a war on the Welsh border, which had for two or three years been subject to invasion by David and Llywelyn, the sons of that Gruffyth who had met his end in 1244, trying to escape from the Tower. It is a high tribute to the character of St. Louis that both parties should have persistently looked French toward him as the arbiter of peace. It is arbitration. true t h at t h e family of Montfort might naturally turn to the throne of France for guidance, while it is not surprising that Henry should put faith in his royal brother-in-law, with whose piety he had so much sympathy. But it was a distinct recognition of Louis's virtues, that Simon's confed- erates, the other leaders of the Reform party, who professed to regard all foreigners with suspicion, should not have shrunk from appealing to a foreign king, so closely connected with the ruler whose policy they opposed. The whole of the year 1262 seems to have been occupied with French nego- tiations. Henry, Prince Edward, and Simon him- 1267] The Barons War 125 self, all visited Paris, and, doubtless, argued their troubles at length in the presence of St. Louis. Two events of the year are of real importance for the history of the struggle. In the summer, the old Earl of Gloucester died ; and the armed The death of neutrality which existed between him and Gloucester. Simon was replaced by the warm friendship of his son and successor, the young Gilbert Clare. But this gain to the baronial cause was far outweighed by the final decision of the Prince, formed, doubt- less, upon the advice of St. Louis, to throw in his lot with his father. The King returned to England at Christmas, ill and disheartened; a 1262. great invasion of the Welsh border at the beginning of the new year, and a terrible fire which destroyed part of the Palace at Westminster, added to his depression. Seeing himself apparently help- less, he once more confirmed the Provisions of Oxford. But his luck seemed to turn. At the darkest point of the Welsh war, when Edward, who had been hastily summoned by his father from s P at among France, found himself helpless before the the Welsh - combined forces of the Welsh princes, there was a split in the invaders' councils. " At the instiga- tion of the devil " (as the Welsh chronicle puts it), David deserted his brother and fled to the English camp. Disheartened by this defection, Llywelyn accepted a truce, and Edward was free to return to London. The King had also received advices from Paris, which encouraged him to hope that Simon's real feelings were with him against his professed 126 Edward Plantagenet [1261- supporters. In his excitement, Henry required that all loyal subjects should take the oath of alleg- iance to his son. The barons, naturally suspicious, demanded, as a return, that the Provisions of Ox- ford should form part of the bargain. The King refused, and the barons, no longer in doubt as to his real intentions, took up arms. March- thewar. ing on Hereford, they attacked and May 1263 secured Peter of Aigueblanche, the Poit- evin Bishop, and his foreign canons, and soon followed up their success by capturing the towns of Gloucester, Worcester, Bridgenorth, and Shrewsbury. There followed a general massacre of people who could not speak the " English idiom " ; and the King's supporters, conspicuous among them Henry of Almaine, son of Richard of Cornwall, and John Mansel, the "hatcher out" {incubator) of English livings, fled over sea. Edward was be- sieged in Windsor, and, when the barons marched on London, the King withdrew to Westminster and thence issued promises of submission. Disheartened by his father's cowardice, Edward surrendered Windsor on the 26th July, but, finding things not so bad as they seemed, he slipped away to his own city of Bristol, and, persuaded by Bishop Cantelupe of Worcester to surrender the castle, he then turned his steps towards the north, where, with Roger of Leyburn, John Vaux, Ralph Basset, and the Low- land nobles, he undertook to guard the line of the Trent against the Reformers. But Henry was in no mood to continue the struggle at the moment. He saw, in fact, that the 1267] The Barons War 127 violence of the baronial party in the field was win- ning adherents to his side, and he preferred to try the effect of negotiations. A great Par- . . - J -r 1 • -i Negotiations. liament of magnates met at London in the early autumn, and there the King's party laid much stress upon the personal losses suffered by loyal subjects in the military operations in the West, and urged the appointment of a com- mission to assess compensation. It was difficult for the Reformers to deny the justice of the claim ; no doubt there had been much indiscriminate blood- shed. Henry took advantage of the turn of affairs to slip away to France for a short visit, nominally on the business of the approaching Crusade; really, no doubt, to take the advice of Louis upon his do- mestic troubles. He returned to Lon- I263 don on October 7th, with a proposal to submit all matters in dispute to the arbitration of the French King. With (as it seems to us) in- credible folly, the baronial party consented, and in Christmas week the King and his son once more set off for Amiens, where the enquiry was to be held. Simon himself was unable to plead his cause in person ; he was represented by his cousin Peter. The truth seems to be, that the baronial party was hopelessly divided in its councils, and that Earl Simon had ceased to lead more than a „ ... . .. split in tne section. As a result, the royal party, now baronial purged by the flight of the foreigners, was party ' growing daily in strength. It is very instructive to compare the names of 1258 (ante p. 113) with the signatures to the documents of submission forwarded 1 28 Edward Plantagenet [1261- to Saint Louis. The King's submission is signed, not only by his son and his nephew, but by the Earl Marshal, the Earl of Hereford, Roger Mortimer, and Hugh Bigod, four of the most conspicuous of the baronial party of 1258, as well as by the Lowland nobles Balliol and Bruce. On the other hand, Simon's letter is signed only by Hugh Despenser, Richard Gray, and the younger Bohun, together with his relatives and personal dependants. The names of the young Earl of Gloucester and the Bishop of Worcester are significantly absent from both docu- ments. The award of Saint Louis, commonly known as the " Mise of Amiens," was published, with praise- The Mise of worthy promptness, on the 23rd January, Amiens. 1264. It was a complete destruction of the Reformers' hopes. The scheme of the Provisions was not likely to find much favour with Saint Louis, or with the jurists, trained in the principles of the law of Imperial Rome, who surrounded him. Still, the French King might have been expected to pay some regard to the circumstances which had provoked the proceedings at Oxford, or, at least, to the repeated solemn oaths of Henry. But the Mise simply an- nulled the whole of the objects for which the Reform- ers had been striving. The Provisions themselves were quashed, and all proceedings taken in pursuance of them set aside. The castles were to be returned to the King, and the appointment of all officials was to be left absolutely in his hands. Even the exclu- sion of foreigners from office was prohibited ; and any attempt to limit the royal power was formally 1267] The Barons War 129 forbidden. A vague exhortation to forgiveness by Henry, and a general saving of ancient privileges, as they stood before 1258, are the sole evidences that Louis recognised the existence of a constitutional struggle. The whole of the hard-won achievements of the past five years are treated as childish theories. The Mise was formally confirmed by the Pope in the following March. The evil counsellors of the King, Boniface of Savoy, the Bishop of Hereford, and John Mansel, were present at the proclamation of the Received award ; and their faces must have shone with an e". as they heard the words which seemed to open be- fore them a renewal of their former prosperity. But they misjudged the temper of the people whom they presumed to govern. The Mise of Amiens was re- ceived in England with fierce protest ; and the pro- spect of return to the evil days before 1258 drew together the wavering ranks of the Reformers. The citizens of London prepared to resist the y-. London. foreigners. They appointed a Constable and a Marshal of their own, at whose summons, sounded on the great bell of St. Paul's, they pledged themselves to attend in arms. They imprisoned the King's clerks, the barons of the Exchequer, and the justices of the Bench ; and, sallying out in the direc- tion of Isleworth, attacked and burnt a house belong- ing to Richard of Cornwall. " And this was the beginning of griefs, and the origin of that mortal war, in which so many houses were burnt, and so many men, rich and poor, were plundered, and so many thousands of men perished." In Passion Week 130 Edward Plantagenet [1261- (i3th-igth April) a fierce outbreak in the city resulted in the massacre of five hundred Jews. The Jewry was sacked, and its goods and writings carried off. With difficulty the Mayor restored order. The money of the Italian and " Caursine " bankers, the agents of the royal finance, was " extracted " from the abbeys round London, and removed to the city. But, though the Londoners might flatter them- selves that they were the centre of the opposition movement (and, doubtless, their adher- The country. ence to Simon s party was most import- ant), the Mise was received with equal indignation throughout the country. Simon and the young Earl of Gloucester, now reconciled, flew to attack Roger Mortimer, who, in conjunction with Edward, was rousing the Welsh border for the King. Defeating this project by a bold though dangerous step, Simon made a league with Llywelyn, the Welsh Prince, to whom he promised his daughter in marriage. The campaign in the West, however, went decidedly in favour of the King. The Earl of Derby, a supporter of Simon, captured Worcester; but Edward secured the castle of Brecknock, the seat of the Bohun power in South Wales, and drove the barons out of Glou- cester. More important still was the surrender of Northampton, with Peter of Montfort and the younger Simon. The arrival of John Balliol and the northern barons, at Easter, still further strength- ened the King's hands ; and Edward moved off towards Derbyshire and Staffordshire, where he ravaged the Ferrers estates, in revenge for the sack of Worcester. Leicester and Nottingham fell into 1267] The Barons War 131 the King's hands. Thereupon Simon directed his steps toward London, where he was heartily wel- comed by the citizens. It is at this point, in the opinion of military critics, that the King's advisers made a fatal mistake in not marching on London. The desultory cap- The King's ture of towns which, in theory, still owed mistake, allegiance to the Crown, could not end the war. It was necessary to capture the leaders of the opposi- tion. But Henry contented himself with relieving Rochester castle, besieged by the Londoners, and then he attacked and captured the ancient castle of the Clares (Earls of Gloucester), Tonbridge in Kent. At this point his plans seem to have come to an end. At any rate, he drifted aimlessly into Sussex, threatening, but not attacking, the Cinque Ports, and, at the beginning of May, found him- Battle of self at Lewes, where he settled down in Lewes > " 6 *- the Cluniac Priory of St. Pancras. On May 6th, Simon and the Londoners set out to attack him ; and a long and tedious interchange of documents failed to produce an agreement. In spite of the am- ple warning conveyed by these attempts, the royal forces seem to have been taken by surprise on the morning of May 14th. Simon, marching from Fletching, had carefully disposed his forces, which were much smaller than those of the King, in three "battles," with a reserve. On his left were the Londoners under Hastings, and these, marching along the Pevensey road, approached the King's right, which, under Prince Edward, was resting on Lewes castle. Roused to fury by the sight of the 132 Edward Plantagenet [1261- citizens, whose insult to his mother in the previous year the prince had never forgotten, Edward charged with reckless force, swept his opponents back into the river Ouse, which skirts the town on the east, and followed them up the steep slopes of Mount Cabourn. There his quick eye caught sight of Earl Simon's chariot and standard, left on the Downs when the Earl mounted his horse in the morning. Believing the chariot to contain the baronial leader, the prince charged the little group which surrounded it, only to find, when too late, that he had killed his own hostages. Returning towards the main battle, he soon saw that things had gone badly with the royal forces. The baronial centre, under Gloucester, charging down the steep slopes of the Combe, had broken up the King's forces under Richard of Cornwall, who was quickly obliged to seek shelter in a mill, while Simon and his sons defeated the King, who commanded the left wing of his own army. Edward succeeded in cutting his way through to his father ; but the royalists were utterly routed. Balliol, Bruce, Comyn, and the northern barons were captured ; the Earl of Hereford, Arundel, Percy, William of Valence, and Guy of Lusignan fled. The slaughter was terrific. Hemmed in between the river and the marsh which skirts (or skirted) the Priory on the south, the royal- ists fell an easy prey. One estimate puts the loss at 12,000; another, more moderate, makes it 5000. The monks buried 600 corpses, which they collected in the streets. The King and Richard only obtained their personal liberty by surrendering their sons, c - S 1 II W ■5 £ ■SI o ■ .1 i 5 5 j !•? £ J Ill i ■oc g t feMI J33 « u < cbo E 1267] The Barons' War 133 Edward and Henry of Almaine, as hostages. The whole of the machinery of government passed into Simon's hands ; and for the next twelve months, all acts of State, though done in the King's name, were really the work of Simon. It would not be fair to say that Edward lost the battle. The King's failure was inevitable, from the moment that the barons' army caught Edward's him unawares in a death-trap like Lewes. sh»™ >■> But the prince's conduct had turned a de- feat into a hopeless surrender. He had allowed himself to commit a grave military fault, in the heat of his personal resentment. The man who stood shouting "Come out, Simon, thou devil," before a chariot which contained two or three of his own sup- porters, while the great Earl was dealing death amongst his father's army below, must have cut a sorry figure in the eyes of his followers. Moreover, though he was not in supreme command of his father's troops, Edward could and should have in- sisted on a proper watch being kept after the close of the negotiations. No excuse for his conduct has been seriously offered ; probably none could be sus- tained. Edward was no longer a boy, nor was he a novice in practical warfare. The real value to him of the defeat of Lewes was, that it proved to be the turning-point of his life. It changed him from a reckless youth of promise into a sober, capable man. As we follow his career, we shall not see repeated the reckless charge up Cabourn, nor the still more reckless swoop on the Downs. What we shall see is, that Edward has thoroughly learned the lesson of 134 Edward Plantagenet [126I- Levves, and that he has the supreme quality of greatness, the power of learning from his own mis- fortunes. The Parliament which followed the battle restored the scheme laid down by the Provisions of Oxford, TheMiseof and left the execution of it in Simon's Lewes. hands. The committee of four, which had nominated the Council of Fifteen, had disap- peared ; its place was taken by Simon himself, Gloucester, and Bishop Berksted, of Chichester. These were instructed to nominate a Council of Nine, " from the loyal, wise, and useful men of the kingdom " ; and the King bound himself to act by the advice of this Council, of whom three, at least, were always to be present in his " Curia." The Church was to be reformed, and compensated for the losses of the war ; the councillors, the royal officials, and especially the wardens of the royal castles, were to be chosen from the native-born ; but peaceable foreigners, cleric and lay, were to have liberty to go about their business. The Provisions of West- minster were to be faithfully kept. It was, however, understood that the arrangements for arbitration made immediately after the battle, in a lost docu- ment known as the " Mise of Lewes," would in due time be carried out. Meanwhile, imminent danger threatened the country. The King's party, headed by the Queen, Threat of were straining every nerve to collect an invasion. army of invasion. They were the old crew — Peter of Savoy, William of Valence, and John Mansel, reinforced by the Earl of Warenne iwA i- ISABELLA OF ANQOULEME. (WIFE OF KING JOHN.) (From Stothard^s " Monu- mental Effigies,' 1 '') 1267] The Barons War 135 (doubtless influenced by his foreign wife), and the renegade Hugh Bigod. A great national army was summoned to London for August 3rd. Not only were all feudal tenants, with their whole power, to attend, but each township was to send four, six, or eight men, according to its size, with expenses for forty days provided ; and the cities and boroughs as many men as possible. The clergy gave a tenth of their rents ; the income of benefices held by aliens was confiscated. The army assembled on Harble- down,* near Canterbury, and marched coastwards. The Cinque Ports collected a fleet. So brave was the display, that the invaders hesitated, and, on August 15th, agents of both parties met at Dover, and agreed once more to submit their differences to arbitration. Again, however, the attempt came to nothing; the Papal legate thundered anathemas against the baronial party from the safe distance of Boulogne, and the Reformers determined to refer all questions in dispute to a great national assembly, to be held at London in January, 1265. The plan of this assembly has long been Simon's great title to fame ; but it is doubtful whether it came to him as an inspiration. The The Pariia- events of the war had been steadily m«ntofn6 S . throwing him back for support on the middle classes, the knights and freeholders of the shires, and the citizens of the boroughs. He was engaged in a * The village of Harbledown is said to be Chaucer's ' ' little town Which that ycleped is ' Bob up and down,' Under the Blee, in Canterbury way." 1 36 Edward Plantagenet [1261- life-and-death struggle with unscrupulous foes. He determined to summon all his adherents together ; and the fact that his choice was so wide, so confidently made, and so cordially responded to, shews that he really then had the nation at his back. On the 14th December, 1264, he issued, of course in the King's name, writs of summons to the Archbishop of York and twelve bishops, to five deans, to ten abbots, and to nine priors. On the 24th December, he followed these with writs to eighty-four abbots, priors, and heads of religious Orders, and twenty- three earls and barons. Up to this point he was merely following long-established precedents. These persons were, in fact, the magnates who formed the ordinary annual Parliaments, the " community of the realm," as the barons called them at Oxford. But Simon went a step farther. Repeating his own precedent of 1261, he bade the sheriffs to send from each shiremoot two knights, and York, Lincoln, and " the rest of the boroughs of England " each to send two wise, loyal, and upright citizens or burgesses. The Parliament met, and, by the middle of Febru- ary, terms had been agreed upon. The King took Terms of the baronial leaders into his peace, and settlement. swore y e t again to observe the Charters, the Provisions of Oxford, and the added articles of Westminster. A solemn record of the peace, under the royal seal, was sent into every county ; and the King bade proclamation of it be made twice every year in the full shiremoot. Before he was released from strict custody, Edward, who had been made to swear to his father's charter, was compelled to 1267] The Barons War 137 promise, by separate sworn deed, to place three of his Welsh castles in the hands of impartial wardens for three years, to keep the Marcher Earls in order, not to leave England for three years, not to intro- duce any foreigners, and to oppose actively any who should come. The young Henry of Almaine be- came surety for Edward, and placed himself as hostage in the hands of Henry of Montfort. Ed- ward's earldom of Chester, and his castle of Bristol, were handed over to Simon, as well as the lands of Richard, the King's brother, in Devon, the castles of the Marchers, and the castles of the Peak, and New- castle-under-Lyme. In the middle of April Simon seems also to have been appointed Justitiar. To other members of the baronial party were confided the castles of Dover, Scarborough, Bamborough, Nottingham, Corfe, and Montgomery. Even then, the prince was not given his full freedom ; but was carried about, with his father, in Simon's train. But Simon was now going too far, even for his own supporters. So long as the country was threat- ened with foreign invasion, men were will- Reacti ing to trust to his ability, and to leave him against a free hand. But they were not prepared to see him permanently installed as virtual ruler of the kingdom. Before Whitsuntide, a violent quarrel broke out between him and the younger Quarrel with Gloucester, who, by this time, shared his GIoucester - dead father's jealousy of Simon's power. Piracy in The fleet, which had been collected by the the Channel - Cinque Ports to repel the invasion, disgraced itself by wholesale plundering in the Channel — men said 138 Edward Plantagenet [1261- with the tacit connivance of Simon and his sons. The citizens of London, determined to put down anarchy, Ruffianism at least in their own neighbourhood, pro- in London, claimed the King's peace, with a pro- mise of summary execution on breach of obedience, in the four adjacent counties, and in all hun- dreds and townships within twenty-five miles of the city — an interesting forecast of Greater London. Several ruffians captured in open robbery at Stepney and Hackney on June 29th proved to be -followers of the younger Simon. The same hot-headed youth disgraced himself by a barbarous attack July 15th. ° J on Winchester, on the morrow of the patron saint of its cathedral, Saint Swithun. Such events were not likely to increase Simon's popul- arity. It hardly needed Edward's keen eye to see, that there was a chance for one who, representing the old Escape of order of things, would repeat neither the Edward, follies of Henry nor the innovations of ' < 1267] The Barons' War 141 back at Worcester, still barred inexorably the passage across the Severn. At this point, a grave danger threatened Edward's army. The younger Simon, at his father's urgent call, had hurried up from Pevensey, where he The younger was besieging the castle, and reached Simon. Kenilworth, the great stronghold of the Montfort power in the west, on July 31st. Edward, kept well informed of his movements, saw that his only chance was to prevent a meeting of father and son. Sallying out of Worcester on the evening Attack on of August 1st (Saturday), he covered the Kei » Iw °rtri- thirty miles of road by a dashing night march, and appeared before Kenilworth early on the Sunday morning (August 2nd). Young Simon's forces were completely surprised, with most of his chief followers, the Earl of Oxford (Vere), William Munchensy, Adam Newmarch, Baldwin Wake, and Hugh Nevill. But Simon himself managed to escape into the castle; and Edward dared not wait to besiege him. Marching his triumphant followers back to Worces- ter, he learned that the old Earl had at last suc- ceeded in forcing the passage of the simon Severn, having employed the Sunday in crosses the throwing his troops across the river at Kempsey, at the junction of the Severn and the Teme, four miles below Worcester. There, for the first time, Simon learnt of his son's arrival Evesham. at Kenilworth, but not, apparently, of his defeat. He pushed on (August 3rd) to effect a junc- tion ; but, not daring to take the direct road, for fear of the royalist army, marched by Pershore to 142 Edward Plantagenet [1261- Evesham, where he took up his quarters in the ancient Benedictine abbey which lies to the south-east of the little town, overlooking the river Avon. Here the tactics of Lewes were almost exactly repeated, the parts of the combatants alone being changed. Just as the King had been shut up between the river, the marsh, and the Downs at Lewes, so at Evesham the Earl was hemmed in on three sides by the loop of the river, which almost encircles the town. Just as, at Lewes, the attack of the barons had been made in three divisions, so, at Evesham, Edward divided his army into three " battles." The great glory of the royalists is that, after their night march of Sat. urday to Kenilworth, followed by the battle on Sunday morning, and the return to Worcester on the same day, they were prepared, on the Monday evening, to undertake another march of fifteen miles to Evesham. The three divisions, moreover, marched by different routes, two at least of which must have been roundabout. On the morning of August 4th, the Earl's followers saw a host approaching from the north, the direction of Kenilworth ; and this they fondly hoped was the troops of the younger Simon. Apparently, the prince had forseen this mistake, and, to profit by it, had displayed in the van the captured standards of Kenilworth. But the sharper eyes of one of Earl Simon's men soon descried the royal banner over the main host; and then it was clear, that the approaching army was that of the prince, and, moreover, attacking on the one undefended side of the town. This was bad enough, but a shout from the west revealed the fact that a second host, under eo (3 1267] The Barons' War 143 the banner of Gloucester, was marching in from Wyre to join the prince. And, to crown all despair, the horrified leaders of the baronial host caught sight of yet a third attack, under command of Roger Mortimer, which approached their rear along the road from Pershore, by which they themselves had marched on the previous day. They were in a hope- less trap. Even if they could have beaten off the double attack from the north and west, they would have been taken in the rear by the approach of the army of Mortimer, which would have forced the bridge at Bengeworth while the fight was going on across the river. If they attempted to fly from the prince, they fell into the arms of the same troops, who would wait for them to cross the bridge. A noble death was the one alternative of disgrace ; and it speaks well for the good faith of Simon's followers, that not a single man of note accepted his generous offer of release. The Earl himself, with gentle scorn, refused to provide for his own safety ; he complete was too old, he said, to learn how to fly defeat of from battle. Forming up steadily in column, the baronial army charged grandly up the hill, down which the prince's troops were pouring. But the numbers, the weight, the confidence of victory which cheered Edward's troops, were all against Simon's men ; and they were soon surrounded. Fighting bravely to the last, there perished the Earl himself, his son Henry, his cousin Peter, and all the leaders of the baronial host, save the young Bohun and Simon's second son, Guy, who were wounded and left for dead, but afterwards recovered. It was 144 Edward Plantagenet [1261- rather a massacre than a battle. A disgraceful story which, if true, reveals the depths of barbarity to which even a well-ordered host could in those days descend, tells how the body of the great Earl was mutilated, and dispersed throughout the land. The Reforming party, though it still held out in isolated fragments, was wholly crushed. All royal charters granted since the day of Lewes were form- ally annulled. The lands and houses of Earl Simon were given to the King's second son, Edmund, to console him for the loss of Sicily. London surrend- ered, after a brief resistance. The younger Simon, after a stubborn defence of Kenilworth, surrendered at Northampton in the following year, but, not lik- ing the prospects, soon fled with his brother Guy oversea. Guy was taken into the service of Charles of Anjou, who made him his vicar for Tuscany and the Romagna. But both the brothers disgraced themselves, and incurred the undying hatred of Ed- ward, by the wanton murder of Henry of Almaine, Edward's favourite cousin, in the Church of St. Sil- vester at Viterbo, in the year 1271. Thenceforth they were outside practical politics. The only real danger to the King came from Gloucester, who, now that the royal cause proved successful, seemed in- clined once more to favour the Reformers. But the year 1267 marked the final conclusion of peace. It was the most fertile within living memory, in woods, 31st Oct., fields, gardens, and vineyards. Gloucester " 6 ?- was formally reconciled, both to the prince and the Church. Peace was made with Llywelyn. In the flush of victory, the Dictum of Kenilworth 1267] The Barons War 145 had annulled all the Reformers' achievements of the previous seven years ; but the reforms which did not seriously curtail the royal power were embodied in the permanent Statute of Marlborough in the autumn session of 1267. And so the land at last had peace. This is not the place for an estimate of the char- acter of Earl Simon. But we can hardly take leave of the Reformer without a brief word of Earl Simon. farewell to one who played such a great part in the England of his day, and whose death must have so completely altered the world for his young nephew. There can be little doubt that he attracted to himself the best elements of the nation. The estimate of him to be found in the Chronicle of William of Rishanger very fairly represents Earl Simon as he appeared to the world. He was wise and prudent, skilled above all his contemporaries in the use of arms, nobly eminent in knowledge of letters, a diligent attendant on the offices of the Church, spare in diet and in drink, labouring in the night-watches, jovial and humorous of speech, steadfast to his plighted word even to death, respect- ful towards all Churchmen of honest lives, distin- guished for his friendship with Greathead, who had destined him for the part which he afterwards played. It is the character of a great leader of men. To his in- feriors, Simon seemed all that was good and gracious. They never questioned his wisdom, nor grudged his power. Where he failed always was with his equals in social position, the leaders of the baronial party in England, the feudal nobility of Gascony. They could not tolerate the pretensions which his 146 Edward Plantagenet [1261- undoubted. ability claimed. They were jealous of him for his marriage with Henry's sister, still more for that (as it seemed to them) treasonable friendship with the lower ranks in the social hierarchy, to which he owed so much of his power. He could not stoop to the petty arts of conciliation which, odd as it may seem, yet do so much to ensure personal success. His statesmanship was'a failure. If it had an object, it was to set up a king who reigned but did not govern, and a chief minister (by preference Simon himself) who governed but did not reign. As we know, the wheel of Time was to bring round this ideal also, in the ages to come. But, in the thirteenth century, men were not prepared for such an expedient. Edward read the times aright when he decided, that the country yet leaned towards a strong king, who should govern it sternly and justly, as Henry of Anjou had done, keeping the feudal nobles in check, and ruling his own conduct within the easy limits of established custom, as expressed in the Charters. He staked all on this view, and he won. Edward himself came grandly out of the Barons' War. By the sheer force of his own character, he The victor of had built up again a royal party out of Evesham. ^ e W reck of Lewes, and, after waiting quietly till Simon had shown by experience the im- possibility of his ideal, he had moved against him with steady resolve. After worsting him in two months of masterly strategy, during which the victor of Lewes had wandered wearily about the west country, vainly seeking an escape from the toils which were closing relentlessly around him, Edward, 12671 The Barons War 147 by a series of forced marches so rapid that, even now, men can hardly bring themselves to credit the contemporary accounts,* defeated the Earl's long- awaited succours, and rushed to deal the final blow. In after years, the breath of scandal dared to assert, that Edward lost heart on the famous march to Kenilworth, and was only saved from the disgrace of falling back by the earnest remonstrances of Sir Roger Clifford. But there is no proof of the truth of the accusation ; which, at most, would shew that, in a time of frightful anxiety, a man of twenty-six, confronted with a grave responsibility, hesitated for a moment. At any rate, Edward's plans were triumphantly successful; and the brilliant tactics which sent Simon's army to its doom were a worthy climax of the strategy of the campaign. When Simon fell at Evesham, there was left but one man fit to rule England ; and that man, happily for her, was England's future king. * The total distance covered in the two days and a half was, if our accounts are correct, about seventy-five miles. True, there were no hedges to prevent short cuts, and it was full summer. Moreover, the proportion of cavalry would be large. Still, the achievement is marvellous. CHAPTER VII THE COMING OF THE KING 1 266- 1 278 THE battle of Evesham marks the attainment by Edward of the full vigour of his glorious manhood. From that day, until his death in harness at Burgh-on-Sands, forty-two long years, his life was full of strenuous action. Among his faults, and he had his share, none could accuse Edward of that sumptuous idleness which had been the curse of his father, and which was to be the curse of his son and grandson. Though his home life was pure and happy, though he loved sport and magnificence, Edward never forgot that his kingdom had the first claim on his life. That intense convic- tion of the importance of public affairs, which is the great safeguard of the statesman, and which is denied to the mere politician, was Edward's in abundant measure. And this, no doubt, is why, in all his troubles, the barons whom he kept in check, the clergy whose undue aspirations he controlled, the people whom he taxed so hardly for his grand schemes, never really doubted the greatness of their L1266-78] The Coming of the King 149 ruler. Fierce as might be the discussions of the moment, the King had but to appeal to the common bond of sympathy between himself and his people, and all was forgiven. In the King his people saw no idle voluptuary, but a great and commanding ruler, whose one object was to make his country also great. In him the budding consciousness of national existence found its one concrete expression ; he stood, not for Normandy, nor for Anjou, nor for Gascony, but for England, in such wise as none of his predecessors since Hastings had done. The old King Henry could not but feel, that to his son he owed his escape from the galling fetters of Simon. The prince's lands were re- After stored to him, as a matter of course, and Evesham, a grant of the port dues to him for life shewed that Henry was not ungrateful. The need of money in which Edward stood, and the small be- Grant of the ginning of English foreign trade, are both "Customs." revealed in the fact that Edward farmed out this revenue to a firm of Italian merchants, for the modest return of 6000 marks a year; but this step, unwise in itself, became the happy occasion of at least a temporary friendship between the prince and the citizens of London, who complained of the vio- lation of their privileges by the Italian collectors. Edward released them from their liability, and they made him a " courtesy " of two hundred marks. In his hatred of the Londoners, the King, at the close of the war, had made Edward a grant The foreign of all the goods of the citizens, alleging merchants, that they had been forfeited by the conduct of the 1 50 Edward Plantagenet [1266- city. But this imprudent step had been subse- quently revoked, and in exchange the King gave to his son that special jurisdiction over foreign mer- chants which was one of the most cherished pre- rogatives of the Crown. In these transactions, we see the germ of Edward's future policy regarding the "Great" and the "Little" custom, which was to excite so much jealousy in after years. The King, as usual, remained in a bankrupt condition ; in the year 1267 he was obliged to pledge the jewels from the shrine of Saint Edward, and, two years later, a disgraceful repudiation by the King and his son, of all debts owing to the Jews, shews the straits to which the royal exchequer was put. Meanwhile, the embers of the civil war were being slowly stamped out. In 1266, Edward undertook a End of the vigorous campaign against the more des- war- perate supporters of Simon, who held out in the Isle of Axholme, in Lincolnshire, and won Lincolnshire, knightly fame by his single-handed capt- Hampshire. ure f Adam Gordon, a notorious outlaw, in the woods of Alton. In the same year, the The cinque Cinque Ports were received into favour, Ports. an( j their ancient privileges restored. At Michaelmas, a board of twelve elected commission- ers, under the control of the legate Ottobon and Henry of Almaine, undertook a general enquiry into The "Disin- the circumstances of the " disinherited" — hented." £ e ^ t hose of Simon's followers who had been deprived of their lands by the Dictum of Kenilworth ; and these were allowed (with one or two exceptions) to redeem their estates on payment 1278] The Coming of the King 1 5 1 of fines varying with their degrees of activity. Kenilworth was surrendered in December. A brush between Gloucester and the legate in Kenilworth the spring of 1267 interrupted but slightly the course of proceedings. In the following year, Ottobon held a general Council at council at St. Paul's, the coming national unity st - Paul ' s - being foreshadowed by the presence of Irish, Scot- tish, and Welsh ecclesiastics, secular and monastic. Minor measures of peace were not wanting. Peter of Savoy was persuaded to accept an ex- peterof change for the Honour of Richmond, savoy, which at last returned to the House of Brittany. Henry of Almaine was married to a Gaston de daughter of Gaston de Beam, Edward's warn, turbulent Gascon feudatory, who, for a time, at least, became a friend of the prince. Edward him- self went into Wales, to settle the details Uywe i yn . of the treaty with Llywelyn. Reparation for the damages inflicted on the Church in the war was enforced, on pain of excommunica- _,_ „,_ . The Church. tion, at a solemn assembly of nine bishops at Paul's Cross ; and the opportunity was taken to rehearse the Bull, issued by Innocent IV. in 1253, against the breakers of the Charters. By the good offices of the King of the Romans, the questions in dispute between Gloucester and Edward were finally settled ; and, to crown all, the prince buried his long- standing grudge against the London citizens, and personally requested his father to grant a full re- newal of their ancient privileges. It was a gracious and a wise act ; and the gift of five hundred marks 152 Edward Plantagenet [1266- to Edward by the grateful citizens by no means represented the extent of its value. For Edward had now determined on a step which, rash as it seems at first sight, was really one of the wisest acts of his life. So loner as his The Crusade. ° father lived, the prince's position was diffi- cult. His own filial piety, and his father's somewhat peevish jealousy, rendered it impossible for him openly to assume the direction of affairs during that father's life. In his first gratitude after Evesham, Henry was, no doubt, willing to place himself in the hands of his son. But Edward knew well that this attitude would not last ; and he did not care to have his father's acts attributed to his advice. He was now at the height of his popularity ; he could with- draw for a space, in the full confidence that his memory, during his absence, would abide as a precious possession in the hearts of Englishmen. Inaction was hateful to him. An opportunity for distinction opened in the nick of time ; and Edward seized it eagerly. In the battles of Benevento (1266) and Taglia- cozzo (1268), the power of the Hohenstaufen had been finally crushed by Charles of Aniou ; The Tartars. * j. > and the Papacy, issuing victorious from the deadly struggle, had once more eyes for the affairs of Christendom. The death of the Khan Ogodai had rolled back the tide of Tartar invasion from Europe ; and Ogodai's suc- cessors had turned their victorious armies towards the rich conquest of Persia. Saint Louis, in his so- journ at Cyprus, on his way to the Eighth Crusade, 1278] The Coming of the King 153 had been cheered by the arrival of a Tartar embassy with offers of help against the Saracens. The author- ity of the embassy was doubted at the time ; but a mission was sent to the Tartar head camp, which, after adventures of a comic opera character, met with a gracious reception, and re- turned with a friendly message from the Great Khan. But by the time of its return, the 1250. disasters of Mansourah and Damietta had fallen upon the Crusaders ; and the Tartars were left to attack the Moslems alone. This they did so effectually, that, in the year 1258, as has been said, Baghdad was captured and destroyed by the Tartar general Hulagu. It now seemed as if the Tartars would save Europe the necessity of pursu- ing the Crusades ; but their defeat at Ain Galud, by the Mameluke Sultan, divided the East between Mongol and Moslem, and left it open to a third power to hold the balance between them. Clement IV., stirred by the fall of ' J 1267. Antioch, preached a vigorous Crusade ; and, though he died in 1268, the vacancy in the Papal Chair which followed was not entirely fatal to the scheme. Once more the saintly King J ° Saint Louis. of the French felt his crusading ardour burn ; and his nephew Edward followed his example, taking the cross at Northampton in June, 1268. The great difficulty was money ; but a conference at Gravesend with his uncle Richard of Cornwall, in August, 1269, seems to have suggested to Edward a way out of the difficulty. Crossing with his cousin, Henry of Almaine, and the latter's brother-in-law, 1 54 Edward Plantagenet H266- Gaston de Beam, to France, he found the French King generously disposed, and a bargain was soon struck. Louis offered to lend Edward seventy thousand livres for his expedition, to be secured on the Customs of Bordeaux, and repaid by half-yearly instalments of five thousand livres. To this sum England generously added a twentieth of movables as a free gift. The now reconciled Earl of Gloucester, Roger of Leybourn, Robert Walerand, and many others of the prince's friends, joined in the scheme; and all preparations were made for a start. Louis himself, however, was ready long before his nephew, who did not actually leave England till the end of August, sailing direct for the Mediter- ranean, where Louis was besieging Tunis. Charles of Anjou ordered quarters to be prepared for the prince at Marsala ; but Edward stopped short Death of at Sardinia, where he heard the terrible saint Louis. news f the death of Saint Louis before Tunis, amid the ruins of Carthage. Hastening with all speed to Tunis, Edward found, to his horror, that Philip, the successor of Louis, and Charles of Anjou his uncle, with the Kings of Navarre and Aragon, had made a disgraceful treaty with the Moslem ruler, who had agreed to pay tribute to Charles, as King of Sicily, on condition of being left in peace. Edward tried in vain to convince his allies of the enormity of this proceeding ; they were anxious to reach home before the winter, promising to sail for Acre in the following spring. Finding his remon- strances useless, Edward reluctantly started for Sicily, and arrived at Trapani on the 26th October. 1278] The Coming of the King 155 He would, however, touch no part of the hateful tribute ; and the chroniclers of the day saw the re- ward of his piety, when a terrible storm 1270. broke over the open roadstead of Trapani, and the hundred and twenty ships of the other Cru- saders, with the tribute money on board, perished utterly, while Edward's thirteen vessels escaped un- hurt. In the morning, the bodies of fifteen hundred sailors, with animals innumerable, strewed the beach ; and the kings, their whole resources wrecked, abandoned the Crusade. But Edward was made of sterner stuff. Leaving Sicily at Easter of 1 271, he sailed to Acre, which was still in the hands of the Christians, Reaches and, after there resting a month, marched Acre - out to attack Nazareth with an army of seven thou- sand men. He was completely successful, r J ' Nazareth. and, on his return, being followed by an army of Saracens, offered battle at Kerak, near the Dead Sea, where he inflicted a crushing Kerak defeat on the enemy. The titular King of Jerusalem (Hugh of Lusignan) had long urged his Cypriote subjects to take part in the Crusade ; but they had refused until Edward's arrival, when they came to him with flattering offers of service and allegiance. Edward's fame as a Crusader now became so great, that the Sultan was seriously alarmed, and, as the firm belief of the time held, determined Escapefrom to remove him by the hand of an assassin. assassina- The Admiral of Joppa feigned a desire for conversion to the Christian faith, and letters and 1 5 6 Edward Plantagenet [1266- messages passed between him and Edward. The Admiral employed a favourite messenger, whose conduct seemed so harmless, that the vigilance of Edward's guards relaxed, and, when he arrived for the fifth time, on the evening of Tuesday, 1271. June 2nd, he was allowed to pass, without a very severe search, into the royal presence. The day had been hot, and Edward leaned on a couch in a light tunic, with his head uncovered. Handing to the prince his letters, as was his wont, the messenger waited until Edward was deeply intent upon them, and then, softly stealing his hand to his belt as though to bring out another letter, he hastily drew a poisoned dagger, and made a lunge at Edward's breast. Quick as thought, the prince put up his arm and received the wound in its flesh, while, with a vigorous lunge, he kicked over the assassin as he leaned forward for a second blow. Then, snatching the dagger from the man's hand, he despatched him in an instant, while a horrified attendant rushed for- ward, and, seizing a stool, dashed out the brains of the dead man. Coolly rebuking him for striking a corpse, Edward drank off the antidote offered by the Master of the Templars, and, a few days later, seeing the flesh round his wound mortifying, insisted on a thorough cutting away of the diseased place, ten- derly putting aside his wife, who clung to him with tears and groans. He then made his will, and quietly, awaited the issue of events. The story is worth the detailed telling, for it reveals the high temper of the prince, his quick resource, coolness, vigour, and patient courage. He shewed the further quality of 1278] The Coming of the King 157 dignity, when the Sultan, professing horror at the incident, sent three of his notables, who, with pro- found reverences, congratulated him on his escape. "You bow before me, but you love me not," was Edward's dignified rebuke ; but he treated them nobly, and dismissed them in safety. Perhaps, too, it had been something more than mere courtly language which came from the lips of Edward's at- tendants as they led the weeping queen away: " Lady, it is better that you should shed tears, than that the whole of England should mourn." News now came to Edward that his father's health was failing ; and he accepted a ten years' truce from the Sultan, and set out on his way home, Returns to reaching Trapani once more about the end Europe, of September, 1273. There he heard of the deaths of his father and his infant son, John. It is a proof of Edward's conviction of his own strength, that, even now, he did not hurry his return to England. The Exchequer, the great Leisurely centre of administration, had undergone a Pro e ress - thorough reform shortly before he had started on the Crusade ; his most dangerous rival, Gloucester, had sworn fealty to him just before the old King's death. His peace (as he doubtless learnt) had been proclaimed through all the counties immediately on his father's decease, by the most powerful men in the kingdom. Boniface of Savoy and Richard of Cornwall were dead. Every month was tending more and more to wipe out the bitter memories Orvieto of the Barons' War. There were certain things to be done abroad. Journeying to Orvieto, 158 Edward Plantagenet [1266- Edward procured from the new Pope the excom- munication of Guy of Montfort for his share in the murder of Henry of Almaine. His deep resentment of the treacherous act is shewn by his stern conduct towards the new bishop of Chichester, who had vent- ured, on a visit to Rome, to consort with Aymer of Montfort, a brother of the murderers. The Con- stable of Dover was ordered to seize the bishop on the sea, and prevent his landing. His barony was to be confiscated by the justices. Edward had also to Receives and receive the homage of the Count of Savoy pays homage. £ or j^ Q ascon fiefs, and to render homage to the French King for his own possessions in the south. Scrupulous feudalist as he was, Edward did not hesitate to journey to Paris, where he was splendidly received by Philip, and where he shelved outstanding questions by a convenient phrase. He did homage to his suzerain for all the lands which he held " or claimed to hold " of him. On his way to Paris, he had indulged in two knightly adventures. He had broken the anarchic independence of a rob- ber chief of Burgundy, and compelled him to become a vassal of the Count of Savoy. Not without some misgiving, he had accepted the challenge of the Count of Chalons to a tourney ; and when, as he foresaw, the sham fight passed into real earnest, he and his followers gave such a good account of themselves, that much blood was shed, and the affair became known as the "little battle of Chalons." Gascony. From Paris Edward turned to Gascony, where Gaston de B6arn was again in revolt. He spent the winter of 1273-74 in a not very success- 1278] The Coming of the King 159 ful attempt to restore order, and, in the following May, patched up a peace with Gaston at Limoges, by the advice of a commission of jurists, at whose head was Francesco Accursius the younger, the famous Bolognese civilian. Meanwhile, Edward had been aiming to secure peace in the south by arran- ging marriages between his eldest surviving son, Henry, and the daughter and heiress presumptive of the King of Navarre, also between his eldest daugh- ter, Eleanor, and a son of the Infanta of Aragon. Neither of these matches, however, was destined to be completed. Two daughters had been born to Edward in the Holy Land ; a son (Alfonso) was born in Gascony in the autumn of 1273. The im- portant Council of Lyons sat in the sum- council of mer of 1274. A hollow union of the Lyons. Greek and Latin churches was arranged, another Crusade planned, and a friendly deputation from the Tartars received. But Edward seems to have turned his back on Lyons and journeyed northward at last ; for, at the end of July, we find him arran- ging at Montreuil, with the help of a deputation of London citizens, a peace with the Countess of Flan- ders, between whose subjects and the English mer- chants a bitter quarrel had long raged. His two years of pilgrimage had not been barren of results. But now he was to take up the real work of his life, the government of England. On August 6th the King landed at Dover; on the 16th he was crowned at Westminster. The character of a medieval feast may be gathered from the fact, that 440 oxen, 450 swine, 430 wethers, 14 boars, 22,460 160 Edward Plantagenet [1266- capons, and 278 " bacons," were considered to be re- quisite for the occasion. The conduit in Cheap ran with red and white wine, and London welcomed its new king right royally. Edward's first great act of home policy is signifi- cant. Two months had not elapsed since his return, England at when he ordered a great enquiry into the la3t • feudal franchises. As has been explained (p. 12), one of the most striking features of feudalism The was the conversion of powers, originally franchises, exercised as royal delegations, into pro- prietary rights attached to the tenure of land, or, a still more dangerous development, into personal privileges exercised irrespectively of landownership. In England, such claims were mostly without histori- cal foundation. Feudalism had there shaped itself in conscious imitation of foreign models, and had aimed deliberately at reproducing the anarchic privi- leges of the Continental seigneur. As we have said, the ambitions of the feudal barons in England had been only partially realised ; but enough had been done to hamper the work of the central government at every turn. The King's officials, traversing the land to exercise justice or to collect revenue, found themselves met by claims of feudal privileges which deprived them of the power to exercise their most Example of a important duties. "From an enquiry, sub- franchise. se quently held before the King's justices in 1294, on the occasion of the great quarrel between the King and Antony Bek, the famous Bishop of Durham, it appeared that, even after Edward's rigor- ous action, the feudal privileges of the see practically 1278] The Coming of the King 161 reduced the royal power within its limits to a shadow. The bishop's officers used to meet the royal judges at the frontiers of his territory, and demand of them the Articles of the Eyre, a list of enquiries to be made on the King's behalf. Having obtained these, the bishop next proceeded to hold the Eyre himself by his own justices, merely returning to the Ex- chequer a brief report of the proceedings, with the net produce of the fines and assessments. The bishop had his own Chancery, his own justices and coroners, his gallows at Durham and at Norham, his markets and fairs at Durham, Darlington, and Nor- ham. His peace was proclaimed throughout his bishopric ; those who infringed it were outlawed or otherwise punished in his name. He afforested and disafforested lands, and granted the privileges of the chase. His bailiffs sat at the bridge head at Ber- wick, to seize all wool and hides not duly sealed with the "cocket" or weigh-mark, which was the receipt for customs duty. He claimed the proceeds of wrecks, and half the goods of felons ; and he held the Assise of Bread and Ale, which regulated the prices and quantities of the prime necessaries of life. Even his tenants were great potentates. The future King of the Scots held Barnard Castle of him ; the greatest nobles in the land were proud to accept his fiefs and render him fealty. The Bishop of Durham was, of course, no common feudatory. He held the Palatinate as freely by his crozier as the King held England by his crown. Luckily for England, there were but two or three other Palatinates ; but there were the Marcher Earldoms on the Welsh border, 1 62 Edward Plantagenet [1266- which came very near them in feudal independence. And these great fiefs were continually before the lesser nobility, as examples to be imitated. It needed lynx eyes on the part of the royal officials, to detect the thousand gradual encroachments spring- ing up on all sides. Under a weak king, the central government threatened to die of inanition, or to re- solve itself into a mere overlordship, like the over- lordship of the French king in respect of the great vassals of the south, or even like the shadowy head- ship of the Holy Roman Empire. Edward determined to make a great effort to re- assert the royal powers. Grouping the counties Articles of together, he started a systematic visitation, enquiry. on a sca i e i;k e th a t f Domesday itself, with aview to ascertain the exact boundaries of feudal and royal jurisdiction. The King's visitors were armed with a long series of articles of enquiry, the answers to which were to be ascertained in each dis- trict by sworn men of the neighbourhood. Junes. . . ° The ancient privilege of the Crown, already becoming so useful a part of ordinary legal machin- ery, the right to demand on oath an answer to a royal enquiry, was to be put once more to its original purpose. But, whereas Domesday Book was, pri- marily, as has been well said, a Geld Book, a record drawn up with a view to the assessment of taxation, the enquiry of 1274 was aimed at producing a Fran- chise Book, a list of those feudal privileges which, if they could be really proved to exist, were to mark forever the extreme limit of feudal independence. All claims to profits which normally should have 1278] The Coming of the King 163 reached the royal coffers, all assertions of privileges " which impede common justice and are subversive of royal power," all imitations of the jealously guarded prerogative of the chase, all claims of exemp- tion from obedience to the orders of royal officials, all hereditary sheriffdoms, as well as such clear abuses of power as the acceptance of bribes, the connivance at escapes of prisoners, and the plundering of the royal domains, were to be carefully recorded, with a view to future action. The labours of the commissioners resulted, in the following year, in the compilation of the Hundred Rolls, a record second only in importance The Hundred to Domesday Book, as a picture of na- Rolls - tional life in a remote age. They derive their name from the fact that they took, as the basis of their report, the Hundred, an ancient unit of I275. land settlement which still survives in name, and which, in the thirteenth century, was not much less important than the county as an organ of local government. In many cases, the whole of the revenues which ought to have accrued to the Crown from one of these districts was being appropriated by private hands ; and the Hundred itself, as was said, had become an appendage of a private manor. Other less glaring encroachments were numerous. Fiefs granted by the Crown on condition of military service had been so split up by their holders, that the difficulty of enforcing the servic&.was enormous. Claims to monopolies of mill rights, fishing rights, ferry rights, and other valuable perquisites, were almost countless. The feudal landowners claimed 164 Edward Plantagenet [1266- to hold courts of all kinds, and to retain the profits of justice. They demanded exemption, on the other hand, for themselves and their tenants, from the ordinary liabilities of Englishmen. We have not, in the Hundred Rolls, those details of economic conditions which make Domesday Book, if we could only be sure what it means, such an invaluable pict- ure of medieval rural economy. But, as a picture of the diseases of government, as a study in political pathology, the Hundred Rolls are of priceless worth. To Edward they seemed, of course, a challenge to vigorous action. For three years the King pondered ,... ,.„ over tne tale which they told; and then The "Quo J warranto" his mind was made up. At a Great proceedings. Council of the most discreet men of the realm, held at Gloucester on his return from a suc- cessful campaign in Wales, the King appeared with a brief notice or direction, which stands as the preamble of the so-called Statute of Gloucester. The magnates, whose claims to fran- chises were stated in the Hundred Rolls, might con- tinue to exercise them until the approaching Eyre, or general visitation of the counties, which was due to take place in the following year. Then there would be a strict enquiry " by what warrant " (Quo Warranto) they exercised those rights which (in Ed- ward's theory) naturally and properly belonged to the Crown. With that attention to detail, and knowledge of the value of forms, which are so marked a feature of Edward's work, the precise shape which the Quo Warranto writs of enquiry were to take 1278] The Coming of the King 165 was solemnly announced ; so that the claimants might know what to expect. Much displeasure, no doubt, was provoked by this announcement, and, doubtless, much muttering of discontent went on in that winter of 1278-79, following the Council of Glouces- ter. But the magnates soon found, that in Ed- ward they had a king who kept his word. Armed with those sections of the Hundred Rolls which re- ferred to the sphere of their labours, the Eyre just- ices set out, at the following Easter, on a prolonged visitation of the counties. The work before them may be guessed by the fact that, in the county of Gloucester alone, there were up- wards of seventy persons claiming to exer- The Eyre in cise royal franchises. The vigour which Gloucester. Edward brought to the enquiry may also be gathered from a glance at a few of the names which appear in the records of the proceedings. The Master of the Templars, the heads of the religious houses of Llanthony, Chichester, Tewkesbury, Gloucester, Keynsham, Stanley, Great Malvern, Chester, Malmes- bury, Abingdon, Bedford, Pershore, Winchcomb, and Evesham, were arraigned before the royal just- ices for usurping the rights of the Crown in that county. With them stood the archbishop of York, the bishops of Worcester and Hereford, and the great names of Gilbert of Gloucester, William of Valence (the titular Earl of Pembroke), the Earl of Warwick, Edmund the King's brother (now Earl of Cornwall), and William de Munchensy. The line taken up by the King's agents was bold, even to 1 66 Edward Plantagenet [1266- rashness. No plea of long-continued usage was ad- mitted as a defence. The prosecution laid down the naked principle, that every claim to exercise a " franchise," or exceptional right of a quasi-public character, — a fair, a free warren, a park, the view of frank-pledge, exemption from toll, an exclusive fishery, the assise or regulation of the prices of bread and ale, a claim to wreck, strays, or the goods of convicted felons— must be fortified by proof of express royal grant. Let the claimant produce his charter, or pay his fine and for ever after hold his peace. Nay, it is not quite clear that the King did not assert the extreme view, that he was not bound by his ancestor's charters. The claim was too severe to be enforced, even by such a king as Edward. Murmurings broke out ; The great nobles talked of the deeds of their compromise, ancestors, who helped William the Bastard to conquer England ; they urged that their titles were as good as that of the King himself. The real truth of the matter was, that many of the rights in dispute were, in their origin, neither royal nor feudal, but customary exercises of authority, which had grown up by immemorial usage in the ancient assemblies of township, hundred, and shire. But, if Edward's his- tory was weak, his politics were sound. It was far better for the country, that these vague popular rights should be vested in the central government, than in the hands of feudal landowners. The ancient popular organisation had been broken down by the growth of feudalism, and the establishment of a strong central rule under Henry of Anjou. 1278] The Coming of the King 167 Much of the ancient jurisdiction had inevitably got into feudal hands. But it was of supreme import- ance that the line should be firmly drawn between the High, the Low, and the Middle Justice. Ed- ward was inclined to draw it very sharply. But he was too wise to provoke a baronial rising. So a compromise was arrived at, a compromise which, if it did not give the King all he wanted, at least put a stop to future encroachments. The landowner who could prove that his ancestors or predecessors had exercised their franchises as of right since the acces- sion of Richard I., was allowed to keep them. Any title arising since that date must be fortified by the production of a royal charter, of which there were, alas, too many in existence. The date chosen is significant. It suggests that the reign of Henry II. was recognised, even in the thirteenth century, as closing the period of feudal aggression. If the Crown, after the strong measures of Henry, had deliberately left franchises in the hands of a subject, it was a reasonable presumption that there had been some good cause for the step. At any rate, it was not wise to stir up ancient quarrels. So the accession of Richard I. has come down through the centuries as the " commencement of legal memory," " the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." And it is strict law, even to this day, that a claim to the exercise of a royal franchise by a subject must, in the absence of express title, be sup- ported, if questioned, by evidence of usage before the accession of Richard Lion Heart ; for " time runs not against the King." The way in which to 1 68 Edward Plantagenet [1266- realise the great work of the Quo Warranto proceed- ings is to take the documents in strict chronological order (an order too often neglected) : i. The Articles of 1274. (Fcedera, I., 517.) 2. " Hundred Rolls, 1275. (Record edition.) 3. " Preamble to the Statute of Gloucester, 1278. {Statutes of the Realm. I. p. 45.) 4. " Placita de Quo Warranto* (Record edition.) A single item chosen from the Rolls, and followed to its natural conclusion in the Placita, will help the reader, more than pages of explanation, to realise the heavy piece of work accomplished by Edward's min- isters during the first ten years of his reign. But there was another piece of retributive justice to be performed. It was useless for Edward to at- The royal tack the abuses of feudalism, so long as officials. j-^g rova i officers were not free from reproach. The great increase in the number of these agents, arising from the introduction of direct taxa- tion in the reign of Richard, John, and Henry, had led to great abuses. King and people alike suffered. An useful reform in the system of presenting ac- counts at the Exchequer, established at 1270. * . the close of Henry III.'s reign, had prob- ably checked the defalcations formerly made at the expense of the King. But fro'm all parts of the country came complaints, loud and deep, of the oppressions and extortions of the local officers of the King — sheriffs, bailiffs, escheators, purveyors, * Some of these are dated before 1278. But the writ was, of course, not new. It was the wholesale application of it which startled people. 1278] The Coming of the King 169 foresters, and the like. The real truth seems to have been, that, ever since the Conquest of England, a slow process of development had been going on, which was gradually converting what had originally been a mere body of domestics, into an elaborate machinery for the government of the kingdom. It is well known, that traces of this original simplicity survived until very recent times, that Wardrobe and Stable accounts, Bedchamber Ladies and Knights of the Bath, long remained mixed up in hopeless con- fusion with records and officials of State, and that, in the eighteenth century, as Burke picturesquely put it, " the scullion of the King's kitchen is a Peer of Parliament." The process of specialisation, by which the household of the Norman Duke, or the Angevin King, gradually surrounded itself with the vast network of public administration, is one of the most fascinating examples of political evolution ; but it has not yet been thoroughly laid bare. All that we know is that, before the accession of Edward I., some substantial progress had been made. The The " Tallies," or the " Exchequer," which «<*«!<•«■ had originally been simply the money department of the royal household, charged with receiving the re- venue of the king and providing for the domestic expenses, had, under the fostering care of Roger, the great Bishop of Salisbury, and his nephews, become a vast financial organisation, with fixed rules and a staff of officials, still claiming the peculiar privileges attaching to the domestic surroundings of the king's person, still conscious of the fact that it was, primar- ily, the mere keeper of the king's purse, and bound 170 Edward Plantagenet [1266- to obey his orders, but gradually, through the stiff- ening bonds of official routine, beginning to realise its independence, as part of the regular machinery of State, which the mere personal caprice of the king could not be allowed to dislocate. Still, in the thir- teenth century, the Exchequer, as we shall see, might be dragged about by the king in his cam- paigns, to Shrewsbury, or Gloucester, or York ; but, gradually, the mere bulk of its belongings, its records and clerks, was compelling it to anchor at West- minster. A few years more, and its judicial staff, the " barons of the Exchequer," were to separate from the financial body, and set up a quasi-independ- ent Court of their own, nominally concerned only with revenue questions, but really, under cover of obvious fictions, taking its part in the growing judicial business of the country. Meanwhile, the commission appointed by Henry II. to sit permanently as the "Chief Court of the King," had secured for itself a definite independence in the scheme of government, by the clause of the Great Charter which declared that Com- 12X5. mon Pleas should not follow the king, but be held " in some certain place." And so, the The common " Common Bench," or, more simply, "The Pleas. Bench," in the thirteenth century, sat regularly at Westminster, except when its members were going circuit as the King's commissioners of assize ; and writs intended to be heard before it bade The King's the defendant come before " Our Justices Bench. a (. Westminster." The King's own per- sonal tribunal of justice, vaguely alluded to in 1278] The Coming of the King 1 7 1 Henry II. 's creation of what afterwards became the Court of Common Pleas, was just now, in Edward I.'s reign, beginning to harden also into an independent body, the future " King's Bench," or " Upper Bench." It was very loyal to the king, always, in theory, sit- ting in the king's presence, its suitors bound to come " before Us, wherever We shall be in England," Nominally it was concerned only with pleas in which the Crown was specially interested ; but really it soon also was to stand out as a great independent tribunal, administering that Common Law of which we shall have to speak farther on. The most dan- gerous element in the original domestic The feudal organisation, the feudal tendency to make offices, the public offices hereditary, was, happily, already in Edward's time, on the wane. We see it very clearly in the ancient offices of the Marshal, the Constable, the Steward, and the Chamberlain ; but these great functionaries became of less and less importance, seldom appearing in the Exchequer, though, in theory, entitled to do so, and restricting their energies to the management of the feudal army and the great Court ceremonials. The greatest office of all, the Justitiarship, was, happily, U r, • tt 1 j j -l Thejustitiar. never hereditary in England ; and it was therefore easy for an ambitious king, like Edward, to abolish it altogether. After the Barons' War we hear no more of it.* The place of the Justitiar as * Its disappearance gave an obvious opening to the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, in Edward's reign a very modest person, to claim the great title of Lord Chief Justice of England. Historically, there is no foundation for the claim. 1 72 Edward Plantagenet 1278] Minister of Justice was taken, without formal pro- clamation, by the Chancellor, who thereupon retired The from his former position in the Exchequer, chancellor, leaving that body to be managed by its The natural working head, the Treasurer. The Treasurer. ffi ces f Chancellor and Treasurer were long held by ecclesiastics, and could not, therefore, well become hereditary. Once and for all, Henry II. had decided against hereditary sheriff- The Sheriffs. , , ... doms ; and the sheriffs were now annually appointed at the Michaelmas session of the Ex- chequer. The great question of the day in home politics was, whether the ordinary course of gen- eral administration, the thousand and one questions which daily arose for settlement, should, like the financial and judicial sides of State business, become vested in a permanent body, with independent tra- ditions and a fixed routine, or should be carried out under the personal direction of the King, by the domestics of the royal household, and by those "special councillors," such as John Mansel, Adam of Stratton, and Peter Chacepore, whom the King retained in his " chamber." We have seen that Simon of Montfort took the former view ; Edward steadily maintained the latter. But, while he confirmed all the privileges of the Exchequer, Edward determined to correct the abuses statute of °f r °y a l administration. His first great Westminster statute, the famous Statute of Westminster the First, is mainly concerned with this question. At a great Parliament of the magnates held in April, 1275, he brought forward the measure ; 12781 The Coming of the King 173 and it received the consent of the assembled body. The abuses of purveyance, claims of wreck, unjust fines, refusal of bail, are cut down to strict limits. Collectors of Crown debts are to give receipts for the money paid to them, and to produce their authority to demand the debts. The royal officers are to take no personal part in suits conducted in the royal courts, and to demand no fees for the perform- ance of their duties. No royal clerks are to be presented to livings the titles to which are in dis- pute in the royal courts. The mere list of these provisions reveals the character of the abuses which had flourished in Henry's reign. But Edward did not stop with the reform of his own house. He went on to check the excesses of feudal jurisdiction, reserv- ing the greater question of title for the pending enquiry about the franchises. Landlords distraining for lack of services are not to take the law into their own hands. The guardian of his tenant's heir is not to waste the land, nor to dispose of his wards in marriages unsuitable to their degree. Travellers are not to be stopped by feudal landowners through whose territories they may pass. Even the abuses of the merchant class are not forgotten. A foreigner* is not to be distrained for the debts of his fellow citi- zen or gildsman — a practice surviving from early com- munism, and dearly cherished by the municipal courts. Outrageous tolls are not to be demanded in the mar- kets, nor claims for " murage " (repair of the city walls) to be unduly made. The most striking feature * Probably the word here includes not merely aliens, but all per- sons not members of the merchant gild of the town in question. CHAPTER VIII WALES MORE than once before in our story we have heard the name of Wales. Now we must try to gain some orderly idea of the part played by the Welsh question in the early years of Edward's reign. It is but natural that Englishmen should speak of their western neighbours by the name conferred upon them by the English invaders of TheCymry. r . , „ Britain. To these invaders, men of Teu- tonic speech and habits, the Romanised Britons were " Welsh " or " strangers " (wealK). But the Britons themselves, in their last great struggle against the Teutonic foe, adopted the name " Cymry," to signify the common bond which linked together the Britons of Strathclyde, the Wales of to-day, and Cornwall or " West Wales." This great border strip of Britain, the last refuge of the defeated Celt, was, however, even then split up into three severed districts ; and the common name of Cymry (the " men of the kingdom ") stood for a dream rather than a reality. The great battle of Deorham ( ? Dyrham near Chip. 176 [577-1287] Wales 177 ping Sodbury) had driven the Saxon wedge between the west and the north Welsh, and cut off Devon and Cornwall from the Cymric league. A.D. 61^. Thirty-six years later, the capture of the great British stronghold of Chester, on the Dee, had severed the Welsh of Strathclyde and the north from the middle Welsh of " Wales " ; and this last name began to settle down on the mountainous land which stretches from Anglesea to the Bristol Chan- nel. On all sides save one, the rugged coast and the wild seas combined to form strong barriers, behind which the defeated Welsh lay in safety. On the east, however, the absence of a natural bar was dangerous alike to friend and foe, till Offa, the Mercian King, built the great dyke or wall which runs , ° , Circ. 780. due north and south, from the Dee to the Wye. Within these boundaries lies, for the most part, the present country of Wales ; but the name of Cum- berland in the north, and the popular " Cambrian " allusions of Wales itself, are strong reminders of the defeated hopes of the great British league. Long before Edward's day, however, Offa's bound- ary had ceased to mark the territory of the inde- pendent Welsh. The great Palatine The Lords earldom of Chester, created by the Nor- Marcher, man conquerors of England, had spread into the western lands. The Marcher earldom of Pembroke in the south, and the mighty lordship of Glamorgan, guarded the northern shore of the Bristol Channel from the Welsh. In his fear of a compact Welsh kingdom, Henry II. had encouraged his discontented barons, disgusted with the steady rule which had CHAPTER VIII WALES MORE than once before in our story we have heard the name of Wales. Now we must try to gain some orderly idea of the part played by the Welsh question in the early years of Edward's reign. It is but natural that Englishmen should speak of their western neighbours by the name conferred _,_ „ upon them by the English invaders of The Cymry. L J & Britain. To these invaders, men of Teu- tonic speech and habits, the Romanised Britons were " Welsh " or " strangers " {wealh). But the Britons themselves, in their last great struggle against the Teutonic foe, adopted the name "Cymry," to signify the common bond which linked together the Britons of Strathclyde, the Wales of to-day, and Cornwall or " West Wales." This great border strip of Britain, the last refuge of the defeated Celt, was, however, even then split up into three severed districts ; and the common name a d 77 °^ Cymry (the " men of the kingdom ") stood for a dream rather than a reality. The great battle of Deorham ( ? Dyrham near Chip. 176 1577-1287] Wales 177 ping Sodbury) had driven the Saxon wedge between the west and the north Welsh, and cut off Devon and Cornwall from the Cymric league. A.D. 613. Thirty-six years later, the capture of the great British stronghold of Chester, on the Dee, had severed the Welsh of Strathclyde and the north from the middle Welsh of " Wales " ; and this last name began to settle down on the mountainous land which stretches from Anglesea to the Bristol Chan- nel. On all sides save one, the rugged coast and the wild seas combined to form strong barriers, behind which the defeated Welsh lay in safety. On the east, however, the absence of a natural bar was dangerous alike to friend and foe, till Offa, the Mercian King, built the great dyke or wall which runs ° ' Circ. 780. due north and south, from the Dee to the Wye. Within these boundaries lies, for the most part, the present country of Wales ; but the name of Cum- berland in the north, and the popular " Cambrian " allusions of Wales itself, are strong reminders of the defeated hopes of the great British league. Long before Edward's day, however, Offa's bound- ary had ceased to mark the territory of the inde- pendent Welsh. The great Palatine The L 0rds earldom of Chester, created by the Nor- Marcher, man conquerors of England, had spread into the western lands. The Marcher earldom of Pembroke in the south, and the mighty lordship of Glamorgan, guarded the northern shore of the Bristol Channel from the Welsh. In his fear of a compact Welsh kingdom, Henry II. had encouraged his discontented barons, disgusted with the steady rule which had 1 78 Edward Plantagenet 1577- put down the feudal anarchy of Stephen's day, to invade the eastern Welsh. It was pure freebooting. The King took no responsibility for the expeditions, furnished no supplies, asked no questions. On the other hand, the invading baron, if successful, carved out for himself a "Marcher" lordship, which he held by his sword as the King held England by his crown. Nominally, the Marcher Lords — the Mortimers of Chirk and Wigmore, the Bohuns of Brecon, the Hastings of Abergavenny, the Fitzalans of Oswestry — were vassals of the kings of England, just as William the Norman had been a vassal of the kings at Paris. In effect, the sound system of government which was being slowly built up in England no whit affected the Marcher lordships. The King's judges did not enter them on circuit. There were no shires or sheriffs. Somewhat later, indeed, the Customs dues were collected at the Welsh ports; but this result had only been achieved by the careful precau- tions of Edward at the Parliament of 1275 ; and the collection was made by local officials, who secured for their " franchises " the incidental profits of forfeitures and fees. It is significant that, in Edward's grant of the Customs dues to the Lucchese firm of col- lectors, no provision whatever is made for the Welsh ports. The iniquitous bargain made by Henry II. with his barons had recoiled on the head of his unfort- Liyweiyn the unat e and worthless son. John's distress Great and was the opportunity of the Welsh, who did not scruple to join the discontented barons against the King. The combination might 12871 Wales 1 79 have been fatal to the nominal supremacy of Eng- land, had the Welsh themselves been able to rise to the conception of a united kingdom. But this was precisely what they were unable to do. Although there arose from time to time great rulers, who called themselves " princes of Wales," it is not difficult, looking closely at their claims, to see that they were merely patriarchal chieftains, whose special abilities had lifted them above the ordinary run of their fel- lows. They were not territorial rulers at the head of definite military and administrative systems. Over their own clans they wielded great power, a power founded on kinship and tradition. Over the other Welsh kindreds they had only the influence of a great name, seen in the halo of romance and myth. The Celt had a genius for hero-worship ; he re- sponded like a harp to the vibrations of popular sentiment. But he had no love for the weary drudgery by which a people makes its way to na- tional independence. In a sudden foray, for a mighty effort, none so ready as he. But to labour long years in storing up the wealth necessary to sup- port a great national rising ; to submit patiently to training in arms and strategy ; to play a waiting game; to retire before an invader in order to lure him to his destruction ; to endure the wasting of his home and lands in the sure hope of a distant revenge — these things were not in the character of the Celt. He loved to sit in his chieftain's hall, listening to the song of the harper and the story of the bard, to wander on his native hills, musing over the legends of his race, and watching the mists glittering in the 1 80 Edward Plantagenet 1577- sunbeams. When, after Edward's conquest, the light is thrown upon Welsh social life, we see in a flash how it is that the first serious effort of English statesmanship proved fatal to Welsh independence. The real social unit of Welsh society in those days was not the compact household, working under the control of a single head, and owning direct allegiance to a central ruler, but the loosely connected gwely, or kindred, consisting of three generations, often living together in a common homestead, always claiming undivided rights over a tract of pasture land, and setting more store on the genealogy of its tribe than on the history of the nation. Its real occupa- tions were the breeding of cattle, and the chase, pursuits which leave much leisure for patriotic aspir- ations, but which rarely tend to national greatness. Such agriculture as there was seems to have been left mainly to unfree, or at least inferior races, ac- corded no share in the privileges of the " free Cymry," and, in all probability, recruited largely from the old Iberian or pre-Celtic inhabitants of the land, whose small frames, dark hair, high cheekbones, and swarthy faces, still make such a striking contrast with the tall and ruddy Celt. The Cymro paid tribute in kind to his chief ; but there was, virtually, no government beyond the frequent gatherings of the kindreds and tribes, in which the elders pronounced dooms and tendered counsel. When Edward returned from the Holy Land, the Liyweiyn's greatest of the Welsh chieftains was defiance. Llywelyn ab Gruffyth, grandson of that Llywelyn who had wrested from King John the 1287] Wales 181 recognition of his independence, and who had been such a thorn in the side of Edward's father in the early years of Henry's reign. Llywelyn's father was that Gruffyth, the " stout man of mid- die age," who had been killed in trying to escape from the Tower, whither he had been car- ried as a hostage. Llywelyn had two brothers, Owain Goch (or Red), the elder, with whom he had quarrelled, and whom he now held under lock and key, and David, with whom he was likewise on bad terms, but who had escaped from the power of his formidable brother, and was now enjoying Edward's hospitality at Westminster. The quarrels of Llywelyn and his brothers are "only too typical of the weakness which prevented Wales rising spon- taneously into a compact kingdom. One of Llywelyn's aunts had married Ralph Mortimer, and their son, Llywelyn's cousin, Roger, was the great- est of the Marcher Lords, save only the earls of Pembroke and Hereford. Another aunt had mar- ried John, Earl Huntingdon and Chester, first cousin of the Scottish King; and, on his death in 1237, had espoused Robert' of Quency, the claimant to the earldom of Southampton or Winchester. To crown all, Llywelyn ab Gruffyth, as we have seen (p. 130), had followed the example of his grandfather in the days of King John ; and, having betrothed himself to Eleanor, daughter of the great Earl of Leicester, had rendered substantial help to Simon in the days before Evesham. Altogether, a most formidable person, this Llywelyn. Perhaps a brief pedigree will help us to realise his position. o •o ■B»Q> w « S S5 .-I w is « H fe O w « o B w ft biS =1 I- ■s e. H . ° N * o B-S O o «■§ 1-1 i o 182 1577-1287] Wales 183 From the point of geography, the situation was curious. In theory, Llywelyn's dominions included two distinct districts: one in the north, Geography comprising Anglesey, the lands about ofwaies. Snowdon, the hills of Arvon, and the lands of Merioneth ; the other, in the south, including the ancient principality of Ceredigion (Cardigan) and the lands afterwards known as the county of Caer- marthen. But, of these two districts, only the former was Llywelyn's hereditary domain ; the other clung to him but feebly as the representative of Welsh inde- pendence.* Moreover, as we have said, he was for the time on bad terms with his brother David, who, relying on the patriarchal rule of equal division of lands, claimed also an equal division of the chiefship. But the strangest feature of all was, that between Llywelyn and the forces of Edward lay the broad belt of Marcher lordships, nominally subject to Edward and hostile to Llywelyn, in reality quite capable of blocking Edward's advance on Wales. The Morti- mers had been on Edward's side in the Barons' War. But that would not, necessarily, prevent them adopt- ing a different view when it came to a direct struggle with Llywelyn, with whom they were, as we have seen, closely allied by marriage. The note of defiance was struck by the Welsh prince. Relying on his position, he re- fused to take the oath of allegiance to Edward, founding himself upon the independence * Its real affection was probably given to the line of Rhys ab Mere- dith, whose homage had been expressly reserved to the English Crown by the treaty of 1267. 1 84 Edward Plantagenet 1577- recognised to his grandfather by the Great Charter. This proceeding was, of course, in direct violation of the treaty of Shrewsbury (p. 151), by which Llywelyn had undertaken to hold his principality as a vassal of the English Crown. At that time, such a refusal would, in whatever circum- stances made, have been treated as a gross breach of loyalty. In the circumstances of the moment, it was an unmistakable defiance. Edward did not act hastily. The first summons to Llywelyn had been issued by his ministers in his absence. In September, 1275, it was solemnly re- peated by Edward himself, who bade the Welsh prince come to London for the purpose of rendering homage. Llywelyn refused, alleging that the King was harbouring his fugitives, i. e., his brother David, who had fled to the English court.* Edward moved towards Caerleon, to give Llywelyn a chance of sav- ing his dignity, or, possibly, to disabuse him of fear of personal danger. At this juncture, a great stroke capture or °* * uc k ^ to t ^ ie King. The Cinque Eleanor Ports fleet captured Eleanor of Montfort, Montfort. ^^ unc j er t ^ Q escort of her brother Aymer, was making for the Welsh coast, to join her affianced husband. Irritated by the loss of his bride, Llywelyn once more put himself in the wrong by declaring war. David, his vacillating brother, threw in his lot with the English, and Llywelyn found himself utterly unable to resist Edward's march. Careful, as always, of the legalities, the * Edward, in his formal statement of justification, alleges that he summoned Llywelyn no less than five times. 1287] Wales 185 King obtained the formal condemnation of his re- bellious vassal, by a Parliament which met at West- minster in November, 1276. At the same time, the whole feudal array was summoned to meet at Worcester on the following 24th June; and an elaborate plan of attack in three armies was planned against the Principality. The campaign was won almost before it was com- menced. In February, 1277, Edward procured the excommunication of Llywelyn by Arch- Edward's bishop Kilwardby, and the Welsh chief- success. ' tains, shrinking from a foe armed with spiritual as well as material weapons, began slowly to desert their leader. In April, Edward moved the Ex- chequer and the Law Courts to Shrewsbury, that the ordinary business of government might not suffer by the campaign. When the host assembled, the Welsh withdrew to the fastnesses of Snowdon, and endeavoured to repeat the trap which had so often proved fatal to the feudal horseman. But Edward was no longer the rash youth who had fallen into the meshes of Llywelyn twenty years before. Deliberately laying waste the accessible valleys of North Wales, he calmly awaited the sur- render of his foe. His plan was fully justified. Although he had to beg the feudal host for an ex- tension of the forty days of service, he saw Llywelyn a suppliant for peace in the early autumn ; and the treaty of Aberconway, signed on the 9th November, marks a distinct advance in the English conquest of Wales. Although Edward did not carry out his threat of dividing Llywelyn's 1 86 Edward Plantagenet [577- hereditary domains between his two brothers, he deprived the Welsh prince of the homage of the chieftains (saving only those of some half-dozen personal followers); he took from him the four can- treds yielded by Henry in the treaty of Shrewsbury ; he compelled him to release from prison his brother Owain, as well as those of the chiefs who had been imprisoned for adherence to the English Crown. The island of Anglesey was con- firmed in heritage to Llywelyn ; but, after his death, it was to be held by his heirs simply as an ordinary fief, at the heavy annual rent of a thousand marks. In other words, after the death of Llywelyn, the last vestige of Welsh independence was to cease. On the other hand, there was no attempt to assimilate Welsh and English institutions ; Welsh custom and the barbarous usage of the Marches were still to be the standard of social life. For a time, the treaty brought peace. Edward had taken care to extract both moral and material pledges from Llywelyn. The Prince took the oath of allegiance at Rhuddlan, and, at the following Christmas, renewed the ceremony at Westminster. Some of the Welsh nobles were surrendered as hostages ; and it is asserted by more than one chronicler, that Llywelyn paid a sum of no less than 50,000 marks as the price of peace. More probable is it, that the demand was held over him as security for his good behaviour. His bride was restored to him, Edward taking a cousinly interest in the details of the lady's dowry, and, according to some accounts, giving her a very handsome wed- 1287] Wales 187 ding. When the King left England for France, in the spring of 1279, he made Roger Mortimer special warden of "West Wales," a district which seems to have included Dorset, Gloucester, Hereford, Salop, and Somerset, as well as the Welsh districts of Car- digan and Caermarthen. But this was hardly an unreasonable precaution. Llywelyn, however, soon became restless. His wife died within a year of the marriage, leaving a little daughter Gwenllian, who afterwards Renewal of became a nun. There seems to have war - been an understanding (not expressed in the terms of the treaty) that Llywelyn should present himself in London every year, as a guarantee of his peaceful intentions. For two years he observed the agree- ment ; in the third year (1280) he refused to come. Doubtless the demands of Edward's officials had been heavy on the land ; and the Welsh nobles perhaps thought with regret of the easy-going days of the tribal chieftains. The Quo Warranto proceedings (p. 164), and a reform of the coinage, had produced discontent, even in England. A searching " dis- traint of knighthood " * had impoverished the smaller landowners. Some young nobles, with whom Ed- ward was amiably chatting on the eve of the Michaelmas Parliament of 1279, somewhat startled the King by repeating to him a doggerel which was * /. e. , a visitation made with the object of compelling all land- holders of a certain value to take up the degree of knight, with its costly ceremonies, or pay fines for neglect. Owing to the fall in the value of money, the class liable to the feudal dignity of knighthood was becoming very large. 1 88 Edward Plantagenet [577- floating about the Court, and which was by no means complimentary to its ruler. The lines ran : " The King grabs our pence, The Queen grabs our lands, And the Quo Warrantb Shall cause blood to flow." Still, no open disturbance followed. In the autumn of 1280, Edward and his wife paid a visit to the priory of Lanercost in Cumberland, and held a mighty hunting in the forest of Inglewood. The King had come into the Ponthieu inheritance by the death of his mother-in-law, Joanna of Castile, in the previous June. A visit to France had wound up the outstanding details left over from the last treaty. Edward's chief interest appears to have been in the active pursuit of Guy of Montfort, his cousin's murderer, whom he chased from Italy to Norway. He had wisely refused to quarrel with Pope Nicolas for refusing the primacy to his favour- ite minister, Robert Burnell ; and had even borne with patience the daring exercise of the Papal pre- rogative which thrust upon him, as Primate, John Peckham, a Franciscan, who had been a Reader at Oxford and Paris. In June of 128 1, there were dis- turbances in Wales, but Edward treated them lightly ; and announced his intention of visiting Gascony in the autumn. It is difficult to avoid the suggestion, that Edward was waiting for Llywelyn to commit him- The outbreak. ° \ J self beyond forgiveness. He probably realised, that Welsh independence was inconsistent 1287] Wales 1 89 with peace on the Marches ; and, though he was will- ing to wait, if need were, for Llywelyn's death in the course of nature, we can hardly blame him for not acting towards his vassal as an indulgent father, who watches to prevent a disobedience which he will be bound to punish. In the spring of 1282, the King learnt that David's patriotism had triumphed over his gratitude,* and that the two brothers had en- tered into a plot against him. On the eve of Palm Sunday (March 22nd) David made a sudden attack on Flint and Hawarden, and captured Roger Clif- ford, the King's lieutenant. Thence he started out on a lively foray, in which he was joined by his brother Llywelyn ; the lands of Englishmen were harried, and their goods plundered and burned, without mercy. It was a racial war, pure and simple ; and Edward resolved this time to make an end. His measures were prompt. The rebels were ex- communicated by the English bishops. Roger Mortimer was given command of the Theweish forces in North Wales, Reginald Grey in « mpa i g n. Chester and Flint, Robert Tiptoft in the south. The greater barons were summoned once more to meet at Worcester at Whitsuntide. But Edward knew that, in the mountain fastnesses, the Welsh were safe from the heavy-armed warrior ; and, not daring to trust to the Welsh archers in his pay, sent to Gascony for a supply of the new arm. Even the * Edward had given him rich estates after the Peace of Abercon- way, and had married him to Elizabeth Ferrers, daughter of the Earl of Derby. 1 90 Edward Plantagenet 1577- old crossbow was not neglected ; for we find the Warden of the Royal Exchange in London ordered to furnish 4000 " quarrels," or bolts, to the men of the Cinque Ports, who were manning a fleet to attack Llywelyn by sea. The navy scored the first success, capture of carrying the island of Anglesey by a bril- Angiesey. Hant assault, a success which drew from the King the joyful remark, " Our friend Llywelyn has lost the first feather of his tail." Prompt to fol- The Menai low up his victory, the King proceeded Bridge. t throw a bridge of boats across the Menai Straits, with a view of attacking the mainland from the west. At this point, however, the English arms received a check, through the head- Check. long haste of a band of knights. Burn- ing to distinguish themselves, in the true spirit of knight-errantry, they collected a body of three hun- dred followers, many of them Gascons, and, dashing across the half-completed bridge, waded through the shallows to the mainland. Cut off from retreat by the rising tide, they were suddenly attacked by a body of Welsh who sallied from the woods, and fled in confusion, many perishing in the sea. Meanwhile, the King, who never underrated the difficulties of the campaign, had summoned the re- mainder of the feudal array to Rhuddlan for the beginning of August, and commenced a steady attack on Llywelyn from the east. In this he was greatly helped by a body of a thousand wood- cutters, whom he had prudently collected from the midland and western counties, and who cleared away the dangerous coverts of the mountain passes. 1287] Wales 191 The battle of the campaign was fought at Orewin Bridge in midwinter.* But it seems to have been entirely unpremeditated. Edward's plan orewin was, clearly, to drive Llywelyn out of Bridge, the country by sheer force of superior strategy. Llywelyn, however, had descended from the hills to take stock of his resources, leaving his army en- camped on the Wye. His movement was per- ceived by some sharp eyes in the English camp ; and the English leaders, Giffard and the younger Mortimer, were approached by one Helie Walwyn, who offered to shew them a ford, by crossing which a few resolute men might take the Welsh in the rear, and effect a diversion. The advice was followed, and great confusion arose among the Welsh. Hear- ing the noise, Llywelyn and his son, who were not far off, returned cautiously to learn the Death of truth, but were espied by an English Llywelyn. knight, Stephen Frankton, and he, not knowing who they were, pursued them with a small body of fol- lowers, and thrust the Prince through with a spear, leaving him dead on the ground. Meanwhile, the Welsh, disheartened by the absence of their leader, remained standing on the high ground above the bridge, instead of charging down on the advancing English. The latter, adopting new and momentous tactics, mingled with the mounted knights a strong body of archers who, under cover of the horses, poured a deadly volley into the irresolute defenders * There is great dispute as to the geography of the campaign ; but Orewin Bridge is generally considered to have been near Builth, in the modern shire of Brecknock. 192 Edward Plantagenet [577- of the position. The Welsh broke and fled ; and then it was discovered, that the two fugitives slain by Stephen Frankton were Llywelyn and his son. Llywelyn's head was cut off and dispatched to Lon- don, where, to the huge delight of the citizens, it was paraded down Westcheap to the Tower, crowned with a silver circlet, in mock fulfilment of the prophecy known to have been made to Llywelyn by a Welsh capture of soothsayer. David fled from the slaugh- David. ter, and for the next six months led a miserable existence, concealed in swamps and caves, hopeless and helpless. The resistance of the Welsh was broken, and the thought of each was to make terms for himself. At last David was captured by treachery (June, 1283), and resistance was, for the present, at an end. Edward now determined to dispose of the Welsh question, once and for all ; and he set about the task settlement of with a grim deliberation which boded ill waies. f or t jj e prospects of his foes. Realising the importance of his presence on the scene of af- fairs, he summoned a great Parliament of earls, barons, knights of the shire, and burgesses to meet at Shrewsbury on Michaelmas Day, 1283, to discuss the whole settlement. Meanwhile, he retained the Exchequer and the Law Courts at Shrewsbury, and, as we shall hereafter see, found leisure, in the inter- vals of more urgent business, to attend to measures of great future importance for commerce and industry. But his first care was, of course, the completion of his conquest. He built the castles of Flint, Con- way, and Caernarvon, to keep disaffection in check, "Sifcia SERGE ANT-AT-ARMS. (thirteenth century.) {From Viollet le Due's " Diet, du Mobilier Francais.") 1287] Wales 193 but, somewhat later, shewed his statesmanship by granting municipal charters to the boroughs which lay beneath the walls of his fortresses. He planted Anglesey with English farmers. Unwilling to leave a magnet to attract hopes of independence, he in- sisted on the seizure of the precious national relics, the " Crossneych," or fragment of the true cross, and the crown of Arthur ; but he softened the blow by granting special privileges to the men who yielded them into his hands. He paid large sums by way of compensation to the Church, whose goods had been injured in the war. He proposed to move the see of St. Asaph, " which is situated in a certain solitary and rural place," to the then military centre of Rhuddlan ; but, in deference to ecclesiastical prejudices, forebore. He insisted, however, on the inclusion of the Welsh bishoprics in the province of Canterbury — a decision which at last set at rest a long-agitated question of ecclesiastical administra- tion, and dealt a shrewd blow at possibilities of Papal tampering with national aspirations. The daughters of Llywelyn and David were placed in the great Gilbertine Abbey of Sempringham, the special retreat of ladies of noble English birth. A terrible vengeance was taken on the traitor David, who, after being tried by a specially appointed judicial commission, was executed with the utmost barbarities of the horrible treason law. Two happy events, the discovery at Caernarvon of the alleged body of Constantius, the father of the great Con- stantine, and the birth, at the same place, of a son to the King, served to relieve the gloom which had 194 Edward Plantagenet 1577- gathered around the tragic fate of David ; and the conquered Welsh, perhaps willingly deceived, al- lowed themselves to be tricked into acceptance, as their titular chief, of the infant Edward, " a prince who could not," as his father truly said, " speak a word of English." The death of the King's eldest son, Alfonso, in the following August (1284), made the infant prince the heir apparent to the English throne, and laid the basis of the tradition of six hundred years, by which the title of Prince of Wales has become the most popular of the many titles of the future kings of England. But Edward had no intention of allowing Wales to remain a separate entity, even as an appanage of The statute the Crown. He was bent on incorpora- of Rhuddian. t j on . and t h e t j t i e g j ven to Edward of Caernarvon was not to be allowed to derogate seri- ously from the power of the central government.* The great Parliament had duly assembled at Michael- mas, and, by the following Lent, had thrashed out an elaborate scheme for the future government of Wales. The Statute of Rhudd- ian, dated on Mid-Lent Sunday, declared, in its open- ing words, that Wales had ceased to be a mere fief of the English Crown, and had become " annexed and united . . . unto the Crown of the aforesaid * The writer does not mean, of course, to assert that the prince- dom of Wales was a mere title. It carried substantial revenues, and a moderate amount of patronage. But it did not involve political power. For a description of the rights and privileges of the prince- dom, together with its congeners, the duchy of Cornwall and the earldom of Chester, the reader may consult the classical work of Sir John Dod(e)ridge. QILBERTINE NUN. (From DugdaUs " Monastico-n.") 12871 Wales 195 realm, as a member of the same body." Out of the hereditary domains of Llywelyn were consti- tuted four new shires, to wit, Anglesey, The new Caernarvon, Merioneth, and Flint. For shires, judicial purposes, the first three of these were grouped under a permanent " Justice of North Wales," or " Snowdon," with an Ex- North Wales. chequer and Chancery at Caernarvon. Flint was annexed to the palatine earldom of Ches- ter, which was committed, on the 14th September, to the capable hands of Reginald Grey, as " Justice," or, as he was more generally called, " Chief Justice," of Chester. Edward knew that much of his success in the late war had been due to his hold on the great city and its county ; and he intended that the earldom, long in his own hands through the death of the last of the inde- pendent earls, should become a royal appanage. But Flint, like its neighbouring shires, was carefully organised on the English model, with a sheriff, coroner, and bailiffs of commotes or Hundreds ; and- the elaborate regulations laid down by the Statute for the conduct of shire business are, perhaps, a bet- ter picture of English county administration, as it was in the best years of Edward's reign, than of anything which actually took place in Wales. The conquered districts of the south appear, "west" or from the wording of the Statute, to have South Wales - already been organised into the shires of Cardigan and Caermarthen ; at any rate, the document treats these counties as in existence. But they were too far distant from the northern conquest to be safely 196 Edward Plantagenet 1577- trusted to the same administration ; and, accord- ingly, they were placed under the control of a " Justice of West Wales " or, as he later was called, of " South Wales," and a new Exchequer and Chancery created for them at Caermarthen. With great wisdom, Edward adopted the old patriarchal and feudal divisions as the basis of his new arrange- ment ; but he took care to infuse into all his machinery that happy compromise between local independence and central control, which has been the great secret of the success of English politics. At every local moot, whether of shire or Hundred, the King's business was to come first ; and the royal officials were, obviously, to stand as representatives of a power greater than that of any local magnate, whether feudal lord or clan chief. But all inhabit- ants of the land, from the great noble to the hum- ble freeman, were bound actively to aid the royal officers in the performance of their tasks ; and the conquered Welshman was to feel, every day of his life, that the King expected of him, not merely sub- mission and orderly conduct, but an active share in The blood the maintenance of peace and the punish- feud. ment of evil doers. A prudent and skil- ful concession to the patriarchal system of the Welsh allowed the prosecution in cases of alleged murder to be commenced by the " Welshery," or kindred of the slain man ; but the prosecution was to take the form of a decent and orderly accusation, or " pre- sentment," before the sheriff at a monthly session of the shire court, not the wild disorder of a mid- night foray. Under this wise system, the blood- SEAL OF THE CHANCERY AT CAERMARTHEN. (temp. ric. ii.) (From Nicholas' " Annals of Wales.") 1287] Wales 197 feud of the ancient custom glided gradually into the "appeal of murder" of the English courts. But the prosecution of vengeance was not left entirely to the initiative of private persons. Twice every year, the sheriff was to hold his " Tourn " „. . ._, » ' The shenfFs in every Hundred, and there conduct a Tourn. rigorous enquiry concerning the behaviour of the neighbourhood during the last six months. It was there that it behoved the Welshman, if 'ie would escape fine and imprisonment, to report to the King's official all rumours of misdeeds which had come to his ears; and these rumours, sifted by a sworn jury of twelve or more, became the basis of vigorous exactions and other punishments by the Exchequer officials. Thus, gradually, duty to the State took the place of duty to the kin, as the para- mount obligation of conduct ; and the country en- tered upon that slow process of assimilation, which was to convert the old patriarchal Wales of Llywelyn into the modern political Wales of to-day. But Edward was too wise to force the process. No pro- vision was made for the appearance of knights of the Welsh shires in those Parliaments which were fast becoming the great events of the year in Eng- land. Though the procedure of the Eng- Lega i pr0 . lish law courts was introduced into cedure. Wales,* the law which they administered was to be, in all save a few cases,f the ancient customs of the * The Welsh were, however, still allowed to use their ancient forms for suits of minor importance. \ The Statute introduced into Wales the English institution of the widow's dower, and admitted women to the inheritances on failure 198 Edward Plantagenet [577- Welsh. With characteristic care, Edward seized" the opening to make a few needed amendments in the English forms. The unpopular Trial by Battle was abolished in land suits ; the list of " essoins," or permissible delays, was rigidly cut down ; the statute also abolished the ancient rule which demanded pedantic accuracy in pleading (" he who fails in a syllable, fails in the whole cause "), a rule perhaps necessary in the days when lawsuits were conducted entirely by word of mouth, and " record " was a matter of memory. It must, of course, be carefully remembered, that the Wales of Edward's new system was very differ- Theiaarcher ent in extent from the Wales of to-day. lordships. a glance at the map will show that it cov- ered less than one-half of the modern Principality, which is itself smaller than the true area of the Welsh tongue. For two centuries and a half from Llywelyn's death, the Marcher lords continued their lawless careers, holding courts, creating officials, founding churches, granting municipal charters, setting their local customs above the common law of the realm. But the shadow of their com- ing doom began to fall upon them. More and more men felt that such doings had had their day. Their system (if system it could be called) was the system of the past ; Edward's was the sys- tem of the future. Not for many a long day was of males of the same degree. On the other hand, it expressly re- served the Welsh patriarchal custom of equal inheritance among males of the same degree, though it rigidly excluded from the in- heritance of land the offspring of loose patriarchal marriages. 1287] Wales 199 Wales to become a peaceable and orderly land ; Ed- ward himself found that the conquest of Llywelyn and David did not dispense him from the necessity of teaching a stern lesson to the chief- b 1387. tains of Cardigan and Caermarthen. But rarely again was England in serious danger from a Welsh rising ; the stern measures of Henry VII. and his son were directed quite as much against their English rivals as against the native Welsh. The work done by Edward in Wales was a work for all time. CHAPTER IX THE ENGLISH JUSTINIAN THE few years which followed the conquest of Wales have given Edward his title to immor- tal fame, a fame earned by that noblest of all royal virtues, a steadfast devotion to the happiness and prosperity of his subjects. Keeping a wary eye on the ominous prospects of the Scottish succession, never forgetting the possibility of a Welsh rising, taking a conspicuous part in the territorial and dyn- astic problems of the Continent, — the quarrels be- tween France and Aragon in particular, — coquetting with successive Popes on the subject of the pro- posed Crusade, exacting from Philip of France a due fulfilment of the treaties of Paris and Amiens, his main strength was yet steadily spent in those great internal reforms which mark the change from feudal to industrial England, from the old divided England of the Barons' War to the united England of the end of the century, from the Middle Ages to modern history. In the winter of 1290, he lost his faithful and beloved wife, Eleanor of Castile ; and the event seemed to close the chap- ter of his prosperity. From that time till his lonely The English Justinian 201 death in 1307, the King was involved in unhappy quarrels — the interminable quarrel of the Scottish succession, the qoarrel with France, the quarrel with his own nobles, the quarrel with the Church. In all these, the country never lost its faith in the King ; Edward never sank in public esteem as his father and grandfather had sunk. He never lost the power to recall the affections of his subjects by a frank ap- peal to old memories. " Except in opinion, not dis- agreeing," might truly have been said, at any moment, of the King and his people. But that the firm trust of Englishmen in the nobleness of their ruler remained unshaken during those sixteen years of storm and stress, of taxation and war, of absence and seeming neglect, was surely due to the profound impression of justice, patience, honesty, wisdom, and self-denying toil, created by the two brilliant years of internal reform, whose course we now attempt to trace. First in point of date comes the famous Statute of Merchants, or Acton Burnell. As we have form- erly seen (p. 38), the expansion of for- The statute eign commerce, brought about by the of Merchants - Crusades, had rendered the merchant a figure of new importance in the social system of the country. But he fitted badly into the established order of things. As often as not a " foreigner," * he had no native town in England, he was a member of no * The word "foreigner" has various shades of meaning in the records of the time. Often it merely means a person not a member of the speaker's immediate locality. But, in these pages, it will be used in its modern sense of a political alien. 202 Edward Plantagenet clan or blood-feud group, of no fief or monastery. He was a lost unit in a society which barely recog- nised individualism in its humbler ranks ; which had a profound distrust of strangers ; which looked on commerce mainly as an opportunity of cheating, and commercial profit as something nearly akin to usury. The safety of the stranger merchant, at first secured by placing him under the " mainpast," or guarantee, of his host, subsequently strengthened by his own spontaneous association into gilds or brotherhoods, was finally recognised, as a matter of national policy, by the express words of the Great Charter. But it was necessary to the welfare of the mer- chant, not only that he should be protected from The merchant bodily harm, but that he should be act- ana his ively assisted in the enforcement of his rights. People were beginning to dis- cover, that credit is the life-blood of commerce ; and credit could not exist in a society which knew no- thing of commercial honour, as we understand it, without an adequate machinery for the enforcement of commercial obligations. No man, in the England of the thirteenth century, would have thought a frac- tion the worse of himself for refusing to satisfy a com- mercial claim, however just, which could not be legally enforced against him. Scandalous as the position seems now to us, it had grown easily and naturally out of the history of the law of debt. The earliest " debts " did not arise out of voluntary transactions : they were bloodfines reluctantly of- fered by guilty men, robbers and murderers, to The English Jtistinian 203 appease the just vengeance of the injured or their relatives. Quite naturally, these offenders resisted payment until the last possible moment. Nowhere are a priori conceptions more inadequate to explain facts, than in the discussions of legal morality. But a patient study cfBjjlhe history of legal ideas not only removes all difficulties : it leaves the student wondering at the simplicity of the explanation, so long sought in vain by the exalted methods of de- ductive speculation. Thus it becomes clear, why the merchant of the" thirteenth century, especially the foreign merchant, was helpless in the hands of his debtors, imperfection Three difficulties stood in his way. First, ° f remedies, he could not, in all probability, appear as. the os- tensible, plaintiff before a tribunal which did not recognise him as one of its proper " suitors " or constituents. He had to trust himself in the hands of a native agent, or " attorney," who might decamp with his money. Second, he would find his adver- sary resorting, perhaps with the secret goodwill of the tribunal, to every trick and delay that chicane could suggest — and no one who knows anything of legal history will believe that chicane is a modern vice — to postpone the evil day on which judgment should be pronounced against him. Finally, if the plaintiff were successful in procuring a judgment, he would find himself obstructed in enforcing it by a defective procedure which, once more, is intelligi- ble only by a reference to the history of the action of debt. In the days when debts were, as we have said, mere alternatives of corporal vengeance, the 204 Edward Plantagenet man who could not satisfy them "paid with his body." In other words, if the avenger of blood did not get his money, he got his revenge, either in the form of imprisonment of his debtor, or even by exacting the extreme penalty. This is the simple explanation of the horrible sys^fe of debt-slavery, of which students of Roman history learn so much — and so little. Apparently, before Edward's day, the right of the judgment creditor to seize the chattels of his debtor, through the hands of the sheriff, had become generally recognised. But the strongest in- stincts of feudalism were opposed to the suggestion that a debtor's land might be sold for payment of his debts, and a new tenant thus imposed upon his lord. And feudal instincts were, in this respect, as in so many others, powerfully supported by still older social instincts, surviving from an age in which land was not the property of the individual, but of the clan or kindred, and when to admit that the sacred- ness of the kin group might be 'disturbed by the in- trusion of the creditor of one of its members, would have been regarded as little short of blasphemy. But the rapid progress of industry, and the rapid decay of patriarchal and feudal institutions, in the change in twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, had social really rendered this antiquated rule a relic of barbarism and a cloak of injustice. Now that the services of nearly all tenants, except those in the lowest ranks, had been commuted into money, now that the coheirs of a deceased land- owner could obtain the assistance of the King's courts to effect a division of their inheritance, it The English Justinian 205 was absurd to maintain the fiction of patriarchal and feudal connection. It was, clearly, the duty of the lawgiver to express in formal terms that revolution of social ideas which had actually taken place, and to carry the revolution to its legitimate issue. This, in fact, is just what Edward did in his famous Statute (passed even before the death of Llywelyn at Orewin Bridge), at the T he remedy of manor of his Chancellor, Robert Burnell, the statute. Bishop of Bath and Wells, near Shrewsbury, on the 12th October, 1283. The so-called " Parliament of Acton Burnell " has no more claim to constitutional importance than the so-called Parliament House, which professes to be the very building in which it sat ; for the body which best deserved the title of Parliament was then sitting at Shrewsbury, seven miles away, and the Statute was probably drawn up and promulgated, as it professes to be, by the King and his Council, i. e., the small body of officials who accompanied him on his journeys. But its legal validity has never been questioned, and its im- portance is beyond dispute. A merchant who doubts the honesty of his would-be debtor may in- sist upon his " recognising " or admitting his liabil- ity in a formal document, sealed in the presence of the mayor of a chartered borough, and entered upon a roll which remains in the official custody, while a "bill" or "obligation," sealed by the debtor and authenticated by the royal seal, is handed over to the creditor. If the debtor fails to pay, at the ap- pointed time, he may not only be imprisoned, but his 206 Edward Plantagenet chattels and " burgage " tenements (i. e., lands in the borough) may be sold, without any preliminary pro- ceedings, by the mayor to satisfy the debt, or, if there is any difficulty in effecting the sale, the debt- or's chattels and all his lands may be handed over at a reasonable valuation to the creditor, until, out of the issues, the debt is liquidated. Even the death of the debtor will not destroy the creditor's remedy against his lands, which will remain liable in the hands of his heir, against whom, however, there will be no personal remedy.* No apology is needed for the space which has been given to the Statute of Merchants. Under importance of the cover of its technical phrases, the King the statute, dealt a death-blow at the still surviving forces of patriarchalism and feudalism, and recog- nised the new principles of individual responsibility and commercial probity which were to be watch- words of the political and social future. Like a wise legislator, he had merely interpreted and guided the overwhelming drift of evolution, and distin- guished between obstruction and progress. He saw that the future greatness of England lay, not with the feudal landowner, but with the despised mer- chant. His enactment is admirable in its simplicity and effectiveness. It was freely used, not only by merchants, but by every class of society, until improvements in the procedure of the courts * Legal readers will realise that I have combined into one the original Statute of 1283 and the amending ordinance of 1285. But it would have been pedantic, in a general work, to have separated the two. The English Justinian 207 had rendered it unnecessary. The still simpler machinery of "negotiable paper" (Bills of Ex- change and Promissory Notes) ultimately super- seded the machinery of Edward's enactment ; but, at least until Elizabeth's day, capitalists lent their money on " statutes," no less than on mortgages. And if " statutes " were abused by a Sir Giles Over- reach, we must not forget, that an institution is to be judged by its uses, not by its abuses. One in- justice Edward's advisers unquestionably did, in making the entire inheritance of a wealthy land- owner responsible for the debts and follies of his eldest son. But this was the inevitable consequence of the policy which, before Edward ascended the throne, had forced the feudal custom of primo- geniture, in all its naked simplicity, upon an unwill- ing nation. Nothing but an excusable dislike of the dry details of legal history can explain the failure of the many able historians who have treated of The statute the reign of Edward, to detect the close °f Entails, connection between the Statute of Merchants and the yet more famous Statute of Entails, which so soon followed it. On the King's return from his Welsh campaign, he summoned a great Parliament to meet at Westminster at Easter of the year 1285. It was a very different body from the small Council of ministers which had drawn up the Statute of Merchants. Though the precise details of its com- position are, unhappily, obscure, it is obvious that the reactionary feudal element was strong enough to deal a severe, though temporary, check to the policy ( 208 Edward Plantagenet of the latter statute.* Nor is it at all difficult to understand the motives which produced such an outbreak. If the lands of an improvident baron or knight were liable to be seized by his creditors, what was to become of the great feudal families whose pride of lineage was only equalled by their recklessness and extravagance? The feudal land- owners were quite shrewd enough to see, that a long family pedigree is cold comfort unless accom- panied by a substantial rent-roll — nay, that it is practically impossible for the pedigree to be main- tained without the estate. And so, banding all their forces together, they refused to pass the long series of excellent minor reforms on which the King had set his heart, unless he first consented to the solemn promulgation of the legality of entails. It is impossible to look at the famous Statute of West- minster the Second with a trained eye, and not to see the inconsistency of its first chapter (the so- called Statute De Bonis) with all its subsequent forty-nine clauses. The latter are the work of skilled officials, guided by a King of great ability and honesty, and aim at the minute reform of the machinery of an antiquated system. The former is a bold and defiant assertion of conservative preju- dice, veiled by the King's advisers in specious lan- guage, which barely conceals the chagrin of the * Mr. Pearson in his admirable England in the Middle Ages (vol. "•» P- 337) suggests, that the Parliament of Easter, 1285, consisted only of the King's officials. This is incredible in the face of the statement made by Walter of Hemingburgh, that "in that Parlia- ment the King informed the magnates of his intention of visiting Gascony." The English Justinian 209 legislator in whose name it is produced. Broadly speaking, it authorised the creation of estates which should descend in unbroken succession down the line of inheritance prescribed in the original gift, so long as that line should last. The successive occu- pants of the land might pose as the owners, might draw the rents, and even cut down the timber ; but instantly on the death of each, his heir would take possession of an unencumbered interest, unfettered by any liability for the debts of his ancestor, or by any disposition made by him during his lifetime. Even an attainder for treason or felony was not to work a forfeiture of the estate ; for, immediately upon the attainder, the culprit became dead in law, if not in fact, and his heir succeeded, in defiance both of the Crown and the creditors of the de- ceased. As, by the rule of primogeniture, the great bulk of such inheritances would go to eldest sons, another obvious result (in the days in which wills of land were not recognised) would be, to starve the younger members of a landowner's family for the benefit of the eldest. By a refinement of perversity, the estate, on failure of the issue of the first ac- quirer, was to revert, not to his collaterals or his creditors, but to the original donor, who thus reaped an unexpected windfall from the misfortunes of the purchaser's family. The whole chapter is a monu- ment of colossal family pride and feudal arrogance. Left to its natural results, it would have converted the English aristocracy into a close corporation of stupid and unprogressive grandees, filled with the pride of pedigree, starving on lands which they had 2 io Edward Plantagenet neither the intelligence nor the legal power to de- velope, divided from their own kindred by feelings of injustice and oppression, and especially at dag- gers drawn with their expectant heirs, whose utmost neglect and disobedience they would be powerless to correct by threats of disherison. To suggest that Edward was a willing party to such an act of folly, is a monstrous calumny on his fair fame, and a gross outrage on the probabilities. Happily, the Statute De Donis was not destined to endure. Though, like much of Edward's legis- lation, it has never been formally repealed,* Its failure. . .... it has, unlike much of that legislation, long been rendered a dead letter by the more cruel process of contemptuous evasion. In spite of the solemn provisions of the Statute, the principle laid down by it was defeated by the use of a legal fiction so indecently transparent, that it proves conclusively the unpopularity of the rule which it so successfully destroyed. f Before the judges, without whose con- *An impious Parliament, moved thereto by an impious committee, laid profane hands on the Ark of the Covenant in the year 1887. But it only ventured to remove the merest trappings, leaving the substance untouched — and meaningless. f If A, the owner of an entailed estate, wished to sell it to B, he got B to bring an action against him (A), asserting that the land be- longed already to him (B), and that A was an interloper. There- upon A attempted no defence on the merits, but merely pleaded that the estate had been entailed upon him, or one of his ancestors, by C, who had then guaranteed, or " warranted ", its title. This process, technically known as " vouching to warranty," was repeated as often as was necessary to maintain a decent appearance of truth, but was finally assumed by an impecunious person (usually the crier of the court) who, for the modest fee of fourpence, was willing to take The English Justinian 2 1 1 nivance such an" evasion would have been impossible, allowed themselves to sanction it, we may be quite sure that they had satisfied themselves of the feebleness of the force behind the Statute. Unfort- unately, it is at present quite impossible to say at what date the convenient fiction of the " Common Recovery " made good its footing in this connection. The classical instance occurred in the year 1472 ; but it is obvious, from the merely incidental way in which it is mentioned by the reporter, that the process was perfectly familiar at that time ; and, as our knowledge of legal history increases, it may very well be discovered, that the Statute De Donis had even a shorter life than that usually attributed to it. At any rate, ever since the close of the fifteenth cent- ury, the unbreakable entail has ceased to exist, save in the few cases of land settled by Act of Parliament as the reward of public services, and — in the pages of the novelist.* upon himself the responsibility of defending the case. A conven- ient adjournment allowed the fictitious claimant (B) to " imparl" (or talk) with the fictitious defendant (the crier), and, on the resumption of the trial, the latter failed to appear, having, in all probability, retired to spend his fourpence at the nearest alehouse. Thereupon, after solemn proclamation, he was pronounced in default, the claim of B was established by the judgement of the court (which, of course, no one could dispute), and the disappointed heirs of A were com- pensated, in theory, by a decree that the defaulting crier should give them lands of equal value. There were heavy fees all through this process, which may perhaps account for its success and complexity. * Honorable exception from the criticism implied in this last sen- tence must always be made for the classical case of George Eliot, who, in the pages of Felix Holt, shewed that she was quite capable of grasping the subtleties of medieval conveyancing. 2 1 2 Edward Plantagenet Only a very brief analysis can be attempted of the long and elaborately technical clauses which Feudal make up the rest of the great Statute abuses. f Westminster the Second. It was natu- ral that an enactment avowedly based upon the evils brought to light by the Hundred Rolls, and the pro- ceedings thereon, should contain a good deal about feudal abuses. The harsh proceedings of landlords who make use of the new legal procedure to extort their dues from their tenants, are checked; none but sworn bailiffs are to be employed in seizing goods for default of rent ; and in such cases the tenants are to have full opportunity of testing the validity of the seizures in an independent court. The use of vio- lence in the place of legal procedure is sternly pro- hibited. Further encroachments on the jurisdiction of the Crown are anticipated by the provision, that every judge who goes circuit is to be furnished by the Exchequer officials with a list of " franchises," lawfully claimable by subjects within the counties of his commission ; and any tampering with the returns by which such lists are brought up to date is to be punished as treason. On the other hand, the Statute shews every disposition to protect the feudal land- owners in the exercise of their admitted rights ; and, in one particular case, we may well think that it assists them at the expense of a class far less able to make its claims heard. The 46th clause of the Statute expressly authorizes the manorial lords, in continu- ance of the policy of the older Statute of Merton, to " approve," i. e., bring under cultivation, any part of the common wastes which then formed such a valuable The English Justinian 213 preserve for the humbler members of the villages. The established rights of the " commoners " are, of course, theoretically safeguarded ; but there is no provision for the growth of population ; and a lurid light is thrown on an otherwise obscure economic struggle, by the provision, that if hedges or dykes, erected in the course of approvement, are secretly destroyed, the adjoining townships are to be dis- trained, without proof of complicity, to make good the damage. But Edward was not the man to reform his neigh- bour's household while he left his own in disorder ; and one of the most conspicuous features The royal of the Statute of Westminster the Second officials, is its elaborate provision against abuses by royal officials. Not only are the circuits of the judges carefully regulated, to prevent, on the one hand, oppressive multiplication of public burdens by too frequent sessions, and on the other, delay and in- justice arising from insufficient attendance, but the more glaring abuses of official power are treated with a frankness which must have convinced the cul- prits that the King, at least, had his eyes open to their misdeeds. Sheriffs and bailiffs who start bogus prosecutions, with the object of extorting money, are to suffer imprisonment. Petty officials of local tribunals, who connive with feudal landowners to withdraw suits from the circuit courts, in order that they may oppress the poor in private, are to make fine to the King, and to pay threefold damages to the party injured. Whilst the duty of service on juries is asserted, the obvious danger of persecu- 2 1 4 Edward Plantagenet tion and extortion, by the officials charged with the preparation of the lists, is carefully guarded against. A very significant clause requires the sheriffs to give sealed receipts for all writs delivered to them for execution. The fees of the hierarchy of royal officials, from the Marshal and the Cham- berlain, down to the porters, cyrographers, and clerks, are carefully regulated. And, finally, a most wholesome clause lays it down emphatically, that no royal official may accept a share of, or purchase any interest in, property which is the subject-matter of dispute in the royal courts. The Statute of Westminster the Second is, per- haps, mainly concerned with the conduct of the The ex- King's local representatives in the country chequer districts ; but an almost contemporary ordinances. r t^ i i~\ i • i group of Exchequer Ordinances made strict and much-needed reforms in the machinery of the central government. The cherished abuse of all revenue officials, from the days of Falkes de Breaute" to the days of Marlborough and Stephen Fox, viz., the retention of heavy balances in their private pockets, was sternly, though, it is to be feared, in- effectually forbidden by Edward's rules. The em- ployment of irresponsible private agents in the King's business is strictly prohibited. Alleged de- ductions on account of expenses are to be carefully scrutinised by independent surveyors. Oppressive exaction, even of the King's debts, is deprecated. And it is twice laid down, but, alas ! ineffectually, that the special royal privileges of the Exchequer process, which were intended for the benefit of the The English Justinian 2 1 5 King only, are not to be made use of by private persons.* Leaving, for the moment, the eloquent comment on these regulations furnished by the pro- ceedings of the year 1290, we return to our analysis of the Statute of Westminster the Second. The third and last great object of this Statute may be said to have been, to apply to ordinary litigants the same rules of justice and Reform of moderation which, as we have seen, the legal process - King had imposed on the feudal nobility and his own officials. The farther back we go in legal his- tory, the more clear does it become, that the abuse of legal process, by litigants and officials alike, is no new thing, but, on the contrary, an ancient evil which steadily, if slowly, tends to diminish. Nor is there anything in this discovery that should surprise us. Legal procedure grew out of a grad- Character of ual substitution of argument for violence, early legal and it bears the marks of its origin at P roces| »- every turn. The doing of " abstract justice" is, no doubt, an unwise ideal for any human tribunal to cherish. But long before the far more modest ideal of " substantial justice " arises in the minds of judges and legislators, the most exalted aim of courts of justice is to secure a " fair fight ", of a kind which shall not disturb public order. And a subtle or wealthy litigant no more refrains from profiting *This wholesome rule proved en tirely unable to withstand the op- position of two powerful interests : (i) of the Exchequer judges, to whom increased business meant increased fees, and (2) of wealthy litigants, who coveted the special privileges exercisable by a royal litigant, and were willing to pay for them. It was evaded, as every student of our legal history knows, by the use of transparent fictions. 2 1 6 Edward Plantagenet by tricks or bribery, than a modern general refrains from exercising his skill or resources because he knows that his adversary is a fool. Early reforms in the administration of justice are really made in the interests of sport, rather than in the interests of what we call justice. Even now, the fascination of a great lawsuit, for the mass of men, lies in the excite- ment of the duel between plaintiff and defendant, or between Crown and prisoner, rather than in any desire to see injustice reproved or wickedness pun- ished. In early society, the Court Day is one of the few excitements in a monotonous existence ; and unfair tricks and outrageous oppression are gradu- ally prohibited, just as wide bats and " no balls " have been prohibited in cricket — because they spoil sport. The details of the Statute show that Ed- ward's advisers thoroughly grasped this truth. They are far too technical to be set out here ; but, broadly speaking, we may say, that they are aimed solely at preventing collusion, fraud, and delay, offences (as we should deem them) which are inconsistent with wholesome sport. The first obviously tends to deceive the spectators, and stands on the same foot- ing as the " pulling " of a horse in the Derby. The second is always unpopular in a society which pre- fers the exercise of physical to mental force; and the third is obviously disappointing to people who have come a long way to see the performance, and are apt to lose the thread of the story if the in- tervals between the acts are too long. So the dowress, the life tenant, or other temporary occu- pant of land, who allows himself to be defeated in The English Justinian 217 lawsuit by a collusive claimant, with a view t II | II ■s° A 2" 235 236 Edward Plantagenet [1289- of Norway, now chose, as his second wife, Yolande, second daughter of Robert IV., Count of Dreux, and of Beatrix of Montfort, and, therefore, a ist Nov., 1285. . . relation of his own through his mother, Mary of Coucy, who was a granddaughter of Alix of Dreux. But the marriage was destined to be followed by another of the many tragic events which had marred Death of Aiex- the fortunes of the House of Malcolm anderin. Ceanmore. Alexander had given some offence by restricting the franchises which the great see of Durham claimed to exercise north of the Tweed, and evil things were prophesied against him, which, of course, were fulfilled by his sudden death. The winter of 1285-86 had been startled by storms of thunder and lightning ; and men waited in suspense for the meaning of the portent. On the 18th of March, 1286, Alexander dined in high state at Edin- burgh Castle. In the evening he started off, despite the protests of his courtiers, to visit his bride at Kinghorn. At Queensferry, the boatman vainly tried to persuade him to turn back. He reached Inverkeithing, accompanied only by three squires. Once more he was warned, but he dashed on. In the darkness and the storm his companions lost their way, and, when the morning broke, it was found that the King's horse had plunged over the Fifeshire cliffs, or, as some accounts have it, stumbled in the deep sand, killing his master on the spot. The King's body was carried to Dunfermline, and his widow, seizing her opportunity, feigned herself with child. But the trick was detected by the Earl of V2V2] Scotland 237 ■ ~- ^ ,^__^^____^____^^_____^^____^^^^^__^_^__^ Buchan, and the Queen fled to France, where she soon married Arthur of Brittany, bringing him the Montfort inheritance, and becoming the ancestress of the Montfort Dukes of Brittany. Edward's heart must have quickened when he heard the news ; for the line of Malcolm Ceanmore was dwindled now to a feeble thread in The the person of the little Maid of Norway, position and there is small doubt that his mind Alexander's was already bent on the union of the two death - countries. But he was too wise to force matters ; and he left the Scottish nobles to arrange for the guardianship of the realm. The temptations of so rich a prize proved too much for concord, and it might have fared ill with the little Maid, had she not been safe at Bergen, under her father's care. In April, 1289, Edward reaped the fruit of his steady friendship with Eric and his dead father, Magnus ; for the Norwegian King, evidently unwilling to trust his daughter in the hands of the Scottish nobles, and equally unwilling to leave his own king- dom, practically placed the conduct of the negotia- tions for the marriage and establishment of the little Queen in the hands of the English King. It was a great triumph for Edward, and, so far as the evidence goes, it was obtained by no un- The worthy means.* In the autumn of the marriage year a meeting took place between ^ ne ne e 01 " Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow with Bruce of * There is some trace of a modest distribution of pensions by An- tony Bek, one of Edward's representatives in Norway. But they are on too small a scale to be anything more than the usual diplomatic compliments of the day. 238 Edward Plantagenet ri289- Anandale and John Comyn, as representatives of Scottish interests, and the Bishops of Worcester and Durham, with the Earls of Pembroke and Surrey, at Salisbury ; and it was there agreed that the Maid should be sent to England (not Scotland), free from all marriage engagements, to remain under Edward's care until the state of Scotland permitted of her safe residence there. Even in this event, the Scot- tish commissioners undertook that she should not marry without the consent both of Edward and Eric. In truth, the Scottish nobles had themselves been reduced to beg Edward's help. In September, Duncan, Earl of Fife, the chief Regent, a cruel and avaricious tyrant, had been murdered by his own followers, and the realm was in confusion. In reply to the request for help, Edward merely bade the people obey the surviving Regents, promising to visit the country in the fol- lowing year. But he had already made up his mind as to the line to be pursued, for, on the 16th Novem- ber, he obtained from the Papal Chancery a dispensa- tion for the marriage of the Maid of Norway with his eldest son, Edward of Caernarvon, afterwards Prince of Wales. So obvious, indeed, was this solution of the pro- blem, that the Scots themselves seem to have raised Treaty of little objection, merely making conditions Brigham. j- se cure the independence of their king- dom. On March 10, 1290, a very full meeting of the Scottish Estates, consisting of the four Regents,* ♦These were the Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, John Comyn, and James Stawart. 1292] Scotland 239 ten bishops, twelve earls, thirty-four abbots and priors, and forty-eight of the lesser barons, and in- cluding both the Bruces (but not John Balliol), sol- emnly agreed to a marriage between the young Queen and Edward's son, upon terms to be settled between a Scottish deputation and the King, at a Parliament to be held at London the approaching Easter. The conference was duly held, and, after a solemn interchange of missions between England, Norway, and Denmark, the terms of the arrange- ment were recorded in an elaborate document bear- ing date the 18th July, 1290. The laws and customs of Scotland were to remain unaltered by the per- sonal union of the two Crowns ; if the marriage proved childless, the Crown of Scotland was to go as though the union had never taken place ; during the marriage and after, there was to be no hint of sub- jection on the part of the northern kingdom ; the King, as guardian of his infant son and daughter- in-law, was to name a deputy to reside in Scotland and hear the complaints of the widow and or- phan ; no Scottish official and no Scottish Parlia- ment was to be compelled to cross the border ; no castles were to be built to overawe Scotland ; none of the Scottish national relics or charters were to be removed. Alas, for the vanity of human schemes ! Hardly had Antony Bek, the great Bishop of Durham, re- ceived his appointment of deputy under Death the treaty of Brigham, when there arose ofthe an evil rumour (only too well founded) of the death of the little Queen, who had been put 240 Edward Plantagenet [1289- ashore on the Orkneys to break the hardships of a long sea voyage. At once the forces of anarchy Robert were loosed. Robert Bruce of Anandale, Bruce. j-^g m ost formidable claimant to the Scot- tish throne, aided by the Earls of Mar and Athol, was already in arms ; John Comyn (who had suc- ceeded to the earldom of Buchan) and John Balliol, rival claimants, were stirring ; the perennial quarrel of the Campbells and the Macdonalds was flaring up again in the western isles. Of all these dangers, the rising of Bruce was by far the most serious. Him- self an old official of Edward's father, who had suf- fered for his loyalty to the throne in the Barons' War, he had no love for Edward, who, it would appear, had treated him coldly after the victory of Evesham. More than fifty years before, his hopes had been stirred by Alexander II., who, then de- spairing of issue, had recognised him as heir to the Scottish throne ; and, on the death of Alexander 20th sept., HI., this recognition had been tacitly re- "86. newed in a secret " bond of manrent," entered into by the Bruce, the Stewart, the Dunbar, and the Macdonald families at Turnberry Castle. By his marriage with Isabella Clare, daughter of the old Earl Gilbert of Gloucester, and aunt of the Red Earl, Bruce was connected with the most powerful families in England and Ireland ; and there is at least a strong presumption, that he was aided in his plans by no less a person than Richard Burgh, Earl of Ulster, whose English relations were allied by mar- riage with the Clares. Despite his eighty years, Bruce was too formidable a rival to be neglected. 1292] Scotland 241 And Edward did not neglect him. When the news arrived, the King was holding a Parliament at Clipstone in Nottinghamshire ; but he at. Edward once gave orders for stores to be collected moves. at Berwick-on-Tweed, and, as soon as the session was over, himself started northward for the scene of action. But he was almost immediately The checked in his march by a terrible blow, Queen's — the Queen dying at Hardby, near Lin- coln, on the evening of the 28th November, 1289. Edward at once abandoned his journey. The body was embalmed and moved to Lincoln Cathedral; whence, on the 5th December, it started on that mournful procession to London which is marked by twelve great crosses erected by the sorrowing King, at Lincoln, Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, North- ampton, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St. Alban's, Waltham, West Cheap, and Charing, each on the spot where the body rested on its journey. The Queen was laid in her tomb in Westminster Abbey, in the newly erected chapel of Henry III., amid the profound and genuine grief of a sorrowing nation. Not until March of the following i2go. year did the King take up again his jour- ney to Scotland. At midsummer he also lost his mother, the aged Eleanor of Provence, who had long lived in retirement at Amesbury, where she had been visited by her son in the winter of his grief. But the work of the State cannot be postponed to private sorrow, and Edward, with his wonted courage and energy, bent his mind anew to the Scottish question. Deprived, by the course of affairs, 16 242 Edward Plantagenet [1289- of his cherished hopes of union, he had now to act the dignified part of arbiter, which the common Renewal of consent of the rivals for the Scottish the Scottish throne conferred upon him. There were journey. nQ ^ ess t n3Ln twelve of these claimants; but only three of them need to be taken seriously. The first was, of course, Robert Bruce of Anandale, whose strong position has already been described, but whose exact claim to the throne was based on the fact that his father, also a Robert Bruce* of Anandale, had married Isabella, second daughter of David of Huntingdon, himself the younger grand- son of David I. of Scotland, and youngest brother of William the Lion. The line of William was extinct, or survived only in the daughters of John Burgh, the grandson of his daughter Margaret, who were too remote to be seriously considered. The second claimant was John Balliol, the son of another John Balliol (of the French barony of Bailleul in Picardy) who had married Devorguilla, daughter and heiress of the Lord of Galloway by his marriage with Margaret, elder daughter of David of Hunt- ingdon, and, therefore, elder sister of Robert Bruce's mother. The third was John Hastings of Berga- venny, whose grandfather, Henry, had married Ada, the third and youngest daughter of David of Hunt- ingdon. Apart from legal questions, Hastings was by far the weakest candidate, for he was, in character * There are, to the terror of historians, no less than four " Robert Braces " in the story : viz. (i) the husband of Isabella, who died in 1245, (2) the claimant, (3) his son, known, from his marriage with the heiress of Carrick, as " Bruce of Carrick," (4) the latter's son, the ultimate King. h < s 1— I < o w '/■, H H O u en O W w o Q W g-a "I a,- o ' verdict of history must go against him. It may be reasonably urged that a statesman, espec- ially a statesman who is also a ruler, cannot be ex- pected to strive after the abstract ideals of justice which guide the conduct of a philosopher. Nor is it unreasonable to urge also in Edward's defence, that an ethical standard which is suitable even to The King and His Work 319 the average man, in his private affairs, is too high for the conduct of the business of the State. It is a lamentable, but perfectly undeniable fact, that the morality of the State is, and always has been, below the morality of the individual. But a statesman fails, beyond dispute and beyond appeal, if he mis- judges hopelessly the possibilities of the situation, and if his policy, instead of achieving his own object, merely renders that object more unattainable than ever. Yet this is precisely Edward's position with regard to Scotland. He wished, obviously, to unite the two countries. At first, circumstances seemed to favour his plans. The marriage of Edward of Caernarvon with the Maid of Norway might have produced an heir to both kingdoms, who would have anticipated James VI. by three centuries. Even when it was ordered otherwise, Edward at first be- haved wisely. There is nothing in the conduct of the Scottish trial which convicts him of bad faith, though his excessive precautions to establish his title show the longing inclination of his soul. Up to the Christmas of 1292, Edward had done nothing to alienate our sympathy — rather everything to win it. Luck had done a good deal for him in placing his favourite candidate on the Scottish throne ; yet, by the strictest of strict legal arguments, the title of John Balliol was superior to that of Robert Bruce. But, at the critical moment, Edward failed to maintain his wise attitude. He could not honestly bring himself to leave Balliol a free hand, Edward's or trust Scotland to work out her own lapse, destiny. Doubtless he was technically justified in 3 2 o Edward Plantagenet summoning Balliol to his bar ; but he acted unwisely, if he hoped to maintain his impartial position. In- evitably the Scottish barons, and, so far as they un- derstood the question, the Scottish people, believed that Scotland was being degraded to the rank of an English province. Doubtless, Balliol was a weak man, and might not have kept his country in peace. But there had been weak kings in England ; and Englishmen had overcome the difficulty in their own way. Just as the English barons in 1216 had re- sented, whilst they made use of, the help of Philip Augustus, so the Scottish barons who disliked Bal- liol resented, whilst they made use of, the help of Edward. And when Edward began to enforce his help by the aid of fire and sword, of Welsh archers and Irish footmen, he kindled in Scotland a dull flame of resentment, which soon spread beyond the narrow circle of the Lowland baronage, and which, though often apparently quenched, flamed out into fiery and terrible revenge on the day of Bannock- burn. Edward was, in truth, calling into existence, in both countries, that new national spirit which was destined to replace the dying principles of feud- alism. But whereas, in England, he was arousing it by a generous trust in his people, and a steady resist- ance to feudal aggression, in Scotland he was awak- ening it by the hard methods of persecution. There- fore, in England, the national spirit was his friend ; in Scotland, it was his foe. And his condemnation in Scotland is, that, in his last ten years, he drove fur- ther and further away that very union which he was striving, with might and main, to bring about. The King and His Work 321 With Wales, the case was different. The great outburst of Welsh literary activity in the twelfth century had enkindled a people, but it had Wales not created a nation. The one inflexible condition of national existence in the thirteenth century — unwavering obedience to a central au- thority—was not attained by the Welsh. Though they acknowledged a vague claim of leadership in the house of Llywelyn ab Jorwerth, the scattered clans which still maintained their independence were unwilling to submit to anything like settled government. The rule of the Marchers on the east and south had effectually broken up any tendency to cohesion which had previously existed. Con- sequently, it was really a choice between falling into the hands of the Marchers and falling into the hands of Edward. Again and again the family and tribal quarrels of the Welsh gave them, an easy prey, to the English armies. And when the conquest was effected, the English rule, stern as it was, was better, even for the Welsh, than the anarchy of the old days. Edward's Statute of Rhudd- lan is no fierce code of terror for a con- quered land, but a wise and statesmanlike measure. The pity of it was, that the King did not feel himself strong enough to suppress the Marcher lordships, and bring all Wales under the rule of Jus- tice and Sheriff. The real blot on the English con- nection with Wales is the brutal legislation with which Henry IV. strove to stamp out the rising un- der Owen Glendower ; but for this Edward cannot be held responsible. And the final incorporation of 322 Edward Plantagenet Wales with England, by a king in whose veins ran Welsh blood, was only the natural and fortunate re- sult of a Welsh policy which had striven to gain its ends by supporting, first one party and then the other, in the Wars of the Roses. So we come at last to England, Edward's true sphere of action. And here it is impossible to dis- pose, in a single paragraph, of the results England, of his work. We must glance at the four conspicuous sides of Edward's national position, as a soldier, an administrator, a ruler, and a legislator. As a soldier, his success is clear, and his achieve- ments great. It is not merely that Edward was a Edward's great general, so that, after the disastrous military lesson of Lewes, he never knew defeat. His masterly strategy in the campaign of Evesham, when he pinned his old instructor ruth- lessly behind the barrier of the Severn, till he could make a brilliant dash at the careless garrison of Kenilworth ; his orderly and crushing attack in the battle which followed ; his masterly conduct of the great Welsh campaign ; his flash of genius at Fal- kirk ; his unconquerable activity at the siege of Stir- ling ; all these show him the great general in the field. But his adoption of the Welsh longbow, his careful combination of horsemen and archers, his organisation of the coast guard, his commissions of array which collected the sturdy English infantry and carefully provided for their wants — all these things mark a departure from the old freebooting ways of feudal armies, with their ineffectiveness, their extravagance, their uncertainty. They are im- The King and His Work 323 portant steps in the process which led to the English victories at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, and which made England, for a time, the leading military power in Europe. As an administrator, Edward's position is far more open to criticism. But his reign is, none the less, epoch-making. True it is that, in Administra- more than one respect, the old feudal tlon - ideas of administration had been replaced by more modern methods, wellnigh a century before Edward mounted the throne. Roughly speaking, the feudal view was, that every administrative post ought to be given to a warrior, who would undertake to return for it to the King a " ferm," or fixed sum, year by year, the King asking no questions as to the way in which the work was done, or the profit made out of it by the official. The acute Angevin clerks who surrounded Henry II. convinced the King of the folly of this plan ; and the elaborate organisation of the Exchequer, and the financial " eyres ", were the results.* There grew up a new class of officials, men sprung from the ranks, who held New their posts entirely at the pleasure of the officials. King, and who were at least supposed to render a rigorous account of every penny they received. Even the older classes of officials, for example, the sheriffs, though they continued to render a " ferm," or lump sum, for the ancient sources of revenue, * These " eyres " {itinera) were, at first, merely visitations of the King's local officials by his confidential messengers. The latter used their privilege of summoning jiries of the inhabitants, to keep a check on peculation by sheriffs and escheators. Out of this practice grew up the ' ' assizes " of modern times. 324 Edward Plantagenet were held strictly to account for the newer items of taxation which were coming into vogue. After the great quarrel with the sheriffs, the taxes were usually collected by special officials of the Ex- 1170. chequer, who journeyed round the shires, and assessed the payments according to the verdicts of local juries. Before Edward's accession, too, it had become clear, that the ancient revenue, from the Crown lands New sources and the " ferm " of the shires, was becom- of revenue. j n g hopelessly inadequate; and new de- vices were being introduced. Those ancient items, originally payable in kind, had, unfortunately for the Crown, been commuted for fixed sums ; and, as the purchasing power of money was steadily falling, New royai their real value was becoming less and functions. i ess _ Q n tne ther hand, the business of government was rapidly increasing ; and, though some of this new activity, such as the administration of justice, paid its own cost and something over, other parts of it, such as the Coast Guard and the new infantry, were sources of great expense. Quite naturally, the kings and their subjects took different views of the situation. The kings said that Fiscal they must have more money ; and the questions, simple political economy of the day failed to explain why even a careful and frugal king like Edward, no less than a careless and extravagant king, like his father, was continually in need of supplies. The people — barons, clergy, merchants, peasants— all grumbled that the King ought to "live of his own," i. e., on his ancient revenue. Upon The King and His Work 325 this apparently simple issue, the great constitutional question of the thirteenth century was fought. Leav- ing, for the moment, the constitutional machinery produced by the struggle, we may notice briefly the desperate efforts made by the Crown to evade the unwelcome conclusion, that taxation could not be imposed without the deliberate and express consent of the nation, given in formal assembly. The latter principle seemed to have been expressed in terms as clear as daylight by the Great Charter of 1215. "No scutage* or aid (beyond the irregular three customary aids) may be placed upon taxation, our kingdom except by the common counsel of our kingdom " ; and the nature of this " common coun- sel " is explained in clear terms, to which we shall hereafter have to refer. But the Crown was not easily beaten. There were, for example, the Jews, hated and despised by the peo- ple amongst whom they lived, and practising that trade of usury which, according to medieval the- ology, was a deadly sin. Gathered together in their " Jewries," they trembled at the sound of the cries which told them that some ruffian debtor had egged the citizens on to plunder and slay amongst the yellow gaberdines. Gladly would they pay large sums to a powerful king to be protected from the wrath of his subjects. Fat with the spoils of rich manors, pledged by reckless Crusaders, the Jews * Scutage, or shield money, was a composition for military service due from feudal tenants of land. But the documents show pretty clearly that scutage, even when exacted, did not really free the man who paid it from personal service. 326 Edward Plantagenet were a tempting object to a needy ruler. Edward was not above the temptation. In 1271 his uncle Richard lent him 2000 marks ; and the money was secured by a pledge of the Jewries for a year. In 1278, under allegation of coinage offences, the King hung nearly 300 Jews, and seized their goods. In 1287 he extorted from them a sum of ;£ 1 2,000. It was probably a good thing for both parties when, in 1290, the King yielded to popular clamour, and ex- The Italian Polled the Jews from his dominions.* and Proven. Then Edward turned to the Italian and S ai bankers. c a h ors j n bankers, to whom he mortgaged forthcoming revenues for large sums. Another means of supply was the revenues of the churches. Not only could the King, by prolonging Ecclesiastical the vacancies of bishoprics and abbacies, revenues. draw large sums from their custodians, but he did not hesitate to press the extreme view, which had considerable vogue in medieval Europe, that, in the dire need of the State, the Church was bound to restore part at least of the wealth which royal benefactors had so liberally showered upon it. The The growing merchant class also offered merchants. a r j c jj source of revenue, which might be drawn either by way of payments for the grant of municipal privileges, or by the more brutal method of the maletolte. Especially with the alien merchants, almost as much in fear of national jealousy as the Jews, good bargains could be made, as we have seen ; * It is strange that the Jews were expelled from England by one of the greatest of her rulers, and restored by another, almost, if not equally, as great. The King and His Work 327 for, in those days, men would hardly realise that the alien custom would eventually fall, in part at least, upon the native producer. But nearer and nearer grew the day on which it would be recognised that there was but one source of legitimate taxation ; and Edward, even The solution if he did not desire this result, did much of the to bring it about. He set a good example P r °t>' em - with his first Parliament, in 1275 ; but that inexperi- enced body made the mistake of granting the Cus- toms in perpetuity, instead of for a single year. When he tried to repeat the experiment with the native merchants at York in 1303, they flatly refused. Every one of the " tenths," " fifteenths," and " twen- tieths," which the King demanded so often in his later years, strengthened the growing principle, that each demand for money was to be considered on its merits by a national assembly, and granted for one occasion only. The King profited by the vast in- crease in the movable wealth of the country ; the nation profited by the increased unity and co-opera- tive power which it obtained by the practice of parliamentary action. The keenness with which Edward watched fiscal developments is shown by his repeated Ordinances for the management of the Exchequer, and by the thoroughly scientific way in which his taxes were collected. Through the fiscal question we naturally approach that great development of parliamentary machinery, which is one of the most striking features Parliament. of Edward's life and reign. Hitherto all the organs of the central government had grown out 328 Edward Plantagenet of one simple germ — the feudal council which sur- rounded the first Norman King. It was a funda- The Feudal mental principle of feudalism that, on the council. one hand, the feudal lord could take no step of importance without consulting his immediate vas- sals ; and, on the other, that he was entitled to their presence and advice when he asked for them. His immediate vassals were his curia, or " court " ; and the word included in germ all that we now mean by the ceremonial court of His Majesty, his judicial courts, and his Council. Gradually, however, this Curia Regis assumed three more or less distinct forms. As an almost per- manent body, it comprised only the few household officials who habitually at- tended the person of the king, and who, by virtue of their nearness to his person, probably knew more of The Privy his affairs than anyone else. Very grad- Councii. ually and tentatively this body began to speak of itself as the " king's council," or his " ordin- ary " council, or, finally, as his " private " or " privy " council. But it was long before the king dared to take any great step without consulting his immedi- ate vassals as a whole ; and the next development was really caused by the unwillingness of the poorer and less important of these vassals to travel long The ' distances to the royal presence. Gradu- Magnates. a \[y the attendance becomes confined to the " great men of the realm," the " greater barons," as they are called, or the " magnates." What first drew the line between a " greater" and a "lesser" baron, we do not know ; but in the thirteenth century The King and His Work 329 the legal distinction was, that the former paid his feudal dues direct to the Exchequer, while the latter paid his to the sheriff of his county. Thus appears, by the middle of the twelfth century, a Council of Magnates, or " Great Council," which, we observe, does not call itself the " Council of the King," but the " Council of the kingdom." This body met pretty regularly once a year, and would not in the least have hesitated to assemble of its own accord, if the King had refused to summon it. It was by far the most independent body in the land, consisting, as it did, not only of the bishops and greater abbots, but also of the chief feudal potentates of the king- dom, each of whom claimed a right of individual access to the King. But it could fall back, if need were, on the humbler ranks of the baron- The common age ; and then it became, as the Great Council. Charter expresses it, the " Common Council of the kingdom." Somewhere in the early years of the twelfth cent- ury, there branched off from the first of these three bodies a permanent committee or office, The known as the Exchequer of the King. Exchequer. We cannot go into the disputes as to whether this famous institution took its rise in England, Nor- mandy, or Sicily * ; anyway, it was a Norman device. It was, of course, supposed to be concerned with revenue matters only ; and it marks the date at which the personal expenditure of the King was be- ginning to be distinguished from the expenditure * There were Norman rulers in Sicily from the middle of the eleventh century till the middle of the thirteenth. 330 Edward Plantagenet of the State. We know a great deal about it from a description drawn up by one of its officials in the The later twelfth century.* From it there (Common) branched off yet other bodies, notably the Court of Common Bench, or Common Pleas, which at first consisted merely of those offic- ials of the Exchequer who, in their financial circuits through the country, or, in their sessions at West- minster, began to hear private causes, between sub- ject and subject. It was put on a permanent footing in 1 1 78; and the Great Charter provided that it should always sit "in some certain place," instead of following the king about all over the country. Soon after, other Exchequer officials, jealous of the fees received by their former colleagues, got themselves recognised as a judicial court, the Court of Ex- The court of chequer ; but they were never called " just- Exchequer. i C es," only " barons." Finally, the King's Council, to which an appeal originally lay from the Court of Common Bench, threw off yet another body, The upper the King's or " Upper" Bench, and thus Bench. t ^ e < ( three Courts of Common Law at Westminster " f came into existence. This last de- velopment was closely connected with the appear- ance of Parliament. * The Dialogus de Scaccarioraay be seen in Stubbs' Select Charters, An English translation is to be found in Henderson's Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, p. 20. t It was some time, however, before they were really fixed at Westminster. The articles upon the Charters (see p. 279) expressly provide that the King's Bench shall follow the king wherever he goes. The technical name for the King's Bench was Coram rege court. The King and His Work 331 For a long time the word " Parliament," which means, of course, merely a " talking," was used to describe any important or public discus- Developments sion — notably that held by a Council of "fP""™" 1 - Magnates in the presence of the King. For a long while the magnates were content to rely on the un- willingness of the " lesser barons " to attend meet- ings; and it is doubtful whether the clause of the Great Charter of 12 15, which directed the summon- ing of a " Common Council," was ever really acted upon, except when 4t was desired to collect a feudal army. But still, the Great Charter had started the idea of connecting a grant of special taxation with a specially full gathering of the King's lieges, and had provided that the humbler part of this gathering should be summoned through the sheriffs of the counties, to whom they paid their taxes. The idea was seized by the Reformers of the middle of the thirteenth century ; but, instead of confining their summons to the King's " tenants-in-chief," they merely directed the sheriffs to cause two knights to be chosen in the county court, perhaps Knights of meaning that only tenants-in-chief should the shire - be chosen, and willing to excuse the irksome attend- ance of the great majority. This was done in 1254, 1 261, 1264, 1265, 1275, and 1290; and, when the practice became established, no mention was made of tenants-in-chief. By this omission, intentional or accidental, the shire representation ceased , m. Burgesses. to be feudal, and became national. Then, in 1265, Earl Simon, as we have seen, added the famous clause requiring the sheriffs to send 33 2 Edward Plantagenet burgesses as well as knights of the shire ; and, finally, Edward himself, in 1295, put the coping stone on clerical the growing fabric, by summoning the proctors. deans, archdeacons, and proctors of the humbler clergy. It was some years before the name " Parliament " was confined to this elaborately col- lected body. But more and more the model of 1295 was followed. And when people spoke of a " Parliament " in the middle of the fourteenth cent- ury, they probably meant a body of the kind rend- ered famous by Edward's assembly in November, 1295. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that Edward created, or intended to create, a Parliament Functions of * n the sense in which we now understand the Pariia- the term. At the present day Parliament performs four great functions. It legis- lates, it ventilates grievances, it criticises the details of administration, it provides money. The last of these functions alone was assigned to it by Supply. to / Edward, at least so far as the elected members were concerned. The orthodox form of the summons to the shire and borough members, as settled by Edward's ministers, and consecrated by six hundred years of practice, invites them " to do " what shall be ordained in the premises. There can be no doubt, in the circumstances of the case, that the phrase " to do " (ad faciendum) was merely a polite form of the cruder expression " to grant money," and equally little doubt that, however long the phrase has been a mere fiction, it originally ex- pressed a genuine truth. The clearest proof of this The King and His Work 333 lies in the fact, that when the King really did desire the counsel of humble persons, he knew how to ask for it, as when he summoned an assembly of citizens in 1296 to advise him on the settlement of the bor- ough of Berwick-on-Tweed. Not for nearly four hundred years did the elected members of Parlia- ment make good their claim, except in times of re- volution, to criticise the royal administration, or to cause the removal of the King's ministers. As a matter of fact, the elected members were far more anxious to establish another right, and their anxiety was wise. In all probability they ventilation 1 J 1 1 1 i ofgriev- had not the knowledge necessary to make ances. them useful critics of the royal administration. But they were an admirable machinery for the collection of popular grievances. The right of presenting pe- titions to a monarch is so useful to the ruler himself, that it is very rarely denied, even by Oriental des- pots. Nothing is so dangerous to the security of a throne as the existence of secret discontent, which the sufferers despair of being able to bring to the royal ear. Long before Parliament came into exist- ence, the English kings received petitions from their subjects. But the fate of the petitions was precari- ous. First the king had to be found ; and only stu- dents of history can realise the activity and elusive- ness of a medieval king. When found, the king had to be approached, often through a crowd of courtiers and officials, who were none too anxious to help the suppliant. Then there was the weary waiting for a reply. All these difficulties disappeared, as by magic, with the institution of Parliament. The Parliament 334 Edward Plantagenet was summoned to meet the king. Its presence could not be ignored. The distant petitioner could en- trust his plaint to the hands of his elected ' knight or burgess. The wages of the knight or burgess could be stopped if he did not do his duty ; for they were paid by his constituency, not by the royal treasury. Above all, the knights and burgesses soon found that they had a powerful weapon in their hands. They could refuse to grant taxes until the petitions which they had presented had been carefully considered and properly answered by the Crown. Thus the great constitutional prin- ciple, that redress of grievances precedes supply, came slowly to light in Edward's reign. Thus, also, we see the meaning of the careful apportionment in the Michaelmas Parliament of 1280, and so often afterwards, of the numerous petitions presented at the assembling of Parliament, among special officials or specially appointed committees, and the appear- ance of the Receiver of Petitions as a regular Par- liamentary official. In fact, the merest glance through the records of Edward's Parliaments is sufficient to convince the student, that the main business of the session was the discussion and remedy of individual grievances, while specially difficult or specially " pre- rogative" lawsuits form the other great item of work. These latter, after a few years, constituted the sole contents of the coram rege Rolls of the King's Bench ; while the private petitions which play so large a part in the records of Edward's Parliament disappeared from the rolls, and became the " private bills " of a later day. Thus the " public bills," which are so The King and His Work 335 scanty on the rolls of Edward's time, — the bills or petitions promoted by the King's ministers, or by the magnates, or by the "community" or " commu- nities" of the realm,— at last became the staple ma- terial of the Parliament Rolls, being engrossed in their final shape on the Statute Roll of the Kingdom. For that was the final work accomplished by Parlia- ment. It fused the thousand diverse interests of shires and boroughs, clergy and laity, magnates and humble folk, into one national whole ; and made possible the existence of national legislation. 7 And so we come, finally, to Edward's position as a legislator, and to the title which he has acquired, of " the English Justinian." Like most , .... . Legislation. other popular titles, it covers a certain amount of truth. Justinian, reigning over an em- pire whose civilisation had been growing The corpus for a thousand years, summed up the ■ Iuris - legal history of that civilisation in a series of works, which has become one of the priceless possessions . of Western life. In the Digest, or Pan- ,. The Digest. dects, he summarised, by a ruthless pro- cess of excision and compression, the works of that famous body of Roman jurists which was the boast of the earlier Roman Empire. To this he added a Code, or collection of imperial statutes, Th< _ cod< _ the second edition of which has been ac- cepted as an integral part of the Corpus Juris Civ- Ms. These again he supplemented by an admirable little Primer of Law, or Institutes, founded The on the similar treatise of a great Roman institutes, jurist, who had been dead three hundred years when 336 Edward Plantagenet Justinian ascended the throne. Finally, he himself contributed upwards of a hundred "Novels," or new statutes, to the legislative activity of The Novels. ' . _ . „ T . , , the Byzantine Empire. With the au- thority of one who still believed himself to be the world's master, he forbade all criticism of his com- pleted work, and all reference to other sources of authority. Within the covers of the Corpus Juris would be found, he insisted, an answer to every legal difficulty which could possibly arise to vex the minds of his subjects. The work of Justinian was, in itself, a great work, and would, at all times, have commanded Justinian's the respect of the world. But, owing to work. the special circumstances of its fate, it achieved a success such as has not been secured by more than a dozen other books in the world's history. It became, in fact, the secular Bible of Christendom, second only in authority and influence to the Sacred Scriptures. The age which produced it was a literary age, the ages which followed it were rude and ignorant. Even in its decay, the mighty Roman Empire contrasted forcibly with the crowd of petty princedoms into which it broke up. The rude barbarian princes of Europe listened with awe to the pages which spoke to them of a civilisa- tion so far above their own. At first the Corpus Juris was known to them only through hasty and crude adaptations, made by the orders of the con- quering chieftains of the Teutonic invasions ; but, gradually, as Europe settled down after the storms of the Dark Ages, the pure text was received into The King and His Work 337 the homes of the new learning, and ardent students of the precious volumes carried the fame of their wisdom from the schools of Bologna, Pisa, and Padua, to the Courts of Europe. At first the Church had no word of blame for the new move- ment ; for the Byzantine Empire, though schismatic according to later Western ideas, was a Christian Empire, and Justinian's Code accorded due honour to Bishop and Church. And, even after the Church, pursuing her new policy of isolation, had forbidden her priests to study the "secular" or "imperial" laws, and had set up a formidable rival in the Canon Law, the enthusiasm of the students of the Roman Law abated not a whit. In fact, the sincere flattery of imitation was accorded to Justinian's work by the Papal legislators, who compiled their Corpus Juris Canonici on that very model which the Corpus Juris Civilis had seemed to render inevitable. And, in drawing a sharp line between the professors of the Civil and the Canon Laws, the Papacy made one of its most fatal mistakes, by alienating from its service a body of men who, for the first time in the history of Western Christendom, made a seri- ous inroad upon the intellectual monopoly of the Church. As a very natural result, the nations of Western Europe, or rather their rulers, began, at the end of the Middle Ages, to look upon the Corpus , Dfluenc= of Juris of Justinian, not merely as a monu- the "Corpus ment of Roman greatness, but as a com- Ju"s." plete code of conduct for the guidance of secular affairs. Realising fully, that the barbarous local 338 Edward Plantagenet customs of their own peoples, and even the general maxims of feudalism, offered no satisfactory guides for the new world of commerce which was growing up around them, they turned more and more for the so- lution of new and complicated problems to the ever ready pages of the Digest and the Code, spam. j n some caseS) as } n Spain, the Roman Law spoke of a past which men were proud to contrast with the present. There, the compilation of the Siete Partidas, modelled on the seven years of the legal curriculum in the Roman Law schools, was the Christian's badge of defiance to the hated but im- pressive Saracen. In others, as in Southern France, the continuity between the city life of the Roman provinces, and the city life of Gas- cony and Aquitaine, was at least a cherished tradition ; and it was natural that Southern France should be a pays du droit tcrit. But, that Germany and Scotland* should accept the Corpus Juris of Justinian is, apparently, so wild a freak of history as to deserve at least a passing Scotland. ' . . v s wonder. And this wonder is increased by the discovery that England, so closely allied with Scotland and Germany in the course of history, so like them in civilisation, so near them in geographi- es rejection cal position, at the critical moment, re- by England, jected the Roman Law, and went off on an entirely different course. And this critical moment is the reign, or at least the lifetime, of Edward Plantagenet. * It was, of course, long after the thirteenth century that Germany and Scotland received the Roman Law. But the fact is none the less striking on that account. The King and His Work 339 The explanation is twofold. It lies partly in the notion which men then held of Law, partly in the circumstances of English history. It would , 7 Explanation be very easy to wander gradually into spec- of the ulations as to the nature of Law, which difference - would land us in a hopeless quagmire of confusion. " Law " is one of those familiar words conception which everybody thinks he understands, of law. until he tries to explain them. But, briefly speak- ing, the notion of Law, in the thirteenth century, vi- brated between three different conceptions. One was, that Law was a divine or, at least, a T he phiioso- philosophical ideal, which could only be P her ' s view - discovered by great wisdom and patient study. Men ought to conform their lives to a high ideal. And, as the Scriptures dealt mainly with principles and gen- eralities, a system of Law was necessary to define details. The supporters of this view urged the adop- tion of the Corpus Juris as the required ideal. No- where else, they urged, was it possible to find such profound wisdom applied to the details of secular affairs. The revival of learning tended to give im- mense weight to the writings of the ancients ; and Europe in the thirteenth century was far too uncriti- cal to distinguish between the dates of Aristotle, Virgil, and the Roman jurist, Gaius. They were all "ancients," and that was enough. But it is doubtful whether the Corpus Juris would ever have obtained its immense success, had it not itself ostensibly maintained a second con- The military ception of Law, which had always found favour with a certain very important, if limited, class 34o Edward Plantagenet of persons. " The pleasure of the Prince has the force of Law," is one of the best-known maxims of the Institutes; and we can well imagine that the sentence would not be unacceptable from the lips of a courtier. As a fact, of course, the Corpus Juris of Justinian had been compiled in the days of a despotism the completest, though, it must be admitted, also the wisest, which the world has ever seen. In the system of the later Roman Empire, everything centred in the person of the Prince, and his will was final and absolute. How near, how very near, England was to the adoption of a system based on the principles of Narrowness of the Corpus Juris, few but professed the escape. historians know. Two facts, small in themselves, but very significant, reveal the possi- bilities of the situation more clearly than pages of vague description. One is, that Edward for years maintained in his pay, as his trusted adviser, Francesco Accursi, himself a learned student and professor of the Roman Law, and the son of the still more famous Accursi, the author of the Great Gloss, and the contemporary and fellow townsman of that Azo to whom Bracton was in- debted for so much of his language. The other is, that an anonymous, but highly popular law book, compiled in the late thirteenth century, fig- ures the Law as issuing from the mouth of the king. Evidently, there were symptoms, in the thirteenth century, of a very powerful alliance be- tween the philosophical and the military concep- tions of Law. The King and His Work 341 The humble alternative of these two lofty no- tions is the view, that Law is nothing but the formal expression of the common sense The popular of the average man, as evidenced by his view - daily practice. In other words, Law is the formal shape into which the customs of average men are translated by the processes of legislation and judi- cial decision. It may be said that the conduct of the average man is influenced unconsciously by the teachings of religion and philosophy, and, con- sciously, by the commands of authority. That may be so ; and yet, just as it is true that the average man's conduct never precisely conforms either to the ideals of the philosopher or to the wishes of authority, so it is true, that custom always differs substantially both from religious and philosophical teaching, and from the injunctions of the most minute arbitrary directions. But it is not true, as has been superficially argued, that a system of Law which, like the English, is based on custom, is merely licensed anarchy. On the contrary, it acts somewhat severely on all abnormal persons, whether they be, like thieves and murderers, mere laggards in the march of civilisation, or, on the other hand, men with advanced ideas, who make their fellow-men uncomfortable by too rapid pro- gress. To use a very simple simile, drawn from the practice of the examiner, Law, on this principle, aims at reproducing the best works of the second class, leaving out of account the geniuses in the first rank, and the dullards in the third. This conception of Law, it must be admitted, 342 Edward Plantagenet offers to the ruler of a country which adopts it a somewhat humble position. He cannot pose as the The function Heaven-sent deviser of an ideal system, oftheicgis. which he imposes at the sword's point upon a stupid and ignorant people. But his task is, for all that, an important one, none the less important that it makes no superhuman demands upon the intellect. To put it briefly, he has to collect, to harmonise, and to formulate. It is only in quite recent years that we have known how these humble processes went on in England during the lifetime of Edward. For the first two he can hardly claim the credit ; the last has won him the title of the English Justinian. One of the essential conditions of Law is uniform- ity. But this condition did not exist in the Eng- land of the early twelfth century, when the Collection of . . the materials royal justices first began those circuits of of English fae shires which have been one of the most law. . important features in the domestic history of the country for the last seven hundred years. These justices found that each county, almost each district, had its own local customs, differing, ever so slightly perhaps, but still differing, from the cus- toms of its neighbours. As more and more cases came before the royal courts, as more and more juries delivered their verdicts in answer to royal enquiries, more and more clear did this truth be- come. But, on the other hand, more and more did the royal officials come to know of the customs of the land. The clerkly skill of the Norman and the Angevin official made ever more and more plain The King and His Work 343 the habits and practices of the people. Greater and greater grew the collection of Plea Rolls which ac- cumulated in the King's Exchequer. Thus the materials for a Common Law were collected. Then came a man with a great love of order and symmetry, a man capable of casting the work of the previous century into a compact and har- Rractnn monious form. This man was Henry of Bratton, or, as we call him, " Bracton." No man could have been better fitted for the task. In spite of his borrowings from Azo, and his references to Digest and Institutes, he did not, perhaps, know very much of Roman Law. But he knew something of it, and, as a cathedral chancellor, he must also have known something of the Canon Law. But, above all, as an experienced royal justice, deeply learned in the practice of the royal courts, he had unique qual- ifications for his task. The vital point in his work is that, whilst occasionally borrowing the language and arrangement of the Roman Law, whilst courtly in his references to the King, and civil to his brother ecclesiastics, he draws the body and bones of his work from the records of the Bench and circuit courts. This fact, long suspected from internal evid- ence by intelligent students, has been finally estab- lished, within the last twenty years, by the discovery of the very materials used by Bracton in writing his great book. Having access, by virtue of his official position, to the Plea Rolls, he made from them a col- lection of some two thousand cases,* and from this * The MS. containing these cases was discovered hy Professor Vinogradoff in the British Museum in 1884, and has been lucidly 344 Edward Plantagenet collection he drew the rules which compose his book. For a century the work of assimilation had been going on throughout England, no doubt largely through the efforts of the justices themselves. A nation had been slowly born, with a consciousness of unity, and a willingness to give up minor differences for the sake of that unity. How much of the process was due to Bracton, how much to his predecessors, it is not possible to say, though, in many cases, we know the very names of the men to whom he attrib- utes those decisions which have become part of Eng- lish Law. But to him, at least, is due the credit of having cast into harmonious and enduring shape a huge mass of material which had been slowly accum- ulating. Still the different local customs lingered on, in the local courts of the manor, the borough, and the shire. But these were every day dwindling be- side the vigorous growth of the royal courts ; and for the royal courts there was now a Common Law, a law common to all the realm. Bracton's book was given to the world only a few years before Edward ascended the throne. Edward's Edward's task was to give it free play. For the task. fi rst t; me; English Law could be thought of as a whole, as a body which could grow and develop. Bracton's treatise had stated, not only the rules of conduct themselves, but the legal procedure by which they could be enforced. In so doing, it had revealed some anomalies and many imperfec- tions. These it was the peculiar province of the edited by Professor Maitland, under the title of Bracton's Notebook (Cambridge Press, 1887.) The King and His Work 345 King to remedy ; for the courts which they affected were his courts. It is astonishing how much of Ed- ward's celebrated legislation is concerned with mat- ters of procedure. In the substance of the Law there were still moot points. These the King could settle, as he did in the case of De Donis (see p. 208), where he had to take the reactionary side, and in the case of Quia Emptores (see p. 274), where progress won a decided victory. But, perhaps unconsciously, he did the greatest thing for the future of English Law when he called into existence the National Parlia- ment. For, better even than the judges on circuit, the elected members of Parliament knew the customs of the people, and, with the aid of their counsel and advice, future kings could formulate from time to time the rules of English Law. p^\nd thus provision was made for the perpetual continuance of that pro- cess of collection which had been begun by the King's justices, and which had to be done over and over again if Law was to keep abreast of national progress. \J Not until Edward is dead do we find in the statute book the honoured formula which describes the King as enacting "with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons in Parlia- ment assembled ";* but this consummation became clearly inevitable, from the day on which the Model Parliament assembled at Westminster in November, 1295. To explain all that it means it would be neces- sary to write the comparative history of the States of Western Europe, and to show how the history of * The first equivalent seems to be the preamble of the Statute of York in 1318. But the Statute of Carlisle came very near it. 346 Edward Plantagenet England has been so different from the history of France, of Italy, of Germany, and of Spain. Briefly put, to close an already overlong chapter, it meant the creation of that national and political unity which, until quite modern days, was the highest achievement of European statesmanship ; it meant the appearance on the world's horizon of that new star, which was to light the nations on their march to freedom. > For the ideals and principles adopted by the English people under the rule of Edward, were not merely the ideals and principles which nerved the arm of the Puritan soldier, and raised the banner of defiance against Napoleon. They were the ideals and principles which, despite the excesses of the French Revolution, struck the fetters of tyranny from the limbs of Western Europe, and breathed the spirit of justice and freedom into the mighty Commonwealths of America and Australia. APPENDIX A Perhaps a brief account of the Archbishop's two years of office will reveal the character of English rule in Ire- land in the thirteenth century, as well as any other description. Leaving Dublin on July 20th, 1288, the new Justitiar started for Connaught, where the royal officials had of late been insubordinate. But, before he started, he or- dered a muster of the King's forces at Kildare for Sep- tember 9th, with a view to proceedings against the Irish of Offaly and Leix. Presumably the Archbishop suc- ceeded in his mission in Connaught. At any rate, he reached Kildare on the appointed day, reviewed the " service of Leinster," and made arrangements for guard- ing the borders of Kildare county. On the 16th he heard that the Roches were up in Desmond, and immediately hurried to Carlow, where he arrived on the 18th, and, after a vigorous tour in the province, changing his quarters frequently* he succeeded in pacifying the district by mid-October. The rest of the year he spent in thoroughly organising the defences of Leinster ; and on January 14th, 1289, proclaimed the Tipperary " eyre," which was carried out under his personal supervision. But none the less he returned to Desmond to complete * He slept four nights at Cork, three at Limerick, two at Clonmel. 347 348 Edward Plantagenet his task of restoring order, a duty which occupied him till the end of January. After this there seems to have been a lull. But before Easter the Justitiar found himself compelled to visit Meath, to fortify it against the attacks of an Irish chief- tain with an unpronounceable name.* He fortified Ath- lone, Randown, and Roscommon ; and then visited Dromore and Tuam, cutting a pass through the hills at Delvin. Then, after another hasty glance at the progress of the Tipperary " eyre," the Justitiar determined to take seriously in hand the war in Offaly ; and, for that purpose, he collected a considerable army at Baltinglass in September, 1289. Apparently, the exhibition was suc- cessful ; at any rate we find the records saying that, after the campaign, the Irish of Offaly and Leix gave no more trouble. From the conclusion of the campaign until Christmas, the Justitiar was at headquarters, holding the pleas of the Crown at Dublin. At the beginning of the new yearf he held a Parliament of the magnates at Dublin, and another at Kilkenny in Easter week, whence he was called away by the news of a rising at Athlone. The Ath- lone business employed his energies until May 14th, 1290; and, a month later, the indefatigable Justitiar set off on a prolonged " eyre," lasting sixty-five days, through Meath, Connaught, Tipperary, Cork, Limerick, and Waterford. It is not surprising to learn, that these exer- tions resulted in the loss of nineteen of the King's horses, valued at ^78. But the officials claimed that " Ireland was ever afterwards at peace." * " Omalethel" or " Omalachelyn." ( ? " O'Malley "). \ Of course, this expression is strictly out of place in this connec- tion. In the thirteenth century, and for centuries afterwards, the "new year " began on March 25th. LIST OF AUTHORITIES (A) OFFICIAL. The Statutes of the Realm. Vol. I. 1810. (Record Commis- sion.) Acts of the Parliament of Scot- land. Vol. I. 1844. (Record Commission.) Fadera . . . ab ingressu Willelmi I. ... ad nostra usque tempora. Vol. I. Pts. I. and II. Rymer. ed. Clarke. 1816. Rotuli Parliamentorum. Vol. I. (1278-1327.) n. d. Records of the (Lenten) Parlia- ment of 1305. ed. Maitland. 1893. (Rolls Series.) The Parliamentary Writs, etc. Vol. I. ed. Palgrave. 1827. (Record Commission.) Pleadings in Parliament, ed. Ryley. 1661. Rotuli Hundredorum. Vols. I. and II. ed. Illingworth. 1812. (Record Commission.) Placita de Quo Warranto, ed. Illingworth. 1818. (Record Commission.) Taxatio Ecclesiastica . . . Papa Nicholai IV. 1802. (Record Commission .) Documents Illustrative of Eng- lish History, ed. Cole. 1844. The Red Book of the Ex- chequer. Vols. I., II., and III. ed. Hall. 1896. (Rolls Series.) Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland. Vols. I. and II. ed. Bain. 1881. Vol. IV. (Addenda). 1888. (Register Series.) Documents and Records Illus- trating the History of Scot- land. (1278-1307.) ed. Palgrave. 1837. (Record Commission.) Documents Illustrative of the History of Scotland. (1286- 1306.) Vols. I. and II. ed. Stevenson. 1870. (Register Series.) 349 35° Authorities Calendar of Documents Relating to Ireland. Vols. I.-V. ed. Sweetman. 1871-1886. (Re- cord Office Series.) Roles Gascons. Vol. I. ed. Francisque- Michel. 1885. Sup- plement, ed. Bemont. 1896. Vol. II. ed. Bemont. 1900. ( Documents InMits sur I'His- toire de France.) Rotulus Wallioe. ed. Philipps. 1865. (Privately printed.) (B) CHRONICLES. Malthcei Parisiensis . . . Chron- ica Majora. Vols. IV.-VII. ed. Luard. 1877-1883. (Rolls Series.) Flores Historiarum. Vols. II. and III. ed. Luard. 1890. (Rolls Series.) Chronicon de Lanercost. ed. Stevenson. 1839. (Maitland Club.) Chronicon . . . Walteri de Hemingburgh. ed. Hamilton. 1848. (English Historical Society.) Chronica Monasterii S. Albani. (Chronica Willelmi Ris- hanger.) ed. Riley. 1865. (Rolls Series.) Chronica de Mailros. ed. Ste- venson. 1835. (Bannatyne Club.) Annates Monastici. ed. Luard. Vol. II. (Waverley.) 1865. (Rolls Series.) Liber de Antiquis Legibus. ed. Stapleton. 1846. (Camden Society.) Croniques de London. ed. Aungier. 1844. (Camden Society.) Brut y Tywysogion. ed. Wil- liams ab Ithel. i860. (Rolls Series.) Journey of William of Rubruck. ed. Rockhill. igoo. (Hakluyt Society.) (C) MISCELLANEOUS. Roberti Grosseteste Epistolce. ed. Luard. 1861. (Rolls Series.) Liber de Adventu Fratrum Min- orum. ( ' Monumenta Fran- ciscana.J Vol. I. ed. Brewer. 1858. Vol. II. ed. Howlett. 1882. (Rolls Series.) Documents Illustrative of . . . Sir William Wallace. ed. Stevenson. 1841. (Maitland Club.) Illustrations of Scottish History. ed. Stevenson. 1834. (Mait- land Club.) The Political Songs of England. ed. Wright. 1839. (Camden Society.) Historic and Municipal Docu- ments of Ireland, ed. Gilbert. J870. (Rolls Series.) Authorities 35i Chartularies of St. Mary's Ab- Munimenta Academica. ed. bey, Dublin. Vols. I. and II. Series.) ed. Gilbert. 1845. (Rolls Letters Illustrative of the Reign of Henry III. ed. Shirley. Vol.11. 1866. (Rolls Series.) Anstey. Vols. I. and II. 1868. (Rolls Series.) De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Anglice. Bracton. Vols. I.-V. 1878. (Rolls Series.) (N.B. — It must be understood that the above is only a selection from the contemporary authorities. It does not profess to be exhaustive.) INDEX Aachen, 94. Aberconway, Treaty of, 185; Cas- tle of, 192. Abergavenny, 140. Accursi, Francesco, 159, 340. Adam of Stratton, 229-231. Administration, Royal, 323-327. Adolf of Nassau, Emperor, 255. Agriculture, 14-16, 45, 46. Ain Galud, Battle of, 153. Albemarle, Countess of, 229- 231. Albemarle, Earl of, 113. Albigenses, 63. Alcuin of York, 19. Alexander II., King of Scot- land, 79. Alexander III., King of Scot- land, 79, 80, 235, 236. Alexander IV., Pope, 105, 115. Alfonso of Poitou, 82. Alfonso, son of Edward I., 159, 194. Alfonso X., King of Castile, 91. Almaine, Henry of, 126, 132, 137, 144, 150, 151, 153- Almaine, Richard of, see Rich- ard, King of the Romans. Alton, 150. Amadeus of Savoy, 72. Amicia of Leicester, 84. Amiens, 127. Amiens, Mise of, 128, 129. Anglesey, 183, 186, 190, 193, 195. Anjou, Province of, 117. Apulia, see Sicily and Apulia, Kingdom of. Aquitaine, see Gascony. Arabs, The, 41, 42. Aragon, Kingdom of, 7 2 - Articles upon the Charters, 289. Artois, County of, 82. Artois, Robert II., Count of, 269. Audley, James, 113. Axholme, Isle of, 150. Aymer of Montfort, the elder, 84, 158, 184. Aymer of Valence, 98, 114, 121. Aymer II. of Valence, 300, 302. Azo, 340. B Bachelors, Community of the, 118, 119. Baghdad, 37, 153- Balliol, John, 130, 132. Balliol, John, the " Competitor," 242, 249-252, 259, 260, 267, 287. Basset, Ralph, 126. Battle, Trial by, 198. Bayonne, 257. Beam, Gaston, Count of, 86, 151, 158, 159- 353 354 Index Beatrix of Provence, 71. Burgh, Hubert, 98. Bek, Antony, Bishop of Dur- Burgh, Richard, 100, 240. ham, 160, 239, 285, 292, 303, Burgh, Walter, 316. 307. Burnell, Robert, 188, 249. Bellegarde, 269. c Benedictine Order, 18-20, 21, 60, 61, 69. Caermarthen, County of, 185 ; Benedict, St., 18. city of, 196. Benedict XI., Pope, 298. Caernarvon, Castle of, 192, 195; Benevento, Battle of, 93. city of, 193 ; County of, 195. Berksted, Bishop, 134. Cambuskenneth, see Stirling. Berwick-on-Tweed, 246, 247, Canon Law, 44. 268, 284. Cantelupe, Bishop of Worcester, Bigod, Hugh, 113, 121, 128, 113, 126. 134. Capet, Hugh, 24. Bigod, Roger, Earl of Norfolk, Cardigan, County of, 183. 85, 108, 128. Carthusian Order, 22, 61. Bigod, Roger, II., 276, 285, 298. Castile, 24. Bigorre, County of, 86. Castillon, 257. Blaye, 257. Castles, 54-56. Bohun, Humphrey, Earl of Here- Celestine V., Pope, 258. ford, 113, 128, 132. Ceredigion, see Cardigan. Bohun, Humphrey, II., Earl of Chalons, Battle of, 33, 36 ; Hereford, 231, 232, 276, 285, " Little Battle" of, 158. 298. Chancellorship, 172. Boniface of Savoy, 73, 79, ioo, Charles of Anjou, 71, 93, 144, "113. 154- Boniface VIII., Pope, 258, 266, Charles of Valois, 250, 258. 269, 280, 287, 291, 298. Charles the Great, 7, 19. Bordeaux, 83, 257, 266. Chester, Earldom of, 91, 195, Bourg, 257. China, 34, 38. Bow, The long, 57. Circumspecte Agatis, see Statutes. Bracton, 274, 343, 344. Cistercian Order, 22, 61. Brecknock, 130. Clare, Bogo, 232, 233. Brest, 266. Clare, see Gloucester, Earl of. Bridgenorth, 126. Clement IV., Pope, 153. Brigham, Treaty of, 238, 239. Clement V., Pope, 298, 301. Brittany, John of, 67, 256, 257, Clergy, position of, 58-60, 265. 297. Clericis Laicos, 269, 270, 291. Bruce, Isabella, 231. Clifford, Roger, 147, 189. Bruce, Mary, 300. Cluniac Order, 21, 61. Bruce, Robert, afterwards King, Coast Guard, 260, 261. 267, 287, 299-302. Coinage, 76, 287. Bruce, Robert, of Carrick, 239, Commerce, 38-40. 251, 267. Committee of Twelve, The (of Bruce, Robert, the "Competi- 1244), 86, 87. tor," 132, 239, 240, 246. Committee of Twenty-four, The Burgesses, in Parliament, 136, (of 1258), 109. 331, 332. Common Bench (or Pleas), 170, Burgh-on-Sands, 302. 330. Index 355 Common Council of the Realm, E 329, 331- Common Law, 342-346. Edmund, Earl of Cornwall (son Common Recoveries, 210, 211. of Richard, King of the Ro- Commons, "approvement" of, mans), 165, 232. 212, 213. Edmund, Earl of Lancaster (son Comyn, John, 132, 240, 246. of Henry III.), 105, 144, 259, Comyn, John, "the Red", 266, 269. 294, 299. Edward of Caernarvon (after- Confirmation of the Charters, wards Edward II.), 193, 194, 279. 238, 239, 277, 279, 280, 283, Conrad of Hohenstaufen, 36, 299, 300. 92. Eleanor of Castile (wife of Ed- Conrad the Franconian, 24. ward), 91, 157, 241. Constantinople, 42. Eleanor of Montfort, 184. Consultation, see Statutes. Eleanor of Provence (Queen of Convocations, 263. England), 70, 77, 134, 241. Conway, see Aberconway. Eleanor, sister of Henry III., Coroners, Ordinance of, 175. 85, "7. Corpus Juris Civilis, 108. Entails, Statute of, 207-211. Coucy, Castle of (plan), 56. Eric of Norway, 235, 250, 251. Coucy, Mary of, 79. Essoins, 198. Council of Fifteen, The (of Evesham, Battle of, 142-144. 1258), in, 112. Exchequer, 168-172, 214, 215, Council, The, 86, and see Com- 329. 330. mon Council, Great Council, Privy Council, etc. F Courtrai, 291. Crakehall, John of, 113. Falkes of Breaute, 98. Crossbows, 57, 190. Falkirk, 285. Crusades, The, 30, 31, 40-42 ; Feudalism, 9-13, 160-168, 212, Edward in, 152-157. 213, 274. Customs revenues, 149, 150, 175, Fife, Duncan, Earl of, 238. 178, 293. Fitzgeoffrey, John, 113. Cyprus, 155. Fitzwarren, William, 316. Flanders, 159. D Flanders, Thomas of, 79. Flint, Castle of, 192 ; County Damietta, Battle of, 153. of, 195. David ab Gruffyth, 124, 125, France, 23, 24, 82, 250, 251, 181, 189, 192. 253-260, 339. David ab Llywelyn, 78, 79. Franchises, Enquiry into, 160- De Donis, see Entails, Statute 168, and see Feudalism. of. Francis, St., 64, 65. Derby, Ferrers, Earl of, 130. Franciscans, The, 64-69, 288. Dialogus de Scaccario, 330, n. Franks, The, 5, 6, 9-17. Dominicans, The, 62, 63. Frankton, Stephen, 191. Dublin, 313, 314, 3 r 7, 31.8. Frederick II., Emperor, 27, 35, Dunbar, 267. 36, 60, 92, 93. Durham, See of, 160, 161. Friars, The, 62-69. 356 Index Gascony, 81, 83, 87-90, 101, 254- 258, 2gr, 310-312. Gaveston, Piers, 306. Gerard Bat, 75. Germany, 24, 339. Gifford, William, 140. Gladys of Wales, 79. Glamorgan, Lordship of, 177. Gloucester, city of, 126, 130, 140. Gloucester, Gilbert, Earl of, the elder, 89, 113, 116, 117, 120, 121, 125. Gloucester, Gilbert, Earl of, the younger, 125, 130, 134, 137, 138, 144, 151, 154, 165, 231, 232. Gordon, Adam, 150. Gray, Richard, 113, 114. Great Council, 329. Greathead, Bishop, 59, 68, 89, 104, 105. Gregory the Great, Pope, 20. Gregory VII., Pope, 17, 27-29. Gregory IX., Pope, 27, 92. Grey, Reginald, 189. Gruffyth ab Llywelyn, 78, 181. Guelf and Ghibellin, 28. Guienne, see Gascony. Guy of Lusignan, 95, 114, 132. Guy of Montfort, 84, 143, 144, 158, 188. Gwely, 180. Gwenllian, daughter of Syvelyn ab Gruffyth, 187. H Hanse League, 39. Harbledown, 135. Harun al Rashid, 8. Hastings, John, Earl of Ber- gavenny, 242. Helena of Wales, 181. Henry II., King of England, 81, 177, 178. Henry III., King, 70-83. Henry IV., Emperor, 27. Henry of Montfort, 137, 143. Henry the Fowler, 24. Hereford, city of, 138-140. Hereford, Earls of, see Bohun. Heresy, 62, 63. Hildebrand, see Gregory VII., Pope. Holland, William of, 92, 250. Holy Roman Empire, The, 26- 28, 94. Hospitallers, see Knights Hos- pitallers. Hugh of Lusignan, 73, 82, 153. Hundred Rolls, 163, 164. Hungary, 62. Infantry, rise of, 56, 57. Inglewood, Forest of, 188. Innocent III., Pope, 63, 65. Innocent IV., Pope, 60, 92, 103- 105. Ireland, 91, 312-318, and Ap- pendix A. Isabella, daughter of Philip III., of France, 280. Isabella of Angouleme, 73. Isabella of Hainault, 82. Isabella, sister of Henry III., 92. Jerusalem, capture of, 29, 30, Jews, The, 40, 41, 101, 130, 325, 326. Joanna, sister of Henry III., 79. Joan of Munchensey, 98. John, King of England, 81, 178. John Mansel, 76, 113, 126. John XII., Pope, 27. Joppa, Admiral of, 155, 156. Judicial corruption, 228-231. Justinian, 335, 336. Justitiarship, 171. K Kempsey, 141. Kenilworth, 141, 144, 151; Dic- tum of, 144, 145, 150. Index 357 Kerak, Battle of, 155. Kilwardby, Archbishop, 185. King's or " Upper" Bench, 170, 171. 330. Knighthood, Distraint of, 187. Knights Hospitallers, The, 31. Knights Templars, The, 31 ; Master of, 156. L Lanercost, Priory of, 188, 301. Latimer, William, 256, 257. Law, nature of, 339—342. Learning, The New, 42-44. Legal procedure, Reform of, 215-220, 345. Legislation, 335-346. Leicester, town, 130. Leo III., Pope, 7. Leominster, 140. Lewes, Battle of, 131 ; Mise of, 134. Leyburn, Roger of, 126, 154. Liegnitz, Battle of, 36. Lincoln, Earl of, 257, 259, 269. Llywelyn ab Gruffyth, 124, 125, 130, 139, 144, 180-192. Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, 78. London, 74-78, 114, 115, 120, 129, 130, 149, 151, 224, 225, 256. Lord and serf, 48-51. Louis VIII. King of France, 81. Louis IX.,- St., 71, 81, 83, 118, 121, 124, 153, 154. Lusignan, see Guy and Hugh. Lyons, Council of (1245), 103 ; (1274). 159- M Macau, 257. Madoc of Wales, 256, 257. " Mad Parliament," see Oxford, Parliament and Provisions of. Magnates, 328. Magyars, The, 24. Mahometanism, 6, 8, 36-38. Maine, Province of, 117. Maletolte, illegal tax on wool, 273, 274, 279. Manfred of Sicily, 93. Mansel, John, see John Mansel. Mansourah, Battle of, 32, 118, 153- Marche, La, Count of, see Hugh of Lusignan. Marcher lordships, 177, 178, 183, 198. Margaret, daughter of Philip III. of France, 255, 280, 281, 287. Margaret of Provence, Queen of France, 71, 123. Margaret, sister of Edward L, 80. Margaret, the " Maid of Nor- way," 237-240. Margaret, wife of Eric of Nor- way, 235. Marsh, Adam of, 89. Martel, Charles, 6. Martin, papal collector, 103. Menai Straits, 190. Merchants, foreign, 40, 41, 150, 201-207, 326, 327. Meredith, Rhys ab, see Rhys. Merioneth, County of, 195. Methven, 300. Militia, 56. " Model " Parliament, The, 327, 332. Mohi, Battle of, 36. Monasteries, 101. Monasticism, 17-22, 60-62. Monfort, see Simon, Henry, Peter, Aymer, Eleanor. Mongols, The, 32-38, 94, 152, 153- Monmouth, 140. Montreuil, County of, 91. Mortimer, Ralph, 79, 181. Mortimer, Roger, 113, 128, 130, 138, 181, 189. Mortimer, the younger, 191. Mortmain, 40, 222, 256. N Nazareth, Battle of, 155. Newcastle, Treaty of, 79. Newport, 140. 358 Index Nicholas IV., Pope, 270. Ponthieu, County of, 91, 188. Nocera, Battle of, 93. Pramunientes Clause, 263, 265. Norfolk, Earls of, see Bigod. Privy Council, 328. Norham, meeting at, 245, 246. Proctors, clerical, 263, 332. Normans, The, 24. Provence, County of, 70-72. Northampton, 130. Prussia, 31. North Wales, 195. Nottingham, 130. Q O Quia Emptores, see Statutes. Quo Warranto proceedings, 164- Odo, Count of Paris, 23. 168. Oleron, Island of, 95, 115, 311. Orewin Bridge, 191. R Ottobon, 150, 151. Otto the Great, Emperor, 26, 27. Rageman Ordinance, 175. Outlawry, 271, 272. Raymond Berenger of Pro- Owain Goch, 181, 186. vence, 70. Oxford, The Friars in, 67, 68 ; Rent, appearance of, 53. Parliament and Provisions of, Revenue, 324-327. 106-114, rI 8, 125, 126. Rhuddlan, Treaty of, 78; Statute of, 194-199- P Rhys ab Meredith, 183, n., 250. Richard Fitzaylwin, 75. Papacy, The, 5, 59, 60. Richard, King of the Romans, Papal Taxation, 102-105. 74, 79, 85, 87, 89, 93, 120, Paris, Treaty of (1259), 117. 121, 124, 132, 137, 153. Parliament, 327-335. Rions, 257, 258. Peckham, Archbishop, 188. Rochester, 131. Pembroke, city of, 138 ; Earldom Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, 169. of, 177. Roman Law, study of, 42-44, Persia, 34. 335-338. Peter, Bishop of Hereford, 99, Rosslyn, 293. 126. Royal officials, abuses by, 172- Peter des Roches, 73, 98. 174- Peter of Montfort, 113, 127, 130, Russia, 35. x 43- Peter of Savoy, 73, 87, 99, 100, S "3, 151- Peter the Hermit, 30. St. Alban's, 124. Petitions in Parliament, 295, St. Asaph, 193. 333-335- St. John, John, 256, 257, 259. Peyrehorade, 269. St. Mathieu, 266. Philip Augustus, King of France, St. Sever, 258. 81, 82. Saintes, Battle of, 83. Philip IV., King of France, 154, Saladin, 32. 158, 280, 291. Sanchia of Provence, 71. Philip of Savoy, 73. Sancho IV., King of Castile, 255. Ploughs, thirteenth-century, 48. Savoy, Palace of the, 100. Poitou, Province of, 117. Scandinavia, 25, 27. Index 359 Scotland, 79-80, 233-252, 278, 282-286, 292-295, 296-303, 318-320, 339. Segrave, John, 293. Segrave, Stephen, 113. Sheriffs, 172. Shrewsbury, 126, 185, 192. Shrewsbury, Treaty of, 186. Sicily, 154, 157. Sicily and Apulia, Kingdom of, 92, 93, 101. Simon of Montfort, the elder, 63, 84. Simon of Montfort, the Re- former, 74, 84-90, 113, 114, 116, 117, 121, 127, 130-146. Simon of Montfort, son of the Reformer, 130, 138, 144. Snowdon, 185. Soulis, John of, 289, n., 293. South Wales, 196. Spain, -24, 25, 339. Statutes of Acton Burnel, or "Merchants," 201-207; Ar- ticles upon the Charters, 289 ; Carlisle, 301 ; Circuvispecte Agatis, 222, 223 ; Consulta- tion, 223, 224; Gloucester, 164; Marlborough, 145; Merchants, see Statutes of Acton Burnel ; Mortmain, 222 ; Rhuddlan, 194-198 ; Tallage, Confirmatio Cartaru?n, 279 ; Westminster the First, 172-174 ; Westmin- ster the Second, De Donis,2