The History of England, Volume II Edward III Miscellaneous transactions of this reign
by David Hume
It is remarked by an elegant historian,r that Conquerors, though usually the bane of human kind, proved often in those feudal times, the most indulgent of sovereigns: They stood most in need of supplies from their people; and not being able to compel them by force to submit to the necessary impositions, they were obliged to make them some compensation, by equitable laws and popular concessions. This remark is, in some measure, though imperfectly, justified by the conduct of Edward III. He took no steps of moment without consulting his parliament, and obtaining their approbation, which he afterwards pleaded as a reason for their supporting his measures.s The parliament, therefore, rose into greater consideration during his reign, and acquired more regular authority than in any former time; and even the house of commons, which, during turbulent and factious periods, was naturally depressed by the greater power of the crown and barons, began to appear of some weight in the constitution. In the later years of Edward, the king’s ministers were impeached in parliament, particularly lord Latimer, who fell a sacrifice to the authority of the commons;t and they even obliged the king to banish his mistress by their remonstrances. Some attention was also paid to the election of their members; and lawyers, in particular, who were, at that time, men of a character somewhat inferior, were totally excluded the house during several parliaments.u
One of the most popular laws, enacted by any prince, was the statute, which passed in the twenty-fifth of this reign,w and which limited the cases of high treason, before vague and uncertain, to three principal heads, conspiring the death of the king, levying war against him, and adhering to his enemies; and the judges were prohibited, if any other cases should occur, from inflicting the penalty of treason, without an application to parliament. The bounds of treason were indeed so much limited by this statute, which still remains in force without any alteration, that the lawyers were obliged to enlarge them, and to explain a conspiracy for levying war against the king to be equivalent to a conspiracy against his life; and this interpretation, seemingly forced, has, from the necessity of the case, been tacitly acquiesced in. It was also ordained, that a parliament should be held once a year or oftener, if need be: A law which, like many others, was never observed, and lost its authority by disuse.x
Edward granted above twenty parliamentary confirmations of the Great Charter; and these concessions are commonly appealed to as proofs of his great indulgence to the people, and his tender regard for their liberties. But the contrary presumption is more natural. If the maxims of Edward’s reign had not been in general somewhat arbitrary, and if the Great Charter had not been frequently violated, the parliament would never have applied for these frequent confirmations, which could add no force to a deed regularly observed, and which could serve to no other purpose, than to prevent the contrary precedents from turning into a rule, and acquiring authority. It was indeed the effect of the irregular government during those ages, that a statute, which had been enacted some years, instead of acquiring, was imagined to lose force, by time, and needed to be often renewed by recent statutes of the same sense and tenor. Hence likewise that general clause, so frequent in old acts of parliament, that the statutes, enacted by the king’s progenitors, should be observed;y a precaution, which, if we do not consider the circumstances of the times, might appear absurd and ridiculous. The frequent confirmations in general terms of the privileges of the church proceeded from the same cause.
It is a clause in one of Edward’s statutes, that no man, of what estate or condition soever, shall be put out of land or tenement, nor taken nor imprisoned, nor disherited, nor put to death, without being brought in answer by due process of the law.z This privilege was sufficiently secured by a clause of the Great Charter, which had received a general confirmation in the first chapter of the same statute. Why then is the clause so anxiously, and, as we may think, so superfluously repeated? Plainly, because there had been some late infringements of it, which gave umbrage to the commons.a
But there is no article, in which the laws are more frequently repeated during this reign, almost in the same terms, than that of purveyance, which the parliament always calls an outrageous and intolerable grievance, and the source of infinite damage to the people.b The parliament tried to abolish this prerogative altogether, by prohibiting any one from taking goods without the consent of the owners,c and by changing the heinous name of purveyors, as they term it, into that of buyers:d But the arbitrary conduct of Edward still brought back the grievance upon them; though contrary both to the Great Charter, and to many statutes. This disorder was in a great measure derived from the state of the public finances and of the kingdom; and could therefore the less admit of remedy. The prince frequently wanted ready money; yet his family must be subsisted: He was therefore obliged to employ force and violence for the purpose, and to give tallies, at what rate he pleased, to the owners of the goods which he laid hold of. The kingdom also abounded so little in commodities, and the interior communication was so imperfect, that, had the owners been strictly protected by law, they could easily have exacted any price from the king; especially in his frequent progresses, when he came to distant and poor places, where the court did not usually reside, and where a regular plan for supplying it could not easily be established. Not only the king, but several great lords, insisted upon this right of purveyance within certain districts.e
The magnificent castle of Windsor was built by Edward III. and his method of conducting the work may serve as a specimen of the condition of the people in that age. Instead of engaging workmen by contracts and wages, he assessed every county in England to send him a certain number of masons, tilers, and carpenters, as if he had been levying an army.f
They mistake, indeed, very much the genius of this reign, who imagine that it was not extremely arbitrary. All the high prerogatives of the crown were to the full exerted in it; but what gave some consolation, and promised in time some relief to the people, they were always complained of by the commons: Such as the dispensing power;g the extension of the forests;h erecting monopolies;i exacting loans;k stopping justice by particular warrants;l the renewal of the commission of trailbaton;m pressing men and ships into the public service;n levying arbitrary and exorbitant fines;o extending the authority of the privy council or star-chamber to the decision of private causes;p enlarging the power of the mareschal’s and other arbitrary courts;q imprisoning members for freedom of speech in parliament;r obliging people without any rule to send recruits of men at arms, archers, and hoblers to the army.s
But there was no act of arbitrary power more frequently repeated in this reign, than that of imposing taxes without consent of parliament. Though that assembly granted the king greater supplies than had ever been obtained by any of his predecessors, his great undertakings and the necessity of his affairs obliged him to levy still more; and after his splendid success against France had added weight to his authority, these arbitrary impositions became almost annual and perpetual. Cotton’s Abridgment of the records affords numerous instances of this kind, in the firstt year of his reign, in the thirteenth year,u in the fourteenth,w in the twentieth,x in the twenty-first,y in the twenty-second,z in the twenty-fifth,a in the thirty-eighth,b in the fiftieth,c and in the fifty-first.d
The king openly avowed and maintained this power of levying taxes at pleasure. At one time, he replied to the remonstrance made by the commons against it, that the impositions had been exacted from great necessity, and had been assented to by the prelates, earls, barons, and some of the commons;e at another, that he would advise with his council.f When the parliament desired, that a law might be enacted for the punishment of such as levied these arbitrary impositions, he refused compliance.g In the subsequent year, they desired that the king might renounce this pretended prerogative; but his answer was, that he would levy no taxes without necessity, for the defence of the realm, and where he reasonably might use that authority.h This incident passed a few days before his death; and these were, in a manner, his last words to his people. It would seem, that the famous charter or statute of Edward I. de tallagio non concedendo, though never repealed, was supposed to have already lost by age all its authority.
These facts can only show the practice of the times: For as to the right, the continual remonstrances of the commons may seem to prove that it rather lay on their side: At least, these remonstrances served to prevent the arbitrary practices of the court from becoming an established part of the constitution. In so much a better condition were the privileges of the people even during the arbitrary reign of Edward III. than during some subsequent ones, particularly those of the Tudors, where no tyranny or abuse of power ever met with any check or opposition, or so much as a remonstrance, from parliament.
In this reign we find, according to the sentiments of an ingenious and learned author, the first strongly marked and probably contested distinction between a proclamation by the king and his privy-council, and a law which had received the assent of the lords and commons.i
It is easy to imagine, that a prince of so much sense and spirit as Edward, would be no slave to the court of Rome. Though the old tribute was paid during some years of his minority,k he afterwards withheld it; and when the pope in 1367 threatened to cite him to the court of Rome, for default of payment, he laid the matter before his parliament. That assembly unanimously declared, that king John could not, without a national consent, subject his kingdom to a foreign power: And that they were therefore determined to support their sovereign against this unjust pretension.l
During this reign, the statute of provisors was enacted, rendering it penal to procure any presentations to benefices from the court of Rome, and securing the rights of all patrons and electors, which had been extremely encroached on by the pope.m By a subsequent statute, every person was out-lawed who carried any cause by appeal to the court of Rome.n
The laity at this time seem to have been extremely prejudiced against the papal power, and even somewhat against their own clergy, because of their connexions with the Roman pontiff. The parliament pretended, that the usurpations of the pope were the cause of all the plagues, injuries, famine, and poverty of the realm; were more destructive to it than all the wars; and were the reason why it contained not a third of the inhabitants and commodities, which it formerly possessed: That the taxes, levied by him, exceeded five times those which were paid to the king: That every thing was venal in that sinful city of Rome; and that even the patrons in England had thence learned to practise simony without shame or remorse.o At another time, they petition the king to employ no churchman in any office of state;p and they even speak in plain terms, of expelling by force the papal authority, and thereby providing a remedy against oppressions, which they neither could nor would any longer endure.q Men who talked in this strain, were not far from the reformation: But Edward did not think proper to second all this zeal. Though he passed the statute of provisors, he took little care of its execution; and the parliament made frequent complaints of his negligence on this head.r He was content with having reduced such of the Romish ecclesiastics, as possessed revenues in England, to depend entirely upon him by means of that statute.
As to the police of the kingdom during this period, it was certainly better than during times of faction, civil war, and disorder, to which England was so often exposed: Yet were there several vices in the constitution, the bad consequences of which all the power and vigilance of the king could not prevent. The barons, by their confederacies with those of their own order, and by supporting and defending their retainers in every iniquity,s were the chief abettors of robbers, murderers, and ruffians of all kinds; and no law could be executed against those criminals. The nobility were brought to give their promise in parliament, that they would not avow, retain, or support any felon or breaker of the law;t yet this engagement, which we may wonder to see exacted from men of their rank, was never regarded by them. The commons make continual complaints of the multitude of robberies, murders, rapes, and other disorders, which, they say, were become numberless in every part of the kingdom, and which they always ascribe to the protection that the criminals received from the great.u The king of Cyprus, who paid a visit to England in this reign, was robbed and stripped on the highway with his whole retinue.w Edward himself contributed to this dissolution of law, by his facility in granting pardons to felons from the solicitation of the courtiers. Laws were made to retrench this prerogative,x and remonstrances of the commons were presented against the abuse of it:y But to no purpose. The gratifying of a powerful nobleman continued still to be of more importance than the protection of the people. The king also granted many franchises, which interrupted the course of justice and the execution of the laws.z
Commerce and industry were certainly at a very low ebb during this period. The bad police of the country alone affords a sufficient reason. The only exports were wool, skins, hydes, leather, butter, tin, lead, and such unmanufactured goods, of which wool was by far the most considerable. Knyghton has asserted, that 100,000 sacks of wool were annually exported, and sold at twenty pounds a sack, money of that age. But he is widely mistaken both in the quantity exported and in the value. In 1349, the parliament remonstrate, that the king, by an illegal imposition of forty shillings on each sack exported, had levied 60,000 pounds a year:a Which reduces the annual exports to 30,000 sacks. A sack contained twenty-six stone, and each stone fourteen pounds;b and at a medium was not valued at above five pounds a sack,c that is, fourteen or fifteen pounds of our present money. Knyghton’s computation raises it to sixty pounds, which is near four times the present price of wool in England. According to this reduced computation, the export of wool brought into the kingdom about 450,000 pounds of our present money, instead of six millions, which is an extravagant sum. Even the former sum is so high, as to afford a suspicion of some mistake in the computation of the parliament with regard to the number of sacks exported. Such mistakes were very usual in those ages.
Edward endeavoured to introduce and promote the woollen manufacture by giving protection and encouragement to foreign weavers,d and by enacting a law, which prohibited every one from wearing any cloth but of English fabric.e The parliament prohibited the exportation of woollen goods, which was not so well judged, especially while the exportation of unwrought wool was so much allowed and encouraged. A like injudicious law was made against the exportation of manufactured iron.f
It appears from a record in the Exchequer, that in 1354 the exports of England amounted to 294,184 pounds seventeen shillings and two-pence: The imports to 38,970 pounds three shillings and six-pence money of that time. This is a great balance, considering that it arose wholly from the exportation of raw wool and other rough materials. The import was chiefly linen and fine cloth, and some wine. England seems to have been extremely drained at this time by Edward’s foreign expeditions and foreign subsidies, which probably was the reason, why the exports so much exceed the imports.
The first toll we read of in England, for mending the highways, was imposed in this reign: It was that for repairing the road between St. Giles’s and Temple-Bar.g
In the first of Richard II. the parliament complains extremely of the decay of shipping during the preceding reign, and assert, that one sea-port formerly contained more vessels than were then to be found in the whole kingdom. This calamity, they ascribe to the arbitrary seizure of ships by Edward, for the service of his frequent expeditions.h The parliament in the fifth of Richard renew the same complaint,i and we likewise find it made in the forty-sixth of Edward III. So false is the common opinion, that this reign was favourable to commerce.
There is an order of this king, directed to the mayor and sheriffs of London, to take up all ships of forty tun and upwards to be converted into ships of war.k
The parliament attempted the impracticable scheme of reducing the price of labour after the pestilence, and also that of poultry.l A reaper, in the first week of August, was not allowed above two pence a day, or near six pence of our present money; in the second week a third more. A master carpenter was limited through the whole year to three pence a day, a common carpenter to two pence, money of that age.m It is remarkable, that, in the same reign, the pay of a common soldier, an archer, was six-pence a day; which, by the change, both in denomination and value, would be equivalent to near five shillings of our present money.n Soldiers were then inlisted only for a very short time: They lived idle all the rest of the year, and commonly all the rest of their lives: One successful campaign, by pay and plunder, and the ransom of prisoners, was supposed to be a small fortune to a man; which was a great allurement to enter into the service.o
The staple of wool, wool-fells, leather, and lead, was fixed by act of parliament in particular towns of England.p Afterwards it was removed by law to Calais: But Edward, who commonly deemed his prerogative above law, paid little regard to these statutes; and when the parliament remonstrated with him on account of those acts of power, he plainly told them, that he would proceed in that matter as he thought proper.q It is not easy to assign the reason of this great anxiety for fixing a staple; unless perhaps it invited foreigners to a market, when they knew beforehand, that they should there meet with great choice of any particular species of commodity. This policy of inviting foreigners to Calais was carried so far, that all English merchants were prohibited by law from exporting any English goods from the staple; which was in a manner the total abandoning of all foreign navigation, except that to Calais.r A contrivance seemingly extraordinary.
It was not till the middle of this century that the English began to extend their navigation even to the Baltic;s nor till the middle of the subsequent, that they sailed to the Mediterranean.t
Luxury was complained of in that age, as well as in others of more refinement; and attempts were made by parliament to restrain it, particularly on the head of apparel, where surely it is the most obviously innocent and inoffensive. No man under a hundred a year was allowed to wear gold, silver, or silk in his clothes: Servants also were prohibited from eating flesh meat, or fish, above once a day.u By another law it was ordained, that no one should be allowed, either for dinner or supper, above three dishes in each course, and not above two courses: And it is likewise expressly declared, that soused meat is to count as one of these dishes.w It was easy to foresee that such ridiculous laws must prove ineffectual, and could never be executed.
The use of the French language, in pleadings and public deeds, was abolished.x It may appear strange, that the nation should so long have worn this badge of conquest: But the king and nobility seem never to have become thoroughly English, or to have forgotten their French extraction, till Edward’s wars with France gave them an antipathy to that nation. Yet still, it was long before the use of the English tongue came into fashion. The first English paper which we meet with in Rymer is in the year 1386, during the reign of Richard II.y There are Spanish papers in that collection of more ancient date.z And the use of the Latin and French still continued.
We may judge of the ignorance of this age in geography, from a story told by Robert of Avesbury. Pope Clement VI. having, in 1344, created Lewis of Spain prince of the fortunate Islands, meaning the Canaries, then newly discovered; the English ambassador at Rome and his retinue were seized with an alarm, that Lewis had been created king of England; and they immediately hurried home, in order to convey this important intelligence. Yet such was the ardour for study at this time, that Speed in his Chronicle informs us, there were then 30,000 students in the university of Oxford alone. What was the occupation of all these young men? To learn very bad Latin, and still worse Logic.
In 1364, the commons petitioned, that, in consideration of the preceding pestilence, such persons as possessed manors holding of the king in chief, and had let different leases without obtaining licences, might continue to exercise the same power, till the country were become more populous.a The commons were sensible, that this security of possession was a good means for rendering the kingdom prosperous and flourishing; yet durst not apply, all at once, for a greater relaxation of their chains.
There is not a reign among those of the ancient English monarchs, which deserves more to be studied than that of Edward III. nor one where the domestic transactions will better discover the true genius of that kind of mixed government, which was then established in England. The struggles, with regard to the validity and authority of the great charter, were now over: The king was acknowledged to lie under some limitations: Edward himself was a prince of great capacity, not governed by favourites, not led astray by any unruly passion, sensible that nothing could be more essential to his interests than to keep on good terms with his people: Yet on the whole it appears, that the government, at best, was only a barbarous monarchy, not regulated by any fixed maxims, or bounded by any certain undisputed rights, which in practice were regularly observed. The king conducted himself by one set of principles; the barons by another; the commons by a third; the clergy by a fourth. All these systems of government were opposite and incompatible. Each of them prevailed in its turn, as incidents were favourable to it: A great prince rendered the monarchical power predominant: The weakness of a king gave reins to the aristocracy: A superstitious age saw the clergy triumphant: The people, for whom chiefly government was instituted, and who chiefly deserve consideration, were the weakest of the whole. But the commons, little obnoxious to any other order; though they sunk under the violence of tempests, silently reared their head in more peaceable times; and while the storm was brewing, were courted by all sides, and thus received still some accession to their privileges, or, at worst, some confirmation of them.
It has been an established opinion, that gold coin was not struck till this reign: But there has lately been found proof that it is as ancient as Henry III.b
[r] Dr. Robertson’s Hist. of Scotland, B. I.
[s] Cotton’s Abridg. p. 108, 120.
[t] Ibid. p. 122.
[u] Cotton’s Abridg. p. 18.
[w] Chap. 2.
[x] 4 Edw. III. chap. 14.
[y] 36 Edw. III. cap. 1. 37 Edw. III. cap. 1, &c.
[z] 28 Edw. III. cap. 3.
[a] They assert, in the 15th of this reign, that there had been such instances. Cotton’s Abridg. p. 31. They repeat the same in the 21st year. See p. 59.
[b] 36 Edw. III. &c.
[c] 14 Edw. III. cap. 19.
[d] 36 Edw. III. cap. 2.
[e] 7 Rich. II. cap. 8.
[f] Ashmole’s hist. of the garter, p. 129.
[g] Cotton’s Abridg. p. 148.
[h] Cotton, p. 71.
[i] Cotton’s Abridg. p. 56, 61, 122.
[k] Rymer, vol. v. p. 491, 574. Cotton’s Abridg. p. 56.
[l] Cotton, p. 114.
[m] Ibid. p. 67.
[n] Cotton’s Abridg. p. 47, 79, 113.
[o] Ibid. p. 32.
[p] Ibid. p. 74.
[q] Ibid.
[r] Walsing. p. 189, 190.
[s] Tyrrel’s Hist. vol. viii. p. 554. from the records.
[t] Rymer, vol. iv. p. 363.
[u] P. 17, 18.
[w] Rymer, vol. iv. p. 39.
[x] P. 47.
[y] P. 52, 53, 57, 58.
[z] P. 69.
[a] P. 76.
[b] P. 101.
[c] P. 38.
[d] P. 152.
[e] Cotton, p. 53. He repeats the same answer in p. 60. Some of the commons were such as he should be pleased to consult with.
[f] Cotton, p. 57.
[g] Ibid. p. 138.
[h] Ibid. p. 132.
[i] Observations on the statutes, p. 193.
[k] Rymer, vol. iv. p. 434.
[l] Cotton’s Abridg. p. 110.
[m] 25 Edw. 111. 27 Edw. III.
[n] 27 Edw. III. 38 Edw. III.
[o] Cotton, p. 74, 128, 129.
[p] Ibid. p. 112.
[q] Cotton, p. 41.
[r] Ibid. p. 119, 128, 129, 130, 148.
[s] 11 Edw. III. cap. 14. 4 Edw. III. cap. 2. 15 Edw. III. cap. 4.
[t] Cotton, p. 10.
[u] Ibid. p. 51, 62, 64, 70, 160.
[w] Walsing. p. 170.
[x] 10 Edw. III. cap. 2. 27 Edw. III. cap. 2.
[y] Cotton, p. 75.
[z] Ibid. p. 54.
[a] Ibid. p. 48, 69.
[b] 34 Edw. III. cap. 5.
[c] Cotton, p. 29.
[d] 11 Edw. III. cap. 5. Rymer, vol. iv. p. 723. Murimuth, p. 88.
[e] 11 Edw. III. cap. 2.
[f] 28 Edw. III. cap. 5
[g] Rymer, vol. v. p. 520.
[h] Cotton, p. 155, 164.
[i] Cap. 3.
[k] Rymer, vol. iv. p. 664.
[l] 37 Edw. III. cap. 3.
[m] 25 Edw. III. cap. 1, 3.
[n] Dugdale’s Baronage, vol. i. p. 784. Brady’s hist. vol. ii. App. No 92. The pay of a man at arms was quadruple. We may therefore conclude, that the numerous armies, mentioned by historians in those times, consisted chiefly of ragamuffins, who followed the camp, and lived by plunder. Edward’s army before Calais consisted of 31,094 men; yet its pay for sixteen months was only 127,201 pounds. Brady, ibid.
[o] Commodities seem to have risen since the Conquest. Instead of being ten times cheaper than at present, they were in the age of Edward III. only three or four times. This change seems to have taken place in a great measure since Edward I. The allowance granted by Edward III. to the earl of Murray, then a prisoner in Nottingham castle, is one pound a week; whereas the bishop of St. Andrews, the primate of Scotland, had only six-pence a day allowed him by Edward I.
[p] 27 Edw. III.
[q] Cotton, p. 117.
[r] 27 Edw. III. cap. 7.
[s] Anderson, vol. i. p. 151.
[t] Id. p. 177.
[u] 37 Edw. III. cap. 8, 9, 10, &c.
[w] 10. Edw. III.
[x] 36 Edw. III cap. 15.
[y] Rymer, vol. vii. p. 526. This paper, by the style, seems to have been drawn by the Scots, and was signed by the wardens of the marches only.
[z] Rymer, vol. vi. p. 554.
[a] Cotton, p. 97.
[b] See Observations on the more ancient Statutes, p. 375. 2d edit.
