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The History of England from the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377)
The Rule Of Montfort And The Royalist Restoration
by Tout, T.F. (M.A.)
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On the day after the battle, Henry III.
accepted the terms imposed upon him by Montfort in a treaty called
the "Mise of Lewes," by which he promised to uphold the Great
Charter, the Charter of the Forests, and the Provisions of Oxford.
A body of arbitrators was constituted, in which the Bishop of
London was the only Englishman, but which included Montfort's
friend, Archbishop Eudes Rigaud of Rouen; the new papal legate, Guy
Foulquois, cardinal-bishop of Sabina; and Peter the chamberlain,
Louis IX.'s most trusted counsellor, with the Duke of Burgundy or
Charles of Anjou, to act as umpire. These arbitrators were,
however, to be sworn to choose none save English councillors, and
Henry took oath to follow the advice of his native-born council in
all matters of state. An amnesty was secured to Leicester and
Gloucester; and Edward and Henry of Almaine surrendered as hostages
for the good behaviour of the marchers, who still remained under
arms. By the establishment of baronial partisans as governors of
the castles, ministers, sheriffs, and conservators of the peace,
the administration passed at once into the hands of the victorious
party. Three weeks later writs were issued for a parliament which
included four knights from every shire. In this assembly the final
conditions of peace were drawn up, and arrangements made for
keeping Henry under control for the rest of his life, and Edward
after him, for a term of years to be determined in due course.
Leicester and Gloucester were associated with Stephen Berkstead,
the Bishop of Chichester, to form a body of three electors. By
these three a Council of Nine was appointed, three of whom were to
be in constant attendance at court; and without their advice the
king was to do nothing. Hugh Despenser was continued as justiciar,
while the chancery went to the Bishop of Worcester's nephew, Thomas
of Cantilupe, a Paris doctor of canon law, and chancellor of the
University of Oxford.
Once more a baronial committee put the royal authority into
commission, and ruled England through ministers of its own choice.
While agreeing in this essential feature, the settlement of 1264
did not merely reproduce the constitution of 1258. It was simpler
than its forerunner, since there was no longer any need of the
cumbrous temporary machinery for the revision of the whole system
of government, nor for the numerous committees and commissions to
which previously so many functions had been assigned. The main
tasks before the new rulers were not constitution-making but
administration and defence. Moreover, the later constitution shows
some recognition of the place due to the knights of the shire and
their constituents. It is less closely oligarchical than the
previous scheme. This may partly be due to the continued divisions
of the greater barons, but it is probably also in large measure
owing to the preponderance of Simon of Montfort. The young Earl of
Gloucester and the simple and saintly Bishop of Chichester were but
puppets in his hands. He was the real elector who nominated the
council, and thus controlled the government. Every act of the new
administration reflects the boldness and largeness of his
spirit.
The pacification after Lewes was more apparent than real, and
there were many restless spirits that scorned to accept the
settlement which Henry had so meekly adopted. The marchers were in
arms in the west, and were specially formidable because they
detained in their custody the numerous prisoners captured at the
sack of Northampton. The fugitives from Lewes were holding their
own behind the walls of Pevensey, though Earl Warenne and other
leaders had made their escape to France, where they joined the army
which Queen Eleanor had collected on the north coast for the
purpose of invading England and restoring her husband to power. The
papacy and the whole official forces of the Church were in bitter
hostility to the new system. The collapse of Henry's rule had
ruined the papal plans in Sicily, where Manfred easily maintained
his ground against so strong a successor of the unlucky Edmund as
Charles of Anjou. The papal legate, Guy Foulquois, was waiting
at Boulogne for admission into England, and, far from being
conciliated by his appointment as an arbitrator, was dexterously
striving to make the arbitration ineffective, by summoning the
bishops adhering to Montfort to appear before him, and sending them
back with orders to excommunicate Earl Simon and all his
supporters. The only gleam of hope was to be found in the
unwillingness of the King of France to interfere actively in the
domestic disputes of England. The death of Urban IV. for the moment
brought relief, but, after a long vacancy, the new pope proved to
be none other than the legate Guy, who in February, 1265, mounted
the papal throne as Clement IV. It was to no purpose that Walter of
Cantilupe assembled the patriotic bishops and appealed to a general
council, or that radical friars like the author of the Song of
Lewes formulated the popular policy in spirited verse. The
greatest forces of the time were steadily opposed to the
revolutionary government, and rare strength and boldness were
necessary to make head against them.
Before the end of 1264 the vigour of Earl Simon triumphed over
some of his immediate difficulties. In August he summoned the
military forces of the realm to meet the threatened invasion.
Adverse storms, however, dispersed Queen Eleanor's fleet, and her
mercenaries, weary of the long delays that had exhausted her
resources, went home in disgust. This left Simon free to betake
himself to the west, and on December 15 he forced the marcher lords
to accept a pacification called the Provisions of Worcester, by
which they agreed to withdraw for a year and a day to Ireland,
leaving their families and estates in the hands of the ruling
faction.
On the day after the signature of the treaty, Henry, who
accompanied Simon to the west, issued from Worcester the writs for
a parliament that sat in London from January to March in 1265. From
the circumstances of the case this famous assembly could only be a
meeting of the supporters of the existing government. So scanty was
its following among the magnates that writs of summons were only
issued to five earls and eighteen barons, though the strong muster
of bishops, abbots, and priors showed that the papal anathema had
done little to shake the fidelity of the clergy to Montfort's
cause. The special feature of the gathering, however, was the
summoning of two knights from every shire, side by side
with the barons of the faithful Cinque Ports and two
representatives from every city and borough, convened by writs
sent, not to the sheriff, after later custom, but to the cities and
boroughs directly. It was the presence of this strong popular
element which long caused this parliament to be regarded as the
first really representative assembly in our history, and gained for
Earl Simon the fame of being the creator of the House of Commons.
Modern research has shown that neither of these views can be
substantiated. It was no novelty for the crown to strengthen the
baronial parliaments by the representatives of the shire-moots, and
there were earlier precedents for the holding meetings of the
spokesmen of the cities and boroughs. What was new was the
combination of these two types of representatives in a single
assembly, which was convoked, not merely for a particular
administrative purpose, but for a great political object. The real
novelty and originality of Earl Simon's action lay in his giving a
fresh proof of his disposition to fall back upon the support of the
ordinary citizen against the hostility or indifference of the
magnates, to whom the men of 1258 wished to limit all political
deliberation. This is in itself a sufficient indication of policy
to give Leicester an almost unique position among the statesmen to
whom the development of our representative institutions are due.
But just as his parliament was not in any sense our first
representative assembly, so it did not include in any complete
sense a House of Commons at all. We must still wait for a
generation before the rival and disciple of Montfort, Edward, the
king's son, established the popular element in our parliament on a
permanent basis. Yet in the links which connect the early baronial
councils with the assemblies of the three estates of the fourteenth
century, not one is more important than Montfort's parliament of
January, 1265.
The chief business of parliament was to complete the settlement
of the country. Simon won a new triumph in making terms with the
king's son. Edward had witnessed the failure of his mother's
attempts at invasion, the futility of the legatine anathema, and
the collapse of the marchers at Worcester. He saw it was useless to
hold out any longer, and unwillingly bought his freedom at the high
price that Simon exacted. He transferred to his uncle the earldom
of Chester, including all the lands in Wales that might still be
regarded as appertaining to it. This measure put Simon in that
strong position as regards Wales and the west which Edward had
enjoyed since the days of his marriage. It involved a breach in the
alliance between Edward and the marchers, and the subjection of the
most dangerous district of the kingdom to Simon's personal
authority. It was safe to set free the king's son, when his
territorial position and his political alliances were thus
weakened.
At the moment of his apparent triumph, Montfort's authority
began to decline. It was something to have the commons on his side:
but the magnates were still the greatest power in England, and in
pressing his own policy to the uttermost, Simon had fatally
alienated the few great lords who still adhered to him. There was a
fierce quarrel in parliament between Leicester and the shifty
Robert Ferrars, Earl of Derby. For the moment Leicester prevailed,
and Derby was stripped of his lands and was thrown into prison. But
his fate was a warning to others, and the settlement between
Montfort and Edward aroused the suspicions of the Earl of
Gloucester. Gilbert of Clare was now old enough to think for
himself, and his close personal devotion to Montfort could not
blind him to the antagonism of interests between himself and his
friend. He was gallant, strenuous, and high-minded, but
quarrelsome, proud, and unruly, and his strong character was
balanced by very ordinary ability. His outlook was limited, and his
ideals were those of his class; such a man could neither understand
nor sympathise with the broader vision and wider designs of
Leicester. Moreover, with all Simon's greatness, there was in him a
fierce masterfulness and an inordinate ambition which made
co-operation with him excessively difficult for all such as were
not disposed to stand to him in the relation of disciple to master.
And behind the earl were his self-seeking and turbulent sons, set
upon building up a family interest that stood directly in the way
of the magnates' claim to control the state. Thus personal
rivalries and political antagonisms combined to lead Earl Gilbert
on in the same course that his father, Earl Richard, had traversed.
The closest ally of Leicester became his bitterest rival. The
victorious party split up in 1265, as it had split up in 1263. And
the dissolution of the dominant faction once more gave Edward a
better chance of regaining the upper hand than was to be hoped
for from foreign mercenaries and from papal support.
Gloucester was the natural leader of the lords of the Welsh
march. He was not only the hereditary lord of Glamorgan, but had
received the custody of William of Valence's forfeited palatinate
of Pembroke. He had shown self-control in separating himself so
long from the marcher policy; and his growing suspicion of the
Montforts threw him back into his natural alliance with them. Even
after the treaty of Worcester, the marchers remained under arms.
They had obtained from the weakness of the government repeated
prolongations of the period fixed for their withdrawal into
Ireland. It was soon rumoured that they were sure of a refuge in
Gloucester's Welsh estates, and Leicester, never afraid of making
enemies, bitterly reproached Earl Gilbert with receiving the
fugitives into his lands. Shortly after the breaking up of
parliament, Gloucester fled to the march, and a little later
William of Valence and Earl Warenne landed in Pembrokeshire with a
small force of men-at-arms and crossbowmen. There was no longer any
hope of carrying out the Provisions of Worcester, and once more
Montfort was forced to proceed to the west to put down
rebellion.
By the end of April Montfort was at Gloucester, accompanied by
the king and Edward, who, despite his submission, remained
virtually a prisoner. Earl Gilbert was master of all South Wales,
and closely watched his rival's movements from the neighbouring
Forest of Dean. It was with difficulty that Earl Simon and his
royal captives advanced from Gloucester to Hereford, but Earl
Gilbert preferred to negotiate rather than to push matters to
extremities. He went in person to Hereford and renewed his homage
to the king. Arbitrators were appointed to settle the disputes
between the two earls, and a proclamation was issued declaring that
the rumour of dissension between them was "vain, lying, and
fraudulently invented". For the next few days harmony seemed
restored.
Gloucester's submission lured Leicester into relaxing his
precautions. His enemies took advantage of his remissness to hatch
an audacious plot which soon enabled them to renew the struggle
under more favourable conditions. Since his nominal release, Edward
had been allowed the diversions of riding and hunting, and on May
28 he was suffered to go out for a ride under negligent or corrupt
guard. Once well away from Hereford, the king's son fled from his
lax custodians and joined Roger Mortimer, who was waiting for him
in a neighbouring wood. On the next day he was safe behind the
walls of Mortimer's castle of Wigmore, and, the day after, met Earl
Gilbert at Ludlow, where he promised to uphold the charters and
expel the foreigners. Valence and Warenne hurried from
Pembrokeshire and made common cause with Edward and Gilbert. Edward
then took the lead in the councils of the marchers, who, from that
moment, obtained a unity of purpose and policy that they had
hitherto lacked. He and his allies could claim to be the true
champions of the Charters and the Provisions of Oxford against the
grasping foreigner who strove to rule over king and barons
alike.
Montfort's small force was cut off from its base by the rapidity
of the marchers' movements. It was in vain that all the supporters
of the existing government were summoned to the assistance of the
hard-pressed army at Hereford. Before the end of June, Edward
completed the conquest of the Severn valley by the capture of the
town and castle of Gloucester. A broad river and a strong army
stood between Montfort and succour from England. Leicester then
turned to Llewelyn of Wales, who took up his quarters at Pipton,
near Hay. There, on June 22, a treaty was signed between the Welsh
prince and the English king by which Henry was forced to make huge
concessions to Llewelyn in order to secure his alliance. Llewelyn
was recognised as prince of all Wales. The overlordship over all
the barons of Wales was granted to him, and the numerous conquests,
which he had made at the expense of the marchers, were ceded to him
in full possession.
Thus Llewelyn, like his grandfather in the days of the Great
Charter, profited by the dissensions of the English to obtain the
recognition of his claims which had invariably been refused when
England was united. The Welsh prince gained a unique opportunity of
making his weight felt in general English politics, but with all
his ability he hardly rose to the occasion. Montfort had pressing
need of his help. A few days after the treaty of Pipton, Gloucester
Castle opened its gates to Edward, and the marchers advanced
westwards to seek out Earl Simon at Hereford. Leicester fled in
alarm before their overwhelming forces. He was driven from the Wye
to the Usk, and, beaten in a sharp fight on Newport bridge, found
refuge only by retreating up the Usk valley, whence he escaped
northwards into the hilly region where Llewelyn ruled over the
lands once dominated by the Mortimers. Before long Montfort's
English followers grew weary of the hard conditions of mountain
warfare. With their heavy armour and barbed horses it was difficult
for them to emulate the tactics of the Welsh, and they revolted
against the simple diet of milk and meat that contented their
Celtic allies. They could not get on without bread, and, as bread
was not to be found among the hills, they forced their leader to
return to the richer regions of the east. Llewelyn did little to
help them in their need, and did not accompany them in their march
back to the Severn valley, though a large but disorderly force of
Welsh infantry still remained with Simon as the fruit of the
alliance with their prince.
By the end of July, Simon was once more in the Severn valley,
seeking for a passage over the river. On August 2 he found a ford
over the stream some miles south of Worcester. There he crossed
with all his forces and encamped for the night at Kempsey, one of
Bishop Cantilupe's manors on the left bank. His skill as a general
had extricated him from a position of the utmost peril. All might
yet be regained if he could join forces with an army of relief
which his son Simon had slowly levied in the south and midlands.
But his quarrel with Gloucester and his alliance with the Welsh had
done much to undermine Montfort's popularity, and the younger Simon
had no appreciation of the necessity for decisive action. Summoned
from the long siege of Pevensey by his father's danger, he wasted
time in plundering the lands of the royalists, and only left London
on July 8, whence he led his men by slow stages to Kenilworth. On
July 31 young Simon's troops took up their quarters for the night
in the open country round Kenilworth castle. They had no notion
that the enemy was at hand and troubled neither to defend
themselves nor to keep watch. Edward, warned by spies of their
approach, abandoned his close guard of the Severn fords, and in the
early morning of August 1 fell suddenly upon the sleeping host and
scattered it with little difficulty. The younger Simon and a few of
his followers took refuge in the castle. As a fighting force the
army of relief ceased to exist.
Leicester, knowing nothing of his son's disaster, made his way,
on August 3, from Kempsey to Evesham, where he rested for the
night. Next morning, after mass and breakfast, the army was about
to continue its march, when scouts descried troops advancing upon
the town. At first it was hoped that they were the followers of
young Simon, but their near approach revealed them to be the army
of the marchers. With extraordinary rapidity Edward led his troops
back to Worcester as soon as he had won the fight at Kenilworth.
Learning there that Simon had crossed the river in his absence, he
at once turned back to meet him, seeking to elude his vigilance by
a long night march by circuitous routes. The result was that for
the second time he caught his enemy in a trap.
Evesham, like Lewes, stands on a peninsula. It is situated on
the right bank of a wide curve of the Avon, and approachable only
by crossing over the river, or by way of the sort of isthmus
between the two bends of the Avon a little to the north of the
town. Edward occupied this isthmus with his best troops, and thus
cut off all prospect of escape by land. The other means of exit
from the town was over the bridge which connects it with its
south-eastern suburb of Bengeworth, on the left bank of the river.
Edward, however, took the precaution to detach Gloucester with a
strong force to hold Bengeworth, and thus prevent Simon's escape
over the bridge. The weary and war-worn host of Montfort, then, was
out-generalled in such fashion that effective resistance to a
superior force, flushed by recent victory, was impossible. Simon
himself saw that his last hour was come; yet he could not but
admire the skilful plan which had so easily discomfited him. "By
the arm of St. James," he declared, "they come on cunningly. Yet
they have not taught themselves that order of battle; they have
learnt it from me. God have mercy upon our souls, for our bodies
are theirs."
Edward and Gloucester both advanced simultaneously to the
attack. A storm broke at the moment of the encounter, and the
battle was fought in a darkness that obscured the brightness of an
August day. Leicester's Welsh infantry broke at once before the
charge of the mail-clad horsemen, and took refuge behind hedges and
walls, where they were hunted out and butchered after the main
fight was over. But the men-at-arms struggled valiantly against
Edward's superior forces, though they were soon borne down by sheer
numbers. Simon fought like a hero and met a soldier's death. With
him were slain his son Henry, his faithful comrade Peter Montfort,
the baronial justiciar Hugh Despenser, and many other men of mark.
A large number of prisoners fell into the victor's hands, and King
Henry, who unwillingly followed Simon in all his wanderings, was
wounded in the shoulder by his son's followers, and only escaped a
worse fate by revealing his identity with the cry: "Slay me not! I
am Henry of Winchester, your King." The marchers gratified their
rage by massacring helpless fugitives, and by mutilating the bodies
of the slain. Earl Simon's head was sent as a present to the wife
of Roger Mortimer; and it was with difficulty that the mangled
corpse found its last rest in the church of Evesham Abbey. His
memory long lived in the hearts of his adopted countrymen, and
especially among monks and friars, who despite the ban of the
Church, hailed him as another St. Thomas, for he too had lain down
his life for the cause of justice and religion. Miracles were
worked at his tomb; liturgies composed in his honour, and an
informal popular canonisation, which no papal censures could
prevent, kept his memory green. His faults were forgotten in the
pathos of his end. His work survived the field of Evesham and the
reaction which succeeded it. His victorious nephew learnt well the
lesson of his career, and the true successor of the martyred earl
was the future Edward I.
No thoughts of policy disturbed the fierce passion of revenge
which possessed the victorious marchers. On August 7 Henry issued a
proclamation announcing that he had resumed the personal exercise
of the royal power. The baronial ministers and sheriffs were
replaced by royalist partisans. The acts of the revolutionary
government were denounced as invalid. The faithful city of London
was cruelly humiliated for its zeal for Earl Simon. The exiles,
headed by Queen Eleanor and Archbishop Boniface, returned from
their long sojourn beyond sea. With them came to England a new
legate, the Cardinal Ottobon, specially sent from the papal court
to punish the bishops and clergy that had persisted in their
adherence to the popular cause. Four prelates were
excommunicated and suspended from their functions, including
Berkstead of Chichester and Cantilupe of Worcester. But the aged
Bishop of Worcester was delivered from persecution by death;
"snatched away," as a kindly foe says, "lest he should see evil
days". His nephew, Thomas of Cantilupe, the baronial chancellor,
fled to Paris, where he forsook politics for the study of theology.
The widowed Countess of Leicester was not saved by her near kindred
to the king from lifelong banishment. At last a general sentence of
forfeiture was pronounced against all who had fought against
Edward, either at Kenilworth or Evesham. There was a greedy
scramble for the spoils of victory. The greatest of these,
Montfort's forfeited earldom of Leicester, went to Edmund, the
king's younger son. Edward took back the earldom of Chester and all
his old possessions. Roger Mortimer was rewarded by grants of land
and franchises which raised the house of Wigmore to a position only
surpassed by that of the strongest of the earldoms.
At first the Montfort party showed an inclination to accept the
defeat at Evesham as decisive. Even young Simon of Montfort, who
still held out at Kenilworth, considered it prudent to restore his
prisoner, the King of the Romans, to liberty. But the victors'
resolve to deprive all their beaten foes of their estates, drove
the vanquished into fresh risings. The first centre of the revolt
of the disinherited was at Kenilworth, but before long the younger
Simon abandoned the castle to join a numerous band which had found
a more secure retreat in the isle of Axholme, amidst the marshes of
the lower Trent. There they held their own until the winter, when
they were persuaded by Edward to accept terms. A little later,
Simon again revolted and joined the mariners of the Cinque Ports,
whose towns still held out against the king, save Dover, which
Edward had captured after a siege. Under Simon's leadership the
Cinque Ports played the part of pirates on all merchants going to
and from England. At last in March, 1266, Edward forced Winchelsea
to open its gates to him. He next turned his arms against a valiant
freebooter, Adam Gordon, who lurked with his band of outlaws in the
dense beech woods of the Chilterns. With the capture of Adam
Gordon, after a hand-to-hand tussle with Edward in which the king's
son narrowly escaped with his life, the resistance in the south was
at an end.
As one centre of rebellion was pacified other disturbances
arose. In the spring of 1266, Robert Ferrars, Earl of Derby, newly
released from the prison into which Earl Simon had thrown him,
raised a revolt in his own county. On May 15, 1266, Derby was
defeated by Henry of Almaine at Chesterfield. His earldom was
transferred to Edmund, the king's son, already Montfort's successor
as Earl of Leicester, and in 1267 also Earl of Lancaster, a new
earldom, deriving its name from the youngest of the shires.1
Reduced to the Staffordshire estate of Chartley, the house of
Ferrars fell back into the minor baronage. Kenilworth was still
unconquered. Its walls were impregnable except to famine, and
before his flight to Axholme young Simon had procured provisions
adequate for a long resistance. The garrison harried the
neighbourhood with such energy that the whole levies of the realm
were assembled to subdue it. After a fruitless assault, the
royalists settled down to a blockade which lasted from midsummer to
Christmas. The legate, Ottobon, appearing in the besiegers' camp to
excommunicate the defenders, they in derision dressed up their
surgeon in the red robes of a cardinal, in which disguise he
answered Ottobon's curses by a travesty of the censures of the
Church.
1 For Edmund's estates and whole career, see
W.E. Rhodes' Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, in Engl. Hist.
Review, x. (1895), 19-40 and 209-37.
The blockade soon tried the patience of the barons. It was hard
to keep any medieval army long together, and the lords, anxious to
go back to their homes, complained of the harsh policy that
compelled their long attendance. The royalist host split up into
two parties, led respectively by Roger Mortimer and Earl Gilbert of
Gloucester. The cruel lord of Wigmore was the type of the extreme
reaction. Intent only on vengeance, booty, and ambition, Mortimer
clamoured for violent measures, and was eager to reject all
compromises. Gloucester, on the other hand, posed as the mediator,
and urged the need of pacifying the disinherited by mitigating the
sentence of forfeiture which had driven them into prolonged
resistance. In the first flush of victory, Edward had been
altogether on Mortimer's side, but gradually statecraft and
humanity turned him from the reckless policy of the marcher.
Edward's adhesion to counsels of moderation changed the situation.
While Mortimer pressed the siege of Kenilworth, Edward and
Gloucester met a parliament at Northampton which agreed to uphold
the policy of 1258 and mitigate the hard lot of the disinherited. A
document drawn up in the camp at Kenilworth received the approval
of parliament and was published on October 31. The Dictum de
Kenilworth, as it was called, was largely taken up with
assertions of the authority of the crown, and denunciations of the
memory of Earl Simon. More essential points were the re-enactment
of the Charters and the redress of some of the grievances against
which the Provisions of 1258 were directed. The vital article,
however, laid down that the stern sentence of forfeiture against
adherents of the fallen cause was to be remitted, and allowed
rebels to redeem their estates by paying a fine, which in most
cases was to be assessed at five years' value of their lands. Hard
as were these terms, they were milder than those which had
previously been offered to the insurgents. Yet the defenders of
Kenilworth could not bring themselves to accept them until
December, when disease and famine caused them to surrender. Despite
their long-deferred submission, the garrison was admitted to the
terms of the Dictum.
Even then resistance was not yet over. A forlorn hope of the
disinherited, headed by John d'Eyville, established themselves
about Michaelmas in the isle of Ely, where they made themselves the
terror of all East Anglia, plundering towns so far apart as Norwich
and Cambridge, maltreating the Jews, and holding the rich citizens
to ransom. Early in 1267 the north-country baron, John of Vescy,
rose in Northumberland, and violently resumed possession of his
forfeited castle of Alnwick. While Henry tarried at Cambridge,
Edward went north and soon won over Vescy by the clemency which
made the lord of Alnwick henceforth one of his most devoted
servants.
More formidable than the revolt of Eyville or Vescy was the
ambiguous attitude of Earl Gilbert of Gloucester. Roger Mortimer
was once more intriguing against him, and striving to upset the
Kenilworth compromise. After a violent scene between the two
enemies in the parliament at Bury, Gloucester withdrew to the march
of Wales, where he waged war against Mortimer. In April, 1267, he
made his way with a great following to London, professing that he
wished to hold a conference with the legate. It was a critical
moment. Edward was still in the north; Henry was wasting his time
at Cambridge; the Londoners welcomed Earl Gilbert as a champion of
the good old cause; the legate took refuge in the Tower, and the
earl did not hesitate to lay siege to the stronghold. Before long
Gloucester was joined by Eyville and many of the Ely fugitives. It
seemed as if Gloucester was in as strong position as Montfort had
ever won, and that after two years of warfare the verdict of
Evesham was about to be reversed.
Edward marched south and joined forces with his father, who had
moved from Cambridge to Stratford, near London. Everything seemed
to suggest that the eastern suburbs of London would witness a fight
as stubborn as Lewes or Evesham. But Gloucester was not the man to
press things to extremities, and Edward though firm was
conciliatory. He delivered Ottobon from the hands of the rebels,1
and then arranged a peace upon terms which secured Gloucester's
chief object of procuring better conditions for the disinherited.
Not only Earl Gilbert but Eyville and his associates were admitted
to the royal favour. A few desperadoes still held out until July in
the isle of Ely, and Edward devoted himself to tracking them to
their lairs. He built causeways of wattles over the fens, which
protected the disinherited in their last refuge. When he had
clearly shown his superiority, he offered the garrison of Ely the
terms of the Dictum de Kenilworth. With their acceptance of
these conditions the English struggle ended, in July, 1267, nearly
two years after the battle of Evesham.
1 Engl. Hist. Review, xvii. (1902),
522.
Llewelyn still remained under arms. He had profited by the two
years of strife to deal deadly blows against the marchers. He
conquered the Mid-Welsh lands which had been granted to Mortimer,
and devastated Edward's Cheshire earldom. When Gloucester grew
discontented with the course of events, the old friend of Montfort
became the close ally of the man who had ruined Montfort's cause. A
Welsh chronicler treats Gloucester's march to London as a movement
which naturally followed the alliance of Gloucester and Llewelyn.
On Gloucester's submission, Llewelyn was left to his own resources.
Edward had it in his power to avenge past injuries by turning all
his forces against his old enemy. But the country was weary of war,
and Edward preferred to end the struggle. The legate Ottobon urged
both Edward and the Welsh prince to make peace, and in September,
1267, Henry and his son went down to Shrewsbury, accompanied by
Ottobon, who received from the king full powers to treat with
Llewelyn, and a promise that Henry would accept any terms that he
thought fit to conclude. Llewelyn thereupon sent ambassadors to
Shrewsbury, and the negotiations went on so smoothly that on
September 25 a definite treaty of peace was signed. On Michaelmas
day Henry met Llewelyn at Montgomery, received his homage, and
witnessed the formal ratification of the treaty.
By the treaty of Shrewsbury Llewelyn was recognised as Prince of
Wales, and as overlord of all the Welsh magnates, save the
representative of the old line of the princes of South Wales. The
four cantreds, Edward's old patrimony, were ceded to him; and
though he promised to surrender many of his conquests, he was
allowed to remain in possession of great tracts of land in Mid and
South Wales, in the heart of the marcher region.1 Substantially
the Welsh prince was recognised as holding the position which he
claimed from Montfort in the days of the treaty of Pipton. Alone of
Montfort's friends, Llewelyn came out of an unsuccessful struggle
upon terms such as are seldom obtained even by victory in the
field. The triumph of the Welsh prince is the more remarkable
because Edward and his ally, Mortimer, were the chief sufferers by
the treaty. But Edward had learnt wisdom during his apprenticeship.
He recognised that the exhaustion of the country demanded peace at
any price, and he dreaded the possibility of the alliance of
Llewelyn and Earl Gilbert. But whatever Edward's motives may have
been in concluding the treaty, it left Llewelyn in so strong a
position that he was encouraged to those fresh aggressions which in
the next reign proved the ruin of his power. The Welsh wars of
Edward I. are the best elucidation of the importance of the treaty
of Shrewsbury. The Welsh principality, which Edward as king was to
destroy, was as much the creation of the Barons' War as the outcome
of the fierce Celtic enthusiasm which found its bravest champion in
the son of Griffith.
1 For the growth of Llewelyn's power see the
maps of Wales in 1247 and 1267 in Owens College Historical
Essays, pp. 76 and 135.
It was time to redeem the promises by which the moderate party
had been won over to the royalist cause. The statute of Marlborough
of 1267 re-enacted in a more formal fashion the chief of the
Provisions of Westminster of 1259, and thus prevented the undoing
of all the progress attained during the years of struggle. Ottobon
in 1268 held a famous council at London, in which important canons
were enacted with a view to the reformation of the Church. A little
later the Londoners received back their forfeited charters and the
disinherited were restored to their estates. After these last
measures of reparation, England sank into a profound repose that
lasted for the rest of the reign of Henry III. A happy beginning of
the years of peace was the dedication of the new abbey of
Westminster, and the translation of the body of St. Edward to the
new shrine, whose completion had long been the dearest object of
the old king's life.
At this time Louis IX. was meditating his second crusade, and in
every country in Europe the friars were preaching the duty of
fighting the infidel. Nowhere save in France did the Holy War win
more powerful recruits than in England. In 1268 Edward himself took
the cross,1 and with him his brother Edmund of Lancaster, his
cousin Henry of Almaine, and many leading lords of both factions.
Financial difficulties delayed the departure of the crusaders, and
it was not until 1270 that Edward and Henry were able to start. On
reaching Provence, they learnt that Louis had turned his arms
against Tunis, whither they followed him with all speed. On
Edward's arrival off Tunis, he found that Louis was dead and that
Philip III., the new French king, had concluded a truce with the
misbelievers. Profoundly mortified by this treason to Christendom,
Edward set forth with his little squadron to Acre, the chief town
of Palestine that still remained in Christian hands. Henry of
Almaine preferred to return home at once, but on his way through
Italy was murdered at Viterbo by the sons of Earl Simon of
Montfort, a deed of blood which revived the bitterest memories of
the Barons' War. Edward remained in Palestine until August, 1272,
and threw all his wonted fire and courage into the hopeless task of
upholding the fast-decaying Latin kingdom. At last alarming news of
his father's health brought him back to Europe.
1 For Edward's crusade see Riant's article in
Archives de l'Orient Latin, i., 617-32 (1881).
On November 16, 1272, Henry III., then in his sixty-sixth year,
died at Westminster. His remains were laid at rest in the
neighbouring abbey church, hard by the shrine of St. Edward. With
him died the last of his generation. St. Louis' death in August,
1270, has already been recorded. The death of Clement IV. in 1268
was followed by a three years' vacancy in the papacy. This was
scarcely over when Richard, King of the Romans, prostrated by the
tragedy of Viterbo, preceded his brother to the tomb. Still
earlier, Boniface of Canterbury had ended his tenure of the chair
of St. Augustine. The new reign begins with fresh actors and fresh
motives of action.
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