The History of England from the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) The French And Scottish Wars And The Confirmation Of The Charters byTout, T.F. (M.A.)
Troubles arose between France and England
soon after Edward had settled the Scottish succession. Neither
Edward nor Philip the Fair sought a conflict. Edward was satisfied
with his diplomatic successes, and Philip's designs upon Gascony
were better pursued by chicane than by warfare. But questions arose
of a different kind from the disputes as to feudal right, which had
been hitherto the principal matters in debate between the two
crowns.
There had long been keen commercial rivalry between the Cinque
Ports and the traders of Normandy. The sailors of Bayonne and other
Gascon harbours had associated themselves with the English against
the Normans, and both sides loudly complained to their respective
rulers of the piracies and homicides committed by their enemies.
Edward and Philip did what they could to smooth over matters, but
were alike unable to prevent their subjects flying at each other's
throats. The story spread that a Norman ship was to be seen in the
Channel with' English sailors and dogs hanging suspended from her
yard-arms: "And so," says Hemingburgh, "they sailed over the sea,
making no difference between a dog and an Englishman". Indignation
at this outrage drove the English to act together in large
organised squadrons. The French adopted the same tactics, and a
collision soon ensued. On May 15, 1293, an Anglo-Gascon merchant
fleet encountered a Norman fleet off Saint Mahe in Brittany. A
pitched battle, probably prearranged, at once ensued. It ended in a
complete victory for the less numerous English squadron, which
immediately returned to Portsmouth, laden with booty.
Even after this, Edward strove to keep the
peace, and endeavoured to exact compensation from his subjects.
They answered with a highly coloured narrative of the dispute which
threw the whole blame upon the Normans. Philip, changing his
policy, took up his subjects' cause, and summoned Edward to answer
in January, 1294, before the Parliament of Paris for the piracy
exercised by his mariners, the misdeeds of his Gascon subjects, and
the violent measures taken by his officers against any who appealed
to the court of Paris. Edward sent his brother, Edmund, to reply
for him. As Count of Champagne and the step-father of Philip's
wife, Joan, Edmund seemed a peculiarly acceptable negotiator. After
long debates, the personal intervention of the French queen, and
Philip's step-mother, Mary of Brabant, resulted in an agreement
being arranged. The overlord's grievances could not be denied, and
it was urged that the formal surrender of part of Gascony might be
made by way of recognising them. French garrisons were therefore to
be admitted into six Gascon strongholds; twenty Gascon hostages
were to be delivered over to Philip, while the seisin of the duchy
was also to be transferred to the French king, who pledged himself
not to change the officials nor to occupy the land in force. The
whole business was in fact to be as formal as the delivery of the
seisin of Scotland to Edward during the suit for the succession.
Meanwhile, Edward and Philip were to arrange a meeting at Amiens to
settle the conditions of a permanent peace, by which Edward was to
take Philip's sister, Margaret, as his second wife, and the Gascon
duchy was to be settled upon the offspring of the union. That
Edward or Edmund should ever have contemplated such terms is a
strong proof of their zeal for peace. It soon became clear that
Edmund had been outrageously duped, and that the whole negotiation
was a trick to secure for Philip the permanent possession of
Gascony. The constable of France appeared on the Aquitanian
frontier. The English seneschal surrendered the six castles and the
seisin of the land. Gradually the French king began to take actual
possession of the government. Moreover, after three months, the
proceedings against Edward in the parliament of Paris were resumed;
Edward was declared contumacious on the ground of his
non-appearance, and sentence of forfeiture was passed.
Philip's treachery was thus manifest? and in great disgust Edmund
withdrew from France. Edward was deeply indignant. In a parliament,
held in June, 1294, which was attended by the King of Scots, war
was resolved upon. The feudal tenants were summoned to assemble at
Portsmouth on September 1; and Edward appealed for help to his
Gascon subjects, beseeching their pardon for having negotiated the
fatal treaty, and promising a speedy effort to restore them to his
obedience. He sent them his nephew, John of Brittany, as his
lieutenant and captain-general, under whom John of St. John was to
act as seneschal of Gascony. Ambassadors were despatched to all
neighbouring courts to build up a coalition against the French.
Strenuous efforts were made to get together men and money, and the
clergy were forced to make a grant of a half of their spiritual
income. Edward overbore their opposition amidst a scene of
excitement in which the Dean of St. Paul's fell dead at the king's
feet. The shires were mulcted of a tenth and the boroughs of a
sixth. And besides these constitutional exactions, the king laid
violent hands on all the coined money deposited in the treasuries
of the churches, and appropriated the wool of the merchants, which
he only restored on the payment of a heavy pecuniary redemption.
Meanwhile, about Michaelmas the lieutenant and the seneschal sailed
with a fairly strong force. Further levies were summoned to
assemble at Portsmouth at later dates. Besides the ordinary tenants
of the crown, writs were sent to the chief magnates of Ireland and
Scotland; and Wales and its march were called upon to furnish all
the men that could be mustered. The Earls of Cornwall and Lincoln
were appointed to the command, and Edward himself proposed to
follow them to Gascony as soon as he could.
At the moment of the departure of John of Brittany a sudden
insurrection in Wales frustrated Edward's plans. All Wales was ripe
for revolt. In the principality the Cymry resented English rule,
and the sulky marchers stood aloof in sullen discontent, while
their native tenants, seeing in the recent humiliation of
Gloucester and Hereford the degradation of all their lords, lost
respect for such powerless masters. Both in the principality and in
the marches, Edward's demand for compulsory service in Gascony was
universally regarded as a new aggression. The intensity of the
resistance to his demand can be measured by the general nature of
the insurrection, and by the admirable way in which it was
organised. As by a common signal all Wales rose at Michaelmas,
1294. One Madog, probably a bastard son of Llewelyn, son of
Griffith, raised all Gwynedd, took possession of Carnarvon castle,
and closely besieged the other royal strongholds. In west Wales a
chieftain named Maelgwn was equally successful in Carmarthen and
Cardigan. The marches were in arms equally with the principality.
In the north, Lincoln's tenants in Rhos and Rhuvoniog besieged
Denbigh, and threatened the king's fortresses in Flint. Maelgwn's
sphere of operations included the earldom of Pembroke, while Brecon
rose against Hereford, and Glamorgan against Gilbert of Gloucester.
Morgan, the leader of the Glamorganshire rebels, loudly declared
that he did not rebel against the king but against the Earl of
Gloucester. With the beginning of winter the state of Wales was
more critical than in the worst times of the winter of 1282.
Edward postponed his attack on Philip in order to throw all his
energies into the reduction of Wales. The levies assembled at
Portsmouth for the Gascon expedition were hurried beyond the
Severn. The king held another parliament and exacted a fresh
supply. Criminals were offered pardon and good wages, if they would
serve, first in Wales and then in Gascony. Before Christmas about a
thousand men-at-arms were mustered at various border centres under
the royal standards, while every marcher lord was busily engaged in
putting down his own rebels. Before so great a force the Welsh
could do but little, and the spring saw the extinction of the
rebellion. But there was hard fighting both in the south and in the
north. Edward himself undertook the reconquest of Gwynedd. He was
at Conway before the end of the year, and in his haste he threw
himself into the town while the mass of his army remained on the
right bank of the river. High tides and winter floods made the
crossing of the stream impossible, and for a short time the king
was actually besieged by the rebels. Conway was unprepared for
resistance and almost destitute of supplies. The garrison thought
it a terrible hardship that they had to live on salt meat and
bread, and to drink water mixed with honey. They were encouraged by
Edward refusing to taste better fare than his troopers, and
declining to partake of the one small measure of wine reserved for
his use. William Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, conveyed his troops
across the estuary and raised the siege. Yet the insurgents were
still able to fight a pitched battle. About January 22, 1295,
Warwick found the Welsh established in a strong position in a plain
between two woods. They had fixed the butts of their lances into
the ground, hoping thus to resist the shock of a cavalry charge.
Improving on the tactics of Orewyn bridge, the earl stationed
between his squadrons of knights, archers and crossbowmen, whose
missiles inflicted such loss on the Welsh lines that the cavalry
soon found it safe to charge. The Welsh were utterly broken, and
never in a single day did they suffer such enormous losses. Even
more important than its results in breaking the back of Madog's
insurrection, this battle of Maes Madog—or Madog's field, as
the Welsh called the place of their defeat—is of the highest
importance in the development of infantry tactics. The order of the
victorious force strikingly anticipates the great battles in
Scotland and France of a later generation. In obscure fights, like
Orewyn bridge and Maes Madog, the English learnt the famous battle
array which was to overwhelm the Scots in the later years of
Edward's reign and prepare the way for the triumphs of Crecy and
Poitiers.
Madog still held out, and with the advent of spring, 1295,
Edward began to hunt him from his lairs. Gwynedd was cleared of the
enemy and Anglesey was reconquered. Carnarvon castle arose from its
ruins in the stately form that we still know, while on the Anglesey
side of the Menai the new stronghold of Beaumaris arose, to ensure
the subjection of the granary of Gwynedd. In May Edward felt strong
enough to undertake a progress in South Wales. After receiving the
submissions of the rebels of Cardigan and Carmarthen, he won back
for the lords of Brecon and Glamorgan the lands which, without his
help, they had been unable to conquer. The Welsh chieftains were
leniently treated. While Madog was imprisoned in the Tower, Morgan
was at once set at liberty. By July Edward was able to leave Wales.
Yet his triumph had taxed all his resources, and left him,
overwhelmed with debt, to face the irritation of subjects
unaccustomed to such demands upon their loyalty and patriotism. But
nothing broke his dauntless spirit, and once more he busied himself
in obtaining revenge on the false King of France.
It was inevitable that the Welsh war should
have reduced to slender proportions the expedition of John of
Brittany and John of St. John for the recovery of Gascony. After a
tedious voyage the English expedition sailed up the Gironde late in
October, 1294. Their forces, strong enough to capture Bourg and
Blaye, were not sufficient to attack Bordeaux. Leaving the capital
in the hands of its conquerors, the English sailed past Bordeaux to
Rioms, where they disembarked. The small towns of the neighbourhood
were taken and garrisoned, and the Gascon lords began to flock to
the camp of their duke. Before long the army was large enough to be
divided. John of Brittany remained at Rioms, while John of St. John
marched overland to Bayonne. The French garrison was unable to
overpower the enthusiasm of the Bayonnais for Edward, and the
capture of the second town of Gascony was the greatest success
attained by the invaders. With the spring of 1295, however, Charles
of Valois, brother of the King of France, was sent to operate
against John of Brittany. The English and Gascons found themselves
unable to make head against him. There was ill-feeling between the
two nations that made up the army, and also between the nobly-born
knights and men-at-arms and the foot soldiers. The infantry
mutinied, and John of Brittany fled by night down the river from
Rioms, leaving many of his knights and all his horses and armour in
the town. Next day Rioms opened its gates to Charles of Valois, who
gained immense spoils and many distinguished prisoners. Save for
the capture of Bayonne, the expedition had been a disastrous
failure.
Edward failed even more signally in his efforts to defeat Philip
by diplomacy. He had left no effort unspared to build up a great
coalition against the French king. He "sent a great quantity of
sterling money beyond the sea," and made alliances with all the
princes and barons that he could find.1 At first it seemed that
he had succeeded. Adolf of Nassau, the poor and dull, but strenuous
and hard-fighting King of the Romans, concluded a treaty with
England, and did not think it beneath the dignity of the lord of
the world to take the pay of the English monarch. Many vassals of
the empire, especially in the Netherlands, the Rhineland, and
Burgundy followed Adolf's example. Edward strengthened his party
further by marrying three of his daughters to the Duke of Brabant,
the son of the Count of Holland, and the Count of Bar as the price
of their adherence to the coalition. He made closer his ancient
friendship with Guy of Dampierre, the old Count of Flanders, by
betrothing Edward of Carnarvon to his daughter Philippine. At the
same time he sought the friendship of the lords of the Pyrenees,
such as the Count of Foix, and of the kings of the Spanish
peninsula. But nothing came of the hopes thus excited, save fair
promises and useless expenditure. Before long Philip of France was
able to build up a French party in appearance as formidable-in
reality as useless as Edward's attempted confederation. Edward's
most important ally, Guy of Flanders, was forced to renounce his
daughter's marriage to the heir of England and hand her over to
Philip's custody. The time was not yet come for effective European
coalitions; the real fighting had to be done by the parties
directly interested in the quarrel.
1 See a contemporary notice printed by F.
Funck-Brentano in Revue Historique, xxxix. (1889), pp.
329-30.
The command of the sea continued to be a vital question. The
Norman sailors were eager to avenge their former defeats, and
Philip saw that the best way to preserve his hold over Gascony was
to be master of the Channel and the Bay of Biscay. Edward prepared
to meet attack by establishing an organisation of the English navy
which marks an epoch in the history of our admiralty. He divided
the vessels told off to guard the sea into three classes, and set
over each a separate admiral. John of Botecourt was made admiral of
the Yarmouth and eastern fleet; William of Leyburn was set over the
navy at Portsmouth; and the western and Irish squadron was put
under a valiant knight of Irish origin. Meanwhile the French
planned an invasion of England, and promised James of Aragon that,
when England was conquered, its king should be considered his
personal prize. Galleys were hired at Marseilles and Genoa for
service in the Channel, and Sir Thomas Turberville, a
Glamorganshire knight captured at Rioms, turned traitor and was
restored to England in the hope that he might obtain the custody of
some seaport and betray it to the enemy. Turberville strove in vain
to induce Morgan to head another revolt in Glamorgan, and urged
upon Philip the need of an alliance with the Scots. At last the
invasion was attempted, and the French admiral, Matthew of
Montmorenci, sacked and burnt the town of Dover. Luckily,
however, Turberville's treason was discovered, and the Yarmouth
fleet soon avenged the attack on Dover by burning Cherbourg. In the
face of such resistance, Philip IV. abandoned his plan of invasion
and tried to establish a sort of "continental blockade" of English
ports in which a modern writer has seen an anticipation of the
famous dream of Napoleon.1 Though nothing came of these grandiose
schemes, yet the efforts made to organise invasion had their
permanent importance as resulting in the beginnings of the French
royal navy. As late as 1297 a Genoese was appointed admiral of
France in the Channel, and strongly urged the invasion of England
and its devastation by fire and flame. But the immediate result of
Philip's efforts to cut off England from the continent was that his
Flemish allies found in his policy a new reason for abandoning his
service. On January 7, 1297, a fresh treaty of alliance between
Edward and Guy, Count of Flanders, was concluded.
1 See for this Jourdain, Mémoire sur
les Commencements de la Marine française sous Philippe le
Bel (1880), and C. de la Roncière, Le Blocus
continental de l'Angleterre sous Philippe le Bel in Revue
des Questions historiques, lx. (1896), 401-41.
More effective than Philip's efforts to combine the Continent
against the English were his endeavours to stir up opposition to
Edward in Britain. The Welsh rising of 1294 had taken place
independently of him, but it was not Philip's fault that Morgan did
not once more excite Glamorgan to rebellion. A better opening for
intrigue was found in Scotland. Ever since the accession of John
Balliol, there had been appeals from the Scottish courts to those
of Edward. Certain suits begun under the regency, which had acted
in Edward's name from 1290 to 1292, gave the overlord an
opportunity of inserting the thin end of the wedge; and it looked
as if, after a few years, appeals from Edinburgh to London would be
as common as appeals from Bordeaux to Paris. But whatever were the
ancient relations of England and Scotland, it is clear that the
custom of appeals to the English king had never previously been
established. It was no wonder then that what seemed to Edward an
inevitable result of King John's submission, appeared to the Scots
an unwarrantable restriction of their independence.
The weakness and simplicity of King John left matters to take
their course for a time, but the king, who was not strong enough to
stand up against Edward, was not the man to resist the pressure of
his own subjects. On his return from the London parliament of June,
1294, the Scots barons virtually deposed him. A committee was set
up by parliament consisting of four bishops, four earls, and four
barons which, though established professedly on the model of the
twelve peers of France, had a nearer prototype in the fifteen
appointed under the Provisions of Oxford. To this body the whole
power of the Scottish monarchy was transferred, so that John became
a mere puppet, unable to act without the consent of his twelve
masters. Under this new government the relations of England and
Scotland soon became critical. The Scots denied all right of appeal
to the English courts, and expelled from their country the nobles
whose possessions in England gave them a greater interest in the
southern than in the northern kingdom. Among the dispossessed
barons was Robert Bruce, son of the claimant, by marriage already
Earl of Carrick, and now by his father's recent death lord of
Annandale. In defiance of Edward's prohibition the Scots received
French ships, and subjected English traders at Berwick to many
outrages. At last, on July 5, 1295, an alliance was signed between
Scotland and France, by which Edward Balliol, the eldest son of
King John, was betrothed to Joan, the eldest daughter of Charles of
Valois, the brother of the French king. On this, Edward demanded
the surrender of three border castles, and on the refusal of the
Scots, cited John to appear at Berwick on March 1, 1296. Thus, by a
process similar to that which had embroiled Edward with his French
overlord, the King of Scots also was forced to face the alternative
of certain war or humiliating surrender.
To Edward a breach with Scotland was unwelcome. In 1294 the
Welsh had prevented him using all his power against France, and in
1295 the Scots troubles further postponed his prospects of revenge.
But no suggestion of compromise or delay came from him. On his
return to London early in August, 1295, he busied himself with
preparing to resist the enemies that were gathering around him on
every side. It was the moment of the raid on Dover, and the French
question was still the more pressing. In a parliament of magnates
at London, Edmund of Lancaster told the story of his Paris embassy
with such effect that two cardinal-legates, whom the new pope,
Boniface VIII., had sent in the hope of making peace, were
put off politely, on the ground that Edward could make no treaty
without the consent of his ally, the King of the Romans. Edmund was
appointed commander of a new expedition to Gascony, though his weak
health delayed his departure. Meanwhile Edward called upon every
class of his subjects to co-operate with him in his defence of the
national honour. He was statesman enough to see that he could only
cope with the situation, if England as a whole rallied round him.
His best answer to the Scots and the French was the convention of
the "model parliament" of November, 1295.
The deep political purpose with which this parliament was
assembled is reflected even in the formal language of the writs.
"Inasmuch as a most righteous law of the emperors," wrote Edward,
"ordains that what touches all should be approved by all, so it
evidently appears that common dangers should be met by remedies
agreed upon in common. You know well how the King of France has
cheated me out of Gascony, and how he still wickedly retains it.
But now he has beset my realm with a great fleet and a great
multitude of warriors, and proposes, if his power equal his
unrighteous design, to blot out the English tongue from the face of
the earth." To avert this peril, Edward summoned not only a full
and representative gathering of magnates, but also two knights from
every shire and two burgesses from every borough. Moreover, the
lower clergy were also required to take part in the assembly, the
archdeacons and deans in person, the clergy of every cathedral
church by one proctor, the beneficed clerks of each diocese by two
proctors. Thus the assembly became so systematic a representation
of the three estates' that after ages have regarded it as the type
upon which subsequent popular parliaments were to be modelled. This
gathering marks the end of the parliamentary experiments of the
earlier part of the reign. It met on November 27, and each estate,
deliberating separately, contributed its quota to the national
defence. The barons and knights offered an eleventh, and the
boroughs a seventh. It was a bitter disappointment to Edward that
the clergy could not be induced to make a larger grant than a
tenth. Enough, however, was obtained to equip the two armies which,
in the spring of 1296, were to operate against the French and the
Scots.
The Gascon expedition was the first to start.
Early in March, 1296, Edmund of Lancaster, accompanied by the Earl
of Lincoln, landed at Bourg and Blaye. John of St. John was still
maintaining himself in that district as well as at Bayonne. On the
appearance of the reinforcements the Gascon lords began to flock to
the English camp, and a large force was at once able to take the
field. On March 28 an attempt was made to capture Bordeaux by a
sudden assault. On its failure Edmund, who did not possess the
equipment necessary for a formal siege, sailed up the river to
Saint-Macaire and occupied the town. But the castle held out
gallantly, and after a three weeks' siege Edmund retired to his
original position on the lower Gironde. Even there he found
difficulty in holding his own, and before long shifted his quarters
to Bayonne. He had exhausted his resources, and found that his army
could not be kept together without pay. "Thereupon," writes
Hemingburgh, "his face fell and he sickened about Whitsuntide. So
with want of money came want of breath too, and after a few days he
went the way of all flesh." Lincoln, his successor, managed still
to stand his ground against Robert of Artois. At last Artois made a
successful night attack upon the English, captured St. John, and
destroyed all his war-train and baggage. The darkness of the night
and the shelter of the neighbouring woods alone saved the English
army from total destruction. "After this," boasted William of
Nangis, "no Englishman or Gascon dared to go out to battle against
the Count of Artois and the French." At Easter, 1297, a truce was
concluded which left nearly all Gascony in French hands.
Soon after the departure of his brother for Gascony, Edward went
to war against the Scots, regarding the non-appearance of King John
on March 1 at Berwick as a declaration of hostility. The lord of
Wark offered to betray his castle to the Scots, and Edward's
successful effort to save it first brought him to the Tweed.
Meanwhile the men of Annandale under their new lord, the Earl of
Buchan, engaged in a raid on Carlisle, but failed to capture the
city, and speedily returned home. On March 28, the day on which his
brother attacked Bordeaux, Edward crossed the Tweed at Coldstream,
and marched down its left bank towards Berwick. On March 30 Berwick
was captured. The townsmen fought badly, and the heroes of the
resistance were thirty Flemish merchants, who
held their factory, called the Red Hall, until the building was
fired, and the defenders perished in the flames. The garrison of
the castle, commanded by Sir William Douglas, laid down their arms
at once.
Edward spent a month in Berwick, strengthening the
fortifications of the town, and preparing for an invasion of
Scotland. Early in April, King John renounced his homage and,
immediately afterwards, the Scots lords who had attacked Carlisle
devastated Tynedale and Redesdale, penetrating as far as Hexham.
Edward's command of the sea made it impossible for the raiders to
cut off his communications with his base, and they quickly returned
to their own land, where they threw themselves into Dunbar. Though
the lord of Dunbar, Patrick, Earl of March, was serving with the
English king, his countess, who was at Dunbar, invited them into
the fortress. Dunbar blocked the road into Scotland, and Edward
sent forward Earl Warenne with a portion of the army in the hope of
recapturing the position. Warenne laid siege to Dunbar, but on the
third day, April 27, the main Scots army came to its relief.
Leaving some of the young nobles to continue the siege, Warenne
drew up his army in battle array. The Scots thought that the
English were preparing for flight, and rushed upon them with loud
cries and blowing of horns. Discovering too late that the enemy was
ready for battle, they fell back in confusion as far as Selkirk
Forest. Next day Edward came up from Berwick and received the
surrender of Dunbar. Henceforth his advance was but a military
promenade.
Edward turned back from Dunbar to receive the submission of the
Steward of Scotland at Roxburgh, and to welcome a large force of
Welsh infantry, whose arrival enabled him to dismiss the English
foot, fatigued with the slight effort of a month's easy
campaigning. Thence he made his way to Edinburgh, which yielded
after an eight days' siege. Stirling castle, the next barrier to
his progress, was abandoned by its garrison, and there Edward was
reinforced by some Irish contingents. He then advanced to Perth,
keeping St. John's feast on June 24 in St. John's own town. On July
10 Balliol surrendered to the Bishop of Durham at Brechin,
acknowledging that he had forfeited his throne by his rebellion.
Edward continued his triumphal progress, preceded at every stage by
Bishop Bek at the head of the warriors of the palatinate of
St. Cuthbert. He made his way through Montrose up the east coast to
Aberdeen, and thence up the Don and over the hills to Banff and
Elgin, the farthest limit of his advance. He returned by a
different route, bringing back with him from Scone the stone on
which the Scots kings had been wont to sit at their coronation.
This he presented as a trophy of victory to the monks of
Westminster, where it was set up as a chair for the priest
celebrating mass at the altar over against the shrine of St.
Edward, though soon used as the coronation seat of English
kings.
In less than five months Edward had conquered a kingdom. On
August 22 he was back at Berwick, whither he had summoned a
parliament of the nobles and prelates of both kingdoms, in order
that the work of organising the future government of Scotland might
be completed. Meanwhile a crowd of Scots of every class flocked to
the victor's court and took oaths of fealty to him. Their names,
along with those of the persons who made similar recognitions of
his sovereignly during his Scottish progress, were recorded with
notarial precision in one of those formal documents with which
Edward delighted to mark the stages in the accomplishment of his
task. This record, popularly styled the Ragman Roll, containing the
names of about two thousand freeholders and men of substance in
Scotland, is of extreme value to the Scottish genealogist and
antiquary.1 The last entries are dated August 28, the day on
which Edward met his parliament at Berwick. The administration of
Scotland was provided for. John, Earl Warenne, became the king's
lieutenant, Hugh Cressingham, treasurer, and William Ormesby,
justiciar. When the land was subdued Edward showed a strong desire
to treat the people well. The only precaution taken by him against
the renewal of disturbances was an order that the former King of
Scots, John Comyn of Buchan, John Comyn of Badenoch, and other
magnates of the patriotic party were to dwell in England, south of
the Trent, until the conclusion of the war with France. As soon as
his business was accomplished at Berwick, Edward turned his steps
southwards. At last he seemed free to lead a great army against
Philip the Fair; and, in order to prepare for the French
expedition, he summoned another parliament to meet at Bury St.
Edmunds on the morrow of All Souls' day, November 3. At Bury the
barons, knights, and burgesses made liberal offerings for the war.
But a new difficulty arose in the absolute refusal of the clergy to
vote any supplies. Once more the cup of hope was dashed from
Edward's lips, and he found himself forced to enter into another
weary conflict, this time with his English liegemen.
1 It is printed by the Bannatyne Club, and
summarised in Cal. Doc. Scot., ii., 193-214.
So long as Peckham had lived, there had always been a danger of
a conflict between Church and State. Friar John had ended his
restless career in 1292, and Edward showed natural anxiety to
secure as his successor a prelate more amenable to the secular
authority and more national in his sentiments. The papacy remained
vacant after the death of Nicholas IV. in 1292, so that there was
no danger of Rome taking the appointment into its own hands, and
the happy accident, which had given the monks of Christchurch a
statesmanlike prior in Henry of Eastry, minimised the chances of a
futile conflict between the king and the canonical electors. Eastry
took care that the archbishop-elect should be a person acceptable
to the sovereign. Robert Winchelsea, the new primate, was an
Englishman and a secular clerk, who had taught with distinction at
Paris and Oxford, but had received no higher ecclesiastical
promotion than the archdeaconry of Essex and a canonry of St.
Paul's, and was mainly conspicuous for the sanctity of his life,
his ability as a preacher, and his zeal for making the cathedral of
London a centre of theological instruction. The vacancy in, the
papacy forced upon the archbishop-elect a wearisome delay of
eighteen months in Italy; but at last in September, 1294, he
received consecration and the pallium from the newly elected
hermit-pope, Celestine V. Winchelsea on his return strove to show
that a secular archbishop could be as austere in life, and as
zealous for the rights of Holy Church, as his mendicant
predecessors. His desire to walk in the steps of Peckham soon
brought him into conflict with the king, and in this conflict he
showed an appreciation of the political situation, and a power of
interpreting English opinion, which made him the most formidable of
Edward's domestic opponents. He gained his first victory in the
parliament of 1295 by preventing the clergy from making a larger grant
than a tenth. But this triumph sank into insignificance as compared
with the refusal of all aid by the parliament of Bury.
A change in the papacy immensely strengthened Winchelsea's
position against Edward. In December, 1294, Celestine, overpowered
with the burden of an office too heavy for his strength, made his
great renunciation and sought to resume his hermit life. The
Cardinal Benedict Gaetano was at once elected his successor and
took the style of Boniface VIII. The son of a noble house of the
neighbourhood of Anagni, a canonist, a politician, and a zealot,
the new pope had made personal acquaintance with Edward and England
from having attended Cardinal Ottobon on his English legation, and
was eager to appease discord between Christian princes in order to
forward the crusade. He hated war the more because it was largely
waged with the money drawn from the clergy, and was indignant that
the custom of taxing the Church, which was begun under the guise of
crusading tenths, had become so frequent that both Philip and
Edward applied it in order to raise revenue from ecclesiastics for
frankly secular warfare. Within a few weeks of his accession he
despatched two cardinals to mediate peace between the Kings of
France and England, and was disgusted at the long delays with which
both kings had sought to frustrate his intervention. On February
29, 1296, Boniface issued his famous bull Clericis laicos,
in which he declared it unlawful for any lay authority to exact
supplies from the clergy without the express authority of the
apostolic see. Princes imposing, and clerics submitting to such
exactions were declared ipso facto excommunicate.
Boniface's contention had been urged by his predecessors, and it
is improbable that he sought to do more than assert the ancient law
of the Church and save the clergy all over the Latin world from
exactions which were fast becoming intolerable. His object was
quite general, though a pointed reference to the extortions of
Edward in 1294 showed that he had the case of England before his
mind. He had no wish to throw down the gauntlet to the princes of
Christendom, or to quarrel with Edward and Philip, between whom he
was still conducting negotiations. It was his misfortune that he
was constantly forced to face fresh conditions which rendered it
almost possible to apply the ancient doctrines.
Strong national kings, like Edward and Philip, had already shown
impatience with such traditions of the Church as limited their
temporal authority. The pope's untimely restatement of the theories
of the twelfth century at once involved him in his first fierce
difference with Philip the Fair, and put him into a position in
which he could only win peace by explaining away the doctrine of
Clericis laicos. While on the continent the conflict of
Church and State took the form of a dispute between the French king
and the papacy, in England it assumed the shape of a struggle
between Edward and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
In November, 1296, at Bury, Winchelsea admitted the justice of
the French war, but pleaded the pope's decretal as an absolute bar
to any grant from the clerical estate. No decision was arrived at,
and the problem was discussed again in the convocation of
Canterbury in January, 1297. "We have two lords over us," declared
the archbishop to his clergy, "the king and the pope; and, although
we owe obedience to both of these, we owe greater obedience to our
spiritual than to our temporal lord." All that they could do was to
entreat the pope's permission to allow them to pay Cæsar that
which Cæsar by himself had no right to demand. Edward burst into a
fury on hearing of this new pretext for delay. He declared that the
clergy must pay a fifth, under penalty of his withdrawing his
protection from a body which strove to stand outside the
commonwealth. The clergy remained firm, and separated without
making any grant. Thereupon, on January 30, the chief justice, John
of Metingham, sitting in Westminster Hall, pronounced the clergy to
be outlays. "Henceforth," he declared, "there shall be no justice
meted out to a clerk in the court of the lord king, however
atrocious be the injury from which he may have suffered. But
sentence against a clerk shall be given at the instance of all who
have a complaint against him." Winchelsea retaliated by publishing
the sentence of excommunication against violators of the papal
bull. Two days later the king ordered the sheriffs to take
possession of the lay fees held by clerks in the province of
Canterbury. A few ecclesiastics, who privately made an offering of
a fifth, were alone exempted from this command.
Edward's conflict with the Church was followed within a month by
a dispute of almost equal gravity with a section of the barons. He
summoned a baronial parliament to assemble on February 24 at
Salisbury, and went down in person to explain his plan of campaign.
One force was to help his new ally, Guy of Flanders, while another
was to act in Gascony. Edward himself was to accompany the army to
Flanders. He requested some of the earls, including Norfolk and
Hereford, to fight for him in Gascony. The deaths of Edmund of
Lancaster, Gilbert of Gloucester, and William of Pembroke had
robbed the baronage of its natural leaders. Earl Warenne was fully
engaged in the north, and Lincoln was devoted to the king's side.
The removal of other possible spokesmen made Norfolk and Hereford
the champions of the party of opposition. For years the friends of
aristocratic authority had been smarting under the growing
influence of the crown. The time was ripe for a revival of the
baronial opposition which a generation earlier had won the
Provisions of Oxford. Moreover both the earls had personal slights
to avenge. Hereford bitterly resented the punishment meted out to
him for waging private war against Earl Gilbert in the march.
Norfolk was angry because, during the last Welsh campaign, Edward
had suspended him from the exercise of the marshalship. The form of
Edward's request at Salisbury gave them a technical advantage which
they were not slow to seize. Ignoring the broader issues which lay
between them and the king, they took their stand on their
traditional rights as constable and marshal to attend the king in
person. "Freely," declared the earl marshal, "will I go with thee,
O king, and march before thee in the first line of thy army, as my
hereditary duty requires." Edward answered: "Thou shalt go without
me along with the rest to Gascony". The marshal replied: "I am not
bound to go save with thee, nor will I go". Edward flew into a
passion: "By God, sir earl, thou shalt either go or hang". Norfolk
replied with equal spirit: "By that same oath, sir king, I will
neither go nor hang". The parliament broke up in disorder. Before
long a force of 1,500 men-at-arms gathered together under the
leadership of the constable and marshal.
During these stormy times Edward had been straining every nerve
to equip an adequate army for foreign service. Once more he laid
violent hands upon the wool and hides of the merchants, while a
huge male—tolt, varying from forty shillings a sack for raw
wool to sixty-six shillings and eightpence a sack for carded wool,
was exacted for such wool as the king's officers suffered to remain
in the owner's possession. Moreover, vast stores of wheat, barley,
and oats, salt pork and salt beef were requisitioned all over the
land. Men said that the king's tyranny could no longer be borne,
and that the rights decreed to all Englishmen by the Great Charter
were in imminent danger. The movement, which had begun as a defence
of feudal right, became a popular revolt in favour of national
liberty. The commons joined the barons and clergy in the general
opposition to the headstrong king.
Edward saw that he must divide his enemies if he wished to
effect his purpose. The clergy were the easiest to deal with.
Boniface VIII. was already yielding in his struggle against Philip
the Fair. In the bull, Romana mater of February 2, 1297, he
had authorised voluntary contributions of the French clergy in the
case of pressing necessity, without previous recourse to the
permission of the apostolic see. The same attitude had already been
taken up by the royalist clergy in England, who redeemed their
outlawry by offering to the king the fifth of their revenues. In
March Edward made things easier for the recalcitrants by suspending
the edict confiscating the lay fees of the Church. Even Winchelsea
saw the wisdom of abandoning his too heroic attitude. In a
convocation, held on March 24, he practically applied the doctrine
of Romana mater to the English situation. "Let each man," he
declared, "save his own soul and follow his own conscience. But my
conscience does not allow me to offer money for the king's
protection or on any other pretext." In the event nearly all the
clergy bought off the king's wrath by the voluntary payment of a
fifth. Winchelsea was obdurate. His estates remained for five
months in the king's hands, and he was forced, like another St.
Francis, to depend on the charity of the faithful. But even
Winchelsea did not hold out indefinitely. On July 14 he was
publicly reconciled with the king outside Westminster Hall, and a
few days later his goods were restored. On July 31 Boniface
entirely receded from the doctrine of Cleritis laicos in the
bull Etsi de statu. Before this could be known in England,
Winchelsea told his clergy that the king had agreed to confirm the
Great Charter, if they would but make a grant to carry on the French
war. A little later Edward of his own authority exacted a third
from all clerical revenues. This persistence in his highhanded
policy made any real reconciliation between Edward and Winchelsea
impossible. The king never forgave the archbishop, whose action
demonstrated to all England the divided allegiance of his clergy
between their two masters. Winchelsea still retained his profound
distrust of the king, who had set at naught the liberties of Church
and realm.
The baronial opposition was broken up by devices not dissimilar
to those which neutralised the antagonism of the clergy. By
strenuous efforts Edward obtained a fair sum of money for his
expenses. He let it be understood that, if he took his subjects'
wool, the talleys given in exchange would be redeemed when better
times had arrived, and he scrupulously paid for the corn and meat
that his officers had requisitioned. Meanwhile he summoned all
possible fighting men from England, Wales, and Ireland to meet at
London on July 7. The prospect of subjects of the crown being
forced, whatsoever their feudal obligations might be, to wage war
beyond sea, threatened to provoke a fresh crisis. But after many
long altercations, Edward announced that neither the feudal tenants
nor the twenty-pound freeholders had any legal obligation to go
with him to Flanders, and offered pay to all who were willing to
hearken to his "affectionate request" for their services. Under
these conditions a considerable force of stipendiaries was levied
without much difficulty.
Hereford and Norfolk abandoned active in favour of passive
hostility. They refused to serve as constable and marshal, and
Edward appointed barons of less dignity and greater loyalty to act
in their place. While all England was busy with the equipment of
troops and the provision of supplies, they sullenly held aloof. At
last, when all was ready, Edward issued an appeal to his subjects,
protesting the purity of his motives, and emphasising the
inexorable necessity under which he was forced to play the tyrant
in the interests of the whole realm. By the beginning of August
such barons as were willing to go to Flanders began to assemble in
arms at London. The young Edward of Carnarvon was appointed regent
during his father's absence, and among the councillors who were to
act in his name was the Archbishop of Canterbury. At last the king set
off to embark at Winchelsea. While there, the earls presented to
him a belated list of grievances. He refused to deal with their
demand for the confirmation of the charters. "My full council," he
declared to the envoys of the earls, "is not with me, and without
it I cannot reply to your requests. Tell those who have sent you
that, if they will come with me to Flanders, they will please me
greatly. If they will not come, I trust they will do no harm to me,
or at any rate to my kingdom." On August 24 he took ship for
Flanders, and a few days later he and his troops safely landed at
Sluys, whence they made their way to Ghent. Nearly a thousand
men-at-arms and a great force of infantry, largely Welsh and Irish,
swelled the expedition to considerable proportions. After all his
troubles, Edward found that the loyalty of his subjects enabled him
to carry out the ideal which he had formulated two years before.
King and nation were to meet common dangers by action undertaken in
common.
Everything else was ruthlessly sacrificed in order that the king
might take an army to Flanders. The Gascon expedition was quietly
dropped. But the gravest difficulty arose not from Gascony but
Scotland. Edward's choice of agents to carry out his Scottish
policy had been singularly unhappy. Warenne, the governor, was a
dull and lethargic nobleman more than sixty-six years of age. He
complained of the bad climate of Scotland, and passed most of his
time on his Yorkshire estates. In his absence Cressingham, the
treasurer, and Ormesby, the justiciar, became the real
representatives of the English power. Cressingham was a pompous
ecclesiastic, who appropriated to his own uses the money set aside
for the fortification of Berwick, and was odious to the Scots for
his rapacity and incompetence. Ormesby was a pedantic lawyer, rigid
in carrying out the king's orders but stiff and unsympathetic in
dealing with the Scots. Under such rulers Scotland was neither
subdued nor conciliated. No real effort was made to track to their
hiding-places in the hills the numerous outlaws, who had abandoned
their estates rather than take an oath of fealty to Edward. When
the English governors took action, they were cruel and
indiscriminating; and often too were lax and careless. Matters soon
became serious. William Wallace of Elderslie slew an English
official in Clydesdale, and threw in his lot with the outlaws. He was
joined by Sir William Douglas, the former defender of Berwick. By
May, 1297, Scotland was in full revolt. In the north, Andrew of
Moray headed a rising in Strathspey. In central Scotland the
justiciar barely escaped capture, while holding his court at Scone.
The south-west, the home both of Wallace and Douglas, proved the
most dangerous district. There the barons, imitating Bohun and
Bigod, based their opposition to Edward on his claim upon their
compulsory service in the French wars. Before long the son of the
lord of Annandale, Robert Bruce, now called Earl of Carrick, Robert
Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, and other magnates were in arms, and in
close association with Douglas and Wallace.
Edward made light of this rebellion. Resolved to go to Flanders
at all costs, he contented himself with calling upon the levies of
the shires north of the Trent to protect his interests in Scotland.
Early in July, Henry Percy, Warenne's grandson, rode through
south-western Scotland, at the head of the Cumberland musters, and
on July 7, the local insurgent leaders, with the exception of
Wallace, made their submission to him at Irvine. Moreover, Edward
released the two Comyns from their veiled imprisonment, and sent
them back to Scotland to help in suppressing the insurrection.
Henry Percy boasted that the Scots south of the Forth had been
reduced to subjection. But a few days later Wallace was found to be
strongly established in Ettrick forest and was threatening
Roxburgh. At last Edward stirred up Warenne to return to his
government. The king took the precaution of leaving some of his
best warriors in England in case their services were needed against
the recalcitrant barons or the Scots. Then, as has been said, on
August 24 he crossed over to Flanders.
The constable and marshal were still in arms, and Winchelsea,
who, in spite of his reconciliation with Edward, was in close
communication with them, declined to take an active part on the
council of regency. Two days before Edward took ship, Hereford and
Norfolk appeared in arms at the exchequer at Westminster, and
forbade the officials to continue the collection of supplies, until
the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest had been confirmed.
They strove to win the support of the Londoners, who had long had a
grievance against Edward for depriving them of their right to elect
their own mayor, and for subjecting the city
to the arbitrary rule of a warden nominated by the crown. They
forbade their followers to commit acts of violence, but they made
it clear that there could be no peace until the charters were
confirmed.
In August, Warenne grappled with the Scottish rising, but his
own incompetence, and the half-heartedness of the Scottish
magnates, on whom he relied, made his task very difficult. Wallace
retreated beyond the Forth, and Warenne reached Stirling on
September 10 in pursuit of him. He learnt that Wallace was holding
the wooded heights, immediately to the north of Stirling bridge on
the left bank of the Forth, not far from the abbey of
Cambuskenneth. The Steward of Scotland, who, after the collapse of
the revolt in the south-west, served under Warenne, offered his
mediation. But no good result came from his action, and the English
suspected treachery. Wallace took up a bold attitude, scorning
either compromise or retreat. He had only a small following of
cavalry, but his infantry was numerous and enthusiastic. The
English resolved to attack him on September 11. The Forth at
Stirling was crossed by a long wooden bridge, so narrow that only
two horsemen could pass abreast. It was madness to send an army
over the river by such a means in the face of a watchful enemy. But
not only was the English plan of battle foolish it was also carried
out weakly. Warenne overslept himself, and his subordinates wasted
the early morning in useless discussions and altercations. When at
last he woke up, he rejected the advice of a Scottish knight to
send part of his cavalry over the river by a ford which thirty
horsemen could traverse abreast, and ordered all his troops to
cross by the bridge.
Wallace, seeing that the enemy had delivered themselves into his
hands, remained in the woods until a fair proportion of the English
men-at-arms had made their way over the stream. He then suddenly
swooped down upon the bridge, cutting off the retreat of those who
had traversed it, and blocking all possibility of reinforcement.
After a short fight the English to the north of the Forth were cut
down almost to a man. The English on the Stirling side, seeing the
fate of their comrades, fled in terror, and their Scots allies went
over to their country men. Among the slain was the greedy
Cressingham, whose skin the Scots tanned into leather. Warenne did
not
draw rein until he reached Berwick, and in one day all Scotland was
lost. The castles of Roxburgh and Berwick alone upheld the English
flag. Wallace and Moray governed all Scotland as "generals of the
army of King John". Within a few weeks of their victory, they
raided the three northern counties of England.
Wallace had freed Scotland, but his wonderful success taught the
contending factions in England the plain duty of union against the
common enemy. A new parliament of the three estates was summoned
for September 30. The opposition leaders came armed, and declared
that there could be no supply of men or money until their demand
for the confirmation of the charters was granted. No longer content
with simple confirmation, they drew up, in the form of a statute, a
petition requiring that no tallage or aid should henceforth be
taken without the assent of the estates. This was the so-called
statutum de tallagio non concedendo which
seventeenth-century parliaments and judges erroneously accepted as
a statute. The helpless regency substantially accepted their
demands, and, on October 12, issued a confirmation of the charters,
to which fresh clauses were added, providing, with less generality
than in the baronial request, that no male-tolts, or such manner of
aids as had recently been extorted, should be imposed in the future
without the common consent of all the realm, but making no
reference to tallage.1 Liberal supplies were then voted by all
the three estates, and Winchelsea, who all through these
proceedings acted as the brain of the baronage, exerted himself to
explain away the last of the clerical difficulties raised by the
Clericis laicos.
1 The Latin, Articuli inserti in magna
carta, given by Hemingburgh, ii., 152, is quoted as a statute
in the Petition of Right of 1628, under the title De tallagio
non concedendo. The view of its relation to the French
Confirmatio cartavum is that taken by M. Bémont,
Chartes des libertés anglaises, especially pp.
xliii., xliv. and 87. It is based on Bartholomew Cotton's nearly
contemporary statement (Hist. Angl., p. 337).
On November 5 the king ratified, at Ghent, the action of his
son's advisers. Thus the constitutional struggle was ended by the
complete triumph of the baronial opposition. And the victory was
the more signal, because it was gained not over a weak king,
careless of his rights, but over the strongest of the
Plantagenets, greedy to retain every scrap of authority. It is with
good reason that the Confirmation of the Charters of 1297 is
reckoned as one of the great turning points in the history of our
constitution. Its provisions sum up the whole national advance
which had been made since Gualo and William the marshal first
identified the English monarchy with the principles wrested from
John at Runnymede. In the years that immediately followed, it might
well seem that the act of 1297, like the submission of John, was
only a temporary expedient of a dexterous statecraft which
consented with the lips but not with the heart. But in later times,
when the details of the struggle were forgotten and the noise of
the battle over, the event stood out in its full significance.
Edward had been willing to take the people into partnership with
him when he thought that they would be passive partners, anxious to
do his pleasure. He was taught that the leaders of the people were
henceforth to have their share with the crown in determining
national policy. Common dangers were still to be met by measures
deliberated in common, but the initiative was no longer exclusively
reserved to the monarch. The sordid pedantry of the baronial
leaders and the high-souled determination of the king compel our
sympathy for Edward rather than his enemies. But all that made
English history what it is, was involved in the issue, and the
future of English freedom was assured when the obstinacy of the
constable and marshal prevailed over the resolution of the great
king.
