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The History of England from the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377)
The Scottish Failure
by Tout, T.F. (M.A.)
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The expedition of Edward to Flanders lost its
best chance of success through the events which retarded its
despatch. While the English king was wrangling with his barons, the
French king was active. On the news of the alliance of Count Guy
with the English, Robert of Artois was summoned from Gascony to the
north. While Philip besieged Lille, and finally took it, Robert of
Artois gained a brilliant victory over the Flemings at Furnes on
August 20. Meanwhile John of Avesnes, Count of Hainault, was
closely co-operating with the French, and kept Edward's son-in-law
and ally, John, Duke of Brabant, from sending effective help to the
Flemings. Moreover, the Flemish townsmen, in their dislike of their
count, were largely on the side of the French. Edward's little army
could do nothing to redress a balance that already inclined so
heavily on the other side. The Flemings were disappointed at the
scanty numbers of the English men-at-arms, and stared with wonder
and contempt at the bare-legged Welsh archers and lancemen, with
their uncouth garb, strange habits of eating and fighting, and
propensity to pillage and disorder, though they recognised their
hardihood and the effectiveness of their missiles.1 The same
disorderly spirit that had marred the Rioms campaign still
prevailed among the English engaged on foreign service. No sooner
were the troops landed at Sluys on August 28, than the mariners of
the Cinque Ports renewed their old feud with the men of Yarmouth,
and many ships were destroyed and lives lost in this untimely
conflict. Edward advanced to Bruges, where he was joined by the
Count of Flanders, but the disloyalty of the
townsmen and the approach of King Philip forced the king and the
earl to take shelter behind the stronger walls of Ghent.
Immediately on their retreat, Philip occupied Bruges and Damme,
thus cutting off the English from the direct road to the sea. The
Anglo-Flemish army was afraid to attack the powerful force of the
French king. But the French had learnt by experience a wholesome
fear of the English and Welsh archers, and did not venture to
approach Ghent too closely. The ridiculous result followed that the
Kings of France and England avoided every opportunity of fighting
out their quarrel, and lay, wasting time and money, idly watching
each other's movements.
1 See for Flemish criticisms of the Welsh, L.
van Velthem, Spiegel Historiaal, pp. 215-16, ed. Le Long,
partly translated by Funck Brentano in his edition of Annales
Qandenses, p. 7, a work giving full details of these
struggles.
The only dignified way of putting an end to this impossible
situation lay in negotiation. Edward's faithful servant, William of
Hotham, the Dominican friar whom the pope had appointed Archbishop
of Dublin, was in the English camp. Hotham, who had enjoyed
Philip's personal friendship while teaching theology in the Paris
schools, was an acceptable mediator between the two kings. A short
truce was signed at Vyve-Saint-Bavon on the Lys on October 7. This
allowed time for more elaborate negotiations to be carried on at
Courtrai and Tournai, and on January 31, 1298, a truce, in which
the allies of both kings were included, was signed at Tournai, to
last until January 6, 1300. It was agreed to refer all questions in
dispute to the arbitration of Boniface VIII, "not as pope but as a
private person, as Benedict Gaetano". Both kings despatched their
envoys to Rome, where with marvellous celerity Boniface issued, on
June 30, 1298, a preliminary award. It suggested the possibility of
a settlement on the basis of each belligerent retaining the
possessions which he had held at the beginning of the struggle, and
entering into an alliance strengthened by a double marriage. Edward
was to marry the French king's sister Margaret, while Edward of
Carnarvon was to be betrothed to Philip's infant daughter Isabella.
The latter match involved the repudiation of the betrothal of
Edward of Carnarvon with the daughter of the Count of Flanders. But
all through the award there was no mention of the allies of either
party. Boniface was too eager for peace to be over-scrupulous as to
the honourable obligations of the two kings who sought his
mediation.
The English regency, which grappled so
courageously with the baronial opposition, showed an equal energy
in protecting the northern counties from the Scots. About the time
of the confirmation of the charters, Wallace crossed the border and
spread desolation and ruin from Carlisle to Hexham. Warenne and
Henry Percy, who had attended the October parliament at London,
were soon back in the north. By December the largest army which was
ever assembled during Edward I.'s reign1 was collected together
on the borders, and preparations were made for a winter campaign
after the fashion which had proved so effective in Wales. But all
that Warenne was able to accomplish was the relief of Roxburgh. The
quality of the troops was not equal to their quantity, and all his
misfortunes had not taught him wisdom. Early in Lent Edward stopped
active campaigning by announcing that no great operations were to
be attempted until his return. Thereupon Warenne sent the bulk of
the troops home, and remained at Berwick, awaiting the king's
arrival.
1 Morris, Welsh Wars of Edward I., pp.
284-86.
Edward landed at Sandwich on March 14, 1298, and at once set
about preparing to avenge Stirling Bridge. He met his parliament on
Whitsunday, May 25, at York. The Scots barons were summoned to this
assembly, but as they neither attended nor sent proxies, their
absence was deemed to be proof of contumacy. A month later a large
army was concentrated at Roxburgh. The earls and barons with their
retinues mustered to the number of 1,100 horse, while 1,300
men-at-arms served under the king's banners for pay. Though Gascony
was still in Philip's hands, the good relations that prevailed
between England and France allowed the presence in Edward's host of
a magnificent troop of Gascon lords, headed by the lord of Albret
and the Captal de Buch, and conspicuous for the splendour of their
armour and the costliness and beauty of their chargers. On this
occasion Edward set little store on infantry, and was content to
accept the services of those who came of their own free will. Yet
even under these conditions some 12,000 foot were assembled, more
than 10,000 of whom came from Wales and its march.
The leaders of the opposition were present in Edward's host. On
the eve of the invasion, the impatient king was kept back by the
declaration of Hereford and Norfolk that they would not cross the
frontier, until definite assurances were given that the king would
carry out the confirmation of the charters which he had informally
ratified on foreign soil. Etiquette or pride prevented Edward
himself satisfying their demand, but the Bishop of Durham and three
loyal earls pledged themselves that the king would fulfil all his
promises on his return. Then the two earls suffered the expedition
to proceed; and on July 6 the army left Roxburgh, proceeding by
moderate marches to Kirkliston on the Almond, where it encamped on
the 15th. Here there was a few days' delay, while Bishop Bek
captured some of the East Lothian castles which were threatening
the English rear. Already there was a difficulty in obtaining
supplies from the devastated country-side, and northerly winds
prevented the provision ships from sailing from Berwick to the
Forth. The worst hardships fell upon the Welsh infantry, who began
to mutiny and talked of joining the Scots. Matters grew worse on
the arrival of a wine ship, for such ample rations of wine were
distributed to the Welsh that very many of them became drunk. So
threatening was the state of affairs that Edward thought of
retreating to Edinburgh. On July 21, however, the news was brought
that Wallace and his followers were assembled in great force at
Falkirk, some seventeen miles to the west. The prospect of battle
at once restored the courage and discipline of the army, and Edward
ordered an advance. That night the host bivouacked on the moors
east of Linlithgow, "with shields for pillows and armour for beds".
During the night the king, who was sleeping in the open field like
the meanest trooper, received a kick from his horse which broke two
of his ribs. Yet the early morning of July 22, the feast of St.
Mary Magdalen, saw him riding at the head of his troops through the
streets of Linlithgow. At last the Scots lances were descried on
the slopes of a hill near Falkirk, and the English rested while the
bishop and king heard mass. Then the army, which had eaten nothing
since the preceding day, advanced to the battle.
Wallace had a large following of infantry, but a mere handful of
mounted men-at-arms. He ordered the latter to occupy the rear, and
grouped his pikemen, the flower of his army, into four great
circles, or "schiltrons," which, with the front ranks kneeling or
sitting and the rear ranks standing, presented to the enemy four
living castles, each with a bristling hedge of pikes, dense enough,
it was hoped, to break the fierce shock of a cavalry charge. The
spaces between the four schiltrons were occupied by the archers,
the best of whom came from Ettrick Forest. The front was further
protected by a morass, and perhaps also by a row of stout posts
sunk into the ground and fastened together by ropes.
Edward ordered the Welsh archers to prepare the way with their
missiles for the advance of the men-at-arms. But the Welsh refused
to move, so that Edward was forced to proceed by a direct cavalry
charge. For this purpose he divided his men-at-arms into four
"battles". The first of these was commanded by the Earl of Lincoln,
with whom were the constable and marshal, who at last had an
opportunity of serving the king in battle in the offices which
belonged to them by hereditary right. On approaching the morass
this first line was thrown into some confusion, and paused in its
advance. Behind it the second battle, under command of the Bishop
of Durham, who, perhaps, knew the ground better, wheeled to the
east and took the Scots on their left flank. But Bek's followers
disobeyed his orders to wait until the rest of the army came up,
and they suffered heavy losses in attacking the left schiltron.
Before long, however, Lincoln found a way round the morass
westwards to the enemy's right, while the two rearmost battles,
headed by the king and Earl Warenne, also advanced to the front.
The combat thus became general. The Scots cavalry fled without
striking a blow, and some of the English thought that Wallace
himself rode off the field with them. The archers between the
schiltrons were easily trampled down, so that the only effective
resistance came from the circles of pikemen. The yeomanry of
Scotland steadily held their own against the fierce charges of the
mail-clad knights, and it looked for a time as if the day was
theirs. But the despised infantry at last made their way to the
front and poured in showers of arrows that broke down the Scottish
ranks. Friend and foe were at such close quarters that the English
who had no bows threw stones against the Scottish circles. When the
way was thus prepared, the horsemen easily penetrated through the
gaps made in the circles, and before long the Scottish pikemen were
a crowd of panic-stricken fugitives. Edward's brilliant
victory was won with comparatively little loss.
It was years before the Scots again ventured to meet the English
in the open field. Yet the king's victory was not followed by any
real conquest even of southern Scotland. Edward advanced to
Stirling, where he rested until he had recovered from his accident,
while detachments of his troops penetrated as far as Perth and St.
Andrews. Meanwhile the south-west rose in revolt, under Robert
Bruce, Earl of Carrick, whose father had fought at Falkirk. Late in
August, Edward made his way to Ayr and occupied it, while Bruce
fled before him. Provisions were still scarce, and the army was
weary of fighting. The Durham contingent deserted in a body,1 and
the earls were so lukewarm that Edward was fain to return by way of
Carlisle, capturing Lochmaben, Bruce's Annandale stronghold, on the
way. On September 8 the king reached Carlisle, where the constable
and marshal declared that they had lost so many men and horses that
they could no longer continue the campaign. Edward tried to stem
the tide of desertion by promises of Scottish lands to those who
would remain with his banners. But the distribution of these
rewards proved only a fresh source of discontent. At last Edward
was forced to dismiss the greater part of his forces. He lingered
in the north until the end of the year, but there was no more real
fighting; with the beginning of 1299 he returned to the south,
convinced that the disloyalty of his barons had neutralised his
triumphs in the field. The few castles which still upheld the
English cause in Scotland were soon closely besieged.
1 Lapsley, County Palatine of Durham, p.
128.
During the whole of 1299 Edward was prevented by other work from
prosecuting the war against the Scots. Even the borderers were sick
of fighting, and Bishop Bek, who had hitherto afforded him an
unswerving support with all the forces of his palatinate, was
forced to desist from warlike operations by the refusal of his
tenants to serve any longer beyond the bounds of the lands of St.
Cuthbert. While the men of Durham abandoned the war, there was
little reason to wonder at the indifference of the south country as
to the progress of the Scots. In the Lenten parliament at London,
the Earls of Hereford and Norfolk pressed Edward once more to fulfil
his promise to carry out the confirmation of the charters. The king
would not yield to their demand yet dared not refuse it. In his
perplexity he had recourse to evasions which further embittered his
relations with them. He promised that he would give an answer the
next day, but when the morrow came, he secretly withdrew from the
city. The angry barons followed him to his retreat and reminded him
of his broken promise. Edward coolly replied that he left London
because his health was suffering from the corrupt air of the town,
and bade the barons return, as his council had his reply ready. The
barons obeyed the king's orders, but their indignation passed all
bounds when they found that the king's promised confirmation of the
charters was vitiated by a new clause saving all the rights of the
crown, and that nothing was said as to the promised perambulation
of the forests. In bitter wrath the parliament broke up, and the
Londoners, who shared the anger of the barons, threatened a revolt.
After Easter these stormy scenes were repeated in a new parliament,
and Edward was at last forced to yield a grudging assent to all the
demands of the opposition, and even to appoint a commission for the
perambulation of the forests. By the time the summer was at hand,
the progress of the negotiations with France occupied Edward so
fully that he had abundant excuse for not precipitating a new
rupture with his barons, by insisting upon a fresh campaign against
the Scots.
A papal legate presided over a congress of English and French
ambassadors at Montreuil-sur-mer, which belonged to Edward by right
of the late queen, Eleanor as Countess of Ponthieu. The outcome of
these deliberations was the treaty of Montreuil, concluded on June
19, 1299. It was not the final pacification which had been hoped
for. Edward indeed abandoned his Flemish allies, but Philip would
not relax his hold upon Gascony, and without that a definitive
peace was impossible. The treaty of Montreuil was simply a marriage
treaty. Edward was forthwith to marry Margaret, and his son was to
be betrothed to Isabella of France. Neither the prolongation of the
truce nor the affairs of the Flemings were mentioned in it, while
all that Philip did for the Scots was to provide for the liberation
of the deposed King John from his English prison. As soon as the
ratifications were exchanged the king, who was then sixty years
of age, and his youthful bride were married on September 9 at
Canterbury by Archbishop Winchelsea.
Edward's willingness to marry the sister of the king who still
kept him out of Gascony can best be explained by his overmastering
desire to renew operations in Scotland. Shortly after his marriage,
he again busied himself with preparations for the long-delayed
Scots campaign. It was high time that he took action. The English
garrisons were surrendering one by one, and the Scottish magnates
were deserting the English cause. Their conversion to patriotic
principles was made easier by the decay of Wallace's power
consequent on his defeat at Falkirk. After stormy scenes with his
aristocratic rivals, Wallace withdrew from Scotland and went to the
continent, where he implored the help of the King of France. Philip
proved true to his new brother-in-law, and put Wallace in prison,
only releasing him that he might go to Rome and enlist the sympathy
of Boniface VIII. Meanwhile the Scots chose a new regency at the
head of which was the younger John Comyn of Badenoch. Under these
changed conditions the Scottish earls rapidly rallied round the
national cause. Stirling, Edward's chief stronghold in central
Scotland, was so hardly pressed that the men-at-arms were forced to
eat their chargers. Yet when the English barons assembled about the
beginning of winter, in obedience to Edward's summons, they
stubbornly declared that they would not endure the hardships of a
winter campaign until the king had fulfilled his pledges as regards
the charters. Thus left to their own resources, the sorely tried
garrison of Stirling surrendered to the Scots.
In March, 1300, Edward met his parliament at Westminster.
Despite the straits to which he was reduced, he was still unwilling
to make a complete surrender. He avoided a formal re-issue of the
charters by giving his sanction to a long series of articles, drawn
up apparently by the barons. These articles provided for the better
publication of the charters, and the appointment in every shire of
a commission to punish all offences against them which were not
already provided for by the common law; together with numerous
technical clauses "for the relief of the grievances that the people
have had by reason of the wars that have been, and for the
amendment of their estate, and that they may be more ready in the
king's service and more willing to aid him when he has need of them
". This document was known as Articuli super cartas.1 At
the same time the forest perambulation, which had long been
ordered, was directed to be proceeded with at once. For this reason
a chronicler calls this assembly "the parliament of the
perambulation".2 The reconciliation between the king and his
subjects was attested by a grant of a twentieth.
1 It is published in Bémont's
Chartes, pp. 99-108, with valuable comments; another draft
analysed in Hist. MSS. Comm., 6th Report, i., p. 344.
2 Langtoft, ii, 320.
Edward's concessions once more enabled him to face the Scots,
and the summer saw a gallant army mustered at Carlisle, though some
of the earls, including Roger Bigod, still held aloof. A two
months' campaign was fought in south-western Scotland in July and
August. But the peasants drove their cattle to the hills, and rainy
weather impeded the king's movements. The chief exploit of the
campaign was the capture of Carlaverock castle, though even in the
glowing verse of the herald, who has commemorated the taking of
this stronghold,1 the military insignificance of the achievement
cannot be concealed. Edward returned to the same district in
October, but he effected so little that he was glad to agree to a
truce with the Scots, which Philip the Fair urged him to accept.
The armistice was to last until Whitsuntide, and Edward immediately
returned to England. He had not yet satisfied his subjects, and was
again forced to meet his estates.
1 The Siege of Carlaverock, ed. Nicolas
(1828).
A full parliament assembled on January 20, 1301, at Lincoln. The
special business was to receive the report of the forest
perambulation; and the first anticipation of the later custom of
continuing the same parliament from one session to another can be
discerned in the direction to the sheriffs that they should return
the same representatives of the shires and boroughs as had attended
the Lenten parliament of 1300, and only hold fresh elections in the
case of such members as had died or become incapacitated. During
the ten days that the commons were in session stormy scenes
occurred. Edward would only promise to agree to the
disafforestments recommended by the perambulators, if the estates
would assure him that he could do so, without violating his
coronation oath or disinheriting his crown. The estates refused to
undertake this grave responsibility, and a long catalogue of
their grievances was presented to Edward by Henry of Keighley,
knight of the shire for Lancashire, and one of the first members of
the third estate of whose individual action history has preserved
any trace. The commons demanded a fresh confirmation of the
charters; the punishment of the royal ministers who had infringed
them, or the Articuli super cartas of the previous session,
and the completion of the proposed disafforestments. In addition,
the prelates declared that they could not assent to any tax being
imposed upon the clergy contrary to the papal prohibition. Among
the ministers specially signalled out for attack was the treasurer,
Bishop Walter Langton, and in this Edward discerned the influence
of Winchelsea, for he was Langton's personal enemy. The king's
disgust at the primate's action was the more complete since Bishop
Bek now arrayed himself on the side of the opposition. Edward
showed his ill-will by consigning Henry of Keighley to prison. But
the coalition was too formidable to be withstood. The king agreed
to all the secular demands of the estates, accepted the hated
disafforestments and directed the re-issue of a further
confirmation of the charters, but refused his assent to the demand
of the prelates. A grant of a fifteenth was then made, and Edward
dismissed the popular representatives on January 30, retaining the
prelates and nobles for further business. On February 14, the last
confirmation of the charters concluded the long chapter of history,
which had begun at Runnymede.
Edward strove to separate his baronial and his clerical enemies,
and found an opportunity, which he was not slow to use, in the
uncompromising papalism of Winchelsea. Boniface VIII. had no sooner
settled the relations of England and France than he threw himself
with ardour into an attempt to establish peace between England and
Scotland. Scottish emissaries, including perhaps Wallace himself,
gave Boniface their version of the ancient relations of the two
crowns. On June 27, 1299, the pope issued the letter Scimus,
fili, in which he claimed that Scotland specially belonged to
the apostolic see, on the ground that it was converted through the
relics of St. Andrew. He denied all feudal dependence of Scotland
on Edward, and explained away the submissions of 1291 as arising
from such momentary fear as might fall upon the most steadfast. If
Edward persisted in his claims, he was to
submit them to the judgment of the Roman curia within the
next six months. In 1300 Winchelsea, who fully accepted the new
papal doctrine, sought out Edward in the midst of the Carlaverock
campaign and presented him with Boniface's letter. Edward's hot
temper fired up at the archbishop's ill-timed intervention, and
subsequent military failures had not smoothed over the situation.
His wrath reached its climax when Winchelsea once more stirred up
opposition in the Lincoln parliament, and his refusal of a demand,
which the primate had astutely added to the commons' requests,
showed that he was prepared for war to the knife. Edward laid the
papal letter before the earls and barons that still tarried with
him at Lincoln. His appeal to their patriotism was not
unsuccessful. A letter was drawn up, which was sealed, then and
subsequently, by more than a hundred secular magnates, in which
Boniface was roundly told that the King of England was in no wise
bound to answer in the pope's court as to his rights over the realm
of Scotland or as to any other temporal matter, and that the papal
claim was unprecedented, and prejudicial to Edward's sovereignly. A
longer historical statement was composed by the king's order in
answer to Boniface. It is not certain that the two documents ever
reached the pope, but they had great effect in influencing English
opinion and in breaking down the alliance between the baronage and
the ecclesiastical party.1 Winchelsea's influence was fatally
weakened, and the period of his overthrow was at hand.
1 See, on the barons' letter, the
Ancestor, for July and October, 1903, and Jan., 1904.
The triumph over Winchelsea made Edward's position stronger than
it had been during the first days of the Lincoln parliament. That
assembly ended amidst the festivities which attended the creation
of Edward of Carnarvon as Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester, and
Count of Ponthieu. The new prince, already seventeen years of age,
had made his first campaign in the previous year. But all the pains
that Edward took in training his son in warfare and in politics
bore little fruit, and Edward of Carnarvon's introduction to active
life was only to add another trouble to the many that beset the
king.
When the truce with Scotland expired, in the summer of 1301,
Edward again led an army over the border, in which the Prince of Wales
appeared, at the head of a large Welsh contingent. Little of
military importance happened. Edward remained in Scotland over the
cold season, and kept his Christmas court at Linlithgow. Men and
horses perished amidst the rigours of the northern winter, and,
before the end of January, 1302, the king was glad to accept a
truce, suggested by Philip of France, to last until the end of
November. Immediately afterwards he was called to the south by the
negotiations for a permanent peace with France, which still hung
fire despite his marriage to the French king's sister. The earlier
stages of the negotiation were transacted at Rome, but it was soon
clear to Edward that no good would come to him from the
intervention of the curia. The fundamental difficulty still
lay in the refusal of Philip to relax his grasp on Gascony. Not
even the exaltation, consequent on the success of the famous
jubilee of 1300, blinded Boniface to the patent fact that he dared
not order the restitution of Gascony. "We cannot give you an
award," declared the pope to the English envoys in 1300. "If we
pronounced in your favour, the French would not abide by it, and
could not be compelled, for they would make light of any penalty."
"What the French once lay hold of," he said again, "they never let
go, and to have to do with the French is to have to do with the
devil."1 A year later Boniface could do no more than appeal to
the crusading zeal of Edward not to allow his claim on a patch of
French soil to stand between him and his vow. With such
commonplaces the papal mediation died away.
1 See the remarkable report of the Bishop of
Winchester to Edward printed in Engl. Hist. Review, xvii.
(1902), pp. 518-27.
Two events in 1302 indirectly contributed towards the
establishment of a permanent peace. These were the successful
revolt of Flanders from French domination, and the renewed quarrel
between Philip and Boniface. On May 18, the Flemings, in the
"matins of Bruges," cruelly avenged themselves for the oppressions
which they had endured from Philip's officials, and on July 11 the
revolted townsfolk won the battle of Courtrai, in which their heavy
armed infantry defeated the feudal cavalry of France, a victory of
the same kind as that Wallace had vainly hoped to gain at Falkirk.
Even before the Flemish rising, the reassertion of high sacerdotal
doctrine in the bull Ausculta, fili had renewed the strife
between Boniface and the French king. A few months later the
bull Unam sanctam laid down with emphasis the doctrine that
those who denied that the temporal sword belongs to St. Peter were
heretics, unmindful of the teachings of Christ. Thus began the
famous difference that went on with ever-increasing fury until the
outrage at Anagni, on September 7, 1303, brought about the fall of
Boniface and the overthrow of the Hildebrandine papacy. Meanwhile
Philip was devoting his best energies to constant, and not
altogether vain, attempts to avenge the defeat of Courtrai, and
re-establish his hold on Flanders. With these two affairs on his
hands, it was useless for him to persevere in his attempt to hold
Gascony.
In the earlier stages of his quarrel with Philip, Boniface built
great hopes on Edward's support, and strongly urged him to fight
for holy Church against the impious French king. But Edward had
suffered too much from Boniface to fall into so obvious a trap. His
hold over his own clergy was so firm that Winchelsea himself had no
chance of taking up the papal call to battle. Thus it was that
Unam sanctam produced no such clerical revolt in England as
Clericis laicos had done. It was Edward's policy to make use
of Philip's necessities to win back Gascony, and cut off all hope
of French support from the Scottish patriots. Philip himself was
the more disposed to agree with his brother-in-law's wishes,
because about Christmas, 1302, Bordeaux threw off the French yoke
and called in the English. The best way to save French dignity was
by timely concession. Accordingly, on May 20, 1303, the definitive
treaty of Paris was sealed, by which the two kings were pledged to
"perpetual peace and friendship". Gascony was restored, and Edward
agreed that he, or his son, should perform liege homage for it.
With the discharge of this duty by the younger Edward at Amiens, in
1304, the last stage of the pacification was accomplished. For the
rest of the reign, England and France remained on cordial terms.
Neither Edward nor Philip had resources adequate to the
accomplishment of great schemes of foreign conquest. Though Edward
got back Gascony, he owed it, not to his own power, but to the
embarrassment of his rival.
While completing his pacification with Philip the Fair, Edward
was busily engaged in establishing his power at home, at the
expense of the clerical and baronial opposition, which had stood for so
many years in the way of the conquest of Scotland. Since the
parliament of Lincoln, Winchelsea was no longer dangerous. He
failed even to get Boniface on his side in a scandalous attack
which he instigated on Bishop Langton. His constant efforts to
enlarge his jurisdiction raised up enemies all over his diocese and
province, and the mob of his cathedral city broke open his palace,
while he was in residence there. His inability to introduce into
England even a pale reflection of the struggle of Philip and the
pope showed how clearly he had lost influence since the days of
,Clericis laicos. A more recent convert to higher clerical
pretensions also failed. Bishop Bek of Durham lost all his power,
and was deprived of his temporalities by the king in 1302. Two
years later the insignificant Archbishop of York also incurred the
royal displeasure, and was punished in the same fashion. With
Durham, Norhamshire, and Hexhamshire all in the royal hands, the
road into Scotland was completely open.
The heavy hand of Edward fell upon earls as well as upon
bishops. Even in the early days of his reign when none, save
Gilbert of Gloucester, dared uplift the standard of opposition,
Edward had not spared the greatest barons in his efforts to
eliminate the idea of tenure from English political life. A subtle
extension of his earlier policy began to emphasise the dependence
of the landed dignitaries on his pleasure. The extinction of
several important baronial houses made this the easier, and Edward
took care to retain escheats in his own hands, or at least to
entrust them only to persons of approved confidence. The old
leaders of opposition were dead or powerless. Ralph of Monthermer,
the simple north-country knight who had won the hand of Joan of
Acre, ruled over the Gloutester-Glamorgan inheritance on behalf of
his wife and Edward's little grandson, Gilbert of Clare. The Earl
of Hereford died in 1299, and in 1302 his son and successor,
another Humphrey Bohun, was bribed by a marriage with the king's
daughter, Elizabeth, the widowed Countess of Holland, to surrender
his lands to the crown and receive them back, like the Earl of
Gloucester in 1290, entailed on the issue of himself and his
consort. In the same year the childless earl marshal, Roger Bigod,
conscious of his inability to continue any longer his struggle
against royal assumptions and at variance with his brother and
heir, made a similar surrender of his estates, which was the more
humiliating since the estate in tail, with which he was reinvested,
was bound to terminate with his life. In 1306, on the marshal's
death, the Bigod inheritance lapsed to the crown. Much earlier than
that, in 1293, Edward had extorted on her deathbed from the great
heiress, Isabella of Fors, Countess of Albemarle and Devon, the
bequest of the Isle of Wight and the adjacent castle of
Christchurch. In 1300, on the death of the king's childless cousin,
Earl Edmund, the wealthy earldom of Cornwall escheated to the
crown. To Edward's contemporaries the acquisition of the earldoms
of Norfolk and Cornwall seemed worthy to be put alongside the
conquests of Wales and Scotland.1
1 See John of London, Commendatio
lamentabilis in Chron. of Edw. I. and Edw. II., ii.,
8-9. See for the earldoms my Earldoms under Edward I. in
,Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, new ser.,
viii. (1894), 129-155.
Even more important as adding to Edward's resources than these
direct additions to the royal domains, was the increasing
dependence of the remaining earls upon the crown. His sons-in-law
of Gloucester and Hereford were entirely under his sway. In 1304
the aged Earl Warenne had died, and in 1306 his grandson and
successor was bound closely to the royal policy by his marriage
with Joan of Bar, Edward's grand-daughter. In the same way Edward's
young nephew, Thomas of Lancaster, ruled over the three earldoms of
Lancaster, Derby, and Leicester, and by his marriage to the
daughter and heiress of Henry Lacy, was destined to add to his
immense estates the additional earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury.
Edward of Carnarvon was learning the art of government in Wales,
Cheshire, and Ponthieu. The policy of concentrating the higher
baronial dignities in the royal family was no novelty, but Edward
carried it out more systematically and successfully than any of his
predecessors. He reaped the immediate advantages of his dexterity
in the extinction of baronial opposition and in the zeal of the
baronial levies against the Scots during the concluding years of
his reign. Yet the later history of the Middle Ages bears witness
to the grievous dangers to the wielder of the royal power which
lurked beneath a system so attractive in appearance.
The truce with the Scots ended in November, 1302, and Edward
despatched a strong force to the north under John Segrave. On
February 24, 1303, Segrave, attacked unexpectedly by the enemy at
Roslin, near Edinburgh, suffered a severe defeat. The conclusion of
the treaty of Paris gave Edward the opportunity for avenging the
disaster. He summoned his levies to assemble at Roxburgh for
Whitsuntide and, a fortnight before that time, appeared in person
in Tweeddale. After seven weary years of waiting and failure, he
was at last in a position to wear down the obstinate Scots by the
same systematic and deliberate policy that had won for him the
principality of Wales. The invasion of Scotland was henceforth to
continue as long as the Scottish resistance. Adequate resources
were procured to enable the royal armies to hold the field, and a
politic negotiation with the foreign merchants resulted in a
,carta mercatoria by which additional customs were imposed
upon English exports. These imposts, known as the "new and small
customs," as opposed to the "old and great customs" established in
1275, were not sanctioned by parliamentary grant: but for the
moment they provoked no opposition. Thus Edward was equipped both
with men and money for his undertaking. At last the true conquest
of Scotland began.
No attempt was made in the Lothians to stop Edward's advance,
but the Scots, under the regent, John Comyn of Badenoch, made a
vigorous effort to hold the line of the Forth against him. Their
plan seemed to promise well, for Stirling castle was still in
Scottish hands. Edward crossed the river by a ford, and all
organised efforts to oppose him at once ceased. Prudently leaving
Stirling to itself for the present, he hurried to Perth. After
spending most of June and July at Perth, he led his army
northwards, nearly following the line of his advance in 1296,
through Perth, Brechin, and Aberdeen, to Banff and Elgin. The most
remote point reached was Kinloss, a few miles west of Elgin, in
which neighbourhood he spent much of September. Then he slowly
retraced his steps and took up his winter quarters at Dunfermline.
In all this long progress, the only energetic resistance which
Edward encountered was at Brechin. Flushed with his triumph, he
ordered Stirling to be besieged, and from April, 1304, directed the
operations himself. The garrison held out with the utmost
gallantry, but at last a breach was effected in the walls, and on
July 24 the defenders laid down their arms. Long before the Scots
people despaired of withstanding the invader, the nobles grew
cold in the defence of their country. In February, 1304, the regent
and many of the earls made their submission. It was more than
suspected that this result was brought about by the threat of
Edward to divide their lands among his English followers. But on
Comyn and his friends showing a desire to yield, the king readily
promised them their lives and estates. Believing that his task was
over, Edward returned to England in August after an absence of
nearly fifteen months. He crossed the Humber early in December,
kept his Christmas court at Lincoln, and reached London late in
February. As a sign of the completion of the conquest, he ordered
that the law courts, which since 1297 had been established at York,
should resume their sessions in London.
A few heroes still upheld the independence of Scotland. Foremost
among them was Sir William Wallace, who, since his mission to
France in 1298, had disappeared from history. The submission of the
barons to Edward gave him another chance. He took a strenuous part
in the struggle of 1303-4, and he was specially exempted from the
easy pardons with which Edward purchased the submission of the
greater nobles. It was the daring and skill of Wallace that
prolonged the Scots' struggle until the spring of 1305. But he was
then once more an outlaw and a fugitive, only formidable by his
hold over the people, and by the possibility that the smallest
spark of resistance might at any time be blown into a flame. At
last he was captured through the zeal, or treachery, of a Scot in
Edward's service. In August, Wallace was despatched to London to
stand a public trial for treason, sedition, sacrilege, and murder.
He denied that he had ever become Edward's subject, but did not
escape conviction. With his execution, the last stage of Edward's
triumph in Scotland was accomplished. Though the full measure of
Wallace's fame belongs to a later age rather than his own, yet it
was a sure instinct that made the Scottish people celebrate him as
the popular hero of their struggle for independence. His courage,
persistency, and daring stands in marked contrast to the
self-seeking opportunism of the great nobles, who afterwards
appropriated the results of his endeavours. Yet we can hardly blame
Edward for making an example of him, when he fell into his power.
Even if Wallace had successfully evaded the oath of fealty to
Edward, it is scarcely reasonable to expect that the king would
consider this technical plea as availing against his doctrine that
all Scots were necessarily his subjects since the submission of
1296. It was Wallace's glory that he fought his fight and paid the
penalty of it.
A full parliament of the three estates sat with the king at
Westminster from February 28 to March 21, 1305. The proceedings of
this assembly are known with a fulness exceeding that of the record
of any of the other parliaments of the reign.1 Among the matters
enumerated in the writs as specially demanding attention was the
"establishment of our realm of Scotland". Three Scottish magnates,
Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick,
and John Mowbray were particularly called upon to give their advice
as to how Scotland was to be represented in a later parliament, in
which the plans for its future government were to be drawn up. They
informed the king that two bishops, two abbots, two barons, and two
representatives of the commons, one from the south of the Forth and
the other from the north thereof, would be sufficient for this
purpose. This further "parliament" assembled on September 15, three
weeks after the execution of Wallace. It consisted simply of twenty
councillors of Edward, and the ten Scottish delegates. From the
joint deliberations of these thirty sprang the "ordinance made by
the lord king for the establishment of the land of Scotland".
1 See Memoranda, de parliamento (1305),
ed. F.W. Maitland (Rolls Series).
Following the general lines of the settlement of the
principality of Wales, the ordinance combined Edward's direct
lordship over Scotland with a legal and administrative system
separate from that of England. John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond,
the king's sister's son, was made Edward's lieutenant and warden of
Scotland, and under him were a chancellor, a chamberlain, and a
controller. Scotland was to be split up for judicial purposes into
districts corresponding to its racial and political divisions. Four
pairs of justices were appointed for each of these regions, two for
Lothian, two for Galloway and the south-west, two for the lands
"between Forth and the mountains," that is the Lowland districts of
the north-east, and two for the lands "beyond the mountains," that
is for the Highlands and islands. Sheriffs "natives either of
England or Scotland" were nominated for each of the shires, and it was
significant that the great majority of them were Scots and that the
hereditary sheriffdoms of the older system were still continued.
The "custom of the Scots and the Welsh," that is the Celtic laws of
the Highlanders and the Strathclyde Welsh, was "henceforth
prohibited and disused". John of Brittany was to "assemble the good
people of Scotland in a convenient place" where "the laws of King
David and the amendments by other kings" were to be rehearsed, and
such of these laws as are "plainly against God and reason" were to
be reformed, all doubtful matters being referred to the judgment of
Edward. The king's lieutenant was bidden to "remove such persons as
might disturb the peace" to the south of the Trent, but their
deportation was to be in "courteous fashion" and after taking the
advice of the "good people of Scotland". Care for the preservation
of the peace, and for administrative reform, is seen in the oath
imposed upon officials and in the pains taken to secure the custody
of the castles. The Scots parliament was to be retained, and recent
precedents also suggested the probability of Scottish
representation in the parliament of England. If Scotland were to be
ruled by Edward at all, it would have been difficult to devise a
wiser scheme for its administration. Yet the Scottish love of
independence was not to be bartered away for better government.
Within six months the new constitution was overthrown, and the
chief part in its destruction was taken by the Scots by whose
advice Edward had drawn it up.
Edward at last felt himself in a position to take his long
deferred revenge on Winchelsea. The primate still kept aloof from
the councils of the king, and his spirit was as irreconcilable as
ever. He gained his last victory in the Lenten parliament of 1305,
when he prevented the promulgation of a statute, passed on the
petition of the laity, but agreed to by all the estates, which
forbade taxes on ecclesiastical property involving the exportation
of money out of the country.1 At this moment the long vacancy of
the papacy, which followed the pontificate of Benedict XI.,
Boniface VIII.'s short-lived successor, had not yet come to an end.
Soon, however, Winchelsea's zeal on behalf of papal taxation was to be
ill requited. On June 5, 1305, Bertrand de Goth, a Gascon nobleman
who since 1299 had been archbishop of Bordeaux, was elected to the
papacy as Clement V., through the management of Philip the Fair. A
dependant of the King of France and a subject of the King of
England, the new pope showed a complaisance towards kings which
stood in strong contrast to the ultramontane austerity of his
predecessors. He refused to visit Italy, received the papal crown
at Lyons, and spent the first years of his pontificate in Poitou
and Gascony. Ultimately establishing himself at Avignon, he began
that seventy years of Babylonish captivity of the apostolic see
which greatly degraded the papacy. Though Clement's main concern
was to fulfil the exacting conditions which, as it was believed,
Philip had imposed upon him, he was almost as subservient to Edward
as to the King of France. His deference to his natural lord enabled
Edward to renounce the most irksome of the obligations which he had
incurred to his subjects, to punish Winchelsea, and to restrain
Roman authority by laws which anticipate the legislation of the age
of Edward III.
1 Memoranda de parliamento, preface, p.
li. The statement in the text is an inference suggested by
Professor Maitland's account of the statute De asportis
religiosorum. For the last struggle of Edward and Winchelsea,
see Stubbs's preface to Chron. of Edw. I. and Edw. II., i.,
xcix.-cxiii.
At Clement V.'s coronation at Lyons, in November, England was
represented by Winchelsea's old enemy, Bishop Walter Langton, and
by the Earl of Lincoln. The first result of their work was the
promulgation, on December 29, of the bull Regalis
devotionis, by which the pope annulled the additions made to
the charters in 1297 and succeeding years, and dispensed Edward
from the oath which he had taken to observe them, on the ground
that it was in conflict with his coronation vows. Next year Edward
took advantage of this bull to revoke the disafforestments made by
the parliament of Lincoln in 1301. It may be a sign either of the
moderation, or of the well-grounded fears of the king, that he made
no further use of the papal absolution. But, like his father and
grandfather, he used the papal authority to set aside his plighted
word, and his conduct in this respect suggests that it was well for
England that the renewal of the Scottish troubles reduced for the
rest of the reign the temptation, which the bull held out to him,
to play fast and loose with the liberties of his subjects. The
standards of contemporary morality were not, however, infringed by
Edward's action, dishonourable and undignified as it seems to us of
later times
Winchelsea's turn was at last come. On
February 12, 1306, Clement suspended him from his office, and
summoned him to appear before the curia. On March 25 the
archbishop humbled himself before Edward and begged for his
protection. But the king overwhelmed him with reproaches and
refused to show him any mercy. Within two months, the primate took
ship for France and made his way to the papal court, which was then
established at Bordeaux. He remained in exile, though in the
English king's dominions, for the rest of Edward's life. A less
harsh punishment was meted out to the Bishop of Durham, who then
came back from the court of Clement with the magnificent title of
Patriarch of Jerusalem. For a second time Edward laid violent hands
upon the rich temporalities of the see, and Bek, like Winchelsea,
remained under a cloud for the remainder of the reign.
Clement expected to be paid for yielding so much to the king. A
papal agent, William de Testa, was sent to England, and to him
Edward gave the administration of the temporalities of Canterbury.
William's energy in collecting first-fruits aroused a storm of
opposition from the clergy. The laity, disgusted to find that the
king was negotiating for the transference of a crusading tenth to
himself, associated themselves with their protest. Clement
thereupon despatched the Cardinal Peter of Spain to England, that
he might attempt to arrange a general pacification, and complete
the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Isabella of France, which
had been agreed upon in 1303. Before the cardinal's arrival,
Edward's last parliament met in January, 1307, at Carlisle. The
renewed disturbances in Scotland necessitated a meeting on the
border, but the main transactions of the estates bore upon matters
ecclesiastical. The lords and commons joined in demanding from the
king a remedy against the oppressions of the apostolic see. A
spirited and strongly worded protest was addressed to the pope. Nor
were the estates contented with mere remonstrances. The statute of
Carlisle renewed the abortive measure of 1305 De asportis
religiosorum, by prohibiting tallages of religious houses being
sent out of the realm. Had the petition of the estates been drafted
into a statute, the parliament of Carlisle would have anticipated
the statute of Praemunire and many other anti-papal
enactments. But Peter of Spain arrived, and Edward thought it
injudicious to provoke a contest with the papacy. Even
the petition actually approved was left in suspense to await
further negotiations between the king and the cardinal. Before any
decision was come to, Edward died, and this anti-Roman movement,
like so many which had preceded it, resulted in little more than
brave words. When, two generations later, a more resolute temper
seized upon king and estates, they fell back upon the petitions and
proceedings of the parliament of Carlisle for precedents for
resisting the papal authority. With all its pitiful conclusion,
Edward's ecclesiastical policy at least marks a step in advance
upon the dependent attitude of Henry III.
In the period of peace after the conquest of Scotland, Edward
busied himself with strengthening the administration of his own
kingdom and with enforcing the laws against violence and outrage.
Under the strongest of medieval kings, the state of society was
very disorderly, and even a ruler like Edward had often to be
contented with holding up in his legislation an ideal of conduct
which he was powerless to enforce in detail. Complaints had long
been made that the greater nobles encroached upon poor men's
inheritances, that gangs of marauders ranged over the country,
wreaking every sort of violence and outrage, and that the law
courts would give no redress to the sufferers from such outrageous
deeds, since judges and juries were alike terrorised by overmighty
offenders and dared not administer equal justice. Accordingly in
the Lenten parliament of 1305 was drawn up the ordinance of
Trailbaston, by which the king was empowered to issue writs of
inquiry, addressed to special justices in the various shires, and
authorising them to take vigorous action against these
trailbastons, or men with clubs, whose outrages had become
so grievous. It was not so much a new law as an administrative act;
but it formed a precedent for later times, and the energy of the
justices of trailbaston effected a real, if temporary, improvement
in the condition of the country. So important was the measure that
a chronicler calls the year in which this was enacted the "year of
trailbaston".1
1 Liber de antiquis legibus, p. 250.
Never did Edward's prospects seem brighter than in the early
days of 1306. Scotland was obedient; the French alliance was firmly
cemented; the pope was complacent; the Archbishop of Canterbury
was in exile and the Bishop of Durham in disgrace; the commons were
grateful for the better order secured by the commissions of
trailbaston, and the king had in the papal absolution a weapon in
reserve, which he could always use against a renewal of baronial
opposition, though, for the moment, neither nobles nor commons
seemed likely to give trouble. Once more there was some talk of
Edward leading a crusade, and the French lawyer, Peter Dubois, at
this time dedicated to him the first draft of his remarkable
treatise on the recovery of the Holy Land.1 Nor did the project
seem altogether impracticable. Though Edward was sixty-seven years
of age, he remained slim, vigorous and straight as a palm tree. He
could mount his horse and ride to the hunt or the field with the
activity of youth. His eyes were not dimmed with age and his teeth
were still firm in his jaws.2 The worst trouble which immediately
beset him, was the undutiful conduct of the young Prince of Wales,
who foolishly quarrelled with Bishop Langton, and preferred to
amuse himself with unworthy favourites rather than submit himself
to the severe training in arms and affairs to which Edward had long
striven to inure him. When all thus seemed favourable, a sudden
storm burst in Scotland which plunged the old king into renewed
troubles.
1 De recuperatione terre sancte, ed. C.V.
Langlois (1891).
2 John of London, Commendatio
lamentabilis, pp. 5-6.
In 1304 Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, became by his father's
death the head of his house. Though he had long adhered to the
regency which had governed Scotland in Balliol's name, he had now
made terms with Edward, and had taken a conspicuous part in
bringing about the pacification of Scotland under its new
constitution. But the double policy, which had involved him in the
shifts and tergiversations of his earlier career, still dominated
the mind of the ambitious earl. At the moment of his submission to
Edward, he entered into an intimate alliance with Bishop Lamberton
of St. Andrews, the old partisan of Wallace. Lamberton was then,
like Bruce, on Edward's side, and as John of Brittany had not yet
personally taken up his new charge, the blind confidence of Edward
entrusted him with the foremost place among the commissioners who
acted as wardens of Scotland during the king's lieutenant's
absence. Bruce, still remembering his grandfather's
claim on the throne, welcomed the definitive setting aside of
Balliol. While Edward believed that Scotland was quietening down
under its new constitution, Bruce was secretly conspiring with the
Scottish magnates, with a view to making himself king. His chief
difficulty was with the late regent, John Comyn the Red, lord of
Badenoch. The Bruces and the Comyns had long been at variance, and
the Red Comyn, who was the nephew of the deposed King John,
regarded himself as the representative of the Balliol claim to the
throne, and was not unmindful how his father had withdrawn his
pretensions in 1291 rather than divide the Balliol interest.
Meanwhile the antagonism of the two houses was the best safeguard
for the continuance of Edward's rule.
Bruce was violent as well as able and ambitious. He invited
Comyn to a conference for January 10, 1306, in the Franciscan
friary at Dumfries. On that day the king's justices were holding
the assizes in the castle, and Brace and Comyn, with a few
followers, met in the cloister of the convent. Hot words were
exchanged, and Bruce drew his sword and wounded Comyn. The lord of
Badenoch took refuge in the church, and some of Bruce's friends
followed him and slew him on the steps of the high altar. This
cruel murder involved a violent breach between Bruce and the king.
The earl took to the hills, declared himself the champion of
national independence, and renewed his claim to the crown. He was
joined by a great multitude of the people and by a certain number
of the magnates. Conspicuous among the latter was Bishop Wishart of
Glasgow, who broke his sixth oath of fealty, using the timber given
him by Edward for building the steeple of his cathedral in
constructing military engines to besiege the castles which were
still held for the English king. Before long Bishop Lamberton, the
chief of the Edwardian government, also went over. The support of
the two bishops enabled Bruce to be crowned on March 25 at Scone.
All Scotland was soon in revolt, and only the garrisons and a few
magnates remained faithful to Edward.
News of the death of Comyn and the revolt of Bruce reached
Edward, while engaged in hunting in Dorset and Wiltshire. He at
once called upon Church and State to unite against the sacreligious
murderer and traitor. Clement V. excommunicated the Earl of
Carrick, and deprived Lamberton and Wishart of their
bishoprics. The warlike zeal of the English barons was stimulated
by liberal grants of the forfeited estates of Bruce and his
partisans. Feeling the infirmities of age coming upon him, Edward
saw that his best chance of success was to inspire his son with
something of his spirit. The Prince of Wales accordingly received a
grant of Gascony, and on Whitsunday, May 22, was dubbed knight at
Westminster along with over two hundred other aspirants to arms. A
magnificent feast in Westminster Hall succeeded the ceremony. Two
swans, adorned with golden chains, were brought in, and the old
king set to all the revellers the example of vowing on the swans to
revenge the murder of Comyn. Edward swore that when he had expiated
this wrong to Holy Church, he would never more bear arms against
Christian man, but would immediately turn his steps towards the
Holy Land to redeem the Holy Sepulchre. The Prince of Wales' vow
was never to rest two nights in the same spot until he had reached
Scotland to assist his father in his purpose. Then all the young
knights were despatched northwards to overthrow the Scottish
pretender.
A liberal grant from the estates facilitated the military
preparations. But since the beginning of the year, Edward's
strength had rapidly broken. He was no longer able to ride, and his
movements were consequently very tedious. His army gathered
together with more than the usual slowness, and Aymer of Valence,
Earl of Pembroke, the king's cousin, was sent forward as warden of
Scotland to meet Bruce with such forces as were ready. On June 26
Aymer fell upon Bruce at Methven, near Perth, and inflicted a
severe defeat upon him. The power of the pretender died away as
rapidly as it had arisen. The Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow
were made prisoners, and Bruce's brothers, wife, and daughter fell
into the enemy's hands. The brothers were promptly beheaded, though
one of them was an ecclesiastic, and the ladies were confined in
English nunneries. Bruce himself fled to Kintyre, and thence to
Rathlin island, off the coast of Antrim.
Edward went north in July, and, after a long stay in
Northumberland, took up his quarters early in October with the
Austin canons of Lanercost, near Carlisle. There he remained for
above five months. In January, 1307, the parliament, whose
anti-clerical policy has already been recounted, assembled at
Carlisle, and remained in session until March. With the
spring, Brace crossed over from Ireland, and re-appeared in his own
lands in the south-west. In May he revenged the rout of Methven by
inflicting a bloody check on Aymer of Valence near Ayr, and within
three days gained another victory over Edward's son-in-law, Earl
Ralph of Gloucester. These blows only spurred on Edward to
increased efforts. The levies were summoned to meet at Carlisle
and, regardless of his infirmities, the old king resolved to lead
his troops in person. On July 3 he once more mounted his horse and
started for the border. But his constitution could not respond to
the demands made on it by his unbroken spirit. After a journey of
two miles he was forced to rest for the night. Next day he could
only traverse a similar distance, and his exertions so fatigued him
that he was compelled to remain at his lodgings all the following
day. This repose enabled him to make his way, on July 6, to
Burgh-on-Sands, less than seven miles from Carlisle, where he spent
the night. On July 7, as he was being raised in his bed by his
attendants to take his morning meal, he fell back in their arms and
expired.
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