The History of England from the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) Gaveston, The Ordainers, And Bannockburn byTout, T.F. (M.A.)
Edward of Carnarvon was over twenty-three
years of age when he became king. Tall, graceful, and handsome,
with magnificent health and exceptional bodily strength, the young
king was, so far as externals went, almost as fine a man as his
father. Yet no one could have been more absolutely destitute of all
those qualities which constitute Edward I.'s claims to greatness.
An utter want of serious purpose blasted his whole career. It was
in vain that his father subjected him to a careful training in
statecraft and in military science. Though not lacking in
intelligence, the young prince from the first to the last concerned
himself with nothing but his own amusements. A confirmed gambler
and a deep drinker, Edward showed a special bent for unkingly and
frivolous diversions. Save in his devotion for the chase, his
tastes had nothing in common with the high-born youths with whom he
was educated. He showed himself a coward on the battlefield, and
shirked even the mimic warfare of the tournament. He repaid the
contempt and dislike of his own class by withdrawing himself from
the society of the nobles, and associating himself with buffoons,
singers, play-actors, coachmen, ditchers, watermen, sailors, and
smiths. Of the befitting comrades of his youth, the only one of the
higher aristocracy with whom he had any true intimacy was his
nephew, Gilbert of Clare, while the only member of his household
for whom he showed real affection was the Gascon knight, Peter of
Gaveston.1 Attributing his son's levity to Gaveston's corrupting
influence, the old king had banished the foreign favourite early in
1307. But no change in his surroundings could stir up the prince's
frivolous nature to fulfil the duties of his station. Edward's most
kingly qualities were love of fine clothes and of ceremonies.
Passionately fond of rowing, driving, horse-breeding, and the
rearing of dogs, his ordinary occupations were those of the athlete
or the artisan. He was skilful with his hands, and an excellent
mechanic, proficient at the anvil and the forge, and proud of his
skill in digging ditches and thatching roofs. Interested in music,
and devoted to play-acting, he was badly educated, taking the
coronation oath in the French form provided for a king ignorant of
Latin. Vain, irritable, and easily moved to outbursts of childish
wrath, he was half-conscious of the weakness of his will, and was
never without a favourite, whose affection compensated him for his
subjects' contempt. The household of so careless a master was
disorderly beyond the ordinary measure of the time. While Edward
irritated the nobles by his neglect of their counsel, he vexed the
commons by the exactions of his purveyors.
1 That is Gabaston, dep. Basses
Pyrénées, cant. Morlaas.
The task which lay before Edward might well have daunted a
stronger man. The old king had failed in the great purpose of his
life. Scotland was in full revolt and had found a man able to guide
her destinies. The crown was deeply in debt; the exchequer was bare
of supplies, and the revenues both of England and Gascony were
farmed by greedy and unpopular companies of Italian bankers, such
as the Frescobaldi of Florence, the king's chief creditors. The
nobles, though restrained by the will of the old king, still
cherished the ideals of the age of the Barons' War, and were
convinced that the best way to rule England was to entrust the
machinery of the central government, which Edward I. had elaborated
with so much care, to the control of a narrow council of earls and
prelates. Winchelsea, though broken in health, looked forward in
his banishment to the renewal of the alliance of baronage and
clergy, and to the reassertion of hierarchical ideals. The papal
,curia, already triumphant in the last days of the reign of
the dead king, was anticipating a return to the times of Henry III,
when every dignity of the English Church was at its mercy. The
strenuous endeavour which had marked the last reign gave place to
the extreme of negligence.
Edward at once broke with the policy of his father. After
receiving, at Carlisle, the homage of the English magnates, he
crossed the Solway to Dumfries, where such Scottish barons as had not
joined Robert Bruce took oaths of fealty to him. He soon
relinquished the personal conduct of the war, and travelled slowly
to Westminster on the pretext of following his father's body to its
last resting-place. He replaced his father's ministers by
dependants of his own. Bishop Walter Langton, the chief minister of
the last years of Edward I., was singled out for special vengeance.
He was stripped of his offices, robbed of his treasure, and thrown
into close confinement, without any regard to the immunities of a
churchman from secular jurisdiction. Langton's place as treasurer
was given to Walter Reynolds, an illiterate clerk, who had won the
chief place in Edward's household through his skill in theatricals.
Ralph Baldock, Bishop of London, was replaced in the chancery by
John Langton, Bishop of Chichester. The barons of the exchequer,
the justices of the high courts, and the other ministers of the old
king were removed in favour of more complacent successors. Signal
favour was shown to all who had fallen under Edward I.'s
displeasure. Bishop Bek, of Durham, was restored to his palatinate,
and the road to return opened to Winchelsea, though ill-health
detained him on the Continent for some time longer. Conspicuous
among the returned exiles was Peter of Gaveston, whom the king
welcomed with the warmest affection. He at once invested his
"brother Peter" with the rich earldom of Cornwall, which the old
king, with the object of conferring it on one of his sons by his
second marriage, had kept in his hands since Earl Edmund's death. A
little later Edward married the favourite to his niece, Margaret of
Clare, the eldest sister of Earl Gilbert of Gloucester. Of the
tried comrades of Edward I. the only one who remained in authority
was Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. The abandonment of the Scottish
campaign soon followed. It was no wonder that the Scots lords, who
had performed homage to Edward at Dumfries, began to turn to Bruce.
Already king of the Scottish commons, Robert was in a fair way to
become accepted by the whole people.
The readiness with which the barons acquiesced in Edward's
reversal of his father's policy shows that they had regarded the
late king's action with little favour. Lincoln, the wisest and most
influential of the earls, even found reasons for the grant of
Cornwall to Gaveston, and kept in check his son-in-law, Earl Thomas
of Lancaster, who was the most disposed to grumble at the elevation
of the Gascon favourite. Gilbert of Gloucester was but newly come
to his earldom. He was personally attached to the king, his old
playmate and uncle, and was not unfriendly to his Gascon
brother-in-law. The recent concentration of the great estates in
the hands of a few individuals gave these three earls a position of
overwhelming importance both in the court and in the country, and
with their good-will Edward was safe. But the weakness of the king
and the rashness of the favourite soon caused murmurs to arise.
Early in 1308 Edward crossed over to France, leaving Gaveston as
regent, and was married on January 25, at Boulogne, to Philip the
Fair's daughter Isabella, a child of twelve, to whom he had been
plighted since 1298. The marriage was attended by the French king
and a great gathering of the magnates of both countries.
Opportunity was taken of the meeting for Edward to perform homage
for Aquitaine. After the arrival of the royal couple in England,
their coronation took place on February 25. Time had been when the
reign began with the king's crowning; but Edward had taken up every
royal function immediately on his father's death, and set a
precedent to later sovereigns by dating his own accession from the
day succeeding the decease of his predecessor. The coronation
ceremony, minutely recorded, provided precedents for later ages. It
was some recognition of the work of the last generation that the
coronation oath was somewhat more rigid and involved a more
definite recognition of the rights of the community than on earlier
occasions. Winchelsea was still abroad, and the hallowing was
performed by Henry Woodlock, Bishop of Winchester.
Discontent was already simmering. Not even Lincoln's weighty
influence could overcome the irritation of the earls at the
elevation of the Gascon knight into their circle. The very virtues
of the vigorous favourite turned to his discredit. At a tournament
given by him, at his own castle of Wallingford, to celebrate his
marriage with the king's niece, the new-made earl, with a party of
valiant knights, challenged a troop, which included the Earls of
Hereford, Warenne, and Arundel, and utterly discomfited his
rivals.1 The victory of the upstart over magnates of such dignity
was accounted for by treachery, and the prohibition of a coronation
tournament, probably a simple measure of police, was ascribed to
the unwillingness of Peter to give his opponents a legitimate
opportunity of vindicating their skill. There had been much
resentment at Gaveston's appointment as regent during the king's
absence in France. A further outburst of indignation followed when
the Gascon, magnificently arrayed and bedecked with jewels, bore
the crown of St. Edward in the coronation procession. The queen's
uncles, who had escorted her to her new home, left England
disgusted that Edward's love for Gaveston led him to neglect his
bride, and the want of reserve shown in the personal dealings of
the king and his "idol" suggested the worst interpretation of their
relations, though this is against the weight of evidence. Rumours
spread that the favourite had laid hands on the vast treasures
which Bishop Walter Langton had deposited at the New Temple, and
had extorted from the king even larger sums, which he had sent to
his kinsfolk in Gascony by the agency of the Italian farmers of the
revenue.
1Ann. Paulini, p. 258, and Monk of
Malmesbury, p. 156, are to be preferred to Trokelowe, p. 65.
Gaveston was a typical Gascon, vain, loquacious, and
ostentatious, proud of his own ready wit and possessed of a fatal
talent for sharp and bitter sayings. He seems to have been a brave
and generous soldier. There is little proof that he was specially
vicious or incompetent, and, had he been allowed time to establish
himself, he might well have been the parent of a noble house, as
patriotic and as narrowly English as the Valence lords of Pembroke
had become in the second generation. But his sudden elevation
rather turned his head, and the dull but dignified English earls
were soon mortally offended by his airs of superiority, and by his
intervention between them and the sovereign. "If," wrote the
annalist of St. Paul's, London, "one of the earls or magnates
sought any special favour of the king, the king forthwith sent him
to Peter, and whatever Peter said or ordered at once took place,
and the king ratified it. Hence the whole people grew indignant
that there should be two kings in one kingdom, one the king in
name, the other the king in reality." Gaveston's vanity was touched
by the sullen hostility of the earls. He returned their suspicion
by an openly expressed contempt. He amused himself and the king by
devising nicknames for them. Thomas of Lancaster was the old pig or
the play-actor, Aymer of Pembroke was Joseph the Jew, Gilbert of
Gloucester was the cuckoo, and Guy of Warwick was the black dog of
Arden. Such jests were bitterly resented. "If he call me dog," said
Warwick on hearing of the insult, "I will take care to bite him."
The barons formed an association, bound by oath to drive Gaveston
into exile and deprive him of his earldom. All over the country
there were secret meetings and eager preparations for war. The
outlook became still more alarming when the Earl of Lincoln at last
changed his policy. Convinced of the unworthiness of Gaveston, he
turned against him, and the whole baronage followed his lead. Only
Hugh Despenser and a few lawyers adhered to the favourite.
Gloucester did not like to take an active part against his
brother-in-law, but his stepfather, Monthermer, was conspicuous
among the enemies of the Gascon. Winchelsea, too, came to England
and threw his powerful influence on the side of the opposition.
In April, 1308, a parliament of nobles met and insisted upon the
exile of the favourite. The magnates took up a high line. "Homage
and the oath of allegiance," they declared, "are due to the crown
rather than to the person of the king. If the king behave
unreasonably, his lieges are bound to bring him back to the ways of
righteousness." On May 18 letters patent were issued promising that
Gaveston should be banished before June 25. Gaveston, bending
before the storm, surrendered his earldom and prepared for
departure, while Winchelsea and the bishops declared him
excommunicate if he tarried in England beyond the appointed day.
The king did his best to lighten his friend's misfortune. Fresh
grants of land and castles compensated for the loss of Cornwall and
gave him means for armed resistance. The grant of Gascon counties,
jurisdictions, cities and castles to the value of 3,000 marks a
year provided him with a dignified refuge. The pope and cardinals
were besought to relieve him from the sentence hung over his head
by the archbishop. It is significant of Edward's early intention to
violate his promise, that in his letters to the curia he still
describes Gaveston as Earl of Cornwall. Peter was soon appointed
the king's lieutenant in Ireland. This time he was called Earl of
Cornwall in a document meant for English use. As midsummer
approached, Edward accompanied him to Bristol and bade him a
sorrowful farewell. Attended by a numerous and splendid household,
Gaveston crossed over to Ireland and took up the government of that
country, where his energy and liberality won him considerable
popularity.
Edward was inconsolable at the loss of his friend. For the first
time in his reign he threw himself into politics with interest, and
intrigued with rare perseverance to bring about his recall.
Meanwhile the business of the state fell into deplorable confusion.
No supplies were raised; no laws were passed; no effort was made to
stay the progress of Robert Bruce. The magnates refused to help the
king, and in April, 1309, Edward was forced to meet a parliament of
the three estates at Westminster. There he received a much-needed
supply, but the barons and commons drew up a long schedule of
grievances, in which they complained of the abuses of purveyance,
the weakness of the government, the tyranny of the royal officials,
and the delays in obtaining justice. The estates refused point
blank the king's request for the recall of Gaveston and demanded an
answer to their petitions in the next parliament.
Edward saw in submission to the estates the only way of bringing
back his brother Peter from his gilded exile. He persuaded the pope
to annul the ecclesiastical censures with which Winchelsea had
sought to prevent Gaveston's return, and then recalled his friend
on his own authority. Gaveston at once quitted Ireland and was met
at Chester by Edward. Together they attended a parliament of
magnates held in July at Stamford. There Edward announced that he
accepted the petitions of the estates and issued a statute limiting
purveyance. But the real work of this assembly was the ratification
of the recall of the favourite, which was assured since Edward had
won over some of the chief earls to agree to it. Gloucester was
easily moved to champion his brother-in-law's cause. Lincoln
reverted to his former friendship for the Gascon, and managed both
to overbear the hostility of Lancaster and to induce Earl Warenne,
"who had never shown a cheerful face to Peter since the Wallingford
tournament," to become his friend. Warwick, alone of the earls, was
irreconcilable. But Edward had gained his point. It was even agreed
that the returned exile should regain his earldom of Cornwall.
The annalists moralise on the instability of the magnates; and
the sudden revolution may perhaps be set down as much to their
incapacity as to the dexterity of the king. But Peter's second
period of power was even shorter than his first. He had learnt
nothing from his misfortunes, save perhaps increased contempt for
his enemies. He was more insolent, greedy, and bitter in speech
than ever. Early in 1310 the barons were again preparing to renew
their attacks. The second storm burst in a parliament of magnates
held at London in March, 1310. The barons came to this parliament
in military array, and Edward once more found himself at their
mercy. The conditions of 1258 exactly repeated themselves. Once
more an armed baronial parliament made itself the mouthpiece of the
national discontent against a weak king, an incompetent
administration, and foreign favourites. The magnates were no longer
contented with simply demanding the banishment of Gaveston. They
were ready with a constructive programme of reform, and they went
back to the policy of the Mad Parliament. As the king could not be
trusted, the royal power must once more be put into commission in
the hands of a committee of magnates. So stiff were the barons in
their adhesion to the precedents of 1258, that they made no
pretence of taking the commons into partnership with them. To them
the work of Edward I. had been done to no purpose. Baronial
assemblies and full parliaments of the estates were still equally
competent to transact all the business of the nation. It is vain to
see in this ignoring of the commons any aristocratic jealousy of
the more popular element in the constitution. There can be no doubt
but that any full parliament would have co-operated with the barons
as heartily in 1310 as it had done in 1309. It was simply that
popular co-operation was regarded as unnecessary. As in 1258, the
magnates claimed to speak for the whole nation.
The barons drew up a statement of the "great perils and dangers"
to which England was exposed through the king's dependence on bad
counsellors. The franchises of Holy Church were threatened; the
king was reduced to live by extortion; Scotland was lost; and the
crown was "grievously dismembered" in England and Ireland.
"Wherefore, sire," the petition concludes, "your good folk pray you
humbly that, for the salvation of yourself and them and of the
crown, you will assent that these perils shall be avoided and
redressed by ordinance of your baronage." Edward at once
surrendered at discretion, perhaps in the vain hope of saving
Gaveston. On March 16 he issued a charter, which empowered the
barons to elect certain persons to draw up ordinances to reform the
realm and the royal household. The powers of the committee were to
last until Michaelmas, 1311. A barren promise that the king's
concession should not be counted a precedent made Edward's
submission seem a little less abject. Four days later the ordainers
were appointed, the method of their election being based upon the
precedents of 1258.
Twenty-one lords ordainers represented in somewhat unequal
proportions the three great ranks of the magnates. At the head of
the seven bishops was Winchelsea, while both Bishop Baldock of
London, the dismissed chancellor, and his successor, John Langton
of Chichester, were included among the rest. All the eight earls
attending the parliament became ordainers. Side by side with
moderate men, such as Gloucester, Lincoln, and John of Brittany,
Earl of Richmond, were the extreme men of the opposition,
Lancaster, Pembroke, Warwick, Hereford, the king's brother-in-law,
and Edmund Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. Warenne and the insignificant
Earl of Oxford do not seem to have been present in parliament, and
are therefore omitted. With these exceptions, and of course that of
the Earl of Cornwall, the whole of the earls were arrayed against
the king. The six barons, who completed the list of nominees, were
either colourless in their policy or dependent on the earls and
their episcopal allies. The ordainers set to work at once. Two days
after their appointment, they issued six preliminary ordinances by
which they resolved that the place of their sitting should be
London, that none of the ordainers should receive gifts from the
crown, that no royal grants should be valid without the consent of
the majority, that the customs should be paid directly into the
exchequer, that the foreign merchants who had lately farmed them
should be arrested, and that the Great Charter should be firmly
kept. During the next eighteen months they remained hard at
work.
Gaveston, conscious of his impending doom, betook himself to the
north as early as February. As soon as he could escape, Edward
hurried northwards to join him. An expedition against the Scots was
then summoned for September. It was high time that something should
be done. During the three years that Edward had reigned, Robert
Bruce had made alarming progress. One after the other the Scottish
magnates had joined his cause, and a few despairing partisans and
some scattered ill-garrisoned, ill-equipped strongholds alone
upheld the English cause north of the Tweed. But even then Edward
did not wage war in earnest. His real motive for affecting zeal for
martial enterprise was his desire to escape from his taskmasters,
and to keep Gaveston out of harm's way. The earls gave him no
encouragement. On the pretext that their services were required in
London at the meetings of the ordainers, the great majority of the
higher baronage took no personal part in the expedition. Gloucester
was the only ordainer who was present, and the only other earls in
the host were Warenne and Gaveston himself. The chief strength of
Edwards army was a swarm of ill-disciplined Welsh and English
infantry, more intent on plunder than on victory. In September
Edward advanced to Roxburgh and made his way as far as Linlithgow.
No enemy was to be found, for Bruce was not strong enough to risk a
pitched battle, even against Edward's army. He hid himself in the
mountains and moors, and contented himself with cutting off
foraging parties, destroying stragglers, and breaking down the
enemy's communications. Within two months Edward discreetly retired
to Berwick, and there passed many months at the border town.
Technically he was in Scotland; practically he might as well have
been in London for all the harm he was doing to Bruce. However,
Gaveston showed more martial zeal than his master. He led an
expedition which penetrated as far as Perth, and reduced the
country between the Forth and the Grampians to Edward's obedience.
Gloucester also pacified the forest of Ettrick. To these two all
the little honour of the campaign belonged.
The Earl of Lincoln governed England as regent during the king's
absence. In February, 1311, he died, and Gloucester abandoned the
campaign to take up the regency. The death of the last of Edward
I.'s lay ministers was followed in March by that of another
survivor of the old generation, Bishop Bek of Durham. The old
landmarks were quickly passing away, and the forces that still made
for moderation were sensibly diminished. Gilbert of Gloucester,
alone of the younger generation, still aspired to the position of a
mediator. The most important result of Lincoln's death was the
unmuzzling of his son-in-law, Thomas of Lancaster. In his own right the
lord of the three earldoms of Lancaster, Leicester, and Derby,
Thomas then received in addition his father-in-law's two earldoms
of Lincoln and Salisbury. The enormous estates and innumerable
jurisdictions attached to these five offices gave him a territorial
position greater by far than that of any other English lord. "I do
not believe," writes the monk of Malmesbury, "that any duke or
count of the Roman empire could do as much with the revenues of his
estates as the Earl of Lancaster." Nor were Earl Thomas' personal
connexions less magnificent than his feudal dignities. As a
grandson of Henry III., he was the first cousin of the king.
Through his mother, Blanche of Artois, Queen of Navarre and
Countess of Champagne, he was the grandson of the valiant Robert of
Artois, who had fallen at Mansura, and the great-grandson of Louis
VIII. of France. His half-sister, Joan of Champagne, was the wife
of Philip the Fair, so that the French king was his brother-in-law
as well as his cousin, and Isabella, Edward's consort, was his
niece. Unluckily, the personality of the great earl was not equal
to his pedigree or his estates. Proud, hard to work with, jealous,
and irascible, he was essentially the leader of opposition, the
grumbler, and the frondeur. When the time came for a
constructive policy, Thomas broke down almost as signally as Edward
himself. His ability was limited, his power of application small,
and his passions violent and ungovernable. Greedy, selfish,
domineering, and narrow, he had few scruples and no foresight,
little patriotism, and no breadth of view. At this moment he had to
play a part which was within his powers. The simple continuance of
the traditions of policy, which he inherited with his pedigree and
his estates; was all that was necessary. As the greatest of the
English earls, the head of a younger branch of the royal house, and
the inheritor of the estates and titles of Montfort and Ferrars, he
was trebly bound to act as leader of the baronial opposition, the
champion of the charters, the enemy of kings, courtiers,
favourites, and foreigners. He was steadfast in his prejudices and
hatreds, and the ordainers found in him a leader who could at least
save them from the reproach of inconstancy and the lack of fixed
purpose shown at the parliament of Stamford.
It was the first duty of Earl Thomas to perform homage and
fealty for his new earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury. Attended by a
hundred armed knights, he rode towards the border. Edward was at
Berwick, and Thomas declined to proffer his homage outside the
kingdom. On Edward refusing to cross the Tweed, Thomas declared
that he would take forcible possession of his lands. Civil war was
only avoided by Edward giving way. The king met Thomas on English
soil at Haggerston, four miles from Berwick. There the earl
performed homage, and exchanged the kiss of peace with his king,
but he would not even salute the upstart Earl of Cornwall, who
injudiciously accompanied Edward, and the king departed deeply
indignant at this want of courtesy. Returning to Berwick, Edward
lingered there until the completion of the work of the ordainers
made it necessary for him to face parliament. Leaving Gaveston
protected by the strong walls of Bamburgh, the king quitted the
border at the end of July, and met his parliament a month later in
London. Though the ordainers had been appointed by a baronial
parliament, the three estates were summoned to hear and ratify the
results of their labours. Thirty-five more ordinances, covering a
very wide field, were then laid before them. Disorderly and
disproportioned, like most medieval legislation, they ranged from
trivial personal questions and the details of administration to the
broadest schemes for the future. Many of them were simply efforts
to get the recognised law enforced. There were clauses forbidding
alienation of domain, the abuses of purveyance, the usurpations of
the courts of the royal household, the enlargement of the forests,
and the employment of unlawful sources of revenue. Under the last
head, the new custom, which Edward I. had persuaded the foreign
merchants to pay, was specifically abolished. Provisions of such a
character show that the king had made no effort to observe either
the Great Charter or the laws of Edward I. Even the recent statute
of Stamford, and the six ordinances of the previous year, had to be
re-enacted. Similar restatements of sound principles were too
common in the fourteenth century to make the ordinances an epoch.
The vital clauses were those providing for the control of the king
and for penalties against his favourites.
Under the first of these heads, the ordainers worked out to the
uttermost consequences their favourite distinction between the
crown and the king. The crown was to be strengthened, but the king was
to be deprived of every shred of power. The great offices of state
in England, Ireland, and Gascony were to be filled up with the
counsel and consent of the barons, a provision which, if literally
interpreted, meant that the barons intended to govern Gascony as
well as England. The king was not to go to war, raise an army, or
leave the kingdom without the permission of parliament. He was to
"live of his own," however scanty a living that might be. Special
judges were to hear complaints against royal ministers and
bailiffs. Parliaments were to meet once or twice a year. It was a
complete programme of limited monarchy. But there was no reference
to the commons and clergy. We are still in the atmosphere of the
Provisions of Oxford, and there is no Earl Simon to emphasise the
fuller conception of national control.
To Edward and to the barons, the penal clauses were the very
essence of the ordinances. The twentieth ordinance declared that
Peter of Gaveston, "as a public enemy of the king and kingdom, be
forthwith exiled, for all time and without hope of return," from
all dominions subject to the English king. He was to leave England
before All Saints' day, and the port of Dover was to be his place
of embarkation. Other ordinances dealt with lesser offenders. Exile
was once more to be the doom of the Frescobaldi, and the other
alien merchants who had acted as Edward's financial agents;
Gaveston's kinsfolk, followers and abettors incurred their master's
fate. All Gascons were to be sent to their own country, their
allegiance to the crown in no wise saving them from the hatred
meted out to all aliens. Neither high nor low were spared: Henry de
Beaumont, the grandson of an Eastern emperor, and his sister, the
lady Vesey, were to leave the realm; John Charlton, the pushing
Shropshire squire who was worming his way by court favour into the
estates of the degenerate descendants of the house of Gwenwynwyn,
was, with the other English partisans of the favourite, to be
driven from the royal service.
Edward made a last desperate attempt to save Gaveston. He would
agree to all the other ordinances, if he were still allowed to keep
his brother Peter in England and in possession of the earldom of
Cornwall. But the estates refused to yield the root of the whole
matter. Threatened with the prospect of a new battle of Lewes, if
he remained obdurate, Edward bowed to his destiny. The ordinances
were published in every shire, and new ministers, chosen with the
approval of the estates, deprived the king of the government of the
country.
Early in November, Gaveston sailed to Flanders, but within a few
weeks Edward insisted upon his return. Rumours spread that Gaveston
was in England, hiding himself away in his former castles of
Wallingford and Tintagel, or in the king's castle of Windsor. The
thin veil of mystery was soon withdrawn. Early in 1312, Peter
openly accompanied the king to York, where, on January 18, Edward
issued a proclamation to the effect that Gaveston had been
unlawfully exiled, that he was back in England by the king's
command, and prepared to answer to all charges against him. A few
weeks later, Edward restored him to his earldom and estates. King
and favourite still tarried in the north, preparing for the
inevitable struggle. It was believed that they intrigued with
Robert Bruce for a refuge in Scotland. Bruce, according to the
story, declined to have anything to do with them. "If the King of
England will not keep faith with his own subjects," he is reported
to have said, "how then will he keep faith with me?"
The ordainers looked upon Gaveston's return as a declaration of
war. Winchelsea pronounced him excommunicate, and five of the eight
earls who sat among the ordainers, bound themselves by oaths to
maintain the ordinances and pursue the favourite to the death.
These were Thomas of Lancaster, Aymer of Pembroke, Humphrey of
Hereford, Edmund of Arundel, and Guy of Warwick. Gilbert of
Gloucester declined to take part in the confederacy, but promised
to accept whatever the five earls might determine. Moreover, John,
Earl Warenne, who had hitherto kept aloof from the ordainers, at
last threw in his lot with them, won over, it was believed, by the
eloquence of Archbishop Winchelsea. The ordainers then divided
England into large districts, appointing one of the baronial
leaders to the charge of each. Gloucester himself undertook the
government of the south-east, while Robert Clifford and Henry Percy
agreed to guard the march, to prevent Gaveston escaping to the
Scots. Pembroke and Warenne marched to the north to lay hands on
the favourite, and Lancaster himself followed them.
While the ordainers were acting, Edward and Gaveston were
aimlessly wandering about in the north. They failed to raise an army or
to win the people to their side, and on the approach of Lancaster,
they fled before him from York to Newcastle. The earl followed
quickly. On the afternoon of Ascension day, May 4, Lancaster,
Clifford, and Percy suddenly swooped down on Newcastle. The king
and his friend escaped with the utmost difficulty to Tynemouth,
leaving their luggage, jewels, horses, and other possessions to the
victor. Next day they fled by sea to Scarborough. The queen, left
behind at Tynemouth, fell into her uncle Lancaster's power.
The royal castle of Scarborough, whose Norman keep and spacious
wards occupy a rocky peninsula surrounded, except on the town side,
by the North Sea, had lately been transferred from the custody of
Henry Percy, one of the confederate barons, to that of Gaveston.
There was no fitter place wherein the favourite could stand at bay
against his pursuers. Accordingly Edward left Gaveston, after a
tender parting, and betook himself to York. Lancaster thereupon
occupied a position midway between Scarborough and Knaresborough,
while Pembroke, Warenne, and Henry Percy laid siege to Scarborough.
Gaveston soon found that he was unable to resist them. His troops,
scarcely adequate to man the extensive walls, were too many for the
scanty store of provisions which the castle contained. After less
than a fortnight's siege, he persuaded the two earls and Percy to
allow him easy terms of surrender. The three baronial leaders
pledged themselves on the Gospels to protect Gaveston from all
manner of evil until August 1. During the interval parliament was
to decide as to what was to be his future fate. If the terms agreed
upon by parliament were unsatisfactory to him, he was to return to
Scarborough, which was still to be garrisoned by his followers,
with leave to purchase supplies.
Pembroke undertook the personal custody of the prisoner, and
escorted him by slow stages from Scarborough to the south, where he
was to be retained in honourable custody at his own castle of
Wallingford. Three weeks after the surrender, the convoy reached
Deddington, a small town in Oxfordshire, a few miles south of
Banbury. There Gaveston was lodged in the house of the vicar of the
parish, and told to take a few days' rest after the fatigues of the
journey. Pembroke himself did not remain at Deddington, but went on
to Bampton in the Bush, where his countess then was. Thereupon on
June 10, at sunrise, the Earl of Warwick, the most rancorous of
Peter's enemies, occupied Deddington with a strong force. Bursting
into the bedchamber of his victim, Earl Guy exclaimed in a loud
voice: "Arise, traitor, thou art taken". Peter was at once led with
every mark of indignity to Warwick castle. Thus the black dog of
Arden showed that he could bite.
Warwick was not personally pledged to Gaveston's safety, though,
as one of the confederates, he was clearly bound by their acts. His
seizure of Peter was only warrantable by the, fear that Pembroke,
with his royalist leanings, was likely to play the extreme party
false; but in any case Warwick was as much obliged as Pembroke to
observe the terms of the capitulation. Neither Warwick nor his
allies took this view of the matter. They rejoiced at the good
fortune which had remedied the disastrous capitulation of
Scarborough, and resolved to put an end to the favourite without
delay. Lancaster was then at Kenilworth; Hereford, Arundel, and
other magnates were also present, and all agreed in praising
Warwick's energy. On Monday morning, June 19, the three earls rode
the few miles from Kenilworth to Warwick, and Earl Guy handed over
Peter to them. They then escorted their captive to a place called
Blacklow hill, about two miles out of Warwick on the Kenilworth
road, but situated in Lancaster's lands. The crowd following the
cavalcade was moved to tears when Peter, kneeling to Lancaster,
cried in vain for mercy from the "gentle earl". On reaching
Blacklow hill, the three earls withdrew, though remaining near
enough to see what was going on. Then two Welshmen in Lancaster's
service laid hands upon the victim. One drove his sword through his
body, the other cut off his head. The corpse remained where it had
fallen, but the head was brought to the earls as a sign that the
deed was done. After this the earls rode back to Kenilworth. Guy of
Warwick remained all the time in his castle. He had already taken
his share in the cruel act of treachery. It was, however, important
that Lancaster should take the responsibility for the deed. Four
cobblers of Warwick piously bore the headless corpse within their
town. But the grim earl sent it back, because it was not found on
his fee. At last some Oxford Dominicans took charge of the body and
deposited it temporarily in their convent, not daring to inter it in
holy ground, as Gaveston had died excommunicate.
The ostentatious violence of the confederate earls broke up
their party. Aymer of Pembroke, indignant at their breach of faith,
regarded the whole transaction as a stain on his honour. He
besought Gloucester's intervention, but was only told that he
should be more cautious in his future negotiations. He harangued
the clerks and burgesses of Oxford, but university and town agreed
that the matter was no business of theirs. Then in disgust he
betook himself to the king, whom he found still surrounded with the
Beaumonts, Mauleys, and other friends of Gaveston, against whom the
ordinances had decreed banishment. Warenne, whose honour was only
less impeached than Pembroke's, also deserted the ordainers for the
court. Edward bitterly deplored the death of his friend. He gladly
welcomed the deserters, and prepared to wreak vengeance on the
ordainers.
Edward plucked up courage to return to London, where in July he
addressed the citizens, and persuaded them to maintain the peace of
the city against the barons. He next visited Dover, and there he
strengthened the fortifications of the castle, took oaths of fealty
from the Cinque Ports, and negotiated with the King of France.
Thence he returned to London, hoping that the precautions he had
taken would secure his position in the parliament which he had
summoned to meet at Westminster. But the four earls still held the
field, and answered the summons to parliament by occupying Ware
with a strong military force. A thousand men-at-arms were drawn by
Lancaster from his five earldoms, while the Welsh from Brecon, who
followed the Earl of Hereford, and the vigorous foresters of Arden,
who mustered under the banner of Warwick, made a formidable show.
Yet at the last moment neither side was eager to begin hostilities.
The four earls' violence damaged their cause, and many who had no
love of Gaveston, or desire to avenge him, inclined to the king's
party. Gilbert of Gloucester busied himself with mediating between
the two sides. At this juncture two papal envoys, sent to end the
interminable outstanding disputes with France, arrived in England,
along with Louis, Count of Évreux, the queen's uncle. Edward
availed himself of the presence of French jurists in the count's
train to obtain legal opinion that the ordinances were
invalid, as against natural equity and civil law. These
technicalities did little service to the king's cause, and better
work was done when Louis and the papal envoys joined with
Gloucester in mediating between the opposing forces. At length
moderate counsels prevailed. Edward could only resist the four
earls through the support of his new allies, and Pembroke and
Warenne were as little anxious to fight as Gloucester himself. They
were quite willing to make terms which seemed to the king treason
to his friend's memory.
The negotiations were still proceeding when, on November 13,
1312, the birth of a son to Edward and Isabella revived the almost
dormant feeling of loyalty to the sovereign. The king ceased to
brood over the loss of his brother Peter, and became more willing
to accept the inevitable. He gave some pleasure to his subjects by
refusing the suggestion of the queen's uncle that the child should
be called Louis, and christened him Edward after his own father. At
last, on December 22, terms of peace were agreed upon. The earls
and barons concerned in Gaveston's death were to appear before the
king in Westminster Hall, and humbly beg his pardon and good-will.
In return for this the king agreed to remit all rancour caused by
the death of the favourite. Lancaster and Warwick, who took no
personal part in the negotiations, sent in a long list of
objections to the details of the treaty. Nearly a year elapsed
before the earls personally acknowledged their fault. During that
interval there was no improvement in the position of affairs.
Parliament granted no money; and Edward only met his daily expenses
by loans, contracted from every quarter, and by keeping tight hands
on the confiscated estates of the Templars. Both the king and the
leading earls made every excuse to escape attending the ineffective
parliaments of that miserable time. Two short visits to France gave
Edward a pretext for avoiding his subjects. There were some hasty
musterings of armed men on pretence of tournaments. But the king
was still formidable enough to make it desirable for the barons to
carry out the treaty. Finally, in October, 1313, Lancaster,
Hereford, and Warwick made their public submission in Westminster
Hall. Pardons were at once issued to them and to over four hundred
minor offenders. Feasts of reconciliation were held, and it seemed as
if the old feuds were at last ended. Gaveston's corpse was removed
from Oxford to Langley, in Hertfordshire, and buried in the church
of a new convent of Dominicans set up by Edward to pray for the
favourite's soul.
Just before the end of the disputes Archbishop Winchelsea died
in May, 1313. He left behind him the reputation of a saint and a
hero, and a movement was undertaken for his canonisation. With all
his faults, he was the greatest churchman of his time, and the most
steadfast and unselfish of ecclesiastical statesmen. Despite his
palsy, he had shown wonderful activity since his return. The brain
and soul of the ordainers, he equally made it his business to
uphold extreme hierarchical privilege. Bitterly as he hated Walter
Langton, he was indignant that a bishop should be imprisoned and
despoiled by the lay power, and took up his cause with such energy
that he effected his liberation, only to find that Langton made
peace with the king and turned his back on the ordainers. The
after-swell of the storms, excited by the petition of Lincoln and
the statute of Carlisle, still continued troublous during
Winchelsea's later years. The pope complained of the violated
privileges of the Church and of the accumulated arrears of King
John's tribute; and Winchelsea was anxious to promote the papal
cause. But the barons in Edward's early parliaments still used the
bold language of the magnates of 1301, and the letter of 1309,
drawn up by the parliament of Stamford, is no unworthy pendant of
the Lincoln letter. As time went on, the disorders of the
government and the weakness of the king surrendered everything to
the pope. It was soon as it had been in the days of Henry III.,
when pope and king combined to despoil the English Church.
The suppression of the order of the Temple shows how absolutely
England was forced to follow in the wake of the papacy and the King
of France. There was no spontaneous movement against the society as
in France; there was not even the fierce malice and insatiable
greed which could find their only satisfaction in the ruin of the
brethren; and there is not much evidence that the Templars were
unpopular. The whole attack was the result of commands given from
without. It was at the repeated request of Philip of France and
Clement V. that Edward reluctantly ordered the apprehension of all
the Templars within England, Scotland, and Ireland on January 8,
1308. Their property was taken into the king's hands, and
their persons were confined in the royal prisons under the custody
of the sheriffs. For their trial, Clement appointed a mixed
commission including Winchelsea, Archbishop Greenfield of York,
several English bishops, one French bishop, and certain papal
inquisitors specially assigned for the purpose, the chief of whom
were the Abbot of Lagny and Sicard de Lavaur, Canon of Narbonne,
who came to England in 1309. At last the victims were collected at
London and York, where the trials were to be conducted for the
southern and northern provinces. There was much hesitation among
the English bishops. The foes of the Templars lamented the
prelates' lack of zeal and their scruples in collecting evidence,
and suggested that the torture, which had so freely been used in
France, would soon extract confessions. But the northern bishops
declared that torture was unknown in England, and asked, if it were
to be adopted, whether it was to be applied by clerks or laymen,
and whether torturers should be imported from beyond sea. In the
end, torture was used, but not to any great extent.
A great mass of depositions, mostly vague and worthless, or
derived from the suspicious confessions of apostates and weaklings,
was gathered together, and in 1311 laid before provincial councils,
but neither province came to any fixed decision. "Inasmuch," says
Hemingburgh, "as the Templars were not found altogether guilty or
altogether innocent, they referred the dubious matter to the pope."
They sent the evidence they had collected to swell the mass of
testimony from all Christendom, which was laid before the council
of Vienne. When the pope suppressed the order in April, 1312, and
transferred its lands to the Knights of St. John, the papal decrees
were quietly carried out in England. One or two Templars died in
prison, but none were executed; and the majority were dismissed
with pensions or secluded in monasteries. Edward and his nobles
took good care to make a large profit out of the transaction. The
resources of the Temple alone kept the king from destitution during
the period between the death of Gaveston and his reconciliation
with the earls. Many barons laid violent hands on estates belonging
to the order, and long held on to them despite papal expostulation.
The Hospitallers found that the lands of their rivals came to them
so slowly, and encumbered with so many charges, that their new property
became burdensome rather than helpful to their society. Thus it was
that they never made any use of the New Temple in London, and,
before long, let it out to the common-lawyers. In the fall of the
Templars, the pope and the Church set the first great example of
the suppression of a religious order to kings, who before long
bettered the precedent given them. The sordid story is mainly
important to our history as an example of the completeness of the
influence of the papal autocracy, and of the submissiveness of
clergy and laity to its behests. It was a lurid commentary on the
practical working of the ecclesiastical system that the business of
condemning an innocent order first brought into England the papal
inquisitor and the use of torture. Yet the whole process was but so
pale a reflection of the horrors wrought in France that the
conclusion arises that England owed more to the weakness of Edward
II than France to the strength of Philip IV.
Winchelsea's death removed a real check on Edward, especially as
the king was on such good terms with the papacy that he had little
difficulty in obtaining a successor amenable to his will.
Undeterred by Clement's bull reserving to himself the appointment,
the monks of Christ Church at once proceeded to elect Thomas of
Cobham, a theologian and a canonist of distinction, a man of high
birth, great sanctity, and unblemished character, and in every way
worthy of the primacy. But his merits did not weigh for a moment
with Clement against the wishes of the king. He rejected Cobham and
conferred the primacy on Edwards favourite, Walter Reynolds, who
had already obtained the bishopric of Worcester through the king's
influence. A good deal of money, it was believed, found its way to
the coffers of the curia; and the indignation of the English
Church found voice in the impassioned protests of the chroniclers.
"Lady Money rules everything in the pope's court," lamented the
monk of Malmesbury. "For eight years Pope Clement has ruled the
Universal Church: but what good he has done escapes memory.
England, alone of all countries, feels the burden of papal
domination. Out of the fulness of his power, the pope presumes to
do many things, and neither prince nor people dare contradict him.
He reserves all the fat benefices for himself, and excommunicates
all who resist him: his legates come and spoil the land: those
armed with his bulls come and demand prebends. He has given all the
deaneries to foreigners, and cut down the number of resident
canons. Why does the pope exercise greater power over the clergy
than the emperor over the laity? Lord Jesus! either take away the
pope from our midst or lessen the power which he presumes to have
over the people." Such lamentations bore no fruit, and the
simoniacal nomination of Reynolds was but the first of a series of
appointments which robbed the episcopate of dignity and moral
worth.
While Church and State in England were thus distressed, the
cause of Robert Bruce was making steady progress in Scotland. It is
some measure of the difficulties against which Bruce had to contend
that, after six years, he was still by no means master of all that
land. But least of all among the causes which retarded his advance
can be placed the armed forces of England. During six years Edward
II.'s one personal expedition had been a complete failure. A more
formidable obstacle in Bruce's way was the stubborn resistance
offered to him by the valour and skill of the small but highly
trained garrisons which the wisdom of Edward I. had established in
the fortresses of southern and central Scotland. Each castle took a
long time to subdue, and demanded engineering resources and a
persistency of effort, which were difficult to obtain from a
popular army. The garrisons co-operated with the Scottish nobles
who still adhered to Edward through jealousy of the upstart Bruces
and love of feudal independence, rather than by reason of any
sympathy with the English cause. Additional obstacles to Robert's
progress were the hostility of the Church, to which he was still
the excommunicated murderer of Comyn; the captivity of so many
Scottish prelates and barons in England; the efforts of the pope
and the King of France to bring about suspensions of hostilities,
and the grievous famines which desolated Scotland no less than
southern Britain. But during these years the King of Scots
gradually overcame these difficulties. His hardest fighting in the
field was with rival Scots rather than with the English intruders.
In 1308 he defeated the Comyns of Buchan, and established himself
on the ruins of that house in the north-east. In the same year his
brother, Edward Bruce, conquered Galloway, where the Balliol
tradition long prevented the domination of the rival family.
Secure from retaliation so long as domestic troubles lasted,
the
Scots devastated the northern counties of England, whose
inhabitants were forced to purchase relief from further attacks by
paying large sums of money to the invaders. Formal truces were more
than once made, but they were ill observed, and each violation of
an armistice involved some loss to Edward and some gain to Robert.
Meanwhile the garrisons were carefully isolated, and one by one
signalled out for attack. In 1312 Berwick itself was only saved
from surprise by the opportune barking of a dog. In January, 1313,
Perth was captured by assault. Next day Robert slew the leading
native burgesses who had adhered to the English, while he permitted
the English inhabitants to return freely to their own country. The
whole town was destroyed, since walled towns, like castles, had
given the English their chief hold upon the country.
Such was the state of Scotland when the reconciliation between
Edward and the earls restored England to the appearance of unity.
As if conscious that no time was to be lost in strengthening his
position, Bruce redoubled his efforts to make himself master of the
fortresses which still remained in the enemy's hands. Regardless of
the rigour of the season, he set actively to work in the early
weeks of 1314, and remarkable success attended his efforts. In
February, the border stronghold of Roxburgh was taken by a night
attack. "And all that fair castle, like the other castles which he
had acquired, they pulled down to the ground, lest the English
should afterwards by holding the castle bear rule over the
land."1 In March, Edinburgh castle was secured by some Scots who
climbed up the precipitous northern face of the castle rock,
overpowered the garrison, and opened the gates to their comrades
outside. Flushed with this great success, Bruce began the siege of
Stirling, the only important English garrison then held by the
English in the heart of Scotland. He pressed the besieged so hard
that they agreed to surrender to the enemy, if they were not
relieved before Midsummer day, the feast of St. John the Baptist.
While Robert was watching Stirling, his brother Edward devastated
the country round Carlisle, lording it for three days at the
bishop's castle of Rose, and levying heavy blackmail on the men of
Cumberland.
1Lanercost Chronicle, p. 223.
If Stirling were lost, all Scotland would be
at Bruce's mercy. Even Edward was stirred by the disgrace involved
in the utter abandonment of his father's conquest; and from March
onwards he began to make spasmodic efforts to collect men and ships
to enable him to advance to the relief of the beleaguered garrison.
At first it seemed sufficient to raise the feudal levies and a
small infantry force from the northern shires, but as time went on
the necessity of meeting the Scottish pikemen by corresponding
levies of foot soldiers became evident, and over 20,000 infantry
were summoned from the northern counties and Wales.1 But the
notice given was far too short, and June was well advanced before
anything was ready.
1 For the numbers at Bannockburn, see
Foedera, ii., 248, and Round, Commune of London, pp.
289-301.
Even the Scottish peril could not quicken the sluggish
patriotism of the ordainers. Four earls, Lancaster, Warenne,
Warwick, and Arundel, answered Edward's summons by reminding him
that the ordinances prescribed that war should only be undertaken
with the approval of parliament, and by declining to follow him to
a campaign undertaken on his own responsibility. They would send
quotas, but begged to be excused from personal attendance. Yet even
without them, a gallant array slowly gathered together at Berwick,
and one at least of the opposition earls, Humphrey of Hereford, was
there, with Gilbert of Gloucester and Aymer of Pembroke and 2,000
men-at-arms. An enormous baggage train enabled the knights and
barons to appear in the field in great magnificence, though it
destroyed the mobility of the force. "The multitude of waggons,"
wrote the monk of Malmesbury, "if they had been extended in a
single line would have occupied the space of twenty leagues." The
splendour and number of the army inspired the king and his friends
with the utmost confidence. Though the host started from Berwick
less than a week before the appointed day, the king moved, says the
Malmesbury monk, not as if he were about to lead an army to battle,
but rather as if he were going on a pilgrimage to Compostella.
"There was but short delay for sleep, and a shorter delay for
taking food. Hence horses, horsemen, and infantry were worn out
with fatigue and hunger." There was no order or method in the
proceedings of the host. The presence of the king meant that there
was no effective general, and Hereford and Gloucester quarrelled
for the second place.
It was not until Sunday, June 23, that Edward at last took up
his quarters a few miles south of Stirling, with a worn-out and
dispirited army. Yet, if Stirling were to be saved, immediate
action was necessary. Gloucester and Hereford made a vigorous but
unsuccessful effort to penetrate at once into the castle, and Bruce
came down just in time to throw himself between them and the walls.
Henry Bohun, who had forced his way forward at the head of a force
of Welsh infantry, was slain, and his troops dispersed. Gloucester
was unhorsed, and thereupon the English retreated to their camp.
Fearing an attack under cover of darkness, they had little sleep
that night, and many of the watchers consoled themselves with
revelry and drunkenness. When St. John's day dawned, they were too
weary to fight effectively. Bruce advanced from the woods and
stationed his troops on the low ridge bounding the northern slope
of the little brook, called the Bannockburn, which runs about two
miles south of Stirling on its course towards the Forth. Of the
three divisions, or battles, into which the Scots were divided, two
stood on the same front, side by side, while King Robert commanded
the rear battle, which was to serve as a reserve. He marshalled his
forces much in the same way that Wallace had adopted at Falkirk.
There was the same close array of infantry, protected by a wall of
shields and a thick hedge of pikes. Each man wore light but
adequate armour, and, besides the pike, bore an axe at his side for
work at close quarters. Pits were dug before the Scots lines, and
covered over with hurdles so light that they would not bear the
weight of a mail-clad warrior and his horse. Save for a small
cavalry force kept in reserve in the rear, the men-at-arms were
ordered to dismount and take their place in the dense array, lest,
like their comrades at Falkirk, they should ride off in alarm when
they saw the preponderance of the enemy's horse. The Scots were
less numerous than the English, but they were an army and not a
mob; their commander was a man of rare military insight, and their
tactics were those which, twelve years before, had defeated the
chivalry of France at Courtrai.
The English had feared that the Scots would not fight a pitched
battle, and were astonished to see them at daybreak prepared to
receive an attack. Their contempt for their enemy made them eager
to accept the challenge, but Gloucester, who, though only
twenty-three, had more of the soldier's eye than most of the
magnates, urged Edward to postpone the encounter for a day, that
the army might recover from its fatigue, and the clergy advised
delay out of respect to St. John the Baptist. Unmoved by prudence
or piety, Edward denounced his nephew as a coward, and ordered an
immediate advance.
The English, forgetting the lessons of the
Welsh wars, sent on the archers in front of the cavalry. Bruce,
seeing that their missiles were playing havoc on his dense ranks,
directed his small cavalry force to charge the archers on their
left flank. The unsupported bowmen at once fell back in confusion,
leaving the cavalry to do its work. Meanwhile the English
men-at-arms were advancing in three "battles," the first of which
then came into action. Many of the English fell into the pits
prepared for them, and the Scottish shields and pikes broke the
attack of those who evaded these obstacles. Gloucester fought with
rare gallantry, but was badly seconded by his followers. At last
his horse was slain under him, and he was knocked down and killed.
The troop which he led fled panic-stricken from the field. The
Scots then advanced with such vigour that the English never
recovered from the disorder into which their first disaster had
thrown them. While these things were going on, the second and third
English "battles" had been making feeble efforts to take their part
in the fight. But the first line cut them off from direct access to
the foe, and the archers of the second battle did more harm to
their friends than to their enemies by shooting wildly, straight in
front of them. There was no single directing force, nor, after
Gloucester's fall, even one conspicuous leader who would set an
example of blind valour. Hundreds of English knights, who had not
drawn their swords, were soon fleeing in terror before the enemy.
Edward, who had taken up his station in the rear battle, rode off
the field and never dismounted until he reached Dunbar, whence he
fled by sea to Berwick.
Abandoned by their leaders, the English retreated as best they
could. Many of their best knights lay dead on the field, and more
were drowned in the Forth or Bannock, or swallowed up in the bogs,
than were slain in the fight. The Scots, whose losses were slight,
showed a prudent tendency to capture rather than slay the knights
and barons, in order that they might hold them up to ransom, and
though many desisted from the pursuit to plunder the baggage train,
those who followed the English fugitives reaped an abundant harvest
of captives. Hereford was chased into Bothwell castle, which was
still held for the English. But next day the Scottish official who
commanded there for Edward opened the gates to Bruce, and the earl
became a prisoner. Pembroke escaped with difficulty on foot, along
with a contingent of Welsh infantry. The mighty English army had
ceased to exist; and with the surrender of Stirling, next day,
Bruce's career attained its culminating point. His long years of
trial were at last over, and the clever adventurer could henceforth
enjoy in security the crown which he had so gallantly won.
The military results of Bannockburn were of extreme importance.
The ablest of contemporary annalists aptly compared Bruce's victory
to the battle of Courtrai. An even nearer analogy was the fight at
Morgarten where, within two years, the pikemen of the Forest
Cantons were to scatter the chivalry of the Hapsburgers as
effectively as the Flemings won the day at Courtrai or the Scots at
Bannockburn. The English had forgotten the military lessons of
Edward I., as completely as they had forgotten his political
lessons, and their reliance on the obsolete and unsupported cavalry
charge was their undoing. Bruce, on the other hand, had improved
upon the teaching of Wallace and Edward I. His use of his
men-at-arms on foot anticipates the English tactics of the Hundred
Years' War. The presence of these heavily armed troopers in his
ranks gave him a strength in defence, and an impetuosity in attack,
which made it a simple matter to break up the undisciplined
squadrons opposed to him. Bannockburn rang the death-knell of the
tactics which since Hastings had been regarded as the perfection of
military art. The political lessons of the victory were of not less
importance. It is almost too much to say that Bannockburn won for
Scotland its independence, for Scottish independence had already
been vindicated. But the easy victory brought home to men's minds
the full measure of the Scottish triumph. It was already clear
that so long as Edward lived, England would never make the
continued effort which, as Edward I.'s wars both in Wales and
Scotland had shown, could alone systematically conquer a nation.
Bruce's difficulties were not so much with the English as with the
Scots. It was no small task to unite the English of the Lothians,
the Welsh of the south-west, the Norsemen of the extreme north, and
the Celts of the hills into a single Scottish nation. He had
against him the separatist local feeling which Scottish history and
ethnology made inevitable, and it took time for him to obtain that
prestige, which should hedge a king, and raise him above the crowd
of feudal earls and clan chieftains, who thought themselves as good
as the sometime Earl of Carrick. Such dignity and distinction
Bannockburn supplied, and such measure of national unity and strong
monarchical authority as Scotland ever enjoyed, came from the
triumph of him who became, even more than Wallace, the hero of the
new nation. For the next few years the Scots took the aggressive.
They induced the French kings to renew the alliance which Philip
IV. had made with them in the early years of the contest. They
obtained papal recognition for their king and the withdrawal of the
ban of the Church on Comyn's murderer; they plundered northern
England from end to end, and broke down Anglo-Norman rule in
Ireland; they plotted for the resurrection of the Welsh
principality; and, worse than all, they made common cause with the
baronial opposition. Hence it followed that the political results
of the victory were as important to England as they were to
Scotland itself. The troubled history of the next eight years
reveals in detail the effects of Bannockburn on England. Edward's
defeat threw him into the power of the ordainers. The ordainers,
when called upon to govern, showed themselves as incapable as ever
Edward or his favourites had been. The results were misrule,
aristocratic faction, popular distress, and mob violence.
Ineffective as are the first seven years of the reign of Edward of
Carnarvon, the eight years which followed Bruce's victory plunged
England deeper into the pit of degradation, from which neither the
king nor the king's foes were strong, wise, or honest enough to
release her.
