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The History of England from the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377)
The Barons' War
by Tout, T.F. (M.A.)
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During the early months of 1258, the aliens
ruled the king and realm, added estate to estate, and defied all
attempts to dislodge them. Papal agents traversed the country,
extorting money from prelates and churches. The Welsh, in secret
relations with the lords of the march, threatened the borders, and
made a confederacy with the Scots. The French were hostile, and the
barons disunited, without leaders, and helpless. A wretched harvest
made corn scarce and dear. A wild winter, followed by a long late
frost, cut off the lambs and destroyed the farmers' hopes for the
summer. A murrain of cattle followed, and the poor were dying of
hunger and pestilence. Henry III. was in almost as bad a plight as
his people. He had utterly failed to subdue Llewelyn. A papal agent
threatened him with excommunication and the resumption of the grant
of Sicily. He could not control his foreign kinsfolk, and the
rivalry of Savoyards and Poitevins added a new element of turmoil
to the distracted relations of the magnates. His son had been
forced to pawn his best estates to William of Valence, and the
royal exchequer was absolutely empty. Money must be had at all
risks, and the only way to get it was to assemble the magnates.
On April 2 the chief men of Church and State gathered together
at London. For more than a month the stormy debates went on. The
king's demands were contemptuously waved aside. His exceptional
misdeeds, it was declared, were to be met by exceptional measures.
Hot words were spoken, and William of Valence called Leicester a
traitor. "No, no, William," the earl replied, "I am not a traitor,
nor the son of a traitor; your father and mine were men of a
different stamp," An opposition party formed itself under the
Earls of Gloucester, Leicester, Hereford, and Norfolk. Even the
Savoyards partially fell away from the court, and a convocation of
clergy at Merton, presided over by Archbishop Boniface, drew up
canons in the spirit of Grosseteste. In parliament all that Henry
could get was a promise to adjourn the question of supply until a
commission had drafted a programme of reform. On May 2 Henry and
his son Edward announced their acceptance of this proposal;
parliament was forthwith prorogued, and the barons set to work to
mature their scheme.
On June 11 the magnates once more assembled, this time at
Oxford. A summons to fight the Welsh gave them an excuse to appear
attended with their followers in arms. The royalist partisans
nicknamed the gathering the Mad Parliament, but its proceedings
were singularly business-like. A petition of twenty-nine articles
was presented, in which the abuses of the administration were laid
bare in detail. A commission of twenty-four was appointed who were
to redress the grievances of the nation, and to draw up a new
scheme of government. According to the compact Henry himself
selected half this body. It was significant of the falling away of
the mass of the ruling families from the monarchy, that six of
Henry's twelve commissioners were churchmen, four were aliens,
three were his brothers, one his brother-in-law, one his nephew,
one his wife's uncle. The only earls that accepted his nomination
were the Poitevin adventurer, John du Plessis, Earl of Warwick, and
John of Warenne, who was pledged to a royalist policy by his
marriage to Henry's half-sister, Alice of Lusignan. The only
bishops were, the queen's uncle, Boniface of Canterbury, and Fulk
Basset of London, the richest and noblest born of English prelates,
who, though well meaning, was too weak in character for continued
opposition. Yet these two were the most independent names on
Henry's list. The rest included the three Lusignan brothers, Guy,
William, and Aymer, still eight years after his election only elect
of Winchester; Henry of Almaine, the young son of the King of the
Romans; the pluralist official John Mansel; the chancellor, Henry
Wingham; the Dominican friar John of Darlington, distinguished as a
biblical critic, the king's confessor and the pope's agent; and the
Abbot of Westminster, an old man pledged by long years of
dependence to do the will of the second founder of his house.
In strong contrast to these creatures of court favour were the
twelve nominees of the barons. The only ecclesiastic was Walter of
Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, and the only alien was Earl Simon
of Leicester. With him were three other earls, Richard of Clare,
Earl of Gloucester, Roger Bigod, earl marshal and Earl of Norfolk,
and Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford. Those of baronial rank were
Roger Mortimer, the strongest of the marchers, Hugh Bigod, the
brother of the earl marshal, John FitzGeoffrey, Richard Grey,
William Bardolf, Peter Montfort, and Hugh Despenser.
The twenty-four drew up a plan of reform which left little to be
desired in thoroughness. The Provisions of Oxford, as the new
constitution was styled, were speedily laid before the barons and
adopted. By it a standing council of fifteen was established, with
whose advice and consent Henry was henceforth to exercise all his
authority. Even this council was not to be without supervision.
Thrice in the year another committee of twelve was to treat with
the fifteen on the common affairs of the realm. This rather narrow
body was created, we are told, to save the expense involved in too
frequent meetings of the magnates. A third aristocratic junto of
twenty-four was appointed to make grants of money to the crown. All
aliens were to be expelled from office and from the custody of
royal castles. New ministers, castellans, and escheators were
appointed under stringent conditions and under the safeguard of new
oaths. The original twenty-four were not yet discharged from
office. They had still to draw up schemes for the reform of the
household of king and queen, and for the amendment of the exchange
of London. Moreover, "Be it remembered," ran one of the articles,
"that the estate of Holy Church be amended by the twenty-four
elected to reform the realm, when they shall find time and
place".
For the first time in our history the king was forced to stand
aside from the discharge of his undoubted functions, and suffer
them to be exercised by a committee of magnates. The conception of
limited monarchy, which had been foreshadowed in the early
struggles of Henry's long reign, was triumphantly vindicated, and,
after weary years of waiting, the baronial victors demanded more
than had ever been suggested by the most free interpretation
of the Great Charter. The body that controlled the crown was, it is
true, a narrow one. But whatever was lost by its limitation, was
more than gained by the absolute freedom of the whole movement from
any suspicion of the separatist tendencies of the earlier
feudalism. The barons tacitly accepted the principle that England
was a unity, and that it must be ruled as a single whole. The
triumph of the national movement of the thirteenth century was
assured when the most feudal class of the community thus frankly
abandoned the ancient baronial contention that each baron should
rule in isolation over his own estates, a tradition which, when
carried out for a brief period under Stephen, had set up "as many
kings or rather tyrants as lords of castles". The feudal period was
over: the national idea was triumphant. This victory becomes
specially significant when we remember how large a share the barons
of the Welsh march, the only purely feudal region in the country,
took in the movement against the King.
The unity of the national government being recognised, it was
another sign of the times that its control should be transferred
from the monarch to a committee of barons. At this point the rigid
conceptions of the triumphant oligarchy stood in the way of a wide
national policy. Since the reign of John the custom had arisen of
consulting the representatives of the shire-courts on matters of
politics and finance. In 1258 there is not the least trace of a
suggestion that parliament could ever include a more popular
element than the barons and prelates. On the contrary, the
Provisions diminished the need even for those periodical assemblies
of the magnates which had been in existence since the earliest dawn
of our history. For all practical purposes small baronial
committees were to perform the work of magnates and people as well
as of the crown. Yet it must be recognised that the barons showed
self-control, as well as practical wisdom, in handing over
functions discharged by the baronage as a whole to the various
committees of their selection. The danger of general control by the
magnates was that a large assembly, more skilled in opposition than
in constructive work, was almost sure to become infected by
faction. By strictly limiting and defining who the new rulers of
England were to be, the barons approached a combination of
aristocratic control with the stability and continuity resulting
from limited numbers and defined functions. It is likely, however,
that in bestowing such extensive powers on their nominees, they
were influenced by the well-grounded belief that the new
constitution could only be established by main force, and that,
even when abandoned by the king, the aliens would make a good fight
before they gave up all that they had so long held in England. The
success of the new scheme largely depended upon the immediate
execution of the ordinance for the expulsion of the foreigners.
The first step taken to carry out the Provisions was the
appointment of the new ministers. The barons insisted on the
revival of the office of justiciar, and a strenuous and capable
chief minister was found in Hugh Bigod. It was advisable to go
cautiously, and some of the king's ministers were allowed to
continue in office. An appeal to force was necessary before the new
constitution could be set up in detail. The Savoyards bought their
safety by accepting it; but the Poitevins, seeing that flight or
resistance were the only alternatives before them, were spirited
enough to prefer the bolder course. They were specially dangerous
because Edward and his cousin, Henry of Almaine, the son of the
King of the Romans, were much under their influence. In the
Dominican convent at Oxford the baronial leaders formed a sworn
confederacy not to desist from their purpose until the foreigners
had been expelled. There were more hot words between Leicester and
William, the most capable of the Lusignans. The Poitevins soon
found that they could not maintain themselves in the face of the
general hatred. On June 22 they fled from Oxford in the company of
their ally, Earl Warenne. They rode straight for the coast, but
failing to reach it, occupied Winchester, where they sought to
maintain themselves in Aymer's castle of Wolvesey. The magnates of
the parliament then turned against them the arms they professed to
have prepared against the Welsh. Headed by the new justiciar, Hugh
Bigod, they besieged Wolvesey. Warenne abandoned the aliens, and
they gladly accepted the terms offered to them by their foes. They
were allowed to retain their lands and some of their ready money,
on condition of withdrawing from the realm and surrendering their
castles. By the middle of July they had crossed over to France.
With them disappeared the whole of the organised opposition to the
new government. Edward, deprived of their support, swore to observe
the Provisions.
Immediately on the flight of the Lusignans the council of
Fifteen was chosen after a fashion which seemed to give the king's
friends an equal voice with the champions of the aristocracy. Four
electors appointed it, and of these two were the nominees of the
baronial section, and two of the royalist section of the original
twenty-four. The result of their work showed that there was only
one party left after the Wolvesey fiasco. While only three of the
king's twelve had places on the permanent council, no less that
nine of the fifteen were chosen from the baronial twelve. It was
useless for Archbishop Boniface, John Mansel, and the Earl of
Warwick to stand up against the Bishop of Worcester, the Earls of
Leicester, Norfolk, Hereford, and Gloucester, against John
FitzGeoffrey, Peter Montfort, Richard Grey, and Roger Mortimer.
Moreover, of the three, John Mansel alone could still be regarded
as a royalist partisan. There were three of the fifteen chosen from
outside the twenty-four. Of these, Peter of Savoy, Earl of
Richmond, might, like his brother Boniface, be regarded as an
alien, though hatred of the Poitevins had by this time made
Englishmen of the Savoyards. The other two, the marcher-lord James
of Audley and William of Fors, Earl of Albemarle, were of baronial
sympathies. It was the same with the other councils.
Inquiry was made as to abuses. Gradually the royal officials
were replaced by men of popular leanings. The sheriffs were changed
and were strictly controlled, and four knights from each shire
assembled in October to present to the king the grievances of the
people against the out-going sheriffs. The custody of the castles
was put into trusty and, for the most part, into English hands.
Finally the king was forced to issue a proclamation, in which he
commanded all true men "steadfastly to hold and to defend the
statutes that be made or are to be made by our counsellors". This
document was issued in English as well as in French and Latin. A
copy of the English version was sent to every sheriff, with
instructions to read it several times a year in the county court,
so that a knowledge of its contents might be attained by every man.
It is perhaps the first important proclamation issued in English
since the coming of the Normans. Early in 1259 Richard, King of
the Romans, set out to revisit England. He was met at Saint Omer by
a deputation of magnates, who told him that he could only be
allowed to land after taking an oath to observe the Provisions.
Richard blustered, but soon gave in his submission. His adhesion to
the reforms marks the last step in the revolution.
The new constitution worked without interruption until the end
of 1259. Throughout that period domestic affairs were uneventful,
and the efforts of the ministry were chiefly concerned in securing
peace abroad. In 1258 Wales had been in revolt, Scotland
unfriendly, and France threatening. A truce, ill observed, was made
with Llewelyn, who found it worth while to be cautious, seeing that
his natural enemies, but sometime associates, the marchers, had a
preponderant share in the government. The Scots were easier to
satisfy, for there was at the time no real hostility between either
kings or peoples. The chief event of this period is the conclusion
of the first peace with France since the wars of John and Philip
Augustus. The protracted negotiations which preceded it took the
king and his chief councillors abroad, and that made it easier to
carry on the new domestic system without friction.
Since the friendly personal intercourse held between Henry and
Louis IX. in 1254, the relations between England and France had
become less cordial. The revival of the English power in Gascony,
the Anglo-Castilian alliance, and the election of Richard of
Cornwall to the German kingship irritated the French, to whom the
persistent English claim to Normandy and Anjou, and the repudiation
of the Aquitanian homage, were perpetual sources of annoyance. The
French championship of Alfonso against Richard achieved the double
end of checking English pretensions, and cooling the friendship
between England and Castile. St. Louis, however, was always ready
to treat for peace, while the revolution of 1258 made all parties
in England anxious to put a speedy end to the unsettled relations
between the two realms. Negotiations were begun as early as 1257,
and made some progress; but the decisive step was taken immediately
after the prorogation of the reforming parliament in the spring of
1258. During May a strangely constituted embassy treated for peace
at Paris, where Montfort and Hugh Bigod worked side by side with
two of the Lusignans and Peter of Savoy. They concluded a
provisional treaty in time for the negotiators to take their part
in the Mad Parliament. The unsettled state of affairs in England,
however, delayed the ratification of the treaty. Arrangements had
been made for its publication at Cambrai, but the fifteen dared not
allow Henry to escape from their tutelage, and Louis refused to
treat save with the king himself. There were difficulties as to the
relation of the pope and the King of the Romans to the treaty,
while Earl Simon's wife Eleanor and her children refused to waive
their very remote claims to a share in the Norman and Angevin
inheritances, which her brother was prepared to renounce. As ever,
Montfort held to his personal rights with the utmost tenacity, and
the self-seeking obstinacy of the chief negotiator of the treaty
caused both bad blood and delay. At last he was bought off by the
promise of a money payment, and the preliminary ratifications were
exchanged in the summer of 1259. On November 14 Henry left England
for Paris for the formal conclusion of the treaty. There were great
festivities on the occasion of the meeting of the two kings, but
once more Montfort and his wife blocked the way. Not until the very
morning of the day fixed for the final ceremony were they satisfied
by Henry's promise to deposit on their behalf a large sum in the
hands of the French. Immediately afterwards Henry did homage to
Louis for Gascony.
The chief condition of the treaty of Paris was Henry's
definitive renunciation of all his claims on Normandy, Anjou,
Maine, Touraine, and Poitou, and his agreement to hold Gascony as a
fief of the French crown. In return for this, Louis not only
recognised him as Duke of Aquitaine, but added to his actual
possessions there by ceding to him all that he held, whether in
fief or in demesne, in the three dioceses of Limoges, Cahors, and
Périgueux. Besides these immediate cessions, the French king
promised to hand over to Henry certain districts then held by his
brother, Alfonse of Poitiers, and his brother's wife Joan of
Toulouse, in the event of their dominions escheating to the crown
by their death without heirs. These regions included Agen and the
Agenais, Saintonge to the south of the Charente, and in addition
the whole of Quercy, if it could be proved by inquest that it had
been given by Richard I. to his sister Joan, grandmother of Joan of
Poitiers, as her marriage portion. Moreover the French
king promised to pay to Henry the sums necessary to maintain for
two years five hundred knights to be employed "for the service of
God, or the Church, or the kingdom of England."1
1 For the treaty and its execution see M.
Gavrilovitch, Étude sur le traité de Paris de
1259 (1899).
The treaty was unpopular both in France and England. The French
strongly objected to the surrender of territory, and were but
little convinced of the advantage gained by making the English king
once more the vassal of France. English opinion was hostile to the
abandonment of large pretensions in return for so small an
equivalent. On the French side it is true that Louis sacrificed
something to his sense of justice and love of peace. But the
territory he ceded was less in reality than in appearance. The
French king's demesnes in Quercy, Périgord, and Limousin
were not large, and the transference of the homage of the chief
vassals meant only a nominal change of overlordship, and was
further limited by a provision that certain "privileged fiefs" were
still to be retained under the direct suzerainty of the French
crown. As to the eventual cessions, Alfonse and his wife were still
alive and likely to live many years. Even the cession of Gascony
was hampered by a stipulation that the towns should take an "oath
of security," by which they pledged themselves to aid France
against England in the event of the English king breaking the
provisions of the treaty. Perhaps the most solid advantage Henry
gained by the treaty was financial, for he spent the sums granted
to enable him to redeem his crusading vow in preparing for war
against his own subjects. It was, however, an immense advantage for
England to be able during the critical years which followed to be
free from French hostility. If, therefore, the French complaints
against the treaty were exaggerated, the English dissatisfaction
was unreasonable. The real difficulty for the future lay in the
fact that the possession of Gascony by the king of a hostile nation
was incompatible with the proper development of the French
monarchy. For fifty years, however, a chronic state of war had not
given Gascony to the French; and Louis IX. was, perhaps, politic as
well as scrupulous in abandoning the way of force and beginning a
new method of gradual absorption, that in the end
gained the Gascon fief for France more effectively than any
conquest. The treaty of Paris was not a final settlement. It left a
score of questions still open, and the problems of its gradual
execution involved the two courts in constant disputes down to the
beginning of the Hundred Years' War. For seventy years the whole
history of the relations between the two nations is but a
commentary on the treaty of Paris.
During his visit to Paris Henry arranged a marriage between his
daughter Beatrice and John of Brittany, the son of the reigning
duke. In no hurry to get back to the tutelage of the fifteen, he
prolonged his stay on the continent till the end of April, 1260.
Yet, abroad as at home, he could not be said to act as a free man.
It was not the king so much as Simon of Montfort who was the real
author of the French treaty. Indeed, it is from the conclusion of
the Peace of Paris that Simon's preponderance becomes evident. He
was at all stages the chief negotiator of the peace and, save when
his personal interests stood in the way, he controlled every step
of the proceedings. If in 1258 he was but one of several leaders of
the baronial party in England, he came back from France in 1260
assured of supremacy. During his absence abroad, events had taken
place in England which called for his presence.
After their triumph in 1258, the baronial leaders relaxed their
efforts. Contented with their position as arbiters of the national
destinies, they made little effort to carry out the reforms
contemplated at Oxford. The ranks of the victors were broken up by
private dissensions. Before leaving for France, Earl Simon
violently quarrelled with Richard, Earl of Gloucester. It was
currently believed that Gloucester had grown slack, and Simon rose
in popular estimation as a thorough-going reformer who had no mind
to substitute the rule of a baronial oligarchy for the tyranny of
the king. His position was strengthened by his personal qualities
which made him the hero of the younger generation; and his
influence began to modify the policy of Edward the king's son, who,
since the flight of his Poitevin kinsmen, was gradually arriving at
broader views of national policy. Even before his father's journey
to France, Edward took up a line of his own. In the October
parliament of 1259, he listened to a petition presented to the
council by the younger nobles1 who
complained that, though the king had performed all his promises,
the barons had not fulfilled any of theirs. Edward thereupon
stirred up the oligarchy to issue an instalment of the promised
reforms in the document known as the Provisions of Westminster.
During Henry's absence in France the situation became strained. The
oligarchic party, headed by Gloucester, was breaking away from
Montfort; and Edward was forming a liberal royalist party which was
not far removed from Montfort's principles. Profiting by these
discords, the Lusignans prepared to invade England. The papacy was
about to declare against the reformers. When the monks of
Winchester elected an Englishman as their bishop in the hope of
getting rid of the queen's uncle, Alexander IV. summoned Aymer to
his court and consecrated him bishop with his own hands.
1 "Communitas bacheleriae Angliæ," Burton
Ann., p. 471. See on this, Engl. Hist. Review,
xvii. (1902), 89-94.
Early in 1260, Montfort went back to England and made common
cause with Edward. Despite the king's order that no parliament
should be held during his absence abroad, Montfort insisted that
the Easter parliament should meet as usual at London. The
discussions were hot. Montfort demanded the expulsion of Peter of
Savoy from the council, and Edward and Gloucester almost came to
blows. The Londoners closed their gates on both parties, but the
mediation of the King of the Romans prevented a collision. Henry
hurried home, convinced that Edward was conspiring against him. The
king threw himself into the city of London, and with Gloucester's
help collected an army. Meanwhile Montfort and Edward, with their
armed followers, were lodged at Clerkenwell, ready for war. Again
the situation became extremely critical, and again King Richard
proved the best peacemaker. Henry held out against his son for a
fortnight, but such estrangement was hard for him to endure. "Do
not let my son appear before me," he cried, "for if I see him, I
shall not be able to refrain from kissing him." A reconciliation
was speedily effected, and nothing remained of the short-lived
alliance of Edward with Montfort save that his feud with Gloucester
continued until the earl's death.
The dissensions among the barons encouraged
Henry to shake off the tutelage of the fifteen. As soon as he was
reconciled with his son, he charged Leicester with treason.1
"But, thanks be to God, the earl answered to all these
points with such force that the king could do nothing against him."
Unable to break down his enemy by direct attack, Henry followed one
of the worst precedents of his father's reign by beseeching
Alexander IV. to relieve him of his oath to observe the Provisions.
On April 13, 1261, a bull was issued annulling the whole of the
legislation of 1258 and 1259, and freeing the king from his sworn
promise.
1 Bémont, Simon de Montfort,
Appendix xxxvii., pp. 343-53.
William of Valence was already back in England, and restored to
his old dignities. His return was the easier because his brother,
Aymer, the most hated of the Poitevins, had died soon after his
consecration to Winchester. On June 14, 1261, the papal bull was
read before the assembled parliament at Winchester. There Henry
removed the baronial ministers and replaced them by his own
friends. Chief among the sufferers was Hugh Despenser, who had
succeeded Hugh Bigod as justiciar; and Bigod himself was expelled
from the custody of Dover Castle. In the summer Henry issued a
proclamation, declaring that the right of choosing his council and
garrisoning his castles was among the inalienable attributes of the
crown. England was little inclined to rebel, for the return of
prosperity and good harvests made men more contented.
The repudiation of the Provisions restored unity to the
baronage. The defections had been serious, and it was said that
only five of the twenty-four still adhered to the opposition. But
the crisis forced Leicester and Gloucester to forget their recent
feuds, and co-operate once more against the king. They saw that
their salvation from Henry's growing strength lay in appealing to a
wider public than that which they had hitherto addressed. Still
posing as the heads of the government established by the
Provisions, they summoned three knights from each shire to attend
an assembly at St. Alban's. This appeal to the landed gentry
alarmed the king so much that he issued counter-writs to the
sheriffs ordering them to send the knights, not to the baronial
camp at St. Alban's, but to his own court at Windsor. Neither party was
as yet prepared for battle. The death of Alexander IV, soon after
the publication of his bull tied the hands of the king. At the same
time the renewed dissensions of Leicester and Gloucester paralysed
the baronage. Before long Simon withdrew to the continent, leaving
everything in Gloucester's hands. At last, on December 7, a treaty
of pacification was patched up, and the king announced that he was
ready to pardon those who accepted its conditions. But there was no
permanence in the settlement, and the king, the chief gainer by it,
was soon pressing the new pope, Urban IV., to confirm the bull of
Alexander. On February 25, 1262, Urban renewed Henry's absolution
from his oath in a bull which was at once promulgated in England.
Montfort then came back from abroad and rallied the baronial party.
In January, 1263, Henry once more confirmed the Provisions, and
peace seemed restored. The death of Richard of Gloucester during
1262 increased Montfort's power. His son, the young Earl Gilbert,
was Simon's devoted disciple, but he was still a minor and the
custody of his lands was handed over to the Earl of Hereford.
Montfort's personal charm succeeded in like fashion in winning over
Henry of Almaine.
The events of 1263 are as bewildering and as indecisive as those
of the two previous years. Amidst the confusion of details and the
violent clashing of personal and territorial interests, a few main
principles can be discerned. First of all the royalist party was
becoming decidedly stronger, and fresh secessions of the barons
constantly strengthened its ranks. Conspicuous among these were the
lords of the march of Wales, who in 1258 had been almost as one man
on the side of the opposition, but who by the end of 1263 had with
almost equal unanimity rallied to the crown.1 The causes of this
change of front are to be found partly in public and partly in
personal reasons. In 1258 Henry III., like Charles I. in 1640, had
alienated every class of his subjects, and was therefore entirely
at the mercy of his enemies. By 1263 his concessions had procured
for him a following, so that he now stood in the same position as
Charles after his concessions to the Long Parliament made it possible
for him to begin the Civil War in 1642. A new royalist party was
growing up with a wider policy and greater efficiency than the old
coterie of courtiers and aliens. Of this new party Edward was the
soul. He had dissociated himself from Earl Simon, but he carried
into his father's camp something of Simon's breadth of vision and
force of will. He set to work to win over individually the remnant
that adhered to Leicester. What persuasion and policy could not
effect was accomplished by bribes and promises. Edward won over the
Earl of Hereford, whose importance was doubled by his custody of
the Gloucester lands, the ex-justiciar Roger Bigod, and above all
Roger Mortimer.
1 On this, and the whole marcher and Welsh
aspect of the period, 1258-1267, see my essay on Wales and the
March during the Barons' Wars in Owens College Historical
Essays, pp. 76-136 (1902).
The change of policy of the marchers was partly at least brought
about by their constant difficulties with the Prince of Wales.
During the period immediately succeeding the Provisions of Oxford,
Llewelyn ceased to devastate the marches. A series of truces was
arranged which, if seldom well kept, at least avoided war on a
grand scale. Within Wales Llewelyn fully availed himself of the
respite from English war. Triumphant over the minor chiefs, he
could reckon upon the support of every Welsh tenant of a marcher
lord, and at last grew strong enough to disregard the truces and
wage open war against the marchers. It was in vain that Edward, the
greatest of the marcher lords, persuaded David, the Welsh prince's
brother, to rise in revolt against him. Llewelyn devastated the
four cantreds to the gates of Chester, and at last, after long
sieges, forced the war-worn defenders of Deganwy and Diserth to
surrender the two strong castles through which alone Edward had
retained some hold over his Welsh lands. It was the same in the
middle march, where Llewelyn turned his arms against the Mortimers,
and robbed them of their castles. Even in the south the lord of
Gwynedd carried everything before him. "If the Welsh are not
stopped," wrote a southern marcher, "they will destroy all the
lands of the king as far as the Severn and the Wye, and they ask
for nothing less than the whole of Gwent." Up to this point the war
had been a war of Welsh against English, but Montfort sought
compensation for his losses in England by establishing relations
with the Welsh. The alliance between Montfort and their enemy had a
large share in bringing about the secession of the marchers. Their
alliance with Edward neutralised the action of Montfort, and once
more enabled Henry to repudiate the Provisions.
In the summer of 1263, Edward and Montfort both raised armies.
Leicester made himself master of Hereford, Gloucester, and Bristol,
and when Edward threw himself into Windsor Castle, he occupied
Isleworth, hoping to cut his enemy off from London, where the king
and queen had taken refuge in the Tower. But the hostility of the
Londoners made the Tower an uneasy refuge for them. On one
occasion, when the queen attempted to make her way up the Thames in
the hope of joining her son at Windsor, the citizens assailed her
barge so fiercely from London Bridge that she was forced to return
to the Tower. The foul insults which the rabble poured upon his
mother deeply incensed Edward and he became a bitter foe of the
city for the rest of his life. For the moment the hostility of
London was decisive against Henry. Once more the king was forced to
confirm the Provisions, agree to a fresh banishment of the aliens,
and restore Hugh Despenser to the justiciarship. This was the last
baronial triumph. In a few weeks Edward again took up arms, and was
joined by many of Montfort's associates, including his cousin,
Henry of Almaine. Even the Earl of Gloucester was wavering. The
barons feared the appeal to arms, and entered into negotiations.
Neither side was strong enough to obtain mastery over the other,
and a recourse to arbitration seemed the best way out of an
impossible situation. Accordingly, on December, 1263, the two
parties agreed to submit the question of the validity of the
Provisions to the judgment of Louis IX.
The king and his son at once crossed the channel to Amiens,
where the French king was to hear both sides. A fall from his horse
prevented Leicester attending the arbitration, and the barons were
represented by Peter Montfort, lord of Beaudesert castle in
Warwickshire, and representative of an ancient Anglo-Norman house
that was not akin to the family of Earl Simon. Louis did not waste
time, and on January 23, 1264, issued his decision in a document
called the "Mise of Amiens," which pronounced the Provisions
invalid, largely on the ground of the papal sentence. Henry was
declared free to select his own wardens of castles and ministers,
and Louis expressly annulled "the statute that the realm of England
should henceforth be governed by native-born Englishmen". "We
ordain," he added, "that the king shall have full power and free
jurisdiction over his realm as in the days before the Provisions."
The only consolation to the barons was that Louis declared that he
did not intend to derogate from the ancient liberties of the realm,
as established by charter or custom, and that he urged a general
amnesty on both parties. In all essential points Louis decided in
favour of Henry. Though the justest of kings, he was after all a
king, and the limitation of the royal authority by a baronial
committee seemed to him to be against the fundamental idea of
monarchy. The pious son of the Church was biassed by the authority
of two successive popes, and he was not unmoved by the indignation
of his wife, the sister of Queen Eleanor. A few weeks later Urban
IV. confirmed the award.
The Mise of Amiens was too one-sided to be accepted. The
decision to refer matters to St. Louis had been made hastily, and
many enemies of the king had taken no part in it. They, at least,
were free to repudiate the judgment and they included the
Londoners, the Cinque Ports, and nearly the whole of the lesser
folk of England. The Londoners set the example of rebellion. They
elected a constable and a marshal, and joining forces with Hugh
Despenser, the baronial justiciar, who still held the Tower,
marched out to Isleworth, where they burnt the manor of the King of
the Romans. "And this," wrote the London Chronicler, "was the
beginning of trouble and the origin of the deadly war by which so
many thousand men perished." The Londoners did not act alone.
Leicester refused to be bound by the award, though definitely
pledged to obey it. It was, he maintained, as much perjury to
abandon the Provisions as to be false to the promise to accept the
Mise of Amiens. After a last attempt at negotiation at a parliament
at Oxford, he withdrew with his followers and prepared for
resistance. "Though all men quit me," he cried, "I will remain with
my four sons and fight for the good cause which I have sworn to
defend—the honour of Holy Church and the good of the realm."
This was no mere boast. The more his associates fell away, the more
the Montfort family took the lead. While Leicester organised
resistance in the south, he sent his elder sons, Simon and Henry,
to head the revolt in the midlands and the west.
There was already war in the march of Wales
when Henry Montfort crossed the Severn and strove to make common
cause with Llewelyn. But the Welsh prince held aloof from him, and
Edward himself soon made his way to the march. At first all went
well for young Montfort. Edward, unable to capture Gloucester and
its bridge, was forced to beg for a truce. Before long he found
himself strong enough to repudiate the armistice and take
possession of Gloucester. Master of the chief passage over the
lower Severn, Edward abandoned the western campaign and went with
his marchers to join his father at Oxford, where he at once stirred
up the king to activity. The masters of the university, who were
strong partisans of Montfort, were chased away from the town. Then
the royal army marched against Northampton, the headquarters of the
younger Simon, who was resting there, and, on April 4, the king and
his son burst upon the place. Their first assault was unsuccessful,
but next day the walls were scaled, the town captured, and many
leading barons, including young Simon, taken prisoner. The victors
thereupon marched northwards, devastated Montfort's Leicestershire
estates, and thence proceeded to Nottingham, which opened its gates
in a panic.
Leicester himself had not been idle. While his sons were
courting disaster in the west and midlands, he threw himself into
London, where he was rapturously welcomed. The Londoners, however,
became very unruly, committed all sorts of excesses against the
wealthy royalists, and cruelly plundered and murdered the Jews.
Montfort himself did not disdain to share in the spoils of the
Jewry, though he soon turned to nobler work. He was anxious to open
up communications with his allies in the Cinque Ports. But Earl
Warenne, in Rochester castle, blocked the passage of the Dover road
over the Medway. Accordingly Montfort marched with a large
following of Londoners to Rochester, captured the town, and
assaulted the castle with such energy that it was on the verge of
surrendering. The news of Warenne's peril reached Henry in the
midlands. In five days the royalists made their way from Nottingham
to Rochester, a distance of over 160 miles. On their approach
Montfort withdrew into London.
Flushed with their successes at Northampton and Rochester, the
royalists marched through Kent and Sussex, plundering and devastating
the lands of their enemies. Though masters of the open country,
they had to encounter the resistance of the Clare castles, and the
solid opposition of the Cinque Ports. Their presence on the south
coast was specially necessary, for Queen Eleanor, who had gone
abroad, was waiting, with an army of foreign mercenaries, on the
Flemish coast, for an opportunity of sailing to her husband's
succour. The royal army was hampered by want of provisions, and was
only master of the ground on which it was camped. As a first fruit
of the alliance with Llewelyn, Welsh soldiers lurked behind every
hedge and hill, cut off stragglers, intercepted convoys, and
necessitated perpetual watchfulness. At last the weary and hungry
troops found secure quarters in Lewes, the centre of the estates of
Earl Warenne.
Montfort then marched southwards from the capital. Besides the
baronial retinues, a swarm of Londoners, eager for the fray, though
unaccustomed to military restraints, accompanied him. On May 13 he
encamped at Fletching, a village hidden among the dense oak woods
of the Weald, some nine miles north of Lewes. A last effort of
diplomacy was attempted by Bishop Cantilupe of Worcester who,
despite papal censures, still accompanied the baronial forces. But
the royalists would not listen to the mediation of so pronounced a
partisan. Nothing therefore was left but the appeal to the
sword.
The royal army was the more numerous, and included the greater
names. Of the heroes of the struggle of 1258 the majority was in
the king's camp, including most of the lords of the Welsh march,
and the hardly less fierce barons of the north, whose grandfathers
had wrested the Great Charter from John. The returned Poitevins
with their followers mustered strongly, and the confidence of the
royalists was so great that they neglected all military
preparations. The poverty of Montfort's host in historic families
attested the complete disintegration of the party since 1263. Its
strength lay in the young enthusiasts, who were still dominated by
the strong personality and generous ideals of Leicester, such as
the Earl of Gloucester, or Humphrey Bohun of Brecon, whose father,
the Earl of Hereford, was fighting upon the king's side. Early on
the morning of May 14 Montfort arrayed his troops and marched
southward in the direction of Lewes. Dawn had hardly broken
when the troops were massed on the summit of the South Downs,
overlooking Lewes from the north-west.
Lewes is situated on the right bank of a great curve of the
river Ouse, which almost encircles the town. To the south are the
low-lying marshes through which the river meanders towards the sea,
while to the north, east, and west are the bare slopes of the South
Downs, through which the river forces its way past the gap in which
the town is situated. To the north of the town lies the strong
castle of the Warennes, wherein Edward had taken up his quarters,
while in the southern suburb the Cluniac priory of St. Pancras, the
chief foundation of the Warennes, afforded lodgings for King Henry
and the King of the Romans. When Simon reached the summit of the
downs, his movements were visible from the walls. But the royal
army was still sleeping and its sentinels kept such bad watch that
the earl was able to array his troops at his leisure.
From the summit of the hills two great spurs, separated by a
waterless valley, slope down towards the north and west sides of
the town. The more northerly led straight to the castle, and the
more southerly to the priory. Montfort's plan was to throw his main
strength on the attack on the priory, while deluding the enemy into
the belief that his chief object was to attack the castle. He was
not yet fully recovered from his fall from his horse, and it was
known that he generally travelled in a closed car or horse-litter.
This vehicle he posted in a conspicuous place on the northerly
spur, and planted over it his standard. In front of it were massed
the London militia, mainly infantry and the least effective element
in his host. Meanwhile the knights and men-at-arms were mustered on
the southerly spur under the personal direction of Montfort, who
held himself in the rear with the reserve, while the foremost files
were commanded by the young Earl of Gloucester, whom Simon solemnly
dubbed to knighthood before the assembled squadrons. Then the two
divisions of the army advanced towards Lewes, hoping to find their
enemies still in their beds.
At the last moment the alarm was given, and before the barons
approached the town, the royalists, pouring out of castle, town,
and priory, hastily took up their position face to face to the
enemy. All turned out as Montfort had foreseen. Edward, emerging
from the castle with his cousin Henry of Almaine, his Poitevin
uncles, and the warriors of the march, observed the standard of
Montfort on the hill, and supposing that the earl was with his
banner, dashed impetuously against the left wing of Leicester's
troops. He soon found himself engaged with the Londoners, who broke
and fled in confusion before his impetuous charge. Eager to revenge
on the flying citizens the insults they had directed against his
parents, he pursued the beaten militia for many a mile, inflicting
terrible damage upon them. On his way he captured Simon's standard
and horse-litter, and slew its occupants, though they were three
royalist members of the city aristocracy detained there for sure
keeping. When the king's son drew rein he was many miles from
Lewes, whither he returned, triumphant but exhausted.
The removal of Edward and the marchers from the field enabled
Montfort to profit by his sacrifice of the Londoners. The followers
of the two kings on the left of the royalist lines could not
withstand the weight of the squadrons of Leicester and Gloucester.
The King of the Romans was driven to take refuge in a mill, where
he soon made an ignominious surrender. Henry himself lost his horse
under him and was forced to yield himself prisoner to Gilbert of
Gloucester. The mass of the army was forced back on to the town and
priory, which were occupied by the victors. Scarcely was their
victory assured when Edward and the marchers came back from the
pursuit of the Londoners. Thereupon the battle was renewed in the
streets of the town. It was, however, too late for the weary
followers of the king's son to reverse the fortunes of the day.
Some threw themselves into the castle, where the king's standard
still floated; Edward himself took sanctuary in the church of the
Franciscans; many strove to escape eastwards over the Ouse bridge
or by swimming over the river. The majority of the latter perished
by drowning or by the sword: but two compact bands of mail-clad
horsemen managed to cut their way through to safety. One of these,
a force of some two hundred, headed by Earl Warenne himself, and
his brothers-in-law, Guy of Lusignan and William of Valence,
secured their retreat to the spacious castle of Pevensey, of which
Warenne was constable, and from which the possibility of continuing
their flight by sea remained open. Of greater military consequence
was the successful escape of the lords of the Welsh march, whose
followers were next day the only section of the royalist army which
was still a fighting force. This was the only immediate limitation
to the fulness of Montfort's victory. After seven weary years, the
judgment of battle secured the triumph of the "good cause," which
had so long been delayed by the weakness of his confederates and
the treachery of his enemies. Not the barons of 1258, but Simon and
his personal following were the real conquerors at
Lewes.
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