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The History of England from the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377)
Lancaster, Pembroke, And The Despensers
by Tout, T.F. (M.A.)
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Bannockburn was almost welcomed by the
ordainers, for it afforded new opportunities of humiliating the
defeated king. While Edward tarried at Berwick, Lancaster was in
his castle of Pontefract with a force far larger than his cousin's.
Loudly declaring that the true cause of the disaster was Edward's
neglect to carry out the ordinances, he announced his intention of
immediately enforcing their observance. At a parliament at York, in
September, Edward delivered himself altogether into Thomas's hands,
ordering the immediate execution of the ordinances, and replacing
his ministers and sheriffs by nominees of the ordainers. The only
boon that he obtained was that the earls postponed the removal from
court of Hugh Despenser and Henry Beaumont, the two faithful
friends who had guarded him in his flight from Bannockburn.
Despenser, however, thought it prudent to avoid his enemies by
going into hiding. Edward's submission did not help him against the
Scots. The earls resolved that the question of an expedition was to
be postponed until the next parliament, on the ground that it was
imprudent to take action until Hereford and the other captives had
been released. It was a sorry excuse, for King Robert and his
brother were devastating the northern counties with fire and sword,
and it gave new ground to the suspicion of an understanding between
the Scottish king and the ordainers. But the victor of Bannockburn
showed surprising moderation. He suffered the bodies of Gloucester
and the slain barons to be buried among their ancestors, and
released Gloucester's father-in-law, Monthermer, without ransom,
declaring that the thing in the world which he most desired was to
live in peace with the English. He welcomed an exchange of
prisoners, by which his wife, Elizabeth de Burgh, his sister, his
daughter, and the Bishop of Glasgow were restored to Scotland. The
release of Hereford soon added to the king's troubles.
In January, 1315, Edward's humiliation was completed at a London
parliament. Hugh Despenser and Walter Langton were removed from the
council. The "superfluous members" of the royal household,
denounced as "excessively burdensome to the king and the land,"
were dismissed, and drastic ordinances were drawn up for the
regulation of the diminished following still allowed to the king.
Edward was put on an allowance of £10 a day, and the
administration of his revenues taken out of his hands. The grant
made was accompanied by the condition that its spending should be
entirely in the hands of the barons, and the estates arranged after
their own fashion for the new Scottish campaign. When summer came,
Lancaster insisted on taking the command himself, and thus gave a
new grievance to Pembroke, who had already been appointed general.
Lancaster was henceforth the indispensable man. When parliament met
at Lincoln, in January, 1316, the few magnates who attended would
transact no business until his arrival. On his tardy appearance in
the last days of the session, it was resolved "that the lord king
should do nothing grave or arduous without the advice of the
council, and that the Earl of Lancaster should hold the chief place
in the council". It was only after some hesitation that the earl
accepted this position. Once more the king was forced to confirm
the ordinances. Liberal grants were made by the estates, and every
rural township was called upon to furnish and pay a foot soldier to
fight the Scots.
The commander of the army and the chief counsellor of the king,
Lancaster, was in a stronger position than any subject since the
days of Simon of Montfort. He could afford to despise aristocratic
jealousy and royal malignity. To the commons he was the good earl,
who was standing up for the rights of the people. He was the
darling of the clergy, who looked upon him as the pillar of
orthodoxy, the disciple of Winchelsea, and the upholder of the
rights of Holy Church. The warlike and energetic barons of the
north were his sworn followers, and, apart from his hold upon
public opinion, he could always fall back on the resources of his
five earldoms. But events were soon to show that the successful leader
of opposition was absolutely incapable of carrying out a
constructive policy. He had no ideals, no principles, no feeling of
the importance of administrative efficiency, no sense of
responsibility, no power of controlling his followers. He never
understood that his business was no longer to oppose but to act.
The clear-headed monk of Malmesbury paints the disastrous results
of his inaction: "Whatsoever pleased the king, the earl's servants
strove to overthrow; and whatever pleased the earl, was declared by
the king's servants to be treasonable; and so, at the suggestion of
the evil one, the households of earl and king put themselves in the
way and would not allow their masters, by whom the land should have
been defended, to be of one accord". Even the implied understanding
with the King of Scots was not abandoned by the man on whom the
responsibility rested of defeating him. When Bruce devastated the
north of England he still spared the lands of the king's "chief
counsellor," as of old he had spared the lands of the opposition
leader. When, in 1316, Lancaster mustered his forces at Newcastle
against the Scots, Edward repaid him for his inaction in 1314 by
declining to accompany him over the border. "Thereupon," wrote the
border annalist,1 "the earl at once went back; for neither
trusted the other." Edward, who forgot and forgave nothing,
secretly negotiated with the pope for absolution from his oath to
the ordinances. He gradually built up a court party, and soon
restored Hugh Despenser to his position in the household. As might
be expected in such circumstances no effective resistance was made
to the Scots.
1 Lanercost Chronicle, p. 233.
It was a time of severe distress in England. In 1315 a rainy
summer ruined the harvest. Great floods swept away the hay from the
fields, and drowned the sheep and cattle. In 1316 famine raged,
especially in the north. For a hundred years, we are told, such
scarcity of corn had not been known. A bushel of wheat was sold at
London for forty pence, and the Northumbrians were driven to feed
on dogs, horses, and other unwonted food. Pestilence followed in
the train of famine. It was in vain that parliament passed laws,
limiting the repasts of the barons' households to two courses of
meat, and fixing the price of the chief sorts of victuals. The only
result was that dealers refused to bring their produce
to market. Then the legislation, passed in a panic, was repealed in
a panic. "It is better," said a chronicler, "to buy things at a
high rate than not to be able to buy them at all."
Private wars raged from end to end of south Britain. On the
upper Severn, Griffith of Welshpool, the younger son of Griffith ap
Gwenwynwyn, laid regular siege to Powys castle, the stronghold of
John Charlton, his niece's husband and his rival for the lordship
of upper Powys. As Charlton was a courtier, Griffith attached
himself to the ordainers. After Bannockburn, the captivity of
Hereford, the lord of Brecon, and the death without heirs of
Gloucester, the lord of Glamorgan, removed the strongest restraints
on the men of south Wales. The royal warden of Glamorgan, Payne of
Turberville, displaced Gloucester's old officers. One of the
sufferers was Llewelyn Bren, "a great and powerful Welshman in
those parts," who had held high office under Earl Gilbert. In 1315
Llewelyn, after seeking justice in vain at the king's court, rose
in revolt against Turberville. He gathered the Welshmen on the
hills, burst upon Caerphilly, while the constable was holding a
court outside the castle, took the outer ward by surprise and burnt
it to ashes. There was fear lest this revolt should be the
starting-point of a general Welsh rising. Llewelyn's hill
strongholds threatened Brecon on the north and the vale of
Glamorgan on the south; and Hereford, then released from his
Scottish captivity, was entrusted with the suppression of the
revolt. Before long all the lords of the march joined Hereford in
stamping out the movement. Among them were the two Roger Mortimers,
the Montagues and the Giffords, and Henry of Lancaster, Earl
Thomas's brother, and lord in his own right of Monmouth and
Kidwelly. Overwhelmed by such mighty opponents, Llewelyn
surrendered to Hereford, hoping thus to save his followers.
Lancaster himself suffered from the spirit of anarchy that was
abroad. His own Lancashire vassals rose against his authority,
under Adam Banaster, a former member of his household. Adam
belonged to an important Lancashire family, which had long stood in
close relations to Wales, and had committed a homicide for which he
despaired of pardon. He now posed as the champion of the king
against the earl, believing that anything that caused trouble to
Thomas would give no small delight at court. Lancaster
showed more energy in upholding his own rights than in maintaining
the honour of England. He raised such an overwhelming force that
Banaster, unable to hold the field against him, shut himself up in
his house. His refuge was stormed and his head brought to Earl
Thomas as a trophy of victory. While Banaster was raiding
Lancashire and Llewelyn south Wales, the Scots were devastating the
country as far south as Furness, and Edward Bruce, King Robert's
brother, was conquering Ireland. There was little wonder that
Edward Bruce hoped to cross over to Wales when he had done his work
in Ireland, or that the Welsh, buoyed up, as in the last
generation, by the prophesies of Merlin, believed that the time was
come when they would expel the Saxons, and win back the empire of
Britain.
Of much longer duration than the wars of Llewelyn Bren and Adam
Banaster, were the formidable disturbances which raged for many
years at Bristol. Fourteen Bristol magnates had long a
preponderating influence in the government of the town. The commons
bitterly resented their superiority and declared that every burgess
should enjoy equal rights. A royal inquiry was ordered, but the
judges, bribed, as was believed, by the fourteen, gave a decision
which was unacceptable to the commons. Lord Badlesmere, warden of
the castle, sided with the oligarchs, and thus the whole authority
of the state was brought to bear against the popular party. But it
was an easy matter to resist the government of Edward II. The
commons took arms and a riot broke out in court. Twenty men were
killed in the disturbances, and the judges fled for their lives.
Eighty burgesses were proved by inquest at Gloucester to have been
the ringleaders. As they refused to appear to answer the charges,
they were outlawed. Indignation at Bristol then rose to such a
height that the fourteen fled in their turn, and for more than two
years Bristol succeeded in holding out against the royal mandate.
At last, in 1316, the town was regularly besieged by the Earl of
Pembroke. The castle was not within the burgesses' power, and its
petrariae, breaking down the walls and houses of the
borough, compelled the townsmen to surrender. A few of the chief
rebels were punished, but a pardon was issued to the mass of the
burgesses.
More dangerous than any of these troubles was the attack made by
Edward Bruce on the English power in Ireland. That power had been
on the wane during the last two generations. Edward I. had formed
schemes for the better administration of the country, but little
had come of them. The English government in Dublin gradually lost
such control as it had possessed over the remoter parts of the
island. The shire organisation, set up in an earlier generation,
became little more than nominal. The constitutional movement of the
thirteenth century extended to the island, and the Irish
parliament, then growing up out of the old council, reflected in a
blurred fashion the organisation of the English parliament of the
three estates. But royal lieutenants and councils, shires and
sheriffs, parliaments and justices had only the most superficial
influence on Irish life. Real authority was divided between the
Norman lords of the plain and the Celtic chieftains of the hills.
Each feudal lord hated his fellows, and bitter as were the feuds of
Fitzgeralds and Burghs, they were mild as compared with the
rancorous hereditary factions which divided the native septs from
each other. These divisions alone made it possible for the king's
officers to keep up some semblance of royal rule. If they were
seldom obeyed, the divisions in the enemies' camps prevented any
chance of their being overthrown. Thus the Irish went on living a
rude, turbulent life of perpetual purposeless war and bloodshed.
Ireland was a wilder, larger, more remote Welsh march, and the
resemblance was heightened by the fact that many of the
Anglo-Norman principalities were in the hands of great English or
marcher families, and that the Irish foot-soldier played only a
less important part than the Welsh archer and pikeman among the
light-armed soldiers of the English crown.
The easiest way to keep up a show of English government was to
form an alliance between the crown and some of the baronial houses.
Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, the most powerful of the feudal
lords of Ireland, was the only one who at that period bore the
title of earl. He had long been interested in general English
affairs, and his kinswomen had intermarried into great British
houses. One of his daughters married Robert Bruce when he was Earl
of Carrick, and another was more recently wedded to Earl Gilbert of
Gloucester. Despite the Bruce connexion, the Earl of Ulster was
still trusted by the English party, and the king gave him the
command of an Irish army which he had intended to
send against Scotland in 1314. Richard was too busy fighting the
Ulster clans of O'Donnell and O'Neil, and too jealous of the
Fitzgeralds, his feudal rivals, to throw his heart into the
hopeless task of gathering together the two nations and many clans
of Ireland into a single host. The death of Earl Gilbert at
Bannockburn broke his nearest tie with England, and the release of
Elizabeth Bruce in exchange for Hereford gave his daughter the
actual enjoyment of the throne of Scotland. His natural instincts
as an Irishman and as a baron were to restrain the power of his
overlord. When the news of Bruce's victory produced a great stir
among the Irish clans, he stood aside and let events take their
course.
Though the Gael of the Scottish Highlands played little part at
Bannockburn, the Irish rejoiced at the Scots' success as that of
their kinsmen. "The Kings of the Scots," said the Irish Celts,
"derive their origin from our land. They speak our tongue and have
our laws and customs." However little true this was in fact, it was
a good excuse for some of the Irish clans to offer the throne of
Ireland to the King of Scots. Robert rejected the proposal for
himself, but was willing to give his able and adventurous brother
Edward the chance of winning another crown for his house. Edward,
"who thought that Scotland was too little for his brother and
himself," cheerfully fell in with the scheme. On May 25, 1315, he
landed near Carrickfergus and received a rapturous welcome from the
O'Neils, the greatest of the septs of the north-east. Before long
all Celtic Ulster flocked to his banners, and Edmund Butler, then
justice of Ireland, strove with little success to make head against
the Scottish invasion. The completeness of Bruce's union with the
native Irish gave him his best chance of attaining his object. Up
to this point the attitude of the Earl of Ulster had been most
undecided. He at last threw in his lot with the justiciar. When
parties began to shape themselves it was clear that "all the Irish
of Ireland" were in league with Bruce. The danger was that "a great
part of the great lords and lesser English folk" also joined the
invader. Conspicuous among these were the Lacys of Meath.
Edward Bruce showed energy and vigour. He made his way
southwards, and in September won a victory over the forces of the Earl
of Ulster and the justiciar at Dundalk, then in the south of
Ulster. After this he pushed into Meath and Leinster and was joined
by the O'Tooles and the other clans of the Wicklow mountains, while
the adhesion of Phelim O'Connor, King of Connaught, brought the
whole of the Celtic west into his alliance. The barons, however,
took the alarm. During the winter Butler contracted friendship with
many of the Norman colonists. From that time the struggle assumed
the character of a war between Celtic Ireland and feudal Ireland,
the native clansmen and the Anglo-Norman settlers. Thus, though
Bruce and his wild allies found it easy to make themselves masters
of the open country, all the castles and towns were closed to them
and could only be won by long-continued efforts. Before long,
Butler drove them to the hills. Ere the winter was over, Edward
found it prudent to retire to Ulster.
During 1316 the struggle raged unceasingly. Bruce was crowned
King of Ireland, the O'Neil, it was said, having abdicated his
rights in his favour. But the summer saw the utter defeat of the
O'Connors by the justiciar at the bloody battle of Athenry, where
King Phelim and the noblest of his sept perished. A little later
the King of Scots came to the help of his brother. With his aid,
Edward was able to reduce Carrickfergus, which had hitherto defied
his efforts. Then the brothers led their forces from one end of
Ireland to the other. Dublin prepared for a siege by burning its
suburbs and devastating the country around. But though the two
Bruces penetrated as far as Limerick, they did not capture a single
castle or a walled town. They lost so many men during their winter
campaign, that they were forced in the spring to retire to Ulster.
The hopeless disunion of both parties in Ireland seemed likely to
prolong the struggle indefinitely. The men of Dublin and the Earl
of Ulster were at feud with each other, and the citizens captured
the earl and shut him up in Dublin castle. However little the earl
could be trusted, this was a step likely to throw all Ulster into
the arms of the Bruces. But a stronger justice of Ireland then
superseded Edmund Butler. Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, the mightiest
baron of the Welsh march, and a man of real ability, rare energy,
extreme ruthlessness, and savage cruelty, crossed over from
Haverfordwest early in 1317 at the head of a large force of marcher
knights and men-at-arms, versed from their youth up in the traditions
of Celtic warfare. Mortimer set himself to work to break up the
ill-assorted coalition that supported Bruce. He released the Earl
of Ulster from his Dublin prison; he procured the banishment of the
heads of the house of Lacy; he won over some of the Irish septs to
his side; he stimulated the civil war which had devastated
Connaught since the fall of the O'Connors. Edward Bruce was once
more confined to Ulster, where he still struggled on bravely. In
the autumn of 1318 he led a foray southwards, and met his fate in a
skirmish near Dundalk on October 14, when his force was scattered
in confusion by John of Bermingham, one of the neighbouring lords.
The four quarters of the luckless King of Ireland were exposed in
the four chief towns of the island as a trophy of victory, and
Bermingham was rewarded by the new earldom of Louth.
Edward Bruce's enterprise ended with his death, and Ireland
rapidly settled down into its normal condition of impotent
turbulence. Though at first sight the invader utterly failed, yet
he pricked the bubble of the English power in Ireland. His gallant
attempt at winning the throne is the critical event in a long
period of Irish history. From the days of Henry III to the days of
Edward Bruce, the lordship of the English kings in Ireland was to
some extent a reality. From 1315 to the reign of Henry VIII, the
English dominion was little more than a name as regards the greater
part of Ireland.
No one attained success, in the years after
Bannockburn,—neither Banaster, nor Llewelyn Bren, nor the
Bristol commons nor Edward Bruce and his Irish allies. Before long,
the incompetence of Lancaster became as manifest as the
incompetence of Edward II. Lancaster's failure led to the
dissolution of the baronial opposition into fiercely opposing
factions. Personal and territorial jealousies slowly undermined a
unity which had always been more apparent than real. The Earl of
Pembroke had never forgiven the treachery of Deddington. Though
Warwick was dead, Pembroke still pursued Lancaster with unrelenting
hatred. No partisan of prerogative, and an enemy of Edward's
personal following, Earl Aymer separated himself from his old
associates and strove to form a middle party between the faction of
the king and the faction of Lancaster. Warerine, coarse, turbulent,
and vicious, at once violent and crafty, still acted with him. The lord
of Conisborough had long grudged the master of Pontefract and
Sandal his great position in Yorkshire. The natural rivalries of
neighbouring potentates were further emphasised by personal
animosity of the deadliest kind. Lancaster had long been at
variance with his wife, Alice Lacy. On May 9, 1317, the Countess of
Lancaster ran away from him, with the active help of Warenne and by
the secret contrivance of the king. Private war at once broke out
between the two earls. Lancaster was too strong for his enemy.
Before winter had begun, Conisborough and Warenne's other Yorkshire
castles fell into his hands. Lancaster's partisans even laid hold
of the king's castle of Knaresborough, while other Lancastrian
bands occupied Alton castle in Staffordshire. Intermittent
hostilities continued until the summer of 1318. Twice Edward
himself went to the north, and on one occasion appeared in force
outside Pontefract. But the more moderate of the baronage managed
to prevent open hostilities between the king and the earl.
Lancaster was, as ever, fighting for his own hand. His self-seeking
narrowness gave Pembroke the chance of winning for his middle party
a preponderating authority.
Pembroke found more trustworthy allies than Warenne in
Bartholomew, Lord Badlesmere, the sometime instigator of the
Bristol troubles, and a bitter opponent of Lancaster, and in Roger
of Amory, the husband of one of the three co-heiresses who now
divided the Gloucester inheritance. Edward, who had profited by the
divisions of his enemies to revive the court party, formed a
coalition between his friends and the followers of Pembroke. All
lovers of order, of moderation, and of the supremacy of the law
necessarily made common cause with them. Thus it followed that the
same machinery, which Lancaster a few years earlier had turned
against the king, was now turned against him. An additional motive
to bring peaceable Englishmen into line was found in the capture of
Berwick by Bruce in April, 1318. After this negotiations for peace
began. The king and Lancaster treated as two independent princes.
Lancaster was no longer supported by any prominent earl, and even
his clerical friends were falling from him. Ordainers as jealous as
Arundel, royalists as fierce as Mortimer, served along with
trimmers like Pembroke and Badlesmere, in acting as mediators.
Lancaster could no more resist than Edward could in
1312. On August 9 he accepted at Leek, in Staffordshire, the
conditions drawn up for him.
The treaty of Leek marks the triumph of the middle party and the
removal of Lancaster from the first place in the royal council. A
pardon was granted to him and his followers, but Thomas gained
little else by the compact. Pembroke and his friends showed
themselves as jealous of Edward as ever the ordainers had been. The
ordinances were once more confirmed, and a new council of seventeen
was nominated, including eight bishops, four earls, four barons,
and one banneret. The earls were Pembroke, Arundel, Richmond, and
Hereford. Of these the Breton Earl of Richmond was the most
friendly to the king, but it was significant to find so truculent a
politician as Hereford making common cause with Pembroke. The most
important of the four barons was Roger Mortimer of Wigmore.
Lancaster though not paramount was still powerful, but his habit of
absenting himself from parliaments made it useless to offer him a
place in the council, and he was represented by a single banneret,
nominated by him. Of these councillors two bishops, one earl, one
baron, and Lancaster's nominee were to be in constant attendance.
They were virtually to control Edward's policy, and to see that he
consulted parliament in all matters that required its assent. A few
days after the treaty Edward and Lancaster met at Hathern, near
Loughborough, and exchanged the kiss of peace. Roger of Amory and
other magnates of the middle party reconciled themselves to
Lancaster, and he condescendingly restored them to his favour. But
he would not deign to admit Hugh Despenser to his presence, and
declared that he was still free to carry on his quarrel against
Warenne. In October, a parliament at York confirmed the treaty of
Leek, adding new members to the council and appointing another
commission to reform the king's household. From that time until
1321, Pembroke and his friends controlled the English state, though
often checked both by the king and even more by Lancaster, who
still stood ostentatiously aloof from parliaments and campaigns.
These years, though neither glorious nor prosperous, were the most
peaceable and uneventful of the whole of Edward II.'s reign. They
are noteworthy for the only serious attempt made to check the
progress of the Scots after Bannockburn. From 1318 to 1320 king and
court were almost continually in the north. York became the regular
meeting-place of parliaments for even a longer period.
Since 1314, the Scots had mercilessly devastated the whole north
of England. The population made little attempt at resistance, and
sought to buy them off by large payments of money. The Scots took
the cash and soon came again for more. They wandered at will over
the open country, and only the castles and walled towns afforded
protection against them. Their forays extended as far south as
Lancashire and Yorkshire, and, so early as 1315, Carlisle and
Berwick were regularly besieged by them. It was to no purpose that
in 1317 the pope issued a bull insisting upon a truce. The English
welcomed an armistice on any terms, but the Scots' interest was in
the continuance of the war, and they paid no attention to the papal
proposal. The result was a renewal of Bruce's excommunication, and
the placing of all Scotland under interdict. Yet no papal censures
checked Robert's career or lessened his hold over Scotland. Next
year he showed greater activity than ever. In April, 1318, he
captured the town of Berwick by treachery. Peter of Spalding, one
of the English burgesses who formed the town guard, was bribed to
allow a band of Scots to seize that section of the town wall of
which he was guardian. Then the intruders captured the gates and
admitted their comrades. Thus the last Scottish town to be held by
the English went back to its natural rulers. The English burgesses
were expelled, though Bruce showed wonderful moderation, and few of
his enemies were slain. Berwick castle held out for a time, until
lack of victuals caused its surrender. In May the Scots marched
through Northumberland and Durham into Yorkshire, burnt
Northallerton and Boroughbridge, and exacted a thousand marks from
Ripon, as the price of respecting the church of St. Wilfred. They
then spent three days at Knaresborough, and made their way home
through Craven.
Such successes show clearly enough that the treaty of Leek was
not signed a moment too soon. It was, however, too late for any
great effort against the Scots in 1318. A strenuous endeavour was
made to levy a formidable expedition for 1319. In strict accordance
with the ordinances, the parliament, which met at York in May of
that year, agreed that there should be a muster at Berwick for July
22, and granted a liberal subsidy. An insolent offer of peace,
coupled with a promise of freedom of life and limb to Bruce, should
he resign his crown, provoked from the Scots king the reply that
Scotland was his kingdom both by hereditary right and the law of
arms, and that he was indifferent whether he had peace with the
English king or not. On July 22, the feast of St. Mary Magdalen and
the anniversary of Falkirk fight, the barons assembled at
Newcastle. Thomas of Lancaster was there with his brother Henry.
Warenne, newly reconciled with Lancaster by a large surrender of
lands, also attended, as did Pembroke, Arundel, Hereford, and the
husbands of the three Gloucester co-heiresses. There was a braver
show of earls than even in 1314. An offer of lands, when Scotland
was conquered, attracted a large number of volunteer infantry,
while the cupidity of the seamen was appealed to by a promise of
ample plunder. In August the host and fleet moved northwards, and
closely beset Berwick.
The Scots were too astute to offer battle. While the English
were employed at Berwick, Sir James Douglas led their main force
into the heart of Yorkshire. Douglas hoped to capture Queen
Isabella, who was staying near York. A spy betrayed this design to
the English, and Isabella was hurried off by water to Nottingham,
while Douglas pressed on into the heart of Yorkshire. The
Yorkshiremen had to defend their own shire while their best
soldiers were with the king at Berwick. A hastily gathered assembly
of improvised warriors flocked into York. Archbishop Melton put
himself at their head, and the clergy, both secular and religious,
formed a considerable element in the host. Then they marched out
against the Scots, and found them at Myton in Swaledale. The Scots
despised the disorderly mob of squires and farmers, priests and
canons, monks and friars. "These are not warriors," they cried,
"but huntsmen. They will do nought against us." Concealing their
movements by kindling great fires of hay, they bore down upon the
Yorkshiremen and put them to flight with much loss. The fight was
called "the white battle of Myton" on account of the large number
of white-robed monks who took part in it The archbishop escaped
with the utmost difficulty. Many fugitives were drowned in the
Swale, and not one would have escaped had not night stopped the
Scots' pursuit. The victors then pushed as far south as Pontefract.
On the news of the battle, the besiegers of Berwick were dismayed.
There was talk of dividing the army, and sending one part to drive
Douglas out of Yorkshire while the other continued the siege. But
the magnates, in no mood to run risks, insisted on an immediate
return to England. Before Edward had reached Yorkshire, Douglas had
made his way home over Stainmoor and Gilsland. Thereupon the king
sent back his troops, each man to his own house. The magnificent
army had accomplished nothing at all. So inglorious a termination
of the campaign naturally gave rise to suspicions of treason. A
story was spread abroad that Lancaster had received £4,000
from the King of Scots and had consequently done his best to help
his ally. The rumour was so seriously believed that the earl
offered to purge himself by ordeal of hot iron. In despair Edward
made a two years' truce with the Scots. It was the best way of
avoiding another Bannockburn.
Troublous times soon began again. Since Edward surrendered
himself to the guidance of Pembroke and Badlesmere, he had enjoyed
comparative repose and dignity. It was only when a great
enterprise, like the Scots campaign, was attempted that the evil
results of anarchy and the still-abiding influence of Lancaster
made themselves felt. But Edward bore no love to Pembroke and his
associates, and was quietly feeling his way towards the
re-establishment of the court party. His chief helpers in this work
were the two Despensers, father and son, both named Hugh. The elder
Despenser, then nearly sixty years of age, had grown grey in the
service of Edward I. A baron of competent estate, he inherited from
his father, the justiciar who fell at Evesham, an hereditary bias
towards the constitutional tradition, but he looked to the monarch
or to the popular estates, rather than to the baronage, as the best
embodiment of his ideals. Ambitious and not over-scrupulous, he saw
more advantage to himself in playing the game of the king than in
joining a swarm of quarrelsome opposition lords. From the beginning
of the reign he had identified himself with Gaveston and the
courtiers, and had incurred the special wrath of Lancaster and the
ordainers. Excluded from court, forced into hiding, excepted from
several pacifications as he had been, Despenser never long absented
himself from the court. His ambition was kindled by the
circumstance that his eldest son had become the most intimate personal
friend of the king. Brought up as a boy in the household of Edward
when Prince of Wales, the ties of old comradeship gradually drew
the younger Hugh into Gaveston's old position as the chief
favourite. Neither a foreigner nor an adventurer, Despenser had the
good sense to avoid the worst errors of his predecessor. As
chamberlain, he was in constant attendance on the king; and having
married Edward's niece Eleanor, the eldest of the Gloucester
co-heiresses, he sought to establish himself among the higher
aristocracy. Royal grants and offices rained upon father and son.
The household officers were changed at their caprice. The only safe
way to the king's favour was by purchasing their good-will. Their
good fortune stirred up fierce animosities, and the barons showed
that they could hate a renegade as bitterly as a foreign
adventurer.
The Despensers' ambition to attain high rank was the more
natural from the havoc which death had played among the earls.
"Time was," said the monk of Malmesbury, "when fifteen earls and
more followed the king to war; but now only five or six gave him
their assistance." The five earldoms of Thomas of Lancaster meant
the extinction of as many ancient houses. The earldoms of Chester,
Cornwall, and Norfolk had long been in the king's hands. If the
comital rank was not to be extinguished altogether, it had to be
recruited with fresh blood. And who were so fit to fill up the
vacant places as these well-born favourites?
A little had been done under Edward II to remedy the desolation
of the earldoms. The revival of the earldom of Cornwall in favour
of Gaveston had not been a happy experiment. But the king's elder
half-brother, Thomas of Brotherton, invested with the estates and
dignities of the Bigods, was made earl marshal and Earl of Norfolk.
In 1321 the earldom of Kent, extinct since the fall of Hubert de
Burgh, was revived in favour of Edmund of Woodstock, the younger
half-brother of the king. The titular Scottish earldoms of some
English barons, such as the Umfraville earls of Angus, kept up the
name, if not the state of earls, and we have seen the reward of the
victor of Dundalk in the creation of a new earldom of Louth in
Ireland. But there were certain hereditary dignities whose
suspension seemed unnatural. Conspicuous among these was the
Gloucester earldom which, from the days of the valiant son of Henry
I. to the death of the last male Clare at Bannockburn, had played a
unique part in English history.
Both the Despensers desired to be earls, and the younger Hugh
wished that the Gloucester earldom should be revived in his favour.
Assured of the good-will of the king, both had to contend against
the jealousy of the baronage and the exclusiveness of the existing
earls. The younger Hugh had also to reckon with his two
brothers-in-law, with whom he had divided the Clare estates. These
were Hugh of Audley, who had married Margaret the widow of
Gaveston, and Roger of Amory, the husband of Elizabeth, the
youngest of the Clare sisters. There had been difficulty enough in
effecting the partition of the Gloucester inheritance among the
three co-heiresses. In 1317 the division was made, and Despenser
had become lord of Glamorgan, which politically and strategically
was most important of all the Gloucester lands.1 Yet even then,
Despenser was not satisfied with his position. His rival Audley had
been allotted Newport and Netherwent, while Amory had been assigned
the castle of Usk and estates higher up the Usk valley. Annoyed
that he should be a lesser personage in south Wales than Earl
Gilbert had been, Despenser began to intrigue against his wife's
brothers-in-law. Each of the co-heirs had already become deadly
rivals. Their hostility was the more keen since the three had
already taken different sides in English politics. Despenser was
the soul of the court faction; Amory was the ally of Pembroke and
Badlesmere, the men of the middle party; and Audley was an
uncompromising adherent of Thomas of Lancaster. There was every
chance that each one of the three would have competent backing. To
each the triumph of his friends meant the prospect of his becoming
Earl of Gloucester.
1 See for this, W.H. Stevenson, A Letter of
the Younger Despenser in 1321 in Engl. Hist. Rev., xii.
(1897), 755-61.
Despenser, abler and more restless than the others, and
confident in the royal favour, was the first to take the
aggressive. He wished to base his future greatness upon a compact
marcher principality in south Wales, and to that end not only laid
his hands upon the outlying possessions of the Clares but coveted
the lands of all his weaker neighbours. He took advantage of a family
arrangement for the succession to Gower, to strike the first blow.
The English-speaking peninsula of Gower, with the castle of
Swansea, was still held by a junior branch of the decaying house of
Braose, whose main marcher lordships had been divided a century
earlier between the Bohuns and the Mortimers. Its spendthrift
ruler, William of Braose, was the last male of his race. He strove
to make what profit he could for himself out of his succession, and
had for some time been treating with Humphrey of Hereford. Gower
was immediately to the south-west of Hereford's lordship of Brecon.
Its acquisition would extend the Bohun lands to the sea, and make
Earl Humphrey the greatest lord in south Wales. At the last moment,
however, Braose broke off with him and sought to sell Gower to John
of Mowbray, the husband of his daughter and heiress. When Braose
died in 1320, Mowbray took possession of Gower in accordance with
the "custom of the march". The royal assent had not been asked,
either for licence to alienate, or for permission to enter upon the
estate. Despenser coveted Gower for himself. He had already got
Newport, had he Swansea also he would rule the south coast from the
Lloughor to the Usk. Accordingly, he declared that the custom of
the march trenched upon the royal prerogative, and managed that
Gower should be seized by the king's officers, as a first step
towards getting it for himself.
Despenser's action provoked extreme indignation among all the
marcher lords. They denounced the apostate from the cause of his
class for upsetting the balance of power in the march, and declared
that in treating a lordship beyond the Wye like a landed estate in
England, Hugh had, like Edward I., "despised the laws and customs
of the march". It was easy to form a coalition of all the marcher
lords against him. The leaders of it were Humphrey of Hereford,
Roger Mortimer of Chirk, justice of Wales, and his nephew, Roger
Mortimer of Wigmore, the head of the house, who had overthrown
Edward Bruce's monarchy of Ireland. As Braose co-heirs their
position was unassailable. But every other baron had his grievance.
John of Mowbray resented the loss of Gower; Henry of Lancaster
feared for Monmouth and Kidwelly; Audley wished to win back
Newport, and Amory, Usk. Behind the confederates was Thomas of
Lancaster himself, eager to regain his lost position of leadership.
The
league at once began to wage war against Despenser in south Wales,
and approached the court with a demand that he should be banished
as a traitor.
Edward made his way to Gloucester in March, 1321, and strove to
protect Despenser and to calm the wild spirits of the marchers. But
private war had already broken out after the marcher fashion, and
the king retired without effecting his purpose. Left to themselves
the marcher allies easily overran the Despenser lands, inherited or
usurped. Neither Cardiff nor Caerphilly held out long against them:
the Welsh husbandmen, like the English knights and barons of
Glamorgan, were hostile to the Despensers. The king could do
nothing to help his friends. In May, Lancaster formed a league of
northern barons in the chapter-house of the priory at Pontefract.
In June, another northern gathering was held in the Norman nave of
the parish church of Sherburn-in-Elmet, a few miles to the north of
Pontefract. This was attended by the Archbishop of York and two of
his suffragans, and a great number of clergy, secular and regular,
as well as by many barons and knights. It was in fact an informal
parliament of the Lancastrian party. A long list of complaints were
drawn up which, under fair words, demanded the removal of bad
ministers, and among them the chamberlain. The clerical members of
the conference met separately at the rectory, where they showed
more circumspection, but an equally partisan bias.1
1 Bp. Stubbs works all this out, Chron. Ed.
I. and II., ii., pref., lxxxvi.-xc.
The conferences at Pontefract and Sherburn showed that Lancaster
and the northerners were in full sympathy with the men of the west.
The middle party again made common cause with the followers of
Lancaster. Amory's interests were sufficiently involved to make him
an eager enemy of Despenser, and Badlesmere was almost as keen.
Though Pembroke still professed to mediate, it was generally
believed that he was delighted to get rid of the Despensers. Even
Warenne took sides against them, though the discredited earl was
fast becoming of no account. Such being the drift of opinion, the
fate of the favourites was settled when the estates assembled in
London in July. Edward had delayed a meeting of parliament as long
as he could, and was helpless in its hands. Great pains were taken
this time to prevent the repetition of the informalities which had
attended the attack on Gaveston. There was an unprecedented
gathering of magnates, who came to the parliament with a large
armed following, encamped like an army in all the villages to the
north of the city. The commons were fully represented, and the
clerical estate was expressly summoned. Articles were at once drawn
up against the Despensers. They had aspired to royal power; had
turned the heart of the king from his subjects; had excited civil
war, and had taught that obedience was due to the crown rather than
to the king. This last charge came strangely from those who had
urged that doctrine as a pretext for withdrawing support from
Gaveston. It is a good illustration of the tendency of the
Despensers to cloak their personal ambitions with loud-sounding
constitutional phrases.
The peers pronounced sentence of banishment and forfeiture
against both the elder and the younger Hugh. They were not to be
recalled save by consent of the peers in parliament assembled. The
easy revolution was completed by the issuing of pardons to nearly
five hundred members of the triumphant coalition. The elder
Despenser at once withdrew to the continent. The younger Hugh found
friends among the mariners of the Cinque Ports. These at first
protected him in England, and then put at his disposal a little
fleet of vessels with which, when driven from the land, he took to
piracy in the narrow seas.
The fall of the Despensers was brought about very much after the
same fashion as the first exile of Gaveston. Like Gaveston, they
speedily returned, and in circumstances which suggest an even
closer parallel with the events that led to the recall of the
Gascon. The triumphant coalition in each case fell to pieces as
soon as it had done its immediate work. Once more the loss of his
friend and comrade stirred up Edward to an energy and perseverance
such as he never displayed on other occasions. But the second
triumph of the king assumed a more complete character than his
earlier snatched victory. Accident favoured Edward's design of
bringing back his favourites, and throwing off once more the
baronial thraldom. On October 13, 1321, Queen Isabella, on her way
to Canterbury, claimed hospitality at Leeds castle, situated
between Maidstone and the archiepiscopal city. The castle belonged
to Badlesmere, whose wife was then residing there, with his
kinsman, Bartholomew Burghersh, and a competent garrison. Lady
Badlesmere refused to admit the queen, declaring that, without
her lord's orders, she could not venture to entertain any one.
Bitterly indignant at the insult, the queen took up her quarters in
the neighbouring priory and attempted to force an entrance. The
castle, however, was not to be taken by the hasty attack of a small
company. Six of Isabella's followers were slain, and the attempt
was abandoned. Isabella called upon her husband to avenge her; and
the king at once resolved to capture Leeds castle at any cost, and
prepared to undertake the enterprise in person. He offered high
wages to all crossbowmen, archers, knights, and squires who would
follow him to Leeds, and summoned the levies of horse and foot from
the towns and shires of the south-east. His trust in the loyalty of
his subjects met with an unexpectedly favourable response. In a few
days a large army gathered round the king under the walls of Leeds.
Among the many magnates who appeared among the royal following were
six earls: Pembroke, Badlesmere's own associate; the king's two
brothers, Norfolk and Kent; Warenne, Richmond, and Arundel, who as
Despenser's kinsman felt himself bound to fight on his side. On
October 23 the castle was closely besieged by this overwhelming
force, and on October 31 was forced to surrender. Burghersh was
shut up in the Tower and Lady Badlesmere in Dover castle. Thirteen
of the garrison, "stout men and valiant," were hanged by the angry
king.
During the siege of Leeds, the magnates of the march, headed by
Hereford and Roger Mortimer, collected a force at
Kingston-on-Thames, where they were joined by Badlesmere. But they
dared not advance towards the relief of the Kentish castle, and,
after a fortnight they dispersed to their own homes. Lancaster
hated Badlesmere so bitterly that he made no move against the king,
and sullenly bided his time in the north. His inaction paralysed
the barons as effectively as in earlier days it had hindered the
plans of the king. Flushed with his victory, Edward gradually
unfolded his designs. His tool, Archbishop Reynolds, summoned a
convocation of the southern province for December 1 at St. Paul's,
and obtained from the assembled clergy the opinion that the
proceedings against the Despensers were invalid. On January 1,
1322, Reynolds solemnly declared this sentence in St. Paul's.
Edward did not wait for the archbishop. Attended by many of the
warriors who had fought at Leeds, he marched to the west, occupying
on his journey the lands and castles of his enemies. He kept his
Christmas court at Cirencester, and thence advanced towards the
Severn. As the inaction of Lancaster kept the northern barons
quiet, Edward's sole task was to wreak his revenge on the marcher
lords. They were unprepared for resistance, and waited in vain for
Lancaster to come to their help. Without a leader, they made feeble
and ill-devised efforts to oppose the king's advance. Their command
of the few bridges over the Severn prevented the king from crossing
the river, and leading his troops directly into the march. Foiled
at Gloucester, Worcester, and Bridgnorth, Edward made his way up
the stream to Shrewsbury. The two Mortimers, who held the town and
the passage of the river, could have stopped him if they had
chosen. But they feared to undertake strong measures while
Lancaster's action remained uncertain. They suffered Edward to
cross the stream and surrendered to him. The collapse of the
fiercest of the marcher lords frightened the rest into surrender.
Edward wandered back through the middle and southern marches,
occupying without resistance the main strongholds of his enemies.
At Hereford, he sharply rebuked the bishop for upholding the barons
against their natural lord. At Berkeley, he received from Maurice
of Berkeley the keys of the stately fortress which was so soon to
be the place of his last humiliation. Early in February, he was
back at Gloucester, where, on February 11, he recalled the
Despensers.
Humphrey of Hereford, Roger of Amory, and a few other marchers
managed to escape the king's pursuit, and rode northwards to join
Thomas of Lancaster. Thomas had long been ready at Pontefract with
his followers in arms. But he let the time for effective action
slip, and was only goaded into doing anything when the fugitives
from the march impressed him with the critical state of affairs.
The quarrel of king and barons was not the only trouble besetting
England. The two years' truce with Scotland had expired, and Robert
Bruce was once more devastating the northern counties. But neither
Edward nor Lancaster cared anything for this. Andrew Harclay, the
governor of Carlisle, strongly urged the king to defend his
subjects from the Scots rather than make war against them. Edward
answered that rebels must be put down before foreign enemies could be
encountered, and pressed northwards with his victorious troops.
Lancaster was then besieging Tickhill, a royal castle in
southern Yorkshire. After wasting three weeks before its walls, he
led his force south to Burton-on-Trent, which he occupied on March
10. Edward soon approached the Trent on his northward march. The
barons thereupon lost courage, and, abandoning the defence of the
passage over the river, fled northwards to Pontefract, the centre
of Lancaster's power in Yorkshire. Edward advanced against them,
taking on his road Lancaster's castle of Tutbury, where Roger of
Amory was captured, mortally wounded. The Lancastrians were
panic-stricken. They fled from Pontefract as they had fled from
Burton, retreating northwards, probably simply to avoid the king,
possibly to join hands with Robert Bruce. On March 16 the fugitives
reached Boroughbridge, on the south bank of the Ure, where a long
narrow bridge, hardly wide enough for horsemen in martial array,
crossed the stream. The north bank of the river, and the approaches
to the bridge, were held in force by the levies of Cumberland and
Westmoreland which Barclay had summoned at the king's request, in
order to prevent a junction between the Lancastrians and the Scots.
Barclay was a brave and capable commander and had well learnt the
lessons of Scottish warfare.1 He dismounted all his knights and
men-at-arms, and arranged them on the northern side of the river,
along with some of his pikemen. The rest of the pikemen he ordered
to form a "schiltron" after the Scottish fashion, so that their
close formation might resist the cavalry of which the Lancastrian
force consisted. He bade his archers shoot swiftly and continually
at the enemy.
1 For the tactics of Boroughbridge see Engl.
Hist. Review, xix. (1904), 711-13.
Seeing this disposition of the hostile force, the Lancastrian
army divided. One band, under Hereford and Roger Clifford,
dismounted and made for the bridge, which was defended by the
schiltron of pikemen. The rest of the men-at-arms remained on
horseback and followed Lancaster, to a ford near the bridge,
whence, by crossing the water, they could take the schiltron in
flank. Neither movement succeeded. Hereford and Clifford advanced,
each with one attendant, to the bridge. No sooner had the earl
entered upon the wooden structure than he was slain by a Welsh
spearman, who had hidden himself under it, and aimed a blow at
Humphrey through the planking. Clifford was severely wounded, and
escaped with difficulty. Discouraged by the loss of their leaders,
the rest of the troops made only a feeble effort to force the
passage. The same evil fortune attended the division that followed
Lancaster. The archers of Harclay obeyed his orders so well that
the Lancastrian cavalry scarcely dared enter the water. Lancaster
lost his nerve, and besought Harclay for a truce until the next
morning. His request was granted, but during the night all the
followers of Hereford dispersed, thinking that there was no need
for them to remain after the death of their lord. Lancaster's own
troops were likewise thinned by desertions. The sheriff of York
came up early in the morning with an armed force from the south,
joined Harclay, and cut off the last hope of retreat. Further
resistance being useless, Lancaster, Audley, Clifford, Mowbray, and
the other leaders surrendered in a body.
Edward was then at Pontefract in the chief castle of his
deadliest enemy. Thither the prisoners of Boroughbridge were sent
for their trial, and there they were hastily condemned by a body of
seven earls and numerous barons, presided over by the king himself.
Lancaster, not allowed to say a word in his defence, was at once
sentenced to death as a rebel and a traitor. In consideration of
his exalted rank, the grosser penalties of treason were commuted,
as in the case of Gaveston, to simple decapitation. On the morning
of March 22 Thomas was led out of his castle, clad in the garb of a
penitent and mounted on a sorry steed. He was conducted to a little
hill outside the walls. The crowd mocked at his sufferings and in
scorn called him "King Arthur". In two or three blows of the axe,
his head was struck off from his body. Nor was he the only victim.
Audley, spared his life by reason of his marriage to the king's
niece, was, like the two Mortimers, consigned to prison. Clifford
and Mowbray were hanged at York, and Badlesmere at Canterbury. In
all, more than twenty knights and barons paid the penalty of
death.
It is hard to waste much pity on Lancaster. He was the victim of
his own fierce passions and, still more, of his own utter
incompetence. His attitude all through the crisis had been inept in
the extreme, and the poor fight that he made for his life at
Boroughbridge was a fitting conclusion to a feeble career. But with
all his faults he remained popular to the end, especially with the
clergy and commons. He was hailed as a martyr to freedom and sound
government. Pilgrimages were made to the scene of his death, and
miracles were wrought with his relics. A chapel arose on the little
hill dedicated to his worship, and a loud cry arose for his
canonisation. The abuse made by his enemies of their victory only
strengthened his reputation among the people. The tragedy of his
fall appealed to the rude sympathies of the north-countrymen, and
the merit of the cause atoned in their minds for the weakness of
the man.
A parliament met at York on May 2, where the triumph of the king
received its consummation. The Despensers had more advanced
constitutional ideas than Lancaster, and pains were taken that this
parliament should completely represent the three estates. It was a
novel feature that twelve representatives of the commons of north
Wales and twelve of the commons of south Wales attended, on this
occasion, to speak on behalf of the region where the troubles had
first begun. With the full approval of the estates, the ordinances
were solemnly revoked, as infringing the rights of the crown. The
important principle was laid down that "matters which are to be
established for the estate of the king and for the estate of the
realm shall be treated, accorded, and established in parliament by
the king and by the council of the prelates, earls, and barons, and
the commonalty of the realm". Thus, while the repeal of the
ordinances seemed based upon their infringement of the royal
prerogative, it was at least implied that they were also invalid
because they were the work of a council of barons only, and not of
a full parliament of the estates. This declaration of the necessity
of popular co-operation in valid legislation is the most important
constitutional advance of the reign of Edward II. It is a
significant comment on the limitations of the baronial opposition
that the ordinances should be the last great English law in the
passing of which the commons were not consulted, and that a
royalist triumph should be the occasion of the declaration of a
vital principle.
The king's friends then received their rewards. Harclay was made
Earl of Carlisle and the elder Despenser became Earl of Winchester.
Fear of the marcher lords, even in their prison, withheld from the
younger Hugh the title, though hardly the authority, of Earl of
Gloucester. In other ways also the Despensers were anxious to
prevent their victory suggesting too much of a reaction. Before
parliament separated, it adopted a new series of ordinances
confirming the Great Charter and re-enacting in more constitutional
fashion some portions of the laws of 1312, which aimed at
protecting the subject and strengthening the administration. Grants
of men and money were made to fight the Scots, and once more the
new customs were allowed to swell the royal revenue. Thus the
revolution was completed. Edward, Gaveston, Lancaster, and Pembroke
had each in their turn been tried and found wanting. Thanks to the
jealousies of the barons, his own spasmodic energy, and the
acuteness of the Despensers, Edward was still to have another
chance, under the guidance of his new friends. We shall see how the
restored rule of the Despensers was blighted by the same
incompetence and selfishness which had ruined their predecessors in
power. The triumph of the Despensers proved but the first act in
the tragic fall of Edward II.
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