Chapter X: Introduction (9)

The first great influx of foreigners was caused by his marriage. In 1236, he married Eleanor, the second daughter of Count Raymond Berenger of Provence, and sister of the Queen of France. From that moment, the Court was in the hands of the Queen’s relatives. It was especially the Queen’s uncles into whose hands patronage fell. William, Bishop of Valence, was the first. To him was given the vast property of Richmond in Yorkshire, which had previously belonged to the Counts of Brittany, and the King had almost succeeded in securing for him the Bishopric of Winchester when news of his death was brought. He was succeeded by another uncle, Peter of Savoy. Richmond was handed on to him; Pevensey and Hastings were intrusted to him, and the wardship of the Earl of Warrenne, which completed his power in the south-east corner of England. To increase his influence, he brought over numbers of young foreign ladies, and married them to some of the great Earls of England. The death of Edmund Rich, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1240, allowed the King to secure that See, after an interval of five years, for another of his uncles, Boniface, whose violence and warlike bearing, as well as his youth, made him a strange contrast to his predecessor. Peter de Aigue Blanche, another Savoyard, was made Bishop of Hereford, and afterwards became Henry’s disreputable agent in the business of the Sicilian monarchy. This lavish support of foreigners naturally caused great discontent in England, and was repeatedly the subject of complaints in the Great Council. Thus, in 1236 and 1237, there were three stormy councils, nor was the money the King required granted till the sanctions of the Magna Charta were again renewed. The arrival of the Cardinal Otho as Papal Legate did not mend matters; his efforts at reconciliation were useless, and he soon tuned his attention to collecting money for the Church. At this time, for a very short period, it seemed as if Richard Earl of Cornwall, the King’s brother, might have assumed the post of leader of the English party; but his patriotic efforts were short-lived. A few years after he married the Queen’s sister, and threw his influence upon the side of the foreigners.

[Sidenote: Formation of a national party under Simon de Montfort.]

A far greater man took the post he thus resigned. Simon de Montfort, destined to be the real national leader of England, was rising into importance. The sister and heiress of Count Robert of Leicester had married the Count of Montfort, and died in 1204. In 1215, the whole English property had been given to Ralph Earl of Chester. Simon de Montfort, the Conqueror of the Albigenses, never possessed it, but his eldest son Almaric, after the death of the Earl of Chester, in 1232, demanded the property and honours of Leicester for his younger brother Simon, who was thus acknowledged as the owner of the property. He held the bason of water as High-Steward at the Queen’s coronation, shortly after married the King’s sister, the widow of William, second Earl of Pembroke, and succeeded in getting that marriage acknowledged by Gregory IX. in 1238. Like all those who had to do with Henry, he was obliged to bear extraordinary changes of fortune from the fickle character of the King. An angry quarrel drove him abroad, and, in 1240, in company with Richard of Cornwall, he set out for the Holy Land.

[Sidenote: Revival in the Church.]

[Sidenote: Grostête.]

During their absence the government of England grew continually worse. Men began to weary of the personal government of the King. For several years the great offices of justiciary and chancellor had been left unfilled, and their duties performed by subordinate officials, upon whom the King lavished his favours. One of the chief of these was Mansell, who is said to have held no less than 700 livings, and to have been in the yearly receipt of 8000 marks. The Church was gradually driven to make common cause with the lay opposition. It was a time of spiritual revival. The great monastic orders had lapsed into the position of wealthy landowners. The work which in the early times they had so well performed, the civilization of the country districts, was over. They had become lazy and luxurious. The prelates had for the most part deserted their spiritual calling and become statesmen. The Church as a whole, as represented by the Pope, had misused its influence. Crusades had become the instruments of temporal aggrandizement, or of revenge upon the personal enemies of the Pope. A spiritual revival had been set on foot almost at the same time by St. Dominic and St. Francis d’Assisi, who had founded the two great orders of Dominicans and Franciscans, the Black and Grey Friars. The vow of poverty, evaded by the older orders, had become a reality. The establishments of the Friars had met with great success; thousands thronged to be enrolled in their orders. They had rapidly spread over Europe, and had lately arrived in England, and there begun their work of regeneration. They had laboured chiefly in the towns and among the most wretched outcasts of society, and had there called into life new religious energy, mingled with hatred towards their wealthy predecessors the old monks, and with a consciousness of personal equality in the sight of God, which tended much to strengthen the democratic feeling which supplied Simon de Montfort with his strongest support. Their teaching had not affected the lower classes alone; numbering among them many learned men, they speedily got possession of the education at Oxford, and found a friend in Grostête, the learned Bishop of Lincoln. The reforms which the Church demanded were carried out by him as far as possible in his diocese; and under his guidance, and that of Edmund Rich, the Church of England was becoming at once spiritual and national. The folly of the King, who filled the high ecclesiastical offices with foreign favourites, the exactions of the Pope, who, acting hand in hand with him, placed hundreds of benefices in the hands of Italian priests, compelled all that was best in the Church to throw itself absolutely on the side of the reformers.

[Sidenote: Affairs of Poitou.]

[Sidenote: Loss of Poitou. 1243.]

[Sidenote: Prince Richard joins the foreign party.]

Ecclesiastical and secular misgovernment went on side by side. Disastrous expeditions to France, and consequent exactions from the people, were intermingled with the visits of Papal emissaries, to wring from the wretched clergy contributions for the Papal war against the Hohenstaufen. In 1242, the King undertook to regain Poitou. Richard of Cornwall had been nominal Count of that province, when, in 1241, Louis gave his brother Alphonse the same title. The most important nobleman in the country was the Count de la Marche, who had married Henry’s mother. He at first did homage to the new Count, but afterwards, urged it is supposed by his ambitious wife, renounced his fealty, and demanded assistance from Henry. The King therefore landed in the following year in Gascony. De la Marche soon began to repent of what he had done, and Henry, never a very active warrior, was disheartened by his treachery. The armies at length met near Taillebourg, on the Charente. Afraid of being surrounded, Henry employed his brother Richard, who had gained general favour with the French by liberally ransoming prisoners in the Crusade, to secure an armistice. He took the opportunity of falling back to Saintes, where he was almost surprised by the pursuing enemy. After this he was gradually driven backwards to the Garonne, while Marche and his revolted barons again accepted their French lord. The year was wasted in fruitless negotiations with the discontented Count of Toulouse, and in collecting money and troops from England. Henry quarrelled with his own nobles, who gradually left his army; and early in 1243 returned to England, having accepted a peace, which deprived him of the whole of Poitou and of the Isle of Rhé. Gascony was now the only part of France remaining to the English. It was during this campaign that Richard of Cornwall met and married Sancha, the Queen’s sister, throwing up from this time all chance of leading the national party, and attaching himself to the foreigners.

[Sidenote: Exactions in Church and State. 1244.]

[Sidenote: Council at Lyons.]

[Sidenote: Futile attempts to check exactions. 1246.]

Such a war did not tend to the popularity of the King. The exchequer had been empty, money was stringently and often illegally exacted. A new Pope, Innocent IV., was elected, and the exactions from the English clergy resumed more vigorously than ever: for the Pope was carrying on the contest he had inherited against Frederick II., and was now summoning at Lyons the council his predecessor had failed to collect, in hopes of destroying for ever the power of the Hohenstaufen. His agent, Master Martin, travelled through England, pillaging the clergy till the English could bear it no longer, and the barons joined with the Church in demanding his dismissal. The foreign element in the Church too continued its baneful activity. Boniface, the Archbishop, laid waste his rich see, cutting down the timber and sending the profits abroad, while the King attempted, though in vain, to secure the Bishopric of Chichester for Robert de Passelewe. The nation determined to demand its rights at the Council of Lyons. The English ambassadors there took an opportunity of charging the Pope with not being contented with his Peter’s Pence and the yearly 1000 marks which John had promised, with sending his messengers to make further exactions, and with filling English benefices against the will of their patrons with Italian priests. 60,000 marks a year thus passed into the hands of foreigners, ignorant of the language, and mostly living abroad. The Pope vouchsafed no answer, but shortly afterwards issued a Bull forbidding pluralities, and promising to respect the rights of patrons. The Bull remained a dead letter; and the very next year 6000 marks were exacted, and foreign priests were as plentiful as ever, admitted to their benefices under what was spoken of as “non obstante” clauses, which set aside all previous Bulls. The feeling in England against the Pope, who exacted, and the King, who allowed the exactions, grew more and more determined.

[Sidenote: Inroad of Poitevin favourites. 1247.]

[Sidenote: Discontent of Barons.]

[Sidenote: Continued misgovernment.]

[Sidenote: Tallages on the cities.]

[Sidenote: Diversion of the crusade. 1250.]

In 1247 matters grew still worse. A fresh swarm of foreigners arrived in England; De la Marche was dead, and the King’s half-brothers came over and were at once received with favour and honoured with profuse gifts. Chief among them was William of Valence, and his brother Aymer, who, in the year 1250, was made Bishop of Winchester, though he was never consecrated. The foreign policy of England was by these men managed for their own interests. Thus on the death of Raymond Berenger, Provence was allowed to pass into the hands of Charles of Anjou, who had married the Queen’s youngest sister; and thus Henry made use of a crusade, on which he said that he was going, to demand large sums of money from the people. In 1248 the crisis seemed approaching. At a meeting of Parliament many charges were raised against the favourites; and the feeling against the King’s personal government, which had long been growing, found vent. In blind security, Henry continued his course. The King’s revenue, squandered in empty magnificence or lavish grants to his foreign friends, became more and more dilapidated. Money had to be borrowed. All men with an income of £20 were compelled to take up their knighthood; and afraid to have recourse to illegal aids from the nobility, the King turned upon the cities, more especially London, and demanded and obtained great tallages from them. The crusade constantly supplied him with an excuse for these exactions; yet even when the King of France was taken prisoner in Egypt, Henry and his crusaders made no movement. He contented himself with appointing a day for his expedition; the expedition itself did not take place. Innocent indeed had other ends in view; he was bent far more on the destruction of the Hohenstaufen than on the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. Frederick II. had died in December 1250, and the Pope’s energies were now directed to driving those who remained of this family from their kingdom of the two Sicilies.

[Sidenote: Montfort’s government of Gascony.]

[Sidenote: His quarrel with the King.]

Far indeed from assisting Louis, Henry had regarded his absence as an opportunity for regaining his power in the south of France. Gascony was in a state of complete confusion, chiefly through the insurrections of Gaston of Bearn and assaults from the King of Navarre. To bring it into order, Henry had, in 1248, appointed Simon de Montfort his governor there. His government had been completely successful, and at length, in 1250, Gaston was sent a prisoner to England. In his foolish soft-heartedness, Henry at once pardoned and released him. But the vigorous government of Simon had excited the displeasure both of the nobles and of the towns. They sent an embassy under the Archbishop of Bordeaux to lay charges against him before Henry. The King, fickle and jealous, listened to them; and Leicester was summoned home. He had almost ruined himself in his efforts to carry on his government well, and an angry scene of personal recrimination occurred, the King charging him with treason, while Simon demanded repayment for the money he had expended. It shows the state of personal contempt into which the King had fallen, that Leicester could venture to give him the lie direct. But the King could not do without him; by the influence of the Earl of Cornwall the quarrel was adjusted, and De Montfort returned as he believed to his government. His back was scarcely turned when the King appointed in his place his young son Edward, and ordered the Gascons not to obey De Montfort. Feeling himself thus freed from his charge, De Montfort went to Paris. The opinion of his abilities was so high, that he was offered the regency of France; but slighted though he had been at home, he was still true to his adopted country, and declined the flattering offer.

[Sidenote: By Leicester’s aid Gascony is saved.]

[Sidenote: Henry’s money difficulties.]

Left to himself, Henry found the Gascons more than he could manage. He collected indeed much money for the expedition; the Charter being renewed as usual as the price of a grant. The Jews had to advance money, the towns were tallaged. But, after all, things would have gone badly had not Leicester again patriotically offered his services, and taken command of the disturbed province. With his assistance, and with money obtained from England, by dint of lying letters, narrating the extreme danger of the King from the approach of a vast army of Christians and Saracens under the King of Castile, peace was made with Alphonso X., at that time the King of Castile, and a marriage arranged between Edward and his daughter the Princess Eleanor. This expedition therefore had on the whole been successful; but it plunged the King still deeper into money difficulties, while his constant demands for money, and the dishonest means he had taken to secure it, had lowered him still further in the eyes of the people. His foolish ambition and his adherence to the Papal See completed what his long reign of misgovernment had begun.

[Sidenote: The Pope offers Edmund the kingdom of Sicily. 1254.]

[Sidenote: Henry accepts Sicily on ruinous terms.]

It has been said that the Pope’s chief object was to remove the Hohenstaufen from their Italian dominions. As early as 1252, seeking some prince whom he might set in their place, and being assured of the fidelity of the English King, he offered the throne of Sicily to Richard of Cornwall. That Prince, remembering that Henry, Frederick’s son, was his own nephew, and too prudent to trust himself blindly to the Pope, declined the offer. But when young Henry died in 1253, and Sicily fell into the hands of Conrad and of his half brother Manfred, the Pope repeated his offer to King Henry’s son Edmund. By him it was foolishly accepted; Conrad also died, and a great opportunity was opened for the Pope’s intrigues. There were three parties in Sicily: the German party, who upheld a son of Conrad, the Italian Gibellines, who obeyed Manfred, and the Sicilians, who followed Peter Rufus, the Emperor’s lieutenant. The Pope succeeded in bribing the leader of the German party, and his views seemed on the point of realization, when he died. He was succeeded by Alexander IV., who was reputed a moderate man, but who accepted all the arrangements of his predecessor. Henry had returned from Gascony, after a costly visit to Paris, deeply in debt. The Charter of London was again set aside, and a heavy tallage inflicted; the Jews were again compelled to pay large sums of money; and the Barons in Parliament were loudly complaining of grievances, and demanding the appointment of a Parliamentary Justiciary and Chancellor. In the midst of all these difficulties, the King was foolish enough to accept the Sicilies on ruinous terms. Two hundred ounces of gold yearly, and the support of 300 knights, were to be promised, the expenses of the war to be paid, and an army at once sent to claim the kingdom. The Pope kept the management of this war in his own hands, but the Bishop of Hereford, Henry’s envoy, was allowed to make the King responsible for the outlay. The Pope began immediately to send his creditors direct to Henry, and twice before the end of the year 1256, a Papal Legate of the name of Rustand had appeared in England, raised money of unknown value from the English Church, and freed the King from his Crusader’s oath, that he might employ his forces against Sicily.

[Sidenote: Consequent exactions.]

[Sidenote: Terrible famine. 1257.]

[Sidenote: Parliament at length roused to resistance.]

The English Church was indeed at his mercy. Boniface of Canterbury lived abroad, and was completely in the Papal interest, the Archbishopric of York was vacant, the Bishops of Winchester and Hereford were creatures of the King. Henry himself was acting in complete harmony with the Pope, who had several times granted him a tenth from the clergy, and had given him the incomes of all vacant benefices, and of intestates. The Church was driven into close union with the rapidly rising baronial opposition, and was obliged to regard its temporalities as ordinary baronies. Scotland and Wales were again becoming troublesome, and the lukewarmness of the English Barons prevented successful resistance to their inroads. To add to the difficulties of England, 1257 was a year of fearful want. The weather was so bad that the harvest stood rotting in the fields even in November. Wheat rose from two shillings to fifteen or twenty the quarter. The harvest of 1258 promised to be as bad. Thousands were dying of hunger.[36] And when, in the midst of this misery, the Pope’s Legate (who in 1257 had stated the amount of debt to the Pope to be 136,000 marks, and had succeeded in wringing 52,000 marks from the clergy) repeated his demand the following year, and threatened an interdict unless the debt was at once paid, Englishmen of all classes felt that the time for action had arrived, and, taking advantage of the absence of the Earl of Cornwall, who was abroad attempting to make good his election to the German Empire, the Barons assembled at a Parliament held at Westminster determined upon reform.

[Sidenote: Parliament at Westminster.]

It was a stormy scene. William de Valence and Simon de Montfort almost came to blows. William spoke of Montfort as “an old traitor, and the son of a traitor.” “No, no,” said Simon, “I am no traitor, nor traitor’s son; my father was very different from yours,” referring to the constant treasons of the old Count de la Marche. He then poured out his grievances, the squandering of the royal property on favourites, the folly, in the face of such financial difficulties, of accepting the Sicilian throne, and the admission of Papal legates to rob the clergy. At length a sort of compromise was arrived at, and aid was promised if the Pope would lower his demands, and the King on his side promised reform, a promise to which several of his chief favourites had to put their signatures. The King also pledged himself to give full consideration to the Barons’ demands at a Parliament to be assembled at Oxford at Whitsuntide, and to leave the question at issue to be decided by a commission of twelve from either side, whose verdict should be final.

[Sidenote: Mad Parliament. 1258.]

[Sidenote: Provisions of Oxford.]

On June 11th, this Parliament met. It is known by the name of “The Mad Parliament.” The Barons, of whom there were about a hundred,[37] appeared in arms, under the pretext of the war with Wales, in reality to overawe the King’s violent step-brothers. At that Parliament the promised commission of twenty-four was chosen. The King’s Commissioners, with the single exception of John of Plesseys, Earl of Warwick, were men pledged to the old evil courses, either by their relationship with the King or by the favours they had obtained from him. At the head of the Barons appeared Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, the natural head of the English party, and De Montfort, himself indeed a foreigner, but of such high ability and character that he was indispensable to his party. To these twenty-four was intrusted the duty of securing reform. They were not like the twenty-five guardians of the Charter, pledges for the carrying out of the treaty, but a committee representing for the time the executive authority of the Crown. These Barons chose a council of four, John Mansell, the King’s secretary, the Earl of Warwick, and two Bigods (the Earl of Norfolk and his brother). These in their turn were to nominate a council of state or executive ministry of fifteen. The predominance of the baronial party is shown by the fact that of those fifteen two-thirds were on the Barons’ side.[38] This Council of fifteen produced the Provisions of Oxford, and appointed new officers. Hugh Bigod was chief justice, John of Peterborough, treasurer, Nicholas of Ely, chancellor. The royal castles were ordered to be placed in the hands of Englishmen; and three times a year a Parliament was to be held, consisting of the fifteen, and twelve members of the old twenty-four representative Barons. These are said to be representatives of the commonalty of England, but it does not as yet appear that the commonalty meant anything but the baronage. These Provisions were accepted and sworn to by the King, Prince Edward, and the Barons, and subsequently, on his return to England, by Richard, King of the Romans.

[Sidenote: Opposition to the surrender of castles.]

[Sidenote: Exile of aliens.]

[Sidenote: Proclamation of the Provisions.]

The article which demanded the surrender of castles by foreigners met with much opposition.[39] The King’s step-brothers refused to surrender theirs. Simon de Montfort, as a foreigner, on the other hand, showed a good example by surrendering two of those he had in charge.[40] When William de Valence refused this order, “I will have the castles,” said De Montfort, “or your head.” The threat was too serious to be disregarded; the foreigners crept off in the night, and went to Winchester, where they hoped that Aymer de Valence would afford them protection. The Barons at once pursued them. They were obliged to yield, and were exiled. The Barons then proceeded to check the bad government of the sheriffs. Four knights from each shire (a step towards the coming admission of the lower gentry to Parliament) were appointed to inquire into the question; and it was arranged that the sheriffs should be elected yearly. The Londoners readily accepted the new order of things; and finally, in October, the Provisions were solemnly proclaimed, together with the Magna Charta, in Latin, French and English. In this the King declared his full adhesion to the Oxford Ordinances. It was countersigned by thirteen of the fifteen counsellors. This is the first public document issued in the English language, and may be regarded as a sign of the real question at issue during the reign: Was England to be, in fact, England, and the English to be a nation?

[Sidenote: Government of the Barons.]

[Sidenote: Final treaty with France. 1259.]

The fifteen counsellors were intrusted with the duty of producing other reforms before the following Christmas. This they neglected to do, and it was only in October 1259 that they produced another series of Provisions. These by no means answered the expectations of the Barons, and were so moderate that, after the cessation of the war, they were incorporated in the Statute of Marlborough, 1267. They were chiefly directed to prevent encroachments on feudal rights. Prince Edward had earnestly pressed for the production of these Provisions. He was at this time a strong reformer, and it was perhaps on account of the inefficient character of the reforms now produced, that a quarrel arose between Leicester and Gloucester, in which, we are told, that Leicester was supported by Edward, Gloucester by the King. The government was meanwhile practically in the hands of the fifteen. They felt that their chief work was in England, and therefore freed themselves as much as possible from foreign complications. They made peace with Wales, entirely renounced all claims upon Sicily, and made a definitive treaty with France. By this treaty Bordeaux, Bayonne and Gascony, with the addition of the Bishoprics of Limoges, Cahors and Périgord, which the honesty of the French King restored, were to be held by England as fiefs of France; all claim on Normandy, Anjou, Touraine and Poitou was to be given up; and the King of France promised to give a sum of money for the maintenance of five hundred knights for two years, to be used only for the good of England or the Church. This last article proved afterwards a source of danger to the baronial cause.

[Sidenote: Henry thinks of breaking the Provisions.]

[Sidenote: Pope’s absolution arrives.]

[Sidenote: Quarrel between De Clare and De Montfort.]

Their whole government seems to have given satisfaction; but it was not likely that Henry should calmly submit to their domination. With the peculiar faculty of making his religion compatible with bad government and dishonesty, which was the characteristic of this King, he applied, almost immediately after the Parliament of Oxford, to the Pope for an absolution from his promises. A visit twice repeated to the King of France gave rise to the suspicion that he was concerting measures with that monarch; and, in 1261, he was certainly fortifying the Tower. In April of that year an answer of Alexander IV., entirely absolving him from his vows, reached him. He ordered it to be publicly read, proceeded to give some castles into the hands of foreigners, and proclaimed that he would no longer consent to the restraint imposed upon him. The Barons met at Kingston; and, unwilling to proceed to extremities, agreed to refer their differences to the King of France, whose character for honour stood high, though in this instance rumours were afloat that he was already pledged to the King’s interest.[41] The King would probably not have ventured on this course had not a quarrel arisen in the baronial party, which deprived them of their ablest leader. It is not certain what the cause of quarrel was, but as early as 1259, De Clare and Montfort had exchanged hot words, and from that time De Montfort had been very much abroad, and the leadership of the baronial party entirely in the hands of De Clare. In 1262, a second absolution reached the King, and was by his orders publicly promulgated by Mansell, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and by the Bishop of Norwich.

[Sidenote: Return of De Montfort.]

[Sidenote: Outbreak of hostilities.]

But meanwhile a stronger leader than Richard Earl of Gloucester had appeared in England, and the King’s attempts at recovering his authority were peremptorily checked. The Earl of Leicester, hearing of the death of Gloucester, had returned from abroad, and found himself the unquestioned chief of the party. With himself he associated the late Earl’s son, young Gilbert de Clare, and matters soon seemed to be coming to extremities. Llewellyn of Wales, apparently in the baronial interest, attacked the lands of Roger de Mortimer and of that foreign Bishop of Hereford who had been the King’s agent at Rome. A general persecution of all those who could not speak English followed in the border counties. The Bishop of Hereford’s treasures were seized, and he himself had to fly abroad. At the same time the Bishop of Norwich, who was disliked for having published the absolution, was attacked. John Mansell was driven into France; while, on the other hand, Prince Edward, who had hitherto remained true to the Statutes of Oxford, was reconciled to his father, and appeared in arms against the barons. The people of London joined in the general disturbance. The Queen had to leave London and retire to Windsor. On her way thither, as she was passing up the river, she was assaulted and maltreated by the Londoners, an event which Prince Edward is said not to have forgotten.

[Sidenote: Award of Amiens. 1264.]

[Sidenote: It fails.]

While the parties were thus already beginning to appeal to arms, in January 1264, the King of France published his verdict at Amiens. It was entirely in favour of the Crown, and annulled the Provisions of Oxford, especially declaring that the King had right to employ aliens as the governors of his castles. The verdict was clear enough, and Henry believed that it put him entirely in the right. On the other hand a clause was added of which the Barons took hold to support their cause. By this it was asserted that the verdict was not intended to derogate in anything from the royal privileges, charters, liberties and laudable customs of the kingdom. With this loophole for variety of opinion, the award left the main question unsettled, although it enabled a certain number of those who were pledged to the Provisions, but disliked the Barons’ rule, to join the King. Among others, his brother Richard, the King of the Romans, took advantage of this opportunity. Still unwilling to press their claims to the uttermost, the Barons offered to accept the award, excepting only the one clause, which was in fact the point for which they were fighting, that, namely, which permitted the employment of aliens. The Londoners would not even go so far as this.

[Sidenote: War, and battle of Lewes. May 14.]

[Sidenote: The Mise of Lewes.]

The King refused their offer, and war became inevitable. It began by the capture of Northampton by Prince Edward, and gradually drifted southward, till the two armies met at Lewes. The King occupied the town, with the castle and priory; the Barons, the down to the west. The battle ended in a decisive victory for the Barons. Prince Edward, carried away by his anger against the Londoners, whom he despised and hated, was induced to pursue an advantage he had won over them too far. Richard, the King of the Romans, was misled into an attack upon a cage-shaped litter, which he believed to contain De Montfort, who had been wounded by a fall from his horse. De Montfort had purposely left it in his rear, together with his standards and baggage; it really contained only four refractory Londoners of the King’s party. These two errors on the part of the enemy secured the victory to De Montfort; and when Prince Edward returned from his pursuit, he found the battle lost, and the struggle only prolonged by the fighting round the castle at Lewes. De Montfort, evidently the victor, offered to put an end to the bloodshed by an immediate truce; and an agreement known as the Mise of Lewes was made, by which the questions at issue were to be settled by a court of arbitration consisting of two Frenchmen and one Englishman. The two Princes, Edward and Henry d’Almeyne, were to remain in captivity meanwhile, in exchange for their fathers, the King and his brother Richard, who had been taken prisoners; and the prisoners on both sides were to be released.

[Sidenote: Appointment of revolutionary government.]

De Montfort was for the time completely master of the country. He at once proceeded to act with vigour to bring the country into order. The King’s peace was proclaimed everywhere. The prisoners were exchanged, and till the open question with regard to the election of sheriffs should be settled, guardians of the peace were appointed for each county. In the offices thus created, as well as in those of the King’s Council, the friends and followers of Simon were put. A Parliament was then called, which assembled in June, at which it is probable that knights of the shire were present. At this Parliament a committee of three was appointed, who nominated nine others, in whose hands the government was to be placed. If the nine could not come to agreement, the final decision remained with the three, who were the Bishop of Chichester, Simon de Montfort, and Gilbert de Clare. At the same time the affairs of the Church were put in order, its grievances being left to the settlement of three bishops appointed by statute.

[Sidenote: Exiles assemble at Damme.]

[Sidenote: Montfort desires final settlement.]

De Montfort thus seemed in a fair way to make his position durable; but unfortunately three important men had made their escape from Lewes:--these were the Earl of Warrenne, Hugh Bigod and William de Valence. These three fugitives betook themselves to Damme, in Flanders, where the Queen, in company with the exiled foreigners, Archbishop Boniface, Bishop of Hereford, Peter of Savoy, and John Mansell, had assembled an army of hired troops. Great preparations were made to meet the expected invasion, but the winds were so contrary that the ill-provided army, weary of waiting, separated. The closeness of the danger, however, induced Simon to send ambassadors to France, to urge on the completion of the settlement according to the Mise of Lewes. The embassy was at the same time to try and make terms with the Papal Legate, who had been quickly despatched to uphold the cause of so good a vassal of Rome as Henry. They were unsuccessful in both their objects. The Queen had been beforehand with Louis, and the Legate, who shortly afterwards ascended the Papal throne as Clement IV., replied only by excommunication. The Bull, however, was taken by the mariners of the Cinque Ports before reaching England, and thrown into the sea; and the excommunication did not take effect.

[Sidenote: Royalist movements on the Welsh Marches.]

Meanwhile, the royalist barons on the Marches of Wales, especially Mortimer, Clifford and Leybourne, began to bestir themselves. Some of them even pushed as far as Wallingford, where Prince Edward was a prisoner, and attempted, though in vain, to liberate him. The liberation of this Prince was now the chief object of the royalists, and the pressure put upon Leicester was so great, that he had, though unwillingly, to consent to measures which should bring it about. There was indeed every reason to desire that he should be freed. The part he had played in the late disputes had been highly honourable; he had remained true to the Provisions of Oxford, till the breaking out of the war seemed to render it his imperative duty to assist his father; and from his subsequent conduct it is plain that, although he must have disliked the present restrictions upon the royal power, there was much in the national policy of the Barons with which he sympathized. All those who resented the assumption of power by Montfort, while desiring a reform in government, would have found in him a welcome leader.

[Sidenote: Parliament of 1265.]

It was principally for this object that the famous Parliament of 1265 was called. To it were summoned only twenty-three peers, friends of De Montfort, though the great Northern and Scotch barons, who had strongly supported the King at Lewes, also received safe conducts. Of the higher clergy there were no less than one hundred and eighteen, a number by no means unprecedented, but which seems to show how completely the Church sympathized with the Barons. There were also knights of the shires--two from each county. Even from the time of the commission for forming the Domesday Book, elected knights had been occasionally consulted upon the affairs of their county; since Henry II.’s reign, although they had never been properly summoned to Parliament, this practice had been more frequent. But the addition of two burghers from the chief cities was wholly new, and although the practice was not continued without a break, this, says Hallam, is the epoch at which the representation of the Commons becomes distinctly manifest. To De Montfort it was of the greatest importance that the general acquiescence of all important classes of the country in his government should be shown.

[Sidenote: Conditions of the Prince’s liberation.]

The assembly thus formed had first of all to consider what was to be done with the present insurgents and with the exiles, and, secondly, on what conditions Prince Edward might be with safety liberated. On the first point it was decreed that the barons of the Welsh Marches should be exiled to Ireland for three years, and the fugitives from Lewes were summoned to stand their trial before their peers, a summons to which, of course, they paid no attention. The other question was more important, but the conditions were finally arrived at on which the Prince might be set at liberty. There was to be complete amnesty for all that was past; the King and Prince were never to receive their former favourites; the royal castles were to be placed in trustworthy hands; the great charters of liberty were to be again established; the Prince was not to leave the country for three years, and must choose his council by the advice of government; and the county of Chester, with its castle, together with the castles of the Peak and Newcastle, were to be given up to De Montfort. For this, however, an equivalent was to be given from De Montfort’s county of Leicester. All these arrangements were made under the most solemn sanctions. On the last article much of the abuse of Leicester for avarice and self-seeking has been rested. But, in fact, the position of the lands commanding the Scotch and Welsh borders afforded a sufficient political reason for requiring their cession. A copy of this arrangement was sent to each sheriff, and the great charters of liberty publicly read, with a solemn threat of excommunication against all who should break them.

[Sidenote: Defection of De Clare. He joins the Marchers.]

[Sidenote: Escape of Edward.]

These arrangements tended to the establishment of a peaceful government and to the healing of faction; but unfortunately there was constant jealousy of De Montfort among his colleagues, arising probably in part from his foreign birth and royal connections, in part from the truly popular nature of his views, with which the Barons had but little sympathy. Again, as on a previous occasion, De Clare, the leader of the English Barons, deserted him, and began to intrigue with his enemies. At the same time, William de Valence landed in his lordship of Pembroke. By the instrumentality of Mortimer, Edward made his escape from Ludlow Castle; and the invaders, the Prince, the Lord Marchers, and Gloucester opened communications one with the other. The trick by which Edward effected his escape is well known. On pretence of racing, he wearied the horses of his guardians, and then galloped from them on a particularly swift horse that had just been sent him, which he had kept fresh. The danger had become so pressing that Leicester advanced against the invaders in the South of Wales: but while in that distant corner of the country, the Prince, with the men of Chester, who willingly joined their old governor, marched down the Severn and took Gloucester, thus cutting Leicester off from the rest of his supporters.

[Sidenote: Leicester opposes Edward in Wales.]

[Sidenote: Defeat at Kenilworth.]

De Montfort at once recognized that Edward was his chief enemy, and turned back to meet him, at the same time summoning to his aid his son the younger Simon, who was with an army at Dover. Had he executed this duty intrusted to him satisfactorily, Edward would either have been enclosed between the two armies, or De Montfort largely reinforced. As it was, he wasted some time at Kenilworth, his father’s chief stronghold, and foolishly suffered his troops to encamp outside the walls of the castle. A female spy brought Edward news of his enemy’s mistake, and a sudden onslaught scattered De Montfort’s reinforcement in disgraceful flight. Edward tried to check De Montfort’s return by breaking down all the bridges over the Severn, but a way was at length found to cross the river about four miles below Worcester, and the baronial army reached Evesham in the full expectation of speedily meeting their friends.

[Sidenote: Battle of Evesham. Aug. 4.]

As they marched out in the early morning on the 4th of August, they saw a well-ordered army approaching, and Leicester’s barber, who happened to be the longest-sighted man amongst then, at first recognized all the standards as belonging to young De Montfort; only after he had ascended a church-tower did he perceive the emblems of De Clare and Edward mingled with them. De Montfort was thus greatly outnumbered and surprised. As the enemy approached in three well-arrayed divisions, “Ah,” said he, “that arrangement is not your own, I have taught you how to fight.” Then, as it became evident that he had neither time nor men to secure the victory, he added, “God have mercy on our souls, for our bodies are the Prince’s.” The stories of the fidelity of his party are touching. He begged his partisans to fly while there was time. They refused to leave him, while his son Henry begged him to make good his retreat, and leave him alone to fight the battle. He was not a man to listen to such advice. At length the assault came. He saw the best of his followers and his son killed or disabled around him. But still, though his horse was killed under him, “like a giant,” says one, “like an impregnable tower for the liberties of England,” says another of the Chroniclers, he fought on, wielding his sword with both hands, till he fell overpowered by the assault of numbers. Three hours completed the battle, which was little else than a massacre. “Thus lamentably fell the flower of all knighthood, leaving an example of steadfastness to others. But since there is no curse more baleful than a domestic enemy, who can wonder at his fall? those who had eaten his bread lifted their heels against him, they who loved him by word of mouth lied in their throat.”[42]

[Sidenote: Kenilworth and the Fens hold out. 1266.]

[Sidenote: Dictum of Kenilworth.]

The victory produced a complete reaction in England. Castle after castle opened its gates to the royalists. At Kenilworth alone, which Simon had defended with extraordinary machines which his skill as an engineer had invented, and in the inaccessible marshes in the East of England, the baronial party still held out. The conqueror proceeded at once to act with reckless severity. The whole of Leicester’s property was confiscated and given to Prince Edward, all his followers were deprived of civil rights and property, and all acts of the government since the battle of Lewes were declared null. This was the work of a Parliament summoned at Winchester, where of course there is no sign either of county or of borough representation. After London, which made some opposition, was conquered, and for the time disfranchised, all efforts were directed against Kenilworth. This stronghold had become a centre from which, as from the Eastern Fens, disorderly bodies pushed out to wreak their vengeance on the King’s followers. The defence was heroic. It seemed plain that the reaction had been carried much too far. One party at all events of the royalists, with Prince Henry d’Almeyne and perhaps Prince Edward at its head, desired a more conciliatory policy, and at length, at the end of the year, a Commission of twelve was established to attempt to produce peace. Under their management, a Parliament and Convocation was held, the Magna Charta again acknowledged, even by the Papal Legate, and those who had been disinherited were allowed to regain their lands by paying a certain number of years’ income to the new possessors. The sons of Lord Derby and Leicester were alone excepted. In accordance with this arrangement, called the Dictum of Kenilworth, the castle was surrendered.

[Sidenote: De Clare compels more moderate government.]

[Sidenote: Constitutional end of the reign.]

The insurgents in the Fens afterwards submitted on the same terms, but not before Gilbert de Clare had again changed sides, making it plain to the government that however much jealousy of De Montfort might have broken the baronial moderate party, the feelings which had dictated the Provisions of Oxford were still unconquered. Under these circumstances it was found necessary to take further measures to insure moderation of government. In May 1267, Magna Charta was again enacted, and from this time forward kept. The offices were given into the hands of Englishmen, and Englishmen only. The Sicilian project had become impossible, indeed the crown had been given to Charles of Anjou; and, finally, Prince Edward, whose influence might have been dangerous, had withdrawn from England on a crusade, and taken many English nobles with him. The Barons’ war had thus, although in its outward form a failure, secured its main object--tolerable constitutional government, and the establishment of a national rule. In 1272 the King died.

[Sidenote: Views of the people on the revolution.]

It is always difficult to know how far the popular feeling is engaged in political revolutions. The great bulk of the nation is never the originator of such changes. The fate of a country is settled by the conduct and thought of its educated men, though the mass of the people plays a very prominent part as an instrument in the hands of its leaders. There is much to make us believe, however, that the movement of the Barons was in reality a national one. More particularly is this true in the case of Simon de Montfort. He is constantly spoken of by contemporary writers with admiration. “Il eime dreit, et att le tort,” (He loves right and hates the wrong), says one poet. “It should, however, be declared,” says the Chronicler of Melrose, “that no one in his senses would call Simon a traitor, for he was no traitor, but the most devout and faithful worshipper of the Church in England, the shield and defender of the kingdom, the enemy and expeller of aliens, although by birth he was one of them.” The Londoners were his devoted adherents, while the character of the Parliament which he summoned after the battle of Lewes was certainly popular. It seems fair to believe that he was the unselfish supporter of the national policy.

Again, all the writers of the time, with very few exceptions,[43] whether chroniclers or poets, were in favour of the baronial party. When some of the leaders seem flagging in their energy, they were cheered by such words as these,--

“O Comes Gloverniæ, comple quod cæpisti,
Nisi claudas congruè, multos decepisti.”

“O tu Comes le Bygot, pactum serva sanum
Cum sis miles strenuus, nunc exerce manum.
O vos magni proceres, qui vos obligatis,
Observate firmiter illud quod juratis.”

Again, in one political poem of the day we have the question at issue argued out in a manner which shows the advance of political knowledge, and in a constitutional tone which would become a modern Whig. “All restraint does not deprive of liberty. He who is kept from falling so that he lives free from danger, reaps advantage from such keeping, nor is such a support slavery, but the safeguard of virtue. Therefore that it is permitted to a king all that is good, but that he dare not do evil--this is God’s gift.... If a prince love his subjects, he will be repaid with love; if he reign justly, he will be honoured; if he err, he ought to be recalled by them whom his unjust denial may have grieved, unless he be willing to be corrected; if he is willing to make amends, he ought to be raised up and aided by those same persons.... If a king be less wise than he ought to be, what advantage will the kingdom gain by his reign? Is he to seek by his own opinion on whom he should depend to have his failing supplied? If he alone choose, he will be easily deceived. Therefore let the community of the kingdom advise, and let it be known what the generality thinks, to whom their own laws are best known. Since it is their own affairs that are at stake, they will take more care and will act with an eye to their own peace.... We give the first place to the community; we say also that the law rules over the king’s dignity, for the law is the light without which he who rules will wander from the right path.”

That proclamations should be published in English is also a significant fact, and it may on the whole be considered that this war was practically the conclusion of foreign domination in England. It is the great honour of Edward I. to have perceived this so clearly, that he willingly accepted the new national line of policy which the Barons had marked out, and he may be regarded as our first purely national monarch.

EDWARD I.

1272-1307.

Born, 1239 = 1. Eleanor of Castile.
|
+---------+---------+---------+---+------+-----------------+
| | | | | |
John. Henry. Alfonso. Edward II. Eleanor = Henry |
d. 1271. d. 1274. d. 1284. of Bar. |
|
+------------------------------------------------------+
|
+----+----------------+-------------------+
| | |
Joan = Gilbert, Margaret = John of Elizabeth = 1. John of
Earl of Brabant. Holland.
Gloucester. 2. Humphrey
de Bohun.
= 2. Margaret of France.
|
+--------------+---------------+
| |
Thomas, Earl of Norfolk. Edmund, Earl of Kent.

CONTEMPORARY PRINCES.

_Scotland._ | _France._ | _Germany._ | _Spain._
| | |
Alexander III., | Philip III., | Rodolph, 1272. | Alphonso X.,
1249. | 1270. | Adolphus, 1291. | 1252.
Margaret, 1286. | Philip IV., | Albert, 1298. | Sancho IV.,
Interregnum, 1290. | 1285. | | 1284.
Baliol, 1292. | | | Ferdinand IV.,
Interregnum, 1296. | | | 1295.
Robert I., 1306. | | |

POPES.--Gregory X., 1271. Innocent V., 1276. Adrian V., 1276.
John XX., 1276. Nicholas III., 1277. Martin IV., 1281. Honorius IV.,
1285. Nicholas IV., 1288. Vacancy, two years. Celestine V., 1292.
Boniface VIII., 1294. Benedict X., 1303. Vacancy, one year.
Clement V., 1305.

_Archbishops._ | _Chancellors._ | _Chief-justices._
| |
Robert Kilwardby, | Walter de Merton, 1272. | Ralph de Hengham,
1273-1278. | Robert Burnell, 1273-1292. | 1273-1289.
John Peckham, | John Langton, 1292. | Gilbert de Thornton,
1279-1292. | William Greenfield, 1302. | 1289-1295.
Robert Winchelsey, | William de Hamilton, 1304. | Roger Brabazon, 1295.
1294-1313. | Ralph de Baldock, 1307. |

[Sidenote: Edward’s peaceful accession. 1272.]

[Sidenote: His journey home, 1274.]

Edward was still abroad when the news of his father’s death was brought to him. His accession had been so long looked forward to as a happy termination to the difficulties of the last reign, that what might have been a dangerous crisis passed over peacefully. An assembly was summoned at Westminster, not only of the nobles, but also of the representatives of the lower estates, and there an oath of fidelity was taken to the absent King. Three prominent nobles seem to have assumed the position of governors; the Archbishop of York, as head of the clergy, Edmund of Cornwall, the King’s brother, as representative of the royalty, and Gilbert of Gloucester, as chief of the baronage. Under them the government pursued its old course. Hearing that things were going well in England, Edward did not hurry home. He returned by Sicily and Rome, where he induced the Pope to visit upon the young De Montforts the murder of Henry D’Almeyne, whom they had killed at Viterbo. Thence he passed into France, joined in a great tournament at Châlons, where jest was changed to earnest, and a rough skirmish ensued, known as the little battle of Châlons. True to his legal obligations, he did homage at Paris for his French dominions, demanding what as yet had not been fulfilled, the completion of the late definitive treaty in France: and after settling, not without application to the French King as feudal superior, his quarrels with Gaston de Bearn in Gascony, and establishing friendly relations with Flanders, he returned in 1274 to England, and there, on the 18th of August, was crowned and received the homage of his Barons, and that, among others, of Alexander III. of Scotland. Shortly after, he appointed as his chancellor Robert Burnell, who served him throughout his life as chief minister, while Anthony Beck, Bishop of Durham, was his chief agent in all diplomatic matters.