Chapter III: Appendix: 347 (2)

To this great man, we doubtless owe that noble production, the “Statute of Westminster.” In the five or six months which intervened before the meeting of parliament; while the king was examining and regulating the condition of his castles, palaces, establishments, and household, his chancellor, looking forward to the great event which was to follow immediately after Christmas, was occupied, we may safely assert, with the preparation of the work of legislation; a work then to be commenced, but never afterwards to be discontinued in this realm.

Parliaments, such as we now possess, were new things in England. The “concilium,” or great council, which we find in Anglo‐Norman history, was a gathering of earls, barons, and prelates, for the decision, usually, of a simple question—most generally, of granting an aid to the king. All through the long reign of Henry III., the idea that it was necessary occasionally to meet for the purpose of making laws, never once appears in any record. Of course parliaments holding protracted sittings, for weeks or months together, were wholly unthought of. Provision for the residence and maintenance of the prelates and barons would have been difficult. All that was contemplated was, one meeting, to do one thing and then to separate. Very naturally, therefore, Chancellor Burnel, while he had discovered the need of several laws on different subjects, combined his various reforms in one great statute. Lord Campbell observes that, “The ‘Statute of Westminster’ deserves the name of a code, rather than an act of parliament. Its object was, to correct abuses, to supply defects, and to remodel the administration of justice.” * * * “It protects the property of the church from violence and spoliation; it provides for the freedom of popular elections; it contains a strong declaration to enforce the enactments of ‘Magna Charta’ against excessive fines; it enumerates and corrects the great abuses of tenure, particularly with regard to the marriage of wards; it regulates the levying of tolls; it corrects and restrains the power of the king’s escheator, and other officers under the crown; it amends the criminal law; it embraces the subject of procedure, both in civil and criminal matters, introducing many regulations with a view to render it cheaper, more simple, and more expeditious.”

This great measure was in fact the beginning of English legislation. Up to this period, for centuries, the law of England had been a mere tradition, an unwritten collection of rules and principles, handed down from one generation to another, and deposited in the minds and memories of the judges and students of law. Recollections and traditions of Saxon laws, confirmed in “Magna Charta,” doubtless constituted its substance. Such a traditionary code is now of great value, under the name of “common law,” because it is expounded in books, and administered by judges of known integrity. But in the days of which we are speaking, books, _i.e._, manuscripts, were rare and of great price, and the judges, as a rule, were corruptible. Hence, Burnel, having observed and learned what provisions were chiefly needed, began, in this first of parliaments, to apply the remedy of written and authoritative law. A legislative system, worked by a new power; a real legislature, meeting usually every year, but in some years twice or thrice, began now to be known in England. This legislature, under Edward’s watchful eye, was enlarged and strengthened from time to time, until, before his reign had closed, we find it closely resembling the parliament of our own day—consisting, in 1304, of “the prelates, nine earls, ninety‐four barons, the knights of the shire, and the burgesses sent by 159 towns.”

In the great “Statute of Westminster”—the beginning of our English Statute law—there is one provision which, if the mind dwells upon it, suggests many inquiries. It runs thus:—

“And because elections ought to be free, the king commandeth, upon great forfeiture (_i.e._, penalties), that no man by force of arms, nor by malice nor menacing, shall disturb (or hinder) any to make free election.”

Almost six hundred years after, in the parliament now sitting, serious and prolonged inquiries have been entered into, as to how “elections can be free,” and how to provide that neither “by force of arms, nor by menace” shall any be hindered from making a free choice or election. Thus, after so many centuries of parliamentary legislation, we find ourselves again trying to effect that which Edward and his great chancellor commanded in the very first law that they placed upon our statute‐book.

But does not the question naturally arise, “What were these elections which Robert Burnel thus saw to need protective legislation?” After all the violence and disorders of such reigns as those of Stephen, Richard, and John, the idea of “a free election” seems a strange one to have existed in this realm of England.

Yet elections there must have been, of two kinds. The Londoners had preserved from days long preceding the Conquest, their “hustings,” both name and thing, and one of the laws in use in the days of Edward the Confessor, fixes the time for holding these meetings.

Henry I., a son of the Conqueror, again recognizes the London hustings and the folk‐motes; and he grants the citizens the right of electing and appointing a sheriff of Middlesex. And in various charters and other records we find traces of elections frequently occurring in the city of London. These elections, too, were liable, as now, to be disturbed by force of arms and menaces. Several of the great barons and prelates had their palaces or castles in or near the city. Baynard’s Castle, in the days of king John, was the stronghold of Robert Fitzwalter, castellan of the city, who doubtless lacked neither the will nor the power greatly “to disturb free elections.” Mobs, too, were frequent and unruly in those days. Fitz‐Albert, called Longbeard, in 1196, had more than fifty thousand of the people at his command, and at last fortified himself in Bow Church, whence he was taken and executed. Still more recently, indeed, just about the time of the holding this parliament of Westminster, a feud broke out in the city, concerning the election of a mayor. The candidate properly chosen was Philip le Taylour, but the mob insisted on having Walter Harvey. The king was obliged to interfere, and to appoint a _custos_ of the city until an election of mayor could be well and properly holden. This fact, occurring very shortly after Edward’s arrival and coronation, of itself explains the insertion of this clause in the statute. Doubtless, also, the elections of “knights of the shire,” an institution which dates from the two preceding reigns, would give occasion to many disorders. The great men of a county would often attempt to carry the election “by force of arms;” the populace would resist;“menacing” would be heard on both sides; and complaints would reach the ear of the king and his chancellor. Now both Edward and his great minister were upright and honourable men. Being therefore engaged in the great work of establishing the dominion of wise and equal laws, they insert in this statute, which, as Lord Campbell says, “rather deserves the name of a code,” this brief but pithy declaration: “And because elections ought to be free, the king commandeth, under great penalties, that no man disturb such elections, either by menaces or by force of arms.”

One other curious circumstance connected with this first parliament of England deserves a mention. Edward always regarded himself as the rightful champion and protector of his people in all just quarrels. The countess of Flanders, in Henry’s old age, had taken the violent course, upon some quarrel, of confiscating all English property in the warehouses of Flanders. Edward on his way home heard of this, and sent immediate orders to stop the export of wool; thus reducing the manufactories of Flanders to a state of paralysis. He then met the son of the countess and concluded a treaty, by which the English merchants received full restitution. This settlement of the quarrel was received in England with great satisfaction, and the parliament of Westminster at once granted to the king a customs’ duty of half a mark on every sack of wool exported, and a mark on every bale of leather. These duties were recorded, in the spirit in which Edward always acted, as “granted by the archbishops, bishops, earls, barons, and communitates of the kingdom of England.” Always and on all occasions does the king associate with himself in public acts, “the commonalty of the realm, the lowest as well as the highest.”

Footnotes:

[17] Hemingford.

[18] The extent of this homage became a matter of negociation, and
the question was not finally adjusted until some three or four
years after.

[19] Macaulay.

[20] “The first mention of the term, ‘parliament,’” says Blackstone,
“is in the preamble to the ‘Statute of Westminster,’ A.D. 1275.”

III.

THE FIRST SEVEN YEARS.

The key‐note struck by Bracton seems never to have ceased vibrating in the minds of Edward and his chancellor. “Let the king render to the law, what the law hath invested in him with regard to others, dominion and power.” “The king hath a superior—namely, God—and also the law, by which he was made a king.” Duty, the pressure of moral obligation, is as constantly present in Edward’s mind as, six centuries after, it was in the mind of Arthur Wellesley. We have seen it recognized at Marlborough, in 1267, in his father’s day, when the Statute so named is thus prefaced—“Our lord the king, providing for the better estate of this realm, and for the more speedy administration of justice, as _belongeth to the office of a king_,” etc. We find it again in the opening of the Westminster Statute—“Because our lord the king hath great desire to redress the state of the realm, in such things as require amendment.” And a little later, in the “Statutes of Gloucester,” we hear the same strain—“The king, providing for the amendment of his realm, and for the fuller administration of justice, as the _good of the kingly office requireth_,” etc.

Thus, from time to time, we hear from Edward’s lips the frank confession, “I hold an office, and that office has its duties; let me look to it that those duties are rightly discharged.” He proceeds, after the great “Parliament of Westminster, 1275,” to enter in earnest on the important work of regulation, organization, and the removal of abuses and disorders. Just as the owner of a large estate, on coming into full possession after a long minority, sets to work, if he rightly comprehends his position, first to examine and then to regulate every portion of his inheritance, so does Edward give the earlier years of his reign to a similar though larger work. He shows his consciousness that the weakness of a long period of misrule had filled the land with disorders, and that “the kingly office requireth” that he should, in a variety of particulars, introduce new laws and a purer administration. He had seen and regretted, in his father’s reign, the fearful weakening of the royal authority which accompanied a system of pecuniary improvidence. At once, therefore, without waiting for the assembling of his parliament, he issued a royal commission to inquire into, and ascertain, the royalties and revenues appertaining to the crown, the state and particulars of the crown‐lands, with the names of the tenants and the terms of their tenure.[21] He rightly judged that on this point—the regulation of the royal revenues—largely depended the just fulfilment of “the office of a king.” He soon made himself acquainted with the extent and particulars of his possessions; and so well were these administered, throughout his whole reign, that his applications to parliament were few, and always based upon public grounds,—the acknowledged requirements of the state. Yet he was never wanting in a truly royal munificence; exhibiting liberality on all fitting occasions, and a never‐ceasing kindness to the poor.

In the course of these investigations, touching the royalties and revenues belonging to the crown, it would naturally happen that legal questions and doubts would arise, as to the respective boundaries of possessions belonging to the crown, and those belonging to the great barons who had received grants from former sovereigns. The king soon came to the conclusion that, rightly to define these limits, it would be necessary to refer, in all cases, to the original grants. He issued, therefore, after the lapse of two or three years, which the first investigation must have required, another order or commission, that all parties who were in possession of any estates of doubtful title, should lay their grants or charters before the judges, that their validity might be ascertained by competent authority.

In taking this step, Edward was actuated by those motives of frankness and rectitude which were never absent from his mind. He evidently thought that the same sort of investigation to which he had submitted the rights of the crown might fairly be applied to the grants under it; but he soon found that he was likely to involve himself in a serious peril. During such disorderly times as those of Stephen and John, many of the great barons had seized upon estates, the owners of which had perished in the field or on the scaffold. Those great proprietors would very naturally shrink from any sort of legal examination or inquiry. They would have been prompt to combine in a league of resistance to any such investigation. One of the greatest of them, the earl of Surrey, John de Warenne, who had fought at Edward’s side at Lewes, and had entertained him in 1274 at Reigate, on his landing,—took an early and a very peremptory position of resistance. He doubtless was one of the first to whom the royal commissioners addressed their inquiries. His answer was that of a rough, bold, and impetuous soldier. He unsheathed an ancient sword, exclaiming, “It was by _this_ that my forefathers won these lands, and it is by _this_ that I mean to maintain my title.”

Edward was wise, as well as frank and noble. A little reflection would enable him to perceive, that if he pressed his demand upon this irascible and powerful soldier‐baron, he might soon discover that there were hundreds of other land‐owners who felt a sympathy with the earl, and that thus he might be engaged in a strife of a very serious character. His object and his motives had been pure, but prudence evidently dictated a moderate and cautious course. The resistance of this great earl materially affected the whole inquiry. The intended investigation was, for a time at least, suspended. On this, as well as in two or three other passages of his life, Edward showed that even when his first determination had been just and reasonable, he could exercise a thoughtful self‐control—that he knew how to waive his rights, when prudence so counselled, as well as how to assert them on all fitting occasions.[22]

One of the chief matters, however, on which Edward had evidently set his heart, was that of bringing the relations of England and Wales into a better condition. It was on the Welsh border that the first years of his public life had been spent. As early as in his eighteenth year, his father had given him the charge of “the Welsh Marches;” and he had had the grief of witnessing, again and again, inroads of the Welsh into Cheshire and Herefordshire, in which maraudings whole districts were desolated, and the poor English farmers of those counties reduced to beggary. Matthew Paris says: “The Welsh carried fire and slaughter into the border counties. They gave themselves up to incendiarism and pillage, till they had reduced the whole border to an uninhabitable desert.” Edward had seen these things with pain and with resentment, and he had evidently resolved to bring the relations of the two countries into a more satisfactory state.

It has suited the purposes of those who wished to represent Edward as an ambitious and designing man, to assume, throughout, that Edward’s object, from the beginning, was the conquest of Wales. But the facts of the case, if patiently examined, tell a very different tale. They rather justify our old chronicler Fabyan’s description of him. Writing more than three hundred years ago, and conveying down to us the old English belief and tradition, he says: “This prince was slow to all manner of strife, discreet and wise, and true of his worde.” And, assuredly, the plain facts of this Welsh controversy justify entirely Fabyan’s words.

That Llewellyn owed homage to Edward as his superior lord—just as Edward, for his French possessions, owed homage to the king of France—has never been questioned. Llewellyn himself never denied the obligation. Yet, at Edward’s coronation, while the king of Scotland was present and paid his homage, there was no attendance, either personally or by deputy, of the prince of Snowdon.

The Welsh prince pleaded, in excuse, that there was so much enmity between him and some of the lords of the Marches, that he could not safely visit London. Edward met these excuses with forbearance, and even offered to take a journey to Shrewsbury to receive the homage there. But Llewellyn still raised new difficulties. Had Edward been the ambitious and designing man that he is often represented, he might now, without further parley, have peremptorily summoned Llewellyn, and on his non‐appearance, might have declared him contumacious, and his fief a forfeiture. Such had been the course taken by Philip of France, when in 1202 he summoned John, pronounced him contumacious, and at once took possession of Normandy.

Edward’s course was equally clear. There was nothing to prevent the immediate annexation of Wales, except the single let or hindrance of the English king’s conscientiousness. But Edward would take no hasty or violent step. He reserved the question for his parliament, and at one of the sessions of 1275 it was decided that the Welsh prince should be summoned a third time, and that now the king should even go to Chester to meet him; that being the nearest point to Llewellyn’s home.

“Slow to all manner of strife” was written on all these proceedings. Edward knew well that there were precedents in abundance which would have justified him in declaring the Welsh prince a rebel, and in entering into possession of his fief. He was also, we cannot doubt, fully alive to the great advantage which would result from the union of the two countries.

He earnestly desired to terminate the wretched border‐warfare which had so long continued. But a leading principle of his whole life was, a constant respect for the rights of others. Again and again shall we meet with this rule of conduct in his after‐life. In the present case he remitted to Llewellyn not only the summons to appear at Chester, which the parliament had directed to be sent, but also a safe‐conduct for his coming, abiding, and return—a guarantee which the Welshman might know would be strictly fulfilled. But Llewellyn now raised his demands. He would give no attendance until the king should send to him, as hostages, his own son, the chancellor of England, and the earl of Gloucester!—a demand which the old chronicler justly terms “an insolent one,” and which must have been intended to terminate the negociation.

About this time Eleanor de Montfort, Llewellyn’s intended bride, was met with at sea, and brought into Bristol by an English vessel. As the prince was in contumacy, Edward ordered that the young Eleanor should be conveyed to Windsor, there to remain in the queen’s charge until the dispute between England and Wales had been terminated. But the year 1276 had now opened, and parliaments were held, in the course of that year, at Westminster and at Winchester. A fifth and a sixth summons had been remitted to the prince of Snowdon. Some of the bishops now offered to mediate, and they were allowed to send the archdeacon of Canterbury into Wales, personally to confer with Llewellyn. But the Welsh prince merely advanced new claims; requiring now guarantees from two prelates, and from four of the greatest earls in the realm.

The English parliament finally, on the 12th of November, 1276, declared Llewellyn contumacious, and recommended that the military tenants of the crown should be summoned in the spring for the invasion of Wales. Meanwhile the archbishop made one more attempt at mediation, writing to the Welsh prince an earnest but fruitless letter. Another parliament was held, in which “a twelfth” was granted to the king for the expenses of the war. In the spring the royal forces began to assemble, and Roger Mortimer was appointed to the command. The chief men of South Wales sent in their submission, and were “received to the king’s grace.” David and Roderick, brothers to Llewellyn, joined the king, and were honourably received by him. Meanwhile, Llewellyn believed that his mountain‐heights were inaccessible, and that he could never be brought to submission. Edward, however, was a different sort of leader from his father, who in 1257 had led an expedition into Wales, and had miserably failed. With the skill and foresight of a general, Edward had prepared a naval force, which sailed from the Cinque Ports, made a descent upon Anglesea, and took possession of that island. Llewellyn was now enclosed, and it was easy to prevent all supplies from reaching him. He remained obstinate for several weeks; but as the winter drew on he saw the probability of ultimate starvation, and asked for terms of surrender.

Again we see that Edward was not that ruthless and ambitious man which he is often represented. The Welsh prince had been formally declared contumacious, and the forfeiture of his fief was the ordinary penalty. There was no way of escape for him; Edward had only to maintain his blockade, and the surrender and banishment of the Welsh prince, and the entire conquest of the principality, were inevitable and close at hand.

But Edward’s guiding principle in all such cases was that which we have already cited from his own lips, “_May_ show mercy!—why, I will do that for a dog, if he seeks my grace!” Llewellyn had no sooner asked for mercy than it was granted to him. His offence had been great; to make war upon a superior lord was treason; and the king showed his sense of the offence by imposing hard conditions of peace.

Llewellyn must pay a fine of 50,000 marks for the heavy expenses he had caused the king; must cede to England the four “cantreds” lying between Chester and the Conway; must hold Anglesea of the king at an annual rent of 2000 marks; must do homage to the king, and deliver ten hostages for his fidelity. This was a just sentence, and Edward merely vindicated the majesty of the law by pronouncing it; but the natural generosity of his mind very quickly cancelled the hardest of the conditions. The very next day the fine was remitted. Soon after the rent to be paid for Anglesea was cancelled, and the ten hostages returned. And now that the Welsh prince had submitted, all was grace and favour on Edward’s part. The young Eleanor de Montfort, who had been detained in the queen’s household, was sent for, and in Worcester Cathedral, in the presence of the king and queen, Llewellyn received his bride. In another respect, the king conferred on the Welsh prince a very substantial benefit. David, Llewellyn’s brother, had often been at variance with him. On one occasion the two brothers met on the battle‐field, and David was taken prisoner. To remove David from Wales was to confer on Llewellyn a favour of a very important kind. The king took this hostile brother with him to England, gave him £1000 a year in land (equal to £15,000 a year at the present time), and married him to an earl’s daughter. “Thus,” says Lingard, “Edward flattered himself that what he had begun by force he had completed by kindness. To Llewellyn he had behaved rather with the affection of a friend than the severity of an enemy, and his letters to that prince breathe a spirit of moderation which does honour to his heart. To David he had been a bounteous protector. He had granted him the honour of knighthood, extensive estates in both countries, and the hand of the daughter of the earl of Derby.”

Surely the prejudice must be of an extraordinary kind which can see in this first war in Wales, and in the manner in which it was terminated, any signs of an ambitious or overreaching disposition in the conqueror. He had voluntarily given away an opportunity of making Wales his own; he had preferred to endeavour to make the two Welsh princes his friends, by heaping kindnesses and benefits upon them.

The marriage of Llewellyn and Eleanor took place on the 3rd of October, 1278, and the bride and bridegroom spent the following Christmas with the king and queen at Westminster. As this year was the seventh of Edward’s reign, and affords an opportunity of a pause in the story, we will briefly notice, before we close the chapter, a few events which occurred at various intervals between the coronation in 1275 and the Welsh prince’s marriage in 1278.

In the autumn of 1276, to encourage his nobility and gentry in the practices and usages of chivalry, the king held in Cheapside a grand tournament, when such an assemblage of young nobles and gallant knights was seen as England had never before witnessed.

In Advent, 1278, the king and queen were present at the consecration of the new cathedral of Norwich. This ancient church had been destroyed by fire in a riot towards the close of king Henry’s reign, and nearly seven years had been occupied in its restoration. A great gathering of prelates, earls, and barons attended Edward and Eleanor on occasion of this ceremony. A few weeks later, on Easter Sunday, the king and queen visited the renowned abbey of Glastonbury, where they remained several days. On the Wednesday of Easter week there was a solemn opening, in the king’s presence, of the tomb which was deemed to be that of king Arthur. Edward deposited in the tomb, which was immediately reclosed, a record of his visit and inspection.

In the autumn, this revival of the memories and traditions of the famous British king bore fruit in an attempt, on the part of Roger Mortimer, to imitate the far‐famed “Round Table.” In Kenilworth castle, the king and queen were entertained for ten successive days, while a hundred knights and their ladies graced the tournament in the morning and the feast in the afternoon. The loyal host was greeted, before Edward had departed, with the title of “earl of March.”

The remaining history of these three or four years is of a less pleasing character. It is evident, from the records of the first seven years of this reign, that foremost among all the disorders and grievances of the time, stood the extortions of the Jews. Again and again do we meet with inquiries and regulations intended to check these evil practices. Florence of Worcester tells us, under the date of 1275, that “the Jews throughout the realm were forbidden to lend money on usury; but were in future to gain their living by commerce, under the same rules and laws as Christian merchants. They were also ordered to pay to the king an annual capitation‐tax of threepence for each person.”

But we see various tokens of the uneasiness caused by the extortions of these people. In October, 1274, only two months after his coronation, we find Edward issuing an order concerning the Jews; in December, 1276, another; in May, 1277, a third; and in July, 1278, a fourth. All these mandates, we may be assured, were framed by his great chancellor—a man of a just and upright purpose. But it appears as if these restraints placed upon the open practice of usury, drove the Jews to secret devices of a still more nefarious kind. In the seventh year of Edward’s reign the deteriorated state of the coinage had grown to be an intolerable evil. “The nation,” says Carte, “had suffered for some time from the clipping of the coin; which had raised the price of all the necessaries of life, and had almost ruined its foreign commerce. The king saw the necessity of a great reform in this direction, and his measures were such as we might have expected from the decision which marked his character. To have merely ordered a new coinage, while these nefarious practices went on, would have been useless. The first thing to be done was to strike a blow at those who were depraving the coin—a blow which should inspire terror and crush the evil at once and for ever. On one evening in November, 1276, the houses of all the Jewish money‐changers were visited and their private chambers searched. On a second evening all the goldsmiths received a similar visitation. Large sums of clipped money were found, with the tools and implements used in these evil works.” The criminals thus detected and apprehended were very numerous. A Special Commission was issued for the trial of these malefactors; and its sittings, commencing after the Christmas holidays, were continued until Lent, and were resumed after Easter. Between two and three hundred were convicted and sent to execution, most of whom were Jews.[23] A terrible example was necessary to eradicate so serious an evil. When this severe check had been given to this sort of crime, immediate measures were taken for the issue of a new coinage. Exchanges were opened in various places, at which the old coin was taken in at its value, and new money issued. “Edward,” says Rapin, “is supposed to be the first king that perfectly fixed the standard of our coin.”

Each of the years which had passed since Edward’s landing at Dover, had witnessed the assembling of a parliament. The year 1275 saw the first of these gatherings which assumed that name, and which placed upon the statute‐book of England the “Statute of Westminster.” In October of the same year a second meeting of the same kind took place, at which the Welsh controversy was discussed. In 1276 a parliament assembled in Westminster, another at Winchester, and, towards the end of the year, a third was held in Westminster. In the sessions held this year, 1276, three new statutes were passed—that of Bigamy, that on the Office of Coroner, and one concerning Justices. In the next year, 1277, parliament was again convened, to grant the king an aid. Throughout the Welsh controversy, as well as on all the other “hard questions” of his reign, we see the king constantly resorting to the advice of his parliament. The maxim which he avowed in a public document several years after this, seems to have governed his thoughts and actions from the very beginning of his reign—that “what concerns all, should be by all approved.”

In the year 1278, the war with Wales having terminated, the king visited Worcester to witness the celebration of the nuptials of Llewellyn and young Eleanor de Montfort. He then held a parliament in the neighbouring city of Gloucester, at which the important “Statutes of Gloucester” were placed upon our statute‐book. One or two of our historians have described this reign, as if the ratification of the Great Charter and of the Charter of the Forests had been wrung from the king with great difficulty, and in the hour of his necessity. But for such a representation there is no foundation whatever. In 1276, being in a state of peace and of great popular esteem, the king issued, entirely of his own accord, a proclamation for the observance of the Charter of Liberties, and the Charter of the Forests.

At the same time we see in his whole conduct abundant signs of a feeling that these documents belonged to the past; and that his office was to open to the realm and people of England views of constitutional liberty, of which no mere observance of Magna Charta, in its largest interpretation, could ever have given them any idea.

Footnotes:

[21] “He issued,” says Rapin, “writs of enquiry to two commissioners
in every county, to enquire what his royalties, and the liberties
and prerogatives of his crown were; who were his tenants _in
capito;_ and how many and what fees they held of him. Also of his
tenants in ancient demesne—how they had behaved themselves, and in
what condition the lands were. Also of the sheriffs, coroners, and
bailiffs, and their clerks—whether they had extorted money, or had
wronged any one, or had taken bribes. This first step,” says Rapin,
“produced a wonderful effect upon the people.”

[22] “But Edward never faltered in his purpose, and the inquiry
went on, at intervals, through a period of more than twenty
years.”—Pearson’s Hist. Eng., vol. ii., p. 298.

[23] This appears to us now a punishment of terrible severity. Yet
we ourselves, in the days of George III., were in the habit of
hanging men in great numbers for fabricating imitative bank‐notes.
All our modern civilization, at the beginning of the present
century, had not carried us beyond the usages of Edward’s day.

IV.

MIDDLE PERIOD OF EDWARD’S LIFE.

A.D. 1279-1290.

The prime or maturity of Edward’s life was spent in works of quiet usefulness. The rebellion and reduction of Wales formed, indeed, an apparent exception; but the period of actual hostility on this occasion was very short. Edward was forced by the sudden outbreak of Llewellyn and David, to draw the sword; but it was returned to its scabbard in a very few weeks. Prejudiced historians have delighted in describing this sovereign as a man who, like the great Corsican of the beginning of the present century, was ever plotting some new acquisition; ever coveting his neighbour’s possessions. But in the actual records of his reign, we see him, from his fortieth to his fifty‐second year, dwelling in peace, and “thinking no evil.” The only instance in which we find him in the battle‐field is just ‘the exception which proves the rule.’ He took arms because he was assailed; because his enemy had left him no option.

His fortieth year, the eighth of his reign, was distinguished in the way in which he best loved to distinguish it—by a great act of wise and useful legislation. Doubtless we owe its authorship mainly to the counsel and the legislative skill of Robert Burnel; but we must not refuse to the king the possession of that sagacious patriotism which we shall continue to discern in his actions long after that valued counsellor had been removed from his side.

The king and his chancellor were doubtless religious men. No Wiclif, no Latimer, had yet appeared; the twilight of the mediæval times was all the light they had to guide them. But we find Edward, without any asceticism, often giving days and weeks to religious exercises. His chancellor was a bishop, but he had been a statesman and a legislator before he became a bishop, and a statesman and a legislator he remained still. Both of these clear‐sighted and sagacious men saw the perilous operation of the mediæval doctrine of Purgatory, and of the assumed power of the priesthood to open and shut the doors of that fearful abode. Month after month, and year after year, estates were constantly passing into the hands of the Church, for the supposed benefit of departed souls. The king himself could not throw off this belief, nor abstain from following in the practice which was universal in his day. When his beloved Eleanor was taken from him, we instantly hear of various manors given to the priests of Westminster for a long succession of masses to be said for the benefit of the poor queen’s soul. And we may be sure that a delusion which ruled over so powerful a mind as the king’s, was universal among his people, and that no man who had really loved his lost wife or parents would be backward in showing his solicitude by such donations of land or money as he could afford, “for their soul’s benefit.“ As the Church was thus constantly receiving and never restoring, it seemed inevitable that in process of time it must become the sole landlord in the realm.

Hume tells us of one period when the clergy held one‐third of the lands of the kingdom; and it is easy to perceive that had no Reformation occurred—had no violent redistribution taken place—that course of continual addition and accumulation must have left, by this time, very few estates in England in lay hands. The king saw this tendency, and he desired to check it. But he would not wrong the Church by any act of tyranny. He himself shared in the ordinary belief, and, as we have just said, when his queen was taken from him, he gave, like other men, large estates “for the good of her soul.” But, while he questioned not the right of men in full possession of their faculties thus to deal with their own property, he saw an evident and a perilous abuse, grafted on this general belief and practice. Men in their latest hours—men, whose minds were clouded or prostrated by disease—bequeathed, they scarce knew what, out of sheer terror, or, in some cases, at the demand or dictation of some priest, who was zealous for “the good of holy Church.” In all probability, Edward had heard the complaints of disinherited wives or children, who found their hereditary possessions suddenly wrested from them, and who knew that the expiring parent who had, they were told, so willed, was, for hours or days before his departure, scarcely conscious of the meaning of his own words or actions. Here, then, without interfering with the main question—the usual and generally admitted theory—was an evident and a very serious abuse.

A parliament was held in Westminster, in November, 1279, at which a great statute was passed—the far‐famed law of _Mortmain_. It must have been passed in the presence and by the consent—apparent at least—of many prelates, whose desires “for the good of holy Church” it contravened. But the ascendancy of such a mind and will as that of Edward,—the legislative authority of the great chancellor, and the support, doubtless, of the earls and barons by whom the king was surrounded, prevailed; and the Church was compelled to submit to this limitation. Henceforth no man should be allowed “with dying hands“ to will away his possessions “to holy Church.” All such bequests were declared to be illegal and void. No more necessary statute could have been passed; and from that day to this—from 1279 to 1870—all England has honoured the name of the wise sovereign who devised and established the law of Mortmain.

Soon after this, Edward, finding all things at peace at home, paid a short visit to the continent. The death of the queen of Castile transferred to her daughter Eleanor, Edward’s consort, the county of Ponthieu; and to obtain seizin of this territory, and to do homage for it, he visited the king of France at Amiens, where, however, his stay was but short. He brought back with him to England some fine jasper stones, which became part of the costly monument he was raising in the church of Westminster to the memory of the king his father. Not long after his return he found it necessary to repress some of the lofty pretensions of “holy Church.” John Peckham, who had succeeded Kilwardby in the see of Canterbury, had convened a synod at Reading, in which various canons were adopted, tending to separate ecclesiastics and ecclesiastical property from the laity and their possessions, and to exempt them from the operation of the statute and common law. These attempts, fostered by such churchmen as Dunstan and A’Becket, had long been perplexing all the governments of Christendom. We shall meet with them, again and again, throughout this king’s reign. But Edward was both clear‐sighted and resolute, and we cannot doubt that his chancellor, though himself a prelate, supported him. The archbishop was at once called before a council, and commanded to revoke and cancel all canons which assumed or pretended to set aside the laws and ordinances of the realm.

Ireland began now to claim a share in the king’s attention, and we may reasonably regret that the affairs of Wales soon drew his thoughts another way. The fame of the enlightened legislation now going on in England had probably reached Ireland; for a petition was sent over to the king that they might be allowed the benefit of the English laws. They tendered, as a customary fine, or ”benevolence,” the sum of 8000 marks for the enjoyment of this privilege. Edward’s disposition must have been, to comply at once with this request; but we shall find him, through his whole life, abstaining from all arbitrary or sudden decisions, and referring all public questions to his council or parliament. He wrote, therefore, to Robert de Clifford, chief justiciary of Ireland, desiring that steps might be taken to comply with the prayer of the petition. Some sort of an assembly or parliament was convened for the consideration of the question. But arbitrary power always finds some advocates, for there are never wanting persons who can turn it to their own advantage. The chief men in Ireland raised objections, and succeeded in postponing compliance with the king’s wishes. Edward wrote a second time, in displeasure, ordering another council or parliament to be convened. But Wales now began to claim his attention, and the opponents of a wise and just policy in Ireland succeeded in their policy of procrastination.

The Principality had now remained at peace for more than four years. But there were various reasons for Welsh discontent. The king had established his authority on the border, and had put an end to those plundering inroads which had troubled the English frontier for many preceding years. To be thus kept in check would naturally vex and annoy the half‐civilized tribes who had delighted, for half a century past, in burning and ravaging the farms and hamlets of the English frontier. “Edward,” says Carte, “had thrown his newly‐acquired territory into districts, had appointed sheriffs, and sent judges to administer justice. These things were not agreeable to the Welsh. They did not like counties or hundreds, courts or juries, or any institution, however beneficial, that was derived from England;—in fact, being used to a roving, disorderly, and plundering sort of life, they did not care to be kept in order.” Both Llewellyn and David had also private grievances. The elder brother had a suit against Griffith Gwenwynn for some lands, and he was summoned to the hearing of the cause at Montgomery, which he deemed a great indignity. David was sued by one Venables, before the chief justice of Chester, touching the villages of Hope and Eston. Irritated by these proceedings, the two brothers made up their quarrel, and on Palm Sunday in March, 1282, David surprised the castle of Hawarden, seizing Roger de Clifford in his bed, wounding him, and carrying him off a prisoner, while several of the English garrison were put to the sword. The news of this sudden outbreak was carried to the king, who was keeping Easter at Devizes. Other messengers soon followed with the intelligence that Llewellyn had joined his brother, that the castles of Flint and Rhuddlan were besieged, and that the Welsh were rising in every quarter. Edward sent off immediately all the force he had with him to the relief of the besieged castles, and issued orders for the rendezvous of his military tenants at Worcester on the 17th of May. Before that time he had himself moved forward, and finding the insurrection to be growing general, he gave orders for a larger levy than he had at first intended; ordering his tenants to meet him at Rhuddlan on the 2nd of August. Llewellyn and his brother retired on his approach, taking refuge in the fastnesses of Snowdon. The king took the same precaution as in 1277, by sending a fleet to occupy Anglesea, which island at once submitted, and the possession of which enclosed Llewellyn on every side. Meanwhile, the archbishop of Canterbury visited the Welsh prince and tried to bring him to submission, but all attempts of the kind were fruitless. Llewellyn handed in a list of grievances, which were just such as might have been anticipated. “The four cantreds” between Chester and Conway, formerly the scene of continual strife, had now been ceded, by the treaty of 1277, to Edward, and the English laws had been established there. These laws were distasteful to the Welsh. By their own laws, such offences as murder or arson might be withdrawn from the courts by a payment to the chief lord of a fine of five pounds; but the English judges hanged such offenders. No doubt, some provocation had been given, some injuries inflicted, on both sides. But Llewellyn, who had twice been Edward’s guest at Westminster, ought to have appealed to him for redress of any positive wrong. He might have known that it was not the king’s habit to justify ill‐doing. But the Welsh preferred to draw the sword, and now, when the archbishop strove to mediate, he found them obstinate and unbending.

At the outset of the war Edward had stormed and taken Hope Castle, had relieved Flint and Rhuddlan, and had driven Llewellyn back into the recesses of Snowdon. In November the English met with a disaster at the Menai Straits. They had constructed a bridge of boats, and a sudden attack of the Welsh, who rushed down with loud cries, created a panic; a rush was made for the bridge, it gave way, and thirteen knights and about two hundred men were lost in the waters.

Elated at this success, Llewellyn thought that as the bridge was destroyed, Snowdon was now safe for the winter, and he moved down into Cardiganshire, intending to rally and succour his friends in South Wales. Here, on the 10th of December, near Builth in Radnorshire, he came in contact with a party of the English, and one of them, Adam Francton, ran him through with a spear, in ignorance of his person or quality. After lying in the field some time, his body was searched, and his private signet and certain papers made his person known. His head was cut off and sent to the king, who, according to the custom of the period, ordered it to be sent to London and set up over the gate of the Tower.

The death of their prince seems to have so discouraged the Welsh that all opposition ceased, and Edward took quiet possession of the forfeited principality. From that day forward, England and Wales became one;—subject to the same laws and ruled over by the same government. “This incorporation,” says Mr. Sharon Turner, “was an unquestionable blessing to Wales. That country ceased to be the theatre of homicide and distress, and began to imitate the English habits. It was at once divided into counties, placed under sheriffs, and admitted to a participation in the more important of the English institutions.”

The wretched beginner of this second Welsh controversy, David of Snowdon, contrived, for several months, to lead the life of an outlaw, and to evade the search of his pursuers. This unyielding contumacy completed his ruin. Had he frankly and immediately submitted to the conqueror, and besought mercy, all that we know of Edward assures us that his life, at least, would have been spared. But he remained an outlaw, and obdurate; until, after a concealment of several months, some of his own people seized and surrendered him. Then, when no choice remained, and when submission had no merit, he entreated to see the king. But Edward doubted the propriety of granting forgiveness, and therefore refused to allow him an interview.

No one who has read the history of the ten or twelve succeeding reigns can doubt that such an offender as this David would, at any time in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, been quickly taken before some convenient tribunal and sent to the scaffold. He was an English subject; he had accepted wealth and honour at Edward’s hands, and had then requited his benefactor by raising a rebellion and causing a civil war. At no period of our history, even in the gentle reign of Victoria, could such acts have escaped the highest degree of punishment.

But Edward, while he showed, throughout, his sense of the gravity of David’s offence, never inflicted punishment in haste or in a passionate spirit. It is also a remarkable feature of his character that, though a man of unusual firmness and decision, and fitted above most men to act on his own judgment, he never found himself in the presence of any question of gravity, without instantly desiring to have it discussed in a council or parliament, or by conference with others. David’s guilt and the gravity of his offence were abundantly evident, but the question of the extent of his punishment Edward desired to leave with some legal tribunal. He resolved to remit the whole subject to the decision of a parliament, and to summon that parliament to meet in Shrewsbury in October, 1283;—David having been given up to him in the course of June.

This “parliament of Shrewsbury” was one of a novel kind. It had two new features, and it seems to have held its sittings by adjournment, in two different places. Edward desired that the case of David should be considered and decided in a council. This was the first object of the assembling of that parliament. But his chancellor had seen the necessity of a new statute on commercial questions, and the framing of this statute formed the next matter for consideration.

As the first question would be a trial on which life or death depended, the king summoned no prelates to this parliament; probably feeling that in the discussion of such matters it was desirable that the clergy should take no part. The second subject to be brought under discussion was one relating to trade and commerce, and the king saw in it an opportunity of giving more form and substance than heretofore to that idea which had never been absent from his mind,—that, in a well‐constituted parliament, “the lower as well as the higher estate” should be represented.

We have already said that we cannot doubt that, in the first parliament of Westminster, some citizens, under the name of “the commonalty of the realm,” were present; but we find no record of any formal summoning of burgesses or borough‐representatives. Now, however, the chancellor had a particular statute, relating to trade, to bring forward, and now, therefore, he could advise the king to summon, from the city of London and from twenty other great towns, from each two representatives, “de sapientioribus et aptioribus,” for the consideration and discussion of the said statute. Here we have the real commencement of the borough representation of England. Let Simon de Montfort have all the merit which can justly be attributed to him, for having, in 1265, called to a council in Westminster some burgesses or borough‐representatives:—that fact must always be taken with two qualifications: first, that earl Simon needed these borough‐representatives to fill the empty benches, only five earls and seventeen barons attending at his call; and secondly, that that council was not what we now understand by the term, a “parliament,”—no legislation being attempted in it.

Some historians have been too ready to assume or assert, on all occasions, that our free constitution has been won by the repeated struggles of the people, who succeeded in wresting from their sovereigns one privilege after another. The whole course of Edward’s government clears him from any imputation of this kind. At the opening of his political life, when he stood as a victorious leader at the head of an army, we find him again and again asserting the principle, that in a well‐constituted parliament all classes should be represented; and now, when he orders these writs to be issued for the summoning of forty‐two borough representatives to Shrewsbury, it is wholly of his own free will, and without the slightest “pressure of circumstances,” that he acts. His chancellor feels the want of a new law for the regulation of commerce, and at once the idea seems to occur, and is forthwith acted upon, “Let all the principal towns, where the merchants and traders dwell—let them send representatives to this parliament, and let the new statute be passed with their help and in their presence.”