Chapter IV: Appendix: 347 (3)

The parliament of Shrewsbury met on the 30th of September, 1283, in that town. The business to be done consisted, first, of a criminal trial, and, secondly, of a statute on commercial matters. No prelates, as we have said, were summoned. To bring them from many distant places to Shrewsbury would have imposed upon them much trouble and expense, and for no fitting end. The persons summoned were—eleven earls, ninety‐nine barons, two knights for each county, and two citizens from each of twenty‐one great towns; and the writs themselves expressed, with all Edward’s usual frankness, the purpose and the desire with which he called together this, the first complete parliament, though still in outline, that England ever saw. They remind the barons, knights, and citizens that they had seen “how Llewellyn and David his brother, spurning the obligations of fidelity into which they had entered, had, more treacherously than usual, suddenly set fire to villages, slain some of the inhabitants, burnt others, and shut up others in prison, savagely shedding innocent blood.” The king desires those to whom the writs were directed to come to Shrewsbury on the day indicated, “there to determine what ought to be done with the said David, whom we received when an exile, nourished when an orphan, and enriched out of our own lands, placing him among the nobles of our court.” “We charge you, therefore,” the king concludes, “to meet us at Shrewsbury, on the day after the feast of St. Michael, to confer upon this and upon other matters.”

Before this parliament, then, was David of Snowdon impeached.“He was tried,” says the chronicle of Dunstable, “by the whole baronage of England.” It is quite clear that Edward desired that others, and not himself, should decide upon the fate of the unhappy man. He appears to have retired to his chancellor’s residence of Acton Burnel, and to have taken no part in these proceedings. The trial was entered upon, and, according to the custom of those days, the criminal was arraigned for several crimes, and for each crime a distinct punishment was ordered. As a traitor to the king, David was to be drawn to the place of execution; as the murderer of certain knights in Hawarden Castle, he was to be hanged; having sacrilegiously committed these crimes on Palm Sunday, he was to be disembowelled; and having conspired the death of the king in various places, he was to be quartered.[24]

This sentence, deliberately passed, was carried into effect, and many have been the exclamations of modern writers at its cruelty. One of the most moderate of these critics condemns Edward for “permitting his nobles and lawyers to devise and carry into effect such a barbarous sentence.” In like manner is he censured for ordering Llewellyn’s head to be set up over the gate of the Tower.

Such writers forget that a man must be judged, not by the ideas or usages of other times, but by those of the age in which he has been brought up and has lived. In our day, the thought of setting up a gory head over Temple Bar would horrify all men. But when the last rebellion was suppressed in England, little more than a century ago, the government of which lords Hardwicke and Chatham were members, beheaded men on Kennington Common, and sent their heads to Carlisle, to be set up over the castle‐gates. Johnson and Goldsmith, Cowper and Whitfield, were accustomed to see human heads on Temple‐Bar as they passed up and down Fleet Street.

The mutilation of the criminal’s body is another feature of the case which shocks our modern notions, but it was a prevalent custom of those times. In 1238, before Edward was born, a man was found lurking in the palace, who confessed that his object was to kill the king. He had been guilty of no overt act, yet for this treasonable design he was sentenced first to be dragged asunder by horses, then to be beheaded, and his body to be divided into three parts, to be exposed in three cities.

Nor were these mutilations ordered in criminal cases only. Robert Bruce, like many others, ordered his heart to be taken out after his death and carried to the Holy Land. Edward himself, if ever a man loved a wife, dearly loved his Eleanor. Yet, on her death, he ordered her heart to be interred in the church of the Black Friars, her bowels in Lincoln Minster, and the rest of her body in Westminster Abbey. Such were the habits and modes of feeling when a king could sleep in the open air on the night before a battle; when the gory head of an earl was thought a fitting present for a noble lady; and when even friendly sports often ended in slaughter.

“Sir Patrick Graham, a Scottish knight, having arrived from Paris, was invited to supper; and in the midst of the feast, an English knight turning to him, courteously asked him to run with him three courses. Next morning in the first course, Graham struck the English knight through the harness with a mortal wound, so that he died on the spot. Such were the fierce pastimes of those days.”[25]

The sentence passed on David, then, and the exposure of Llewellyn’s head, were merely the ordinary modes of procedure in those times; and would no more strike Edward as cruel, than like sentences inflicted on the adherents of the Stuarts seemed cruel to the kings and statesmen of the last century. Hume, however, tries to exaggerate the fact in the case of David, by styling him “a sovereign prince.” This, however, is a fiction. Llewellyn did not die childless, and David was, neither in law nor in fact, his successor. And even had David been the next heir, there was no succession for him. Llewellyn, as vassal to the English crown, had committed treason, had forfeited his fief, and the superior lord was entering into possession. David was nothing more than an English lord; and as a subject to Edward he had been guilty of open treason—treason against a sovereign who had been his benefactor. The justice of his sentence was altogether unimpeachable; the manner of his execution was merely conformable to the customs of those times. Both sentence and execution were dictated by the parliament, the king being merely an assenting party.

This, however, does not quite end the history of the two Welsh princes. Edward was ever a merciful and compassionate king, and having allowed justice to have its course with regard to the principal criminals, he did not forget that they both had children. We find a letter written by him on the 11th of November, 1283, to the prior and prioress of Alvingham, in the following terms:—

“Albeit, if we should turn our mind to past events, and should regard somewhat closely the deserts of certain persons, we should scarcely be bound to succour the children of Llewellyn, prince of Wales, or of David his brother, whose perfidy is fresh in the memory of all; nevertheless having the fear of God before our eyes, and compassionating their sex and age, lest perchance the innocent and unconscious should seem to pay the penalties of the crimes of the impious—we, from regard to charity, have thought fit in wholesome sort to make provision for them. Wherefore, being persuaded of your devotion, and specially considering the conversation of your order, we beseech you, brethren, that you admit to your order, and the habit of your house, any one or more of the said children of Llewellyn and David his brother, whom we shall name to you; and that you intimate to us what you shall think fit to do in this matter, before the feast of the Nativity next ensuing. Given under our private seal at Ludlow, on the 11th day of November.”

Of the result of the application to the priory of Alvingham we find no record. But in the tenth year of Edward II. we find Wenciliana, a daughter of Llewellyn, spoken of as a nun of Sempringham; and we find her, also, receiving a pension of £20 a year (equal to £300 in the present day). Peter Langtoft speaks of her as personally known to him, and he mentions her death in June, 1337. He also mentions “her cousin Gladous, daughter of David,” who was a nun at Sixille house, and who died in 1336. Evidently, “the innocent” were not left to suffer.

The first portion of the business allotted to the parliament of Shrewsbury had now been gone through; but the second remained. And, whether it was that the scene of an execution was not thought suitable for festivity, or that the chancellor wished to exhibit a noble hospitality, we cannot decide, but a removal of the parliament evidently took place. We find it sitting on the 12th of October, at Acton Burnel, the chancellor’s home; and there was passed the Statute of Merchants, denominated by Lord Campbell “that famous law,” “that most admirable statute.” It doubtless had cost the chancellor much thought, and he probably wished to connect his name with it. Accordingly it is sometimes called “the Statute of Acton Burnel.”

So ended the year 1283; but the king had still a great work before him—a work of the kind in which he most delighted. Wales had been finally and entirely united to England; but it was still in an almost barbarous condition. The whole country was a scene of wildness and disorder, and Edward knew well that the first step in the regeneration of a country (so far as human government can regenerate it), is the establishment of just and well‐considered laws. To this work, therefore, he immediately addressed himself. He did not, however, proceed as many would have done, by rashly ordaining that the laws of England should be henceforth the laws of Wales. He saw the necessity for first acquainting himself with the whole subject. “He was at great pains to gain a perfect knowledge of its ancient constitution and laws, and of the manners of its inhabitants.”

With this view, he issued a commission to the bishop of St. David’s and some others, to investigate these matters in the most careful manner. No fewer than one hundred and seventy‐two intelligent persons were examined upon oath by these commissioners, who, upon this evidence, framed a report. Having thus obtained the necessary information, Edward held a parliament on the 24th of May, 1284, at Rhuddlan, in Flintshire, at which the “Statutes of Wales” were passed. The preamble to these statutes runs as follows:—

“The Divine Providence having now, of its favour, wholly transferred to our dominion the land of Wales, with its inhabitants, heretofore subject to us in feudal right, all obstacles ceasing; and having annexed and united the same unto the crown of the aforesaid realm, as a member of the same body; we therefore, under the Divine Will, being desirous that our aforesaid land should be governed with due order, to the honour and praise of God, and of holy Church, and the advancement of justice; and that the people of those lands who have submitted themselves to our will should be protected in security, under fixed laws and customs, have caused to be rehearsed before us and the nobles of our realm, the laws and customs in those parts hitherto in use; which, having fully understood, we have, by the advice of the said nobles, abolished some of them, some we have allowed, and some we have corrected; and we have commanded and ordained certain others to be added thereto.”

It is in deeds and words like these that we see Edward in his real character. It was in such works that, in his hours of free choice, he always preferred to employ himself. Legislation—the taking care “that the people of these lands should be protected in security, under fixed laws and customs,” “as becometh the office of a king:” this was his chosen employment. War might sometimes, as in the case of Wales, be forced upon him; but whenever it was so forced, “slowe to strife” was a rule which marked his every action.

He saw the necessity for a considerable stay in Wales for the thorough pacification and regulation of the country. He began at once the erection of the noble castle of Carnarvon. This work occupied several years. In 1283 queen Eleanor kept her court in Rhuddlan Castle, but in 1284, a portion of the castle at Carnarvon being completed, she removed thither, and on the 25th of April she gave birth, in a chamber of the Eagle Tower, which is still shown, to a prince—afterwards king Edward II. The king was at this time at Rhuddlan Castle, engaged in affairs of state. A Welsh gentleman, named Griffith Lloyd, was announced, who brought him the intelligence of the birth of a prince. Edward, in great joy, knighted Lloyd on the spot, making him a grant of lands. He soon hastened to Carnarvon to see his Eleanor and her son; and when a few days had elapsed, he was able to present to the Welsh chiefs “a prince born in Wales, and who could not speak a word of English.”

He had now remained in Wales for more than two years, and the great work of union, and the establishment of peace, and the reign of law, seemed to be solidly advancing. At Newyn, in Carnarvonshire, in the summer of 1284, Edward held a grand tournament, with the usual festivities. Here were assembled, says Matthew of Westminster, “the great body of the knights of England, with many foreign nobles.” So splendid a spectacle was, at least, calculated to show the chiefs and gentry of Wales that the nation with which they had been incorporated was no mean one, and that the sovereign they had gained was a chief of might and power.

So ended the king’s transactions in Wales in 1282, 1283, and 1284, and in the autumn of the latter year he proceeded slowly through Cardiganshire and Glamorganshire, reaching Bristol before the end of the year, and celebrating Christmas in that city.

So ends the brief history of the union of Wales with England. This war had been forced upon Edward, who evidently had no option in the matter. It was soon ended, and a single criminal—he who had caused the war—was the only victim claimed by the scaffold. The king’s slowness and long deliberation show also that, could any reasonable plea for mercy have been found, even David himself would have been spared. A rather severe judge of Edward’s whole career, says, of the annexation: “Never was conquest more merciful.”[26] Yet some of the Scottish historians, while they endeavour to assume an air of impartiality when they speak of Edward’s Scottish controversies, are eager to create a prejudice against him by giving the darkest complexion to his acts in Wales. Thus Hume, in narrating this portion of Edward’s career, calmly tells us that “The king, sensible that nothing kept alive the ideas of military valour and of ancient glory so much as the traditional poetry of the people, which, assisted by the power of music and the jollity of festivals, made a deep impression on the minds of the youth, gathered together all the Welsh bards, and, from a barbarous but not absurd policy, ordered them to be put to death.” And Gray, accepting the fiction as a fact, clothed it in noble verse, and his ode beginning “Ruin seize thee, ruthless king,” fixed the alleged crime in the memory of every school‐boy and school‐girl in the realm.

And yet the whole charge was a mere calumny. These bards, who were said to have been extirpated, continued to sing and to write in such sort that “Mr. Owen Jones, in forming a collection of their productions, _after the time of Edward_, had to transcribe between fifty and sixty quarto volumes”; and “the work of transcription,” said Sir Richard Hoare, “was not even then completed.”[27]

A later Scottish historian than Hume—Sir James Mackintosh—admits the falsity of the charge. He says, “The massacre of the bards is an act of cruelty imputed to Edward _without evidence_, and it is inconsistent with his spirit, which was not infected by wanton ferocity.”

Such an act as this slaughter, had it ever been committed, would have been nothing less than atrocious. But if so, what are we to say of a writer who coolly ascribes it to a king whom he dislikes, knowing that he is asserting it “without evidence,” and in the teeth of such a practical refutation as Sir Richard Hoare has pointed out?

England was now again at peace, and with the assured prospect that the strife which had so long infested her western border was at last permanently ended. “The conquest of Wales,” says Rapin, “and the universal esteem in which the king was held among his subjects, produced in England a profound tranquillity.” Hence, as several questions of importance called Edward abroad, he began, about this time, to prepare for a visit of some length to various parts of the continent.

A singular application had been made to him while engaged in the affairs of Wales. Two princes—Peter of Aragon and Charles of Anjou—had each advanced a claim to the crown of Sicily. An appeal to arms appeared inevitable, when it was suggested by Charles, and agreed to by Peter, that they should decide the question by _single combat_. Arrangements were seriously made; twelve commissioners were appointed on each side, and these twenty‐four drew up articles, which were afterwards ratified by both the princes. It was agreed that the combat should take place at Bourdeaux, whither the combatants were to repair on a certain day appointed, each to be accompanied by one hundred knights. But as all parties agreed in regarding Edward as standing at the head of the chivalry of Europe, it was made an essential point in the agreement that he should act as the umpire, and that the combat should take place in his presence.

These two princes had regarded Edward, evidently, as one of the same race with him of “the lion heart,” who would, no doubt, have delighted in such a scheme. They thought of the English king as a man known to be “mighty in arms,” and who had taken part in most of the great tournaments of his time. But they had overlooked, or not understood, that this was only the inferior part of his character; and that his nobler aspect was his wisdom, his statesmanlike sagacity, and, what a modern historian calls, “his legislative mind.” The proposal, when made to Edward, only struck him as being eminently absurd. He was fond of martial sports and deeds of chivalry, but he had never dreamed that the affairs of the world could be carried on by tournaments. Questions concerning kingly rights and disputed successions were handled by him in courts and parliaments, on the ground of truth, and justice, and established law, with a deliberateness which disregarded the lapse of months and years. To leave such matters to be decided by, perchance, the possession of the strongest horse or the toughest spear, was not to be for a moment thought of. His instant reply was, “that if he were to gain by it both the kingdoms of Aragon and Sicily, he would not appoint the field of battle, or suffer the two princes to fight in any place within his dominions, nor in any other place, if it were in his power to hinder it.” But he accompanied his refusal with offers of friendly mediation, which were afterwards carried into effect.

This frank and decided negative frustrated the whole plan, and Edward was soon requested to undertake a more pacific arrangement. In fact, throughout this whole affair, this sovereign of the mediæval times seems to have acted much as any modern king of sense and proper feeling would now act. To understand distinctly how great a superiority this implied over the prejudices and habits of thought of his own time, we should recal to mind the fact that, more than two centuries after Edward’s day, two such monarchs as Charles V. and Francis I. actually contemplated, for a considerable time, a settlement of their disputes by this same absurd method of a royal combat! In truth, in this, as in many other passages of his life, Edward evinced the possession, as it were by intuition, of all the practical wisdom which the experience of nearly six centuries has given to the public men of our own day.

The king had now returned from Wales, and had received an urgent invitation from Philip of France to visit him at Amiens, in order that they might consult on the subject of this dispute. He accordingly set out on this journey, and had reached Canterbury, on his way to Dover, when tidings reached him of the illness of his mother, queen Eleanor of Provence, at the convent of Ambresbury, in Wiltshire. A messenger was immediately despatched to Amiens, with a letter of apology, and Edward forthwith turned his steps towards the west. On her recovery the king paid a religious visit to the abbey of St. Edmund’s‐bury, and spent a part of the season of Lent in this retreat.

On the 25th of March, 1285, a parliament was held at Westminster, at which the “Statutes of Westminster II.” were adopted. “These statutes,” says Delolme, “are the foundations of much of the law of the land, as it now stands.” “They were framed,” says Lord Campbell, “in a spirit of enlightened legislation, and admirably accommodated the law to the changed circumstances of the social system; which ought to be the object of every wise legislator.”

In October, another parliament was held at Winchester, at which the “Statute of Winchester” was passed. This important enactment established an effective system of “watch and ward,” for the protection of life and property; which, from the laxity prevalent through all the previous reign, had come to be greatly needed.

Two other parliaments appear to have been held in Westminster, in February and May, 1286;—in fact, it seems to have been Edward’s desire to hold, whenever practicable, three or four such meetings in each year. Now, as he very seldom, in the first twenty years of his reign, had any occasion to ask his people for money, his object in thus frequently meeting his parliament must have been that of a frank and unrestrained interchange of thought and feeling as to public affairs. This was a characteristic feature of the king’s mind. Weak sovereigns and hesitating statesmen always _fear_ a parliament, and are eager for its separation and departure. But Edward knew nothing of fear, and he had one of the most transparent of minds. Even when vehemently thwarted and opposed, as by archbishop Winchelsey and earls Bigod and Bohun, his first thought generally was to send for his opponents to come to him, for that “the king wished to have a private colloquium with them.” In the present case there was no quarrel or difference of opinion; but, in all probability, the chief matter for discussion was the king’s intended visit to the continent, and the measures to be adopted for carrying on the government in his absence.

Not until the summer of that year was he able to take his departure. On the 24th of June, 1286, he embarked, accompanied by his queen, and attended by a splendid train of bishops, earls, barons, and knights. He was received with due honour by king Philip, and was conducted to St. Germain’s, where he remained for several weeks. Many important questions required to be discussed by these two potent sovereigns. There were various claims, some of which had been long undecided, on the part of the crown of England, on Normandy, Limousin, Saintonge, etc.; there was homage to be paid for possessions in France, to king Philip; and there was the difficult question, in which Edward had consented to act as umpire between the houses of Aragon and Anjou, touching the crown of Sicily.

The various questions arising out of the disputed territory in Normandy, Limousin, Saintonge, etc., occupied much time. France, now strong and at peace, felt no disposition to relinquish one foot of territory. On this point Philip was immoveable; and Edward, though equally warlike with his grandson, the victor of Crécy, felt none of the ambitious longings of Edward III. for conquests in France, nor any desire for such barren honours as those of Agincourt or Poictiers. He brought the various topics of discussion to a peaceful settlement; accepting an annual payment in lieu of some territory which Philip was unwilling to relinquish, and gaining, on the other hand, a concession of the right of appeal as regarded Gascony.

Quitting the court of France so soon as these discussions were concluded, Edward passed on to Bourdeaux, where many things required his presence and his decision. But the chief affair which had brought him to the continent remained now to be adjusted; and, like many similar questions referred to the decision of a third party, it opened a nearly interminable controversy. The two chiefs, the king of Aragon and the count of Anjou, were equally unworthy of Edward’s solicitude. He found it very difficult to effect any arrangement, and a task still more hopeless to induce them to keep their engagements when made. Like the English barons in 1263, who agreed to refer their dispute with Henry III. to the arbitration of Louis of France, meaning to abide by his decision only so far as suited their own purposes,—the two combatants in the present case could in no way be made to carry out their own pledges, or to submit to the decision which they had professed to desire. Edward succeeded at last in making a treaty which restored the prince of Salerno, Charles’s son, to his liberty; but as soon as he had returned home, the two rivals treated the rest of their engagements with mutual disregard.

The king and queen landed at Dover in August, 1289, and Edward’s first acts were of a religious nature. He had experienced, while abroad, deliverances of a more than ordinary kind. For several weeks he had suffered from a dangerous illness, from which, however, he had now entirely recovered. And on one occasion, while at Bourdeaux, a flash of lightning entering the room in which he and the queen were sitting, killed two of the attendants, while the king and his consort remained untouched. We have already stated that, after the manner of those times, Edward was a most religious king. Very naturally, therefore, his first thought on landing was to pay a visit to the abbey of St. Edmund’s‐bury, there to perform “the vows made while he was in trouble.”

But his presence, and his strong right arm, were soon demanded by various public necessities. His absence had naturally tended to give opportunity for lawless practices, both among the higher and the lower classes. The excellent “Statute of Winchester,” made not long before his departure to the continent, had been scarcely brought into operation. Bands of outlaws concealed themselves in the forests, and waylaid travellers. Often they proceeded to still greater lengths. During a fair held at Boston in Lincolnshire, Thomas Chamberlain, a man of some note, had set fire to the town, hoping, with his associates, to take advantage of the confusion and to pillage the place. He himself was taken and hanged, but none of his accomplices were discovered. And the root of these disorders lay deep, and in a quarter which ought to have been beyond suspicion. The judges of the land were corrupt, and for bribes would release the robber and the murderer. The archbishop of Canterbury, who probably greeted the king on his landing, acquainted him with these disorders, and made known to him their secret cause. Edward lost no time in acting with his accustomed energy and vigour.

On the 13th of October, the king celebrated the feast of St. Edward, and on the same day obeyed the injunctions of the prophet (Isa. lviii. 6) by issuing a proclamation, that all persons who had been aggrieved or oppressed by the judges or other ministers should come before him at the ensuing parliament, and exhibit their complaints. The result showed that the people put their trust in the king, and felt assured that his promise would be kept. A fearful case was established against the judges; and the chancellor, Burnel, whose whole course commands our respect, “brought forward very serious charges against those high functionaries for taking bribes and altering the records.” All except two—John de Metingham and Elias de Bokingham—were convicted. The chief baron Stratton was fined 34,000 marks; the chief justice of the king’s bench, 7000 marks; the master of the rolls, 1000 marks; while Weyland, the chief justice of the common pleas, who was the greatest delinquent, fled to the convent of the Friars Minor at Bury St. Edmunds, where he took sanctuary. The king, when informed of this, sent a knight with a guard, not to violate the sanctuary, but to blockade it till the judge should surrender. After holding out for two months, Weyland submitted, and petitioned for leave to abjure the realm. This, which involved the forfeiture of all his goods, was granted to him; and his property, when taken possession of, was found to amount to 100,000 marks—“an almost incredible sum,” says Blackstone, being, indeed, equal to about _one million sterling_ at the present day. Nothing could more fully establish the guilt of the accused judge, or more strikingly show the enormous extent to which his criminal practices had been carried.

“These sentences,” says lord Campbell, “had on the whole a very salutary effect.” The example was a terrible one; yet in our own day we have seen heavier sentences, such as transportation or penal servitude, inflicted for lighter offences. The king, however, immediately added a new precaution, by ordering that, in future, every judge on his appointment should take an oath to accept no gift or gratuity from any one.

Another class of offenders was about the same time brought under the notice of the king and his parliament. Dr. Henry says, “The Jews seem to have taken occasion, from the king’s absence and the venality of the judges, to push their exactions to a greater length than ever; and the cry against them was now become so vehement and universal, that the parliament which assembled at Westminster on the 12th of January, 1290, came to a resolution to banish the whole race out of the kingdom.”

Rapin adds, “The king was unable any longer to protect them without disobliging the parliament. They had enjoyed various privileges, such as synagogues in London, a sort of high priest, and judges of their own nation to decide on their own differences. These advantages they lost by not being able to curb their insatiable greediness of enriching themselves by unlawful means, such as usury, adulteration of the coin, and the like.” Another writer cites a complaint of their exactions, which shows that they were in the habit of requiring from forty to sixty‐five per cent. for the use of money; a system which would naturally and very quickly be felt to be intolerable.

Hence their entire expulsion was resolved upon, and ordered. It was not an act of “religious intolerance,” but a result of popular indignation. In effecting this, the impatient exultation of the people led them in some cases to actual ill treatment of the Jews. The sailors of a ship in which some of them had embarked placed them upon a sandbank at low water, and left them to be drowned. The king ordered the perpetrators of this crime to be brought to trial, and on their conviction capital punishment followed.

In a parliament held on the 8th of July, 1290, “several important statutes were made;” and gradually, but constantly, the idea of _legislation_ by a _parliament_ took root, grew, and became fixed in the English mind. The writs for this parliament command the sheriffs to send from their respective counties two or three knights, with full powers, “ad consulendum et consentiendum his quæ comites, barones et proceres, tum duxerint concordanda.”[28] When assembled, it placed upon the statute‐book the statutes “de Consultatione,” “de Quo Warranto,” “Quia Emptores,” and those of “Westminster III.”

In the spring and summer of this year, 1290, queen Eleanor had the satisfaction of witnessing the marriage of two of her daughters. The princess Joanna, born at Acre, and now in her eighteenth year, was united on the last day of April, in the monastery of St. John, Clerkenwell, to Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, the most powerful peer in England; and on the 9th of July, in Westminster Abbey, Margaret, the queen’s third daughter, was married to John, duke of Brabant. One of the young princesses, Mary, had in the preceding year followed the example of her grandmother, Eleanor of Provence, and had taken the veil in the convent of Ambresbury, where the old queen had long resided.

Of the frank and cordial manners of the court, and of the harmony subsisting between the king and his consort, we catch a few indications from the remaining records. Thus we find that on Easter Monday, 1290, seven of the queen’s ladies of honour invaded the king’s private chamber to perform the feat customary on that holiday,[29] of “heaving” or lifting the monarch in his chair; and from their hands he was only released on paying a fine of forty shillings to each, to be set at liberty. On another occasion, while the king and his attendants were saddling and mounting for the chase at Fingringhoe in Essex, the king espies Matilda of Waltham, his laundress, among the lookers‐on in the court‐yard. He merrily proposes a wager of a fleet horse, probably with the queen, that Matilda cannot ride with them, and be in at the death of the stag. The wager is accepted; Matilda starts and wins, and Edward has to ransom his horse for forty shillings.

On the marriage of the king’s daughter, Margaret, to the duke of Brabant, as many as four hundred and twenty‐six minstrels were present, and the bridegroom distributed among them an hundred pounds. Some entries about this period shows the king’s quick irascibility. On one occasion we note an expense incurred in repairing a crown or coronet which he had thrown behind the fire. And on the princess’s wedding‐day, an esquire, or gentleman of the court, had irritated the king by some supposed neglect or misbehaviour, and received from him a stroke on the head with a wand. But the offender was able to show the king that he had been hasty and, perhaps, unjust. Most princes would probably have been content with an expression of regret; but Edward was warm and hearty, alike in reproof or in retractation. Finding that he had done his attendant a wrong, he at once _fined himself twenty marks_, equal to about two hundred pounds of our present money, which sum was duly paid to the aggrieved party, and charged in the king’s wardrobe account. Gifts of various kinds were constantly issuing from Edward’s hands. In one year, 1286, the new year’s gift to queen Eleanor was a cup of gold, worth £23 6s. 8d.; and in another, a pitcher of gold, enamelled and set with precious stones.

But all this mutual and well‐placed affection was now to find the common termination of all earthly enjoyments. That happy and entire union which had subsisted for nearly five‐and‐thirty years was drawing to a close. The king and queen, after taking leave of their daughter Margaret, now duchess of Brabant, left their palace in Westminster for the midland counties. Edward had given directions for a parliament to be summoned to meet at Clipston, a royal palace in Sherwood Forest; and in the interim, he hoped to enjoy his favourite recreation of the chase. He also began to receive, about this time, frequent applications from Scotland, and he probably meant to go northward on that business. The queen, as usual, was with him, or near him; but while he was moving about during September, she seems to have remained at Hardby, near Lincoln. We find by mention of her physicians, and of medicine purchased for her at Lincoln, that she had an illness of some duration. It is described as a lingering disease, or slow fever. Hardby was a manor belonging to a family of the name of Weston, and we observe a sir John Weston in the queen’s service. The house was probably placed by the family at the queen’s disposal, as a quieter place for a sick person than the palace of Clipston, where the parliament was about to assemble.

It is usually said that Edward was on his road to Scotland, the queen slowly following him, and that she was taken ill on the journey, and died before he could return to her. But it has been recently shown that he remained in the vicinity of Hardby during the whole of her illness.[30] The parliament was held at Clipston—the king being present at the end of October, and it sat until the second week in November, when he returned to the sick room. We find him at Hardby from the 20th to the 28th of November, on which day the queen died.[31]

For two or three days silence reigns at Hardby. There is an entire cessation of all public business; as if the powerful mind of the king had been, for the moment, utterly prostrated. But, after this pause, we find the widowed monarch at Lincoln, where he doubtless went to issue his orders for the funeral. And all the measures he took with reference to this object and to the matters which followed, and which were connected with it, give proof of the depth of his feeling for his departed consort. It has been said, with great truth, that “this funeral procession was one of the most striking spectacles that England has ever witnessed.”[32]

About ten days were occupied in the sad and solemn journey from Lincolnshire to Westminster, the king and his relatives following the body the whole way. When the procession approached a town which was to furnish a resting‐place, it halted until the ecclesiastics of the place approached with their procession, to bear the body to its temporary abode, before the high altar in the principal church. These halting‐places were afterwards made the site of crosses, richly sculptured, and intended to remind passengers in all future times of the good queen’s last journey. These crosses were raised at Lincoln, Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, Northampton, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St. Alban’s, Waltham, West Cheap, and Charing.

The body of the departed queen, as it entered one of these towns, was met by the monks and clergy of the place, who, receiving and conveying it to its temporary resting‐place, kept watch over it all night long, with mournful chants and unceasing prayers. It was thus slowly brought to the neighbourhood of London, and here, apparently, the king left the procession by night and entered the metropolis, in order that he might meet the body at the head of the nobility and of all the dignified clergy of London and Westminster, on its approach to its last resting‐place. Some of those then present would be able to recal to memory the day when, five‐and‐thirty years before, they had accompanied king Henry and the rejoicing citizens of London to meet the young Eleanor, then for the first time approaching their city as the prince’s bride.

We have already alluded to the manner of the disposal of the queen’s remains. It is most probable that it was chiefly in accordance with Eleanor’s own desire. One portion was deposited in Lincoln cathedral; another in the church of the Black Friars in London; but the body itself was conveyed to Westminster, and placed near to the tomb of king Henry, which was even then hardly completed. It is needless to add that the funeral rites were in accordance with all the rest of this solemnly‐magnificent ceremony; “cum summâ omnium reverentiâ et honore.”

The king remained at Westminster for about a week after the interment; doubtless he was chiefly occupied in giving directions for the extraordinary honours which were yet to be paid to the memory of his departed consort. He then retired to Ashridge, a house of “Bons Hommes,” recently founded by his uncle, the earl of Cornwall, which enjoyed the reputation of possessing “a few drops of the precious blood of Jesus.” This may have been a principal reason for the selection of this spot by the king, who himself reckoned among his most valued treasures “two pieces of the rock of Calvary, which had been presented to him by one Robert Ailward, a pilgrim.”

Edward remained at Ashridge until the 26th of January, 1291, a long retirement for a man of such active energy. He then went to Evesham, or Eynsham, and from thence to Ambresbury, where his mother resided, and where he would also meet his daughter Mary. The spring opens before we find him actively engaged in public business, and there are many proofs that he never ceased to lament his beloved Eleanor. Assuredly the measures he adopted during the next two years to do honour to her memory, were of a kind which, for munificence and persevering thoughtfulness, have very seldom been equalled.

The twelve crosses, which were apparently the first thought that occurred to him, constituted in themselves a princely monument. There are records still extant of no less than £650 17s. 5d. paid for the work done on that erected at Charing, a sum equal to £10,000 of our money. The cross at West Cheap cost £300; that at Waltham, £95; that at St. Alban’s, £113. But it is probable that the statues were supplied by a different artist. We are surely within the mark when we reckon that a sum equal to £30,000 or £40,000 of our present money was expended on these mementoes.

A splendid tomb was placed in the minster at Lincoln; another, in the form of a chapel, was raised in the church of the Black Friars in London. The principal sepulchral monument, however, was naturally allotted to Westminster Abbey. There the best artist that could be procured was employed to form in metal a recumbent effigy of the queen, placed appropriately on a richly‐ornamented tomb. The cost of the tomb is not recorded, but we find entries of as much as £113 6s. 8d., equal to about £1700 of our present money, paid to the artist employed on queen Eleanor and king Henry’s effigies. A distinct payment also appears of a smaller sum for the erection of a workshop, in which these two statues were fabricated.

But the chief work still remained to be done. Edward had noble and splendid conceptions of princely works and long‐enduring memorials, but his sagacious and reflecting mind could not rest satisfied with works in stone or works in metal. The almost universal belief of the church in England in those days, even “holy bishop Robert” not dissenting, was, that prayers and alms especially directed to the welfare of a departed soul had a beneficial effect upon that soul in the intermediate state.

This opinion, when compared with the teaching of Holy Scripture at the time of the Reformation, was found to be delusive; but in the thirteenth century it had not even been questioned. Edward’s care, therefore, for the well‐being of his beloved Eleanor in the invisible world soon began to manifest itself. While at Ashridge, and himself engaged in continual prayers for his departed consort, he found time to write a very earnest and pathetic letter to the abbot of Clugny, one of the most famous monasteries in Europe, entreating the prayers of that fraternity for her, “whom living he had dearly loved, and whom, though dead, he should never cease to love.” And such a request was, doubtless, accompanied by a princely offering. But in his own realm Edward could be more definite and elaborate.

At Hardby a chantry was founded, and another at Elynton; and on the first and second anniversaries of the queen’s death we find mention of various religious services and of large distributions of alms. But the principal provision was naturally reserved for Westminster. In his gifts to the abbey church for perpetual prayers and alms on behalf of the departed queen, “the king was quite profuse.” He gave to this church the manors of Knoll, Arden’s Grafton, and Langdon, Warwickshire, with other lands in the same county; and the manors of Bidbrook in Essex, Westerham in Kent, and Turweston in Bucks, for a perpetual commemoration. Special services of the most solemn kind were provided for, and seven score poor persons were to have charity. The charter for these gifts was dated in October, 1292, showing that neither the lapse of time nor the distractions of the momentous Scottish controversy could withdraw his mind from this earnest and settled purpose.

Edward, however, was well versed in the Old Testament scriptures, and he remembered Isaiah’s warnings against religious ceremonies without justice or charity. On the anniversaries of his consort’s death, we often remark the occurrence of large distributions of alms. But another thing is also noticeable. The queen had enjoyed from her husband’s affection large landed possessions. Her stewards or bailiffs might have wronged or oppressed her tenants. We know not what proclamation may have been made, or invitation given, calling upon all who had any complaint to offer, to come forward; but it seems quite clear, that some such proclamation must have been issued; for the records are very numerous, in the next year or two, of the investigation of such complaints. And a fixed and honest purpose to do justice to all parties is evident in all these transactions.

The sorrow felt for queen Eleanor’s death was, apparently, general and sincere. Her name is connected with no political contention or intrigue; and she seems to have made no enemies. Rishanger, writing at the time of her death, styles her “this most saintly woman and queen;” and adds, somewhat hyperbolically, that she was like “a pillar that supported the whole state.” Walsingham, who wrote in the next age, described her more intelligibly, as “a woman pious, modest, pitiful, benevolent to all.” He adds, that “the sorrowful, everywhere, so far as her dignity allowed, she consoled, and those who were at variance she delighted to reconcile.” But her best eulogium is found in her consort’s grief. His penetration and sagacity, his native nobleness of soul would have rendered it impossible for him to love a mean and unworthy object. But his affection for her was not a mere youthful passion. It was after a companionship of five‐and‐thirty years that he gave his testimony to her worth; and that testimony was one which few women indeed in the whole world’s history have ever received or have ever merited.

Footnotes:

[24] “Seldom,” says Mr. Pearson, “has a shameful and violent death
been better merited than by a double‐dyed traitor like David, false
by turns to his country and his king; nor could justice be better
honoured than by making the last penalty of rebellion fall upon the
guilty prince, rather than on his followers.”—“History of England,”
vol. ii., p. 330.

[25] Tytler’s History of Scotland, vol. i., p. 431.

[26] Pearson’s Hist, of England, vol. ii., p. 336.

[27] Hoare’s edit. of Giraldus Cambrensis.

[28] Parry’s History of Parliaments, p. 54.

[29] This custom still exists, after the lapse of more than five
hundred years, in some of the midland counties of England.

[30] “Archæologia,” vol. xxix., p. 169.

[31] Ibid., p. 174.

[32] “Archæologia,” vol. xxix., p. 174.

V.

RETROSPECTIVE VIEW.

The autumn of the year 1290 was a solemn epoch in this great king’s life. In this autumn died his beloved Eleanor; in this autumn died, also, “the maiden of Norway,” the young queen of Scotland, whose death ushered in so many troubles.

Halcyon skies had for a whole quarter of a century gilded Edward’s course and prospects; but a few weeks sufficed to end the sunshine of his prosperous career. From the battle of Evesham, in 1265, to the death of his queen, and the opening of the Scottish controversy in 1290, his life had been one of great enjoyment, great harmony, and great usefulness. “Held in universal esteem at home,” and “famous throughout the world” for wisdom and valour, his lot might be regarded as one of no common prosperity. But this sad year, 1290, ended all this happiness. Clouds and storms arose, and though brief intervals of calm occurred, we find a king who was “slow to all manner of strife,” compelled in his fifty‐seventh year to don his armour and mount his horse, and set forth to meet a Scottish inroad, and from that time forth until his death in 1307, almost in every year we find him, in whom the infirmities of age must have begun to make themselves felt, in harness and in the saddle, sleeping at night by his horse’s side on the bare heath, working with his men in the laborious siege of a fortress, and encountering, all the time, what to such a man was by far more painful—treachery from professed friends, and from his foes, perpetual simulations of submission, followed by constant treasons and breaches of covenant, the moment the sword was lifted from their throat. We open, in this sad year, the second volume of Edward’s reign, but before we close the first, let us glance for a few moments at the past, and try once more to rectify the widespread error, or rather the constant misrepresentation, which shows to us this great king as, by choice, a man of war; when he was, more than most other sovereigns, a man of peace.

One of the ablest, and generally one of the fairest of our modern historians, thus commences his account of Edward’s reign:—“Laying aside his disputes with his neighbours as a French prince, his active and splendid reign may be considered as an attempt to subject the whole island of Great Britain to his sway.”[33] And a few pages later we are told that “his ambition tainted all his acts,” and again, that “a conqueror is a perpetual plotter against the safety of all nations.” And another justly‐esteemed writer, Mr. Sharon Turner, tells us that “The reign of Edward was that of a prince whose sedate judgment and active talents advanced the civilization and power of his country. It may be considered under four heads—his incorporation of Wales, his wars in Scotland, his foreign treaties, and his internal reforms.”

Thus both these writers, and with them a multitude of smaller note, agree in describing Edward as a man of ambition, a man covetous of his neighbour’s possessions, a conqueror, “perpetually plotting” against the safety of others. Now, our quarrel with this view is not merely that it is inaccurate or imperfect, but that it is diametrically opposed to all the principal facts of the case, calling white black and black white, and representing a sovereign as ambitious and unscrupulous, whose real character was that he was scrupulously conscientious;—“as careful in performing his obligations as in exacting his rights,”[34] or, again, to cite the old chronicler,

“Slowe to all manner of strife;
Discreet and wise, and true of his worde.”

Such writers as those we have cited place before their readers a king who, from his very accession, coveted and “plotted against” both Wales and Scotland. To this we oppose the indubitable facts, that when Llewellyn withheld his homage, Edward, instead of proceeding to extremities, was patient and forbearing, sent him summons after summons, offered to go to Shrewsbury or to Chester to meet him, and waited, in all, two whole years before he took up arms. And, again, that when Llewellyn was reduced to extremities, and might have been banished and Wales annexed, Edward granted him peace the moment he asked it, replaced him in his seat, attended his marriage, and did all he could to make him his friend. The war which led to Llewellyn’s chance‐medley death, and to the annexation, was a war made by Llewellyn and David, not by the English king.

As for Scotland, the conquest of which is placed in the fore‐front of Edward’s ambitious designs, it is surely enough to say that he ascended the throne in 1272, and that during more than eighteen years he never stirred one step or moved a finger against the honour and independence of Scotland. In 1290 the Scottish throne became vacant, and he was clamorously besought, for years, by all the chief men in Scotland to interfere. Yet, instead of seizing the opportunity, he stood aloof, went, at last, cautiously into the question, and in November, 1292, adjudged the throne to Baliol.