Part 13

Philip III. of France, who had always pursued a friendly policy with his cousin of England, had died in 1285, and had been succeeded by his son Philip IV., a prince of a very different type, the most able and unscrupulous of all the dynasty of Capet. In 1294 he played a most dishonourable trick upon King Edward. There had been some irregular and piratical fighting at sea between English and Norman sailors, in which the latter had been worsted. When called to account for the doings of his subjects, as well as for certain disputes in Gascony, the English king promised redress, and, on the suggestion of Philip, surrendered, as a formal act of apology, the six chief fortresses of Guienne, which were to be restored when reparation had been made. Having garrisoned the places, Philip suddenly changed his line, refused to continue the negotiations, and declared the whole duchy forfeited. Edward was forced into war, after having been tricked out of his strongholds. Just after his first succours had sailed for the Gironde, the great Welsh rebellion of 1294 broke out, and the king was compelled to turn aside to repress it. This he accomplished in the next spring, but meanwhile hardly a foothold remained to him in Gascony. He was then preparing to cross the Channel in person, when Scottish affairs began to become threatening. King John declared himself unable to restrain the indignation of his subjects at the attempt to enforce English suzerainty over Scotland, and in July 1295 leagued himself with Philip of France, and expelled from his realm the chief supporters of the English alliance. Finding himself involved in two wars at once, Edward made an earnest appeal to his subjects to rise to the occasion and "because that which touches all should be approved of all" summoned the celebrated "model parliament" of November 1295, which exactly copied in its constitution Montfort's parliament of 1265, members from all cities and boroughs being summoned along with the knights of the shires, and the inferior clergy being also represented by their proctors. This system henceforth became the normal one, and the English parliament assumed its regular form, though the differentiation of the two houses was not fully completed till the next century. Edward was voted liberal grants by the laity, though the clergy gave less than he had hoped; but enough money was obtained to fit out two armies, one destined for the invasion of Scotland, the other for that of Gascony.

Invasion of Scotland.

The French expedition, which was led by the king's brother Edmund, earl of Lancaster, failed to recover Gascony, and came to an ignominious end. But Edward's own army achieved complete success in Scotland. Berwick was stormed, the Scottish army was routed at Dunbar (April 27), Edinburgh and Stirling were easily captured, and at last John Baliol, deserted by most of his adherents, surrendered at Brechin. Edward pursued his triumphant march as far as Aberdeen and Elgin, without meeting further resistance. He then summoned a parliament at Berwick, and announced to the assembled Scots that he had determined to depose King John, and to assume the crown himself. The ease with which he had subdued the realm misled him; he fancied that the slack resistance, which was mainly due to the incapacity and unpopularity of Baliol, implied the indifference of the Scots to the idea of annexation. The alacrity with which the greater part of the baronage flocked in to do him homage confirmed him in the mistaken notion. He appointed John, earl Warenne, lieutenant of the realm, with Hugh Cressingham, an English clerk, as treasurer, but left nearly all the minor offices in Scottish hands, and announced that Scottish law should be administered. He then returned to England, and began to make preparations for a great expedition to France in 1297.

Disputes with the clergy and baronage.

His plan was something more ambitious than a mere attempt to recover Bordeaux; succours were to go to Gascony, but he himself and the main army were to invade France from the north with the aid of the count of Flanders. Much money was, of course, needed for the double expedition, and in raising it Edward became involved in two desperate constitutional disputes. Though the barons and the commons voted a liberal grant at the parliament of Bury (Nov. 1296) the clergy would give nothing. This was owing to a bull--the celebrated _Clericis Laicos_, recently issued by the arrogant and contentious pope Boniface VIII., which forbade the clergy to submit to any taxation by secular princes. Robert Winchelsea, the archbishop of Canterbury, an enthusiastic exponent of clerical rights and grievances, declared himself in conscience bound to obey the pontiff, and persuaded the representatives of the Church in the parliament to refuse supplies. The king, indignant that an attempt should be made to exempt the vast ecclesiastical lands from taxation at a time of national crisis, sequestrated the estates of the see of Canterbury, and copied John's conduct in 1208 by outlawing the whole body of the clergy. Winchelsea in return excommunicated all those who refused to recognize the authority of the pope's bull.

Scarcely was this quarrel developed when Edward found himself involved in an equally hot dispute with the commons and the baronage. In his eagerness to collect the sinews of war he had issued orders for the levy of a heavy customs duty on wool, the main export of the land, and in some cases laid hands on the wool itself, which lay ready for shipping, though this had not been granted him by the late parliament. The "maltolt"--or illegal tax--as his subjects called it, provoked the anger of the whole body of merchants in England. At the same time the barons, headed by the earls of Norfolk and Hereford, raised the old grievance about feudal service beyond seas, which had been so prominent in the time of King John. Norfolk, who had been designated to lead the expedition to Guienne; declared that though he was ready to follow his master to Flanders in his capacity of marshal, he would not be drafted off to Gascony against his own will. Hereford and a number of other barons gave him hearty support.

Harassed by these domestic troubles, the king could not carry out his intention of sailing for Flanders in the spring, and spent the greater part of the campaigning season in wrangles with his subjects. He was obliged to come to a compromise. If the clergy would give him a voluntary gift, which was in no way to be considered a tax, he agreed to inlaw them. They did so, and even Winchelsea, after a time, was reconciled to his master. As to the barons, the king took the important constitutional step of conceding that he would not ask them to serve abroad as a feudal obligation, but would pay them for their services, if they would oblige him by joining his banner. Even then Norfolk and Hereford refused to sail; but the greater part of the minor magnates consented to serve as stipendiaries. The commons were conciliated by a promise that the wool which the royal officers had seized should be paid for, when a balance was forthcoming in the exchequer.

Insurrection in Scotland. Wallace.

By these means Edward succeeded at last in collecting a considerable army, and sailed for Flanders at the end of August. But he was hardly gone when dreadful news reached him from Scotland. An insurrection, to which no great importance was attached at first, had broken out in the summer. Its first leader was none of the great barons, but a Renfrewshire knight, Sir William Wallace; but ere long more important persons, including Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick (grandson of Robert Bruce of Annandale, one of the competitors for the crown of Scotland), and the bishop of Glasgow, were found to be in communication with the rebels. Earl Warenne, the king's lieutenant in Scotland, mustered his forces to put down the rising. On the 11th of September 1297 he attempted to force the passage of the Forth at Stirling Bridge, and was completely beaten by Wallace, who allowed half the English army to pass the river and then descended upon it and annihilated it, while Warenne looked on helplessly from the other bank. Almost the whole of Scotland rose in arms on hearing of this victory, but the barons showed less zeal than the commons, owing to their jealousy of Wallace. Warenne retired to Berwick and besought his master for aid.

The "Confirmatio Cartarum."

Edward, who was just commencing an autumn campaign in Flanders which was to lead to no results, sent home orders to summon a parliament, which should raise men and money for the Scottish war. It was called, and made a liberal grant for that purpose, but Archbishop Winchelsea and the earls of Norfolk and Hereford took advantage of their master's needs, and of his absence, to assert themselves. Taking up the position of defenders of the constitution, they induced the parliament to couple its grants of money with the condition that the king should not only confirm Magna Carta--as had been so often done before--but give a specific promise that no "maltolts," or other taxes not legally granted him, should be raised for the future. Edward received the petition at Ghent, and made the required oath. The document to which he gave his assent, the _Confirmatio Cartarum_ (less accurately called the statute _De Tallagio non concedendo_) marked a distinct advance beyond the theories of Magna Carta; for the latter had been drawn up before England possessed a parliament, and had placed the control of taxation in the hands of the old feudal council of tenants-in-chief, while the _Confirmatio_ gave it to the assembly, far more national and representative, which had now superseded the Great Council as the mouthpiece of the whole people of the realm.

The Scottish revolt had become so formidable that Edward was compelled to abandon his unfruitful Flemish campaign; he patched up an unsatisfactory truce with the king of France, which left four-fifths of his lost Gascon lands in the power of the enemy, and returned to England in the spring of 1298. In July he invaded Scotland at the head of a formidable army of 15,000 men, and on the 22nd of that month brought Wallace to action on the moors above Falkirk. The steady Scottish infantry held their own for some time against the charge of the English men-at-arms. But when Edward brought forward his archers to aid his cavalry, as William I. had done at Hastings, Wallace's columns broke up, and a dreadful slaughter followed. The impression made on the Scots was so great that for some years they refused to engage in another pitched battle. But the immediate consequences were not all that might have been expected. Edward was able to occupy many towns and castles, but the broken bands of the insurgents lurked in the hills and forests, and the countryside as a whole remained unsubdued. Wallace went to France to seek aid from King Philip, and his place was taken by John Comyn, lord of Badenoch, a nephew of Baliol, who was a more acceptable leader to the Scottish nobles than the vanquished knight of Falkirk. Edward was detained in the south for a year, partly by negotiations with France, partly by a renewed quarrel with his parliament, and during his absence Comyn recovered Stirling and most of the other places which had received English garrisons. It was not till 1300 that the king was able to resume the invasion of Scotland, with an army raised by grants of money that he had only bought by humiliating concessions to the will of his parliament, formulated in the _Articuli super cartas_ which were drawn up in the March of that year. Even then he only succeeded in recovering some border holds, and the succeeding campaign of 1301 only took him as far as Linlithgow. But in the following year his position was suddenly changed by unexpected events abroad; the king of France became involved in a desperate quarrel with the pope, and at the same moment his army received a crushing defeat before Courtrai at the hands of the Flemings. To free himself for these new struggles Philip made up his mind to conclude peace with England, even at the cost of sacrificing his conquests in Gascony. Bordeaux had already revolted from him, and he gave up the rest of his ill-gotten gains of 1294 by the treaty of Paris (May 20, 1303).

Edward again invades Scotland, 1303.

Now that he had only a single war upon his hands Edward's position was entirely changed. There was no more need to conciliate the magnates nor the parliament. His displeasure fell mainly on the archbishop and the earl of Norfolk, who had so long led the opposition. Winchelsea was put in disgrace, and ultimately exiled. Norfolk, who was childless, was forced to sign a grant by which his lands went to the king after his death--a harsh and illegal proceeding, for he had collateral heirs. But the Scots, as was natural, bore the brunt of the king's wrath. In June 1303, a month after the peace of Paris, he advanced from Roxburgh, determined to make a systematic conquest of the realm, and not to return till it was ended. He kept up his campaign throughout the winter, reduced every fortress that held out, and carried his arms as far as Aberdeen and Elgin. In February 1304 the regent Comyn and most of the Scottish baronage submitted, on the promise that they should retain their lands on doing homage. Wallace, who had returned from France, kept up a guerilla warfare in the hills for a year more, but was captured in July 1305, and sent to London to be executed as a traitor. Even before his capture it seemed that Scotland was thoroughly tamed, and was destined to share the fate of Wales.

Edward's arrangements for the administration of the conquered kingdom were wise and liberal, if only the national spirit of the Scots could have tolerated them. The Scottish parliament was to continue, though representatives from beyond Tweed were also to be sent to the English parliament. The sheriffdoms and most of the ministerial posts were left in the hands of Scots, though the supreme executive authority was put in the hands of John of Brittany, earl of Richmond, the king's nephew. The land seemed for a time to be settling down, and indeed the baronage were to such a large extent English in both blood and feeling, that there was no insuperable difficulty in conciliating them. A considerable fraction of them adhered consistently to the English cause from this time forth, and ultimately lost their lands for refusing to follow the rest of the nation in the next insurrection.

But the delusion that Scotland had been finally subdued was to last only for a year, although in 1305 Edward seemed to have accomplished his task, and stood triumphant, with the northern realm at his feet, his domestic foes humbled, and France and the papacy defeated. His last short interval of peaceful rule was distinguished by the passing of the Statute of Trailbaston in the parliament of 1305. This was a measure for the repression of local riots, empowering justices in every shire to suppress clubmen (_trailbastons_), gangs of marauders who had been rendering the roads unsafe.

Robert Bruce.

In the first month of 1306, however, the weary Scottish war broke out again, with the appearance of a new insurgent chief. Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick, grandson of the claimant to the throne of 1292, had hitherto pursued a shifty policy, wavering between submission and opposition to the English invader. He had been in arms more than once, but had finally adhered to the pacification of 1304, and was now entirely trusted by the king. But he was secretly plotting rebellion, disgusted (as it would seem) that Edward had not transferred the crown of Scotland to the line of Bruce when the house of Baliol was found wanting. Though he found himself certain of a considerable amount of support, he yet could see that there would be no general rising in his favour, for many of the magnates refused to help in making king a baron whom they regarded as no more important than one of themselves. But the insurrection was precipitated by an unpremeditated outrage. Bruce was conferring at Dumfries with John Comyn, the late regent, whom he was endeavouring to tempt into his plots, on the 10th of January 1306. An angry altercation followed, for Comyn would have nothing to do with the scheme, and Bruce and his followers finally slew him before the altar of a church into which he had fled. After this crime, which combined the disgrace of sacrilege with that of murder under tryst, Bruce was forced to take arms at once, though his preparations were incomplete. He raised his banner, and was hastily crowned at Scone on the 25th of March; by that time the rising had burst out in many shires of Scotland, but it was neither unanimous nor complete. Edward by no means despaired of crushing it, and had raised a large army, when he was smitten with an illness which prevented him from crossing the border. But his troops, under Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, pressed north, and surprised and routed Bruce at Methven near Perth. The pretender's brother Nigel and many of his chief supporters were taken prisoners, and he himself escaped with a handful of followers and took refuge in the Western islands. Edward ordered young Nigel Bruce and many other captives to be executed; for he was provoked to great wrath by the rebellion of a magnate who had given him every assurance of loyalty. He intended to follow de Valence to Scotland, and to complete the suppression of the rising in person. But this proved beyond his strength; he struggled as far as the border in July, but could not shake off his disease, and was forced to linger, a broken invalid, in the neighbourhood of Carlisle for many months. Meanwhile his lieutenants failed to follow up with energy the victory gained at Methven, and in the next spring Bruce reappeared in the Lowlands, gathered new levies, and inflicted a defeat on de Valence at Loudoun Hill. Roused to anger King Edward rose from his bed, mounted his horse, and started for Scotland. But after struggling on for a few miles he fell by the way, and died at Burgh-on-Sands, just inside the English border, on the 7th of July 1307.

Character of Edward I.'s rule.

Despite the chequered fortunes of his later years the reign of Edward had been a time of progress and prosperity for England. He had given his realm good and strong governance; according to his lights he had striven to keep faith and to observe his coronation oath. He had on more than one occasion quarrelled with his subjects, but matters had never been pushed to an open rupture. The king knew how to yield, and even opponents like Winchelsea and the earls of Norfolk and Hereford respected him too much to drive him to an extremity. The nation, however much it might murmur, would never have been willing to rebel against a sovereign whose only fault was that he occasionally pressed his prerogative too far. Edward's rule was seldom or never oppressive, the seizure of the merchants' wool in 1297 was the only one of his acts which caused really fierce and widespread indignation. For his other arbitrary proceedings he had some show of legal justification in every case. It would have been absurd to declare that his rule was tyrannical or his policy disastrous. The realm was on the whole contented and even flourishing. Population was steadily increasing, and with it commerce; the intellectual activity which had marked the reign of Henry III. was still alive; architecture, religious and military, was in its prime. He was himself a great builder, and many of the perfected castles of that concentric style, which later ages have called the "Edwardian type," were of his own planning. In ecclesiastical architecture his reign represents the early flower of the "Decorated" order, perhaps the most beautiful of all the developments of English art. In many respects the reign may be regarded as the culmination and crowning point of the middle ages. It certainly gave a promise of greatness and steady progress which the 14th century was far from justifying.

Edward II.

With the great king's death a sudden change for the worse was at once visible. The individual character of the reigning king was still the main factor in political history, and Edward II. was in every respect a contrast to his father. He was incorrigibly frivolous, idle and apathetic; his father had given him much stern schooling, but this seems only to have inspired him with a deeply rooted dislike for official work of any kind. He has been well described as "the first king since the Conquest who was not a man of business." Even Stephen and Henry III. had been active and bustling princes, though their actions were misguided and inconsequent. But Edward II. hated all kingly duties; he detested war, but he detested even more the routine work of administration. He was most at his ease in low company, his favourite diversion was gambling, his best trait a love for farming and the mechanical arts of the smith and the gardener.

Piers Gaveston.

His first acts on coming to the throne caused patriotic Englishmen to despair. His father, on his death-bed, had made him swear to conduct the Scottish expedition to its end. But he marched no further than Dumfries, and then turned back, on the vain pretext that he must conduct his parent's funeral in person. Leaving Bruce to gather fresh strength and to commence the tedious process of reducing the numerous English garrisons in Scotland, he betook himself to London, and was not seen on the border again for more than three years. He then dismissed all his father's old ministers, and replaced them by creatures of his own, for the most part persons of complete incompetence. But his most offensive act was to promote to the position of chief councillor of the crown, and disperser of the royal favours, a clever but vain and ostentatious Gascon knight, one Piers Gaveston, who had been the companion of his boyhood, and had been banished by Edward I. for encouraging him in his follies and frivolity. Piers was given the royal title of earl of Cornwall, and married to the king's niece; when Edward went over to France to do homage for Gascony, he even made his friend regent during his absence, in preference to any of his kinsmen. It was his regular habit to refer those who came to him on matters of state to "his good brother Piers," and to refuse to discuss them in person.

Baronial opposition.