22. The Battle of Lewes. 1264.—The Mise of Amiens required an unconditional surrender of England to the king. The Londoners and the trading towns were the first to reject it. Simon put himself at the head of a united army of barons and citizens. In the early morning of May 14 he caught the king's army half asleep at Lewes. Edward charged at the Londoners, against whom he bore a grudge since they had ill-treated his mother, and cleared them off the field with enormous slaughter. When he returned the battle was lost. Henry himself was captured, and Richard, king of the Romans, was found hiding in a windmill. Edward, in spite of his success, had to give himself up as a prisoner.



23. Earl Simon's Government. 1264-1265.—Simon followed up his victory by an agreement called the Mise of Lewes, according to which all matters of dispute were again to be referred to arbitration. In the meantime there were to be three Electors, Earl Simon himself, the Earl of Gloucester, and the Bishop of Chichester. These were to elect nine councillors, who were to name the ministers of state. To keep these councillors within bounds a Parliament was called, in which with the barons, bishops, and abbots there sat not only chosen knights for each shire, but also for the first time two representatives of certain towns. This Parliament met in 1265. It was not, indeed, a full parliament, as only Simon's partisans amongst the barons were summoned, but it was the fullest representation of England as a whole which had yet met, and not a merely baronial committee like that proposed in 1258. The views of Simon were clearly indicated in an argumentative Latin poem written after the battle of Lewes by one of his supporters. In this poem the king's claim to do as he likes with his own is met by a demand that he shall rule according to law. Such a demand was made by others than the poet. "The king," a great lawyer of the day had said, "is not subject to any man, but to God and the law." The difficulty still remained of ascertaining what the law was. The poet did not, indeed, anticipate modern theories, and hold that the law was what the representatives of the people made it to be; but he held that the law consisted in the old customs, and that the people themselves must be appealed to as the witnesses of what those old customs were. "Therefore," he wrote, "let the community of the kingdom advise, and let it be known what the generality thinks, to whom their own laws are best known. Nor are all those of the country so ignorant that they do not know better than strangers the customs of their own kingdom which have been handed down to them by their ancestors."[14] The poet, in short, regarded the Parliament as a national jury, whose duty it was to give evidence on the laws and customs of the nation, in the same way that a local jury gave evidence on local matters.

[Footnote 14:

"Igitur communitas regni consulatur; Et quid universitas sentiat, sciatur, Cui leges propriae maxime sunt notae. Nec cuncti provinciae sic sunt idiotae, Quin sciant plus caeteris regni sui mores, Quos relinquunt posteris hii qui sunt priores."]



24. The Battle of Evesham. 1265.—Simon's constitution was premature. Men wanted a patriotic king who could lead the nation instead of one who, like Henry, used it for his own ends. The new rulers were sure to quarrel with one another. If Simon was still Simon the Righteous, his sons acted tyrannically. The barons began again to distrust Simon himself, and the young Earl of Gloucester, like his father before him, put himself at the head of the dissatisfied barons, and went over to the king. Edward escaped from confinement, by urging his keepers to ride races with one another, and then galloping off when their horses were too tired to follow him. Edward and Gloucester combined forces, and, falling on Earl Simon at Evesham, defeated him utterly. Simon was slain in the fight and his body barbarously mutilated; but his memory was treasured, and he was counted as a saint by the people for whom he had worked. Verses have been preserved in which he is compared to Archbishop Thomas, who had given himself as a sacrifice for the Church, as Simon had given himself as a sacrifice for the nation.



25. The Last Years of Henry III. 1265—1272.—The storm which had been raised was some time in calming down. Some of Earl Simon's followers continued to hold out against the king. When at last they submitted, they were treated leniently, and in 1267, at a Parliament at Marlborough, a statute was enacted embodying most of the demands for the redress of grievances made by the earlier reformers. The kingdom settled down in peace, because Henry now allowed Edward to be the real head of the government. Edward, in short, carried on Earl Simon's work in ruling justly, with the advantage of being raised above jealousies by his position as heir to the throne. In 1270 England was so peaceful that Edward could embark on a crusade. At Acre he very nearly fell a victim to a fanatic belonging to a body which counted assassination a religious duty. His wife, Eleanor of Castile, who was tenderly attached to him, had to be led out of his tent, lest her bitter grief should distract him during an operation which the surgeons held to be necessary. In 1272 Henry III. died, and his son, though in a distant land, was quietly accepted as his successor.



26. General Progress of the Country.—In spite of the turmoils of Henry's reign the country made progress in many ways. Men busied themselves with replacing the old round-arched churches by large and more beautiful ones, in that Early English style of which Lincoln Cathedral was the first example on a large scale. In 1220 it was followed by Beverley Minster (see p. 189). The nave of Salisbury Cathedral was begun in 1240 (see p. 206), and a new Westminster Abbey grew piecemeal under Henry's own supervision during the greater part of the reign (see p. 205). Mental activity accompanied material activity. At Oxford there were reckoned 15,000 scholars. Most remarkable was the new departure taken by Walter de Merton, Henry's Chancellor. Hitherto each scholar had shifted for himself, lived where he could, and been subjected to little or no discipline. In founding Merton College, the first college which existed in the University, Merton proposed not only to erect a building in which the lads who studied might be boarded and placed under supervision, but to train them with a view to learning for its own sake, and not to prepare them for the priesthood. The eagerness to learn things difficult was accompanied by a desire to increase popular knowledge. For the first time since the Chronicle came to an end, which was soon after the accession of Henry II., a book—Layamon's Brut—appeared in the reign of John in the English language, and one at least of the songs which witness to the interest of the people in the great struggle with Henry III. was also written in the same language. Yet the great achievement of the fifty-six years of Henry's reign was—to use the language of the smith who refused to put fetters on the limbs of Hubert de Burgh (see p. 188)—the giving of England back to the English. In 1216 it was possible for Englishmen to prefer a French-born Louis as their king to an Angevin John. In 1272 England was indeed divided by class prejudices and conflicting interests, but it was nationally one. The greatest grievance suffered from Henry III. was his preference of foreigners over his own countrymen. In resistance to foreigners Englishmen had been welded together into a nation, and in their new king Edward they found a leader who would not only prove a wise and thoughtful ruler, but who was every inch an Englishman.

Genealogy of John's Sons and Grandsons.

JOHN, 1199-1216 HENRY III. = Eleanor of Richard, Eleanor = Simon de 1216-1272 Provence Earl of Cornwall Montfort and King of the Romans - EDWARD I. Edmund, titular King of Sicily 1272-1307



CHAPTER XIV.

EDWARD I. AND EDWARD II.

EDWARD I., 1272—1307. EDWARD II., 1307—1327.

LEADING DATES

Accession of Edward I. 1272 Death of Alexander III. 1285 The Award of Norham 1292 The Model Parliament 1295 The First Conquest of Scotland 1296 Confirmatio Cartarum 1297 Completion of the Second Conquest of Scotland 1304 The Incorporation of Scotland with England 1305 The Third Conquest of Scotland 1306 Accession of Edward II. 1307 Execution of Gaveston 1312 Battle of Bannockburn 1314 Execution of Lancaster 1322 Deposition of Edward II. 1327



1. The First Years of Edward I. 1272—1279.—Edward I., though he inherited the crown in 1272, did not return to England till 1274, being able to move in a leisurely fashion across Europe without fear of disturbances at home. He fully accepted those articles of John's Great Charter which had been set aside at the beginning of the reign of Henry III., and which required that the king should only take scutages and aids with the consent of the Great Council or Parliament. The further requirement of the barons that they should name the ministers of the crown, was allowed to fall asleep. Edward was a capable ruler, and knew how to appoint better ministers than the barons were likely to choose for him. It was Edward's peculiar merit that he stood forward not only as a ruler but as a legislator. He succeeded in passing one law after another, because he thoroughly understood that useful legislation is only possible when the legislator on the one hand has an intelligent perception of the remedies needed to meet existing evils, and on the other hand is willing to content himself with such remedies as those who are to be benefited by them are ready to accept. The first condition was fulfilled by Edward's own skill as a lawyer, and by the skill of the great lawyers whom he employed. The second condition was fulfilled by his determination to authorise no new legislation without the counsel and consent of those who were most affected by it. He did not, indeed, till late in his reign call a whole Parliament together, as Earl Simon had done. But he called the barons together in any matter which affected the barons, and he called the representatives of the townsmen together in any matter which affected the townsmen, and so on with the other classes.

2. Edward I. and Wales. 1276—1284.—Outside England Edward's first difficulty was with the Welsh, who, though their Princes had long been regarded by the English Kings as vassals, had practically maintained their independence in the mountainous region of North Wales of which Snowdon is the centre. Between them and the English Lords Marchers, who had been established to keep order in the marches, or border-land, there was nothing but hostility. The Welshmen made forays and plundered the English lands, and the English retorted by slaughtering Welshmen whenever they could come up with them amongst the hills. Naturally the Welsh took the side of any enemy of the English kings with whom it was possible to ally themselves. Llewelyn, Prince of Wales, had joined Earl Simon against Henry III., and had only done homage to Henry after Simon had been defeated. After Henry's death he refused homage to Edward till 1276. In 1282 he and his brother David renewed the war, and Edward, determined to put an end to the independence of such troublesome neighbours, marched against them. Before the end of the year Llewelyn was slain, and David was captured and executed in 1283. Wales then came fully under the dominion of the English kings. Edward's second son, afterwards King Edward II., was born at Carnarvon in 1284, and soon afterwards, having become heir to the throne upon the death of his elder brother, was presented to the Welsh as Prince of Wales, a title from that day usually bestowed upon the king's eldest son. At the same time, though Edward built strong castles at Conway and Carnarvon to hold the Welsh in awe, he made submission easier by enacting suitable laws for them, under the name of the Statute of Wales, and by establishing a separate body of local officials to govern them, as well as by confirming them in the possession of their lands and goods.



3. Customs Duties. 1275.—Though Edward I. was by no means extravagant, he found it impossible to meet the expenses of government without an increase of taxation. In 1275 he obtained the consent of Parliament to the increase of the duties on exports and imports which had hitherto been levied without Parliamentary sanction. He was now to receive by a Parliamentary grant a fixed export duty of 6s. 8d. on every sack of wool sent out of the country, and of a corresponding duty on wool-fells and leather. Under ordinary circumstances it is useless for any government to attempt to gain a revenue by export duty, because such a duty only raises the price abroad of the products of its own country, and foreigners will therefore prefer to buy the articles which they need from some country which does not levy export duties, and where, therefore, the articles are to be had more cheaply. England, however, was, in Edward's time, and for many years afterwards, an exception to the rule. On the Continent men could not produce much wool or leather for sale, because private wars were constantly occurring, and the fighting men were in the habit of driving off the sheep and the cattle. In England there were no private wars, and under the king's protection sheep and cattle could be bred in safety. There were now growing up manufactures of cloth in the fortified towns of Flanders, and the manufacturers there were obliged to come to England for the greater part of the wool which they used. They could not help paying not only the price of the wool, but the king's export duty as well, because if they refused they could not get sufficient wool in any other country.

4. Edward's Judicial Reforms. 1274—1290.—Every king of England since the Norman Conquest had exercised authority in a twofold capacity. On one hand he was the head of the nation, on the other hand he was the feudal lord of his vassals. Edward laid more stress than any former king upon his national headship. Early in his reign he organised the courts of law, completing the division of the Curia Regis into the three courts which existed till recent times: the Court of King's Bench, to deal with criminal offences reserved for the king's judgment, and with suits in which he was himself concerned; the Court of Exchequer, to deal with all matters touching the king's revenue; and the Court of Common Pleas, to deal with suits between subject and subject. Edward took care that the justice administered in these courts should as far as possible be real justice, and in 1289 he dismissed two Chief Justices and many other officials for corruption. In 1285 he improved the Assize of Arms of Henry II. (see p. 154), so as to be more sure of securing a national support for his government in time of danger.

5. Edward's Legislation. 1279—1290.—It was in accordance with the national feeling that Edward, in 1290, banished from England the Jews, whose presence was most profitable to himself, but who were regarded as cruel tyrants by their debtors. On the other hand, Edward took care to assert his rights as a feudal lord. In 1279, by the statute De religiosis, commonly known as the Statute of Mortmain, he forbade the gift of land to the clergy, because in their hands land was no longer liable to the feudal dues. In 1290, by another statute, Quia emptores, he forbade all new sub-infeudation. If from henceforth a vassal wished to part with his land, the new tenant was to hold it, not under the vassal who gave it up, but under that vassal's lord, whether the lord was the king or anyone else. The object of this law was to increase the number of tenants-in-chief, and thus to bring a larger number of landowners into direct relations with the king.



6. Edward as a National and as a Feudal Ruler.—In his government of England Edward had sought chiefly to strengthen his position as the national king of the whole people, and to depress legally and without violence the power of the feudal nobility. He was, however, ambitious, with the ambition of a man conscious of great and beneficent aims, and he was quite ready to enforce even unduly his personal claims to feudal obedience whenever it served his purpose to do so. His favourite motto, 'Keep troth' (Pactum serva), revealed his sense of the inviolability of a personal engagement given or received, but his legal mind often led him into construing in his own favour engagements in which only the letter of the law was on his side, whilst its spirit was against him. It was chiefly in his relations with foreign peoples that he fell into this error, as it was here that he was most strongly tempted to lay stress upon the feudal tie which made for him, and to ignore the importance of a national resistance which made against him. In dealing with Wales, for instance, he sent David to a cruel death, because he had broken the feudal tie which bound him to the king of England, feeling no sympathy with him as standing up for the independence of his own people.

7. The Scottish Succession. 1285-1290.—In the earlier part of Edward's reign Alexander III. was king of Scotland. Alexander's ancestors, indeed, had done homage to Edward's ancestors, but in 1189 William the Lion had purchased from Richard I. the abandonment of all the claim to homage for the crown of Scotland which Henry II. had acquired by the treaty of Falaise (see pp. 154, 159). William's successors, however, held lands in England, and had done homage for them to the English kings. Edward would gladly have restored the old practice of homage for Scotland itself, but to this Alexander had never given way. To Edward there was something alluring in the prospect of being lord of the whole island, as it would not only strengthen his own personal position, but would bring two nations into peaceful union. Between the southern part of Scotland, indeed, and the northern part of England there was no great dissimilarity. On both sides of the border the bulk of the population was of the same Anglian stock, whilst, in consequence of the welcome offered by the Scottish kings to persons of Norman descent, the nobility was as completely Norman in Scotland as it was in England, many of the nobles indeed possessing lands on both sides of the border. A prospect of effecting a union by peaceful means offered itself to Edward in 1285, when Alexander III. was killed by a fall from his horse near Kinghorn. Alexander's only descendant was Margaret, a child of his daughter and of King Eric of Norway. In 1290 it was agreed that she should marry the Prince of Wales, but that the two kingdoms should remain absolutely independent of one another. Unfortunately, the Maid of Norway, as the child was called, died on her way to Scotland, and this plan for establishing friendly relations between the two countries came to naught. If it had succeeded three centuries of war and misery might possibly have been avoided.

8. Death of Eleanor of Castile. 1290.—Another death, which happened in the same year, brought sorrow into Edward's domestic life. His wife Eleanor died in November. The corpse was brought for burial from Lincoln to Westminster, and the bereaved husband ordered the erection of a memorial cross at each place where the body rested.



9. The Award of Norham. 1291—1292.—Edward, sorrowing as he was, was unable to neglect the affairs of State. On the death of the Maid of Norway there was a large number of claimants to the Scottish crown. The hereditary principle, which had long before been adopted in regard to the succession to landed property, was gradually being adopted in most kingdoms in regard to the succession to the crown. There were still, however, differences of opinion as to the manner in which hereditary succession ought to be reckoned, and there were now many claimants, of whom at least three could make out a plausible case. David, Earl of Huntingdon, a brother of William the Lion, had left three daughters. The grandson of the eldest daughter was John Balliol; the son of the second was Robert Bruce; the grandson of the third was John Hastings. Balliol maintained that he ought to succeed as being descended from the eldest: Bruce urged that the son of a younger daughter was nearer to the common ancestor, David, than the grandson of the elder: whilst Hastings asked that Scotland should be divided into three parts—according to a custom which prevailed in feudal estates in which the holder left only daughters—amongst the representatives of David's three daughters.[15] Every one of these three claimants was an English baron, and Bruce held large estates in both countries. The only escape from a desolating civil war seemed to be to appeal to Edward's arbitration, and in 1291 Edward summoned the Scots to meet him at Norham. He then demanded as the price of his arbitration the acknowledgment of his position as lord paramount of Scotland, in virtue of which the Scottish king, when he had once been chosen, was to do homage to himself as king of England. Edward, who might fairly have held that, in spite of the abandonment of the treaty of Falaise by Richard, he had a right to the old vague over-lordship of earlier kings, appears to have thought it right to take the opportunity of Scotland's weakness to renew the stricter relationship of homage which had been given up by Richard. At all events, the Scottish nobles and clergy accepted his demand, though the commonalty made some objection, the nature of which has not been recorded. Edward then investigated carefully the points at issue, and in 1292 decided in favour of Balliol. If he had been actuated by selfish motives he would certainly have adopted the suggestion of Hastings that Scotland ought to be divided into three kingdoms.

[Footnote 15: Genealogy of the claimants of the Scottish throne:—

DAVID I. 1124-1153 Henry MALCOLM IV. WILLIAM David, Earl of Huntingdon 1153-1165 THE LION 1165-1214 - / / / Margaret Isabella Ada ALEXANDER II. m. Alan, Lord m. Robert Bruce m. Henry 1214-1249 of Galloway Hastings ALEXANDER III. Devorguilla Robert Bruce Henry 1249-1285 m. John Balliol the Claimant Hastings Margaret John m. Eric, king Margaret JOHN BALLIOL Robert Bruce Hastings, of Norway m. John, the 1292-1296 the Black Comyn Claimant Margaret, Edward Balliol ROBERT BRUCE The Maid of John, the Red 1306-1329 Norway Comyn]



10. Disputes with Scotland and France. 1293—1295.—The new king of Scotland did homage to Edward for his whole kingdom. If Edward could have contented himself with enforcing the ordinary obligations of feudal superiority all might have gone well. Unfortunately for all parties, he attempted to stretch them by insisting in 1293 that appeals from the courts of the king of Scotland should lie to the courts of the king of England. Suitors found that their rights could not be ascertained till they had undertaken a long and costly journey to Westminster. A national feeling of resistance was roused amongst the Scots, and though Edward pressed his claims courteously, he continued to press them. A temper grew up in Scotland which might be dangerous to him if Scotland could find an ally, and an ally was not long in presenting himself. Philip IV. now king of France, was as wily and unscrupulous as Philip II. had been in the days of John. Edward was his vassal in Guienne and Gascony, and Philip knew how to turn the feudal relationship to account in France as well as Edward knew how to turn it to account in Scotland. The Cinque Ports[16] along the south-eastern shore of England swarmed with hardy and practised mariners, and there had often been sea-fights between French and English sailors quite independently of the two kings. In 1293 there was a great battle in which the French were worsted. Though Edward was ready to punish the offenders, Philip summoned him to appear as a vassal before his lord's court at Paris. In 1294, however, an agreement was made between the two kings. Edward was for mere form's sake to surrender his French fortresses to Philip in token of submission, and Philip was then to return them. Philip, having thus got the fortresses into his hands, refused to return them. In 1295 a league was made between France and Scotland, which lasted for more than three hundred years. Its permanence was owing to the fact that it was a league between nations more than a league between kings.

[Footnote 16: Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney, Hastings; to which were added Winchelsea and Rye as 'ancient towns,' besides several 'limbs' or dependencies.]

11. The Model Parliament. 1295.—Edward, attacked on two sides, threw himself for support on the English nation. Towards the end of 1295 he summoned a Parliament which was in most respects the model for all succeeding Parliaments. It was attended not only by bishops, abbots, earls, and barons, by two knights from every shire, and two burgesses from every borough, but also by representatives of the chapters of cathedrals and of the parochial clergy. It cannot be said with any approach to certainty, whether the Parliament thus collected met in one House or not. As, however, the barons and knights offered an eleventh of the value of their movable goods, the clergy a tenth, and the burgesses a seventh, it is not unlikely that there was a separation into what in modern times would be called three Houses, at least for purposes of taxation. At all events, the representatives of the clergy subsequently refused to sit in Parliament, preferring to vote money to the Crown in their own convocations.



12. The first Conquest of Scotland. 1296.—In 1296 Edward turned first upon Scotland. After he crossed the border Balliol sent to him renouncing his homage. "Has the felon fool done such folly?" said Edward. "If he will not come to us, we will go to him." He won a decisive victory over the Scots at Dunbar. Balliol surrendered his crown, and was carried off, never to reappear in Scotland. Edward set up no more vassal kings. He declared himself to be the immediate king of Scotland, Balliol having forfeited the crown by treason. The Scottish nobles did homage to him. On his return to England he left behind him the Earl of Surrey and Sir Hugh Cressingham as guardians of the kingdom, and he carried off from Scone the stone of destiny on which the Scottish kings had been crowned, and concerning which there had been an old prophecy to the effect that wherever that stone was Scottish kings should rule. The stone was placed, where it still remains, under the coronation-chair of the English kings in Westminster Abbey, and there were those long afterwards who deemed the prophecy fulfilled when the Scottish King James VI. came to take his seat on that chair as James I. of England.

13. The Resistance of Archbishop Winchelsey. 1296—1297.—The dispute with France and the conquest of Scotland cost much money, and Edward, finding his ordinary revenue insufficient, had been driven to increase it by unusual means. He gathered assemblies of the merchants, and persuaded them without the leave of Parliament to increase the export duties, and he also induced the clergy in the same way to grant him large sums. The clergy were the first to resist. In 1296 Boniface VIII., a Pope who pushed to the extreme the Papal claims to the independence of the Church, issued the Bull, Clericis laicos, in which he declared that the clergy were not to pay taxes without the Pope's consent; and when at the end of the year Edward called on his Parliament to grant him fresh sums, Winchelsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, refused, on the ground of this Bull, to allow a penny to be levied from the clergy. Edward, instead of arguing with him, directed the chief justice of the King's Bench to announce that, as the clergy would pay no taxes, they would no longer be protected by the king. The clergy now found themselves in evil case. Anyone who pleased could rob them or beat them, and no redress was to be had. They soon therefore evaded their obligation to obey the Bull, and paid their taxes, under the pretence that they were making presents to the king, on which Edward again opened his courts to them. In the days of Henry I. or Henry II. it would not have been possible to treat the clergy in this fashion. The fact was, that the mass of the people now looked to the king instead of to the Church for protection, and therefore respected the clergy less than they had done in earlier days.

14. The 'Confirmatio Cartarum.' 1297.—In 1297 Edward, having subdued the Scots in the preceding year, resolved to conduct one army to Flanders, and to send another to Gascony to maintain his rights against Philip IV. He therefore called on his barons to take part in these enterprises. Amongst those ordered to go to Gascony were Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and Humfrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford. They declared that they were only bound to follow the king himself, and that as Edward was not going in person to Gascony they would not go. "By God, Sir Earl," said the king to one of them, "you shall either go or hang." "By God," was the reply, "I will neither go nor hang." The two earls soon found support. The barons were sore because Edward's reforms had diminished their authority. The clergy were sore because of their recent treatment. The merchants were sore because of the exactions to which they had been subjected. Archbishop Winchelsey bound the malcontents together by asking Edward to confirm Magna Carta and other charters granted by his predecessors, and by adding other articles now proposed for the first time, so as to preclude him from demanding taxes not granted by Parliament. Edward found that the new articles restricted his action more than it had been restricted by the older charters. He was deeply vexed, as he thought that he deserved to be trusted, and that, though he had exacted illegal payments, he had only done so out of necessity. He saw, however, that he must yield, but he could not bring himself to yield in person, and he therefore crossed the sea to Flanders, leaving the Prince of Wales to make the required concession. On October 10, 1297, the Confirmatio Cartarum, as it was called, was issued in the king's name. It differed from Magna Carta in this, that whereas John had only engaged not to exact feudal revenue from his vassals without consent of Parliament, Edward I. also engaged not to exact customs duties without a Parliamentary grant. From that time no general revenue could be taken from the whole realm without a breach of the law, though the king still continued for some time to raise tallages, or special payments, from the tenants of his own demesne lands.

15. Wallace's Rising. 1297—1304.—Whilst Edward was contending with his own people his officers had been oppressing the Scots. They had treated Scotland as a conquered land, not as a country joined to England by equal union. Resistance began in 1297, and a rising was headed by Wallace, a gentleman of moderate fortune in the western lowlands. Wallace's bold and vigorous attacks gained him the confidence of the lesser gentry and the people, though the nobles, mostly of Norman descent, supported the English government, and only joined Wallace when it was dangerous to stand aloof. In the autumn, an English army advancing into Scotland reached the south bank of the Forth near Stirling. Wallace, who showed on that day that he was skilful as well as brave, drew up his army on the north bank at some little distance from the narrow bridge over which the English must come if they were to attack him. When half of them had crossed, he fell upon that half before the troops in the rear could advance to its succour. Wallace's victory was complete, and he then invaded England, ravaging and slaughtering as far as Hexham.

16. The Second Conquest of Scotland. 1298—1304.—In 1298 Edward, who had been unsuccessful on the Continent, made a truce with Philip. Returning to England, he marched against Wallace, and came up with him at Falkirk. The battle which ensued, like William's victory at Senlac (see p. 96), was a triumph of inventive military skill over valour content to rest upon ancient methods. The Scots were hardy footmen, drawn up in three rings, and provided with long spears. Against such a force so armed the cavalry of the feudal array would dash itself in vain. Edward, however, had marked in his Welsh wars the superiority of the long-bow drawn to the ear—not, as in the case of the shorter bows of older times, to the breast of the archer—and sending its cloth-yard shaft with a strength and swiftness hitherto unknown. He now brought with him a large force of bowmen equipped in this fashion. At Falkirk the long-bow was tried for the first time in any considerable battle. The effect was overwhelming: a shower of arrows poured upon a single point in the ring of the spearmen soon cleared a gap. Edward's cavalry dashed in before the enemy had time to close, and the victory was won. Wallace had had scarcely one of the Scottish nobles with him either at Stirling or at Falkirk, and unless all Scotland combined he could hardly be expected to succeed against such a warrior as Edward. Wallace's merit was that he did not despair of his country, and that by his patriotic vigour he prepared the minds of Scotsmen for a happier day. He himself fled to France, but Scotland struggled on without him. Some of the nobles, now that Wallace was no longer present to give them cause of jealousy, took part in the resistance, and only in 1304 did Edward after repeated campaigns complete his second conquest of the country.

17. The Incorporation of Scotland with England. 1305.—In 1305 Wallace, who had returned from France, but had taken no great part in the late resistance, was betrayed to the English. His barbarity in his raid on Northumberland in 1297 (see p. 221) had marked him out for vengeance, and he was executed at Tyburn as a traitor to the English king of Scotland, whose right he had never acknowledged. Edward then proceeded to incorporate Scotland with England. Scotland was to be treated very much as Wales had been treated before. There was to be as little harshness as possible. Nobles who had resisted Edward were to keep their estates on payment of fines, the Scottish law was to be observed, and Scots were to be chosen to represent the wishes of their fellow-countrymen in the Parliament at Westminster. On the other hand, the Scottish nobles were to surrender their castles, and the country was to be governed by an English Lieutenant, who, together with his council, had power to amend the laws.

18. Character of Edward's Dealings with Scotland.—Edward's dealings with Scotland, mistaken as they were, were not those of a self-willed tyrant. If it be once admitted that he was really the lord paramount of Scotland, everything that he did may be justified upon feudal principles. First, Balliol forfeited his vassal crown by breaking his obligations as a vassal. Secondly, Edward, through the default of his vassal, took possession of the fief which Balliol had forfeited, and thus became the immediate lord of Balliol's vassals. Thirdly, those vassals rebelled—so at least Edward would have said—against their new lord. Fourthly, they thereby forfeited their estates to him, and he was therefore, according to his own view, in the right in restoring their estates to them—if he restored them at all—under new conditions. Satisfactory as this argument must have seemed to Edward, it was weak in two places. The Scots might attack it at its basis by retorting that Edward had never truly been lord paramount of Scotland at all; or they might assert that it did not matter whether he was so or not, because the Scottish right to national independence was superior to all feudal claims. It is this latter argument which has the most weight at the present day, and it seems to us strange that Edward, who had done so much to encourage the national growth of England, should have entirely ignored the national growth of Scotland. All that can be said to palliate Edward's mistake is that it was, at first, difficult to perceive that there was a Scottish nationality at all. Changes in the political aspect of affairs grow up unobserved, and it was not till after his death that all classes in Scotland were completely welded together in resistance to an English king. At all events, if he treated the claim of the Scots to national independence with contempt, he at least strove, according to his own notions, to benefit Scots and English alike. He hoped that one nation, justly ruled under one government, would grow up in the place of two divided peoples.

19. Robert Bruce. 1306.—It was better even for England that Edward's hopes should fail. Scotland would have been of little worth to its more powerful neighbour if it had been cowed into subjection; whereas when, after struggling and suffering for her independence, she offered herself freely as the companion and ally of England to share in common duties and common efforts, the gift was priceless. That Scotland was able to shake off the English yoke was mainly the work of Robert Bruce, the grandson of the Robert Bruce who had been one of the claimants of the Scottish crown at Norham. The Bruces, like Balliol, were of Norman descent, and as Balliol's rivals they had attached themselves to Edward. The time was now come when all chances of Balliol's restoration were at an end, and thoughts of gaining the crown stirred in the mind of the younger Bruce. After Edward's last settlement of Scotland it was plain that there was no longer room for a Scottish vassal king, and Bruce was therefore driven to connect his own aspirations with those of the Scottish nation. He had, however, one powerful rival amongst the nobles. John Comyn—the Red Comyn, as he was called—had been one of the many claimants of the throne who appeared before Edward at Norham, and he still looked with a jealous eye upon all who disputed his title. He was, however, persuaded in 1306 to meet Bruce in the Grey Friars Church at Dumfries. As Bruce pleaded his own right to the crown, Comyn denounced him as a traitor to Edward. Bruce answered by driving his dagger into him. "I doubt," cried Bruce, as he rushed from the church, "that I have slain the Red Comyn." "I will mak sicker" (make sure), said Kirkpatrick, who was in attendance upon him, and, going in, completed the murder. Bruce made for Scone and was crowned king of Scotland in the presence of many of the chief nobility.

20. Edward's Last March on Scotland and Death. 1306—1307. Edward, to whom Bruce was but a rebel and a murderer, despatched against him the Earl of Pembroke who routed his forces at Methven. The revolt was suppressed and Bruce's supporters were carried off to English prisons, and their lands divided amongst English noblemen. The Countess of Buchan, who had taken a prominent part in Bruce's coronation, was subjected to an imprisonment of great severity in the castle of Berwick. Bruce almost alone escaped. He knew now that he had the greater part of the nobility as well as the people at his side, and even in his lonely wanderings and hairbreadth escapes he was, what neither Balliol nor Wallace had been, the true head of the Scottish nation. Before the end of 1306 he reappeared in Carrick, where his own possessions lay, and where the whole population was on his side, and inflicted heavy losses on the English garrisons. Early in July 1307 Edward, who himself had tarried in Cumberland, once more set out to take the field in person; but he was now old and worn out, and he died at Burgh on Sands, a few miles on the English side of the border.



21. Edward II. and Piers Gaveston. 1307—1312.—The new king, Edward II., was as different as possible from his father. He was not wicked, like William II. and John, but he detested the trouble of public business, and thought that the only advantage of being a king was that he would have leisure to amuse himself. During his father's life he devoted himself to Piers Gaveston, a Gascon, who encouraged him in his pleasures and taught him to mistrust his father. Edward I. banished Gaveston; Edward II., immediately on his accession, not only recalled him, but made him regent when he himself crossed to France to be married to Isabella, the daughter of Philip IV. The barons, who were already inclined to win back some of the authority of which Edward I. had deprived them, were very angry at the place taken over their heads by an upstart favourite, especially as Gaveston was ill-bred enough to make jests at their expense. The barons found a leader in Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the son of that Edmund, the brother of Edward I., who had received the title of king of Sicily from the Pope (see p. 197). Thomas of Lancaster had very large estates. He was an ambitious man, who tried to play the part which had been played by Earl Simon without any of Simon's qualifications for the position. In 1308 the king yielded to the barons so far as to send Gaveston out of the country to Ireland as his Lieutenant. In 1309 he recalled him. The barons were exasperated, and in the Parliament of 1310 they brought forward a plan for taking the king's government out of his hands, very much after the fashion of the Provisions of Oxford. Twenty-one barons were appointed Lords Ordainers, to draw up ordinances for the government of the country. In 1311 they produced the ordinances. Gaveston was to be banished for life. The king was to appoint officers only with the consent of the barons, without which he was not to go to war nor leave the kingdom. The ordinances may have been justified in so far as they restrained the authority of a king so incapable as Edward II. Constitutionally their acceptance was a retrograde step, as, like the Provisions of Oxford, they placed power in the hands of the barons, passing over Parliament as a whole. Edward agreed to the ordinances, but refused to surrender Gaveston. The barons took arms to enforce their will, and in 1312, having captured Gaveston, they beheaded him near Warwick without the semblance of a trial.

22. Success of Robert Bruce. 1307—1314.—Whilst Edward and the barons were disputing Bruce gained ground rapidly. In 1313 Stirling was the only fortress of importance in Scotland still garrisoned by the English, and the English garrison bound itself to surrender on June 24, 1314, if it had not been previously relieved. Even Edward II. was stirred by this doleful news, and in 1314 he put himself at the head of an army to relieve Stirling. Lancaster, however, and all whom he could influence refused to follow him, on the ground that the king had not, in accordance with the ordinances, received permission from the barons to go to war. On June 24 Edward reached Bannockburn, within sight of Stirling. Like his father, he brought with him English archers as well as English horsemen, but he foolishly sent his archers far in advance of his horsemen, where they would be entirely unprotected. Bruce, on the other hand, not only had a small body of horse, which rode down the archers, but he strengthened the defensive position of his spearmen by digging pits in front of his line and covering them with turf. Into these pits the foremost horses of the English cavalry plunged. Edward's whole array was soon one mass of confusion, and before it could recover itself a body of gillies, or camp-followers, appearing over a hill was taken for a fresh Scottish army. The vast English host turned and fled. Stirling at once surrendered, and all Scotland was lost to Edward. Materially, both England and Scotland suffered grievously from the result of the battle of Bannockburn. English invasions of southern Scotland and Scottish invasions of northern England spread desolation far and wide, stifling the germs of nascent civilisation. Morally, both nations were in the end the gainers. The hardihood and self-reliance of the Scottish character is distinctly to be traced to those years of struggle against a powerful neighbour. England, too, was the better for being balked of its prey. No nation can suppress the liberty of another without endangering its own.



23. Lancaster's Government. 1314—1322.—Edward was thrown by his defeat entirely under the power of Lancaster, who took the whole authority into his hands and placed and displaced ministers at his pleasure. Lancaster, however, was a selfish and incompetent ruler. He allowed the Scots to ravage the north of England without venturing to oppose them, and as he could not even keep order at home, private wars broke out amongst the barons. In 1318 Bruce took Berwick, the great border fortress against Scotland. It was rather by good luck than by good management that Edward was at last able to resist Lancaster. Edward could not exist without a personal favourite, and he found one in Hugh le Despenser. Despenser was at least an Englishman, which Gaveston had not been, and his father, Hugh le Despenser the elder, did his best to raise up a party to support the king. In 1321, however, Parliament, under Lancaster's influence, declared against them and sentenced them to exile. Edward took arms for his favourites, and in 1322 defeated Lancaster at Boroughbridge, and then had him tried and beheaded at Pontefract.

24. A Constitutional Settlement. 1322.—Favourites as they were, the Despensers had at least the merit of seeing that the king could not overpower the barons by the mere assertion of his personal authority. At a Parliament held at York in 1322, the king obtained the revocation of the ordinances, and a declaration that 'matters to be established for the estate of our lord the king and of his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and of the people, shall be treated, accorded, and established in Parliaments by our lord the king, and by the consent of the prelates, earls and barons, and commonalty of the realm, according as hath been hitherto accustomed.' Edward I. had in 1295 gathered a full Parliament, including the commons. But there was no law to prevent him or his successors excluding the commons on some future occasion. Edward II. by this declaration, issued with consent of Parliament, confirmed his father's practice by a legislative act. Unless the law were broken or repealed, no future statute could come into existence without the consent of the commons.

25. The Rule of the Despensers. 1322—1326.—For some years after the execution of Lancaster, Edward, or rather the Despensers, retained power, but it was power which did not work for good. In 1323 Edward made a truce with Scotland, but the cessation of foreign war did not bring with it a cessation of troubles at home. Edward was entirely unable to control his favourites. The elder Despenser was covetous and the younger Despenser haughty, and they both made enemies for themselves and the king. Queen Isabella was alienated from her husband, partly by his exclusive devotion to the Despensers and partly by the contempt which an active woman is apt to feel for a husband without a will of his own. In 1325 she went to France, and was soon followed by her eldest son, named Edward after his father. From that moment she conspired against her husband. In 1326 she landed, accompanied by her paramour, Robert Mortimer, and bringing with her foreign troops. The barons rose in her favour. London joined them, and all resistance was speedily beaten down. The elder Despenser was hanged by the queen at Bristol. The younger was hanged, after a form of trial, at Hereford.



26. The Deposition and Murder of Edward II. 1327.—Early in 1327 a Parliament met at Westminster. It was filled with the king's enemies, and under pressure from the queen and Mortimer Edward II. was compelled to sign a declaration of his own wrong-doing and incompetency, after which he formally resigned the crown. He was allowed to live for eight months, at the end of which he was brutally murdered in Berkeley Castle. The deposition of Edward II.—for his enforced resignation was practically nothing less than that—was the work of a faithless wife and of unscrupulous partisans, but at least they clothed their vengeance in the forms of Parliamentary action. It was by the action of Parliament in loosing the feudal ties by which vassals were bound to an unworthy king, that it rose to the full position of being the representative of the nation, and at the same time virtually proclaimed that the wants of the nation must be satisfied at the expense of the feudal claims of the king. The national headship of the king would from henceforward be the distinguishing feature of his office, whilst his feudal right to personal service would grow less and less important every year.



CHAPTER XV.

FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD III. TO THE TREATY OF BRETIGNI.

1327—1360.

LEADING DATES

Reign of Edward III., 1327—1377

Accession of Edward III. 1327 Beginning of the War with France 1337 Battle of Crecy 1346 The Black Death 1348 Battle of Poitiers 1356 Treaty of Bretigni 1360

1. Mortimer's Government. 1327—1330.—Edward III. was only fifteen at his accession. For three years power was in the hands of his mother's paramour, Mortimer. Robert Bruce, though old and smitten with leprosy, was still anxious to wring from England an acknowledgment of Scottish independence, and, in spite of the existing truce, sent an army to ravage the northern counties of England. Edward led in person against it an English force far superior in numbers and equipment; but the English soldier needed many things, whilst the Scot contented himself with a little oatmeal carried on the back of his hardy pony. If he grew tired of that he had but to seize an English sheep or cow and to boil the flesh in the hide. Such an army was difficult to come up with. Fighting there was none, except once when the Scots broke into the English camp at night and almost succeeded in carrying off the young king. Mortimer was at his wits' end, and in 1328 agreed to a treaty acknowledging the complete independence of Scotland. It was a wise thing to do, but no nation likes to acknowledge failure, and Mortimer became widely unpopular. He succeeded indeed in breaking up a conspiracy against himself, and in 1330 even executed Edmund, Earl of Kent, a brother of Edward II. The discontented barons found another leader in the king, who, young as he was, had been married at fifteen to Philippa of Hainault. Though he was already a father, he was still treated by Mortimer as a child, and was virtually kept a prisoner. At Nottingham he introduced a body of Mortimer's enemies into the castle through a secret passage in the rock on which it stood. His mother pleaded in vain for her favourite: "Fair son, have pity on the gentle Mortimer." Mortimer was hanged, and Queen Isabella was never again allowed to take part in public affairs.

2. The French Succession. 1328—1331.—Isabella's three brothers, Louis X., Philip V., and Charles IV., had successively reigned in France. Louis X. died in 1316, leaving behind him a daughter and a posthumous son, who died a week after his birth. Then Philip V. seized the crown, his lawyers asserting that, according to the Salic law, 'no part of the heritage of Salic land can fall to a woman,' and that therefore no woman could rule in France. As a matter of fact this was a mere quibble of the lawyers. The Salic law had been the law of the Salian Franks in the fifth century, and had to do with the inheritance of estates, not with the inheritance of the throne of France, which was not at that time in existence. The quibble, however, was used on the right side. What Frenchmen wanted was that France should remain an independent nation, which it was not likely to do under a queen who might marry the king of another country. The rule thus laid down was permanently adopted in France. When Philip V. died in 1322 the throne passed, not to his daughter, but to his brother, Charles IV., and when Charles died in 1328, to his cousin, Philip of Valois, who reigned as Philip VI. At that time England was still under the control of Mortimer and Isabella, and though Isabella, being the sister of Charles IV., thought of claiming the crown, not for herself, but for her son, Mortimer did not press the claim. In 1329 he sent Edward to do homage to Philip VI. for his French possessions, but Edward only did it with certain reservations, and in 1330 preparations for war were made in England. In 1331, after Mortimer's fall, when Edward was his own master, he again visited France, and a treaty was concluded between the two kings in which he abandoned the reservations on his homage.



3. Troubles in Scotland. 1329—1336.—On his return, Edward looked in another direction. In 1329 Robert Bruce died, leaving his crown to his son, David II., a child five years old. Certain English noblemen had in the late treaty (see p. 231) been promised restoration of the estates of their ancestors in Scotland, and in 1332 some of them, finding the promise unfulfilled, offered English forces to John Balliol's son, Edward, to help him to the Scottish crown. Aided by his English allies, Edward Balliol landed in Scotland, defeated the Scottish army at Dupplin, and was crowned king. Before the end of the year he was surprised at Annan, and fled to England to appeal to Edward for help. Though Edward had all the love of enterprise of his grandfather, Edward I., yet there was a marked contrast between the deliberate calculation of Edward I. and the almost accidental way in which Edward III. involved himself in an attempt to regain the lordship of Scotland. In 1333 he laid siege to Berwick, then in the hands of the Scots. The Scots advanced into England, and their spearmen crossed a marsh to attack the English array of knights and archers posted on the slope of Halidon Hill. The arrows poured like rain on their struggling columns. The Scots were thrown into confusion, and their whole army was almost destroyed. Berwick was regained, and Bannockburn, it seemed, was avenged. Edward not only set up Balliol as his vassal, but compelled him to yield all Scotland south of the Forth to be annexed to England. Such a settlement could not last. Balliol was as weak as his father had been, and the Scots, recovering courage, drove him out in 1334. Edward invaded Scotland again and again. As long as he was in the country he was strong enough to keep his puppet on the throne, but whenever he returned to England David Bruce's supporters regained strength. The struggle promised to be lengthy unless help came to the Scots.

4. Dispute with France. 1336—1337.—Philip VI., like Philip IV. in the days of Edward I. (see p. 218), had his own reasons for not allowing the Scots to be crushed. He pursued the settled policy of his predecessors in attempting to bring the great fiefs into his power, and especially that part of Aquitaine which was still held by the most powerful of his vassals, the king of England. Whilst Edward was doing his best to bring Scotland into subjection by open war, Philip was doing his best to disturb Edward in his hold upon Aquitaine by secret intrigues and legal chicanery. Ill-feeling increased on both sides. Philip welcomed David Bruce and gave him protection in France, and in 1336 French sailors attacked English shipping and landed plunderers in the Isle of Wight. In 1337 Edward determined to resist, and the long war roughly known as the Hundred Years' War began. It was in reality waged to discover by an appeal to arms whether the whole of Aquitaine was to be incorporated with France and whether Scotland was to be incorporated with England. That which gave it its peculiar bitterness was, however, not so much the claims of the kings, as the passions of their subjects. The national antagonism aroused by the plunderings of French sea-rovers would be invigorated by the plunderings of Englishmen in the fields of France.

5. Edward's Allies. 1337—1338.—To Edward it was merely a question of defending, first England, and then Aquitaine, against aggression. He won over, with large offers of money, the alliance of the princes of the Empire whose lands lay round the French frontier to the north and east, and even gained the support of the Emperor Lewis the Bavarian. His relations with Flanders were even more important. In Flanders there had sprung up great manufacturing towns, such as Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres, which worked up into cloth the wool which was the produce of English sheep. These wealthy towns claimed political independence, and thus came into collision with their feudal lord, the Count of Flanders. Early in the reign of Philip VI., the Count, who held the greater part of his lands from the king of France, had appealed to Philip for support, and Philip, who, unlike his wiser predecessors, despised the strength which he might gain from the goodwill of citizens in a struggle against their lords, took the part of the Count, and for a time crushed the citizens at the battle of Cassel. After a while the cities recovered themselves, and formed an alliance under the leadership of Jacob van Arteveldt, a Flemish nobleman, who had ingratiated himself with them by enrolling himself amongst the brewers of Ghent, and who was now successful in urging his countrymen to enter into friendship with Edward.

6. Chivalry and War.—In the long run Edward's cause would be found a losing one, but there were circumstances which made it prevail for a time. In France there was a broad distinction between gentlemen on the one side and citizens and peasants on the other. The gentlemen despised all who were not of their own class. In earlier days there had sprung up a view of life known as chivalry, which taught that the knight was bound to observe the laws of honour, to fight fairly, to treat with courtesy a defeated enemy, and to protect women and all who were unable to help themselves. Ennobling as the idea was, it had been narrowed by the refusal of the gentlemen to extend the rules of chivalry beyond their own order, and they were, therefore, ready to exercise cruelty upon those who were not gentlemen, whilst proffering the most high-flown compliments to those who were. In France, too, this broad distinction of ranks told upon the military strength of the crown. The fighting force of the French king was his feudal array of armour-protected cavalry, composed entirely of gentlemen, and aiming at deciding battles in the old fashion by the rush of horsemen. If foot soldiers were brought at all into the field they were, for the most part, ill armed and ill trained peasants, exposed to be helplessly slaughtered by the horsemen.



7. Commerce and War.—In England, on the other hand, the various orders of society had been welded together into a united people. The king and his vassals indeed still talked the language of chivalry, but they were wise enough to seek strength elsewhere. War had become in England the affair of the nation, and no longer the affair of a class. It must be waged with efficient archers as well as with efficient horsemen, the archers being drawn from the class of yeomen or free landed proprietors of small plots of land, which was entirely wanting in France. Such an army needed pay, and the large sums required for the purpose could only be extracted from a nation which, like the English, had grown comparatively rich because it was at peace within its own borders. Edward was compelled, if he wanted to fight, to encourage trade, though it is only fair to remember that he showed himself ready to encourage trade without any such ulterior object. He brought Flemish weavers into England, and did his best to improve the feeble woollen manufacture of the Eastern counties. His great resource, however, for purposes of taxation, was the export of wool to the Flemish manufacturing towns. Sometimes he persuaded Parliament to raise the duties upon exported wool; sometimes he raised them, by an evasion of the law, after making a private compact with the merchants without consulting Parliament at all; sometimes he turned merchant himself and bought wool cheaply in England to sell it dear in Flanders. It was said of a great minister of later times that he made trade flourish by means of war.[17] It might be said with greater truth of Edward III. that he made war flourish by means of trade.

[Footnote 17: See the inscription on the monument to the elder Pitt in the Guildhall, in the City of London.]



8. Attacks on the North of France. 1338—1340.—Great as was Edward's advantage in having a united nation at his back, it hardly seemed in the first years of the war as though he knew how to use it. Though he had declared war against Philip in 1337, he did not begin hostilities till the following year. In 1338, after landing at Antwerp, he obtained from the Emperor Lewis the title of Imperial Vicar, which gave him a right to the military services of the vassals of the Empire. Crowds of German and Low Country lords pressed into his ranks, but they all wanted high pay, and his resources, great as they were, were soon exhausted, and he had to pawn his crowns to satisfy their needs. These lords proved as useless as they were expensive. In 1339 Edward crossed the French frontier, but he could not induce Philip to fight, and being deserted by his German allies, he was obliged to return to England. He then attempted to fall back on the support of the Flemings, but was told by them that unless he formally took the title of king of France, which he had only occasionally done before, they could not fight for him, as the king of France, whoever he might be, was their superior lord, and as such had a claim to their services. After some hesitation, in the beginning of 1340, Edward satisfied their scruples by reviving the claim which he had formerly abandoned, declaring himself to be, in right of his mother, the lawful king of France; and quartering the French arms with his own. A third territorial question was thus added to the other two. Practically Edward's answer to Philip's effort to absorb all Aquitaine in France was a counter-demand that all France should be absorbed in England.



9. Battle of Sluys. 1340.—Edward had not yet learnt to place confidence in those English archers who had served him so well at Halidon Hill. In 1340, however, he found himself engaged in a conflict which should have taught him where his true strength lay. The French navy held the Channel, and had burnt Southampton. The fleet of the Cinque Ports was no longer sufficient to cope with the enemy. Edward proudly announced that he, like his progenitors, was the lord of the English sea on every side, and called out every vessel upon which he could lay hands. The result was a naval victory at Sluys, in which well-nigh the whole French fleet was absolutely destroyed. It was by the English archers that the day was won. So complete was the victory that no one dared to tell the ill news to Philip, till his jester called out to him, "What cowards those English are!" "Because," he explained, "they did not dare to leap into the sea as our brave Frenchmen did."

10. Attacks on the West of France. 1341—1345.—If Edward was to obtain still greater success, he had but to fight with a national force behind him on land as he had fought at sea; but he was slow to learn the lesson. Personally he was as chivalrous as Philip, and thought that far more could be done by the charge of knights on horseback than by the cloth-yard shafts of the English bowmen. For six more years he frittered away his strength. There was a disputed succession in Brittany, and one of the claimants, John of Montfort, ranged himself on the side of the English. There was fighting in Brittany and fighting on the borders of Edward's lands in Aquitaine, but up to the end of 1345 there was no decisive result on either side. In Scotland, too, things had been going so badly for Edward that in 1341 David Bruce had been able to return, and was now again ruling over his own people.

11. The Campaign of Crecy. 1346.—Surprising as Edward's neglect to force on a battle in France appears to us, it must be remembered that in those days it was far more difficult to bring on an engagement than it is in the present day. Fortified towns and castles were then almost impregnable, except when they were starved out; and it was therefore seldom necessary for a commander—on other grounds unwilling to fight—to risk a battle in order to save an important post from capture. Edward, however, does not appear to have thought that there was anything to be gained by fighting. In 1346 he led a large English army into Normandy, taking with him his eldest son, afterwards known as the Black Prince, at that time a lad of sixteen. It had been from Normandy and Calais that the fleets had put out by which the coasts of England had been ravaged, and Edward now deliberately ravaged Normandy. He then marched on, apparently intending to take refuge in Flanders. As the French had broken the bridges over the Seine, he was driven to ascend the bank of the river almost to Paris before he could cross. His burnings and his ravages continued till Philip, stung to anger, pursued him with an army more than twice as numerous as his own. Edward had the Somme to cross on his way, and the bridges over that river had been broken by the French, as those over the Seine had been broken; and but for the opportune discovery of a ford at Blanche Tache Edward would have been obliged to fight with an impassable river at his back. When he was once over the Somme he refused—not from any considerations of generalship, but from a point of honour—to continue his retreat further. He halted on a gentle slope near the village of Crecy facing eastwards, as Philip's force had swept round to avoid difficulties in the ground, and was approaching from that direction.



12. The Tactics of Crecy. 1346.—Great as was Edward's advantage in possessing an army so diverse in its composition as that which he commanded, it would have availed him little if he had not known how to order that army for battle. At once it appeared that his skill as a tactician was as great as his weakness as a strategist. His experience at Halidon Hill (see p. 234) had taught him that the archers could turn the tide of battle against any direct attack, however violent. He knew, too, from the tradition of Bannockburn (see p. 226), that archers could readily be crushed by a cavalry charge on the flank; and he was well aware that his own horsemen were in too small numbers to hold out against the vast host of the French cavalry. He therefore drew up his line of archers between the two villages of Crecy and Vadicourt, though his force was not large enough to extend from one to the other. He then ordered the bulk of his horsemen to dismount and to place themselves with levelled spears in bodies at intervals in the line of archers. The innovation was thoroughly reasonable, as spearmen on foot would be able to check the fiercest charge of horse, if only the horse could be exposed to a shower of arrows. The English army was drawn up in three corps, two of them in the front line. The Black Prince was in command of one of the two bodies in front, whilst the king himself took charge of the third corps, which acted as a reserve in the rear.

13. The Battle of Crecy. August 26, 1346.—When Philip drew nigh in the evening his host was weary and hungry. He ordered his knights to halt, but each one was thinking, not of obeying orders, but of securing a place in the front, where he might personally distinguish himself. Those in the rear pushed on, and in a few minutes the whole of the French cavalry became a disorganised mob. Then Philip ordered 15,000 Genoese crossbowmen to advance against the enemy. At the best a crossbow was inferior to the English long-bow, as it was weaker in its action and consumed more time between each shot. To make matters worse, a heavy shower of rain had wetted the strings of the unlucky Genoese, rendering their weapons useless. The English had covers for their bows, and had kept them dry. The thick shower of their arrows drove the Genoese back. Philip took their retreat for cowardice. "Kill me those scoundrels!" he cried, and the French knights rode in amongst them, slaughtering them at every stride. Then the French horsemen charged the English lines. Some one amongst the Black Prince's retinue took alarm, and hurried to the king to conjure him to advance to the son's assistance. Edward knew better. "Is he dead?" he asked, "or so wounded that he cannot help himself?" "No, sire, please God," was the reply, "but he is in a hard passage of arms, and he much needs your help." "Return," answered the king, "to those that sent you, and tell them not to send to me again so long as my son lives; I command them to let the boy win his spurs." The French were driven off with terrible slaughter, and the victory was won. It was a victory of foot soldiers over horse soldiers—of a nation in which all ranks joined heartily together over one in which all ranks except that of the gentry were despised. Edward III. had contributed a high spirit and a keen sense of honour, but it was to the influence of Edward I.—to his wide and far-reaching statesmanship, and his innovating military genius—that the victory of Crecy was really due.

14. Battle of Nevill's Cross, and the Siege of Calais. 1346—1347.—Whilst Edward was fighting in France, the Scots invaded England, but they were defeated at Nevill's Cross, and their king, David Bruce (David II.), taken prisoner. Edward, when the news reached him, had laid siege to Calais. In this siege cannon,[18] which had been used in earlier sieges of the war, were employed, but they were too badly made and loaded with too little gunpowder to do much damage. In 1347 Calais was starved into surrender, and Edward, who regarded the town as a nest of pirates, ordered six of the principal burgesses to come out with ropes round their necks, as a sign that they were to be put to death. It was only at Queen Philippa's intercession that he spared their lives, but he drove every Frenchman out of Calais, and peopled it with his own subjects. A truce with Philip was agreed on, and Edward returned to England.

[Footnote 18: It has been said that they were used at Crecy, but this is uncertain.]



15. Constitutional Progress. 1337—1347.—Edward III. had begun his reign as a constitutional ruler, and on the whole he had no reason to regret it. In his wars with France and Scotland he had the popular feeling with him, and he showed his reliance on it when, in 1340, he consented to the abolition of his claim to impose tallage on his demesne lands (see p. 221)—the sole fragment of unparliamentary taxation legally retained by the king after the Confirmatio Cartarum. In 1341 the two Houses of Parliament finally separated from one another, and when Edward picked a quarrel with Archbishop Stratford, the Lords successfully insisted that no member of their House could be tried excepting by his peers. The Commons, on the other hand, were striving—not always successfully—to maintain their hold upon taxation. In 1341 they made Edward a large money grant on condition of his yielding to their demands, and Edward (whose constitutional intentions were seldom proof against his wish to retain the power of the purse) shamelessly broke his engagement after receiving the money. On other occasions the Commons were more successful; yet, after all, the composition of their House was of more importance than any special victory they might gain. In it the county members—or knights of the shire—sat side by side with the burgesses of the towns. In no other country in Europe would this have been possible. The knights of the shire were gentlemen, who on the Continent were reckoned amongst the nobility, and despised townsmen far too much to sit in the same House with them. In England there was the same amalgamation of classes in Parliament as on the battle-field. When once gentlemen and burgesses formed part of the same assembly, they would come to have common interests; and, in any struggle in which the merchants were engaged, it would be a great gain to them that a class of men trained to arms would be inclined to take their part.



16. Edward's Triumph. 1347.—Edward's return after the surrender of Calais was followed by an outburst of luxury. As the sea-rovers of Normandy and Calais had formerly plundered Englishmen, English landsmen now plundered Normandy and Calais. "There was no woman who had not gotten garments, furs, feather-beds, and utensils from the spoils." Edward surrounded himself with feasting and jollity. About this time he instituted the Order of the Garter, and his tournaments were thronged with gay knights and gayer ladies in gorgeous attires. The very priests caught the example, and decked themselves in unclerical garments. Even architecture lent itself to the prevailing taste for magnificence. The beautiful Decorated style which had come into use towards the end of the reign of Edward I.—and which may be seen[19] in the central tower of Lincoln Cathedral (see p. 227), in the west front of Howden Church (see p. 230), and in the nave of York Minster (see p. 238)—was, in the reign of Edward III., superseded by the Perpendicular style, in which beauty of form was abandoned for the sake of breadth, as in the choir of Gloucester and the nave of Winchester (see pp. 244, 276). Roofs become wide, as in the Hall of Penshurst (see p. 246), and consequently halls were larger and better adapted to crowded gatherings than those at Meare and Norborough (p. 247).

[Footnote 19: Lichfield Cathedral (p. 213) is transitional.]



17. The Black Death. 1348.—In the midst of this luxurious society arrived, in 1348, a terrible plague which had been sweeping over Asia and Europe, and which in modern times has been styled the Black Death. No plague known to history was so destructive of life. Half of the population certainly perished, and some think that the number of those who died must be reckoned at two-thirds.



18. The Statute of Labourers. 1351.—This enormous destruction of life could not fail to have important results on the economic condition of the country. The process of substituting money rents for labour service, which had begun some generations before (see p. 168), had become very general at the accession of Edward III. so that the demesne land which the lord kept in his own hands was on most estates cultivated by hired labour. Now, when at least half of the labourers had disappeared, those who remained, having less competition to fear, demanded higher wages, whilst at the same time the price of the produce of the soil was the same or less than it had been before. The question affected not merely the great lords but the smaller gentry as well. The House of Commons, which was filled with the smaller gentry and the well-to-do townsmen—who were also employers of labour—was therefore as eager as the House of Lords to keep down wages. In 1351 the Statute of Labourers was passed, fixing a scale of wages at the rates which had been paid before the Black Death, and ordering punishments to be inflicted on those who demanded more. It is not necessary to suppose that the legislators had any tyrannical intentions. For ages all matters relating to agriculture had been fixed by custom; and the labourers were outrageously violating custom. Custom, however, here found itself in opposition to the forces of nature, and though the statute was often renewed, with increasing penalties, it was difficult to secure obedience to it in the teeth of the opposition of the labourers. The chief result of the statute was that it introduced an element of discord between two classes of society.



19. The Statute of Treasons. 1352.—In 1352 was passed the Statute of Treasons, by which the offences amounting to treason were defined, the chief of them being levying war against the king. As no one but a great nobleman was strong enough even to think of levying war against the king, this statute may be regarded as a concession to the wealthier landowners rather than to the people at large.

20. The Black Prince in the South of France. 1355.—In 1350 Philip VI. of France died, and was succeeded by his son John. The truce (see p. 243) was prolonged, and it was not till 1355 that war was renewed. Edward himself was recalled to England by fresh troubles in Scotland, but the Black Prince landed at Bordeaux and marched through the south of France, plundering as he went. Neither father nor son seems to have had any idea of gaining their ends except by driving the French by ill-treatment into submission. "You must know," wrote a contemporary in describing the condition of southern Languedoc, "that this was, before, one of the fat countries of the world, the people good and simple, who did not know what war was, and no war had ever been waged against them before the Prince of Wales came. The English and Gascons found the country full and gay, the rooms furnished with carpets and draperies, the caskets and chests full of beautiful jewels; but nothing was safe from these robbers." The Prince returned to Bordeaux laden with spoils.

21. The Battle of Poitiers. 1356.—In 1356 the Black Prince swept over central France in another similar plundering expedition. He was on his way back with his plunder to Bordeaux with no more than 8,000 men to guard it when he learnt as he passed near Poitiers that King John was close to him with 50,000. He drew up his little force on a rising ground amidst thick vineyards, with a hedge in front of him behind which he could shelter his archers. As at Crecy, the greater part of the English horsemen were dismounted, and John, thinking that therein lay their secret of success, ordered most of his horsemen to dismount as well, not having discovered that though spearmen on foot could present a formidable resistance to a cavalry charge, they were entirely useless in attacking a strong position held by archers. Then he sent forward 300 knights who retained their horses, bidding a strong body of dismounted horsemen to support them. The horsemen, followed by the footmen, charged at a gap in the hedge, but the hedge on either side was lined with English bowmen, and men and horses were struck down. Those who survived fled and scattered their countrymen behind. Seeing the disorder, the Black Prince ordered the few knights whom he had kept on horseback to sweep round and to fall upon the confused crowd in the flank. The archers advanced to second them, and, gallantly as the French fought, their unhorsed knights could accomplish nothing against the combined efforts of horse and foot. King John was taken prisoner and the battle was at an end.

22. The Courtesy of the Black Prince.—The Black Prince had been cruel to townsmen and peasants, but he was a model of chivalry, and knew how to deal with a captive king. At supper he stood behind John's chair and waited on him, praising his bravery. "All on our side," he said, "who have seen you and your knights, are agreed about this, and give you the prize and the chaplet if you will wear it." After the astounding victory of Poitiers, the Black Prince, instead of marching upon Paris, went back to Bordeaux. In 1357 he made a truce for two years and returned to England with his royal captive.

23. Misery of France. 1356—1359.—In 1356, the year in which the Black Prince fought at Poitiers, his father ravaged Scotland. Edward, however, gained nothing by this fresh attempt at conquest. In his retreat he suffered heavy loss, and in 1357, changing his plan, he replaced David Bruce (see p. 242) on the throne, and strove to win the support of the Scots instead of exasperating them by violence. In the meanwhile the two years' truce brought no good to France. The nobles wrung from the peasants the sums needed to redeem their relatives, who were prisoners in England, and the disbanded soldiers, French and English, formed themselves into free companies and plundered as mercilessly as the Black Prince had done in time of war. Worn down with oppression, the French peasants broke into a rebellion known as the Jacquerie, from the nickname of Jacques-Bonhomme, which the gentry gave to them. After committing unheard-of cruelties the peasants were repressed and slaughtered. An attempt of the States-General—a sort of French Parliament which occasionally met—to improve the government failed. Peace with England was talked of, but Edward's terms were too hard to be accepted, and in 1359 war began again.

24. Edward's Last Invasion. 1359—1360.—So miserably devastated was France that Edward, when he invaded the country in 1359, had to take with him not only men and munitions of war, but large stores of provisions. He met no enemy in the field, but the land had been so wasted that his men suffered much from want of food, in spite of the supplies which they had taken with them. "I could not believe," wrote an Italian who revisited France after an absence of some years, "that this was the same kingdom which I had once seen so rich and flourishing. Nothing presented itself to my eyes but a fearful solitude, an extreme poverty, land uncultivated, houses in ruins. Even the neighbourhood of Paris manifested everywhere marks of destruction and conflagration. The streets were deserted; the roads overgrown with weeds; the whole a vast solitude." In the spring of 1360 Edward moved on towards the banks of the Loire, hoping to find sustenance there. Near Chartres he was overtaken by a terrible storm of hail and thunder, and in the roar of the thunder he thought that he heard the voice of God reproving him for the misery which he had caused. He abated his demands and signed the treaty of Bretigni.



25. The Treaty of Bretigni. 1360.—By the treaty of Bretigni John was to be ransomed for an enormous sum; Edward was to surrender his claim to the crown of France and to the provinces north of Aquitaine, receiving in return the whole of the duchy of Aquitaine together with the districts round Calais and Ponthieu, all of them to be held in full sovereignty, without any feudal obligation to the king of France. Probably it cost Edward little to abandon his claim to the French crown, which had only been an after-thought; and it was a clear gain to get rid of those feudal entanglements which had so frequently been used as a pretext of aggression against the English kings. It was hardly likely, however, that England would long be able to keep a country like Aquitaine, which was geographically part of France and in which French sympathies were constantly on the increase. "We will obey the English with our lips," said the men of Rochelle, when their town was surrendered, "but our hearts shall never be moved towards them."



CHAPTER XVI.

REIGN OF EDWARD III. AFTER THE TREATY OF BRETIGNI.

1360—1377.

LEADING DATES

Reign of Edward III., 1327-1377.

Battle of Navarrete 1367 Renewal of war with France 1369 Truce with France 1375 The Good Parliament 1376 Death of Edward III. 1377

1. The First Years of Peace. 1360—1364.—To hold his new provinces the better, Edward sent the Black Prince to govern them in 1363 with the title of Duke of Aquitaine. King John had been liberated soon after the making of the peace, and had been allowed to return to France on payment of part of his ransom, and on giving hostages for the payment of the remainder. In 1363 one of the hostages, his son, the Duke of Anjou, broke his parole and fled, on which John, shocked at such perfidy, returned to England to make excuses for him, and died there in 1364. If honour, he said, were not to be found elsewhere, it ought to be found in the breasts of kings.

2. The Spanish Troubles. 1364—1368.—John's eldest son and successor, Charles V., known as the Wise, or the Prudent, was less chivalrous, but more cautious than his father, and soon found an opportunity of stirring up trouble for the Black Prince without exposing his own lands to danger. Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile, who had for some time been the ally of England, had murdered his wife, tyrannised over his nobles, and contracted an alliance with the Mohammedans of Granada. The Pope having excommunicated him, his own illegitimate brother, Henry of Trastamara, claimed the crown, and sought aid of the king of France. Charles V. sent Bertrand du Guesclin, a rising young commander, to his help. Du Guesclin's army was made up of men of the Free Companies (see p. 252), which still continued to plunder France on their own account after the Peace of Bretigni. In this way Charles got rid of a scourge of his own country at the same time that he attacked an ally of the English. In 1366 Du Guesclin entered Spain. The tyrannical Pedro took refuge at Bayonne, where he begged the Black Prince to help him. The Gascon nobles pleaded with the Prince to reject the monster, but the Prince was not to be held back. "It is not a right thing or reasonable," he said, when they urged him to keep aloof from the unjust undertaking to which he invited them, "that a bastard should hold a kingdom, and thrust out of it, and of his heritage, a brother and heir of the land by legal marriage. All kings and sons of kings should never agree nor consent to it, for it is a great blow at the royal state." In 1367 the Black Prince entered Spain, and with the help of his English archers thoroughly defeated Henry at Navarrete. Then vengeance overtook him on the side on which he had sinned. Pedro was as false as he was cruel, and refused to pay the sums which he had engaged to furnish to the Prince's troops. Sickness broke out in the English ranks, and the Black Prince returned to Bordeaux with only a fifth part of his army, and with his own health irretrievably shattered. In 1368 Henry made his way back to Spain, defeated and slew Pedro, and undid the whole work of the Black Prince to the south of the Pyrenees.



3. The Taxation of Aquitaine. 1368—1369.—Worse than this was in store for the Black Prince. As his soldiers clamoured for their wages, he levied a hearth tax to supply their needs. The Aquitanian Parliament declared against the tax, and appealed to the king of France to do them right. In 1369 Charles, who knew that the men of Aquitaine would be on his side, summoned the Black Prince to Paris to defend his conduct, on the pretext that, as there had been some informality in the treaty of Bretigni, he was himself still the feudal superior of the Duke of Aquitaine. "Willingly," replied the Black Prince when he received the summons, "we will go to the court of Paris, as the king of France orders it; but it shall be with helmet on head and sixty thousand men with us."

4. The Renewed War. 1369—1375.—Edward, by the advice of Parliament, resumed the title of King of France, and war broke out afresh in 1369. The result of the first war had been owing to the blunders of the French in attacking the English archers with the feudal cavalry. Charles V. and his commander, Du Guesclin, resolved to fight no battles. Their troops hung about the English march, cut off stragglers, and captured exposed towns. The English marched hither and thither, plundering and burning, but their armies, powerful as they were when attacked in a defensive position, could not succeed in forcing a battle, and were worn out without accomplishing anything worthy of their fame. The Black Prince, soured by failure and ill-health, having succeeded in 1370 in recapturing Limoges, ordered his men to spare no one in the town. "It was great pity," wrote the chronicler Froissart, "for men, women, and children threw themselves on their knees before the Prince, crying 'Mercy! mercy! gentle Sire!'" The Prince, who had waited at table behind a captive king, hardened his heart. More than three thousand—men, women and children—were butchered on that day. Yet the spirit of chivalry was strong within him, and he spared three gentlemen who fought bravely merely in order to sell their lives dearly. In 1371 the Black Prince was back in England. His eldest surviving brother, John of Gaunt—or Ghent—Duke of Lancaster, continued the war in France. In 1372 the English lost town after town. In 1373 John of Gaunt set out from Calais. He could plunder, but he could not make the enemy fight. "Let them go," wrote Charles V. to his commanders; "by burning they will not become masters of your heritage. Though storms rage over a land, they disperse of themselves. So will it be with these English." When the English reached the hilly centre of France food failed them. The winter came, and horses and men died of cold and want. A rabble of half-starved fugitives was all that reached Bordeaux after a march of six hundred miles. Aquitaine, where the inhabitants were for the most part hostile to the English, and did everything in their power to assist the French, was before long all but wholly lost, and in 1375 a truce was made which put an end to hostilities for a time, leaving only Calais, Cherbourg, Brest, Bayonne, and Bordeaux in the hands of the English.