Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II Part 41

On discovering how he had been duped, Edward's first impulse was to send out his writs to collect his va.s.sals to recover Gascony, chastise the insolent ill faith of Philippe, and to stir up his foreign connections to support him. He collected his troops at Portsmouth, hoping to augment his army by a general release of prisoners, Scottish, Welsh, and malefactors alike; but while he was detained seven weeks by contrary winds, all these men, after taking his pay, made their escape, and either returned to their countries, or marauded in the woods. A great insurrection broke out in Wales, and he was forced to hasten thither, and from thence was called away to quell the rising of the Scottish barons against Balliol.

Meanwhile, it fared ill with his foreign allies. The Duke of Brabant, father-in-law to his daughter Margaret, was killed in a tournament at the court of her sister Eleanor; and when Eleanor's husband, Henri of Bar, took up arms in the English cause, and marched into Champagne, he was defeated, and made prisoner by the Queen of France. The poor old Count of Flanders and his Countess were invited to Paris by Philippe, who insisted that they should bring his G.o.dchild and namesake, the betrothed of young Edward, to visit him. When they arrived, they were all thrown into the prison of the Louvre, on the plea that Guy had no right to bestow his daughter in marriage without permission from his suzerain.

Edward's head was so full of Scotland, that he was shamefully indifferent to the sufferings of his friends in his behalf. Poor Eleanor of Bar, after striving hard to gain her husband's freedom, died of grief, after a few months; and Guy of Flanders contrived to obtain his own release by promising to renounce the English alliance; but Philippe would not set free the poor young Philippa, whom he kept in his hands as a hostage.

One cause of the King's neglect was his great distress for money. He had learnt to have recourse to his father's disgraceful plea of a sham Crusade, and thus, for six years, gained a tenth of the Church revenues; but in 1294, requiring a further supply, he made a demand of half the year's income of the clergy. The new Archbishop, Robert Winchelsea, was gone to Rome to receive his pall; the Dean of St. Paul's, who was sent to remonstrate with the King, died suddenly in his presence; but Edward was not touched, and sent a knight to address the a.s.sembled clergy, telling them that any reverend father who dared to oppose the royal will would be considered to have broken the King's peace. In terror they yielded for that time; but they sent a pet.i.tion to the Pope, who, in return, granted a bull forbidding any subsidies to be paid by church lands to the King without his permission.

Little did Edward reck of this decree. He knew that Boniface VIII. had his hands full of his quarrels with the Romans and with Philippe le Bel, and his own ambition was fast searing the conscience once so generous and tender. Again he convened the clergy to grant his exactions, but Archbishop Winchelsea replied that they had two lords, spiritual and temporal; they owed the superior obedience to the spiritual lord, and would therefore grant nothing till the Pope should have ratified the demand; for which purpose they would send messengers to Rome.

The lay barons backed Edward in making a declaration of outlawry against the clergy, and seizing all the ecclesiastical property, both lands and treasures, except what was within churches or burying-grounds, declaring that, if not redeemed by submission before Easter, all should be forfeited forever. The Archbishop of York came to terms; but the Archbishop of Canterbury held out, and was deprived of everything, retiring to a country village, where he acted as parish priest, and lived upon the alms of the parishioners. He held a synod, where excommunication was denounced on those who seized church property; but the censures of the Church had lost their terrors, and the clergy gradually made their peace with the King, Winchelsea himself among the last.

The laity had looked on quietly at the oppression of the clergy, and indeed had borne their share of exactions; but these came at last to a point beyond endurance, and Edward's need, and their obstinate resistance, led to another step in the formation of our const.i.tution.

In 1297 he made a new alliance with Guy of Flanders, and was fitting out three armies, against Scotland, Guienne, and Flanders. To raise the means, he exacted five marks as a duty on each sack of wool exported to Flanders, and made ruinous requisitions for wheat on the landowners.

Merchants and burghers, barons and clergy, took counsel together, and finding each other all of one mind, resolved to make a stand against this tax on wool, which was called the "Evil Toll," and to establish what Magna Carta had already declared, that the nation would not be taxed against its own consent.

The King's brother, Edmund of Lancaster, had lately died while commanding in Guienne, and Edward, meeting his va.s.sals at Salisbury, gave the command of the army, thus left without a head, to Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and Roger BiG.o.d, Earl of Norfolk--the one Constable, the other Marshal of England. To his great wrath, they answered that their offices only bound them to attend the King's person in war, and that they would not go. Edward swore a fierce oath that they should either go, or hang. BiG.o.d coolly repeated the same oath, that he would neither go nor hang, and back to their own estates they went, and after them thirty bannerets, and 1,500 knights, who, by main force, hindered the King's officers from making any further levies on their barns and storehouses.

Nothing was left Edward, but to speak them fair. He summoned his va.s.sals to meet him in London, reconciled himself to Archbishop Winchelsea, and on the 14th of July, 1297, when all were a.s.sembled at Westminster, he stood forth on a platform, attended by his son, the Primate, and the Earl of Warwick, and harangued the people. He told them that he grieved at the burthens which he was forced to impose on them, but it was for their defence; for that the Scots, Welsh, and French thirsted for their blood, and it was better to lose a part, than the whole. "I am going to risk my life for your sake," he said. "If I return, receive me; and I will make you amends. If I fall, here is my son: he will reward you, if faithful."

His voice was broken by tears; and his people, remembering what he once had been rather than what he was now, broke into loud shouts of loyal affection. He appointed his son as regent, and set out for Flanders, but not in time to prevent poor Guy from again falling into captivity, and pursued by requisitions, to which he promised to attend on his return.

All the n.o.bles who held with him accompanied him, and Bohun and BiG.o.d were left to act in their own way.

They rode to London with a large train, lodged complaints of the illegal exaction before the Exchequer, and then, going to the Guildhall, worked up the citizens to be ready to a.s.sert their rights, and compel the King to revoke the evil toll, and to observe the charter. They had scrupulously kept within the law, and, though accompanied by so many armed followers, neither murder nor pillage was permitted; and thus they obtained the sympathies of the whole country.

Young Edward of Caernarvon was but thirteen, and could only submit; and a Parliament was convoked by his authority, when the present taxes were repealed, the important clause was added to the Great Charter which declared that no talliage or aid should thenceforth be levied without the consent of the bishops, peers, burgesses, and freemen of the realm, nor should any goods be taken for the King without consent of the owners.

Further, it was enacted that Magna Charta should be rehea.r.s.ed twice a year in all the cathedrals, with a sentence of excommunication on all who should infringe it. The Archbishop enforced this order strictly, adding another sentence of excommunication to be rehea.r.s.ed in each church on every Sunday against any who should beat or imprison clergymen, desiring it to be done with tolling of bell and putting out of candle, because these solemnities had the greater effect on the laity. This statute is a sad proof how much too cheaply sacred things were held, and how habit was leading even the clergy to debase them by over-frequent and frivolous use of the most awful emblems.

Young Edward and his council signed the acts, and they were sent to the King for ratification, with a promise that his barons would thereupon join him in Flanders, or march to Scotland, at his pleasure. He was three days in coming to his resolution, but finally agreed, though it was suspected that he might set aside his signature as invalid, because made in a foreign country.

Wallace's proceedings in Scotland made Edward anxious to hasten thither and rid himself of the French war. He therefore accepted the mediation of Boniface VIII., and consented to sacrifice his unfortunate ally, Guy of Flanders, whom he left in his captivity, as well as his poor young daughter. Both died in the prison to which the daughter had been consigned at twelve years old. The Prince of Wales, for whose sake her bloom wasted in prison, was contracted to Isabelle, the daughter of her persecutor, Philippe le Bel; and old King Edward himself received the hand of the Princess Marguerite, now about seventeen, fair and good.

Aquitaine was restored, though not Gascony; but Edward only wanted to be free, that he might hasten to Scotland. And, curiously enough, the outlaw Wallace, whatever he did for his own land, unconsciously fought the battles of his foes, the English nation; for it was his resistance that weakened Edward's power, and made necessity extort compliance with the demands of the Barons.

At York, BiG.o.d and Bohun claimed a formal ratification of the charter of Westminster. He put them off by pleading the urgency of affairs in Scotland, and hastened on; but when he returned, in 1299, the staunch Barons again beset him, and he confirmed the charter, but added the phrase, "Saving the rights of the Crown," which annulled the whole force of the decree. The two barons instantly went off in high displeasure, with a large number of their friends; and Edward, to try the temper of the people, ordered the charter to be rehea.r.s.ed at St. Paul's Cross; but when the rights of the Crown were mentioned, such a storm of hootings and curses arose, that Edward, taught by the storms of his youth not to push matters to extremity, summoned a new parliament, and granted the right of his subjects to tax themselves.

This right has often since been proved to be the main strength of the Parliament, by preventing the King from acting against their opinion, and by rendering it the interest of all cla.s.ses of men to attend to the proceedings of the sovereign: it has not only kept kings in check, but it has saved the n.o.bles and commonalty from sinking into that indifference to public affairs which has been the bane of foreign nations. For, unfortunately, the ma.s.s of men are more easily kept on the alert when wealth is affected, than by any deeper or higher consideration.

When we yearly hear of Parliament granting the supplies ere the close of the session, they are exercising the right first claimed at Runnymede, striven for by Simon de Montfort, and won by Humphrey Bohun, who succeeded through the careful self-command and forbearance which hindered him from ever putting his party in the wrong by violence or transgression of the laws. He should be honored as a steadfast bulwark to the freedom of his country, teaching the might of steady resolution, even against the boldest and ablest of all our kings. In spite of rough words, Edward and Bohun respected each other, and the heir of Hereford, likewise named Humphrey, married Elizabeth, the youngest surviving daughter left by good Queen Eleanor. Another of Edward's daughters had been married to an English earl. Joan of Acre, the high-spirited, wilful girl, who was born in the last Crusade, had been given as a wife to her father's stout old comrade, Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. He died when she was only twenty-three, and before the end of a year she secretly married her squire, Ralph de Monthermer, and her father only discovered the union when he had promised her to the Count of Savoy.

Monthermer was imprisoned; but Edward, always a fond father, listened to Joan's pleading, that, as an Earl could enn.o.ble a woman of mean birth, it was hard that she might not raise a gallant youth to rank. Ralph was released, and bore for the rest of his life the t.i.tle of Earl of Gloucester, which properly belonged only to Joan's young son, Gilbert.

Joan was a pleasure-loving lady, expensive in her habits, and neglectful of her children; but her father's indulgence for her never failed: he lent her money, pardoned her faults, and took on himself the education of her son Gilbert, who was the companion of his own two young sons by his second marriage, Thomas of Brotherton and Edmund of Woodstock.

Their mother, Margaret of France, was a fair and gentle lady, who lived on the best terms with her stepdaughters, many of whom were her elders; and she followed the King on his campaigns, as her predecessor Eleanor had done. Mary, the princess who had taken the veil, was almost always with her, and contrived to spend a far larger income than any of her sisters, though without the same excuse of royal apparel; but she was luxurious in diet, fond of pomp and display; never moving without twenty-four horses, and so devoted to amus.e.m.e.nt that she lost large sums at dice. She must have been an unedifying abbess at Ambresbury, though not devoid of kindness of heart.

Archbishop Winchelsea held a synod at Mertoun in 1305, where various decrees were made respecting the books and furniture which each parish was bound to provide for the Divine service. The books were to be "a legend" containing the lessons for reading, with others containing the Psalms and Services. The vestments were "two copes, a chasuble, a dalmatic, three surplices, and a frontal for the altar." And, besides these, a chalice of silver, a pyx of ivory or silver, a censer, two crosses, a font with lock and key, a vessel for holy water, a great candlestick, and a lantern and bell, which were carried before the Host when taken to the dying, a board with a picture to receive the kiss of peace, and all the images of the Church. The nave, then as now, was the charge of the parish; the chancel, of the rector.

This synod was Archbishop Winchelsea's last act before the King took vengeance on him for his past resistance. His friend and supporter, Boniface VIII., was dead, hara.s.sed to death by the persecutions of Philippe IV.; and Clement V., the new Pope, was a miserable time-server, raised to the papal chair by the machinations of the French King, and ready to serve as the tool of any injustice.

Edward disliked the Archbishop for having withstood him in the matter of the t.i.the, as well as for having cited him in the name of the Pope to leave Scotland in peace. The King now induced Clement to summon him to answer for insubordination. Winchelsea was very unwilling to go to Rome; but Edward seized his temporalities, banished eighty monks for giving him support, and finally exiled him. He died in indigence at Rome.

He was a prelate of the same busy cla.s.s as Langton, not fulfilling the highest standard of his sacred office, but spirited, uncompromising, and an ardent though unsuccessful champion of the rights of the nation.

If Langton be honored for his part in Magna Charta, Winchelsea merits a place by his side, for it was the resistance of his party to the "Evil Toll" that placed taxation in the power of the English nation, and in the wondrous ways of Providence caused the Scottish and French wars to work for the good of our const.i.tution.

CAMEO x.x.xVI. ROBERT THE BRUCE (1305-1308.)

_King of England_.

1272. Edward I.

_King of Scotland_.

1306. Robert I.

_King of France_.

1285 Philippe IV.

_Emperor of Germany_.

1298. Albert I.

_Pope_.

1305. Clement V.

The state of Scotland had, ever since the death of the good King Alexander, been such that even honest men could scarcely retain their integrity, nor see with whom to hold. The realm had been seized by a foreign power, with a perplexing show of justice, the rightful King had been first set up and then put down by external force, and the only authority predominant in the land was unacknowledged by the heart of any, though terror had obtained submission from the lips.

The strict justice which was loved and honored in orderly England, was loathed in barbarous Scotland. It would have been hated from a native sovereign; how much more so from a conqueror, and, above all, from a hostile race, exasperated by resistance! Whether Edward I. were an intentional tyrant or not, his deputies in Scotland were harsh rulers, and the troops scattered throughout the castles in the kingdom used such cruel license and exaction as could not but make the yoke intolerable, and the enmity irreconcilable, especially in a race who never forgot nor forgave.

The higher n.o.bility were in a most difficult situation, since to them it fell to judge between the contending parties, and to act for themselves.

Few preserved either consistency or good faith; they wavered between fear of Edward and love of independence; and among the lowland baronage there seems to have been only William Douglas, of Douglasdale, who never committed himself by taking oaths of fealty to the English king. Some families, who were va.s.sals at once of the English and Scottish crowns, were in still greater straits; and among these there was the line of Bruce. Robert de Brus had come from Normandy with William the Conqueror, and obtained from him large grants in Yorkshire, as well as the lordship of Annandale from one of the Scottish kings; and thus a Bruce stood between both parties, and strove to mediate at the battle of the Standard. His grandson married Isabel of Huntingdon, the daughter of the crusader, David of Scotland, and thus acquired still larger estates and influence in both countries. His son Robert made another English marriage with Isabel de Clare, daughter of the Earl of Gloucester.

The eldest son, Robert Bruce, had gone as a crusader to Palestine, in company with his friend Adam de Kilcontack, who was Earl of Carrick in right of his wife Martha. Kilcontack died at the siege of Acre, and Bruce, returning, married the young countess, and had a large family.

There were three Robert Bruces living at the time of the judgment at Norham--the father, Lord of Annandale; the son, Earl of Carrick; and the grandson, still a child. As he grew up, he was sent to serve in the English army, and for some time did so without apparent misgivings; and the connection was drawn closer by his marriage with Joan de Valence, one of the cousins of Edward I. In order to secure a part of the property at all events, the father gave up his Scottish fiefs to his son, and returned to England, there to live in unbroken allegiance to Edward.

When Balliol was driven to declare against Edward, he confiscated the estates of all who adhered to the English, and gave Annandale to John Comyn of Badenoch, the son of his sister Marjory. The Red Comyn, as he was called, seized Bruce's Castle of Lochmaben, and sowed seeds of deadly hatred; but on the downfall of Balliol he shared the captivity of the unfortunate "toom tabard," and did not return to Scotland for some years. When Wallace's revolt broke out, young Bruce, who was only twenty-three, at first followed his instinct of obedience to Edward, and took an oath to support him against all his enemies, and in pursuance of it ravaged the lands of the brave Douglas, and carried his wife and children into captivity. Some sense either of ambition or patriotism, however, stirred within him, and a.s.sembling his men of Annandale, he told them that he had taken a foolish oath, but that he deeply repented of it, and would be absolved from it, inviting them to join him in maintaining the cause of their country. They took alarm, and all disappeared in the course of the night, and he joined the patriots alone, but not with all his heart, for he soon made his peace with Edward, and gave his only child, Marjory, as a hostage. Thenceforward he vacillated, sometimes inclining to the King, sometimes to the Scottish party, and apparently endeavoring to discover how far he could be secure of the Scots giving him their crown, provided he took their part. He showed a lamentable contempt for his word; for, on his father's death, he again did homage, and swore fealty to Edward, both for his lands in England and Scotland, and at the same time he was making secret treaties with Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrew's, and with Comyn. Balliol having resigned the crown, and being in prison with all his family, was considered to be set aside, and Bruce proposed to Comyn, that whichever of them should claim the kingdom, should purchase the support of the other by resigning to him his own inheritance. Comyn appeared to agree, and, to prevent suspicion, Bruce attended the court in London; but while he was there, Comyn wrote to betray his proposal to Edward, who took measures for seizing the conspirator; but these becoming known to his cousin, young Gilbert de Clare, the King's grandson, he contrived to give Bruce warning by sending him a pair of spurs and some pieces of gold.

Bruce understood the hint, and galloped off with his horse's shoes turned backward, so as to baffle pursuit. He came safely, on the fifth day, to his own border castle of Lochmaben, where he found his brother Edward. Keeping watch, they seized a messenger on his way to the English court, bearing letters from Comyn, which explained to Bruce what the peril had been, and who the traitor. Still he was forced to dissemble, and went as usual to the court of the English justiciary at Dumfries, which he was bound to attend. Comyn was likewise present, and there were deadly glances between the two. Bruce called Comyn to hold a private interview with him in the church of the Minorite friars, and, while their words waxed fierce, Bruce reproached Comyn with treachery. The answer was, "You lie!" and Bruce, enraged, struck with his dagger at his enemy; then, horror-struck at seeing him fall, rushed out of the church, and called, "To horse!" Two of his attendants, Lindsay and Kirkpatrick, struck by his pale looks and wild eyes, asked what had befallen him.

"I doubt," he said, "that I have slain the Red Comyn!"

"You doubt!" cried Kirkpatrick; "I'll mak sicker"--or sure: and, so saying, hurried back into the church, and slew not only the wounded man, but his uncle, Sir Robert Comyn, who tried to defend him. The "b.l.o.o.d.y dirk" and the words "mak sicker" were adopted as crest and motto by the Kirkpatrick family. Strange instance of barbarism, that the dastardly, sacrilegious murder of a helpless man on the steps of the altar should be regarded as an achievement worthy of pride!

Still, the fruits of that deed were the deliverance of Scotland. The man who had hitherto wavered, cast about by circ.u.mstances, and swayed by family interest, a.s.sumed a new character, and became the patient, undaunted champion of his country.

In utter desperation, Bruce's first measure was to defend himself against the English justiciaries, and, rallying his friends, he took possession of the castle of Dumfries, where they were holding their court in a hall. They barricaded themselves within, but the fierce Scots set fire to the doors, and they surrendered, whereupon Bruce permitted them to depart in safety.