He made a treaty with England at a time when the distractions of that kingdom were at the greatest height, and when the king’s authority was totally annihilated; and the terms which he granted might, even in a more prosperous state of their affairs, be deemed reasonable and advantageous to the English. He yielded up some territories which had been conquered from Poictou and Guienne; he insured the peaceable possession of the latter province to Henry; he agreed to pay that prince a large sum of money; and he only required that the king should, in return, make a final cession of Normandy and the other provinces, which he could never entertain any hopes of recovering by force of arms.[*] This cession was ratified by Henry, by his two sons and two daughters, and by the king of the Romans and his three sons: Leicester alone, either moved by a vain arrogance, or desirous to ingratiate himself with the English populace, protested against the deed, and insisted on the right, however distant, which might accrue to his consort.[**] Lewis saw in his obstinacy the unbounded ambition of the man; and as the barons insisted that the money due by treaty should be at their disposal, not at Henry’s, he also saw, and probably with regret, the low condition to which this monarch, who had more erred from weakness than from any bad intentions, was reduced by the turbulence of his own subjects.
1261.
But the situation of Henry soon after wore a more favorable aspect. The twenty-four barons had now enjoyed the sovereign power near three years; and had visibly employed it, not for the reformation of the state, which was their first pretence, but for the aggrandizement of themselves and of their families. The breach of trust was apparent to all the world: every order of men felt it, and murmured against it: the dissensions among the barons themselves, which increased the evil, made also the remedy more obvious and easy: and the secret desertion in particular of the earl of Glocester to the crown, seemed to promise Henry certain success in any attempt to resume his authority. Yet durst he not take that step, so reconcilable both to justice and policy, without making a previous application to Rome, and desiring an absolution from his oaths and engagements.[***]
* Rymer, vol. i. p 675. M. Paris, p. 566. Chron. T. Wykes, p, 53. Trivet, p. 208 M. West. p. 371. ** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 53. *** Ann. Burt. p. 389.
The pope was at this time much dissatisfied with the conduct of the barons; who, in order to gain the favor of the people and clergy of England, had expelled all the Italian ecclesiastics, had confiscated their benefices, and seemed determined to maintain the liberties and privileges of the English church, in which the rights of patronage belonging to their own families were included. The extreme animosity of the English clergy against the Italians was also a source of his disgust to the order; and an attempt which had been made by them for further liberty and greater independence on the civil power, was therefore less acceptable to the court of Rome.[*] About the same time that the barons at Oxford had annihilated the prerogatives of the monarchy, the clergy met in a synod at Merton, and passed several ordinances, which were no less calculated to promote their own grandeur at the expense of the crown. They decreed, that it was unlawful to try ecclesiastics by secular judges; that the clergy were not to regard any prohibitions from civil courts; that lay patrons had no right to confer spiritual benefices; that the magistrate was obliged, without further inquiry, to imprison all excommunicated persons; and that ancient usage, without any particular grant or charter, was a sufficient authority for any clerical possessions or privileges.[**] About a century before, these claims would have been supported by the court of Rome beyond the most fundamental articles of faith: they were the chief points maintained by the great martyr Becket; and his resolution in defending them had exalted him to the high station which he held in the catalogue of Romish saints. But principles were changed with the times: the pope was become somewhat jealous of the great independence of the English clergy, which made them stand less in need of his protection, and even imboldened them to resist his authority, and to complain of the preference given to the Italian courtiers, whose interests, it is natural to imagine, were the chief object of his concern. He was ready, therefore, on the king’s application, to annul these new constitutions of the church of England.[***] And, at the same time, he absolved the king and all his subjects from the oath which they had taken to observe the provisions of Oxford.[****]
* Rymer, vol. i. p. 755. ** Ann. Burt. p. 389. *** Rymer, vol. i. p. 755. **** Rymer, vol. i. p. 722. M. Paris, p. 666. W. Heming. p, 580. Ypod. Neust. p; 468. Knyghton, p. 2446.
Prince Edward, whose liberal mind, though in such early youth, had taught him the great prejudice which his father had incurred by his levity, inconstancy, and frequent breach of promise, refused for a long time to take advantage of thus absolution; and declared that the provisions of Oxford, how unreasonable soever in themselves, and how much soever abused by the barons, ought still to be adhered to by those who had sworn to observe them:[*] he himself had been constrained by violence to take that oath; yet was he determined to keep it. By this scrupulous fidelity the prince acquired the confidence of all parties, and was afterwards enabled to recover fully the royal authority, and to perform such great actions both during his own reign and that of his father.
The situation of England, during this period, as well as that of most European kingdoms, was somewhat peculiar. There was no regular military force maintained in the nation: the sword, however, was not, properly speaking, in the hands of the people; the barons were alone intrusted with the defence of the community; and after any effort which they made, either against their own prince or against foreigners, as the military retainers departed home, the armies were disbanded, and could not speedily be reassembled at pleasure. It was easy, therefore, for a few barons, by a combination, to get the start of the other party, to collect suddenly their troops, and to appear unexpectedly in the field with an army, which their antagonists, though equal or even superior in power and interest, would not dare to encounter. Hence the sudden revolutions which often took place in those governments; hence the frequent victories obtained without a blow by one faction over the other; and hence it happened, that the seeming prevalence of a party was seldom a prognostic of its long continuance in power and authority.
1262.
The king, as soon as he received the pope’s absolution from his oath, accompanied with menaces of excommunication against all opponents, trusting to the countenance of the church, to the support promised him by many considerable barons, and to the returning favor of the people, immediately took off the mask. After justifying his conduct by a proclamation, in which he set forth the private ambition and the breach of trust conspicuous in Leicester and his associates, be declared that he had resumed the government, and was determined thenceforth to exert the royal authority for the protection of his subjects.
* M. Paris. D. 667.
He removed Hugh le Despenser and Nicholas de Ely, the justiciary and chancellor appointed by the barons; and put Philip Basset and Walter de Merton in their place. He substituted new sheriffs in all the counties, men of character and honor; he placed new governors in most of the castles; he changed all the officers of his household; he summoned a parliament, in which the resumption of his authority was ratified, with only five dissenting voices; and the barons, after making one fruitless effort to take the king by surprise at Winchester, were obliged to acquiesce in those new regulations.[*]
The king, in order to cut off every objection to his conduct, offered to refer all the differences between him and the earl of Leicester to Margaret, queen of France.[**] The celebrated integrity of Lewis gave a mighty influence to any decision which issued from his court; and Henry probably hoped, that the gallantry on which all barons, as true knights, valued themselves, would make them ashamed not to submit to the award of that princess. Lewis merited the confidence reposed in him. By an admirable conduct, probably as political as just, he continually interposed his good offices to allay the civil discords ol the English: he forwarded all healing measures which might give security to both parties: and he still endeavored, though in vain, to soothe by persuasion the fierce ambition of the earl of Leicester, and to convince him how much it was his duty to submit peaceably to the authority of his sovereign.
* M. Paris, p. 668. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 55. ** Rymer, vol. i. p. 724.
1263.
That bold and artful conspirator was nowise discouraged by the bad success of his past enterprises. The death of Richard, earl of Glocester, who was his chief rival in power, and who, before his decease, had joined the royal party seemed to open a new field to his violence, and to expose the throne to fresh insults and injuries. It was in vain that the king professed his intentions of observing strictly the great charter, even of maintaining all the regulations made by the reforming barons at Oxford or afterwards, except those with entirely annihilated the royal authority; these powerful chieftains, now obnoxious to the court, could not peaceably resign the hopes of entire independence and uncontrolled power with which they had flattered themselves, and which they had so long enjoyed. Many of them engaged in Leicester’s views, and among the rest, Gilbert, the young earl of Glocester, who brought him a mighty accession of power, from the extensive authority possessed by that opulent family. Even Henry, son of the king of the Romans, commonly called Henry d’Allmaine, though a prince of the blood, joined the party of the barons against the king, the head of his own family Leicester himself, who still resided in France, secretly formed the links of this great conspiracy, and planned the whole scheme of operations.
The princes of Wales, notwithstanding the great power of the monarchs both of the Saxon and Norman line, still preserved authority in their own country. Though they had often been constrained to pay tribute to the crown of England, they were with difficulty retained in subordination or even in peace; and almost through every reign since the conquest, they had infested the English frontiers with such petty incursions and sudden inroads, as seldom merit to have place in a general history. The English, still content with repelling their invasions, and chasing them back into their mountains, had never pursued the advantages obtained over them, nor been able, even under their greatest and most active princes, to fix a total, or so much as a feudal subjection on the country. This advantage was reserved to the present king, the weakest and most indolent. In the year 1237, Lewellyn, prince of Wales, declining in years and broken with infirmities, but still more harassed with the rebellion and undutiful behavior of his youngest son Griffin, had recourse to the protection of Henry; and consenting to subject his principality, which had so long maintained, or soon recovered, its independence to vassalage under the crown of England, had purchased security and tranquillity on these dishonorable terms. His eldest son and heir, David, renewed the homage to England; and having taken his brother prisoner, delivered him into Henry’s hands, who committed him to custody in the Tower. That prince, endeavoring to make his escape, lost his life in the attempt; and the prince of Wales, freed from the apprehensions of so dangerous a rival, paid thenceforth less regard to the English monarch, and even renewed those incursions by which the Welsh, during so many ages, had been accustomed to infest the English borders. Lewellyn, however, the foil of Griffin, who succeeded to his uncle, had been obliged to renew the homage which was now claimed by England as an established right; but he was well pleased to inflame those civil discords, on which he rested his present security and founded his hopes of future independence. He entered into a confederacy with the earl of Leicester, and collecting all the force of his principality, invaded England with an army of thirty thousand men. He ravaged the lands of Roger de Mortimer, and of all the barons who adhered to the crown;[*] he marched into Cheshire, and committed like depredations on Prince Edward’s territories; every place where his disorderly troops appeared was laid waste with fire and sword; and though Mortimer, a gallant and expert soldier, made stout resistance, it was found necessary that the prince himself should head the army against this invader. Edward repulsed Prince Lewellyn, and obliged him to take shelter in the mountains of North Wales: but he was prevented from making further progress against the enemy by the disorders which soon after broke out in England.
The Welsh invasion was the appointed signal for the malecontent barons to rise in arms; and Leicester, coming over secretly from France, collected all the forces of his party, and commenced an open rebellion. He seized the person of the bishop of Hereford, a prelate obnoxious to all the inferior clergy, on account of his devoted attachment to the court of Rome.[**] Simon, bishop of Norwich, and John Mansel, because they had published the pope’s bull, absolving the king and kingdom from their oaths to observe the provisions of Oxford, were made prisoners, and exposed to the rage of the party. The king’s demesnes were ravaged with unbounded fury,[***] and as it was Leicester’s interest to allure to his side, by the hopes of plunder, all the disorderly ruffians in England he gave them a general license to pillage the barons of the opposite party, and even all neutral persons.
* Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 354. ** Trivet, p. 211. M. West. p. 382, 392. *** Trivet, p. 211. M. West. p. 382.
But one of the principal resources of his faction was the populace of the cities, particularly of London; and as he had, by his hypocritical pretensions to sanctity, and his zeal against Rome, engaged the monks and lower ecclesiastics in his party, his dominion over the inferior ranks of men became uncontrollable. Thomas Fitz-Richard, mayor of London, a furious and licentious man, gave the countenance of authority to these disorders in the capital; and having declared war against the substantial citizens, he loosened all the bands of government, by which that turbulent city was commonly but ill restrained. On the approach of Easter, the zeal of superstition, the appetite for plunder, or what is often as prevalent with the populace as either of these motives, the pleasure of committing havoc and destruction, prompted them to attack the unhappy Jews, who were first pillaged without resistance, then massacred, to the number of five hundred persons.[*] The Lombard bankers were next exposed to the rage of the people; and though, by taking sanctuary in the churches, they escaped with their lives, all their money and goods became a prey to the licentious multitude. Even the houses of the rich citizens, though English, were attacked by night; and way was made by sword and by fire to the pillage of their goods, and often to the destruction of their persons. The queen, who, though defended by the Tower, was terrified by the neighborhood of such dangerous commotions, resolved to go by water to the Castle of Windsor; but as she approached the bridge, the populace assembled against her: the cry ran, “Drown the witch;” and besides abusing her with the most opprobrious language, and pelting her with rotten eggs and dirt, they had prepared large stones to sink her barge, when she should attempt to shoot the bridge; and she was so frightened, that she returned to the Tower[**]
The violence and fury of Leicester’s faction had risen to such a height in all parts of England, that the king, unable to resist their power, was obliged to set on foot a treaty of peace, and to make an accommodation with the barons on the most disadvantageous terms.[***]
* Chron T. Wykes, p. 59. ** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 57. *** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 358. Trivet, p. 211.
He agreed to confirm anew the provisions of Oxford, even those which entirely annihilated the royal authority; and the barons were again reinstated in the sovereignty of the kingdom. They restored Hugh le Despenser to the office of chief justiciary: they appointed their own creatures sheriffs in every county of England; they took possession of all the royal castles and fortresses; they even named all the officers of the king’s household; and they summoned a parliament to meet at Westminster, in order to settle more fully their plan of government. They here produced a new list of twenty-four barons, to whom they proposed that the administration should be entirely committed; and they insisted that the authority of this junto should continue not only during the reign of the king, but also during that of Prince Edward.
This prince, the life and soul of the royal party, had unhappily, before the king’s accommodation with the barons, been taken prisoner by Leicester in a parley at Windsor;[*] and that misfortune, more than any other incident, had determined Henry to submit to the ignominious conditions imposed upon him. But Edward, having recovered his liberty by the treaty, employed his activity in defending the prerogatives of his family; and he gained a great party even among-those who had at first adhered to the cause of the barons. His cousin, Henry d’Allmaine, Roger Bigod, earl mareschal, Earl Warrenne, Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford, John Lord Basset, Ralph Basset, Hammond l’Estrange, Roger Mortimer, Henry de Piercy, Robert de Brus, Roger de Leybourne, with almost all the lords marchers, as they were called, on the borders of Wales and of Scotland, the most warlike parts of the kingdom, declared in favor of the royal cause; and hostilities, which were scarcely well composed, were again renewed in every part of England. But the near balance of the parties, joined to the universal clamor of the people, obliged the king and barons to open anew the negotiations for peace; and it was agreed by both sides to submit their differences to the arbitration of the king of France.[**]
* M. Paris, p. 669. Trivet, p. 213. ** M. Paris, p. 668, Chron. T. Wykes, p. 58. W. Heming, p. 580. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 363.
1264.
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