CRISTO RAUL.ORG

DURUY'S

HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES

BOOK VIII

RIVALRY BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND. (1066-1453)

CHAPTER XXVI.

PROGRESS OF ENGLISH INSTITUTIONS FROM THE GRANTING OF THE MAGNA CHARTA UNTIL ’THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR (1217-1328).

Pledges made by the Magna Charta (1215). Henry III. (1216).—The League of the Barons; Provisions of Oxford ; the Parliament (1258). Edward I. (1272). Conquest of Wales (1274-1284).—War with Scotland (1297-1307); Balliol, Wallace and Bruce.—Edward II. (1307); Progress of Parliament. Pledges made by the Magna Charter (1215). Henry III (1216).

We have seen that the Magna Charta dated back to the time of John Lackland. The English monarchy, which from the first had been strong enough to make itself feared by the barons and the middle classes, and even by the clergy, found these three classes in league against it. It will now be shown how liberty for all resulted from their common efforts, the barons having made stipulations for the middle classes at the same time as for themselves, because they had need of their support.

In this memorable document the king promised the clergy that he would respect the liberty of the Church, particularly in the matter of elections; he promised the lords to observe the limits laid down, in the time of Henry I, to his feudal rights of relief, guardianship, and marriage; he promised the middle classes not to lay any tax on the kingdom without the consent of the common council; and he granted to all the famous law of Habeas Corpus, and of the jury, the foundations of the liberty and individual se­curity which have ever since been England’s noblest attributes. Finally, he gave to the Court of Common Pleas a fixed residence. Another charter, called the Forest Charter, joined with the former, moderated the extreme severity of the punishments inflicted for violations of the hunting laws in the king’s forests, and gave the liberties acquired greater security by the establishment of a commission of twenty-five barons charged with seeing it carried into effect and with obliging the king by every means in their power to reform abuses.

When John died, the barons abandoned his rival, Louis of France, and turned to his son, Henry III. As he was still a child he was placed under the guardianship of the Earl of Pembroke, and was made to confirm the Magna Charta (1216). Thus from his infancy he was in the habit of protesting his respect for the fundamental compact of English liberty, though it was repugnant to all the English kings, and he himself repudiated it on more than one occasion.

During almost the whole of his reign, which began with a minority, the royal power was eclipsed by the private influences which struggled for mastery at the court : first, the Earl of Pembroke, then Hubert de Burgh, who succeeded him, and Peter des Roches, his rival and a native of Poitou, bishop of Winchester. The last-mentioned drew great numbers of his fellow-countrymen to the court, who took possession of all offices to the great discontent of the Norman barons. Later (1236), Henry III having married Eleanor of Provence, the court was crowded with Provençals, while one of the Queen’s uncles, Peter of Savoy, brought from his mountains a bevy of poor young girls whom the king obliged his barons to marry. Another uncle of Eleanor was made primate archbishop of Canterbury. Finally, the court of Rome took possession in a way of England, owing to the numbers of Roman clergymen to whom English benefices were given. They fell upon the country in a crowd, and possessed at that time as much as 70,000 marks of revenue.

No glory was shed about the English name at that time to compensate for the ravages of those foreign leeches. St. Louis defeated Henry III at Taillebourg and at Saintes, and only left him his French provinces through an excess of honesty. His second son Edmund, to whom the Pope Alexander IV had offered the throne of Sicily, then occupied by Manfred, was not able to hold it. His brother Richard of Cornwall, who was elected emperor by the enemies of the Swabian house, saw them turn against him when his purse was empty.

Thus England’s money was frittered away while she derived no profit from it. Henry III tried by every possible means to raise money. Naturally he did not spare the miserable Jews: they were accused of frightful crimes, as, for instance, of having subjected a child to flagellation and crucifixion. The Jews could not defend themselves. But when the king undertook to fleece the Christians too, that was a very different matter, and the barons then made a stand.

Although Henry III had sworn four different times, and with great solemnity, to respect the Magna Charta, he did not scruple to violate it in what concerned the imposts, and all the more because the Pope had released him from his oaths. The barons showed great forbearance. But when in 1258 an envoy from Alexander IV arrived at London to demand 40,000 marks, besides interest, on account of Edmund’s affair in Italy, the indignant barons resolved to tie the king down by a public constitution, and no longer trust to an oath, a weak support when dependent on a conscience such as his. On the eleventh of June, 1258, in the great national council at Oxford, the first assembly which had officially received the name of parlia­ment, they forced the king to confide the work of reform to twenty-four barons, twelve of them only to be appointed by him. The twenty-four delegates published the famous Statutes or Provisions of Oxford; the king confirmed the Magna Charta; the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Treasurer, the judges and other public officers, including the governors of the castles, were to be responsible to the twenty-four. Finally, parliament was to be convoked three times a year.

Henry III protested, and appealed to St. Louis to arbitrate between them. The king of France decided in his favor in the assembly at Amiens. But the barons did not accept his decision, took up arms against Henry under the lead of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and son of the conqueror of the Albigenses, and took the king prisoner, together with his son Edward, at the battle of Lewes (1264). Leicester then governed in the name of the king, whom he held captive. It was he who organized the first complete representation of the English nation by writs issued in December, 1264, which directed the election of two knights from every county, and of two citizens or burgesses from each one of the large or important towns of England.

Thus an alliance, fruitful for English liberty, was sealed between the nobles and the commons by the admission of the lesser nobility and the middle class together to the country’s great council. Leicester, who was not cordially supported by the great nobles, did not long keep the power in his hands. The Earl of Gloucester brought about a division; Prince Edward escaped. They both collected an army and fought the Earl of Leicester at Evesham, where he was defeated and killed (August, 1265). Henry III again became king in reality, but did not dare undo the work of Leicester.

Edward I, son of Henry III, was in the Holy Land when his father died (1272). On hearing the news he returned and was crowned. His reign was an important one for England, and brought Wales much glory; for, on the one hand, the admission of the representatives of the commons to parliament was established as a recognized rule in 1295, thus making the representative system a fixed institution in England; and, on the other hand, the kingdom was enlarged by the acquisition of Wales, and for a time had Scotland under its sway.

The Celtic race had maintained its independence in the mountains of Wales, while a succession of powers had held the country about them. Besides her independence, Wales had kept her bards, who promised that one day a Welsh prince should sit upon the throne of England, and she offered a refuge to all enemies of the Norman power. Nevertheless a Welsh chieftain had been forced to render homage to Henry III; but Llewelyn refused it to Edward I, who thereupon marched into his country. After a desperate struggle Llewelyn was killed ; his head, crowned with ivy, was exposed on the Tower of London. His brother David took his place. He was made prisoner, and the four quarters of his body distributed through the country, “because he had conspired in different places for the death of the king, his lord.” England inflicted this horrible punishment, even until the eighteenth century, on all who were condemned of high treason. The citizens of Winchester and York disputed for the right shoulder of the unhappy man, as if it were an honored relic. Edward organized Wales on the same plan as England, bade the bards be silent, and to change the hopes which their predictions inspired in the Welsh, gave his son the title of Prince of Wales, which has always been held by the heir apparent since that time (1284).

Scotland, like Wales, had retained its independence, although certain of its kings had rendered a passing homage war with king of England. When Edward became king, the throne of Scotland belonged to a young Norwegian princess, who had not taken possession. He succeeded in betrothing her to his son, believing that he was preparing for the happy union of the two countries in this manner. But when “the Maid of Norway” came to seek her throne and her husband, she was not able to accomplish her journey, but died of fatigue at the Orkney Islands. The most important among the many claimants who offered themselves for the throne of Scotland were John Balliol and Robert Bruce. The Scotch referred the decision of the question to Edward. He chose Balliol (1292), with the formal stipulation that Scotland should henceforth own his sovereignty. Balliol soon tried to free himself from that humiliating position. He was defeated at Dunbar (1296), taken prisoner, and sent to die at Andelys, in Normandy. Edward gave the offices and fortified places of Scotland into the hands of the English, and took away the great stone of Scone, on which the kings of Scotland were crowned, and which is still used for the same purpose in England.

Scotland was too proud to allow herself to be treated like a conquered country without resistance. William Wallace, a simple gentleman, led the movement. No one could more valiantly handle the claymore. He fell upon the vanguard of the English army, which had just crossed the Forth by a narrow bridge, near Stirling, and drove it into the river (1297). These brave but ferocious bands were laying waste the north of England when Edward came to the rescue. He conquered at Falkirk (1298), and Wallace, given up by a traitor, was beheaded and quartered.

The third act in this glorious drama of resistance belongs to Robert Bruce, Balliol’s rival. When Balliol revolted against Edward, Bruce hoped to be put in his place, and fled to the English camp, and from that time had served in their ranks. One day, after a skirmish with the Scotch, he took his place at table, his hands covered with blood. “See,” said some of the English in low tones,—“see this Scotchman feeding upon his own blood.” He heard them, and from very shame made a vow to liberate his country.* He assembled the Scottish barons, who proclaimed him king, and were at first defeated. Scotland would perhaps have fallen under the English yoke forever if Edward I had not died (1307).

Edward II, a weak and despicable prince, seemed all the more so because he succeeded a sovereign who was Edward energetic and brave. He wished to continue the war with Robert Bruce, and at Bannockburn (1314), he suffered the most complete defeat that is recorded in the annals of England. Scotland’s independence was assured. Robert Bruce retained his seat upon the throne.

The plague of this reign was again the influence of favorites and foreigners. Gaveston, a Gascon, later the two Despencers, successively enjoyed the favor of the king and incurred the hatred of the barons. The latter were joined [at the end of the reign] by Isabel, daughter of the king of France, Philip the Fair, who had married Edward II in 1308, and whose cruelty equaled her charms. In 1312 the barons seized Gaveston and beheaded him. In 1326, Isabel herself raised an army on the continent, and, assisted by the nobles, sent the two Despencers to execution and her husband to prison, where he was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Edward III, and where he was soon assassinated by the orders of that terrible woman.

Liberty took a step in advance, however, under this weak king. Parliament had already voted on the question of taxation. Now, in the second year of Edward II’s reign, the members added conditions to their vote, and exacted from the king that he should take their advice and redress their grievances. To recapitulate the steps already taken :

In 1215, all England, united against the odious John Lackland, obliged him to grant the Magna Charta, a declaration of national liberty.

In 1258, the Provisions of Oxford, under Henry III, established, for the moment, the stated recurrence of the great national council or Parliament.

In 1265, under the same prince, the Earl of Leicester admitted to Parliament the knights of the shire and the representatives of the townspeople, who formed later the Lower House, or House of Commons, while those personally summoned to attend by the king from the great nobles formed the Upper House, or the House of Lords.

Beginning with the year 1295, in the reign of Edward I, the attendance of the county and town members became regular, making Parliament a real representative of the country.

In 1309, in the reign of Edward II, Parliament revealed its possible strength by putting conditions on its vote of taxes.

We see, then, that the foundations of the English Constitution were laid in the thirteenth century; the fourteenth century confirmed and extended them. It was on this ancient foundation that the power and freedom of England arose in the eighteenth century.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR.