The History of England / From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377)

prelates and churches. The Welsh, in secret relations with the lords of the march, threatened the borders, and made a confederacy with the Scots. The French were hostile, and the barons disunit

xcommunication and the resumption of the grant of Sicily. He could not control his foreign kinsfolk, and the rivalry of Savoyards and Poitevins added a new element of turmoil to the distracted relations of the mag

" the earl replied, "I am not a traitor, nor the son of a traitor; your father and mine were men of a different stamp," An opposition party formed itself under the Earls of Gloucester, Leicester, Hereford, and Norfolk. Even the Savoyards partially fell away from the court, and a convocation of clergy at Merton, presided over by Archbishop Boniface,

, one his nephew, one his wife's uncle. The only earls that accepted his nomination were the Poitevin adventurer, John du Plessis, Earl of Warwick, and John of Warenne, who was pledged to a royalist policy by his marriage to Henry's half-sister, Alice of Lusignan. The only bishops were, the queen's uncle, Boniface of Canterbury, and Fulk Basset of London, the richest and noblest born of English prelates, who, though well meaning, was too weak in character for continued opposition. Yet these two were the most independent names on Henry's list. The rest included the three Lusignan brothers, Guy, William, and Aymer, still eight years after his election only elect of Winchester; Henry of Almaine, the young son of the King of the Romans; the pluralist official John Mansel; the chancellor, Henry Wingham; the

lve was to treat with the fifteen on the common affairs of the realm. This rather narrow body was created, we are told, to save the expense involved in too frequent meetings of the magnates. A third aristocratic junto of twenty-four was appointed to make grants of money to the crown. All aliens were to be expelled from office and from the custody of royal castles. New ministers, castellans, and escheators were appointed under str

trolled the crown was, it is true, a narrow one. But whatever was lost by its limitation, was more than gained by the absolute freedom of the whole movement from any suspicion of the separatist tendencies of the earlier feudalism. The barons tacitly accepted the principle that England was a unity, and that it must be ruled as a single whole. The triumph of the national movement of the thirteenth century was assured when the most feudal class of the community thus frankly abandoned

ies of the magnates which had been in existence since the earliest dawn of our history. For all practical purposes small baronial committees were to perform the work of magnates and people as well as of the crown. Yet it must be recognised that the barons showed self-control, as well as practical wisdom, in handing over functions discharged by the baronage as a whole to the various committees of their selection. The danger of general control by the magnates was that a large assembly, more skilled in opposition than in constructive work, was almost sure to become infected by faction. By strictly limiting and defining who the new rule

nd his cousin, Henry of Almaine, the son of the King of the Romans, were much under their influence. In the Dominican convent at Oxford the baronial leaders formed a sworn confederacy not to desist from their purpose until the foreigners had been expelled. There were more hot words between Leicester and William, the most capable of the Lusignans. The Poitevins soon found that they could not maintain themselves in the face of the general hatred. On June 22 they fled from Oxford in the company of their ally, Earl Warenne. They rode straight for the coast, but failing to reach it, occupied Winchester, where they sought to maintain themselves in Aym

e of the king's twelve had places on the permanent council, no less that nine of the fifteen were chosen from the baronial twelve. It was useless for Archbishop Boniface, John Mansel, and the Earl of Warwick to stand up against the Bishop of Worcester, the Earls of Leicester, Norfolk, Hereford, and Gloucester, against John FitzGeoffrey, Peter Montfort, Richard Grey, and Roger Mortimer. Moreover, of the three, John Mansel alone could still be

proclamation, in which he commanded all true men "steadfastly to hold and to defend the statutes that be made or are to be made by our counsellors". This document was issued in English as well as in French and Latin. A copy of the English version was sent to every sheriff, with instructions to read it several times a year in the county court, so that a knowledge of its contents might be attained by every man. It is perhap

ll observed, was made with Llewelyn, who found it worth while to be cautious, seeing that his natural enemies, but sometime associates, the marchers, had a preponderant share in the government. The Scots were easier to satisfy, for there was at the time no real hostility between either kings or peo

some progress; but the decisive step was taken immediately after the prorogation of the reforming parliament in the spring of 1258. During May a strangely constituted embassy treated for peace at Paris, where Montfort and Hugh Bigod worked side by side with two of the Lusignans and Peter of Savoy. They concluded a provisional treaty in time for the negotiators to take their part in the Mad Parliament. The unsettled state of affairs in England, however, delayed the ratification of the treaty. Arrangements had been made for its publication at Cambrai, but the fifteen dared not allow Henry to escape from their tutelage, and Louis refused to treat save with the king himself. There were difficulties as to the relation of the pope and the King of the Romans to the treaty, while Earl Simon's wife Eleanor and her children refused to waive their very remot

three dioceses of Limoges, Cahors, and Périgueux. Besides these immediate cessions, the French king promised to hand over to Henry certain districts then held by his brother, Alfonse of Poitiers, and his brother's wife Joan of Toulouse, in the event of their dominions escheating to the crown by their death without heirs. These regions included Agen and the Agenais, Saintonge to the south of th

on see M. Gavrilovitch, étude sur

h crown. As to the eventual cessions, Alfonse and his wife were still alive and likely to live many years. Even the cession of Gascony was hampered by a stipulation that the towns should take an "oath of security," by which they pledged themselves to aid France against England in the event of the English king breaking the provisions of the treaty. Perhaps the most solid advantage Henry gained by the treaty was financial, for he spent the sums granted to enable him to redeem his crusading vow in preparing for war against his own subjects. It was, however, an immense advantage for England to be able during the critical years which followed to be free from French hostility. If, therefore, the French complaints against the treaty were exaggerated, the English dissatisfaction was unreasonable. The real difficulty

id to act as a free man. It was not the king so much as Simon of Montfort who was the real author of the French treaty. Indeed, it is from the conclusion of the Peace of Paris that Simon's preponderance becomes evident. He was at all stages the chief negotiator of the peace and, save when his person

nal qualities which made him the hero of the younger generation; and his influence began to modify the policy of Edward the king's son, who, since the flight of his Poitevin kinsmen, was gradually arriving at broader views of national policy. Even before his father's journey to France, Edward took up a line of his own. In the October parliament of 1259, he listened to a petition presented to the council by the younger nobles[1] who complained that, though the king had performed all his promises, the barons had not fulfilled any of theirs. Edward thereupon stirred up the oligarchy to issue an instalment of the promised refor

Burton Ann., p. 471. See on this, Eng

both parties, but the mediation of the King of the Romans prevented a collision. Henry hurried home, convinced that Edward was conspiring against him. The king threw himself into the city of London, and with Gloucester's help collected an army. Meanwhile Montfort and Edward, with their armed followers, were lodged at Clerkenwell, ready for war. Again the situation became extremely critical, and again King Richard pr

ered to all these points with such force that the king could do nothing against him." Unable to break down his enemy by direct attack, Henry followed one of the worst precedents of his father's reign by beseech

Montfort, Appendix

assembled parliament at Winchester. There Henry removed the baronial ministers and replaced them by his own friends. Chief among the sufferers was Hugh Despenser, who had succeeded Hugh Bigod as justiciar; and Bigod himself was expelled from the custody of Dover Castle. In t

-writs to the sheriffs ordering them to send the knights, not to the baronial camp at St. Alban's, but to his own court at Windsor. Neither party was as yet prepared for battle. The death of Alexander IV, soon after the publication of his bull tied the hands of the king. At the same time the renewed dissensions of Leicester and Gloucester paralysed the baronage. Before long Simon withdrew to the continent, leaving everything in Gloucester's hands. At last, on December 7, a treaty of pacification was patched up, and the king announced that he was ready to pardon those who accepted its conditions. But there was no permanence in the settlement, and the king, the chief gaine

llied to the crown.[1] The causes of this change of front are to be found partly in public and partly in personal reasons. In 1258 Henry III., like Charles I. in 1640, had alienated every class of his subjects, and was therefore entirely at the mercy of his enemies. By 1263 his concessions had procured for him a following, so that he now stood in the same position as Charles after his concessions to the Long Parliament made it possible for him to begin the Civil War in 1642. A new royalist party was growing up with a wider policy and greater efficien

d, 1258-1267, see my essay on Wales and the March during the Bar

st the marchers. It was in vain that Edward, the greatest of the marcher lords, persuaded David, the Welsh prince's brother, to rise in revolt against him. Llewelyn devastated the four cantreds to the gates of Chester, and at last, after long sieges, forced the war-worn defenders of Deganwy and Diserth to surrender the two strong castles through which alone Edward had retained some hold over his Welsh lands. It was the same in the middle march, where Llewelyn turned his arms against the Mortimers, and robbed them of their castles. Even in the south the lord of Gwynedd carried everything befor

sailed her barge so fiercely from London Bridge that she was forced to return to the Tower. The foul insults which the rabble poured upon his mother deeply incensed Edward and he became a bitter foe of the city for the rest of his life. For the moment the hostility of London was decisive against Henry. Once more the king was forced to confirm the Provisions, agree to a fresh banishment of the aliens, and restore Hugh Despenser to the justiciarship. This was the last baronial triumph. In a few weeks Edwar

ly on the ground of the papal sentence. Henry was declared free to select his own wardens of castles and ministers, and Louis expressly annulled "the statute that the realm of England should henceforth be governed by native-born Englishmen". "We ordain," he added, "that the king shall have full power and free jurisdiction over his realm as in the days before the Provisions." The only consolation to the barons was that Louis declared that he did not intend to derogate from the ancient liberties of the realm, as established

rched out to Isleworth, where they burnt the manor of the King of the Romans. "And this," wrote the London Chronicler, "was the beginning of trouble and the origin of the deadly war by which so many thousand men perished." The Londoners did not act alone. Leicester refused to be bound by the award, though definitely pledged to obey it. It was, he maintained, as much perjury to abandon the Provisions as to be false to the promise to accept the Mise of Amiens. After a last attempt at negotiation at a

istice and take possession of Gloucester. Master of the chief passage over the lower Severn, Edward abandoned the western campaign and went with his marchers to join his father at Oxford, where he at once stirred up the king to activity. The masters of the university, who were strong partisans of Montfort, were chased away from the town. Then the royal army marched against Northampton, the headquarters of the

mself did not disdain to share in the spoils of the Jewry, though he soon turned to nobler work. He was anxious to open up communications with his allies in the Cinque Ports. But Earl Warenne, in Rochester castle, blocked the passage of the Dover road over the Medway. Accordingly Montfort marched with a large following of Londo

resence on the south coast was specially necessary, for Queen Eleanor, who had gone abroad, was waiting, with an army of foreign mercenaries, on the Flemish coast, for an opportunity of sailing to her husband's succour. The royal army was hampered by want of provisions, and was only master of the ground on w

e encamped at Fletching, a village hidden among the dense oak woods of the Weald, some nine miles north of Lewes. A last effort of diplomacy was attempted by Bishop Cantilupe of Worcester who, des

trongly, and the confidence of the royalists was so great that they neglected all military preparations. The poverty of Montfort's host in historic families attested the complete disintegration of the party since 1263. Its strength lay in the young enthusiasts, who were still dominated by the strong personality and generous ideals of Leicester, such as

h the river forces its way past the gap in which the town is situated. To the north of the town lies the strong castle of the Warennes, wherein Edward had taken up his quarters, while in the southern suburb the Cluniac priory of St. Pancras, the chief foundation of the Warennes, a

. He was not yet fully recovered from his fall from his horse, and it was known that he generally travelled in a closed car or horse-litter. This vehicle he posted in a conspicuous place on the northerly spur, and planted over it his standard. In front of it were massed the London militia, mainly infantry and the least effective element in his host. Meanwhile the knights and men-at

ed the standard of Montfort on the hill, and supposing that the earl was with his banner, dashed impetuously against the left wing of Leicester's troops. He soon found himself engaged with the Londoners, who broke and fled in confusion before his impetuous charge. Eager to revenge on the flying citizens the insults they had directed against his parents, he purs

le was renewed in the streets of the town. It was, however, too late for the weary followers of the king's son to reverse the fortunes of the day. Some threw themselves into the castle, where the king's standard still floated; Edward himself took sanctuary in the church of the Franciscans; many strove to escape eastwards over the Ouse bridge or by swimming over the river. The majority of the latter perished by drowning or by the sword: but two compact bands of mail-clad horsemen managed to cut their way through to safety. One of these, a force of some two hundred, headed by Earl Warenne himself, and his brothers-in-law, Guy of Lusignan and William of Valence, secured their retreat to the