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

St. Louis or Frederick II.; and he had restored England to a leading position in the councils of Europe. Moreover, he had won a character for justice and fairness whic

. Above all, the contest for Sicily still raged. The successors of Martin IV., though deprived of the active support of France, would not abandon the claims of the captive Charles of Salerno; and James of Aragon, Peter's second son, maintained himself in Sicily, despite papal censures and despite the virtual desertion of his cause by his elder brother, Alfonso III., the new king of Aragon. Each

afely leave it. Accordingly in May, 1286, he took ship for France. With him went his wife Eleanor of Castile, his chancellor Bishop Burnell, and a large number of his nobles. He entrusted the regency to his cousin, Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, the son and successor of Earl Richard; and England saw him no more until August, 1289. Edward first made his way to Amiens, where he met the new King of France, Philip the Fair. The two kings went together to Paris, where Edward spent two months. There he performed homage for Gascony, and made a new agreement as to the execution of the treaty of A

for peace and desirous to free his kinsman from the rigours of his long imprisonment. His wish for a close alliance between England and Aragon was unacceptable to the partisanship both of Honorius IV. and his successor Nicholas IV. Papal coldness, however, did not turn Edward from his course. In the summer of 1287 he met Alfonso at Oloron in Béarn, where a treaty was drawn up by which the Aragonese king agreed to release Charles of

e Nicholas, which was the standard clerical rate-book until the reign of Henry VIII. Despite the pope, Edward still persevered in his mediation, and in October, 1288, a new treaty for Charles' liberation was signed at Canfranc, in Aragon, which only varied in details from the agreement of 1287. Charles was released, but he straightway made his way to Rome, where Nicholas absolved him from his oath and crowned him King of Sicily. Edward was bitterly disappointed. He tarried in the south until July, 1289, usefully employed in promoting the prosperity of his duchy, crushing conspiracies, furthering the commerce of Bordeaux, and fou

Schiff, Studien zur Geschic

Glamorgan and Brecon, and the private war between the two marchers proved more formidable to the peace of the realm than the revolt of the Welsh prince. Even more disastrous to the country was the scandalous conduct of the judges and royal officials, who profited by the king's absence to pile up fortunes at the expense of his subjects. The highest judges of the land forged chart

riffs; finally, he was starved into surrender, and suffered to abjure the realm.[1] He fled to France, whence he never returned. For some years the commission investigated the offences of the ministers of the crown. Though much that was irregular was proved against them, many charges broke down under inquiry, and, as time went on, the official class saw that their interest lay in condoning rather than in punishing scandals. Some of the worst offenders, such as the greedy and corrupt Adam of Stratton, were never restored to office;[2] but Hengham, the chief justice of the King's Benc

see A. Réville in the Revue

-cccxxxi. Extracts from the Assize rolls recording the proceedings of the

er the most powerful of his feudatories and increase the prospect of his estates escheating to the crown. Considered in this light, Gilbert's marriage with the king's daughter seems less a reward of loyalty than a punishment for lawlessness. In the same year as this marriage, Edward passed another law directed against the baronage. This was the statute of Westminster the Third, called from its opening words, Quia emptore. It enacted that, when part of an estate was alienated by its lord, the grantee should not be per

but Gloucester did not. Resolved that law not force was henceforth to settle disputes in the march, Edward summoned a novel court at Ystradvellte, in Brecon, wherein a jury from the neighbouring shires and liberties was to decide the case between the two earls in the presence of the chief marchers. Gloucester refused to appear, and the marchers declined to take part in the trial, pleading that it was against their liberties. The case was adjourned to give the recalcitrants every chance, and after a preliminary report by the judges, Edward resolved to hear the suit in person. In October, 1291, he presided at Abergavenny over the court before which the earls were arraigned. They were condemned

Wars of Edward I. has admirably summarised t

y were well able to afford to share their gains from usury with their protectors. They lived in luxury, built stone houses, set up an organisation of their own, and even purchased lands. Henry III.'s financial embarrassments forced him to rely upon them, and the alliance of the Jews and the crown stimulated the rel

uth, Life and Miracles of St. William o

were compelled to listen to long sermons from mendicant friars, and their obstinacy in adhering to their own creed was denounced as a deliberate offence against the light. Peckham shut up their synagogues, and Eleanor of Provence, who had entered a convent, joined with the archbishop in urging her son to take severe measures against them. There was a similar movement in France, and Edward, during his long stay abroad, had expelled the Jews from Aquitaine. In 1290 he applied the same policy to Engla

a Judaica; J.M. Rigg, Select Pleas of the Jewish Exchequer; and for t

anonical prohibitions of usury, and became the loanmongers of prince and subject alike. To the crown the Italians were more useful than the Jews had been. The value of the Jews to the monarch had been in the special facilities enjoyed by him in taxing them. The utility of the Italian societies was in their power of advancing sums of money that enabled the king to embark on enterprises hitherto beyond the limited resources

Bankers in England under Edward I. and II. in Owens Coll. Historical Essays, pp. 137-68; and R.J. Whitwell

postponed, and at Michaelmas, 1278, Alexander was constrained to perform unconditionally this unwelcome act. "I, Alexander King of Scotland," were his words, "become the liege man of the lord Edward, King of England, against all men." But by carefully refraining from specifying for what he became Edward's vassal, Alexander still suggested that it was for his English lordships. Edward with equal caution declared that he received the homage, "savi

married, when still young, to Eric, King of Norway, and died in 1283 in giving birth to her only child, a daughter named Margaret. No children were born of Alexander's second marriage; and in March, 1286, the king broke his neck, when riding by night along the cliffs of the coast of Fife. Before his death, however, he persuaded the magnates of Scotland to recognise his

his agents, conspicuous among whom was Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham, negotiated with the envoys of Norway and Scotland. On November 6 the three powers concluded the treaty of Salisbury, by which they agreed that Margaret should be sent to England or Scotland before All Saints' Day, 1290, "free and quit of all contract of marriage or espousals". Edward promised that if Margaret came into his custody he would, as soon as Scotland was tranquil, hand her over to the Scots as "free and quit" as when she came to him; and the "good folk of Scotland" engaged that, if they received their queen thus free, they would not marry her "save with the ordinance, wi

e stronger party was content with securing the personal union of the two crowns, and strove to reconcile the weaker party by providing safeguards against violent or over-rapid amalgamation. It was left for the future to decide whether the habit of co-operation, continued for generations, might not ultimately involve a more organic union. Unluckily for this island, the policy which ultimately made the stubborn Celts of Brittany content with union

were therefore to be found in the descendants of David's three daughters. But there was no certainty that any rights could be transmitted through the female line. Moreover there was a doubt whether, allowing that a woman could transmit the right to rule, the succession should proceed according to primogeniture or in accordance with the nearness of the claimant to the source of his claim. If the former view were held then John of Balliol, lord of Barnard castle in Durham and of Galloway in Scotland, had the best right as the grandson of Earl David's eldest daughter. Yet less than a century before, the passing over of Arthur of Brittany in favour of his uncle John, had recalled to men's mind the ancient doctrine that a younger son is nearer to the parent stock than a grandson s

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tors. A foreign prince, Florence, Count of Holland, demanded the succession as a descendant of a sister of Earl David, declaring that David had forfeited his rights by rebellion. John Comyn, lord of Badenoch, brought forward his descent from Donaldbane, brother of Malcolm Canmore. One claim reads like a fairy tale, with stories of an unknown king dying, leaving a son to be murdered by a wicked uncle, an

unexpected. Even in the treaty of Brigham Edward had been careful not to withdraw his claim of superiority, and his action with relation to Alexander III.'s homage was well known. But the sensitiveness which their late king had shown in the face of Edward's earlier claims was shared by the Scots lords, and shrinking from recognising facts which they ought to have faced before they solicited his intervention, they begged for delay and drew up remonstrances. Edward granted them, a respite for three weeks, though he swore by St. Edward that he would rather die than diminish the rights due to the Confessor's crown. He had already summoned the northern levies, and was prepared to enforce his claim by force. His unc

Edward ordered the court to meet on Scottish territory, at Berwick, and appointed August 2 for the opening day. Meanwhile the full consequences of the Scottish submission were carried out. On Edward's taking seisin of Scotland, the regency came to an end. The nomination of the provisional government resting with Edward, he reappointed the former regents, and allowed the S

tic claim, sent in by Eric of Norway, as the nearest of kin to his daughter, did not delay matters. The judges were instructed to settle in the first instance the relative claims of Bruce and Balliol, and also to decide by what law these should be determined. On October 14, they declared their first judgment. They rejected Bruce's plea t

ntatives of Earl David's daughters. Bruce had the effrontery to associate himself with Hastings' demand. A short adjournment was arranged to settle this issue, and on November 17 the final scene took place in the hall of Berwick castle. Besides the commissioners, the king was there in full parliament, and eleven claimants, who still perseve

ed to England, and kept Christmas with his overlord at Newcastle, where, on December 26, he did homage to Edward in the castle hall. But within a few days a difficulty arose. John resented Edward's retaining the jurisdiction over a law-suit in which a Berwick merchant, a Scotsman, was a party. He was reassured by Edward that he

the realm into three parts, and he restored the land and its castles as soon as the suit was settled. There is nothing to show that up to this point his action had produced any resentment in Scotland, and little evidence that there was any strong national feeling involved. Scottish chroniclers, who wrote after the war of independence, have given a colour to Edward's policy which contemporary evidence does not justify. From the point of his generation, his action was just and legal. He had, i

racious Eleanor of Castile died in 1290, at Harby, in Nottinghamshire, near Lincoln,[1] and the devotion of the king to the partner of his youth found a striking expression in the sculptured crosses, which marked the successive resting-places of her corpse on its last journey from Harby to Westminster Abbey. A few months later Edward's mother, Eleanor of Castile, ended her long life in the convent of Amesbury, in Wiltshire. The ministers of Edward's early reign were also removed by death. Bishop Kirkby, the treasurer, died in 1290, and Burnell, the chancellor, in 1292, soon after he had performed his last public act in the declaration of the king's judgment as to the Scottish succession. Archbishop Peckham died in the same year. New domestic ties were formed, and fresh ministers were found, but the ageing king became more and more lonely, as he was compelled to rely upon a younger and a less faithful generation. Of his old comrades the

h of Eleanor of Castile, in English H