The greatest of all the Plantagenets; an historical sketch

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CHAP. A.D. PAGE

II. The Transition 1339—1358 . 11

III. The Convulsion 1259—1267 . 32

Chapter The Second. The Transition

A.D. 1339—1258.

We have .reckoned, with the best English historians, John to have been the last of the Norman kings. We have recognized, with the same authorities, the thirteenth century as the period when the England of modern times first began to assume the character and lineaments which she has ever since worn. But, for so great a change, a period of transition was necessary. That period is found in the latter portion of the third Henry's reign, and some of its features are first discernible about the time of the birth of his eldest son. The record left of this event, by the principal historian of the time, runs thus : —

"This year (a.d. 1239), Edward, the eldest son of the lord Henry the king and Eleanor the queen, was born at Westminster on the 17th of June, late at night ; and he was called Edward, which name he received after the most glorious king and confessor, Edward, whose body rests in the church of St. Peter, at Westminster : and, four days after, the lord Otho, at that time legate, baptized him in the church of the convent. He was borne to the font by the lords Robert*, bishop of London, William, bishop of Carlisle, the bishop elect of Norwich, the lord Richard, brother of the king and earl of Cornwall;

* Or Eoger, according to M. Paris.

Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester ; Henry de Bohun, earl of Hereford and Essex ; Simon, archdeacon of Norwich ; Almeric, earl of St. Amand ; with the countess of Pembroke, and many other noble ladies*."

The birth of the young prince gave occasion for the exhibition of two of the worst points of Henry's character, — his thoughtless fickleness, and his unkingly mendicancy. At the baptism of the young prince, one of the chief persons present was Simon de Montfort, son of the great AJbigensic crusader. He had married the king's sister, and might, therefore, very naturally claim to assist at the baptism of his wife's nephew. Yet, when he presented himself, a few weeks after, at the ceremony of the churching of the queen, the king assailed him with the bitterest reproaches ; accused him of perjury, and of gaining the princess's affections unlawfully ; and, finally, drove him from his presence with many threats. The earl, with natural indignation, took the princess, his wife, and embarked almost immediately for the continent. This was only one among many quarrels between Henry and his able and ambitious brother-in-law. Yet, at intervals, the king appeared reconciled to him ; trusted him, and placed him in positions of power and authority. In the end, the patience of the earl was exhausted ; vand he, who might have been Henry's most valuable subject and servant, became, in the end, his rival and his master. Equally foolish, and equally fatal, was the king's reckless waste of, and eager craving for, money. He had a taste for splendour and magnificence, without

* Matthew of Westminster.

the least talent for financial affairs. Hence his whole reign was one long series of pecuniary troubles. His estates and his ordinary revenues were insufiBcient to satisfy the greedy demands of the Savoyard dependents on Eleanor the queen, and the Poitevins, his half-brothers, who had been sent to England by his own mother : consequently, any opportunity by which money could be obtained, was eagerly seized by Henry. It was the custom of the times for rich gratulatory presents to be made, on occasion of such a birth as that of the prince. The king sought for such presents, at this moment, with such urgent avidity, as to give occasion to the remark, — "God has given us a prince, but the king sells him to us."

These two faults in Henry's character, — his rash and fickle impulsiveness, and his entire inability to understand the conduct of his financial affairs, — made his reign a lengthened course of difficulty and dishonor. Yet his character was not destitute of more pleasing features. His failings partly arose out of a too kind and facile disposition. He was not ambitious, nor tyrannical, nor revengeful. He was fond of architecture and the fine arts. Several of our noblest cathedrals were upreared in his reign ; and England saw in him, for the first time for two hundred years, a king who was both faithful to his consort, and beloved by his children.

The year which followed prince Edward's birth was a notable one in several respects. After causing an oath of fealty to the young heir to the crown to be publicly taken by the principal nobility, great prelates, and the leading citizens of London, the king attended, first, the consecration of the Temple church, as it now stands ; and, soon after, that of the cathedral church of St. Paul, an enormous pile, which 2Jerished in the fire of London, and which far exceeded, in all its dimensions, the temple which Sir Christopher Wren upreared in its room. Meanwhile, Westminster Abbey, during the greater part of this king's reign, was slowly but constantly advancing. It is at this period that the " Norman " style ceases ; and the " Early English " takes its place.

The king's taste for Saxon recollections grew more and more predominant. The name selected for his second son, was that of " Edmund," the grandson of King Alfred. About the same time, also, he resolved to prepare a new and splendid shrine for the reception of the remains of " the glorious king and confessor, Edward," after whom he had named his eldest son. The work was entrusted to the best artists that England could supply ; and was, for centuries, one of the richest ornaments of that noble church in which the last Saxon king lay buried.

A great change, then, has taken place, or rather, has commenced, in the temper and modes of thought, of the governing classes in England. Normandy, formerly the power which governed England, is now scarcely ever named ; and even G-ascony, the remaining English province of France, is neglected. Home projects, English inievests, have now a decided preference. The king is a sincerely religious man, and the church has great influence with him. Besides a prodigious expenditure on several noble cathedrals great sums are laid out, in every part of England on abbeys and monasteries of every kind. Festivals are frequently mentioned, on the occasion of the commencement or completion of some of these works. And it is evident that these gatherings, to which both Saxons and Normans must have been invited, must have greatly tended to that fusion of the races, and abatement of the old animosities, which we know to have been at this time going on.

Henry's care for his son, and his early provision for his education, are indicated in some of the records which still remain. As early as in the year 1242, we find an order in these terms : —

" Pay out of our Treasury, to Hugh Giffard and William Brun, £200, for the support of Edward, our son, and his attendants residing with him at our castle of Windsor*." And, in 1246, when prince Edward was in his seventh year, and his brother still younger, Hugh Giffard' s death is noticed, and he is styled " a nobleman of the household, and preceptor to the princesf." It was in the following year that prince Edward was seized with a dangerous illness ; and the king wrote to all the religious houses near London, requesting their prayers for his recovery.

We are not informed who succeeded to Hugh Giffard's post, but there can be no doubt that it was quickly filled. Two men of great talent and ability are found in attendance on the prince while in Palestine ; and they were both churchmen. Burnell became bishop of Bath and Wells, and chancellor ; and Anthony Beck obtained the bishopric of Durham. The first was the prince's chaplain and private secretary ; and both are named executors in the will made at Acre, in 1271, after the attempt on his life. It is probable that one or both had some share in his

* Devon's Issues of the Exchequer, p. 18. f Matthew Paris.

education. That his tutor must have been a churchman, we know, from the impossibility of finding a competent person in any other walk of life. We find, too, throughout Edward's whole course, the clearest indications of such a training. He was always a devout man, frequent in pilgrimages, religious retirements, and such observances ; although he could firmly withstand the pretensions of the clerical order when carried to excess. In his letters, too, and in his conversation, the language of Holy Scripture is ever in his mouth. His reading appears to have been chiefly confined to the Old Testament ; and Joshua, Moses, and David, seem to have been his great exemplars. Whenever his justice, in after-life, seems to wear a character of sternness, we generally find that some passage from the Old Testament is predominant in his mind.

A few years pass over, and the young prince has become a youth of fine stature, frequently spoken of as "Edward with the flaxen hair." The king was evidently both fond and proud of him, and he seized the earliest opportunity of giving him a position of importance. This opportunity was soon found.

Gruienne, though a noble possession, had been treated in a careless and neglectful spirit. For some years back its government had been given to the king's brother, Richard, earl of Cornwall, who is chiefly remarkable in history for his enormous wealth, and for his attempt on the imperial crown. Richard went to Bourdeaux, and received the homage of the Gascons ; and continued for some years to hold the government. But, as the young prince began to rise towards manhood, Henry desired his brother to relinquish his post, that he might be able, after a while

THE TEANSITION. 17

to confer the government on his son. Earl Eichard shewed great reluctance ; whereupon the king revoked his appointment, and expelled him from the province. Needing, now, a man of ability, to hold the country for him, he appointed Simon de Montfort to the government. The earl held the post for several years ; but the Gascons were often mutinous and discontented, and it is probable that the weight of his hand was painfully felt. The people of Bourdeaux sent over their archbishop, at the head of a deputation, to bring heavy accusations against their governor. Earl Simon, hearing of this, and knowing the fickleness and uncertainty of Henry's temper, soon followed them over to England, to plead his own cause.

A day being appointed, the king sat to hear the whole matter. The Gascons stated their grievances, and the earl replied to their charges. Matthew Paris, who probably was himself present, tells us, that the earl refuted and silenced the complaining parties ; but the king shewed an evident disposition to censure or condemn him. The earl, feeling aggrieved, began to charge the king with deserting him. The king, full of anger, let fall the word "traitor." The earl, " highly incensed, told the king that he lied ; and added, that, but for his place and dignity, it should have been an evil hour for him in which he uttered such a word." "The king, who could hardly contain himself for rage, would have ordered the earl to have been seized, had he not been aware that the nobles present would not have allowed such a step to be taken. Friends on each side interrupted the dispute, and so they separated."

It is one of those strangely-sudden changes which mark the weakness of Henry's character, that the next circumstance narrated is, that the king proposed to earl Simon to return to his government of Gascony*. As this was, in effect, an acquittal of the earl of all charges brought against him, he accepted it without hesitation, and forthwith embarked for Bourdeaux. But Henry had evidently been actuated, in making this suggestion, chiefly by fear of the earl, and a wish to secure his absence. For, as soon as he had quitted England, " the king ordered all the G-ascons who were in London, — the archbishop of Bourdeaux, and others who had accompanied him, — to assemble immediately. He then made a public declaration, that he gave Gascony to his eldest son, prince Edward. This step was very acceptable to the Gascons, who at once did homage and swore fealty to the young prince. He then made noble presents ; and they all partook of a sumptuous feast." But the practical operation of this absurd proceeding was just what might have been expected. The king had given his sanction to two different and incompatible governments. Earl Simon had resumed his authority, and he was a man of talent and of martial power. But the archbishop and the rest of the deputation, returning home, set the earl at nought, and declared the prince to be their rightful governor. The greatest confusion naturally took place. It was to be expected that the Gascons would rather side with their own archbishop than with a foreio-n soldier. But the earl was fully able to maintain his own cause. Soon, therefore, the Gascons sent over a message to the king, that unless he came immediately to Gascony in person, he would assuredly

* Or Guienne : — the two names being constantly used, in the chronicles of the times, as if they were synonymous.

lose all his possessions there. Henry, alarmed, sent them word that he would visit them shortly ; and that he, in the meanwhile, revoked Earl Simon's appointment, and absolved them from all obedience to him.

Accordingly, on the 6th of August, 1253, Henry, after appointing the queen and earl Richard his brother, guardians of the kingdom, embarked at Portsmouth, accompanied by a fleet of three hundred vessels. "The prince, after his father had kissed and wept over him at parting, stood sobbing on the shore, and would not leave it so long as a sail could be seen." The king, having taken a considerable force with him, quickly regained possession of all the fortified places in Gascony ; granting mild and favorable terms to the revolted parties. But it was soon seen that he had ulterior views of a larger and most extensive kind. Alfonso of Castile had some pretensions to G-ascony ; and there was a party in the province prepared to support his claim. So soon, therefore, as tranquillity had been restored, Henry sent into Spain the bishop of Bath, and his favorite minister, John Mansel, to propose to the Spanish king an amicable arrangement of their respective rights. This was to be effected by a matrimonial alliance between the young prince, heir to the throne of England, and the princess Eleanor, the sister of king Alfonso. On such a marriage, Alfonso might transfer to his sister, as a kind of dowry, " whatever rights he could or might have in Gascony." This proposal was accepted, and a special treaty or charter sealed with gold, which is now in the Chapter-house of Westminster, was soon brought to Henry, and received by him with great delight. The Spanish king, however, with the state-

c3 liness of his nation, required, " that the prince should be sent to him, that he might examine into his skill and knowledge, and confer knighthood upon him." And thus was this royal marriage agreed upon, in the absence of the parties, and without any previous acquaintance having existed between them. But, of all the marriages of this kind which are upon record, there is probably no one which was productive of more mutual happiness than this of Edward and Eleanor. The qualities, both of mind and person, possessed by the young prince and princess, must have chiefly contributed to this result.

The king having communicated the news of his success to his consort, queen Eleanor began, early in 1254, to make preparations for a voyage, with her son, into G-ascony. One incident, which occurred in the course of these preparations, seems to evince the existence of a loyal attachment, either to the young prince, or to the royal family generally. The people of Winchelsea had prepared some ships for the service of the queen ; but those of Yarmouth fitted out and sent to Winchelsea a large and handsome vessel, well armed, and manned with thirty skilful seamen, to be at the service of the prince himself. The Winchelsea men, enraged at being outdone, got up a quarrel, made a sudden attack, and succeeded in burning the Yarmouth vessel. The queen, annoyed at this quarrel, bat concealing her annoyance as much as she could, determined to embark at Portsmouth, from which place she took her departure en the 29th of May, under the guardianship of the archbishop of Canterbury, her uncle ; having with her, her two sons, Edward and Edmund ; attended by forty knights, and a noble retinue. She reached

Bourdeaux in safety; and from thence proceeded across the Pyrenees to Burgos, where she arrived on the 5th of August, 1254. Alfonso was much pleased with the personal appearance and qualities of the young prince. Edward's bride, Eleanor of Castile, was well suited to him in personal loveliness. The eflBgies of her which are still extant, suflice to place this beyond a doubt.

The marriage festivities being concluded, the prince returned, with his bride, to his father at Bourdeaux. The king, with natural delight, but with his usual disregard of expense, prepared so grand a festival for his son's reception, as to excite the indignation of some of the English lords, who could easily foresee the consequences which would follow. Henry returned to England laden with debts, incurred during his stay in G-ascony, which exceeded 300,000 marks.

Still, on his way home, he could not be restrained from similar indulgences of his passion for splendour and magnificence. He paid a visit to Louis of France, who had only recently been released from his captivity in Palestine. " Henry had in his own retinue a thousand horses ridden by men of dignity and rank, besides waggons and sumpter-horses." Louis assigned to him for a lodging the Old Temple, in which building, says Matthew Paris, " there was sufficient room to lodge an army." Here, Henry's first order was, that as many poor as the place would accommodate should have a feast. Next, a sumptuous banquet was prepared for the kings, queens, nobles, and " all comers." Matthew of Westminster says, " there were present at this banquet, the two kings with their queens, twenty-five dukes, twelve bishops, eighteen countesses, and, of illustrious knights, a host." The next day Henry sent to the French nobles at their abodes, " rich cups, gold clasps, silk belts, and other princely presents."

After a few days the English took their leave,— king Louis accompanying them a day's journey. Henry was detained by the weather at Boulogne; but reached Dover at the commencement of the new year, 1255. After so many months of costly magnificence, he had now to face an accumulation of debt which, as he himself said, " it was horrible to think of." After his usual manner, he immediately began to demand and to exact money from the Jews, from the city of London, and from the clergy. But about Easter he was forced, however unwillingly, to ask an aid from a parliament, summoned on the occasion, to discharge some of the debts which, as he pleaded, he had been forced to incur in quieting the disturbances in Gascony.

The young prince and princess did not come to England with the king. The prince was, in some sense, the king's lieutenant or governor in Gascony ; and he seems to have remained there for more than a twelvemonth, to make himself acquainted with the province and its circumstances. The young princess preceded him in her journey by about a month. She landed at Dover, with a great retinue, in October 1255, and reached London on the 17th of that month! She was received with great state by the king, the nobles, the lord mayor, and chief citizens, who went out in a great procession to meet her, and who escorted her to the palace of Westminster. The prince arrived in England in the last week of November and he then, with the princess, took up his abode at the palace of the Savoy. The next Whitsuntide we find him at Bljthe ; where a tournament was held, and where the prince, clad in light armour, attended for further instruction in the laws and usages of chivalry. In August, his sister, the young queen of Scotland, with her husband, paid a visit 'to the English court ; and king Henry's fondness for splendour and magnificence was again exhibited. The Scottish king .and queen were first received at the palace of Woodstock, where, such was the concourse of distinguished guests, that tents and pavilions were erected in the grounds; and Oxford and all the villages round were thronged with the visitors. From Woodstock the royal party proceeded to London, where the citizens received them with due honor ; and John Mansel, the king's favorite minister, entertained the whole court, with the chief prelates and nobles, at a festival, in which the first course is stated to have consisted of seven hundred dishes.

Prince Edward had now entered upon public life. The king professed to give him, on his marriage, Gascony, Ireland, Wales, and the earldom of Chester. If these provinces failed to furnish him with a revenue of 15,000 marks, (£10,000,) the king undertook to make up the deficiency. As the money of those days requires to be multiplied by fifteen, to bring it to our present value, this was^ evidently, a noble revenue. But then, on the other hand, the claims upon a prince who was regarded as the ruler of Gascony, the owner of the earldom of Chester, and in some sort the chief lord of both Wales and Ireland, must have been both unceasing and large.

This soon became painfully clear. In conferring such powers and honors on the young prince, Henry had indulged two very distinct and different feelings. He was proud of his son, and loved to place him in a position of honor and authority ; but he also was very ready to shift any trouble or perplexity from his own shoulders to the shoulders of another. And in 1257, the year after the prince's settlement in England, the Welsh made a new inroad, breaking into the adjacent counties of England, and spreading devastation wherever they went. Edward was then in his eighteenth year, and he at once carried the news to his father, of the invasion of his earldom of Chester. The king, with his usual dislike of trouble, exclaimed, " What is it to me ? — the land is yours ! Exert yourself, — gain fame in your youth, — make your enemies fear you ; as for me, I am occupied with other matters."

Thus called on, the prince began to endeavour to meet the occasion. He borrowed of his uncle, the earl of Cornwall, 4,000 marks, and set to work to embody a military force. He was now often seen at the head of two hundred horsemen. But all that he could do was quite inadequate to cope with the power of Wales. The Welsh had in arms, says Matthew Paris, nearly 30,000 men, including five hundred knights, well armed ; and they had also the advantage of being able, whenever they chose, to retreat into mountain-fastnesses, which to the English were quite inaccessible. Thence, when it suited them, they poured into Cheshire or Herefordshire, wasting everything with fire and sword. It seems probable that, once or twice, the young prince, with a few hundred men-at-arms, tried to stop their progress, and was overpowered. This, at least, is certain, that during the greater part of Henry's reign, the Welsh, under

Llewellyn, were formidable and dreaded neighbours to all the neighbouring parts of England.

Henry, meanwhile, with that want of judgment and discretion which inarked his whole course, instead of concerning himself with the good government of his own kingdom, was busied in forming wild schemes with reference to France. The Welsh wasted with fire and sword his western border ; but he was occupied in laying plans for the recovery of Normandy, which had been lost half a century before by the folly of his father. "The king sent," says the chronicler, " the bishop of Worcester, the bishop elect of Winchester, the earl of Leicester, the earl marshal, and Peter of Savoy, on a special embassy to the king of France, to make some arrangements for the restoration of the possessions which belonged to the crown of England in time of old." Evidently, to expect that France, strong and at peace, would quietly relinquish a noble province like Normandy, was utterly unreasonable. We read, without surprise, that " the embassy met with nothing but hard speeches and threats, and a flat refusal " even to entertain the question. Louis, however, was so far alarmed by the application, as to order all the Norman castles to be put into a state of defence ; and committed to the care of trustworthy persons; although England was in no condition to undertake, at that moment, an invasion of France.

It is to this period, doubtless, that we must refer the MS. ballad which is found in the Royal Library at Paris*, some of the verses of which are as follows : —

Further on, Henry says —

Henry's fondness for his son, as well as his utter want of judgment and discretion, is apparent in this wild scheme of setting him on the throne of France. The sad reality was in terrible contrast to this dreamy romance. While he was scheming the conquest of France, the little principality of Wales was setting England at defiance. The prince was left to defend Chester and Hereford from their attacks, with no other force than a few hundreds of disorderly men-at-arms ; and with no funds even for the support of this petty force, except what he could raise by pledging his lordships to his uncle. The king at last awakened to the danger ; he called together his mili-

• See Political Songs. Camden Society. P. 68.

tary tenants, and proceeded with something like an army to seek out and chastise the Welsh. But their usual tactics were immediately resorted to. They retreated into their mountain-fastnesses ; and the English army, after suffering much from cold and hunger, was forced to withdraw. There can be no doubt, however, that it was the experience gained in these unsatisfactory struggles, that afterwards enabled Edward, at the beginning of his own reign, to deal with the Welsh in the masterly and triumphant manner which we shall presently have to describe.

Another incident which occurred about this time, throws light upon the strongly-contrasted characters of the king and his son. Henry had professed to give Grascony over to the prince's care and government ; his principal object being to rid himself of trouble. But his officers did not withdraw, but continued as before to seize quantities of wine at Bourdeaux for the king's use. The Gascons sent over to the prince to make complaints, and to ask redress. Edward went at once to his father ; and declared that " he would not tolerate such proceedings." " The king," adds the chronicler, " with a deep sigh, exclaimed, ' My own flesh and blood assail me ! — the times of my grandfather, against whom his own children rebelled, are returning!'" But the prince, certain of the justice of the complaint, was firm, and Henry was forced to promise that these wrongdoings should cease.

These two princes, the father and the son, were each now taking that place, and manifesting that character, which they were respectively to occupy in the page of history. The weaknesses of the king, his impulsive unguardedness and want of control, were becoming more and more manifest ; while his son was rapidly maturing, in judgment, discretion, firmness of character, and an unvarying love of justice, Henry's unkingly acts, his rashness, and his meanness, frequently manifest themselves at this period. In a council held in London in 1255, he had an altercation with the earl marshal, whom in his passion he called "a traitor." The earl replied, as Leicester had done on a former occasion, by giving the king the lie ; and by challenging him to say what offence he had committed, or with what sentence he could visit him. " I can send and seize your corn," said the king, " and thresh and sell it!" "Yes!" replied the earl, "and I can send you the heads of the threshers!" On another occasion, one of the judges. Sir Henry de Bath, had been so flagrantly corrupt, that he was accused in a parliament held in London, of having seized a man's estate to his own use ; and of having released a convicted criminal for a sum of money. The judge knew his case to be so indefensible, that he came to the parliament attended by many powerful friends ; one of whom, a knight, offered wager of battle to any of his accusers. In the course of the altercation the king's passions were so roused, that he exclaimed, " If any one shall kill Henry of Bath, he shall be quit of his death, and I declare him quit of the same!" But Mansel, the king's chief minister, interposed, saying, that the king, doubtless, on reflection, would be sorry for that speech. Finally, the judge was permitted to depart, and on paying a heavy fine he was pardoned.