The Magnificent Century

by Thomas B. Costain

  The girdles which bound the flowing robes of the nobility at the waist were set with precious stones. Often they consisted of solid gold links.

  The chief chance that ladies had for originality in dress was in the coverings they devised for their necks. They began to go to somewhat foolish extremes with wimples and peplums. The wimple became large enough to muffle the neck up to the chin, being worn with fillets over the forehead. Mantles of Honor, made of gaily colored cloth, were worn over the shoulders. Sometimes these mantles were very gay indeed, with blue groundwork and scarlet borders and with a profusion of white scallops.

  As was to be expected, the train had become an important part of feminine attire. They were so long at court that boy pages had to be in attendance to carry them. Priests saw vanity and worldliness in the use of elaborate trains and preached bitterly against them. The ladies, however, went right on having them cut long in spite of pulpit wrath. A belief grew up that invisible demons rode on the trailing skirts of great ladies and, in tacit acceptance of this, the wearers fell into the habit of stopping at intervals and giving their skirts a vigorous shake to dislodge any grinning imps which might be clinging to them. They did not take the story too seriously because, imps or no imps, they went right on wearing trains.

  The tailor, in fact, was a very important person in the household of a prominent nobleman. The ladies condescended to take his opinion on all matters pertaining to their appearance, and even the men, who liked to strut in garments of white damask and handsome tabards, consulted the man with the needle. A popular ballad of the day was called the Song of the Tailors and began, “Gods ye certainly are.”

  It was a pleasure decidedly for Eleanor de Montfort to dress her slender daughter in the finest garments which the gods of the basting threads could devise, particularly when affairs of state brought Llewelyn of Wales to Kenilworth and his eyes followed the Demoiselle to the exclusion of everyone else.

  5

  With the exception of Richard, who was still in his teens, the Montfort sons were now out in the world and deeply involved in the political situation: Henry, Simon, Guy, Amauri, a handsome lot, tall and dark and strong. Their mother was intensely proud of them, and it is not strange that her chief concern had ceased to be her own adornment and had become political so she could share the interests of her husband and sons.

  Eleanor endeavored to make life as agreeable as possible for the gloomy and depressed nephew who came to Kenilworth after the failure of the daring enterprise of the Seven Knights. Edward had always been fond of her, and he seems to have responded in some degree to her efforts in his behalf. It must at times, nevertheless, have been a silent trio who sat at the head table in the Great Hall; a hall so great, in fact, that it had two immense fireplaces and five tall windows. The King of the Romans, now called Richard the Trichard by impudent men in London, sat in the center because of his imperial rank, a much-worried monarch who realized that his imprisonment was adding every day to the insecurity of his position in Germany. On his right sat the heir to the throne, his head filled with schemes for escape and plans for the day when he would strive to reverse the decision of Lewes. On his left was the countess, who alone of the Montfort family could sit with them, being the daughter of a king. She sought to play the part of hostess, but on occasion it must have been apparent that her eyes also contained a speculative gleam. It was generally believed that she expected someday to sit beside Simon at Westminster. At times thunderclouds hovered over the far from festive board and a sense of the strain penetrated even to the trestle tables at the far end of the long hall where humble men sat beneath the salt.

  6

  It has already been said that Earl Simon made mistakes during the year that he controlled the affairs of the country. They had nothing to do with state matters but were entirely personal. There was his desire to let his sons share his authority. Henry was made governor of Dover and was given the custody of Prince Edward after the tatter’s brief sojourn at Kenilworih, an arrangement which irked the prince exceedingly. Simon, the second son, was put in command of the forces of Surrey and Sussex. Earl Simon took into his own hands all the western possessions of the prince, Bristol, Chester, and in the North, Newcastle, to hold until permanent peace had been achieved. His closest adherents were given charge of other royal castles, Corfe, Bamburgh, Nottingham. This may have seemed advisable to the man on whose shoulders rested the responsibility of maintaining peace, but to the proud nobles who had played their part in the struggle and who felt themselves being excluded it seemed more a determination to advance his own family and consolidate his personal power.

  The one who felt most bitterly about this was the Earl of Gloucester. This brave and mercurial young man had in him a belief in the rightness of the cause but also, by way of inheritance from his less admirable father, a pride which took fire easily and a strain of hauteur which made a secondary role intolerable to him. He had played no more than a supporting part at Lewes, and since then he had felt himself being relegated more and more to the background. This preyed on his proud spirit. It was becoming a matter of time only until he would change sides as his father had done.

  It is likely that Simon de Montfort would have held his temperamental lieutenant in line if he had taken pains to placate him, to bolster his pride. That he did not do so is not entirely to his discredit. He had his hands full with matters much more pressing and important than the coddling of a demanding young man of limited capacity. He was guiding the ship of state through one of the most tumultuous periods of English history. There was not only the threat of invasion to meet and the sharp hostility of the Pope, but the need to restore order in a land torn by hate and fear. The injured feelings of a sulky young nobleman seemed, perhaps, to the harried leader a minor problem. But minor it was not. The failure to keep the Earl of Gloucester at his right hand was the most disastrous of major mistakes.

  Simon took decisive action in the West, following the attack of the Seven Knights on Wallingford. He moved against them in sufficient force to capture their key castles of Hereford, Ludlow, and Hay. Roger Mortimer, who was looked upon as the leader of the western insurgents, was forced to meet Simon at Montgomery and make peace on behalf of the others. They were to surrender all the royal castles they held and leave the country for a year and a day, going to Ireland if they so desired. In addition they were to give up at once the prisoners they had taken in the royalist victory at Northampton and leave hostages for their own good behavior.

  This was strong medicine, calculated to bind their hands for the whole of the crucial period. If the country could be rid of them for a year and a day, the new government would have time in which to establish a basis of peace. The young men swore to obey the terms laid down, and Edward’s consent was also obtained.

  The Great Parliament

  THE MONKS who wrote the chronicles of the day had a habit of connecting noteworthy events with curious phenomena of nature. A great wind swept over England when John died and it continued to blow with unexampled fury for several days, as though sent to purge the land of all traces of his presence. There are continual references to iron frosts, to black storms, to drought and plague and other manifestations of divine displeasure. During the year following Lewes there was for a long time a comet in the sky, blood-red and shaped like a sword.

  Surely on March 8, 1265, there was in the sky a great blazing sun, a sun strong enough to burn away at least one set of shackles from the wrists of men. On that day of days there assembled in London a parliament such as had never been seen before, a parliament in which common men sat and voted with lords and bishops. This truly unheard-of event was the work of Simon de Montfort. On the thirteenth of the preceding December, after holding the tiller of state with a firm hand through seven violent months, he had summoned some of the peers of the land, most of the bishops, two knights from each shire, and from two to four “good and loyal men” from each city and borough to meet and discuss the business of the realm. This was the fir
st time in history that plain men—the socman, the franklin, the merchant, the alderman—had been judged worthy of a voice in framing the laws under which they lived.

  Nothing much is known of this momentous gathering. Not a name, not a scrap of description, not the faint echo over the centuries of one spoken word: nothing but the bare outline of the one decision reached. This is unfortunate, for living history was made in Westminster Hall.

  It is not even known how they were seated, the baron, the bishop, the plain knight, and “the bran-dealers, the soap-boilers and clowns,” as someone has phrased it. That they were arranged sectionally is hardly likely. More probably the barons and bishops had the front rows and “the good and loyal men” were far in the rear. The citizens, it may safely be assumed, took pains to present as good a front as their means allowed. Their cloaks and tunics would be of good cloth and warm colors, and no doubt some of them would have a show of miniver or vair at neck and wrist; but at best they would seem sober and as common as twist against the ruffling splendor of the barons and the costly vestments of the high churchmen. What a pity it is that no poet Gray has turned his imagination and his pen to picturing them, the rude forefathers of the modern House of Commons, the mute, inglorious Pyms and Hampdens who had answered the summons to sit with their betters!

  There were no rules of procedure in these early days, no set parliamentary ritual. They met, they listened to the King or the minister delegated to expound his views, they debated, and they voted. Some sessions were noisy and voices were raised high in anger and wounded pride. This particular Parliament, however, provided no dramatic moments. A program was presented. The voice was the voice of Henry, but the will back of it was the will of Simon. It had all been decided upon in advance, and it was carried with a good will, without delay or senseless babble.

  The provisional government set up in the Peace of Canterbury was to continue. Edward was to have his liberty, but he must continue under restrictions for three years. During that period he must not leave the kingdom and he must not bring in aliens or seek the return of adherents abroad: this on pain of disinheritance. Both Henry and Edward must swear again to abide by the Great Charter and the Provisions of Oxford and must bind themselves not to seek absolution of their oaths.

  Three days later there was a solemn ceremony in the chapter house at Westminster to announce publicly that Prince Edward had been released and delivered into the keeping of his father. Henry, wearing crown and royal robes, was present when the declarations to which he and the prince had sworn were read to the gathering. At the finish nine bishops stepped forward in full pontifical robes and, with the customary dashing out of candles at their feet, declared the excommunication of anyone who broke or transgressed the agreements which had been reached.

  This ceremony marked the peak of Simon de Montfort’s power. His will had prevailed. The King and the heir to the throne had made their peace and sworn to all the terms, stern though they were, which he had deemed necessary for continued peace and the future good government of the realm. He played no part in the ceremony, but as he stood in his place with the rest and watched he must have found it hard to keep a light of triumph from showing in his eyes. This was the culmination of his years of steadfast adherence to an idea, long years through part of which he had stood alone. For this he had risked life and fortune; for this he had gambled on war and had dared the climb at Lewes.

  Perhaps other and more exalted thoughts had their place in his mind as well; that he looked at the good and loyal men from the towns and boroughs and saw a vision of the gradual shifting of power which in time would vest in the hands of their successors all legislative control.

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  It is called the Great Parliament, not because of what it accomplished but on account of the momentous precedent it set.

  Did Simon de Montfort include the commoners because he realized he must depend on the cities and towns for his main support in the struggles ahead? Was it a purely selfish expedient to bolster his power and insure a more generous response to the calls he must make for financial aid? This viewpoint, which is widely held, must be given full consideration because it is not an unreasonable assumption. The leader of a great cause must have something of the opportunist in him. He must be alive, at any rate, to obstacles and ready to make use of the best weapons which are available. Simon, without a doubt, was aware of the advantages he might derive from his epoch-making invitation to the men who soiled their hands, not in the killing of other men, but in useful occupations.

  But he could not have taken the step without being aware of other considerations. He was fully conscious of the tension in the ranks of the barons. He knew how suspicious they had become of him, how easy it might be to offend them still further. How would they react to this daring innovation which made the vote of a vintner or a fishmonger as good as that of a belted earl? Would they see in this another excuse for deserting the ranks? He must have remembered a line from The Song of Lewes: “See! Now is a knight subjected to the sayings of clerks. Knighthood put under clerks has become of little esteem.”

  Summoning the commons was a questionable expedient from the standpoint of political advantage alone, one which might harm the cause more than it helped. There is reasonable ground to doubt if as farseeing and able a leader as Simon would have risked this step if he had thought of it as a temporary expedient and nothing else.

  There is at least as good reason to believe that he was thinking of the future as much as the present; that he was ready to throw feudal conceptions to the winds and admit that the common man must have a part in shaping his own destiny for all time thereafter. Simon de Montfort was more than the leader of a political faction. For years he had been the symbol of a cause, the stern exponent of new principles. There had been indications of the way his mind was tending. There was the reference in the one letter which remains in his handwriting, because I uphold against them your rights and those of the common people. He alone had been in favor at first of calling a meeting of Parliament without the King. This revolutionary stand, a retreat from all feudal beliefs, might be expected to lead to still more radical acceptances on his part.

  There is no way of determining what was in the mind of this daring and passionate leader when he took his long step in the direction of democratic government. This much, however, may not be gainsaid: it was in his mind that the conception first grew of a house of governmental control in which all classes of men would have a voice and vote, and he it was who had the sublime courage to make the experiment. Edward in later years, when he had succeeded his father on the throne, would give the principle permanent acceptance by summoning commoners to all meetings of Parliament. Could this have been one of the things they talked about during the brief interlude when Edward, in youthful enthusiasm, ranged himself by the side of the popular leader?

  They share the credit and the glory of it between them, Simon de Montfort and the young Edward. There is plenty for both.

  Tales of Fair Ladies

  A NUMBER OF WOMEN, all of them fair by repute, were to play parts in the drama which now unfolded. First there was Queen Eleanor, who was still in France and moving heaven and earth to find support for the royal cause and to get her husband out of captivity. She had pawned all her jewels and personal possessions and had contracted debts of such size that their redemption later swallowed up all of the fine of twenty thousand marks paid by the city of London. Nothing could discourage the firm-minded Queen, not even the letters of warning which Henry (under pressure, without a doubt) addressed to her.

  Then there was Eleanor de Montfort. The sister of the King was to demonstrate in these violent and eventful months that although she took her looks from her beautiful mother she was all Plantagenet in character. She had the decision and resolution which Henry so conspicuously lacked, and these qualities she was now to have an opportunity of displaying. The princess wife of the popular leader appears to rare advantage in the climactic stages.

  Alice of Angoul�
�me was also to have a part, a not particularly creditable one, it must be confessed. In the few glimpses of her which the records supply she appears in the role of troublemaker, flirting with Prince Edward while he waited for his young wife in France to grow up, even casting an eye on the aging Henry, who responded in kind for perhaps the first time in his long married life. In support of the latter assertion there is only one bit of evidence, a letter from Queen Marguerite of France warning her sister that Henry was too fond of the company of his capricious niece. Marguerite seems to have developed into a prim and proper woman, the result, perhaps, of being married so long to a perfect man. The part Alice played in the drama indicates that she placed royal allegiance ahead of wifely obligations. She does not appear, however, until after the main issue had been decided.

  Of less exalted rank was the fourth fair lady to take a prominent part in events. She was the wife of Roger de Mortimer, the quarrelsome, avaricious, and generally disagreeable lord of Wigmore who had been the most active enemy of Simon de Montfort in the West. Born Maud de Braose, she had been a great catch, for the Braose holdings to which she succeeded comprised a large part of Breconshire and a share as well in the immense Marshal inheritance. Her father was the gallant but unfortunate William de Braose who had been detected in an illicit relationship with Joanna, the wife of Llewelyn (and illegitimate daughter of John of England) and had been publicly hanged by the Welsh leader. This would make her a granddaughter of the unhappy Maud de Braose who was starved to death by John in a cell at Corfe Castle.