But despite all this, the infantry did prove of value on several occasions, and the effect on enemy morale of the huge hosts that were assembled for some campaigns must have been considerable. It was a very remarkable administrative achievement to collect such large armies together. The 25,700 infantry and 3,000 or more cavalry present on the Falkirk campaign was probably the largest single army that had been raised up to that time by an English government. It was only exceeded during the middle ages by that assembled for the siege of Calais in 1347, which totalled about 32,000 men.[383] The second largest army of Edward III’s reign was only about 15,000 strong.[384] In comparison with a still later period, 1585-1603, the size of Edward I’s armies appears still more impressive, since the largest force that Elizabeth’s government raised in those years was one of 12,620 sent to Ireland in 1601.[385] It was only in the middle of the seventeenth century that the size of armies greatly exceeded those of Edward I, with 60,000 or 70,000 men under parliamentary command in 1642, and with the army totalling some 42,000 men at the end of the Protectorate.[386] And although Edward I may not have been able to deal with the problem of desertion effectively, the Elizabethan government, despite greater severity of punishment, extending to execution, found the question equally insoluble.[387]
V. Victualling
In theory there was no obligation on the crown to provide food for soldiers who were paid wages. Their pay was intended to be sufficient for their subsistence. Garrisons were often issued with food supplies in lieu of wages, the cost to the crown being the same in either case. In the Articuli super Cartas of 1300 it was firmly stated that purveyance of food supplies should not be made for the benefit of those who were in receipt of wages.[388] But in practice, if the wars were to be successful, the government had to ensure that the armies had enough to eat. The experiences of the Welsh wars of Henry III’s reign had shown the levels of privation that might be suffered if victualling arrangements were not adequate. A letter from the English camp at Deganwy in 1245 told of a halfpenny loaf costing five pence, a load of corn twenty shillings, and a hen eight pence. To starvation was added the discomfort of living under canvas, with no warmth to be had.[389]
The simplest way for an army to feed itself was off the land. This technique was used with success by the English in their chevauchées during the Hundred Years War, and developed with great skill much later by the generals of the Thirty Years War. But the circumstances facing Edward I were such that he could not rely on local food supplies. In Wales, the country, with its backward agriculture, was too poor to support the English armies, although in 1277 the grain crop of Anglesey was harvested for the use of the English.[390] In Gascony, Flanders and Scotland Edward was anxious not to alienate the local population. In Gascony the English were fighting a defensive war on land which was rightly theirs, in Flanders they were campaigning in the country of their allies, and in Scotland Edward was careful not to stir up more opposition than already faced him. In a letter written in 1303 two clerks wrote that the Irish troops had received no pay for nine weeks, and were extremely discontented to learn that funds had reached Berwick and were not being paid to them. There was a danger that they would start to rob those Scots who were loyal to Edward, something which was to be avoided.[391] It was only at the very end of his reign that the English, under the command of the prince of Wales, began to burn and pillage mercilessly. According to one chronicler, the king was furious when he heard of his son’s activities. He was careful to order Valence to ‘honour the loyal and spare them’, an attitude which did not accord well with living off the land.[392]
It was of course impossible to prevent the ill-disciplined troops of the period from pillaging. In 1296 Hugh Torold, bailiff of the Earl Marshal, drove off 119 sheep that belonged to Robert of Bamburgh. Later in the same campaign Walter de Huntercombe was accused of seizing sixteen oxen and ten cows from a moor near Aberdeen. At about the turn of the century Sweetheart abbey put the cost of the war damage it had suffered at over £5,000, and Dundrennan abbey at £8,000, but these are hardly figures to be taken literally. In 1301 the bishop of Carlisle petitioned for a reduction in the farm of £10 a year that he paid for the parks and grazings of Carlisle castle, claiming that the crops and livestock had been eaten up and consumed by armies going to and returning from Scotland. One leader of Welsh troops sought a pardon for himself as a protection against prosecution on the grounds that his countrymen committed so many murders, robberies and arsons on their way to the war.[393] It is clear that theft, though contrary to royal policy, must have provided the army with substantial rations.
The demands of the armies for food offered openings to private entrepreneurs, who were encouraged by the crown. More was done during the Welsh wars than in the later campaigns in Scotland to persuade merchants to bring their goods for sale to the army. The techniques were familiar ones, used during Henry III’s wars in Wales.[394] Safe-conducts and protections were granted in large numbers to merchants, and on occasion escorts provided for them. In 1277 and 1287, and probably on other occasions, the holding of markets was prohibited in the regions where the victuallers were expected to come from: for the first Welsh war these were Lancashire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, and Herefordshire.[395] For the Scotch wars, the crown did not use such drastic methods to force merchants to bring supplies, but in 1301 even men from Cornwall were asked to come north.[396] On occasion, the presence of merchants following the army saved a difficult situation. In 1298 when Edward arrived with his army at Stirling he found that his supplies of both food and cash had run out. Victuals were therefore bought on credit from the merchants present there, payment at the Exchequer being promised them. Twenty-eight bills survive, mostly dated between August and September, showing that Edward bought just over £380 worth of food and drink. Payment was reasonably prompt, most of the merchants receiving their money within a year.[397] Similarly, when the army arrived in Aberdeen in 1303 there were no royal stores to be found, so Edward had to rely on the willingness of the merchants to sell him goods on credit.[398] The royal household turned to the merchants only in an emergency, but the crown did not attempt to guarantee regular supplies for the whole army, so the infantry and cavalry not in the household were presumably compelled to obtain much from these private victuallers.
The ordinary footsoldiers must have brought supplies with them on campaign, as the infantryman who was obliged by his tenure to appear with a side of bacon did in 1277.[399] But more important were the arrangements that the magnates made to keep themselves and their men properly victualled. Unfortunately, owing to the dearth of private records, evidence is scanty on this subject, but the archives of the government contain sufficient material to indicate what was being done. In July 1277 a safe conduct was issued to the men of Gilbert de Clare carrying victuals through Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire, which shows from how far afield the earl was drawing his supplies.[400] In 1282 Roger de Molis’ men brought a ship from Bridgwater loaded with victuals for Roger and his men in Wales. Later that year Robert FitzWalter sent a yeoman of his to Ireland to buy supplies for him.[401] Magnates made similar arrangements for the wars in Scotland. In 1301 when the town of Poole was approached to provide ships for the crown the reply was that they had only two vessels, both of which had been taken by the earl of Lincoln to carry his victuals north to Scotland.[402] Two years later John Lovel of Titchmarsh was using a ship to have his supplies taken north. To his great annoyance it was arrested and held for eleven days in Scarborough.[403] Even royal officials took their own supplies on campaign. On one occasion Ralph Manton wrote to the sheriff of Lincoln asking him to have his own grain from Baddington sent north with the royal supplies.[404] Private victualling arrangements were made for the Flanders expedition of 1297. Henry de Bluntesdon, the king’s almoner, took eighty-eight cheeses from God’s House, Southampton, where he was warden.[405] The earl of Warwick sent goods across to Flanders, presumably intended for
members of his family and retinue present on the campaign, since he himself did not take part in it.[406]
Reliance on local supplies, the activities of merchants, and the initiative of magnates and others in providing their own victuals was hardly sufficient to meet the demands of Edward I’s armies. The government had to take action itself to ensure adequate supplies. Machinery had to be set up to enable compulsory purchases to be made with the minimum of difficulty, at prices which were not inflated by the abnormal demands of war. Stores had to be set up in the main campaign centres, and clerks appointed to supervise them. The task was a considerable one, and of all the administrative problems which were involved in putting an army into the field, this bulks largest in contemporary records.
The royal household had always obtained much of its food supplies by exercising the right of prise, or compulsory purchase. This practice was liable to abuse, and attempts to restrict the activities of royal officials who seized goods without paying for them had been made in Magna Carta,[407] echoing a reforming ordinance of Henry I’s.[408] In Henry III’s reign the Petition of the Barons complained that Henry’s officials were keeping back for their own use the greater part of the goods they purveyed, and that many merchants were impoverished because payment was inadequate.[409] As in many other respects, the early legislation of Edward I with regard to prises followed up the ideas of the baronial opposition to his father. In the Statute of Westminster I it was stated that prises should not be taken without the consent of the man whose goods were being removed. But Edward was careful to reserve his ancient rights, and the clause appears to have remained a dead letter.[410] Payment for goods taken for the household remained dilatory, and became more so in the difficult financial situation of the latter years of the reign. Robert Hood of London had ale taken from him in 1298 and in 1300: his son eventually received payment for it in the last year of Edward II’s reign.[411]
It was possible to extend this unpopular system of prise, normally used to provide the household with its supplies, to obtain victuals for the army. Part of the army, after all, was the household in arms. This extension of the system was not novel in the reign of Edward I. For his Irish expedition Henry II purveyed supplies from many English counties. He took 6,424½ quarters of wheat, 2,000 of oats, and 584 of beans. In addition there were 4,106 carcases of salt pork, 160 quarters of salt and 840 weys of cheese. These supplies were all taken by the sheriffs, who answered for them in the pipe roll.[412] Similar prises were made during the Barons’ Wars of Edward’s youth: requisitions to feed the army besieging Kenilworth were so heavy as to exhaust the revenues of ten counties.[413] In taking prises for his Welsh wars, Edward I was simply following the example of his father.
For the first Welsh war the government appears to have neglected the question of victualling until a very late stage. Whereas the summonses to the cavalry were issued on 12 December 1276 for a muster on 1 July 1277,[414] it was not until 17 July that some royal clerks and sergeants were commissioned to buy up supplies of grain in nine counties. The prohibition on holding markets had been issued ten days earlier.[415] Unfortunately insufficient documents survive to give any reliable impression of the scale or effectiveness of the arrangements that were made. But since a much more elaborate machinery was set up for the war of 1282, it seems likely that the king and his advisers were not wholly content.
The attack on Roger Clifford in Hawarden castle that set off the second Welsh war took place on 21 March. A council was summoned to meet at Devizes on April 5 to make plans for the war,[416] and it was there that victualling arrangements were made. There was no question of waiting until the war had begun. Supplies were to be purveyed in Ponthieu, Gascony, Ireland and, of course, in England. The quantities required were specified in many cases: Ireland, for example, was to provide 4,000 quarters of oats and 2,000 of wheat. Orders were issued that all supplies from the counties near the Welsh borders were to be sold where the armies were. Whitchurch and Chester were singled out as victualling centres,[417] and at the latter a permanent supply centre was set up under John de Maidstone, a royal paymaster.[418] The accounts show the way in which royal clerks and sheriffs were used to buy up supplies which were then sent to the victualling centres, often on requisitioned carts. From there the goods were directed, frequently by water, to the garrisons and to the troops in the field. The wardrobe account for the year starting in November 1283 shows that over 6,600 tuns of wine were acquired by the government, and that it had at its disposal more than 12,000 quarters of wheat, and about 10,842 quarters of oats. 1,110 cattle and impressive quantities of dried fish were also purveyed. These figures do not represent the full totals, for in addition the special war account shows that £5,422 was spent on victualling, the purchase of war horses and miscellaneous items.[419] Similar methods of supplying the armies in Wales were used in 1294-5, and despite the loss of the commissariat train to a Welsh attack, and a difficult period when the king was at Conway and wine ran out, more than sufficient food was accumulated.[420]
The war with France imposed a heavy demand for food supplies, notably in 1296 when, with the Wardrobe taking responsibility for the campaign in Scotland, the Exchequer was given the task of organizing prises of foodstuffs for Gascony. In March and April the sheriffs of twelve southern counties were ordered to purvey a total of 13,500 quarters of wheat and 13,000 quarters of oats. The operation seems to have been carried out with excessive thoroughness, since after a complaint had been received orders were issued in May that no one should be left without enough corn to live on. In June further commissions to make prises were issued, directed to nine counties, four of which had been included in the previous order. Then on 17 September Richard of Louth arrived at the Exchequer with instructions from the king, the first of which was that 100,000 quarters of grain should be purveyed for Gascony. Complaints had been received earlier in the year from the army there, stating that it was in great distress for want of food and money.[421] But the Exchequer protested that the quantity demanded was unreasonable, and the king replied, showing a touch of humour, that he had certainly intended the quantity specified, and that even should he demand all the grain in England they should not question him, but that his real intention was that they should simply purvey all the grain that they could without excessively burdening the people of England. The result was that at the end of November orders went to most of the counties of England for the collection of a total of 33,800 quarters of wheat, 20,400 quarters of oats, 5,800 quarters of barley and 3,200 quarters of beans and peas.[422]
Such huge quantities of supplies were not collected in 1297, but even so the figures were substantial. Thirty-eight ships were used on the run to Gascony, leaving at different dates from ports in the south of England, carrying a total of 6,470 quarters of wheat, 10,542 quarters of oats, 952 quarters of beans, 2,500 stockfish and 571 tuns of flour. For the Flanders campaign 4,893 quarters of wheat was brought over from England, together with 3,831 quarters of other grains. This was more than was bought locally by royal officials.[423] A further indication of the burden placed on the country is provided by the accounts of individual sheriffs. From Lincolnshire 2,741 quarters of cereals was provided, an impressive total from a single county.[424] Yorkshire produced thirty-four tuns of flour, 1,194 quarters of wheat and 763 quarters of oats for Flanders.[425] 2,120 quarters of wheat, 500 quarters of barley, 1,724½ quarters of oats and 172 tuns of flour were sent to Gascony from Wiltshire and Hampshire. In 1296 and 1297 the sheriff of Kent collected together 2,221 quarters of wheat, 1,542 quarters of oats and 1,121 quarters of barley.[426]
Large quantities of victuals were required by the English forces in Scotland during the last ten years of the reign. There were two main victualling bases where stores were collected before being sent on to the armies and the castle garrisons. One was at Berwick, where Peter of Dunwich was acting as receiver of victuals in 1297,[427] shortly to be replaced by Richard de Bromsgrove who held the office until the end of the reign. As far as supplies fr
om England were concerned, this was the most important base. With the prevailing winds it was easier to take supplies up the east coast than the west, and the main grain-producing regions of England were in the east. Also, the majority of expeditions advanced north on the eastern route, through Newcastle and Berwick. The other supply centre was at Carlisle, with its port at Skinburness. In those years when the army did advance up the western route, the position of receiver of victuals there, held first by Richard of Abingdon and then by James Dalilegh, became extremely important, but otherwise it was mainly used as a convenient place for the collection of supplies from Ireland, and for the victualling of the castles of Dumfries and Lochmaben.
The simplest way of indicating the extent of the victualling operations for the wars in Scotland is to examine the figures of the supplies purveyed for two particular campaigns. In 1300 the government’s task was simplified by the fact that appreciable quantities of victuals had been accumulated for the campaign that had never taken place in the previous year. In January additional and substantial quantities were ordered from eleven English counties and from Ireland.
The receipts include supplies left over from the previous year, so an accurate picture of the response of the sheriffs to the orders sent them is not given. Although the royal victuallers had almost 12,000 quarters of wheat and flour at their disposal during 1300, only about 6,000 were actually collected during the year, in response to a request for 10,000. The sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk only sent north 753 quarters of wheat and 1,000 quarters of oats, not the 1,500 of the former and 1,200 of the latter that were demanded. On the other hand, he met the target exactly for malt, beans and peas. In providing 1,030 quarters, 7 bushels of wheat the sheriff of Lincolnshire exceeded the figure that he was asked for. The most incompetent was the sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, who in response to an order for 500 quarters of wheat, 300 quarters of oats and 300 quarters of malt only produced 133 quarters 7 bushels of wheat.[428] There were no complaints of any insufficiency of victuals, though there was anger with the quality of some of the grain sent from Ireland. A sample was sent back to Dublin, where a jury declared that it had come from the demesne lands of the vacant archbishopric of that city.[429]
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