Edward I

Home > Other > Edward I > Page 23
Edward I Page 23

by Michael Prestwich


  This technique of threatening to collect such debts was naturally unpopular. In 1293 Roger Bigod owed £2,232, and at the Easter parliament at Westminster that year he petitioned to be excused payment. It was agreed that £1,432 be paid off at the rate of £100 a year.[864] Bigod had previously been heavily indebted to Italian merchants,[865] and two years before had handed some of his manors over to the king.[866] It seems very likely that the crown’s intransigence with regard to his debts played a part in persuading him to oppose Edward in 1297. Arundel was also in financial difficulties at this period,[867] but in April 1297 he was granted respite of debts.[868] Bigod was not, and the fact is surely significant. It is also very probable that the demand made in 1295 that Archbishop Winchelsey pay off £3,568 in the space of three years contributed to his hostility towards Edward I.[869]

  Edward was prepared to modify the natural rigour of his policies very considerably towards those who served him in his war. The opening of every campaign saw many respites of debts entered in the exchequer records. Similarly, men were granted writs of protection when they were in the field, so that their domestic interests were safeguarded. The king was even prepared to suspend actions of novel disseisin to ensure that no harm came to their estates.[870] A letter requesting protection for the earl of Warwick makes it clear that what he needed was relief from the claims of creditors, public and private, and this the king could provide.[871] So effective were these grants of protection that it became necessary in 1305 to legislate against those who pleaded them fraudulently.[872]

  To obtain the co-operation of the nobility in his wars, Edward could not rely solely on the heavy-handed and harsh policies so far described. He had to make it worth while for men to serve him, as well as to make life hard for those who did not. The most obvious method was by giving grants of conquered lands to those who assisted in the campaigns. However, the king’s policy in the first Welsh war was not conquest or the annexation of territory, but was rather the subjection of Llywelyn to English suzerainty. In territorial terms, therefore, the English did not make new gains. The crown recovered two of the four Cantrefs in the north, and also its former possessions in Carmarthen and Cardigan, while Marcher lords regained lands that had been seized by the Welsh. Edmund of Cornwall exchanged his rights to Carmarthen and Cardigan for lands in Derbyshire,[873] while the magnates received small reward for their part in the war.

  The war of 1282 was a different matter. With Llywelyn killed and his brother captured, conquest was achieved, and Edward could set about rewarding his followers. Bigod was granted £1,000 for his services, and as recompense for his losses in the war.[874] Others received territorial grants. John Giffard, lord of Brimpsfield, received Llandovery, which he had held for a time previously by virtue of a claim through his wife. He also obtained the commote of Isgenen, and was made custodian of the royal castle of Builth. Morris plausibly suggests that these considerable favours were a reward for Giffard’s rôle in commanding the army which defeated Llywelyn at Orewin Bridge. Roger Mortimer, who was with Giffard, also received a reward in the form of land. Important grants in Wales were made to John de Warenne, Henry de Lacy and Reginald de Grey.[875] In Scotland Edward succeeded in building up a vested interest in the war by means of grants of lands. On occasion he even allocated estates to his followers before they had been captured. Bothwell castle was granted to Aymer de Valence shortly before it was taken in 1301, while Lochmaben and Annandale were promised to Humphrey de Bohun on 10 April 1306. In the following May John de Hastings was made earl of Menteith, even though the true possessor of the title had not at that time surrendered.[876]

  Service in war was the surest way of winning the royal favour. John de Vescy, born in 1244, had been a ward of Peter of Savoy, a fact which may explain his firm adherence to the baronial cause in the civil wars. Early in 1267 he led a rising, but was besieged at Alnwick and forced to surrender. He accompanied Edward on his crusade, and became the king’s devoted friend, serving him loyally in Wales. In 1290 his heart was buried at Blackfriars, together with those of Queen Eleanor of Castile and the king’s son Alfonso.[877] On a very different level was Roger le Peytevin, a disreputable poverty-stricken knight, who had been a Montfortian and had fought staunchly at Ely in 1267. Forcible seizure of some property he claimed led to his imprisonment early in the reign of Edward I, but he was released in order to fight for the king in Wales in the first Welsh war, and probably recovered some of his lands in return for his service.[878]

  Robert FitzRoger was one of the men who appeared at the Exchequer in 1297 to protest against the levying of the tax of an eighth for which proper consent had not been obtained. By good service in Scotland he soon undid the harm that this must have done his standing with the king. In 1300 he was appointed royal lieutenant in Northumberland,[879] and two years later was pardoned his debts at the Exchequer in recognition of his services.[880] In 1306 he was formally thanked for his rôle in protecting the marches against Robert Bruce.[881] Royal favour was extended to FitzRoger’s bloodthirsty family. As a result of his part in the Scotch wars one of his sons was pardoned for murdering his own brother, and a little later the victim’s wife was herself pardoned, at Robert’s instance, for committing a murder.[882]

  Obviously, the king was most likely to obtain the support of his magnates in his campaigns if the wars he fought were popular. The royal writs show that the administration was well aware of the need to explain the reasons for the demands for men and materials necessitated by the wars. In the early stages of the Welsh wars the language employed was straightforward, with statements about the murders committed by the Welsh and the contempt of the crown displayed by Llywelyn.[883] By 1283 the phraseology had become more extreme. The summons to the Shrewsbury parliament stated that ‘The tongue of man can scarcely recount the evil deeds committed by the Welsh upon the king’s progenitors’. The unfortunate Dafydd was ‘the last survivor of the family of traitors’.[884] The writs concerning Scotland laid a constant stress on the fact that the king’s enemies were also traitors. The grief and damage caused by their activities were frequently mentioned, and it was emphasized that the war was in the interests of the nation as a whole, not solely of the king.[885] The crisis year of 1297 naturally saw much propaganda produced: the king issuing a lengthy justification of his position.[886] It is interesting to find that in a writ to the Exchequer the king asked the barons to appoint men skilled in addressing the people to see about the collection of the tax of an eighth.[887]

  Edward I won general support for his wars in Wales and Scotland, although there was little enthusiasm for the conflict with Philip IV. A tract probably written by a clerk in the entourage of Archbishop Pecham was an elaborate tirade against the Welsh, condemning especially their objectionable sexual habits.[888] The Welsh princely family in particular came under attack from English writers. Royal propaganda against the Welsh was in accord with popular opinion, although with many Welshmen fighting on the English side in the wars, and the Marcher lords having many ties and sympathies with the Welsh, the literature does not display the savage hatred that was to be directed later in the reign against the Scots. Many popular songs testify to this hatred. One quoted by Langtoft puts English feelings very succinctly:

  ‘For Scottes

  Telle I for sottes

  And wrecches unwar.’[889]

  That the enemy were ‘an inconstant and treacherous people, prepared to commit all manner of crimes’[890] was so familiar a fact as to be hardly worth repeating. William Wallace and the traitor Simon Fraser were the objects of a hysterical detestation. Atrocity stories such as that of the burning of two hundred schoolboys in Corbridge, and the report that after the battle of Stirling Bridge the body of Hugh Cressingham was skinned assisted in the creation of an atmosphere of enthusiasm for the war.[891] There can have been little need to fan hatred among the inhabitants of the north of England who suffered from Scotch raids. The accounts of the lands confiscated from John Balliol are, for the years 1298 and 1299
, full of references to the devastation wrought in Northumberland by enemy raids. Several manors are reported to have been entirely deserted as a result of the war.[892]

  There was a conscious romanticization of the wars in Wales and Scotland which must have helped to popularize them. Both countries had their Arthurian legends, and it appears to have been a conscious policy of Edward I to set himself up as a new Arthur.[893] There is little evidence to suggest that the king himself was a great reader of grail romances, but his interest in the subject was clearly indicated in 1278, when he had the tomb of Arthur and Guinevere at Glastonbury opened, and the bodies reburied. Round Tables were held on several occasions, notably at Nefyn in 1284 and at Falkirk in 1302. The knighting of the king’s eldest son, Edward, in 1306 was the occasion of great festivities, said by Langtoft to have been unequalled since the coronation of King Arthur at Caerleon: the comparison seems significant.[894] Almost three hundred young men were knighted along with the prince. At the great feast which concluded the celebrations, two swans were brought in, and all present swore oaths on them. The prince vowed that he would never spend two nights in the same bed until the murder of John Comyn had been revenged, and Scotland conquered.[895] This oath was akin to that sworn by Percival in Chretien de Troyes’ Conte de Graal.[896]

  The chief material symbol of the conquest of Wales was the splendid castle built at Caernarvon. The site was traditionally linked with the Roman past, and in 1283 a body alleged to be that of Magnus Maximus, father of Constantine, was reburied there. In the tale of Maximus’ dream, contained in the Mabinogion, the place is identified with the castle of which the emperor dreamed, and where he found his princess. Now the castle built by Edward at Caernarvon differs strikingly from the other castles in Wales constructed during his reign, for it has polygonal towers, and bands of coloured stone in the masonry. The similarity to the walls of Constantinople is striking, and it is plain that the castle was built in this way in a conscious desire to recall the legendary past.[897]

  During this period war was a normal occupation of the upper classes, and this was one reason why Edward had no very great difficulty in raising sufficient cavalry forces for popular wars. When war was not available, men turned to tournaments as the nearest substitute, though on one occasion, in 1306, the substitute proved more attractive than the real thing, when the tedium of the occupation of Scotland overcame several important members of the prince of Wales’ entourage, and they departed to take part in tournaments abroad. There must have been many men in Edward’s armies who fought simply because it was their way of life and they enjoyed it. But it is interesting to find that Brian FitzAlan, a north country knight, owned a copy of the grail romance Perlesvaus,[898] and plainly the idealism of the Arthurian revival contributed to the Edwardian war effort.

  The needs of war were not the only determinant of Edward I’s policies toward the aristocracy. One of the aims of the king in his dealings with the landed aristocracy was to try to provide substantial estates for his own family. In doing so he must have hoped to gain political advantages. If he succeeded in linking the major comital families of England to the crown by marriage alliances, then this would surely increase his own authority. And if he succeeded in acquiring new estates for the crown, then this might increase its wealth and reduce the degree of dependence on grants of taxation.

  The methods employed by Edward and his officials to achieve these ends were not notable for their impartiality and integrity. On the death of Aveline de Forz, countess of Aumale, the young wife of Edmund of Lancaster, in 1274, the considerable Aumale estates should have gone to Aveline’s heirs. In the absence of any close relations the king supported a bogus claimant, who was rewarded with a paltry £100 in land, while the crown obtained the Aumale lands. There is considerable doubt about the propriety of the king’s dealings with Aveline’s mother, Isabel de Redvers, countess of Devon and Lady of Wight. On her deathbed in 1293 she was persuaded to disinherit her rightful heir, Hugh de Courtenay, in return for 6,000 marks. The proceedings were later challenged, and it seems highly probable that the charter by which the reversions of three manors and the Isle of Wight were granted to the crown was forged.[899] The unfortunate Hugh de Courtenay was a minor at the time of the transaction, and it looks as if the king initially pretended that he was merely taking over the lands until Hugh came of age.[900]

  Edward I married two of his daughters to English earls. In 1283 it was agreed that Joan of Acre should marry Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, but owing to delays in obtaining an annulment of his earlier marriage, and a papal dispensation for the new one, the ceremony did not take place until 1290. It seems at first sight surprising that the king should ally himself by marriage to the magnate who was most opposed to him, but examination of the terms of the match reveals his motives. Gloucester’s children by his earlier marriage were disinherited, and his estates entailed on the heirs born to the second marriage. Should no children be born, twenty-five manors were to go to Joan and her heirs, while she was to have a jointure of the Clare lands. So if children were born, this would mean that the next earl of Gloucester would be a nephew of the king, and if there was no issue, then the royal family would benefit in territorial terms. A similar entail was created when in 1302 Elizabeth was married to Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, son of the man who opposed Edward in 1297. By these arrangements Edward provided very well for his daughters, while also ensuring that, should the direct line of Clare or Bohun die out, the crown would benefit, rather than any collateral heirs. Similar arrangements were made in 1294 when the king’s nephew, Thomas of Lancaster, married Alice, sole surviving offspring of Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln. Again the collateral heirs were cut off from their expectations, but this time it was the house of Lancaster rather than the crown that was to benefit.

  The other major example of the king’s manipulation of the rules of inheritance was the agreement he made in 1302 with Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk. Bigod surrendered his lands to the crown, and received them back entailed upon the heirs of his body, with reversion to the crown. According to Walter of Guisborough the earl did this in order to disinherit his brother, who was pressing him for the repayment of debts. The king eased the earl’s financial difficulties by granting him £1,000 a year in land, for his lifetime. Since Bigod at this time was sixty, and without heirs, it was virtually certain that by this settlement the crown would gain the Norfolk earldom and lands, as indeed happened.[901] While Guisborough may be correct in stating that Bigod agreed to the king’s offer in order to spite his brother, there may well also be truth in the view expressed by another writer, who considered that the king forced the entail on the earl in retaliation for the part that Bigod had played in the opposition movement of 1297.[902]

  An ordinance issued in 1306 revealed the extent to which the king was concerned to provide a special status for the members of his family. This laid down that in future no grants of the franchise of return of writ were to be issued, save to his own children. In fact he did not adhere to this strictly, for such a grant was made to Thomas of Lancaster, his nephew, but the ordinance is nevertheless very revealing, both of his attitude to franchises and of his determination to ensure the position of the royal family.[903]

  In his personal dealings with the comital families Edward I displayed attitudes that had not changed at all since 1269 when he had effectively disinherited Robert Ferrers in the interests of his own brother Edmund of Lancaster. It may be that the king hoped that by creating ties of marriage and blood with the great families of England he would find it easier to obtain their co-operation in his military enterprises, but it does not appear that this was the effect of his actions. The royal family did of course benefit very considerably, and the crown acquired some important estates, notably Holderness and the Isle of Wight. But as one chronicler, Langtoft, pointed out, not a single earl accompanied the king on his futile expedition to Flanders. This he attributed to Edward’s lack of generosity,[904] and it was a fair criticism of th
e king’s policy, even though some grants of lands conquered in Wales and Scotland were made to those who served in the wars.

  Edward I did not possess the sympathy with his aristocracy that was to be displayed by his grandson Edward III, whose reign witnessed a striking co-operation between crown and magnates. It is significant that Edward I raised no new families to comital rank, despite the considerable services rendered to him by such as the Percies and Cliffords. Yet despite the aggressive attitude of the king toward the magnates, characterized by the Quo Warranto enquiries and his treatment of the Marcher lords in the later years of the reign, Edward was able by means of propaganda and a system of financial rewards and penalties, promises and threats to obtain the support that he needed for his wars in Wales and Scotland.

  XI. The Crisis of 1297 and its Origins

  There is a striking contrast between the later years of Edward I, which witnessed constant political and constitutional argument, and the years of his greatest successes, before the outbreak of the war with France. But even in the earlier period Edward did not go uncriticized. Archbishop Pecham at the council of Reading in 1279 ordered the publication of Magna Carta in a way which implied that he considered that the king was not observing it. The earl of Gloucester barely concealed his opposition to the king. Edward was forced to abandon his plan to conduct the war in Wales in 1282 with an army entirely at royal wages. Yet there were no major crises which yielded documents criticizing the conduct of the government before 1297, and there were no proposals for novel schemes of reform.

  For an elaborate indictment of Edward I and his government in the first part of the reign it is necessary to turn to a curious book, the Mirror of Justices, probably written about 1290. This is a work about the law, and most of the impressively long list of complaints relate to legal matters. Many amount to little more than petty quibbles, but some of the author’s complaints were important. The first was that the king was not subject to the law, as he should be, but was above it. Secondly, parliament was held infrequently and only for the purpose of obtaining aids, not for dispensing of justice. Ordinances were not enacted by common assent of the king and his earls, but were made by the king, his clerks, aliens and councillors who did not dare oppose him. Another serious complaint was that corrupt justices and officials were not punished as they should have been. Magna Carta, according to this work, was ‘damnably disregarded by the governors of the law and by subsequent statutes’. The introduction of imprisonment as a penalty for debt in the Statute of Merchants was, claimed the author, a contravention of the famous clause 39 of the 1215 Magna Carta.[905]

 

‹ Prev