The great weakness of the crown in face of the opposition was its dependence on grants of taxation for the financing of the war in Scotland. Without the war, Edward would not have had to be so conciliatory. Attempts were made to find other sources of supply, and in 1303 a partial success was achieved, when negotiations with the representatives of the foreign merchants resulted in their agreeing to the imposition of additional customs duties. These amounted to an extra 3s. 4d. on each sack of wool and a similar increase of half the original duty on the other commodities on which duty was paid. An ad valorem duty of 3d. in the pound was also imposed. In return, various privileges were granted to the foreign merchants in the Carta Mercatoria, intended to give them freedom of movement, and to provide them with protection against undue interference. A special court was set up in London to hear cases in which they were involved, and it was conceded that henceforth they were to be free from prises.[979] These new duties put foreign merchants at a financial disadvantage as compared with their English rivals who did not have to pay them. But this was not the result of a far-sighted government policy of favouring English traders. The original intention had been that the New Customs should be paid by all, and soundings had been taken by exchequer officials, who reported that the English merchants were quite willing to pay the increased duties.[980] Representatives of the towns were accordingly summoned to a council at York in June 1303. When they met, the initial discussions were shown to have been misleading, for the assembly unanimously refused to make any grant.[981] Such negotiations for aid were of course a contravention of the Confirmatio of 1297, and it seems likely that pressure was brought to bear on the merchants by the opposition, for in view of their earlier attitude it seems improbable that their decision to refuse the grant was unaided.
In 1305 Edward’s problems in Scotland appeared to be over. His position was further strengthened by the election of Bertrand de Got, a Gascon and a former royal clerk, as Pope Clement V. With his aid Edward was able to take the political initiative. He received a papal bull absolving him from the concessions he had made, and he brought charges against Winchelsey at the Curia, in which the archbishop’s political rôle figured largely. As a result, Edward’s most hated opponent was suspended from office in February 1306, and did not return to England during the king’s lifetime.[982] But Edward’s victory was a very limited one. Even with the pressure of the renewal of war in Scotland he did not revert to the practices of arbitrary exactions that had been so bitterly resented between 1294 and 1297, with the sole exception of the purveyance of foodstuffs that was essential for the military campaigns of 1306 and 1307.[983] No novel forms of military summons were issued, and even the tax of a twentieth and thirtieth was granted in lieu of the feudal aid to which the king was entitled on the occasion of the knighting of his eldest son.[984]
Political disputes in the years after the king’s return from Flanders never reached the degree of bitterness that was felt in 1297. There was no propaganda war between crown and opposition and no threat of civil war. One reason for this was the weakness of the opposition’s leadership. Bohun died in 1298, and Bigod was in financial difficulties. He could not afford to continue in the rôle he had taken on in 1297, and the bargain that Edward made with him in 1302 is indicative of his insecure position.[985] The fact that in 1301 protests against the crown were made in a bill produced by Henry Keighley, a knight of the shire, suggests that powerful aristocratic support for the opposition was lacking. The man Edward regarded as his chief opponent was, of course, Archbishop Winchelsey. In particular, the king held him responsible for his humiliation at the Lincoln parliament of 1301. He was even suspected of plotting the deposition of Edward on that occasion and, according to one account, the king had documentary evidence of his treachery.[986] The archbishop does not appear to have had wide support. His action in bringing the papal bull Scimus Fili, in which Boniface VIII condemned the English actions in Scotland, to the king in Galloway in 1300 cannot have commended itself to the magnates, who were sympathetic to Edward’s war aims, and were prepared to append their seals to an elaborate letter denying the papal claims.[987]
Edward adopted a more conciliatory attitude towards the opposition in these later years of the reign than he had done in 1297. With the great enquiry into the misdeeds of royal officials that took place in 1298 he demonstrated his willingness to deal with the local abuses, particularly in the administration of prises, which had done so much to aggravate the situation during the period of the war with France.[988] Again, in the Ordinance of the Forest of 1306, the king took measures to prevent the repetition of practices which had contributed greatly to popular discontent with the government.[989] The financial situation was still critical, because of the continuing struggle in Scotland. But after concessions had been exacted from Edward in 1301 in return for a fifteenth, the crown virtually abandoned the attempt to pay its way. Rather than resort to unpopular exactions, the king turned to the inadequate prerogative rights to tallage and feudal aids, and accepted a massive and rising level of indebtedness. Despite the pressure for repayment at the parliament of 1305, it seems clear that it was politically safer to incur heavy debts than to levy oppressive taxes and to seize private property.[990] And while the war in Scotland remained popular, Edward could rely on the military support of many of the magnates even though he could not offer prompt and satisfactory financial recompense for their services.
On one matter Edward was not prepared to compromise with his opponents. He would not dismiss or discipline his chief minister, Walter Langton. This man was an obvious target for attack. Charges brought against him by John de Lovetot at Rome did not relate to his conduct in office, but to his private life and his alleged ecclesiastical misdemeanours: simony, plurality and even doing homage to the devil. But at the Lincoln parliament, according to Langtoft, he was accused of overthrowing ancient customs and laws in the Exchequer, and his dismissal was requested. Edward I gave Langton his fullest support, even going so far as to exile his own son from court when the prince quarrelled with the Treasurer in 1305. In parliament in 1307 charges of champerty were brought against Langton by John Ferrers, and these were sufficiently well-founded for him to find it necessary to have royal letters of pardon made out.[991]
Earlier in the reign Edward had shown no reluctance to dismiss ministers. There had been the state trials following his return from Gascony in 1289, and in 1295 William March, the man held responsible for the seizure of private treasure in 1294, had been removed from office. Edward was not a man to take responsibility for unpopular actions if there was a convenient ministerial scapegoat. In one instance, the appointment of Isabella de Vescy to the custody of Bamburgh castle in 1304, the king certainly tried to ensure that he should not be held responsible. The letters were to be issued under the exchequer seal, and the king wrote to the Treasurer to emphasize that, although he was willing that Isabella should have the castle, it was not to be done at his command.[992] Langton was too valuable to Edward, and the opposition in the final years of the reign too weak, for him to be dismissed. And it does not appear that Edward himself suffered as much from Langton’s unpopularity as might be expected. In the contemporary Song of Trailbaston, for example, the king was excepted from a curse on those responsible for the peace-keeping measures taken in 1304.[993]
Probably one reason why the opposition lacked real effectiveness in the last years of the reign was that the king was an old man. Unlike Edward III in his later years, Edward I was an imposing and frightening figure in his sixties. It obviously made good sense for potential opposition leaders to hold their fire until the old king died, and wait until his young, inexperienced and incompetent son was on the throne, before attempting to remedy the grievances that were building up in Edward I’s later years.
It was an extremely difficult legacy that Edward I left to his son. There was an immense burden of debt, an unfinished war, and the constitutional arguments had hardly been satisfactorily concluded by the papal bull absolving t
he king from his oaths. But it has recently been argued by J. R. Maddicott that, ‘there is no evidence that Edward II inherited the bitter feelings against the Crown which his father had so often aroused; and certainly there was very little continuity between the opposition parties of the two reigns.’[994] To test this view it will be necessary to examine the composition and policies of both administration and opposition in the early years of Edward II.
Changes in the personnel of the government made shortly after his accession declared Edward II’s independence of his father. Walter Langton was dismissed and arrested. The men who had headed Edward’s household as prince were given high office, with Walter Reynolds becoming Treasurer and William Melton, an enemy of Langton, Controller of the Wardrobe. John Droxford was transferred to the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, while his office of Keeper of the Wardrobe went to the only one of Edward I’s top officials who had the confidence of Edward II, John Benstead.[995] Ralph Baldock, the Chancellor, was replaced by a former holder of the office, John Langton, who had been dismissed by Edward I in 1302.[996]
These new appointments, however, did not mean radical changes in policy, and instead of placating the opposition, the changes merely increased the numbers of the discontented. The new officials had been trained under the same system as the old, and the financial administration continued to be run on the same lines as under Edward I, with the Wardrobe playing a dominant role, and the Italian bankers much in evidence. There were no further attempts by the Exchequer to curb the Wardrobe, and the one new administrative development of the early years of Edward II was that the Chamber began to increase in importance, with some revenues from land reserved for its use.[997] This was hardly likely to be welcomed by the opposition, whose aim was to ensure that the revenues of the country were all paid directly into the Exchequer. Although he had no enthusiasm for it, Edward II could not abandon the war in Scotland, where successive failures did little to increase the credibility of the new government. And added to all the problems inherited from Edward I was one new one, that of the king’s relationship with Piers Gaveston.
It did not take long for signs of discontent to appear once the old king was dead. The first indication of trouble is contained in a curious document issued at Boulogne shortly after the king’s marriage there in January 1308. This was in the form of letters patent in the name of Antony Bek and eight others including Henry Lacy, John Botetourt and John of Berwick, all three councillors of Edward I. They stressed their loyalty to the crown, agreeing to amend those things that had been done contrary to the royal dignity, and significantly also promising to redress ‘the oppressions which have been committed and are still daily being committed against the people’. This is taken by Maddicott as being directed solely against Gaveston,[998] but it seems a curiously oblique way of attacking the royal favourite. Taken in conjunction with the additional clause inserted in the oath sworn by the king at his coronation, in which he promised to observe ‘the just laws and customs that the community of the realm shall have chosen’, it looks as if political argument was ranging far beyond the immediate issue of the lavish grants that had been made to Gaveston, and his objectionable behaviour. It seems quite probable that the addition to the coronation oath was prompted by memories of the way in which Edward I had gone back on his concessions in 1305.[999]
The events of 1309 show that in some quarters redress of the familiar grievances against the crown — the failure to govern the country in accordance with the Great Charter, the abuse of purveyance, the jurisdiction of the steward and marshal of the household and the misuse of the privy seal — were more important than the Gaveston question. The Statute of Stamford, largely consisting of a reissue of the Articuli Super Cartas of 1300, dealt with these questions, and was the price that Edward II had to pay for the return of Gaveston to England after he had been exiled in the previous year.[1000]
The full extent to which the thinking of the opposition was still dominated by the events of the later years of Edward I’s reign can best be seen in the Ordinances of 1311. The old arguments were repeated and amplified. The baronage now claimed the right to interpret the Charters, with the assistance of the justices. Clauses relating to the Forest provided for a thorough purge of the Forest administration. A prohibition was placed on all prises, except those regarded as ancient and rightful. Letters under the privy seal were not to be used to delay or alter the course of common law actions. The steward and marshal of the household were to confine their jurisdiction to trespasses within the verge.
The Ordainers went much further than the opposition had done previously, and produced a very wide-ranging criticism of the government. The financial administration came under attack. It was stated that all the revenues of the country should be paid into the Exchequer, which was an attack on the independence of the Wardrobe. Customs dues were not to be paid to the alien merchants, and the Frescobaldi were to be arrested and made to account for the money they had received in this way. The New Customs were abolished, and it was declared that the Carta Mercatoria issued in 1303 was contrary to Magna Carta and the franchise of London.
The attack on the jurisdiction of the marshal and steward of the household, first made in the Articuli of 1300, was almost certainly prompted by the way in which this household court had been used since about 1290 for the recording and enforcement of recognizances of debt. The Ordinances extended the attack on the way in which Edward I had made it easier for merchants to collect debts they were owed. No longer could they make use of the Exchequer Court, for only actions concerning the king and his ministers could be heard there. The workings of the Statute of Merchants were confined to cases between merchants. Not only did this prevent merchants from using this statute to collect debts owed to them by landowners, but it also prohibited one of the methods used by Walter Langton to build up his estates.
The clause in the Ordinances forbidding the king to leave the country or make war without the consent of the baronage was relevant to Edward II’s campaign of 1310 in Scotland, but it seems likely that the events of 1297 were also in the minds of the Ordainers. One of the recruiting methods introduced by Edward I was criticized: the lavish grant of pardons and writs of protection. Changes in the monetary system were not to be made arbitrarily, but only after consultation. Presumably it was felt that insufficient consultation had taken place in 1299 and 1300 on this matter. Between 1302 and 1305 Edward I had held no full parliaments, probably because he wished to avoid the political arguments that such gatherings would have entailed. The Ordinances now stated that parliaments should be held once or twice a year.[1001]
It is abundantly clear from this that the programme of the Ordainers looked back to the events and grievances of Edward I’s later years. Was this continuity of programme matched by a continuity of personnel, or is Maddicott correct in assuming that the only man who was deeply involved in both the crisis of 1297 and that of 1310-11 was Archbishop Winchelsey?[1002]
Only a few of those involved in the crisis of 1297 can be clearly identified, while the composition of the opposition in 1300 and 1301 is virtually unknown. Equally, only the leaders of the movement against Edward II in his early years are specified by the sources. Despite the inadequacies of the evidence, it is clear that some of those active against Edward I also played a part in the opposition to his son. Robert FitzRoger was one of those who protested at the Exchequer in 1297 against the levy of the eighth, and he was one of the Ordainers elected in 1310.[1003] John Lovel, a man closely associated with Roger Bigod, was another of the protesters of 1297, and he was one of the opposition leaders who in 1310 issued letters patent promising that the king’s concessions to them would not be turned to his prejudice or disadvantage.[1004] But Lovel and FitzRoger died in 1310. A further link is suggested by the fact that William Martin, one of those who refused to go to Gascony in 1295 until severely threatened with distraint, was one of the Ordainers.[1005] Interestingly, another Ordainer was Hugh de Courtenay, who had been deprived of his right
ful inheritance by Edward I in 1293.[1006]
It seems, therefore, that there was some continuity of personnel as well as policy between the oppositions facing Edward I and Edward II. It should, however, be added that the hostility of the earls to Edward II was probably due in large part to their resentment of the position of Piers Gaveston, and the personal folly of the new king meant that the serious situation he inherited from Edward I was turned into a critical one. But it is abundantly evident that the crisis of 1310-11 was not simply the result of Edward II’s misgovernment, as the barons had initially indicated in their petition for the appointment of the Ordainers.[1007] It is a considerable tribute to the power of the old king’s personality that it was not until his son’s reign that the most effective movement of political opposition since that of 1297 took place. And whereas the 1297 crisis was largely concerned with the expedients to which the crown had resorted in wartime, the crisis of the Ordinances produced a far fuller indictment of the system of government. Not all the aspects that came under attack were related to war. The way in which debt collection had been facilitated by Edward I had harmed the landowning classes. If parliament did not meet regularly they were deprived of one of the best opportunities they had of expressing their views. Such clauses in the Ordinances reflected the views of the author of the Mirror of Justices some twenty years earlier. But most of the criticisms against the administration, particularly the financial ones, were attacks on the way in which the government had responded to the pressures of wartime, and there is no doubt that the incessant demands for men, money and materials were the prime cause of the political problems of the last years of the reign of Edward I.
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