by Ian Mortimer
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On 28 April 1343 Edward opened the first parliament held since the Crisis of 1341. There was much to discuss. One interesting preliminary was to ordain that in future no representatives should come to parliament in armour or with long knives or other weaponry as they had sometimes done in the past. The first main item on the agenda was the Treaty of Malestroit. In the now-accepted fashion, the two houses of parliament deliberated separately, and delivered their verdicts on 1 May. Both houses approved of the treaty, and of the continued search for peace. But if no adequate peace could be obtained, they approved of Edward continuing his quarrel with the French king, and would support him in this. It was a conciliatory statement, made in the light of the military successes in Brittany but also in the wake of Edward's refusal to summon a parliament for two years. Even more conciliatory was parliament's acceptance of Edward's revocation of the statute forced on him on that occasion.
Parliament and Grown had reached an understanding: although the prelates and representatives of the shires and towns might press for reform, the king would not accept extremist measures, or changes which might undermine his ability to run the government efficiently. As a result, the 1343 parliament was a success for Edward. He not only achieved support for his foreign policy, he renewed his royal authority over parliament, so much so that for the next thirty years representatives never questioned Edward's authority over ministerial appointments, nor his right to give royal estates to his chief vassals.
Along with parliamentary acknowledgement of the possibility of renewed hostilities came the agreement to fix wool customs, and a grant of duty to the king on wool for the next three years. Gradually Edward was bringing his finances back under control. He dealt with some of his Continental allies by responding to their demands for payment with letters stating that if he had failed to pay them by a certain date, then their obligations to him would lapse. The debt then was strategically neglected. Not all debts could be treated in this way, of course. Those owing to the Bardi and Peruzzi were a particularly difficult problem. If Edward simply backed out of these, there would inevitably be international repercussions. Indeed, shortly after this, both the Bardi and the Peruzzi banking houses collapsed.
The responsibility for the failure of the Bardi and the Peruzzi has traditionally been ascribed solely to Edward's refusal to honour his debts. This is a serious accusation; it amounts to personal responsibility for the biggest banking crash before modern times. But the view that Edward simply backed out of his financial commitments is mainly based on the opinion of a well-respected Florentine writer, Giovanni Villani, whose brother Filippo was a member of the Peruzzi. Villani said that Edward owed the Bardi 900,000 gold florins (£135,000),* and the Peruzzi 600,000 (£90,000), and that his refusal to pay caused an economic collapse across Florence and much further afield. Such an opinion is neither independent nor justified. Edward never refused to pay his debts. Moreover, recent research has shown that the Peruzzi (whose records survive) did not have the capital to lend Edward this much money, not even a fraction of it. For Edward to have owed them 600,000 florins, they would have needed to have raised further capital in England. They may have done this, but if so they must have received further income or actual repayments, for which Villani does not account. From the English records we may estimate what these repayments were. The total amount borrowed over the period 1337-41 has been calculated at 687,000 florins
* After 1340 the conversion rate used for the florin is 3s, rather than 3s 4d.
(£103,000) from the Bardi, and 474,000 florins (£71,000) from the Peruzzi. Some of this was repaid in cash, and some was repaid through royal grants, especially grants of wool, which allowed the Italians to recoup much of their original investment and to build up their capital. In other words, the total of more than one million florins represents only the borrowings, not the repayments, and thus not the balance owing It is now thought that the actual amount which Edward defaulted on was nearer the amount he later acknowledged, a mere £13,000. Edward's failure to repay this amount would have dented the companies' profitability, but it would not by itself have proved disastrous. Historians tend to regard the internal disputes in Florence as the cause of the crash, not Edward's failure to repay his debts. It is a telling fact that the third largest Florentine banking house, the Acciaiuoli, also suffered heavily in the 1340s, and many other smaller Florentine banking firms collapsed, despite the fact that they had not lent any money to Edward.
The other important financial measure discussed in the parliament of 1343 was the currency. For the last five hundred years practically the only coins minted in England had been silver pennies. Henry III had tried to introduce a 'gold penny', worth 2od, in 1257, but it had failed. Edward I had issued a new silver coinage in 1279, which resulted in the minting of silver groats (4d), halfpences and farthings, as well as pennies. But most international trade, and much domestic business, was conducted in florins (around 3s) and marks (13s 4d), so silver pennies were of limited use, as they were needed in their hundreds. Edward knew that a successful gold currency would be exported, and English gold coins would be handled and looked at in Avignon, Genoa and Paris as well as more Anglophile cities such as Ghent and Bruges and English dominions such as Gascony. The principle to which he was aspiring was very similar to the modern idea of trademark advertising. Edward would circulate artistically scuplted pieces of gold all around Europe showing him as a truly international monarch. As a result of these discussions, the first important English gold coins appeared in 1344. The largest of these was closely modelled on the French gold currency, showing Edward enthroned, with a leopard on the other side (Edward's own emblem and the heraldic beast on the English coat of arms). These first gold coins proved unsuccessful, being undervalued in relation to the value of the gold, so later in the same year (1344) he ordered the minting of the mighty 'noble', a gold coin worth half-a-mark (6s 8d). This showed the king standing on the deck of a ship. The ship logo drew attention to his victory at Sluys, but even more importandy it showed Edward as a king crossing seas, giving him that international status which he craved. This was a medieval power statement of the first order. It took a few reissues to get the balance of gold and nominal value right, but Edward would not allow his moneyers to fail. The figure of Edward standing on his ship, bearing a shield with the arms of France and England quartered, became one of the most widely known and enduring images of fourteenth-century kingship, being copied in the gold coinage of every subsequent medieval English king.
It was also in 1343 that parliament first pressed Edward to limit the power of the pope. It seemed to parliament that foreigners were increasingly being appointed to the most lucrative benefices in the English church. Edward seized on this. It gave him a weapon with which to attack Pope Clement VI, the newly elected successor to the peace-loving Benedict XII. Clement was, like his predecessor, a Frenchman; in fact he had previously served as Chancellor under King Philip. But his predecessor had been a man with whom Edward could do business, being genuinely concerned to find a peaceful solution to the Anglo-French problem. Clement saw that Benedict's policy had failed. As a Frenchman living at Avignon he naturally decided that the only way forward was to bring such pressure to bear on Edward that the English king would have to back down. During this parliament Edward wrote to Clement stressing how papal appointees often failed to perform their duties. With so many hospitals, monasteries, chantries and other foundations having been endowed by the English for the English, what benefit could arise from their revenues going abroad? Edward argued that God's work was at peril, souls were in danger, and churches were falling into disrepair." By the Ordinance of Provisors, Edward prohibited the receipt in England of papal letters against his interests, and the appointment of any clergy to ecclesiastical positions by such letters. Not only was it enacted with force, with several papal provisions being confiscated, it also resulted in the arrest and banishment of the proctors of the papal peace envoys. Edward realised that he could bring
pressure to bear on the pope by representing the nationalist perspective. This was a question of enduring importance to the English. It would not be laid to rest until Henry VIII settled the matter two hundred years later, by removing the Church of England from papal authority altogether.
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The latter part of 1343 and early 1344 was a time of relative calm and stability for Edward. He was now thirty-one years of age, and stronger than ever. He was approaching solvency once more, and could afford to remedy some of the embarrassing measures he had taken in 1338, such as redeeming his and Philippa's golden crowns from pawn. The pattern of his life reflected the way he had lived ten years earlier: a proud young king going from tournament to tournament and from hunt to hunt, always in the company of knights and women. Among his accounts we find reference to mulberry-coloured Turkish cloth and taffeta for Queen Philippa, Queen Isabella and four countesses to go on a hunting expedition with the king. The same account allows us a glimpse of Edward and the earl of Northampton dressed in white, with eleven earls and knights dressed in green Turkish cloth, and fifteen royal squires waiting on them, all dressed in green. Another reference reveals Edward participating in a tournament at Smithfield on 24 June 1343, jousting for three days against thirteen knights dressed up as the pope and twelve cardinals. No diplomatic niceties here: this was loud and clear political commentary, in which Edward was very clearly setting himself up as England's champion against the pope.
After a summer of tournaments, hunting and sending increasingly uncompromising letters to Avignon, Edward prepared for the next great public event. This was the second of his great winter tournaments at Windsor. On 18 January 1344 he gathered all the armed youth of England, including the earls of Derby, Salisbury, Warwick, Arundel, Pembroke and Suffolk, and many other knights and barons. As usual, he also invited large numbers of women: nine countesses were present, the wives of London merchants and barons, as well as Queen Philippa and their younger children. His mother, Queen Isabella, was also there. With all the other nondescript men, women and servants it amounted to 'an indescribable host of people'. Prince Edward, now thirteen, was given a prominent role, although he probably did not take part in the jousting Everyone ate and drank liberally and, 'dances were not lacking among die lords and ladies, embraces and kisses alternately intermingling'. Foreign knights came to join in the jousting, and the action -involving Edward, his son and eighteen other knights, who took on all comers - went on for three days. Gifts of money, precious objects and clothes were given, and minstrels played throughout. A great banquet was given on the Monday in which all the women ate in the hall with no men present except two French knights who waited on them. Finally, on the Wednesday evening, at the end of the tournament, Edward spoke to the crowd, and gave instructions that no one was to go home but everyone was to stay the night and hear an announcement he would make the following day.
On Thursday morning Edward was up early. He dressed in his finest new clothes and wore over everything a mantle of exquisite velvet and his crown. The queens likewise were specially dressed, and accompanied him into the castle chapel to hear mass. After the ceremony, led by two earls from the chapel, he stood outside and addressed the crowd. He took a bible, and, turning to the gospels, he swore a vow that he would begin a Round Table in the true spirit of King Arthur, and maintain in it three hundred knights. He added that he would build a great round building within the castle at Windsor where all these men and their ladies could eat together. The building would be two hundred feet in diameter, and surpass any previously seen in Europe. Every year, at Whitsun, he would hold a great tournament at the castle, like this they had just experienced. The earls present joined him in his oath, and afterwards there was more dancing to the minstrels and drums, with a great feast of exotic dishes, before all went home after their five days of merrymaking.
One man had already gone home. In the jousting, William Montagu, earl of Salisbury and for many years Edward's best friend, had been badly injured. On 30 January, eight days after the Round Table tournament ended, he died. The man who had delivered Edward his kingdom, and had dutifully followed him in his expeditions to Scotland, the Low Countries, France and Brittany, was no more. He was taken the short distance to Bisham Priory, which he had founded in the place of Edward's first childhood home, and was buried in the church there.
Edward was back at Westminster when he heard of Salisbury's death. There are no signs of any great outpouring of grief, nor of expensive arrangements for the burial, but nor would we necessarily find these in royal accounts. The official records simply note the bureaucratic process of winding up the earl's affairs. It is perhaps surprising that the chroniclers hardly mention Salisbury's death, and none mention any signs of grief from Edward. If the king attended his funeral then it was in a private capacity, with little fuss. Maybe from this we should wonder whether there was some truth in Froissart's confused story of Edward's lust for the countess. However, there is one sign that the death of his one-time friend caused Edward to stop and think. More than any other man, Salisbury was Edward's partner in chivalric role-playing. He had participated in most of the many tournaments Edward had attended in the seventeen years since he had become king. It was thus no surprise that he was there, jousting alongside Edward, when the Round Table was announced. The loss of Salisbury might therefore be the reason why he only half-heartedly set about the building project. Work began in February as planned, but was soon scaled back due to the expense, and stopped altogether in November. There would be no Round Table. The half-built huge stone circular walls stood empty. It seems the harsh reality of death had stripped the romance away from the tournament at Windsor. Indeed, tournaments altogether lost their appeal for him. Several years were to pass before he lifted a lance in sport again.
By the time Edward walked into the Painted Chamber at Westminster to meet parliament again on 7 June 1344, the war of words with the pope had escalated to condemnations as fierce as those Edward had exchanged with the archbishop of Canterbury during the Crisis of 1341. Pope Clement threatened Edward with excommunication, and told him he was in 'rebellion'. This was not likely to result in a comfortable atmosphere for the delegation negotiating peace with France. Things could only get harder for them when Clement openly denounced the English claim to the French throne. In January 1344 Edward responded by directly condemning the papal custom of providing benefices to his companions, and followed this up with an accusation that Philip had broken the truce, as some of Edward's allies had been executed in Paris. Edward's envoys claimed this was a renewal of hostilities, and that English emissaries to the pope were no longer safe in France. The pope expressed his disquiet but did little more. As far as he was concerned Philip was in the right, if only because the politics of restraint demanded that Edward had to be in the wrong.
In parliament Edward put forward the breaking of the truce in the most uncompromising terms. Philip, he declared, had 'falsely and maliciously' put his allies to death with the assent of the French parliament, he had raised armies and attacked Gascony and Brittany, seizing castles, towns, manors and fortlets, and occupying English royal lands.33 The answer was unanimous. Everyone - lords, prelates and commons alike - all asked Edward to bring this war to a close, 'either by battle, or a suitable peace, if he could get one'. Moreover they asked unanimously that he should confront Philip, and not be delayed by papal intervention, or the peacemaking efforts of anyone else. Parliament wanted an end to this war, and the people of England, who by now had borne a heavier tax burden than any other people in history, wanted closure on their own terms.34 To this end they added an interesting clause to the grant of a new subsidy: the money was conditional on Edward personally crossing over to France with an army to force Philip to submit.
All seemed set now for Edward's next invasion of France. Parliament and king were in accord, over this and many other issues, from opposing papal interference to domestic legal reform. But still Edward did not rush to war. Instead he used parliament's re
solutions to bring more pressure to bear on the pope. He made one last attempt to negotiate, repeating his claim to France in a meticulously worded document presented to the pope by an experienced team of negotiators: the bishop of Norwich, John and Andrew Offord, Thomas Fastolf and Niccolinus Fieschi. Clement himself presided over the discussion, perhaps unnerved a little by how strong the arguments were in favour of Edward's claim. Biased he most certainly was, but neither his bias nor his acuity could break the stone wall of Edward's negotiators. They had powers only to discuss the claim to the French throne, which Edward would not under any circumstances give up. When offered money or a new title, Edward's representatives expressed indignation. In this they did well, for they did exactly what Edward wanted them to do. In December 1344 the conference broke down, with the pope, the cardinals and the French delegation failing to persuade Edward's redoubtable negotiators to admit to any weakness in his position.
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Edward spent the latter part of 1344 attending to the discussion with the pope, receiving and delaying papal nuncios, and planning his next move in great detail. So concerned was he with this that he seems not to have attended Philippa's churching after the birth of his fourth daughter, Mary, who had been born at Waltham, near Winchester, in October. Instead he remained at Westminster or at the Tower, before moving off to Norwich for Christmas. He had now extricated himself from his financial embarrassment, having redeemed the last of his pawned jewels in October. He was more popular at home than he had been for years. Now he simply needed to put all his assets - armies, inspirational commanders, revenues, diplomatic alliances and technical strategic superiority - simultaneously to good effect.