The Plantagenets: History of a Dynasty

by J. S. Hamilton

  It was after the first Welsh war that Edward had built the castles at Flint, Rhuddlan, Builth and Aberystwyth under the guidance of the Savoyard Master James of St George and a number of his countrymen. Now, after the second Welsh war, he embarked on an even larger programme, adding Conwy, Caernarfon and Harlech. Along with castles, new towns were also planted, and both towns and castles were designed to have ready access to the sea. These new fortifications were so located as to encircle and isolate Snowdonia, ostensibly making future revolts untenable. Caernarfon, in particular, with its banded masonry that evoked the walls of Constantinople, must be seen as making a symbolic as well as a physical statement of empire. It has been argued, however, that for all their magnificence, the Edwardian castles were ill-suited to the needs at hand. The Welsh had only limited siege technology, so that castles of this scale were unjustified, particularly in light of their enormous cost. And yet, the castles proved their value in both 1287 and especially in 1294.

  Yet another Welsh rebellion broke out in 1287, led by Rhys ap Maredudd. The uprising took place while Edward I was absent in Gascony, but it posed little real threat to English rule. Rhys had been loyal to the English king in both 1277 and 1282, but like Dafydd before him, felt poorly rewarded by the English king.

  Specifically, he was prevented from gaining control of Dinefwr castle. Despairing of justice, despite a direct appeal to the king himself, in June 1287, Rhys seized Llandovery, Dinefwr and Carrag Ceneg castles. Edmund of Lancaster besieged Rhys at Dryslwyn. Although Rhys escaped, the castle soon fell, and he became a fugitive, again like Dafydd before him, constantly on the run until betrayed to the English in 1292. A contemporary chronicler observed that, in the end, ‘Rhys, son of Maredudd, the leader of the Welsh, hid himself in the woods. He stirred up sedition against the king of England’s peace and devoted himself to robbery and murder. Finally he was captured by some of the king’s liege men and led across England to the king at York. He was dragged all through the city and perished by being hanged’.14

  The final Welsh revolt of 1294 proved more dangerous than its predecessor, and came at a particularly difficult time as Edward was preparing to launch an offensive in France. The combination of an extraordinarily high tax levy, coupled with the mustering of Welsh soldiers to fight in Gascony, proved explosive.

  Madog ap Llywelyn, son of Llywelyn ap Maredudd, led the revolt in the north. Although Caernarfon Castle, still under construction at the time, was quickly taken, overall the royal castles proved to be worth their cost, for they held out while many baronial estates proved unable to withstand the initial assault.

  Fortunately, if frustratingly for Edward, the king was able to redeploy troops meant for Gascony to meet this unexpected challenge in Wales. Once again, a royal army was mustered at Chester, this time perhaps twice the size of the initial army of 1277. A second army was mustered at Montgomery under the earl of Warwick, and a third was based in the south at Carmarthen under the command of the earl of Norfolk and William de Valence. In total, the English force exceeded 35,000 men.

  In the winter of 1294–1295, Edward found himself besieged in Conwy, which he had reached by Christmas. So desperate was the situation that, on the day after the feast of the Epiphany, the king marched out through Bangor and on to the Llyn peninsula. Unable to force an engagement, however, he soon returned to Conwy, despite the ongoing shortages of provisions there. The turning point came in March when the earl of Warwick defeated Madog at the battle of Maes Madog (near Oswestry). Although the Welsh prince escaped capture for the moment, the revolt was now broken and the various Welsh leaders made peace or were soon captured. Unlike Llywelyn and Dafydd, Madog’s life was spared once he fell into English hands, although he appears to have spent the rest of his life in the Tower.

  Along with taking hostages to ensure the compliance of the Welsh princes in the restoration of English lordship, Edward undertook the construction of one final castle, the most perfect of all the Edwardian castles – Beaumaris in Anglesey.

  Significantly, it was never completed due to lack of money. As mentioned earlier, the second Welsh revolt had broken out while Edward I was absent in Gascony. Between August 1286 and June 1289, Edward made an extended visit to Gascony, accompanied by Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln. As in 1273, inquisitions were taken into feudal obligations, this time in the Agenais, which had been acquired by the terms of the Treaty of Amiens in 1279. A number of municipal charters were issued as well, many of them to the bastides, the new fortified towns that formed an essential part of Edward’s programme of consolidation. Finally, in March 1289, a council was held at Condom at which a set of ordinances was drafted for the governance of the duchy. These ordinances are extremely important in that they are the culmination of Edward’s vision for Aquitaine in relation to both England and France. Indeed, J-P Trabut-Cussac has argued that the significance of the ordinances is illustrated by Edward’s appointment of Maurice de Craon as lieutenant in Aquitaine, prior to the king’s own departure in 1289. 15 This appointment, he argues, signals a new orientation in the duchy; by providing more immediate and final justice in Gascony, the lieutenant would serve to render unnecessary appeals to either Westminster or Paris. Moreover, the terms of appointment of Gascon officers after 1289 stated that they held their positions not simply during the king-duke’s pleasure, but at that of the lieutenant as well. In theory, the king’s lieutenant in Aquitaine was now effectively a viceroy, although in reality the king continued to dictate policy.

  While in Gascony in 1286–1289, Edward also arranged for the ransom of his brother-in-law, Charles of Salerno, then captive in Aragon. This is noteworthy, not so much because of the king’s concern for Charles, but rather for what it reveals about the loyalty of Edward’s Gascon vassals, whom he had been cultivating so assiduously since the 1260s. Among the 76 hostages Edward agreed to deliver to Alphonso III, were not only English household knights such as Hugh Audley, William Latimer and John de St John, but also prominent Gascons, including Gaston de Béarn, nemesis of Henry III and Simon de Montfort, and Arnaud de Gabaston, father of Piers Gaveston, the future favourite of Edward II. The extent of the loyalty of the Gascon nobility to the English king–duke is uncertain, but with few exceptions Edward had the cooperation of these independent-minded lords and was regularly able to draw soldiers from the duchy for his wars in Wales and Scotland. The Chronicle of Lanercost relates a story from 1288 that stands as an image of Edward’s rule over Gascony. One day as the king and queen sat in their chamber in conversation, a bolt of lightning entered the window of the chamber, passed between them, and killed two domestics who were standing behind them. Those present were said to be amazed, discerning that a miracle had occurred whereby the safety of the royal couple had been ensured. 16 One might add that Edward himself was like a bolt of lightning, highly charged and often dangerous to those around him.

  As mentioned earlier, the third Welsh revolt in 1294 had coincided with the initiation of hostilities with France. Throughout the first half of his reign, Edward had enjoyed relatively tranquil relations with his Capetian counterparts. He had visited Paris on three occasions: in 1273 on his return from the Crusade; in 1279 when his wife performed homage for the county of Ponthieu; and in 1286 when he had performed homage to Philip IV. The outbreak of war in 1294 was therefore, in some sense, unexpected. Nevertheless, despite the attention that Edward I paid to Gascony throughout his reign, the duchy remained a frequent source of enmity between England and France, and this remained the case even after the reforms of 1289. In May 1293, the earl of Lincoln was dispatched to Paris along with Edmund, earl of Lancaster, in an attempt to settle Anglo-French tensions centred on piracy and maritime disputes that appeared to radiate outward from the English king’s Gascon port of Bayonne. Unfortunately, any hope of a negotiated settlement disappeared with the embarrassment of the French in a naval battle off Cap St-Mathieu on 15 May 1293. The author of The Chronicle of Bury St. Edmunds relished this English victory in which he claimed that some
180 Norman ships were captured. 17 Further negotiations were pursued throughout 1293 and early in 1294, primarily by Edmund of Lancaster, and eventually a secret understanding was reached. Edward I agreed publicly to surrender the duchy to Philip the Fair on a ‘temporary’ basis (an enormous political blunder for which he subsequently apologized to the Gascons). This surrender would not prove temporary. On 15 May 1294 (the anniversary of the battle), Philip the Fair declared Edward a contumacious vassal and moved to confiscate the duchy of Aquitaine, thus triggering war.

  Guyenne, as the French called the duchy, had been surrendered to the constable of France, Raoul de Nesle, in March 1294. Some 20 ducal officers were taken as hostages by Nesle, and a large number of Gascon landholders were dispossessed. Edward I planned to fight a holding action in Gascony while he organized a grand coalition of German princes to fight Philip in Flanders. A small force was dispatched to Gascony in October 1294 under John of Brittany, earl of Richmond, and John de St John. This was meant to be followed by a larger force under the leadership of the king’s brother, Edmund of Lancaster, but, as we have seen, this force had to be diverted to Wales. The vanguard under St John and the earl of Richmond had some success, sailing up the Gironde and capturing several major fortifications. St John then led a contingent south to Bayonne, whose loyal citizens delivered the city into English hands. These initial successes, however, were compromised in the spring of 1295 when a large French army under Charles de Valois invaded Gascony. By summer, only Bourg and Blaye remained in English hands in the north, Bayonne and St-Sever in the south.

  Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, was named king’s lieutenant in Aquitaine on 3 December 1295, replacing the king’s brother, Edmund of Lancaster. By the time Lincoln landed in Gascony, the military situation was grave. Initially, he followed an ambitious northern policy, including an abortive and unrealistic naval assault on Bordeaux in late March 1296. Falling back on Bayonne, Lincoln then initiated a ‘southern’ strategy. A failed siege at Dax was followed by a raid into the Toulousain, repeated again in the next year. It has been argued that the French territorial occupation did not extend to subjugation, and the earl of Lincoln’s freebooting reflects and reinforces this fact. It is tempting to see, in this raiding, a precursor to the strategic chevauchée that would be used by Edward III and the Black Prince with such devastating effect in the Hundred Years War.

  The one Battle of Lincoln’s lieutenancy took place near Bellegarde, which the English were trying to resupply, in late January or early February 1297. The earl was ambushed by a larger force under the comte d’Artois and heavily defeated. It was this military setback that prompted Edward to propose sending reinforcements to Gascony, ultimately resulting in political crisis in England. Meanwhile, without much support, and despite the defeat at Bellegarde, Lincoln did hold on to what was left of English Gascony. Fortunately, once Edward I landed in Flanders, Philip IV withdrew the comte d’Artois from Aquitaine in order to help lift the siege of Lille.

  But getting to Flanders was not easy. Even before the Salisbury parliament met in February 1297, the southern clergy, following the lead of Archbishop Winchelsey, refused to recognize the king’s right to levy a tax on them without prior papal consent. Although the northern clergy agreed to pay a tax of one-fifth, the king was forced to extort a similar sum from their southern counterparts by means of fines, further exacerbating relations with the church. At the Salisbury parliament, the earls of Norfolk and Hereford refused to lead troops in Gascony while the king himself campaigned in Flanders, claiming that this would be contrary to the terms of their hereditary positions as marshal and constable of England. The king is said to have threatened Hereford, shouting, ‘By God, Sir Earl, either go or hang’, only to receive the response, ‘O King, I shall neither go nor hang. ’18 Nor did he. Edward I’s kingship has been described as ‘masterful’, but beginning at the Salisbury parliament of 1297 this mastery began to elude him.

  In April, the king issued summonses for military service, but in writs that said nothing of the obligation of fealty and homage, nor specified the destination of the troops to be raised. A meeting of magnates at Montgomery demonstrated serious reservations about the proposed muster. In July, the grievances against the king’s behaviour were summarized in a document known as the Remonstrances.

  The king pretended not to have received the document, and set about the collection of a tax of an eighth and a fifth that he claimed had been granted in the July parliament. Critics claimed that it had been granted not by parliament, but ‘by people standing around in his chamber’. In August, as the king prepared to sail from Winchelsea, the earls of Norfolk and Hereford (supported by a large number of magnates and knights) appeared at the exchequer and forbade collection of the eighth.

  Edward I sailed for Flanders on 23 August 1297, leaving very unsettled political conditions behind for his council and his son Edward to deal with. A parliament was summoned to meet in London at the end of September. The king’s opponents made a number of demands for the redress of grievances in this parliament, embodied in a document known as De Tallagio, calling for a revised and expanded version of the Magna Carta. The king’s council would not – indeed, without the king they could not – go so far, but did agree in October to the Confirmatio Cartarum, confirming both the Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest, and providing assurances (albeit vaguely worded ones) that future levies would only be collected ‘with the common assent of the realm’. A tax of a ninth was agreed to (in lieu of the controversial eighth of July) and a negotiated settlement was reached, perhaps in part because the king himself was absent, but even more because of the shocking news that had reached London by the last week of September: John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, had been defeated at Stirling Bridge by a Scottish army led by William Wallace.

  As had been the case throughout the reign of Henry III, in the early years of the reign of Edward I, relations with Scotland were cordial. Edward’s sister Margaret had been Queen of Scotland from 1251 until her death in 1275. Although the king and queen of Scots had attended the coronation of Edward I in 1274, Alexander did not perform homage to Edward at that time. This issue was settled in 1278, however, with Alexander III performing homage for his English lands, having obtained prior guarantees that this act would set no precedent nor prejudice his position as king of Scotland. Over the next 6 years, both of Alexander’s sons and his only daughter predeceased him. His marriage to Yolande de Dreux in October 1285 provided hopes for another son, but these hopes were literally dashed with the unexpected and sudden death of Alexander III on 19 March 1286 in a fall from his horse. Once it was determined that the widowed queen was not, in fact, pregnant, it was clear that the heir to Alexander’s kingdom was his 2-year-old granddaughter Margaret, the ‘Maid of Norway’. Negotiations were immediately put in train that culminated in the Treaty of Birgham, which elaborated the terms for a marriage between Margaret and Edward I’s own son and heir, Edward of Caernarfon. Margaret, however, died in Orkney in late September 1290, throwing the question of the succession to the Scottish throne into turmoil.

  Edward I saw the need for judgement rather than arbitration, and opened up the process beyond John Balliol and Robert Bruce to encompass some 14 candidates for the Scottish throne (initially including himself). In June 1291, through a process of negotiations known as the process of Norham, Edward was granted lordship over Scotland in order to settle the Great Cause. Some 104 auditors were assembled at Berwick to hear the cases of the various claimants. The auditors found in favour of John Balliol on 6 November 1292, and this decision was confirmed by Edward I on 17 November. However, King John was made to swear oaths of homage and fealty for Scotland to Edward I, creating an untenable situation from the outset of his reign.

  Edward’s exploitation of superior lordship in Scotland is one of the most paradoxical elements of his reign, for the very policy he pursued in Scotland was the bane of his lordship in France. As soon as 7 December 1292, he accepted a petition from one Roger B
artholomew, a burgess of Berwick, thereby undermining the judicial independence of the Scottish crown.

  In demanding that John Balliol and a number of Scottish aristocrats serve with the English army in France in 1294, Edward eroded the power of the Scottish king beyond recovery. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Scots made common cause with Edward’s most formidable enemy, Philip IV of France, entering into the ‘Auld Alliance’ in February 1296. The Scots launched raids on Wark Castle and the hinterland around Carlisle, thereby justifying Edward’s invasion of the northern kingdom.

  The army of Edward I, variously estimated at anywhere from 25,000 to 60,000 men, was formidable. Following a minor Scottish attack on Wark and an unsuccessful Scottish assault on Carlisle, soon after Easter, Edward crossed the Tweed, arriving before Berwick on 30 March 1296. Despite the surrender of the castle by Sir William Douglas, Edward ordered the execution of the male population of the burgh for having resisted. The bodies were said to fall ‘like autumn leaves’ – more than 11,000 of them if we can believe the Hagnaby chronicle. 19 Dunbar soon fell to John de Warenne, earl of Surrey (who happened to be John Balliol’s brother-in-law), with the earls of Mar, Ross and Menteith all being taken prisoner along with a number of Scottish barons and knights. Scottish resistance quickly evaporated: Roxburgh, Edinburgh and Stirling castles were all surrendered.