The Plantagenets: The Kings That Made Britain (10 page)

of those who seek justice and rightfully he aided the earl ….

Now England breathes again in real hope of

liberty. Englishmen, who were despised like dogs,

have raised their heads above their downcast enemies.
²

The triumph was short-lived, however. Simon de Montfort was, briefly, the effective ruler of England, but his very prominence provoked jealousy. Several of the barons deserted him, encouraged by the pope, who excommunicated all the followers of the ‘traitor earl’. In order to widen his power base Simon summoned to a parliament in January 1265 not only barons, churchmen and shire knights but also two citizens from every English borough.

On 28 May Edward escaped and within a month he had put himself at the head of an army consisting principally of the lords of the Welsh Marches. Simon gathered his forces to meet the royalist host, and battle was joined at Evesham on 4 August. This time the royal army was victorious, and Simon de Montfort and many of his supporters were slain. ‘Plange plorans Anglia plena iam dolore,’ ran a doleful lament written soon afterwards – ‘Wail weeping England, heavy now with woe’.

1266–72

The royal victory at Evesham was not the end of the civil war. Instead of ordering many of the rebels leaders to be executed, Henry satisfied himself with confiscating their lands or imposing financial burdens on them, which simply bred more resentment while allowing malcontents the
freedom to create further trouble. A group of rebels, led by de Montfort’s son, also called Simon, occupied de Montfort’s castle at Kenilworth in Warwickshire, and when Henry sent a messenger to discuss terms with them they sent him back – minus his hands. Throughout much of 1266 the king laid siege to Kenilworth, but the fortress proved impregnable, and only when the king offered lenient terms to the rebels, known as the Ban of Kenilworth, was it surrendered (December).

Resistance continued in the fenland around Ely, and in April 1267 a band of rebels briefly occupied the Tower of London. Not until August, when Henry negotiated a peace with Llewelyn and Edward mopped up the last of the rebels in East Anglia, did all the fighting cease. The rebellion had been put down at great cost but could not be regarded as a royal ‘victory’ because, at a parliament at Marlborough in November 1267, Henry conceded most of the demands made in the ‘Mad Parliament’ of 1258.

In October 1269 Westminster Abbey, though not completed, was ready to admit worshippers, and Henry took the opportunity to stage what would be the last gorgeous spectacle of his reign. He transferred the remains of Edward the Confessor to a resplendent new shrine in a ceremony attended by all the great men of church and state. In the following August Prince Edward departed on crusade, thus undertaking the holy enterprise that Henry himself had longed to embark upon but had never accomplished. Soon afterwards Henry was taken ill and begged Edward to return, but his health improved somewhat, and in August 1272 he
was able to travel to Norwich to deal in person with a mini-rebellion. This, however, overtaxed his ageing frame, and, on 16 November, he died at the age of 65.

EDWARD I 1272–1307

Edward I’s reign may be seen as a continuation of much that his great-grandfather, Henry II, had set in motion. The tumults of the previous three reigns subsided, leaving the king free to concentrate on legal reform, constitutional development and relations with Wales and Scotland. Edward clung stubbornly to his lands in Gascony, which involved continuing disputes with the kings of France, despite the reluctance on the part of his English magnates to involve themselves in the defence of foreign territory.

Edward was over 6 feet tall (hence his nickname Long-shanks), and he was strong and athletic. A fine horseman and swordsman, he was a forceful leader of men in battle. He was firm but fair in his dealings with his parliaments, so that even those who opposed his policies knew where they stood with him. This was a relief after the vacillations of Henry III.

1272–7

Edward enjoyed military success in the Holy Land until an assassination attempt weakened him and news of his father’s failing health obliged him to start for home. He did not, however, make great haste to return. Immediately after Henry’s death, the barons had recognized Edward as the new king and sworn fealty to him. Edward believed that the
government was in safe hands and that his absence would give time in which the wounds opened up by the civil war might heal. He spent a year (1273–4) in Gascony, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a revolt, and did not reach England until August 1274.

On 18 August he and his wife were crowned at Westminster. All who owed allegiance to the king, including Alexander III of Scotland, swore their loyalty but a notable absentee was Llewelyn-ap-Gruffydd, the Welsh leader. In November Edward travelled to Shrewsbury and summoned Llewelyn to meet him there, but not only did Llewelyn fail to turn up, he also declared his defiance by raiding English territory, building himself a castle that would govern the approach to central Wales along the Severn valley and declaring his intention to marry the sister of Simon de Montfort.

But before he could deal with Llewelyn, Edward had more pressing priorities. In October 1274 he had his new chancellor, Robert Burnell, organize a complete survey of the realm. This was an attempt to sort out the confusions over land tenure and infringements of royal rights that had grown up during his father’s reign. The monumental task of Burnell and his agents was completed by April 1275, when Edward called a parliament to meet at Westminster. Following de Montfort’s initiative in 1265, as well as barons and churchmen, two representatives from each shire and two from each city or town were summoned. This parliament produced 51 statutes, many clarifying aspects of Magna Carta, and made clear Edward’s willingness to consult with his subjects on the promulgation of law. This parliament and another later in
the same year laid the foundation of the king’s finances. Edward borrowed from Italian bankers to provide for his regular needs, and these loans were guaranteed by export duties levied on English merchants. For extraordinary expenditure Edward relied on grants of taxation made by parliament from time to time.

Edward called more parliaments than any of his predecessors – usually two a year – which was largely because he needed money for his various wars, but it did mean that the body began to develop its own identity. Parliament became a bargaining assembly at which the representatives sought concessions from the king in return for agreeing to his taxes. Edward I is sometimes called the ‘Father of Parliament’, although he did not have the intention of increasing the rights of his people or limiting the power of the crown.

In the autumn of 1277 Edward dealt with the Welsh problem. He advanced along the coast from Chester at the head of an army of some 15,000 men. He had ships brought round from Kent and Sussex to convey his host to Anglesey, where the king seized all the standing grain, thus depriving Llewelyn of his food supply. The Welsh leader realized that further resistance was impossible, and he hastened to make peace at the Treaty of Aberconwy.

1278–86

In 1278 the archbishopric of Canterbury fell vacant and Edward wished to appoint his chancellor, Robert Burnell. The pope, however, overruled him, giving the position to
John Pecham (or Peckham), who was installed the following year, an appointment that inaugurated 13 years of conflict between church and state. Pecham combined two characteristics that made him a formidable adversary: he was a zealous Franciscan of austere personal habits (even as archbishop he wore a ragged habit and went barefoot) and personal piety, and he was a brilliant theological controversialist, well able to argue his case with incisiveness and persistence. He arrived in his archdiocese determined to carry out far-reaching reforms and prepared to use the weapon of excommunication against anyone who stood in his way. The two most important topics over which he clashed with the king were the rivalry between common law and canon law and the issues of pluralism and non-residence – that is, clergy holding more than one living or being paid for serving a parish but not actually living and working there. This affected his relationship with the government because the granting of benefices was a standard (and cheap) way for the king to reward faithful service and remunerate men in royal employ.

In July 1279 Pecham called a convocation at Reading in which he set out his programme of root and branch reform. He threatened with excommunication any royal officials who infringed the church’s rights, and, in order to make it quite clear what those rights were, he ordered copies of Magna Carta to be pinned to the doors of cathedrals and churches. Edward did not respond immediately, but, at the parliament held at Westminster in October 1279, Pecham was forced to back down in the face of opposition from several quarters.

In April 1282 Dafydd, the brother of Llewelyn-ap-Gruffydd, attacked Hawarden Castle. This was the overture to a determined attempt by the brothers to throw off English control and was followed by military action over a wide area. Edward summoned a large army to suppress this rebellion, advancing from Chester in the autumn, while a naval force occupied Anglesey. Archbishop Pecham made a vain attempt to broker a peace, but neither side wanted it. Edward believed that the Welsh were trapped in the northern part of the country, but Llewellyn broke out and faced the English in battle at Orewin Bridge in the Brecknockshire hills. Here he was killed and his force routed. Dafydd continued his resistance until April 1283, when he was handed over to Edward by some of his own followers and executed at Shrewsbury.

Edward was now determined to ensure the permanent submission of Wales. The backbone of his rule there was an impressive chain of great castles – Flint, Builth, Rhuddlan, Aberystwyth, Conwy, Caernarfon and Harlech – and he stripped the leading rebel families of their lands and imposed on the people the English administrative system. Four new counties were created – Flint, Caernarfon, Merioneth and Anglesey – and he also founded several new towns, which were to be peopled by English settlers. His ‘pacification’ of Wales completed the work begun by the Norman Conquest, two centuries earlier.

Caernarfon was Edward’s most splendid castle, long associated with Merlin. It was here, in April 1284, that a fourth son was born to the king and queen and christened Edward. They had lost two earlier boys in infancy, and their only
remaining son, the 12-year-old Alfonso, died in August of this same year. The infant Edward thus became heir to the throne.

In 1285, once the Welsh war was over, the problem with the church came to the fore again. During a parliament held at Westminster in the spring the clash of jurisdictions was brought up. Long debate led to the issuing of a royal edict that church courts should confine themselves to issues involving wills and marriages. The bishops protested and complained about the alleged malpractices of the king’s justices, and in the Norwich diocese the bishop and his officers ignored the edict and continued to summon defendants in a variety of cases to appear before the church courts. The king responded by appointing a royal commission to examine complaints against the bishop’s officials for overstepping their authority. Investigations continued throughout much of 1286, but these created more heat than light. Then the king, who was at the time in Paris, issued a conciliatory writ,
Circumspecte agatis
, in which he listed those issues that should be left to the church courts to decide.

1286–91

In the spring of 1286 Edward crossed the Channel and was absent from England for three years. He was, by this time, highly regarded by his brother monarchs, and his advice and mediation were sought in various disputes. His main objective, however, was to establish his rule in Gascony as firmly as he had done in England. Edward still held the hereditary
title Duke of Aquitaine, an area covering most of southwest France, but in reality the activities of local rulers and the intermittent encroachment of the French kings tended to limit his effective rule to Gascony. This territory was important to him because of its flourishing (and therefore taxable) wine trade, its provision of money and troops to aid him in his wars, and its strategic position between the sea and the Pyrenees. Edward held this territory as a vassal of the king of France and, just as he sought to consolidate his control of Wales and (later) Scotland, so his French counterparts were endeavouring to extend their rule over the lands of their vassals. Edward spent the summer of 1286 in Paris and reached an agreement with Philip IV confirming his holding of most of Aquitaine, while he ceded the rest to the French king in return for payment.

Edward devoted considerable energy to revising the laws that operated in the various lands of Aquitaine and to establishing trustworthy men in office. This was a complicated exercise, since different customs and laws pertained in the regions, but the king’s attention to detail indicated his commitment to the rule of law and to ensuring the rights of his subjects.