CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE.
Et statim post pacis reformacionem amovebimus de regno omnes alienigenas milites, balistarios, servientes, stipendiarios, qui venerint cum equis et armis ad nocumentum regni.
As soon as peace is restored, we will banish from the kingdom all foreign-born knights, cross-bowmen, serjeants, and mercenary soldiers, who have come with horses and arms to the kingdom’s hurt.
John here binds himself to disband his foreign troops, who had acted as the agents of his tyrannies, keeping the native English in subjection, and ever ready to take the field in the event of rebellion. These men, who had garrisoned the royal castles which formed such formidable engines of oppression in the Middle Ages, are now to be banished “as soon as peace is restored,” an indication that, even at the date of Magna Carta, a state of virtual war was recognized. This promise was partially fulfilled. On 23rd June writs were issued for the disbandment of the mercenaries.[[1014]] The renewal of the civil war, however, was followed by the enrolment of new bands of foreigners on both sides, and these men long continued to exercise an evil influence in England. Their presence was one of the main causes of the rebellion of 1224, after the suppression of which most of them were again banished with their ring-leader, Falkes de Bréauté, at their head.
The words used to describe these soldiers are comprehensive. Stipendiarii embraced mercenaries of every kind: balistarii were cross-bowmen. This weapon, imported into England as a result of the crusades, quickly superseded the earlier short bow, but had, in turn, to succumb to the long bow, which was apparently derived from Wales, and was developed as the regular weapon of one branch of the English army by Edward I., who gained by means of it many battles against the Scotch and Welsh, and made possible the later triumphs of the Black Prince and of Henry V.
[1014]. See Rot. Pat., 17 John, m. 23 (New Rymer, I. 134).