1292.
During this interval, the titles of John Baliol and of Robert Bruce, whose claims appeared to be the best founded among the competitors for the crown of Scotland, were the subject of general disquisition, as well as of debate among the commissioners. Edward, in order to give greater authority to his intended decision, proposed this general question both to the commissioners and to all the celebrated lawyers in Europe, “Whether a person descended from the elder sister, but farther removed by one degree, were preferable, in the succession of kingdoms, fiefs, and other indivisible inheritances, to one descended from the younger sister, but one degree nearer to the common stock?” This was the true state of the case; and the principle of representation had now gained such ground every where, that a uniform answer was returned to the king in the affirmative. He therefore pronounced sentence in favor of Balioi; and when Bruce, upon this disappointment, joined afterwards Lord Hastings, and claimed a third of the kingdom, which he now pretended to be divisible, Edward, though his interests seemed more to require the partition of Scotland, again pronounced sentence in favor of Baliol. That competitor, upon renewing his oath of fealty to England, was put in possession of the kingdom;[*] all his fortresses were restored to him;[**] and the conduct of Edward, both in the deliberate solemnity of the proceedings, and in the justice of the award, was so far unexceptionable.
1293.
Had the king entertained no other view than that of establishing his superiority over Scotland, though the iniquity of that claim was apparent, and was aggravated by the most egregious breach of trust, he might have fixed his pretensions, and have left that important acquisition to his posterity: but he immediately proceeded in such a manner as made it evident that, not content with this usurpation, he aimed also at the absolute sovereignty and dominion of the kingdom. Instead of gradually inuring the Scots to the yoke, and exerting his rights of superiority with moderation, he encouraged all appeals to England; required King John himself, by six different summons on trivial occasions, to come to London;[***] refused him the privilege of defending his cause by a procurator; and obliged him to appear at the bar of his parliament as a private person.[****]
* Rymer vol. ii. p. 590, 591, 593, 600.
** Rymer, voL ii p. 599.
*** Rymer, p. 603, 605, 606, 608, 615, 616.
**** Ryley’s Placit. Parl. p. 152, 153.
These humiliating demands were hitherto quite unknown to a king of Scotland: they are, however, the necessary consequence of vassalage by the feudal law; and as there was no preceding instance of such treatment submitted to by a prince of that country, Edward must, from that circumstance alone, had there remained any doubt, have been himself convinced that his claim was altogether a usurpation.[*] [3] But his intention plainly was to enrage Baliol by these indignities, to engage him in rebellion, and to assume the dominion of the state as the punishment of his treason and felony. Accordingly Baliol, though a prince of a soft and gentle spirit, returned into Scotland highly provoked at this usage, and determined at all hazards to vindicate his liberty; and the war which soon after broke out between France and England, gave him a favorable opportunity of executing his purpose.
The violence, robberies, and disorders, to which that age was so subject, were not confined to the licentious barons and their retainers at land: the sea was equally infested with piracy: the feeble execution of the laws had given license to all orders of men: and a general appetite for rapine and revenge, supported by a false point of honor, had also infected the merchants and mariners; and it pushed them, on any provocation, to seek redress by immediate retaliation upon the aggressors. A Norman and an English vessel met off the coast near Bayonne; and both of them having occasion for water, they sent their boats to land, and the several crews came at the same time to the same spring: there ensued a quarrel for the preference: a Norman, drawing his dagger, attempted to stab an Englishman; who, grappling with him, threw his adversary on the ground; and the Norman, as was pretended, falling on his own dagger, was slain.[**] This scuffle between two seamen about water, soon kindled a bloody war between the two nations, and involved a great part of Europe in the quarrel. The mariners of the Norman ship carried their complaints to the French king: Philip, without inquiring into the fact, without demanding redress, bade them take revenge, and trouble him no more about the matter.[***]
* See note C, at the end of the volume.
** Walsing. p. 58. Heming. vol. i. p. 39.
*** Walsing. p. 59.
The Normans, who had been more regular than usual in applying to the crown, needed but this hint to proceed to immediate violence. They seized an English ship in the channel; and hanging, along with some dogs, several of the crew on the yard-arm, in presence of their companions, dismissed the vessel; [*] and bade the mariners inform their countrymen that vengeance was now taken for the blood of the Norman killed at Bayonne. This injury, accompanied with so general and deliberate an insult, was resented by the mariners of the cinque ports, who, without carrying any complaint to the king, or waiting for redress, retaliated by committing like barbarities on all French vessels without distinction. The French, provoked by their losses, preyed on the ships of all Edward’s subjects, whether English or Gascon: the sea became a scene of piracy between the nations: the sovereigns, without either seconding or repressing the violence of their subjects, seemed to remain indifferent spectators: the English made private associations with the Irish and Dutch seamen; the French with the Flemish and Genoese;[**] and the animosities of the people on both sides became every day more violent and barbarous. A fleet of two hundred Norman vessels set sail to the south for wine and other commodities; and in their passage seized all the English ships which they met with, hanged the seamen, and seized the goods. The inhabitants of the English seaports, informed of this incident, fitted out a fleet of sixty sail, stronger and better manned than the others, and awaited the enemy on their return. After an obstinate battle, they put them to rout, and sunk, destroyed, or took the greater part of them.[***] No quarter was given; and it is pretended that the loss of the French amounted to fifteen thousand men; which is accounted for by this circumstance, that the Norman fleet was employed in transporting a considerable body of soldiers from the south.
The affair was now become too important to be any longer overlooked by the sovereigns. On Philip’s sending an envoy to demand reparation and restitution, the king despatched the bishop of London to the French court, in order to accommodate the quarrel. He first said, that the English courts of justice were open to all men; and if any Frenchman were injured, he might seek reparation by course of law.[****]