A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria; Vol. I

by François Guizot

Edward received the deputation at Norham on the 10th of May, 1291, and from the first declared that, as liege lord of Scotland, he would settle the question of the succession, insisting, first of all, upon the recognition of his rights of superiority by the pretenders. The Scotch people hesitated; they asked for a delay. "By St. Edward, from whom I hold my crown," cried the King of England, "I will establish my just rights, or perish in the attempt." And the assembly was adjourned until the 2nd of June following. Edward had convoked all the barons.

On the appointed day, eight claimants had met near Norham, in the plain of Hollywell-Haugh, on the Scotch territory. When the Chancellor of England asked the pretenders, among whom was Robert Bruce, whether they were willing to abide by the decision of Edward, king of England, as liege lord of Scotland, Bruce recognized with out hesitation the rights of the powerful monarch who could award the crown to him. His rivals did likewise, and John Baliol, who arrived on the morrow, was the more willing to compromise the safety of his country as he believed he had secured the favor of Edward. The chancellor had taken care to announce, in the name of his master, that the right of the king as liege lord, which had just been recognized, in no way affected the titles to property which he might think proper to proclaim valid thereafter. On the 3rd of June, a commission was appointed to examine the rights of the two great pretenders, and the regents of Scotland consigned all the royal castles to Edward, on condition that he should give them up two months after the decision between Bruce and Baliol. On the 15th of the same month, the pretenders took the oath of allegiance to Edward, as did also a great number of Scotch barons, and peace was proclaimed in his name, as liege lord of Scotland. The first step in the path of dependence had been made.

The second act of the drama was enacted at Berwick Castle, on the 17th of November, 1292. There King Edward, having made a scrutiny of the rights of all the pretenders, and having consulted the Parliament of Scotland, at length declared that the grandson of the elder daughter had a prior claim to that of the son of the younger daughter, thus deciding in favor of Baliol to the exclusion of Bruce. On the 19th the governors of the castles received instructions to give up their keys to the new king, and on the morrow Baliol swore fidelity to Edward at Norham. Having been crowned on the 30th at Scone, he proceeded to England, whither King Edward had been called in consequence of the illness and death of Eleanor of Castile; the new king did homage for the kingdom of Scotland on the 26th of November, at Newcastle. The King of England again reserved his rights of property.

While Edward was laboring to subject the Scotch people, King Philip the Fair was secretly plotting with the intention of driving the English from the French soil and depriving them of Aquitaine. An encounter had taken place between the English and Norman sailors on the coast of Guienne; the merchantmen of the two countries taking sides warmly, had been engaged in several fights with each other. The King of France seized the opportunity, some outrages having been committed on his subjects, to summon King Edward to appear at his court, as Duke of Aquitaine, in order to answer before his peers for the offences committed against his liege lord. Edward sent his brother Edmund, who weakly consented to satisfy the feudal honor of King Philip by placing in the hands of the French officers the duchy of Gascony for a period of forty days. The conditions were agreed to. The question was not one of territorial aggrandisement but of reparation. The English prince waited for forty days. This period of time having elapsed, he came to claim the restoration of his domains; the King of France laughed, and declared that the Duke of Aquitaine had forfeited his rights as a vassal by not presenting himself personally before his liege lord. The grand constable was at once sent to all the towns and castles belonging to King Edward; a large number of them opened their gates to him; the duchy of Aquitaine was returning, it was said, to the crown. Edward I., however, had commenced his preparations for reclaiming his provinces by force of arms. The English ships were about to weigh anchor, when a violent insurrection broke out in Wales. The king despatched a little body of troops into Gascony, sent his fleet to hover round the coasts and seize all the French ships which might come in their way, and despatched the greater portion of his forces to Wales. In spite of the winter, the snow, the mountains, the impenetrable forests, and the obstinacy of the insurgents, Edward pursued his enemies in all directions, and contrived to subdue them. Madoc, the ringleader, laid down his arms; the most intractable chiefs were sentenced to be imprisoned for life, and the king, triumphant, left Wales to embark for France. The Scotch did not allow him time, however, to accomplish his intention.

Since Edward had placed the feeble Baliol upon the throne of Scotland, he had spared him no humiliation. Every time that a petitioner, dissatisfied with the justice of the King of Scotland, thought proper to appeal to the liege lord, Edward would summon Baliol to appear at his court to render an account of his judgment, and this summons was repeated four times during the first year of his reign. At length, in 1293, in the matter of a complaint of the Earl of Fife, Baliol, who was tired of these proceedings, declared that the question concerned his subjects, and that he could not reply to the appeal without consulting his people. "What!" cried Edward; "you are my vassal, you have done homage to me, and it is to answer to me for your acts that you are here." Baliol persisted; the English Parliament condemned his conduct, and King Edward only consented to retard by some months the pronouncing of the sentence. In the interval, the difficulty about Guienne occurred, and King Edward, occupied with his struggles against his own liege lord, soon learnt that his vassal, the King of Scotland, led on by the national movement in his country, had contracted with King Philip an alliance cemented by a promise of marriage between his young son Edward and Jane of Valois, niece of the King of France. A short time before, the Parliament of Scotland had decided on sending back all the Englishmen employed at the court and formed a council consisting of four earls, four bishops, and four barons, who were entrusted with the management of the affairs of the kingdom. Baliol was held by his subjects in a kind of captivity.

The suspicions which King Edward had conceived, and which had kept him in England, while he sent his brother into Guienne, were soon justified. The Scotch invaded the county of Cumberland with a large army, but were easily repulsed. Edward soon advanced towards the frontier, marching first of all against Berwick. He attacked the town by land and sea, and all resistance was useless. The king, mounted upon his horse Bayard, was the first to spring across the dyke which protected the town. A fearful massacre took place; neither age nor sex excited any pity. It was on the 30th of March, 1296. On the 5th of April, the abbot of Arbroath presented himself at the English camp; he brought Baliol's renunciation of all homage towards the King of England. Edward had a short time before addressed a similar communication to Philip, king of France; but this coincidence did not appease his anger. "Ah! then the scoundrel has dared to defy me!" he cried; "if he will not come to us, we will go to him." And he marched forward, taking possession on his way of the castles which resisted him. Dunbar, Roxburgh, Dunbarton, Jedburgh, Edinburgh, Stirling, had already fallen into Edward's hands, when a fresh message from Baliol was brought to him. He humbly begged for peace. The king did not do his revolted vassal the honor of treating him as a sovereign and of negotiating personally with him; he ordered Baliol to proceed to the castle of Brechin, to which place he despatched the Bishop of Durham. A few days later, on the 7th of June, 1296, Baliol, deprived of all his regal insignia, with a white rod in his hand, presented himself at the cemetery of Strathkathro, in the county of Angus, acknowledging that he had violated all his obligations towards his liege lord, who had very justly invaded his fief. After this act of self-abasement and renunciation, tired, he said, of the malice and ingratitude of men, he was sent to the Tower in honorable captivity, and subsequently ended his life in his domains of Normandy, forgotten or despised by all.

Robert Bruce at once claimed the crown. "Do you think that I have nothing else to do but to conquer kingdoms for you?" King Edward harshly replied; and he marched towards the north, receiving everywhere the homage of the Scotch nobility. He had convened a Parliament at Berwick; he proceeded there on the 28th of August, in order to arrange the government of his new acquisition. He displayed on this occasion great prudence and moderation; he returned to the Church all property which had been confiscated from it, and left the inferior offices in the hands of the functionaries who occupied them; but the guardianship of the castles was confided to the English. Warren, earl of Surrey, was nominated governor; Hugh de Cressingham, treasurer; and William Ormesby, chief justicier. Scotland was treated as a conquered country. King Edward now thought himself at leisure to devote his attention to his affairs in France and to prepare to cross the Channel.

The allies of England upon the Continent were in urgent need of his help. The Earl of Bar, the son-in-law of Edward, had been defeated and made a prisoner in an attempt against Champagne, and his wife, being unable to regain her liberty, had died of grief. Guy, count of Flanders, had been attracted to Paris under false pretences, together with his wife and his daughter Philippa, who was affianced to Prince Edward of England; all three had been thrown into prison, and, although the count succeeded in buying his freedom, he had been compelled to leave his daughter in the hands of Philip the Fair, who denied the right of vassals to give their daughters in marriage without the authority of their lord.

King Edward would have had great difficulty in helping his foreign allies, for he was engaged in a struggle against his English subjects. The conquest of the countries of Wales and Scotland had required great efforts, and the nation had borne its heavy burdens without murmuring. In 1295, however, on a demand of the king, who required one-half of their revenues, the clergy appealed to Pope Boniface VIII., who issued a bull in their favor. But the ecclesiastical thunders had begun to lose their terrors; Edward had seized upon the property of the clergy, and the bishops had ended by giving in. The merchants and citizens were more obstinate than the priests, and when the king, in 1297, conceived the idea of imposing an enormous tax upon every bale of wool, making at the same time large requisitions for grain, the complaints became loud. From remonstrance, the people had arrived at overt resistance, when the king seized at all the ports the wool and skins intended for exportation, and sold them for his own benefit. The merchants met together, protested against this "evil toll," as they called it, and declared that the Magna Charta ordered that the English people were not to be taxed without their own consent. A certain number of powerful noblemen supported the citizens in this movement.