The Minority of Henry the Third

by Kate Norgate

Meanwhile Falkes had been tracked by Bishop Alexander of Coventry. Alexander had carried the King’s letter to Earl Ranulf;[1094] the Bishop of Exeter seems to have joined him at Coventry, and there these two prelates heard that Falkes was at a place three miles beyond Chester. They immediately published his excommunication, and then Alexander went to seek him in the hope of bringing him to submission.[1095] To the bishop’s persuasions Falkes replied that he was ready to stand to the King’s command and judgement in all things, on condition that three men whom he believed to be personally hostile to him[1096] should not be present; or he would submit entirely to the King’s judgement and accept his mercy, but on condition that these same three should have no part in discussing the terms of that mercy. He further begged that either he might be released from excommunication by Bishop Alexander, or the whole case might be submitted to the Pope. The first part of the message thus brought back by Alexander to the royal camp was received with jeers; as to the last point, Archbishop Stephen was resolute that no one but himself should absolve the culprit. Alexander and Earl Ranulf went back together to Falkes, and persuaded him to return with them as far as Coventry.[1097] Thither, on 12th August, a safe-conduct was sent to him for himself and the members of his household who were with him, that they might come to Northampton for absolution within the next ten days.[1098]

To Northampton Falkes—seemingly accompanied by Bishop Alexander—came without delay; and thence he sent word to his soldiers of his inability to help them.[1099] On the evening of 14th August the King’s miners kindled a fire underneath the keep of Bedford castle. The garrison, seated at supper, saw the room fill with smoke, and presently found that its walls were cracking. On this they sent forth all the women in their company—among whom was the wife of Falkes—together with Henry de Braybroke and the other prisoners, escorted by some of their own number charged with an offer of surrender. These messengers were put in chains and kept by the King as pledges for the good faith of their comrades, who were suffered to spend the night in the crumbling tower after hoisting the royal standard on its summit. Next morning {15 Aug.} all the survivors of the desperate band were brought before the King.[1100] One of them was the chaplain of the castle; he was handed over to the Archbishop to be judged according to Church law.[1101] Most of the others, knights and men-at-arms, were grievously wounded.[1102] The King remitted them to the bishops for absolution; when they had received it,[1103] he kept his vow; he sent them all to the gallows. For three of them some of the nobles interceded, and though “to save the King’s oath” these three were hanged with the rest, they were cut down immediately, and delivered to the Templars, on condition of joining that Order in Holy Land.[1104]

When these things were done, the Bishop of Carlisle and one of the judges, Martin of Pateshull, were sent to Falkes with the tidings, and with an invitation or citation from the Archbishop to present himself at Bedford for absolution.[1105] He swooned with horror at the unexpected fate of his brother and his friends[1106]—a fate from which he, like them, had hoped that they would be saved by his vow of crusade and their appeal to the Pope. On coming to himself he was at first reluctant to accede to the Archbishop’s summons, being still set on prosecuting his appeal to Rome, and also fearing the personal enmity on the part of Stephen and Hubert of which he believed himself to be the object; at last, however, he consented to go,[1107] but entreated the Bishop of Coventry to accompany and protect him.[1108] Thus escorted, he went to Bedford, fell at the King’s feet and threw himself on his mercy.[1109] Henry committed him to the custody of Bishop Eustace of London till his fate should be judicially determined;[1110] for that purpose a council was appointed to meet in London fifteen days after Michaelmas (14th October). The few followers who accompanied him were then absolved, but it seems to have been deemed more prudent to defer the absolution of Falkes himself till he had surrendered, or at least given security for surrendering, the two castles which he still held—Plympton and Stoke Courcy[1111]—and all his other property,[1112] and also to make it as public as possible, in order that, as the absolution of an excommunicate person was an extremely humiliating ceremony for the penitent, it might serve as a salutary warning to other possible rebels. Accordingly, when Falkes had sworn to submit himself to this humiliation on 25th August in London, a safe-conduct was given him, on 19th August, to go thither for the twofold purpose of receiving absolution and paying into the treasury, as compensation for the damage and losses incurred by the King in the siege of Bedford, the money which he had stored at Westminster.[1113] On the appointed day {25 Aug.}, in presence of a great concourse of people, the Archbishop had him stripped according to the rule of the Church and then gave him absolution.[1114] He then executed a deed whereby he surrendered to the Crown all his possessions of every kind, and consented to fall under excommunication again if his constables at Plympton and Stoke Courcy failed to give up those two castles within a fortnight.[1115]

A woman struck the next blow at the fallen man. Margaret his wife came before the King and the Archbishop and declared that she had never consented to her marriage with him, but had been taken by force in time of war and wedded to him against her will, wherefore she prayed that the marriage might be annulled. A day was set for the Archbishop to pronounce, after due consideration, his judgement on the matter.[1116] Margaret’s story of the marriage may very likely have been true; but her protest was made too late to deserve a hearing. Even in 1215 the widow of Baldwin de Rivers was no mere child, for she was already a mother. If the disturbed state of public affairs and the absence of the Primate prevented her seeking legal redress during the next two years, she could certainly have brought her claim before Stephen at any moment after his return in the spring of 1218. Instead of doing so, she waited till the man whose prosperous fortunes she had shared for nine years, and by whom she had at least one child,[1117] was brought down to the dust, and then she, too, sought to be rid of him. Such an abuse of the laws of marriage as she petitioned for was not likely to be sanctioned by Stephen de Langton, however sternly he might, for the public weal, deem it necessary to deal with her husband. His judgement on her petition is not recorded; but there are clear indications that it was given against her.[1118]

For more than nine weeks Falkes was kept, strictly guarded, in the custody of the Bishop of London. The meeting of the Council which was to decide his fate had been fixed for 14th October, but no decision seems to have been reached till about the 26th.[1119] {Oct.} Moved partly by remonstrances which the Pope had, some months before, addressed both to the King and to the Primate in behalf of Falkes,[1120] partly by their own undeniable knowledge of Falkes’s long and faithful service to the King’s father, the Council unanimously determined that he should be spared in life and limbs, on condition that he would abjure the realm and go over sea on pilgrimage, never to return.[1121] The Primate exacted from him a further promise not to carry his complaints to the Pope.[1122] To these conditions he submitted. On 26th October he received a safe-conduct to go to the coast and remain there till he could get across the sea,[1123] and orders for the manning of the ship which was to carry him were issued to William de Breuse and the Earl of Warren,[1124] the latter of whom was commissioned to see him safely on board. It was reported that when parting from the Earl, Falkes with tears begged him to carry his greetings to “his lord the King,” declaring with a solemn oath that his disturbances of England’s peace had been instigated by “the great men of the land.” Five of his men-at-arms accompanied him to Normandy.[1125] So far was Louis from regarding him as an ally that he was seized by the French King’s bailiffs immediately on landing at Fécamp and brought as a prisoner before Louis himself.[1126] The cross on his shoulder, however, procured his release.[1127] Next Easter (1225)1225 he proceeded to Rome.[1128] On his way across France he met Robert Passelewe,[1129] a man learned in law, who may have put into shape (or at least into Latin) the “Complaint” which—in defiance of his promise to Archbishop Stephen—he presented to the Pope. In August he was captured in Burgundy by a knight called Anselm “de Duime,” whom he had once made prisoner and put to heavy ransom in England. The Pope seems to have procured his release,[1130] on which he returned to France, and dwelt for a year at Troyes; at last he was driven out of the country because he refused to do homage to Louis. Returning to Rome, he once more entreated the Pope to insist that he should be restored at least to the enjoyment of his wife’s society and of the proceeds of her patrimony.[1131] Honorius wrote accordingly, both to the King and to Archbishop Stephen.[1132] Soon afterwards, however, the whole matter was ended by the death of Falkes.[1133] A year later {1226} Henry was trying—with what success we know not—to reclaim from the Master of the Temple in London eleven thousand marks which Falkes on his death-bed was said to have confessed were still in the head house of the Order in England, where he had deposited them for secrecy and safety.[1134]

1224

Having crushed Falkes, King and ministers in the autumn of 1224 at last found leisure for taking measures of defence and defiance against the greater foe beyond the sea. Special bailiffs were appointed for the protection of the coasts.[1135] Reinforcements were sent to the Channel Isles to hold them against a possible attack from France.[1136] The bailiffs of some of the great trading towns were ordered to seize the persons, goods, and chattels of all Normans and other subjects of the French King within their several bailiwicks.[1137] Soon, however, it became apparent that Louis had no present intention of attacking England, but was bent on completing his conquest of Aquitaine, and that Gascony was in imminent danger of falling into his hands like Poitou. The English King’s great difficulty was, as usual, the want of money. Before the host broke up after the siege of Bedford the carucage granted by the prelates had been supplemented by a like grant from the barons;[1138] this was followed by a scutage,[1139] and in November a tallage was laid on the Jews.[1140] But all this was insufficient; and at the Christmas court at Westminster Hubert appealed to all present for “counsel and aid whereby the Crown of England might recover its lost dignities and its ancient rights in the parts beyond the sea,” and added that he “thought this could be done if a fifteenth part of all moveable goods throughout England were given to the King by both clergy and laity.” After some deliberation the whole assembly agreed to adopt this suggestion, “if the King would grant them their long desired liberties”[1141]—that is, if he would re-issue and confirm the Great Charter. The King’s feeling about this matter seems to have remained the same as it had been twelve months before, for it was not till 11th February (1225)1225 that he complied with the required condition; and then he issued both the Charter of Liberties and that of the Forest in a new form. The text of both Charters as he now granted them was the same as in the issue of November, 1217. But in the preamble to each of them he stated, not, as had been done in all former issues (including the original Great Charter of 1215), that the liberties were granted “by the advice of his counsellors,” but that they were granted “of his own free goodwill, to the prelates, magnates, and all the people of England, to be kept in the realm of England for ever”; he put on record the grant of a fifteenth of moveables made to him in return for this “concession and donation” on his part; and he concluded with a solemn promise that neither he nor his heirs would do anything to invalidate or infringe the liberties thus guaranteed, and that any attempt to do so should be null and void. The Primate, eleven bishops, twenty abbots, Hubert as Justiciar, nine earls, and twenty-three barons appended their names as witnesses.[1142]

1225

For many months King and Justiciar were occupied chiefly with schemes, military and diplomatic, for the preservation of what remained of Henry’s continental dominions and the recovery of what had been lost. During the last few months of 12241224 the joint efforts of Hugh of La Marche and the new French seneschal of Poitou to win Gascony for Louis met with considerable success. Several of the chief Gascon towns—St. Emilion, Bazas, La Réole—and many of the nobles, swore fealty to the French King.[1143] The one man who might still have headed an organized effort to stem the tide was Savaric de Mauléon; but Savaric had lost the confidence of the English government, owing to the surrender of La Rochelle. In after days, as has been seen, he was acknowledged by Hubert de Burgh to have been blameless in that matter; but at the time Hubert and Henry were only too ready to lay the blame of it at any door except the one where it was mainly due—their own—and Savaric’s defence of his conduct failed to convince them of his loyalty. The natural result followed: the services which they rejected were transferred to Henry’s rival;[1144] and for several years to come Savaric’s talents and energies—both of which were of a high order—were actively employed in the office of governor of La Rochelle and warden of the seaboard for Louis. The remnant of Henry’s Aquitanian possessions was thus left without a governor or head of any kind. Gascony, however, could not be irretrievably lost so long as the great merchant sea-port of the South, Bordeaux, remained loyal; and the citizens of Bordeaux, whose commercial and political interests were closely bound up with those of England, stedfastly resisted all Hugh of Lusignan’s endeavours to cajole or frighten them into submission. Their obstinate refusal to make even a truce with him compelled him to retire into his own county in October, 1224, when one of Henry’s agents in Gascony reported their jubilant boast that they “would soon confound all the King’s enemies, if only they had money”; “and,” he added, “I believe they would, if they had with them the King himself or his brother Richard. Wherefore I counsel that if money be sent to them, Richard be sent likewise, with some good man to control the expenditure of the money.”[1145]

This counsel was followed. The feast of the Epiphany, 1225, was Richard’s sixteenth birthday. On Candlemas day he was knighted by his royal brother.[1146] A fortnight later {13 Feb.} Henry granted him the Earldom of Cornwall “with all that pertained to the King in that county, to support himself in the King’s service, during the King’s pleasure”;[1147] and also, it seems, the title of Count of Poitou, by which Richard was thenceforth called.[1148] Ever since the beginning of January a fleet had been gathering to convoy the young Count over sea;[1149] and on Palm Sunday, 23rd March, he sailed from Portsmouth with a small force of knights, and accompanied by his uncle Earl William of Salisbury, Philip d’Aubigné,[1150] and some other chosen counsellors, all of whom were, together with Richard himself, commissioned by the King to undertake the “defence of Poitou and Gascony.”[1151] They were warmly welcomed at Bordeaux; and by the beginning of May the King’s authority was fairly well re-established throughout Gascony, except at Bergerac and La Réole, whose citadels were garrisoned by Louis.[1152]