It was an easier matter for Edward to raise money than to get the barons to accompany him abroad. To leave them behind was to risk the peace of the country. He therefore spared no efforts to persuade them to join in a projected expedition, and when persuasion failed tried threats. It was his desire that the barons should go to Gascony, whilst he took the command in Flanders. This was not at all to the taste of the barons, who declined to go abroad, except in the personal retinue of the king himself. "With you, O king," said Roger Bigod, "I will gladly go; as belongs to me by hereditary right, I will go in front of the host, before your face;" but without the king he positively declined to move. "By God, earl," cried the king, fairly roused by the[pg 128] obstinacy of his vassal, "you shall either go or hang;" to which the earl replied, with equal determination, "By the same token, O king, I will neither go nor hang."[329]
Nothing daunted, the king issued writs (15 May) for a military levy of the whole kingdom for service abroad, to meet at London on the 7th July, a measure as unconstitutional as the seizure of wool and the levying of taxes without the assent of Parliament. On the day appointed, the barons, who had received a large accession of strength from the great vassals, appeared with their forces at St. Paul's; but instead of complying with the king's demands—or rather requests, for the king had altered his tone—they prepared a list of their grievances.
The "Confirmatio Cartarum," Oct. 1297.
With difficulty civil war was avoided, and in August Edward set sail for Flanders. No sooner was his back turned, than the barons and the Londoners made common cause in insisting upon a confirmation and amplification of their charters.[330] Prince Edward, the king's son, who had been appointed regent in his father's absence, granted all that was asked, and on the 10th October (1297), the Confirmatio Cartarum, as it was called, was issued in the king's name.[331] Thenceforth, no customs duties were to be exacted without the consent of parliament.
The mayoralty restored to the city, 11th April, 1298.
In view of the king's return to England in March (1298), the warden of the city, Sir John Breton, the aldermen, and a deputation from the wards met together and resolved that every inhabitant of the[pg 129] city, citizen and stranger, should pay to the king's collectors the sum of sixpence in the pound of all their goods up to £100.[332] In the following month Edward issued letters patent (11th April), restoring to the citizens their franchises and the right of again electing their mayor.[333] The choice of the citizens fell upon Henry le Waleys, who was duly admitted by the Barons of the Exchequer after presentation to the king.[334]
Suppression of the Scottish rising under Wallace, 1298, 1304.
In the summer Edward marched to Scotland for the purpose of putting down the rising under Wallace. An account of the battle of Falkirk, fought on the 22nd July, was conveyed to the mayor, aldermen, and "barons" of London, by letter from Walter Langton, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, or, as he was then styled, Bishop of Chester, who wrote as an eye-witness, if not indeed as a partaker in that day's work.[335] It was the first battle of any consequence in which the English long-bow was brought into prominence. Edward's victory was complete. The enemy's loss was great, the number that perished, according to the bishop's information, being two hundred men-at-arms and twenty thousand foot soldiers. Edward was unable, however, to follow up his success for want of supplies, and so retreated. In 1304, he again marched northward, notwithstanding the defection of many nobles. He had previously resorted once more to the questionable practice of talliaging the city of[pg 130] London,[336] levying from the citizens the fifteenth penny of their moveable goods and the tenth penny of their rents.[337] The campaign was eminently successful. Sterling surrendered after a siege of two months, and Wallace himself shortly afterwards fell into his hands, having refused the terms of an amnesty which Edward had generously offered.
Wallace brought to London, 22 Aug., 1305.
He was carried to London, where a crowd of men and women flocked out to meet one, of whose gigantic stature and feats of strength they had heard so much. He was lodged in the house of William de Leyre, an alderman of the city, situate in the parish of All Hallows at the Hay or All Hallows the Great. Having been tried at Westminster and condemned to death on charges of treason, sacrilege and robbery, he was hanged, drawn, and quartered, and his head set up on London Bridge.[338]