The Life and Reign of Edward I.

by Robert Benton Seeley

VII.
TROUBLES WITH FRANCE—WAR IN SCOTLAND.

At the close of 1292, Edward returned to England, doubtless with much content and satisfaction, having, apparently, accomplished one great object of his life—the unification of the island of Britain. Its conquest, which is too often described as the end he had in view, was never desired by him; but to bring the whole land into unity, so far as to render internal wars impossible, had been his object from the commencement of his reign. He found Alexander, king of Scotland, and Llewellyn, prince of Wales, and neither country would ever have been disturbed by him had their rulers given their fealty and kept their pledge. But the Welsh were too fond of predatory expeditions into Herefordshire and Cheshire, and the Scotch hoped some day to possess Northumberland, and with this view were always ready to form alliances with France. These Welsh inroads and these Scotch alliances with France, always ending in an invasion of England, Edward determined to check. Therefore his language was, “Pay your homage; give me your fealty; swear, as your fathers have sworn, ‘to be my true man.’ Vow allegiance, and then keep your vow.”

Scotland had at last, without any coercion, been brought into this position; and had Scotland observed Edward’s own rule—Pactum serva—she would never have seen the fights of Stirling or Falkirk, nor the blood‐stained fields of Halidon Hill and Durham, of Dupplin Moor, or Hamildon Hill, or Flodden, or Pinkie. His great desire was peace; for that, not for conquest, he thought and planned, he laboured and contrived. Unhappily, his life was already declining, old age and death overtook him before the work was accomplished. Scotland succeeded, under Bruce, in undoing all his work; but that Scotland was the better for such undoing is, we believe, wherever entertained, a most mistaken notion.

In carrying forward the story of the arbitration without a break, we left unnoticed one or two circumstances which occurred in England during 1291 and 1292. When Edward, in August, 1291, adjourned the Scottish question until the following June, his most urgent reason for such postponement was the serious illness of his mother, queen Eleanor of Provence, who died about the end of that summer at Ambresbury, in Wiltshire, and at whose funeral he was present early in September, attended by a great assembly of prelates and nobles, especially convened for that ceremony.

But there was another matter which still more imperatively demanded the king’s attention. Two of the chief nobles of the kingdom—Gilbert earl of Gloucester and Humphrey earl of Hereford—had quarrelled, and had gone to the extremity of open war. The earl of Gloucester was the king’s son‐in‐law. Presuming probably upon this, and confident of his power, he had encroached upon the possessions of the earl of Hereford, and had begun to build a castle on the lands belonging to this earl. Bitter contentions and open violence naturally followed, and the king, hearing of the quarrel, had been obliged to send to the two earls his commands, reserving the hearing of the matter for his own court, but enjoining, meanwhile, an abstinence from all violent proceedings. But the quarrel had gone too far to be so arrested. The followers of the two earls were everywhere at enmity. Houses were burnt, churches demolished, and many persons were killed. Hence, without any delay, on the very morning after the funeral of his mother, the king sat in council at Ambresbury, whither a large assembly of the nobles had come for the religious ceremony, and there called the two earls before him.

The offence they had committed was of the highest gravity. As the king’s lieutenants, each in his own district, their first duty was “to keep the king’s peace,” and to make all other persons keep it. Instead of which, disregarding the authority of the law, they had plunged into open violence, and thus, as far as in them lay, had introduced a state of civil war and utter confusion.

Gloucester, now brought into the presence of law supported by power, put forward some pleas in justification, which required time for their establishment or rejection. The king, therefore, directed the necessary inquiries to be made, and adjourned the further hearing until January 7th, 1292. On that day it was adjudged by the king’s council at Westminster—the king himself pronouncing the sentence—that the two earls were both guilty, that the liberties of Glamorgan and Brecknock should be forfeited for their respective lives, and that they themselves should be committed to prison during the king’s pleasure. The authority of the law was thus vindicated, and two of the greatest nobles of the realm were shown to be subject to it. After a time the relaxation which was implied in the terms of the sentence took place. The earls were set at liberty, and their forfeitures were commuted for fines proportioned to their respective criminality. Hereford was ordered to pay 1000 marks, which was equal to about £10,000 of our present money; but Gloucester, who doubtless had been the aggressor, and who probably presumed with his connection with the crown, was subjected to a fine of 10,000 marks, which, according to our present value, would be equal to £100,000!

During the summer and autumn of that year, 1292, the affairs of Scotland occupied Edward’s attention. Early in 1293 we find him again at home, and soon his attention was imperatively demanded to one of the most disastrous events of his reign—an unnecessary and almost purposeless war with France. Like many similar contentions, it had one of the smallest possible beginnings.

A Norman ship and an English one had sent their boats ashore for water near Bayonne, and a contention arose as to the preference, in which blows were given, and one of the Normans was killed. Vexed at their defeat, the Normans carried a complaint to the French king, who, in a moment of incautious irritation, told them to avenge themselves. So encouraged, the Normans boarded an English ship in the Channel, and hanged up one of the sailors as a reprisal for the loss of their comrade at Bayonne. But the sailors of the Cinque Ports were not likely to submit to such treatment; fresh encounters soon took place, and the Channel became the scene of unauthorized and lawless warfare. Ships were captured and recaptured, and blood was constantly flowing. Edward at once sent the earl of Lincoln to the court of France, to desire that some means might be found to put a stop to these disorders; but Philip was a haughty prince, and disliked to make any admission of his error. But while the earl waited for his answer, the warfare on the coast came to its height. A fleet of about two hundred French ships laden with wine was met with by some sixty or eighty vessels from the Cinque Ports, and a collision taking place, the French fleet was nearly destroyed, and several thousands of the seamen killed or thrown overboard. The news soon found its way to the French court, and Philip was exceedingly enraged; the more so, doubtless, inasmuch as he could not but feel conscious that the whole mischief had sprung from his own hasty and injudicious counsel. But his wounded pride blinded his reason. He sent an angry message to Edward, demanding immediate compensation. Edward sent over the bishop of London to represent, first, that he had his own courts, in which he would see justice done at all times; secondly, that he was ready to agree to an arbitration, which should decide the whole question; or, thirdly, he would meet the king of France himself if any difficulty arose about a settlement. But Philip was too angry to listen to any reasonable proposals. The bishop had to leave the French court without an answer; the English students found it necessary to quit the university of Paris; and generally throughout France the English travellers and residents saw themselves in circumstances of peril. Commerce was entirely interrupted, and all things were falling into confusion. At last Philip cited Edward himself to appear before him in Paris, there to answer sundry charges. The king sent his brother Edmund, who had married the mother of the queen of France. He also took the precaution to send an able commander, St. John, into Gascony, with instructions to put that province into a state of defence.