Hume and several other writers unhesitatingly assume that these wars were intentionally provoked by Edward, and formed a part of his plan. Hume says: “His intention plainly was to enrage Baliol by indignities, to engage him in rebellion, and so to assume the dominion of the state as the punishment of his treason and felony.”
But upon the very face of the matter, this supposition is manifestly absurd. The war with France had broken out before Edward took any hostile measures against Scotland. The Scottish quarrel evidently occurred at the most inconvenient of all periods, and could never have been desired or sought by him at that most inopportune moment.
But in proof that Edward desired to provoke the Scotch to resistance, it is said that “he encouraged all appeals to England; required king John, by six different summonses, to come to London,” and in this way “provoked him to vindicate his liberty.”
Strange to say, none of the old Scottish writers thus defend, or account for, Baliol’s rebellion. Barbour, the earliest of them, has not a word of this story; Wyntoun speaks only of one appeal, that of Macduff, the earl of Fife; Buchanan follows him; and even Mr. Tytler, the latest and best of all the Scottish historians, rests his case solely upon this appeal of the earl of Fife. No one pretends that Baliol appeared to any other appeal. The citations alluded to must have been mere legal formalities. It was the conduct of Edward on Macduff’s appeal which constituted the real grievance. Mr. Sharon Turner, who reviews the whole case with an impartial and a lawyer‐like eye, says: “Edward received an appeal against Baliol’s judgment preferred by a Scotchman to himself, as lord paramount, and summoned Baliol to his parliament to answer it, and expressed displeasure when he attempted to dispute his homage; but this, between 1292 and 1296, was the extent of his adverse conduct. Two other cases, mentioned by lord Hailes, were, the one, a complaint against Edward’s own officers; the other, an illegal imprisonment of his officers.”[63]
Beyond this contention about appeals, there was no quarrel between Baliol and Edward. Before any judgment was pronounced, Baliol asked for time to consult his parliament. It was granted, adjournment after adjournment followed, and, in fact, no judgment ever was pronounced. Meanwhile, Baliol’s claim to the honours and lands of Tyndale, Penrith, and Sowerby, with a third part of the manor of Huntingdon, was allowed, and he was generously exempted from a payment of £3,000 due from the estates of his mother.[64]
The quarrel with Scotland, then, which produced such terrible results, may be said to have taken its rise, formally, from Edward’s assertion of the right of receiving appeals. But was this any extravagant or inordinate pretension on his part?
On the contrary, it was an essential point of his prerogatives as lord paramount, and it was known to be so, by all parties from the beginning. For nearly seven years past the Scotch had been appealing to him. They had sent after him to Gascony, in 1286, to know what course they should take on their king’s death. In 1290 they had again applied to him, in the most urgent manner, to come and decide between the opposing claims of the competitors for the crown. At their request he met the nobles of Scotland, and at once told them, “I come as lord paramount; do you recognize me as such?” After some delay, and therefore without hurry or precipitation, he was so recognized. And when he had decided the question in Baliol’s favour, he again distinctly warned him of their mutual relations, counselling him “to be careful in the government of his people, lest by giving any just cause of complaint, he should call down the interference of the lord paramount.” Thus there was never the least concealment or reserve on Edward’s part. He stated, from the first, what he conceived to be his rights, and he found nothing but acquiescence on the part of the Scotch. And it was several weeks after this explicit declaration, that Baliol came to him at Newcastle, and took the oath of homage, avowing himself Edward’s liegeman “for the kingdom of Scotland and all its appurtenances.”
All questions being thus decided between the two, how was Edward to act when the earl of Fife, in the very next year, lodged an appeal against one of Baliol’s decisions? To refuse to entertain it would be to abdicate his functions as lord paramount. Such appeals were not unusual, or even of rare occurrence. Mr. Tytler himself says: “Edward, who was a vassal of the king of France, for the duchy of Aquitaine, became involved with his lord superior in a quarrel similar to that between himself and Baliol. Philip summoned Edward to appear in his court at Paris, and there to answer, as his vassal, for the injuries which he had committed.”[65]
But it may be replied that Edward, when so summoned, refused to go, and preferred to declare war against the king of France; and that the same right must be conceded to Baliol. Unquestionably the same right, if the cases were the same; but all turns, if we are discussing the moral aspects of the question, on the respective grounds of quarrel.
Edward, as all historians agree, had been grievously wronged by Philip, and was entitled—and, in fact, was bound, to demand redress for these wrongs. In his message to the king of France, declaring war against him, he thus states the grounds of his resistance and hostility: “The king of England did you homage conditionally—namely, according to the form of the peace made between your ancestors and his, which peace you have not kept. Moreover, that all differences between your subjects and his might be ended, a treaty was made between you and the lord Edmund, his brother, containing certain articles which you have not performed. And after that, he hath required of you, three several times, to restore his land of Guienne, and to deliver those of his subjects whom you detain in prison: all which you have refused. Wherefore it seems to him that you no longer count him your vassal, and accordingly he refuses to be so for the future.”