On the 14th July, a week after his unsuccessful council with the barons, he appeared on a wooden stage erected in front of the great hall at Westminster and addressed the populace. He asked that they forgive the harshness of his acts, but reminded them that what money they had given him had gone to subdue enemies plotting to drive the English tongue from the earth.
Edward’s appeal to the people
“Behold,” he cried, his voice choked with tears, “I am going to expose myself to danger for your sakes; I pray you, if I return, receive me as you have me now, and I will restore to you all that has been taken. But if I return not,” and at this he brought forward his son, the young Edward, who was standing near him on the platform, “crown my son as your king.”[171] The people threw up their caps and promised fealty to the king. The archbishop declared his resolve to be faithful.
But neither the reconciliation with the church nor the adherence of the London populace brought him money, and in so far as advantage was reckoned in terms of shillings, Edward was no better off than before his council of the 7th July. He had recourse to the old expedient of individual negotiation. He consulted in a private audience the chief men still remaining of those who had gathered for the military levy; he assumed their ability to grant taxes upon the analogy of a Parliament, an assumption scarcely reasonable in view of their depleted numbers.His financial expedients Notwithstanding the fact that Earls Roger and Humfrey remained obdurate, such of the barons and knights as were there granted an eighth and the citizens and burghers a fifth, on the somewhat hazy understanding that the king should confirm the charters. Edward on the 30th July gave orders for the collection of the tax and issued writs for the seizure of 8000 sacks of wool, for which the merchants received tallies as a record of credit at the exchequer.[172]
Then he went down to the coast and prepared to embark. Putting great faith in the continued support of the people, he addressed to them an eloquent plea for loyalty to the crown as against the barons. He spoke of the exactions of money to which they had been subjected, and declared that, severe as was the pain which had been inflicted upon the people, equally great was his own distress; that the money had been spent for “le commun profit du reaume, pur son pople honyr et destruyre.”[173] The barons, The barons’ grievances on the other hand, immediately came forward with a list of grievances which they presented to the king, complaining, amongst other things, of the aids, tallages, and prises which the king had lately levied. So afflicted were they with “divers tallages, aids, and prises,” such as those upon corn, oats, malt, wool, hides, oxen, kine, and salt meat, that it would have been impossible for them to equip for any foreign expedition. More than that, they could make no grant of an aid, because of their great poverty following the exaction of the aforesaid tallages and prises; indeed, there were “many who had no sustenance, and who could not till their lands.” The tax on wool was much too heavy, no less than 40s. on the sack; wool comprised half the wealth of the nation, and the tax was equivalent to a fifth part of the value of the whole land. Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest were both disregarded, and many acts were done in defiance of them.[174]
Edward did not return a definite answer; the call to war sounded too loudly. Before he embarked he issued orders for the collection of Edward embarks for Flanders a third of clerical temporalities in a most peremptory manner; on the 10th August the clergy had expressed hopes of being able to gain the Pope’s permission to disregard the provisions of “Clericis laicos,” but of late they had showed a disposition to stand with the baronage. Finally, on the 22d August, Edward succeeded in getting up sail and made for Flanders.
But he could not escape the issue. Almost before England had sunk below his horizon Bohun and Bigod were at the Exchequer loudly protesting against the collection of the aid which had been irregularly granted to Edward five weeks previously. They went to the extreme of forbidding the Barons of the Exchequer to proceed with their work of taking the tax until Edward should make formal confirmation of the Charters.[175] The Londoners forgot their loyalty to the king, and swore by the earls. The young Prince Edward, afterward king, whom Edward had left as his regent, tried to throw a dam across the swelling river by promising that the eighth should not be taken into precedent.[176] This was published in proclamation on the 28th August, but it availed nothing. The fifth which had been asserted as owing from the cities and boroughs was lost sight of.
Edward, two days before his departure for Flanders had sent out summonses to a number of barons and knights to meet his son on the 8th September at Rochester. But before that date was reached, the necessity for a full Council was apparent. Accordingly, on the 8th September, messages were sent out which called most of the barons of the royal party; on the 9th, Archbishop Winchelsey, the Constable and the Marshal, were summoned,[177] and on the 15th letters were addressed to the sheriffs ordering an election of knights of the shire.[178] No representatives of the cities and boroughs or of the inferior clergy were called.
The Parliament was summoned for the octaves of St. Michael (the 6th October), at London. The great nobles, coming with their train of armed soldiers, both foot and horse, had command of the situation.[179] They demanded that the young regent confirm Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest, together with certain supplementary articles. Prince Edward, acting on the advice of his councillors, agreed, and straightway on the 10th October, sent the Charters and the new Principle that grants must await redress of grievances provisions to his father in Flanders for final confirmation. Nor was that enough. “The earls,” says Bishop Stubbs, “took advantage of their strength to force on the government the principle, which both before and long after was a subject of contention among English statesmen, that grievances must be redressed before supplies are granted.”[180] The irregular and much disputed grant of an eighth they declared null, and in place of it they substituted a ninth from such of the laity as were in attendance, a grant in which the towns subsequently were included. Here was one of the opening battles in the war which was to decide whether or not Parliament, sitting guardian of the public purse, could by reason of that guardianship, establish its control over the executive as well as the legislative acts of the nation.
The articles found the king at Ghent on the 5th November and he set his name both to the Charters and to the provisions supplementary to them. The difficulties with the barons thus concluded, it was not long before the clerical atmosphere cleared also.Confirmation of the Charters On the 20th November, the clergy, in response to a suggestion from Archbishop Winchelsey, evading the letter of “Clericis laicos,” initiated a tax upon themselves, a fifth from the northern province, and a tenth from the southern.[181] The purpose of the levy was the defense of the realm against the Scots who had again invaded the north.[182]