[1] Memoranda de parliamento, preface, p. li. The statement in the text is an inference suggested by Professor Maitland's account of the statute De asportis religiosorum. For the last struggle of Edward and Winchelsea, see Stubbs's preface to Chron. of Edw. I. and Edw. II., i., xcix.-cxiii.
At Clement V.'s coronation at Lyons, in November, England was represented by Winchelsea's old enemy, Bishop Walter Langton, and by the Earl of Lincoln. The first result of their work was the promulgation, on December 29, of the bull Regalis devotionis, by which the pope annulled the additions made to the charters in 1297 and succeeding years, and dispensed Edward from the oath which he had taken to observe them, on the ground that it was in conflict with his coronation vows. Next year Edward took advantage of this bull to revoke the disafforestments made by the parliament of Lincoln in 1301. It may be a sign either of the moderation, or of the well-grounded fears of the king, that he made no further use of the papal absolution. But, like his father and grandfather, he used the papal authority to set aside his plighted word, and his conduct in this respect suggests that it was well for England that the renewal of the Scottish troubles reduced for the rest of the reign the temptation, which the bull held out to him, to play fast and loose with the liberties of his subjects. The standards of contemporary morality were not, however, infringed by Edward's action, dishonourable and undignified as it seems to us of later times
Winchelsea's turn was at last come. On February 12, 1306, Clement suspended him from his office, and summoned him to appear before the curia. On March 25 the archbishop humbled himself before Edward and begged for his protection. But the king overwhelmed him with reproaches and refused to show him any mercy. Within two months, the primate took ship for France and made his way to the papal court, which was then established at Bordeaux. He remained in exile, though in the English king's dominions, for the rest of Edward's life. A less harsh punishment was meted out to the Bishop of Durham, who then came back from the court of Clement with the magnificent title of Patriarch of Jerusalem. For a second time Edward laid violent hands upon the rich temporalities of the see, and Bek, like Winchelsea, remained under a cloud for the remainder of the reign.
Clement expected to be paid for yielding so much to the king. A papal agent, William de Testa, was sent to England, and to him Edward gave the administration of the temporalities of Canterbury. William's energy in collecting first-fruits aroused a storm of opposition from the clergy. The laity, disgusted to find that the king was negotiating for the transference of a crusading tenth to himself, associated themselves with their protest. Clement thereupon despatched the Cardinal Peter of Spain to England, that he might attempt to arrange a general pacification, and complete the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Isabella of France, which had been agreed upon in 1303. Before the cardinal's arrival, Edward's last parliament met in January, 1307, at Carlisle. The renewed disturbances in Scotland necessitated a meeting on the border, but the main transactions of the estates bore upon matters ecclesiastical. The lords and commons joined in demanding from the king a remedy against the oppressions of the apostolic see. A spirited and strongly worded protest was addressed to the pope. Nor were the estates contented with mere remonstrances. The statute of Carlisle renewed the abortive measure of 1305 De asportis religiosorum, by prohibiting tallages of religious houses being sent out of the realm. Had the petition of the estates been drafted into a statute, the parliament of Carlisle would have anticipated the statute of Praemunire and many other anti-papal enactments. But Peter of Spain arrived, and Edward thought it injudicious to provoke a contest with the papacy. Even the petition actually approved was left in suspense to await further negotiations between the king and the cardinal. Before any decision was come to, Edward died, and this anti-Roman movement, like so many which had preceded it, resulted in little more than brave words. When, two generations later, a more resolute temper seized upon king and estates, they fell back upon the petitions and proceedings of the parliament of Carlisle for precedents for resisting the papal authority. With all its pitiful conclusion, Edward's ecclesiastical policy at least marks a step in advance upon the dependent attitude of Henry III.
In the period of peace after the conquest of Scotland, Edward busied himself with strengthening the administration of his own kingdom and with enforcing the laws against violence and outrage. Under the strongest of medieval kings, the state of society was very disorderly, and even a ruler like Edward had often to be contented with holding up in his legislation an ideal of conduct which he was powerless to enforce in detail. Complaints had long been made that the greater nobles encroached upon poor men's inheritances, that gangs of marauders ranged over the country, wreaking every sort of violence and outrage, and that the law courts would give no redress to the sufferers from such outrageous deeds, since judges and juries were alike terrorised by overmighty offenders and dared not administer equal justice. Accordingly in the Lenten parliament of 1305 was drawn up the ordinance of Trailbaston, by which the king was empowered to issue writs of inquiry, addressed to special justices in the various shires, and authorising them to take vigorous action against these trailbastons, or men with clubs, whose outrages had become so grievous. It was not so much a new law as an administrative act; but it formed a precedent for later times, and the energy of the justices of trailbaston effected a real, if temporary, improvement in the condition of the country. So important was the measure that a chronicler calls the year in which this was enacted the "year of trailbaston".[1]
[1] Liber de antiquis legibus, p. 250.
Never did Edward's prospects seem brighter than in the early days of 1306. Scotland was obedient; the French alliance was firmly cemented; the pope was complacent; the Archbishop of Canterbury was in exile and the Bishop of Durham in disgrace; the commons were grateful for the better order secured by the commissions of trailbaston, and the king had in the papal absolution a weapon in reserve, which he could always use against a renewal of baronial opposition, though, for the moment, neither nobles nor commons seemed likely to give trouble. Once more there was some talk of Edward leading a crusade, and the French lawyer, Peter Dubois, at this time dedicated to him the first draft of his remarkable treatise on the recovery of the Holy Land.[1] Nor did the project seem altogether impracticable. Though Edward was sixty-seven years of age, he remained slim, vigorous and straight as a palm tree. He could mount his horse and ride to the hunt or the field with the activity of youth. His eyes were not dimmed with age and his teeth were still firm in his jaws.[2] The worst trouble which immediately beset him, was the undutiful conduct of the young Prince of Wales, who foolishly quarrelled with Bishop Langton, and preferred to amuse himself with unworthy favourites rather than submit himself to the severe training in arms and affairs to which Edward had long striven to inure him. When all thus seemed favourable, a sudden storm burst in Scotland which plunged the old king into renewed troubles.
[1] De recuperatione terre sancte, ed. C.V. Langlois (1891).
[2] John of London, Commendatio lamentabilis, pp. 5-6.
In 1304 Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, became by his father's death the head of his house. Though he had long adhered to the regency which had governed Scotland in Balliol's name, he had now made terms with Edward, and had taken a conspicuous part in bringing about the pacification of Scotland under its new constitution. But the double policy, which had involved him in the shifts and tergiversations of his earlier career, still dominated the mind of the ambitious earl. At the moment of his submission to Edward, he entered into an intimate alliance with Bishop Lamberton of St. Andrews, the old partisan of Wallace. Lamberton was then, like Bruce, on Edward's side, and as John of Brittany had not yet personally taken up his new charge, the blind confidence of Edward entrusted him with the foremost place among the commissioners who acted as wardens of Scotland during the king's lieutenant's absence. Bruce, still remembering his grandfather's claim on the throne, welcomed the definitive setting aside of Balliol. While Edward believed that Scotland was quietening down under its new constitution, Bruce was secretly conspiring with the Scottish magnates, with a view to making himself king. His chief difficulty was with the late regent, John Comyn the Red, lord of Badenoch. The Bruces and the Comyns had long been at variance, and the Red Comyn, who was the nephew of the deposed King John, regarded himself as the representative of the Balliol claim to the throne, and was not unmindful how his father had withdrawn his pretensions in 1291 rather than divide the Balliol interest. Meanwhile the antagonism of the two houses was the best safeguard for the continuance of Edward's rule.