No sooner had Gaveston made good his position than by his wanton insolence he incurred the hatred of Earl Thomas, and by the same folly provoked the animosity of the Earl of Pembroke, the king’s cousin, of the Earl of Hereford, his brother-in-law, and of the strong and unscrupulous Earl of Warwick, Guy Beauchamp. Some of them he had defeated in a tournament; nicknames he bestowed on all. One good friend Edward had tried to secure him; he had married him to a sister of Earl Gilbert of Gloucester, the king’s nephew and their common playfellow; but even Earl Gilbert only cared sufficiently for him to try to mediate in his favor; he would not openly take his side. The storm rose steadily. Shortly after the coronation a great council was held in which his promotion was the chief topic of debate, and on the 18th of May he was banished. Edward tried to lighten the blow by appointing him lieutenant of Ireland, and besought the interposition of the King of France and the Pope in his favor. All the business of the kingdom was delayed by the hostility of the king and the great lords. Money was wanted, and could be got only through the Italian bankers, whom the people looked on as extortioners. The divided Scots were left to fight their own battles. Such a state of things could not last long. Edward had to meet his parliament in April 1309. He wanted money, the country wanted reform, but the king desired the return of Gaveston even more than money, and the nation dreaded it more than they desired reform. When the estates met they presented to Edward a schedule of eleven articles: if these were granted they would grant money. The articles concerned several important matters; the exaction of corn and other provisions by the king’s agents under the name of purveyance, the maladministration of justice and usurped jurisdictions; but the most important was one touching the imposts on wine, wool, and other merchandise which had been instituted by Edward I. in 1303, after consultation with the merchants. Edward, however, thought little of the bearing of the request; he proposed to agree to it if he might recall Gaveston. The Parliament refused to listen to him, and he adjourned the discussion until July. Then in a session of the baronage at Stamford he yielded the points in question, and received the promised subsidy. But he had already recalled Gaveston and by one means or another had obtained the tacit consent of all the great lords except the Earl of Warwick. Scarcely two months had elapsed when the storm rose again. The king summoned the earls to council. The Earl of Lancaster refused to meet the Earl of Cornwall. Gradually the parties were reformed as before, and the quarrel assumed larger dimensions. Gaveston was still the great offence, but the plan now broached by the lords extended to the whole administrative work of the kingdom.
Parliament
of 1310.
At the parliament which met in March 1310 a new scheme of reform was promulgated, which was framed on the model of that of 1258 and the Provisions of Oxford. It was determined that the task of regulating the affairs of the realm and of the king’s household should be committed to an elective body of twenty-one members, or Ordainers, the chief of whom was Archbishop Winchelsey. Both parties were represented, the royal party by the earls of Gloucester, Pembroke, and Richmond, the opposition by the earls of Lincoln, Lancaster, Hereford, Warwick, and Arundel. But the preponderance both in number and influence was against Gaveston. They were empowered to remain in office until Michaelmas 1311, and to make ordinances for the good of the realm agreeable to the tenor of the king’s coronation oath. The whole administration of the kingdom thus passed into their hands; and Edward, seeing himself superseded, joined the army now engaged in war with Scotland, and in company with Gaveston continued on the border until the Ordainers were ready to report. During this time the Earl of Lincoln, who had been left as regent, died and the Earl of Gloucester took his place. The Ordainers immediately on their appointment issued six articles directing the observance of the charters, the careful collection of the customs, and the arrest of the foreign merchants; but the great body of the ordinances was reserved for the parliament which met in August 1311.
The Ordinances
of
1311.
Control
of
the king by
the barons.
The famous document or statute known as the Ordinances of 1311 contained forty-one clauses, all aimed at existing abuses. Some of these abuses were old long-standing evils, such as the miscarriage and delay of justice, the misconduct of officials, and the maladministration and misapplication of royal property. Others were founded on the policy of the late reign, which Edward’s ministers had perverted and abused; the Ordainers had no hesitation in declaring the customs duties established by Edward I. to be illegal and contrary to the charter. But two classes of enactments are of more special interest. Four whole clauses were devoted to the punishment of the favorite and of those courtiers who had cast in their lot with him. Gaveston had stolen the king’s heart from his people, and led him into every sort of tyranny and dishonesty; the Lord Henry de Beaumont, to whom Edward had given the Isle of Man, and the lady de Vescy, his sister, were little better; the Friscobaldi, the Italian bankers who received the customs, were the enemies of the people and mere instruments of oppression. Gaveston was to be banished for life, Beaumont to be expelled from the council, and the Friscobaldi to be sent home. Not content with this, the Ordainers further enacted some very important limitations on the king’s power. All the great officers of state were to be appointed with the counsel and consent of the baronage, and to be sworn in parliament; the king was not go to war or to quit the kingdom without the consent of the barons in parliament; parliaments were to be called every year, and the king’s servants were to be brought to justice. The articles thus seem to sum up not only the old and new grievances, but the ideas of government entertained by the Ordainers: they are to punish the favorite, to remedy the points in which the charter has failed, and to restrain the power of the king. The power is only transferred from the king to the barons. There is no provision analogous to the principle laid down by Edward I., that the whole nation shall join in the tasks and responsibilities of national action. The baronage, not the three estates in parliament, are to admonish, to restrain, to compel the king.
The struggle
of the king
in favor of
Gaveston.
Death of
Gaveston.
Edward, after such a struggle as he could make to save Gaveston—a matter which was to him far more important than any of the legal questions involved in the Ordinances—consented that they should become a law, intending perhaps to obtain absolution when it was needed, or to allege that his consent was given under compulsion. He went back into the North, was rejoined by Gaveston, and after some short consideration annulled the ordinances which were made against him. The barons immediately on hearing of this prepared to enforce the law in arms. Winchelsey excommunicated the favorite; the king left no means untried to save him. After a narrow escape at Newcastle, where he lost his baggage and the vast collection of jewels which he had accumulated, many of them belonging to the hereditary hoard of the crown, Gaveston was besieged in Scarborough Castle. In May, 1312, he surrendered, and was conducted by the Earl of Pembroke into the South, to await his sentence in parliament. His enemies, however, were too impatient to wait for justice. The Earl of Warwick carried him off whilst Pembroke was off his guard, and he was beheaded in the presence of the Earl of Lancaster. It is more easy to account for than to justify the hatred which the earls felt towards Gaveston. His conduct had been offensive, his influence was no doubt dangerous, but the actual mischief done by him had been small; neither he nor Edward had exercised power with sufficient freedom as yet to merit such a punishment, and no policy of mere caution or apprehension could excuse the cruelty of the act. It was a piece of vile personal revenge, for insults which any really great man would have scorned to avenge.
Changes in
the administration.