England in the Later Middle Ages

K.H. Vickers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429870668
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

First published in 1950 in its 7th edition, this volume became a standard work. Covering 213 years, it begins with Edward I and proceeds through events including the Black Death and the Hundred Years War to Edward IV. In doing so, the author balanced political, constitutional, social and economic aspects of England's national evolution.

Chapter I
The Legal Reorganisation of Edward I. (1272-1307)

AS Henry III. lay dying in the royal palace of Westminster a new era was dawning for England, and a change of ruler was to inaugurate a new phase in national development. Though absent from England, Edward was universally acknowledged King at his father’s death. Proclaimed at Pauľs Cross on the day of Henry III.’s funeral, his claim on his newly acquired kingdom was never disputed, and the chief men of England, headed by the Earls of Gloucester and Surrey, swore fealty to their new sovereign on the high altar at Westminster. Three days later—on November 23rd—the Council met at the Temple, and there ordered the proclamation of the new King’s peace, drafted a letter to Edward informing him of his accession and of their unswerving loyalty, and gave instructions for the making of a new seal. The government devolved without question upon those whom Edward had appointed to look after his interests in his absence. Of these the Archbishop of York, Roger Mortimer, and Robert Burnell were alive and in England, and their task seems to have been discharged without difficulty. No real danger threatened the provisional government. The country indeed was far more quiet than it had been some few years back, and a greater sense of national responsibility was becoming apparent. In some cases local politics proved a disturbing factor, and the Londoners were only reduced to quiet after the King’s representative had sanctioned the election to the mayoralty of their great popular leader Walter Hervey, but even in London there was no question as to the legitimacy of Edward’s claim to the throne by “hereditary right and the election of the magnates”.¹ The hereditary claim indeed was considerably strengthened by Edward’s accession, since it was necessary for the welfare of the kingdom that there should be no break in the King’s peace. Though he was not there in person to undertake the duties of kingship, his reign was dated from the day of his father’s funeral, and the way was thus paved for the later doctrine, not formally promulgated till the reign of Edward IV., that the King never dies.

The kingdom to which Edward now succeeded had entered upon the more distinctively English part of its development. The differences between Norman and Saxon had disappeared under the influence of constant intermarriage and the united action against the foreign friends of Henry III. As the reign of Edward I. developed a dawning sense of English nationality began to show itself, And in all branches of society a tendency to require an English king to devote his attention to English interests can be traced. Edward was expected by his subjects to be an English king, and nobly he lived up to this ideal, though the nation might not always understand his actions. Still truly English, even insular, in his objects, his conception of insularity did not entail a complete isolation from European politics. He would refuse to be drawn into such hair-brained schemes as the acceptance of the crown of Sicily for his brother Edmund, but at the same time his foreign policy showed a keen interest in England’s position on the continent. It was only to be expected that he would cling with all the pertinacity of his determined nature to his inheritance of Aquitaine, and resist to the utmost of his power the encroachments of France, yet even here national considerations played their part, for it must be remembered that the connection with Aquitaine was a valuable asset to Englishmen, on account of the flourishing trade which existed between the two countries. It is then as a national king, realising the growing national feeling of his subjects, that Edward must be regarded, as a man who understood the aspirations of the men whom he ruled, though perhaps sometimes impatient of the way his policy was misunderstood or opposed. He had every reason to know his subjects. He had learnt experience in a hard school. When not quite thirteen he had been appointed to govern Gascony. The Barons’ War had taught him the dangers of civil strife and the peril of weak government. Notwithstanding his love for his father, he must have realised that Henry III.’s career was of use to him more as a warning than as an example, and before his accession he had learnt the lessons of determination and consistency.

His private life was chaste in an age when marital fidelity was by no means an universal virtue, and he was upright according to the lights of his time. He was always addicted to martial exercises: the tournament was one of his favourite pastimes, and he was never tired of organising these displays of skill and bravery. He would alternate the conquest of Wales with such a friendly battle, or set up the Ring at Stirling whilst prosecuting his Scottish policy,¹ and at the very outset of his reign he came very near to losing his life when the treacherous Count of Chalons turned a friendly trial of skill into a bitter combat.² He had inherited too his Norman ancestors’ love of hunting, and all through his life he would chase the stag and fly his hawk at every opportunity. His strong arms made him a doughty swordsman, and the length of limb, which earned him the name of Longshanks or Longchamps, enabled him to sit the most fiery steed. Of right royal appearance, with a high forehead, and abundant black hair, which turned snow-white in old age, his one defect was a droop of the eyelid, a characteristic inherited from his father. This splendid body ministered to an active mind, which kept him vigorous to an age far beyond the allotted span of thirteenth-century men. He was naturally quick of temper and impatient of opposition, but there are but few traces in his career as king of that impetuous rashness which lost his side the day on the downs of Lewes. The partisans of De Montfort had described him in his youth as arbitrary, treacherous, and ever ready under compulsion to make promises which he as readily broke.³ It is true that in later life Edward followed the bad example of other kings, and secured papal dispensation for an oath taken to the nation; out, viewed as a whole, his life shows a greater nobility of purpose than that of any king before him. If easily roused to anger, intolerant of injuries, and ready to dare the utmost in avenging a wrong, he was prompt to forgive, if a true submission were made to his domineering will. But at times his anger carried him away,⁴ and in private life his attendants had reason to know the weight of his hand when lifted in anger.⁵ The prolonged resistance of Archbishop Winchelsey towards the end of his reign drove him to resort to violent language, while his famous threat to Roger Bigod in 1297 exposed him to a retort which he was powerless to avenge. There was also in Edward’s character a strange lack of human feeling, which cropped up now and again. To Charles of Anjou, who wondered at the grief he evinced on hearing of his father’s death and the lack of sorrow when about the same time news reached him that his son John had also died, he made the callous remark that “Children multiplied speedily, and a son could be replaced, whereas one could not have more than one father”.¹ Again it was an in-capacity to appreciate the human side of life which led him to strain so severely the letter of the law in his relations with Wales and Scotland. It is this blemish more than any other in Edward’s character which makes appreciation stop short of enthusiasm, although he has been hailed as “the greatest king of his age, wellnigh the greatest king of any age” On the other hand his conscientious determination—in spite of advancing age and failing health—to pursue what he believed to be right, must rouse admiration. The young man of arbitrary inclinations and impetuous spirit became the great lawgiver, the great organiser, and the great politician. It would almost seem that he had taken to heart the not too friendly advice tendered him in the “Song of Lewes”: “if thou wouldst have a kingdom reverence the laws … they shine like a lamp. Therefore avoid and detest treachery; labour after truth, and hate falsehood.”²

Almost two years elapsed between Edward’s accession and his return to England, but this does not mean that he was unwilling to take up his kingly duties, since during that period he laid the foundations of the foreign policy which he was to follow continuously throughout his reign. From Trapani in Sicily, where the news of his father’s death reached him, he proceeded through southern Italy to Rome, where he received a somewhat furtive if gushing greeting from the Pope, who feaied that his resentment would be roused by the immunity enjoyed by the De Montforts for their cold-blooded murder of his cousin Henry of Cornwall at Viterbo. Welcomed in all the towns of northern Italy, he crossed the Mont Cenis, to be met by a band of English magnates who had come to congratulate him on his accession.¹ On his way to Paris he gave rein to his martial ardour by accepting the challenge of the Count of Chalons to a tournament, which, thanks to the treacherous conduct of the Count, developed into a very serious combat. This “little war of Chalons,” was the last outburst of Edward’s irresponsible youth, and when he appeared in Paris shortly after, he had put off the prince and assumed the demeanour of the king. His reception at Paris was all that he could have wished, and his cousin Philip of France entertained him right royally. Yet there were reasons which would prevent any really good understanding between the two kings, and their protestations of affection rang hollow. Edward performed homage for his French possessions, but in terms which suggested to those who heard them that there might be more claims to French territory put forward by the English King in the near future. The vague formula—“Lord King I do you homage for all the lands which I ought to hold of you”—might even conceal a definite intention to revive English claims to Normandy.² It was obvious, at any rate, that the relations between France and England were not too well defined, and when Edward left Paris for Gascony, he must have seen fresh troubles with his overlord of France looming in the distance.

In Gascony, Edward rejoined his wife, who had been visiting her brother Alfonso V. of Castile, and soon found that the turbulence of the district demanded his presence for a long period. He had in particular to repress the turbulent robber baron Gaston de Bearn, who for some time past had been disturbing the peace of Gascony. Here French intervention was probable, as the unruly Gascon nobles were only too prone to appeal to the overlord at Paris against the decisions of the English Duke. After some trouble the old freebooter was captured, and gave his word not to leave the Court without the King’s leave.³ Breaking his oath, however, he escaped to the fastnesses of the Pays de Soule, and as soon as Edward had left Gascony appealed to Philip of France. The appeal was accepted, but the French Court, unwilling to provoke Edward, decided against Gaston, who was sent to England to make his peace, and for a time was induced to refrain from rebellious actions.¹

Edward’s return home was still further delayed at the request of the Pope, who feared that if the coronation coincided with his newly summoned Council at Lyons, English ecclesiastics would be prevented from attendance there. The delay, however, was not lost time, as it enabled the King to settle a dispute with Flanders, which had troubled the commercial relations of England and that country during the last years of his father’s reign. The Countess of Flanders, having been refused an absurd claim to an English pension, had retaliated by seizing the merchandise of all English traders then in Flanders, and Edward replied by banishing all Flemings, ordering the sailors of the Cinque Ports to seize all ships sailing with wool to Flanders, and further forbidding the export of wool altogether. The effect was to bring the Flemish weaving trade to a standstill, and so great was the distress that Count Guy was compelled to offer terms. Edward decided to settle the matter at a personal interview at Montreuil, which proved entirely successful. The King made allowance for Guy’s absence on the Crusade when the hostile policy was inaugurated, and it was agreed that the losses of English and Flemish merchants through the seizures should be set off one against the other, and the balance given to those merchants who had suffered most, the pension claim being ignored.²

Thus Edward had sown the seeds of his foreign policy; he had pacified Gascony for the time being, and he had settled a trade dispute which threatened the economic welfare of his country. It was then not as a new King, but as one who had already done much for his country’s welfare, that he landed at Dover on August 2nd, and made his way by slow stages to London. The coronation festivities on August 18th were accompanied by great rejoicings, and the London citizens celebrated the event by running red and white wine from the Conduit in Cheap for all comers to drink.

The first outstanding event of Edward’s active reign was the summoning of his first general Parliament in April, 1275, to which came representatives both from towns and counties.³ The Commons, having been called upon at the outset to supplement the monetary resources of the Government, consented to the establishment of a new principle in taxation. Wool, now the chief produce of England, had been subject to arbitrary seizures in the past, but the Parliament of 1275 brought this lucrative trade under legal contribution for the royal revenue, by granting to the King and his heirs, with the consent ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• INTRODUCTORY NOTE
• PREFACE
• CONTENTS
• LIST OF MAPS
• CHAPTER I THE LEGAL REORGANISATION OF EDWARD I. (1272-1307)
• CHAPTER II THE CONQUEST OF WALES (1275-1294)
• CHAPTER III FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC AFFAIRS (1275-1290)
• CHAPTER IV THE SCOTTISH SUCCESSION AND COMPLICATIONS WITH FRANCE (1286-1304)
• CHAPTER V INTERNAL COMPLICATIONS (1279-1306)
• CHAPTER VI THE SCOTTISH REBELLION AND THE LORDS ORDAINERS (1306-1313)
• CHAPTER VII THE DECLINE AND FALL OF EDWARD II. (1313-1327)
• CHAPTER VIII THE RULE OF MORTIMER AND THE SCOTTISH WAR (1327-1340)
• CHAPTER IX THE QUARREL WITH FRANCE (1328-1343)
• CHAPTER X CREÇY, CALAIS, AND THE BLACK DEATH (1343-1349)
• CHAPTER XI POICTIERS AND BRÉTIGNY (1350-1360)
• CHAPTER XII THE WAR AFTER BRÉTIGNY (1360-1377)
• CHAPTER XIII POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS (1333-1377)
• CHAPTER XIV POLITICAL RIVALRIES AND THE GREAT REVOLT (1377-1381)
• CHAPTER XV THE CROWN AND THE LORDS APPELLANT (1381-1389)
• CHAPTER XVI THE DESPOTISM OF RICHARD II. (1389-1399)
• CHAPTER XVII “THE UNQUIET TIME OF HENRY IV.” (1399-1405)
• CHAPTER XVIII THE TRIUMPH OF HENRY IV. AND THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES (1405-1413)
• CHAPTER XIX HENRY V. AND THE FRENCH WAR (1413-1421)
• CHAPTER XX THE FAILURE OF HENRY V. (1417-1422)
• CHAPTER XXI GOVERNMENT BY COUNCIL (1422-1435)
• CHAPTER XXII PARTY POLITICS AND THE END OF THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR (1435-1453)
• CHAPTER XXIII THE BEGINNINGS OF YORK AND LANCASTER (1450-1459)
• CHAPTER XXIV EDWARD IV. KING AND EXILE (1459-1470)
• CHAPTER XXV THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES (1470-1485)
• LIST OF AUTHORITIES
• INDEX