Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

CAMEO XXXIII. THE ENGLISH JUSTINIAN. (1272-1292.)

_King of England_.

1272. Edward I.

_Kings of Scotland_.

1249. Alexander III.

1285. Margaret.

_Kings of France_.

1270. Philippe III.

1235. Philippe IV.

_Emperor of Germany_.

1273. Rodolph I.

_Popes_.

1271. Gregory X.

1276. Innocent V.

1277. John XXI.

1277. Nicholas III.

1281. Martin IV.

1288. Nicholas IV.

Never was coronation attended by more outward splendor or more heartfelt joy than was that of Edward I. and Eleanor of Castile, when, fresh from the glory of their Crusade, they returned to their kingdom.

Edward was the restorer of peace after a lengthened civil strife; his prowess was a just subject of national pride, and the affection of his subjects was further excited by the perils he had encountered. Not only had he narrowly escaped the dagger of the Eastern assassin, but while at Bordeaux, during his return, while the royal pair were sitting on the same couch, a flash of lightning had passed between them, leaving them uninjured, but killing two attendants who stood behind them. At Chalons-sur-Marne he had likewise been placed in great danger by treachery. The Count de Chalons had invited him to a tournament, and he had accepted, contrary to the advice of the Pope, who warned him of evil designs; but he declared that no king ever refused such a challenge, and arrived at Chalons with a gallant following. The Pope's suspicions were verified; the Count, after breaking a lance with the King, made a sudden, unchivalrous attack on him, throwing his arms round his body, and striving to hurl him from the saddle; but Edward sat firm as a rock, and, touching his horse with his spur, caused it to bound forward, dragging the Count to the ground, where he lay, encumbered with his heavy armor; and Edward, after harmlessly ringing on the steel with his sword, forced him to surrender to an archer, as one unworthy to be reckoned a knight. A fight had, in the meantime, taken place between the attendants on either side, and so many of the men of the French party were killed, that the fray was termed the Little Battle of Chalons.

Two years had elapsed since the death of King Henry, when, on the 18th of August, 1274, the city of London welcomed their gallant, crusading King. The rejoicings attested both his popularity and the prosperity which his government had restored, for each house along the streets was decked with silk and tapestry hangings, the aldermen showered handfuls of gold and silver from their windows, and the fountains flowed with white and red wine. The King rode along the streets, in the pride of manhood, accompanied by his beautiful and beloved Eleanor; by his brother Edmund and his young wife, Eveline of Lancaster; his sister Margaret and her husband, Alexander II., the excellent King of Scotland; the young Princess Eleanor, a girl of eleven, who alone survived of the children left in England, and her infant brother Alfonso, who had been born at Maine, and was looked on as heir to the throne. The Princess, Joan of Acre, was left with her grandmother, the Queen of Castile.

The two kings, the princes, and nobles, on arriving at Westminster Abbey, released their gallant steeds to run loose among the people, a free gift to whoever should he able to catch them; for Edward had learnt from his kindly father that the poor should have a plenteous share in all his festivities.

There stood the West Minster on the bank of the Thames, rising amid green fields and trees, at a considerable distance from the walled city, and only connected with it by here and there a convent or church. Still incomplete, the two fair towers showed the fresh creaminess of new stonework, their chiselings and mouldings as yet untouched by time, unsoiled by smoke, when Edward and his five hundred bold vassals sprang from their steeds before the gates.

Among the train came a captive. Gaston de Moncda, Count de Bearn, one of his Gascon vassals, had offended against him, and appealing to the suzerain, the King of France, had been by him delivered up to Edward's justice, and was forced to ride in the gorgeous procession with a halter round his neck.

As soon as Archbishop Kilwardby had anointed and crowned the King and Queen, and the barons offered their homage, the unfortunate culprit came forward on his knees to implore pardon, and Edward graced his coronation by an act of clemency, restoring Gaston fully to his lands and honors, and winning him thus to be his friend forever.

The royal banquet was held in Westminster Hall, and far beyond it. Wooden buildings had been erected with openings at the top to let out the smoke, and here, for a whole fortnight, cooking and feasting went on without intermission. Every comer, of every degree, was made welcome, and enjoyed the cheer, the pageantries, and the religious ceremonies of the coronation. Three hundred and eighty head of cattle, four hundred and thirty sheep, four hundred and fifty swine, besides eighteen wild boars, and two hundred and seventy-eight flitches of bacon, with poultry to the number of 19,660, were only a part of the provisions consumed.

However, the country still felt the effects of the lawless reign of Henry III., and Edward's first care was to set affairs on a more regular footing. He sent commissioners to inquire into the title-deeds by which all landed proprietors held their estates, and, wherever these were defective, exacted, a fee for freshly granting them. The inquisition might be expedient, considering the late condition of the nation, but the King's own impoverished exchequer caused it to be carried on ungraciously, and great offence was given. When called on to prove his claims, the Earl Warrenne drew his sword, saying, "This is the instrument by which I hold my lands, and by the same I mean to defend them. Our forefathers, who came in with William, the Bastard, acquired their lands by their good swords. He did not conquer alone; they were helpers and sharers with him." The stout Earl's title was truly found amply sufficient!'

Not so was it with the Jews, who inhabited England in great numbers, and were found through purchase, usury, or mortgage, to have become possessors of various estates, which conferred on them the power of appearing on juries, of, in some cases, presenting to church benefices, and of the wardship of vassals. This was a serious grievance; and the King interfered by decreeing that, in every instance, the lands should be restored either to the original heirs on repayment of the original loan, or disposed of to other Christians on the same terms. The King was, by long custom of the realm, considered the absolute master of the life and property of every Jew in his dominions, so that he was thought to be only taking his own when he exacted sums from them, or forced them to pay him a yearly rate for permission to live in his country and to act as money-lenders. Edward thus believed himself to be making a sacrifice for the general good when he forbade the Jews ever to lend money on usury, and in compensation granted them permission to trade without paying toll; and he further took the best means he could discover for procuring the conversion of this people. The Friars Preachers were commanded to instruct them, and the royal bailiffs to compel their attendance on this teaching; every favor was shown to proselytes, and a hospital was built for the support of the poorer among them, and maintained by the poll-tax obtained from their race by the King. Should a Jew be converted, the King at once gave up his claim to his property, only stipulating that half should go to support this foundation. One young maiden, child of a wealthy Jew of London, on being converted, became a godchild of Edward's eldest daughter, Eleanor, whose name she received; and she was shortly after married to the Count de la Marcho, the King's cousin, and one of the noble line of Lusignan-a plain proof that in the royal family there was not the loathing for the Israelite race that existed in Spain.

The Jews were obliged to wear a distinctive mark on their dress-a yellow fold of cloth cut in the form of the two tables of the Law; and, thus distinguished, often became a mark for popular odium, which fastened every accusation upon them, from the secret murder of Christian children to the defacing of the King's coin. There was, in fact, a great quantity of light money in circulation, and as halfpence and farthings were literally what their name declares-silver pennies cut into halves and quarters-it was easy for a thief to help himself to a portion of the edge. However, Edward called in these mutilated pieces, and issued a coinage of halfpence and farthings-that which raised the delusive hopes of the Welsh. The clipping became more evident than ever, and the result was an order, that all suspected of the felony should be arrested on the same day. Jews, as well as Christians were seized; the possession of the mutilated coin was taken as a proof of guilt; and in 1279, after a trial that occupied some months, and in which popular prejudice would doubtless make the case strong against the Jews, two hundred and eighty persons, male and female, were hanged on the same day; after which a pardon was proclaimed.

The English nation continued to hold the Jews in detestation, which was regarded as a religious duty, and, year after year, petitioned the King to drive them out of his dominions; but his patience was sustained by continual gifts from the persecuted race until the year 1287, when, for some unknown offence, he threw into prison the whole of them in his dominions, up to the number of 15,000; and though their release was purchased by a gift of L12,000, in 1290, their sentence of banishment was pronounced. He permitted them to carry away their property with them, and sent his officers to protect them from injury or insult in their embarkation; but in some instances the sailors, who hated their freight, threw them overboard, and seized their treasures. These murders, when proved, were punished with death; but it was hard to gain justice for a Jew against a Christian: and the edict of banishment was regarded by the nation as such a favor, that the King was rewarded by a grant of a tenth from the clergy and a fifteenth from the laity.

The merchants had earlier given him a large subsidy as a return for the treaty which he had made in their favor with Flanders, which derived its wool from England. Edward was very anxious to promote manufactures here, and had striven to do so by forbidding the importation of foreign cloth; but this not succeeding, the mutual traffic was placed on a friendly footing. There was violent jealousy of foreigners among the English, and it was only in Edward's time that merchants of other countries were allowed to settle in England, and then only under heavy restrictions.

Edward I. was the sovereign who, more than any other since Alfred, contributed to bring the internal condition of England into a state of security for life and limb. Robberies and murders had become frightfully common; so much so, that the Statute of Winton, in 1285, enacted that no ditch, bush, or tree, capable of hiding a man, should be left within two hundred feet of any highway. If anything like this had been previously in force, it was no wonder that Davydd of Wales objected to having a road made through his forest.

In all walled towns the gates were to be kept shut from sunset to sunrise, and any stranger found at large after dark was liable to be seized by the watch; nor could he find lodging at night unless his host would be his surety. Thieves seem to have gone about in bands, so that their capture was a matter of danger and difficulty, and therefore, on the alarm of a felony, every man was to issue forth with armor according to his degree, and raise the hue and cry from town to town till the criminal was seized and delivered to the sheriff. The whole hundred was answerable for his capture-a remnant of the old Saxon law, and a most wise regulation, since it rendered justice the business of every man, and also accustomed the peasantry to the use of arms, the great cause of the English victories. Judges were first appointed to go on circuit in the year 1285, when they were sent into every shire two or three times a year to hold a general jail delivery. But Edward had to form his judges as well as his constitution, for, in 1289, he discovered that the whole bench were in the habit of receiving bribes, from the Grand Justiciary downward: whereupon he threw them all into the Tower, banished the chief offenders, degraded and fined the rest, and caused future judges to be sworn to take neither gift nor fee, only to accept as much as a breakfast, provided there was no excess.

Still, the jurymen, [Footnote: On Thomas a Becket's last journey to Canterbury, Raoul de Broc's followers had cut off the tails of his pack-horses. It was a vulgar reproach to the men of Kent that the outrage had been punished by the growth of the same appendage on the whole of the inhabitants of the county; and, whereas the English populace applied the accusation to the Kentishmen, foreigners extended it to the whole nation when in a humor for insult and abuse, such as that of this unhappy prince.] who were as much witnesses as what we now call jurors, were often liable to be beaten and maltreated in revenge, and officers, called "justices of _trailebaston"_ were sent to search out the like offences, which they did with success and good-will; and in, order that speedy justice might be done in cases of minor importance, local magistrates were appointed, the commencement of our present justices of the peace. They were at first chosen by the votes of the freeholders, but in Edward III.'s time began to be nominated by the Crown.

Robert Burnel, the Chancellor, Bishop of Bath and Wells, probably had a great share in these enactments. He was a better Chancellor than Bishop, but he left to his see the beautiful episcopal palace still in existence at Wells. He also built a splendid castle at his native place, Acton Burnel, where some of the early Parliaments were held.

These Parliaments were only summoned by Edward I. when in great want of money, for in general he raised the needful sums by gifts and talliages, and only in cases of unusual pressure did he call on his subjects for further aid. Four knights were chosen from each shire, and two burgesses [Footnote: For a lively picture of a trial of the thirteenth century, see Sir F. Palgrave's "Merchant and Friar."] from every town, of consequence; and, besides, bishops and the barons, who had their seats by their rank; but the two houses were not always divided:-except, indeed, that sometimes the Northern representatives met at York, the Southern at Northampton, and the county palatine of Durham had a little parliament to itself. Serving in Parliament was expensive and unpopular, and the sheriff of the county had not only to preside over the election of the member, but to send him safe to the place of meeting; and often the Commons broke up as soon as they had granted the required sum, leaving the Lords to deliberate on the laws, or to bring grievances before the King, such things being quite beyond their reach.

It was a time of great prosperity to the whole country, and such internal tranquillity had scarcely prevailed since the time of Henry II., when the difference between Saxon and Norman was far less smoothed down than at present, and the feudal system weighed far more heavily.

Splendid castles were built, the King setting the example, and making more arrangements for comfort in the interior than had yet been ventured upon; and sacred architecture came to the highest perfection it has ever attained.

Wherever we find a portion of our cathedrals with deep mouldings in massive walls, slender columns of darker marble standing detached from freestone piers, sharply-pointed arches, capitals of rich foliage folding over the hollow formed by their curve, and windows either narrow lancet, or with the flowing lines of flamboyant tracery, there we are certain to hear that this part was added in the thirteenth century.

Edward gave liberally to the Church, especially to the order of Dominican, or Preaching Friars; but it was found that in some instances the clergy had worked on men's consciences to obtain from them the bequest of lands to the injury of their heirs, and a statute was therefore passed to prevent such legacies from being valid unless they received the sanction of the Crown. This was called the Statute of _Mortmain_, or Dead Hands, because the framers of the act considered the hands of the monastic orders as dead and unprofitable.

Even the world itself could hardly award the meed of unprofitable to the studies of Roger Bacon, a native of Ilchester, born in 1214, who, after studying at Oxford and at Paris, became a member of the Franciscan, or Minorite Friars, and settled again at Oxford, where he pursued his studies under the patronage of Bishop Robert Grostete. He made himself a perfect master of Greek in order to understand Aristotle in the original, and working on by himself he proceeded far beyond any chemist of his time in discoveries in natural philosophy. Grostete and the more enlightened men of the university provided him with means to carry on his experiments, and, in twenty years he had expended no less than L2,000: but not without mighty results; for he ascertained the true length of the solar year, made many useful discoveries in chemistry and medicine, and anticipated many of the modern uses of glass, learning the powers of convex and concave lenses for the telescope, microscope, burning-glasses, and the camera obscura.

Above all, he was the inventor of gunpowder, the compound which was destined to change the whole character of warfare and the destiny of nations. But he was too much in advance of his time to be understood, and the friars of his order, becoming terrified by his experiments, decided that he was a magician, and after the death of his friend Grostete, kept him in close confinement, and only permitted one copy of his works to pass out of the monastery, and this, which was sent to the Pope, Clement IV., procured his liberation. A few years after, the General of the Franciscans, again taking fright, imprisoned him once more, and this lasted eleven or twelve years; but Pope Nicholas IV. again released him, and neither age nor imprisonment could break down his energy; he continued steadily to pursue his discoveries, and add a further polish to his various works, till his death, in 1292. Little as he was appreciated, he left a strong impression on the popular mind.

Tradition declares that he constructed a huge head of brass, which uttered the words, "Time is! Time was! Time will be!" and has connected this with Brazen-Nose College, which, not having been founded till one hundred years after, must in that case, as Fuller says, make time to be again.

He is a hero of the popular chap-books of old times, where he and his associate, Friar Bungay, are represented as playing tricks on his servant Miles, and as summoning the spirits of Julius Caesar and Hercules for the edification of the kings of France and England, from whom, however, he would accept no reward. Legends vary between his being flown away with bodily by demons, and his making a grand repentance, when he confessed that knowledge had been a heavy burden, that kept down good thoughts, burnt his books, parted with his goods, and caused himself to be walled up in a cell in the church and fed through a hole, and finally dug his grave with his own nails! Thus, probably, has ignorant tradition perverted the sense that coming death would surely bring, that earthly knowledge is but vanity.

Still worse has fared his friend, Michael Scott of Balwirie, called by the learned the Mathematician, by the unlearned, the Wizard. After the usual course of university learning at Oxford and Paris, he went to Italy, where he gained the patronage of the Emperor Friedrich II. He was learned in Greek and in Arabic, and an excellent mathematician, but he bewildered himself with alchemy and astrology; and, though he died unmolested in his own country, in 1290 his fame remained in no good odor. Dante describes him among those whose faces were turned backward, because they had refused to turn the right way:

"Michele Scotto fu, che veramente

De le magiche frode seppe il gioco."

In Scotland marvellous tales were current of him, and his own clansman, Sir Walter, in his lay, has spread the mysterious tale of the Wizard and his mighty book far and wide.

It was a period of very considerable learning among the studious among the clergy in all countries, and every art of peace was making rapid progress in England, under the fostering care of the King and Queen. No sovereign was more respected in Europe than Edward; his contemporary, Dante, cites him as an instance of a gallant son of a feeble parent: and he was often called on as the arbiter of disputes, as when the kings of Arragon and France defied each other to a wager of battle, to take place in his dominions in Southern France, which combat, however, never took place. He was a most faithful and affectionate husband and indulgent father, and the household rolls afford evidences of the kindly intercourse between him and his numerous daughters, judging by the interchange of gifts between them. Eleanor, the eldest, who as princess could only give a gold ring, when Duchesse de Bar brought as a Christmas-gift a leathern dressing-case, containing a comb, a mirror silver-gilt, and a silver bodkin, so much valued by the King that he kept them with him as long as he lived.

Joan of Acre, a wilful, lively girl, was wedded when very young to her father's turbulent friend, Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester; Margaret was married, at fifteen, to the Duke of Brabant; and Mary was devoted to the cloister. She became a nun of Fontevraud at the priory Ambresbury, in accordance with the exhortations of the clergy to her parents; but there was not much vocation to the cloister in her disposition, and she was as often present at court pageants as her secular sisters. The Abbess of Fontevraud would fain have had the princess among her own nuns, but Mary resisted, and remained in the branch establishment, probably by exerting her influence over her father, who seems seldom to have refused anything to his children.

Stern in executing his duty, gentle to the distressed, most devout in religious exercises, pure in life, true to his word, a wise lawgiver, and steady in putting down vice, Edward seemed to be well deserving of the honor of being the nephew of St. Louis, and to be walking in his footsteps, but with greater force of character and good sense. The Holy Land was still the object of his thoughts, and he had serious intentions of attempting to rescue it, with forces now more complete and better trained than those which he had drawn together in his younger days. His views of this kind were strengthened by a serious illness, and he announced his determination to take the Cross.

But in the twentieth year of Edward's reign came his great temptation. Ambition was the latent fault of his character, and a decision was brought before him that placed a flattering prize within his grasp. He yielded, and seized the prey; injustice, violence, anger, and cruelty followed, promises were violated, his subjects oppressed, his honor forfeited, and his name stained. From the time that Edward I. gave way to the lust of conquest, his history is one of painful deterioration.

It was unfortunate for him that, at the very time that the lure was held out to him, he was deprived of the gentle wife whose influence had always turned him to the better course. Eleanor of Castile was on her way to join him on his first expedition to the Scottish border, when she fell sick at Grantham, in Lincolnshire; and though he travelled day and night to see her, she died before his arrival, on the 29th of November, 1292. In overwhelming grief Edward accompanied her funeral to Westminster, a journey of thirteen days. Each evening the bier rested in the market-place of the town, where the procession halted, till the clergy came to convey it with solemn chantings to the chief church, where it was placed before the high altar. At each of these resting-places Edward raised a richly-carved market cross in memory of his queen; but, of the whole thirteen, Northampton and Waltham are the only towns that have retained these beautiful monuments to the gracious Eleanor, one of the best-beloved names of our English history.