Part 21

We have already dwelt at some length upon Edward’s character as a legislator; and his high rank as a commander requires no proof from us. But England, at this important crisis in her history, needed a man of power in a third capacity—that of a _ruler;_ and she found this also in Edward. Two reigns, of sovereigns in various ways unfit to rule, had so far relaxed the bonds of society, and weakened the authority of the law, as to call loudly for the effectual interposition of some one whose power should be sufficient to make the laws not only theoretically just, but also practically useful.

Forty or fifty years before this period, Henry III. had been obliged to sit in person on the bench of justice at Winchester, in order to secure the punishment of offenders who had rendered even the roads of Hampshire dangerous. Some years later we have seen earl Warenne assailing, sword in hand, one of the king’s judges in Westminster Hall. Edward had himself suppressed this mutiny; and, persevering in his determination to make the law respected, he next brought the judges themselves to trial, for corrupting that which it was their especial duty to preserve. His correction of the two earls, Hereford and Gloucester, who, in his twentieth year, had broken out into a vehement personal warfare; and his Statute of Winchester “for preserving the public peace and preventing robberies,” were further proofs of his sedulous and firm resolve to give his people the benefit of a government of law and order. But, about the thirty‐second year of his reign, he found a new evil uprearing itself; and, without any delay, he applied to it the most suitable remedy—a Special Commission.

The mischief itself, which this new authority was intended to suppress, was described in the writs which gave the commission its existence. Bodies of men had associated themselves together in various parts of the country, who, “for certain rewards, bargained to beat, wound, or evil‐intreat persons named to them, at fairs, markets, or other places;” and, by the fear which they inspired, these ruffians deterred the sufferers from preferring indictments against them. Such an evil required instant and strong‐handed suppression, and this it received at Edward’s hands.

Peter Langtoft, after describing the siege and fall of Stirling, and the death of earl Warenne, proceeds to describe this evil, and the king’s plan for its suppression. He says—

“After the interment the king took his way; To the south he went, through Lindesay; He inquired, as he went, who did such trespass; Brake his peace with deed, while he in Scotland was? Of such should be spoken, if men of them plaint, Those that the peace had broken, if they might be attaint. Wise men of God gave answer to the king, That such folks were, it was a certain thing; Through the land is done such great grievance, That if not mended soon, a war may rise of chance. These contenders where’er they assigned a place that is, There they come together, and made a sikerness (engagement) That they shall all go, to whom or where they will, To rob, beat, or slay, against all manner skill. They offer a man to beat, for two shillings or three; With piked staves great, beaten shall he be: In fair or market they shall seek him out; All the land is set with such folks stout.

* * * * *

For men of such manners, unless there be some justice, In some few years, perchance, a war shall rise. The king heard all they said—the plaint of each town; And gave them a new name, and called them ‘Trailbastoun.’

* * * * *

The king through the land did seek men of renown, And with the justices them bound, to sit on Trailbastoun; Some on quest they ’demned to be bounden in prisons; And those that fled they banisht as the king’s felons.”

The phrase _trail‐baston_ is, in old French, “draw the staff.” The use and intent of it in the present case has been learnedly discussed by various writers; but it appears to be beyond a doubt that, as Sir Francis Palgrave remarks, “it designates the _offender_ and the _offence_, not the court or tribunal.” In the “Chronicle of Rochester,” already referred to—on the margin of which we find various pictorial illustrations—the representation here given is of two men fighting with bludgeons. And it is evident that the real object of this special commission was to put down, in a resolute and summary manner, what in modern phrase would be styled “club‐law.” These commissions seem to have been so useful and efficient, as to be continued for about eighty years, or until the middle of the reign of Richard II. Stowe speaks of them as holding special sessions, occasionally, in the metropolis; mentioning particularly “at the stone‐cross near the Strand, over against the bishop of Coventry’s house;” and sometimes within that prelate’s mansion.

Calling to mind the terrible example made of the judges in the seventeenth year of Edward’s reign, and combining with it this special and vigorous suppression of provincial disorders, we cannot fail to be reminded of the portrait sketched by the laureate in his recent Idylls; or avoid a question, whether the poet had not this sovereign in his memory when he drew such a portrait:—

“The blameless king went forth and cast his eyes On whom his father Uther left in charge Long since to guard the justice of the king. He looked, and found them wanting; and as now Men weed the white horse on the Berkshire hills, To keep him bright and clean as heretofore, He rooted out the slothful officer Or guilty, which, for bribe had winked at wrong; And in their chairs set up a stronger race, With hearts and hands … … and moving everywhere, Cleared the dark places and let in the law, And broke the bandit‐holds, and cleansed the land.”

One or two other incidents, bearing upon the same point in the king’s character, fall in our way at this period;—that is, in the last three or four years of Edward’s life.

Sir Nicholas de Segrave was a knight of distinction, probably a brother of John de Segrave, who commanded the English forces at Roslyn. Sir John de Cromwell accused him of treason. Segrave, disliking the formalities of a legal investigation, challenged his accuser to decide the question by wager of battle. But Edward, whose discerning mind always revolted from the absurd idea of deciding a question of _right_ or _wrong_ by mere physical force, and who had, twenty years before, protested against such a proposal when made by two foreign princes, very naturally refused his consent. The combatants, apparently, thought that they might evade his decision, by crossing the sea, to fight the duel in France. Segrave returned, and was immediately arrested for disregarding the king’s prohibition. The case, doubtless, was a novel one, and when the offender was brought to trial, the judges remained three days in deliberation; and at last declared the offender to be liable to the punishment of death, and the forfeiture of his property; but added, gratuitously, that “it was in the king’s power to pardon him.” Edward’s indignant exclamation seems to reveal one point in his character. “Foolish men,” he cried out, “after so long a deliberation, to tell me that it is in my power to have mercy! Why, I will do that for a dog who casts himself on my grace!—of what value, then, is such a recommendation? However, put your sentence into writing, that it may remain law for the future.” Segrave was then remanded to prison; but after a few days, thirty knights petitioned for his pardon, and offered to be sureties for his future good behaviour. So entreated, Edward gave him a free pardon, and released his property from forfeiture.

In the “Placita Roll” of 1304 there occurs the following entry:—

“Roger de Heefham complained to the king, that whereas he was the justice appointed to hear and determine a dispute between Mary, the wife of William de Braose, plaintiff, and William de Brewes, defendant, respecting a sum of eight hundred marks which she claimed from him, and had decided in favour of the former; the said William, immediately after judgment was pronounced, contemptuously approached the bar, and asked the said Roger, in gross and upbraiding language, if he would defend that judgment; and he afterwards insulted him, in bitter and taunting terms, as he was going through the exchequer‐chamber, saying, ‘Roger, Roger, thou hast now obtained thy will of that thou hast long desired.’

“For this offence, William de Brewes, being arraigned before the king and his council, acknowledged his guilt; and because contempt and disrespect, as well towards the king’s ministers as towards the king himself or his court, are very odious to the king, as hath of late expressly appeared when his majesty expelled from his household, for nearly half a year, his dearly‐beloved son, Edward prince of Wales, on account of certain improper words which he had addressed to one of his ministers, and suffered him not to enter his presence until he had rendered satisfaction to the said officer for his offence—it was agreed by the king and his council that the aforesaid William should proceed unattired, bareheaded, and holding a torch in his hand, from the king’s bench in Westminster Hall, in full court, to the exchequer, and there ask pardon from the aforesaid Roger, and make an apology for his trespass, and shall be afterwards committed to the Tower, during the king’s pleasure.”

The pointed reference here made to the king’s anger and stern rebukes of his son, naturally directs our thoughts to this passage in Edward’s life. His prescient consciousness of the young prince’s weakness, and his strong dislike to Gaveston, his chief seducer, are already well known. We have alluded to one distinguished man, who is indicated in the above extract, as the minister with whom the young prince had been brought into collision. Walter Langton, bishop of Chester (sometimes called bishop of Lichfield or Coventry), was the king’s treasurer; and the prince had a stated income payable out of the royal exchequer. Under such guidance as that of Gaveston, it was inevitable that this income would prove insufficient; and that urgent demands for larger supplies would naturally follow. Hence the quarrels and the violent language, alluded to in the sentence on William de Brewes. Another glimpse of light on this subject is afforded by a letter from the prince to the earl of Lincoln, which has recently been discovered in the chapterhouse at Westminster. In that letter the prince thus describes these circumstances:—

“On Sunday, the 13th of June, we came to Midhurst, where we found our lord the king, our father. On the Monday following, on account of certain words which, it had been reported to the king, had taken place between us and the bishop of Chester, he was so enraged with us that he has forbidden us, or any of our retinue, to dare to enter his house; and he has forbidden all the people of his household and of the exchequer to give or lend us anything for the support of our household. We are staying at Midhurst to wait his pleasure and favour, and we shall follow after him, as well as we are able, at a distance of ten or twelve miles from his house, until we have been able to recover his good will; which we very much desire. Wherefore we especially entreat you, that on your return from Canterbury, you would come towards us; for we have great need of your aid and your counsel.”

The firmness and severity of the king, in this instance, was of no ordinary kind, and we know from the after‐life of the younger Edward, that extreme severity was absolutely necessary. The royal prohibition was so effectual, that the young prince encountered real difficulties, and the king was induced, in the course of July to recal his prohibition, and to allow things to revert to their ordinary course. But so long as Gaveston was the prince’s companion, it was inevitable that his course should be a vicious and a wretched one. The quarrels with the king’s treasurer recurred continually, and in 1305 we read that—

“This year king Edward put his son, prince Edward, in prison, because that he had riotously broken into the park of Walter Langton, bishop of Chester, and destroyed the deer. And because the prince had done this deed by the procurement of a lewd and wanton person, one Piers Gaveston, an esquire of Gascony, the king banished him (Gaveston) out of the realm; lest the prince, who delighted much in his company, might, by his evil and wanton conduct, fall into evil and naughty rule.”[116]

We now know, by the sad fate of Edward II., how well‐founded were his father’s apprehensions. We see, too, how great was Gaveston’s ascendancy, and his consequent audacity, in that he appears very quickly to have stolen back again into the prince’s society. For we find an ordinance for his banishment, dated “Lanercost, Feb. 26, 1307,” in which he is commanded to swear that he will not return; and the prince, that he will not recal him. And so strong was the conviction which had fastened on the king’s mind, of the fatal tendency of this friendship, that one of his last injunctions to the prince, just before his death, was, _never to recal Gaveston_. That injunction, however, like all others, was disregarded; and the loss of his throne, and of his life, was young Edward’s well‐merited punishment.

Footnotes:

[110] Matthew of Westminster.

[111] And not only so; but we find writs of the date of May, 1300, appointing three justices in Leicestershire, and the like in other counties, “to hear and determine, in a summary manner, all complaints of transgressions against the charters.”

[112] See Appendix.

[113] “History of Lichfield Cathedral,” p. 57.

[114] Thus Mr. Tytler tells us of Brace’s conduct in 1297;—that “Bruce went to Carlisle with a numerous attendance of his friends, and was compelled to make oath on the consecrated host, that he would continue faithful to Edward. To give a proof of his fidelity, he ravaged the estates of Sir W. Douglas, then with Wallace, seized his wife and children, and carried them to Annandale. Having thus defeated suspicion, and saved his lands, he privately assembled his father’s retainers, talked lightly of an extorted oath, _from which the pope would absolve him_, and urged them to follow him against the English.” (Vol. i., p. 129.)

[115] In these remarkable words, occurring in a statute of the realm, and dictated, we cannot doubt, by Edward’s own lips, we seem to have a glimpse of his earnest and sincere character. Believing, as all men in his day believed, that there was a Pontiff at Rome who had full power “to bind and to loose,” he had applied to that authority, and had been loosed, so he was assured, from an engagement which was mischievous in itself, and which had been improperly extorted from him. Yet, with this dispensation in his possession, what follows? He himself tells us: “sleepless nights.” What occasioned them? Evidently that first principle of all his conduct of which Mr. Pearson takes notice: “He never broke his word.” No papal bull, no external decision of any kind, could thoroughly reconcile him to an infraction of the Scriptural rule: “He sweareth to his neighbour, and disappointeth him not, though it were to his own hurt.”

[116] Caxton’s Chronicle, Matthew of Westminster, Fabyan, Holinshed.

XII.

THE SETTLEMENT OF SCOTLAND, A.D. 1303-1305.

Some historians, in recounting the events of Edward’s reign, have spoken of three, or even of four conquests of Scotland. But, strictly speaking, the term can only be applied to his first march through the kingdom, in 1296; and his last great expedition, in 1303-4. On both of these occasions the land was thoroughly possessed and quieted; and when Edward returned to England, he left not behind him, in all Scotland, in the open field, one declared foe. Our present chapter will be given to the description of the second of these two progresses.

In the spring of the year 1303 it began to be apparent that both the pope and the king of France, having no real care or concern for the Scots, would at last withdraw that support which they had hitherto given to the discontented in that country. Philip was anxious to be at liberty to devote his whole attention to the affairs of Flanders; and he readily agreed to a treaty which was made in the course of this spring, by which Edward was restored to the possession of Gascony, without any proviso or stipulation on behalf of the Scotch. No such treaty was required in the case of the pope. Boniface had already done all that he had promised or intended to do in behalf of that people. He had interfered in their favour, and had gained them a respite of one or two years—but permanently to quarrel with such a prince as Edward, in favour of a poor and distant nation like Scotland, was altogether foreign to his interest, as well as to his inclination.

The pope, then, having manifested his views, by addressing a letter to the Scotch bishops, enjoining on them a peaceful and dutiful demeanour towards the king of England, and the treaty with Philip having been fully agreed upon, Edward felt himself, at last, at liberty to turn his undivided attention to the affairs of Scotland; and, with his wonted decision of character, he resolved to bring all questions, in that country, to a termination by one sufficient and well‐considered effort. On the 20th of January he wrote from his castle at Guildford, to more than twenty of his chief barons, desiring them to proceed, with their whole power, to the aid of John de Segrave, the governor of Scotland, who was about to march from Berwick to Edinburgh, and whom he, the king, intended shortly to join.

Before Edward, however, could reach Scotland, Segrave, like earl Warenne at Stirling, had allowed himself, by carelessness and over‐confidence, to be surprised and defeated. He had commenced his march towards Edinburgh with a force of about 20,000 men. But these he had formed into three divisions; and these divisions marched on at a considerable distance from each other, and without keeping up any proper communication. Comyn, one of the so‐called “regents,” and Sir Simon Fraser, lay between Segrave’s force and Edinburgh, with about 8,000 men. They doubtless had good intelligence of Segrave’s movements, and of the disposition of his forces. Very naturally, and very judiciously, they made a night‐march, and took the first division of Segrave’s force by surprise, at the dawn of day; routing and dispersing it, and taking many prisoners. Shortly afterwards the second division came in sight, and the Scotch, still superior in numbers, and exulting in success, attacked and defeated it also. The third division, under Sir Robert Neville, had met with the fugitives from the first two engagements, and were thus warned in time; and they repulsed the Scotch, and recovered some of the prisoners.[117] Still, on the whole, “the battle of Roslyn” was a serious defeat for the English, and hastened Edward’s journey into Scotland, which he reached soon after Easter.

In this engagement at Roslyn, one of the king’s officers, called “Ralph the Cofferer,” was taken prisoner by Sir Simon Fraser. He offered a large ransom; but Fraser himself “first struck off the hands of the unhappy priest, and then severed his head from his body.”[118]

This same Fraser afterwards craved Edward’s mercy, and received it, on condition of leaving the country. This promise, like almost every other engagement made at that time by Scotchmen, was unblushingly violated, and Fraser was again found in arms against that sovereign who had already granted him his life. He was taken and executed as a traitor, and his execution is one of those which are said to “brand Edward’s memory with the charge of cruelty.” The position, in fact, which is taken by most Scottish writers, seems to be this: that these men, because they were in arms for “independence,” were entitled to commit any atrocity that they pleased; but that, when the fortune of war went against them, it was Edward’s duty to grant them, at least, a free pardon, and in some cases a reward!

The momentary advantage gained by the Scotch at Roslyn had no influence on the fate of the campaign. Edward arrived in Scotland soon after Easter, having summoned his military tenants to meet him at Roxburgh by Whitsuntide. He then passed on to Edinburgh “without challenge or interruption,” in the early part of June. He himself marched up the eastern side of the kingdom, having given his son the command of a division which proceeded along the western coast. Having been warned, by the experience of the last four years, of the difficulties created by the devastating system, the king had now made ample provision, and his fleets accompanied his march with abundant supplies. From Edinburgh he proceeded, by Linlithgow and Clackmannan, to Perth. But this march involved the passage of the Forth—the attempt to pass which river had occasioned earl Warenne’s defeat at Stirling. Lord Hailes and Mr. Tytler differ as to Edward’s plans. Hailes says—“The Scotch fondly imagined that Edward would attempt to force the passage” of the narrow bridge, as Cressingham had done. “But the prudence of Edward frustrated their expectations. Having discovered a ford at some distance, he crossed the river at the head of his whole cavalry.”[119] This ford, it will be remembered, had been mentioned to earl Warenne in 1297, by Sir Richard Lundin. Mr. Tytler, however, thinks that “Edward did intend to pass the river by the bridge; which, on his arrival, he found had been destroyed by the Scots.” He observes that, “had the leaders profited by the lesson taught them by Wallace, they would have kept up the bridge, and attacked the English when defiling over it.”[120]

A singular notion Mr. Tytler must have had of the sagacity of a commander of whose military skill he often speaks with admiration, to suppose it possible that he could have repeated the folly and misconduct of Cressingham and Warenne, with the lamentable results of which he was so well acquainted. It is true, indeed, that Edward, prepared for all contingencies, would have passed the river by _a_ bridge, if the fords had been found impracticable. Peter Langtoft explains the whole transaction:—

“Counsel he had of one, a bridge he should wrihte (erect), Boats and barges ilkon, with flukes to make them tighte, The Scottish sea to pass, _if that he had neede;_ That passage never was, he rode over on his steede. The Scots they saw him coming, and fleeand fast they did, Moors and mountains over, away they drive for dread.”

This plan of a pontoon‐bridge was not new to the king. The strong rings and bolts by which he proposed to make fast a bridge over the Menai Strait, twenty years before this period, are even now to be traced on the banks of that water.[121] He doubtless, therefore, was prepared to take a similar course again, if it should be needful; but he could scarcely have been left in ignorance of Sir Richard Lundin’s suggestion. And a ford having been pointed out, “the king,” says Mr. Tytler, “forded the river in person, at the head of his cavalry, and routed or dispersed the last remnant of a Scottish army.” Langtoft’s description, however, is the more picturesque of the two; it was written at the time, and it corresponds exactly with the flight—admitted on all hands—of the Scottish cavalry at Falkirk. To repeat his words:—

“The Scots they saw him coming, and fleeand fast they did, Moors and mountains over, away they drive for dread.”