Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

C >> Charlotte Mary Yonge >> Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

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There was real need in Guienne; for Alfonso, King of Castile, had set
up a claim to that county, and threatened to invade it. Arriving there,
Henry gained some advantages, and concluded a peace, which was to be
sealed by a marriage between Edward of England and Dona Leonor of
Castile, Alfonso's sister. Young as they were--Edward only fourteen and
Leonor still younger--they were at once brought to Burgos and there
united; after which a tournament was held, and the prince received
knighthood from the sword of Alfonso. Bringing his bride back to his
father at Bordeaux, Edward was received with a full display of
luxury; all Henry's money, and more too, having been laid out on the
banquetting, so that the King himself stood aghast, and dismally
answered one of his English guests, "Say no more! What would they think
of it in England?"

The young bride, Eleanor, as the English called her, was brought to
England, while Edward remained in Guienne, sometimes visiting the French
court, and going wherever tournaments or knightly exercises invited him.
He was far better thus employed, and in intercourse with St. Louis, than
in the miserable quarrels, expedients, and perplexities, at home; and
thus he grew up generous, chivalrous, and devout, his whole character
strongly influenced by the example he had seen at Paris. His features
were fair, and of the noblest cast, perfectly regular, and only
blemished by a slight trace of his father's drooping eyelid; the
expression full of fire and sweetness, though at times somewhat stern.
His height exceeded that of any man in England, and his strength was in
proportion; he was perfectly skilled in all martial exercises, and we
are told that he could leap into the saddle when in full armor without
putting his hand on it.

All the wealth in the family had always been in the hands of Prince
Richard, Earl of Cornwall, whose tin mines yielded such a revenue that
he was esteemed the richest prince in Europe. He had wisely refused the
Pope's offer of the crown of Sicily; but at this time, the death of
Friedrich II., and of his son Conrad, leaving vacant the imperial crown,
he was so far allured by it, that he set off to offer himself as a
candidate, carrying with him thirty-two wagons, each drawn by eight
horses, and laden with a hogshead of gold. Judiciously distributed,
it purchased his election by the Archbishop of Mainz and some of the
electors, while others gave their votes to Alfonso of Castile, whose
offers had been also considerable.

Alfonso thenceforth was called _El Emperador_, and Richard was generally
known as King of the Romans, and his son as Henry d'Almayne, or of
Germany; but the Germans took no notice of either claimant beyond taking
their presents, and the only consequence was, that Richard was a poorer
man, and that his brother, the King, was ruined.

It was in 1258, while Richard was gone to be crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle,
that the long-gathering peril began to burst. There had been a severe
famine, which added to the general discontent; and though Richard sent
home forty vessels laden with corn, his absence was severely felt, and
his mediation was missed. The King saw Simon de Montfort in conference
with the nobles, and feared the consequences. Once, when overtaken by a
sudden storm on his way to the Tower, Henry was forced to take refuge
at Durham House, then the abode of the Earl, who came down to meet him,
bidding him not to be alarmed, as the storm was over.

"Much as I dread thunder and lightning, I fear thee more than all," said
the poor King.

"My Lord," said Montfort, "you have no need to dread your only true
friend, who would save you from the destruction your false councillors
are preparing for you."

These words were better understood when, on the 2d of May, Henry, on
going to meet his parliament at Westminster, found all his Barons
sheathed in full armor, and their swords drawn. These they laid aside
on his entrance, but when he demanded, "What means this? Am I your
prisoner?" Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, a proud, violent man, who had
once before given the lie to the King, answered:

"Not so, sir; but your love of foreigners, and your own extravagance,
have brought great misery on the realm. We therefore demand that the
powers of government be entrusted to a committee of Barons and Prelates,
who may correct abuses and enact sound laws."

William de Valence, one of Henry's half-brothers, took upon him to
reply, and high words passed between him and the Earl of Leicester; but
the royal party were overmatched, and were obliged to consent to give
a commission to reform the state to twenty-four persons, half from the
King's council, and half to be chosen by the Barons themselves, in a
parliament to be held at Oxford.

This meeting, noted in history as the Mad Parliament, commenced on
the 11th of June, and the Barons brought to it their bands of armed
retainers, so as to overpower all resistance. The regulations were made
entirely at their will, and the chief were thus: That parliaments should
assemble thrice a year, that four knights from each county should lay
before them every grievance, and that they should overlook all the
accounts of the Chancellor and Treasurer. For the next twelve years
this committee were to take to themselves the power of disposing of the
government of the royal castles, of revoking any grant made without
their consent, and of forbidding the great seal to be affixed to any
charter--the same species of restraint as that under which King John had
been placed at Runnymede.

The King's half-brothers would not yield up the castles in their
possession, but Montfort told William de Valence that he would have
them, or his head, and brought charges against them before the council,
which so alarmed them, that they all fled to Wolvesham Castle, belonging
to Aymar, as intended Bishop of Winchester. Thither the Barons pursued
them, and, making them prisoners, sent them out of the realm, with only
six thousand marks in their possession.

Their defeat proved how vain was resistance, and the whole royal family
were obliged to swear to observe the Acts of Oxford, as they were
called. The King's nephew, Henry d'Almayne, protested that they were of
no force in the absence of his father, the King of the Romans. "Let your
father look to himself," said Leicester. "If he refuse to act with the
Barons of England, not a foot of land shall he have in the whole realm."

And accordingly, on his return, Richard was not allowed to land till he
had promised to take the oath, which he did at Dover, in the presence of
the King and Barons.

Queen Eleanor expressed herself petulantly as to the oath, and Prince
Edward was scarcely persuaded to take it; but at length he was forced
to yield, and having done so, retired from the kingdom in grief and
vexation; for, having sworn it, he meant to abide by it, not being
as well accustomed to oaths and dispensations as his father, who, of
course, quickly sent to Rome for absolution.

On the other hand, when the twenty-four had to swear to it, the most
backward to do so was Simon de Montfort himself, who probably discerned
that the pledge was likely to be a mere mockery. When he at length
consented, it was with the words, "By the arm of St. James, though I
take this oath, the last, and by compulsion, yet I will so observe it
that none shall be able to impeach me."

Prince Edward might have said the same; he even incurred the displeasure
of his mother for refusing to elude or transgress his oath, and was for
a time accused of having joined the Barons' party. Meanwhile, the King
and Queen were constantly and needlessly affronting their subjects.
"What! are you so bold with me, Sir Earl?" said the King to Roger Bigod.
"Do you not know I could issue my royal warrant for threshing out all
your corn?"

"Ay," returned the Earl; "and could not I send you the heads of the
threshers?"

The hot-tempered, light-minded Queen Eleanor's open contempt of the
English drew upon her such hatred, that vituperative ballads were made
on her, some of which have come down to our times. One attacks even her
virtue as a wife, and another is entitled a "Warning against Pride,
being the Fall of Queen Eleanor, who for her pride sank into the earth
at Charing Cross, and rose again at Queenhithe, after killing the Lady
Mayoress." Unfortunately, popular inaccuracy has imputed her errors to
the gentle Eleanor of Castile, her daughter-in-law, and thus the ballad
calls her wife to Edward I., instead of Henry III. "A Spanish dame,"
was a term that might fairly be applied to the Provencal Eleanor, whose
language was nearly akin to Spanish, and whose luxury was sufficient to
lead to the accusation of

"Bringing in fashions strange and new,
With golden garments bright;"

And that

"The wheat, that daily made her bread
Was bolted twenty times:
The food that fed this stately dame
Was boiled in costly wines.
The water that did spring from ground
She would not touch at all,
But washed her hands with dew of heaven
That on sweet roses fall.
She bathed her body many a time
In fountains filled with milk,
And every day did change attire
In costly Median silk."

Eleanor of Provence, when "drest in her brief authority" as Lady
Chancellor, had arbitrarily imprisoned the Lord Mayor, and this the
ballad converts into a persecution of the unfortunate Lady Mayoress,
whom she sent"--into Wales with speed,
And kept her secret there,
And used her still more cruelly
Than ever man did bear.
She mude her wash, she made her starch,
She made her drudge alway,
She made her nurse up children small,
And labor night and day,"
and in conclusion slew her by means of two snakes.

Afterward her coach stood still in London, and could not move, when she
was accused of the crime, and, denying it, sunk into the ground, and
rose again at Queenhithe; after which she languished for twenty days,
and made full confession of her sins!

The real disaster that befell Queen Eleanor in London was an attack by
the mob as she was going down the Thames in her barge. She was pelted
with rotten eggs, sheeps' bones, and all kinds of offal, with loud cries
of "Drown the witch!" and at length even stones and beams from some
houses building on the bank assailed her, and she was forced, to return
in speed to the Tower.

Prince Edward was not always blameless. He had been employed against the
Welsh, and after the campaign, not knowing whither to turn for means of
paying his troops, he broke into the chests of the Knights Templars,
to whom his mother's jewels had been pledged, and carried off not only
these, but much property besides that had been committed to the keeping
of the order by other parties.

As to the unfortunate Jews, each party considered them fair game; and
there were frequent attacks upon them, and frightful massacres, when the
choice of death or of Christianity was offered to them, and the Barons
seized their treasures. The curses of Deuteronomy, of the trembling
heart, and the uncertainty of life and possession, were indeed fulfilled
on the unhappy race.

For four years the committee of twenty-four held their power with few
fluctuations, until matters were driven to extremity by a proposal to
render the present state of things permanent, and at the same time by an
attack on the property of the moderate and popular King of the Romans on
the part of the Barons.

On this the royal party determined to submit the dispute to the
arbitration of the King of France, whose wise and fair judgments were so
universally famed that the Barons readily consented, with the exception
of Leicester, who was convinced that Louis would incline to the side of
Henry, both as fellow-king and as brother-in-law, and therefore refused
to attend the conference, or to consider himself bound by its decisions.

The judgment of Louis IX, was perfectly just and moderate. He declared
that Magna Charta was indeed binding on the King of England, and that
he had no right to transgress it; but that the coercion in which he had
been placed by the Mad Parliament was illegal, and that the Acts of
Oxford were null, since no subjects had a right to deprive their
sovereign of the custody of his castles, nor of the choice of his
ministers.

As Montfort had foreseen, the Barons would not accept this decision, and
its sole effect was to release Prince Edward's conscience, and open the
way to civil war. The two Eleanors, of Provence and Castile, were left
under the charge of St. Louis; and their namesakes of the other party,
the Countess of Leicester and her daughter, the Damoiselle de Montfort,
fortified themselves in their castle of Kenilworth, while arms were
taken up on either side.

Leicester, who held that the guilt of perjury rested with the other
party, and who had with him the clergy opposed to the Italian
usurpation, deemed it a holy war, and marked the breasts of his soldiers
with white crosses, imagining himself the champion of the truth, as he
had been taught to think himself, when bearing his first arms under his
father in what was esteemed the Provencal Crusade. Alas, when honorable
and devout minds have the fine edge of conscience blunted! Thus did the
gallant and beloved "Sir Simon the Righteous" become a traitor and a
rebel.

The scholars of Oxford, who had not at all forgotten their quarrel with
king and legate, came out _en masse_ under the banner of the University
(for once disloyal), to join Leicester's second son, Simon, who was
collecting a body of troops to lead to his father in London.

Prince Edward, however, attacked them at Northampton, and effected a
breach in the wall. Young Montfort attempted a desperate sally, but
was defeated, and his life only saved by his cousin, the Prince, who
extricated him from beneath his fallen steed, and made him prisoner.

The King and Prince next marched to seize the Cinque Ports, and, while
in Sussex, Leicester followed them, and came up with them in a hollow
valley near Lewes. Here, with a sort of satire, the Barons sent to offer
the King 30,000 marks if he would make peace, and a like sum to the King
of the Romans if he would bring him to terms. The proposals were angrily
repelled by Edward, who, with accusations of his godfather as traitor
and "_foi menti_," sent him a personal challenge.

Leicester spent the night in prayer, and in early morning knighted
Gilbert de Clare, the young Earl of Gloucester, who was at this time
enthusiastically attached to him. The battle then began, each army being
arrayed in three divisions. Prince Edward and Henry d'Almayne were
opposed to their two cousins, Henry and Guy de Montfort, with the bands
from London. Mindful of the outrage that his mother had sustained from
the citizens, Edward charged them furiously, and pursued them with great
slaughter, never drawing rein till he reached Croydon.

But, as they rode back to Lewes, the impetuous young soldiers beheld a
sight very different from their triumphant anticipations. The field
was scattered with the corpses of the Royalists, and the white-crossed
troops of the Barons were closely gathered round the castle and priory
of Lewes. In dismay, William and Guy de Lusignan turned their horses,
and rode off to embark at Pevensey. Seven hundred men followed them, and
Edward and Henry were left with the sole support of Roger Mortimer, a
Welsh-border friend of the former, with his followers.

The hot pursuit of the fugitive plunderers had ruined the day. Montfort
had concentrated his forces, and had totally routed the two kings;
Richard was already his prisoner, and Henry had no chance of holding out
in the priory. The princes undauntedly strove to collect their shattered
forces, and break through to his rescue, but were forced to desist by a
message that, on their first attack, the head of the King of the Romans
should be struck off.

To save his life, the two cousins therefore agreed to a treaty called
the Mise of Lewes, May 15th, 1264, by which they gave themselves up to
the Barons as hostages for their fathers, stipulating that the matter at
issue should be decided by deputies from the King of France, and that
the prisoners on either side should be set free.

Now began the great trial of Simon de Montfort--that of power and
prosperity--and he failed under it. Whatever might have been his first
intentions in taking up arms, he now proved himself unwilling to lay
aside the authority placed in his hands, even though he violated his
oaths in maintaining it, and incurred the sentence of excommunication
which the Pope launched against him. But when the most saintly English
bishops of their own time had died under it, it lost its power on the
conscience.

No measures were taken for the French arbitration, nor were the
prisoners set free. The King of the Romans was confined at Kenilworth,
and the two young princes at Dover, the custody of which castle was
committed to one of their cousins, the Montforts, who allowed them no
amusement but the companionship of Thomas de Clare, the young brother of
the Earl of Gloucester. King Henry was indeed nominally at liberty, but
watched perpetually by Leicester's guards, and not allowed to take a
step or to write a letter without his superintendence; and when the
Mayor of London swore fealty to him, it was with the words, "As long
as he was good to them." Edward was made, on promise of liberation, to
swear to terms far harder than even the Acts of Oxford, and when the
bitter oath had been taken, he was pronounced at full liberty, and then
carried off, under as close a guard as ever, to Wallingford Castle.

Queen Eleanor was acting with great spirit abroad, gathering money and
collecting troops in hopes of better times, and seven knights still held
out Bristol for the King. They made a sudden expedition to Wallingford,
in hopes of rescuing the Prince; but the garrison were on the alert, and
called out to them that, if they wanted the prince, they might have
him, but only tied hand and foot, and shot from a mangonel; and Edward
himself, appearing on the walls, declared that, if they wished to save
his life, they must retreat.

This violent threat went beyond the instructions of Leicester, who
removed his nephew from the keeping of this garrison, and placed him at
Kenilworth.

But Simon was made to feel that he had little control over his
followers, and especially over his wild sons, who had learnt no respect
to authority at all, and outran in their violence even the doings of the
Lusignan family. Henry de Montfort seized all the wool in England, which
was sold for his profit, while Simon and Guy fitted out a fleet and
plundered the vessels in the Channel, without distinction of English or
foreigners, and thus turned aside the popularity which Leicester had
hitherto enjoyed in London. The Barons, too, already discontented at
having only changed their masters, so as to have the mighty Montfort
over them instead of the weak Plantagenet, could not bear with the
additional lawlessness of sons who made themselves vile without
restraint. A violent quarrel arose between these youths and Earl Gilbert
de Clare, who challenged them to a joust at Dunstable; but their father,
dreading fatal consequences, forbade it, and Gloucester retired to his
estates in high displeasure.

Here he was joined by his brother Thomas, who came full of descriptions
of the princely courtesy and sweetness of manner of the royal Edward,
which contrasted so strongly with the presumption of his upstart cousins
that the young Earl was brought over to concert measures with the
Prince's friend, Roger Mortimer.

In order to overawe the Welsh borderers, who were much attached to
Edward, Simon had carried his captive to Hereford Castle, whither Thomas
de Clare now returned as his attendant, taking with him a noble steed,
provided by Mortimer, with a message that his friends would be on the
alert to receive him at a certain spot.

Edward mounted his horse, rode out with his guard, set them to race, and
looked on as umpire, till, their steeds being duly tired, he galloped
off, and the last they saw of him was far in advance meeting with a
party of spears, beneath the pennon of Mortimer. And now the Earl of
Leicester experienced that "success but signifies vicissitude." After
his reign of one year, his fall was rapid.

The Earl of Gloucester had at once joined Edward, and in vain did
Leicester use the King's name in calling on the military tenants of the
Crown; only a small proportion of his old partisans came to his aid, and
he remained on the banks of the Severn, waiting to be joined by his son
Simon, who had been besieging Pevensey, but now marched to his aid.

On his way, young Simon summoned Winchester, but was refused admittance.
However, the treacherous monks of St. Swithin's let in his forces
through a window of their convent on the wall, and the city was horribly
sacked, especially the Jewry. Afterward he went to the family castle
of Kenilworth, where he awaited orders from his father. A woman named
Margot informed the Prince that it was the habit of Simon and his
knights to sleep outside the walls, for the convenience of bathing in
the summer mornings; and Edward, suddenly making a night-march, fell
upon them while in the very act, and took most of them prisoners, Simon
just escaping into the castle with his pages in their shirts and
drawers, all his baggage and treasures being taken.

Ignorant of this disaster, the Earl of Leicester proceeded, in hopes of
effecting a junction with his son, and had just arrived at Evesham when
banners were seen in the distance. Nicholas, his barber, who pretended
to have some knowledge of heraldry, declared that they belonged to Sir
Simon's troops; but the Earl, not fully satisfied, bade him mount the
church-steeple and look from thence. The affrighted barber recognized
the Lions of England, the red chevrons of De Clare, the azure bars of
Mortimer, waving over a forest of lances.

"We are dead men, my Lord," he said, as he descended.

And truly, when the Earl beheld the marshalling of the hostile array, he
could not help exclaiming, "They have learnt this style from me! Now God
have mercy on our souls, for our bodies are the Prince's!"

Henry, the only son who was with him, exhorted him not to despair.

"I do not, my son," replied the Earl; "but your presumption, and the
pride of your brothers, have brought me to this pass. I firmly believe I
shall die for the cause of God and justice."

He prayed, and received the sacrament, as he always did before going
into battle; then arrayed his troops, bringing out the poor old King, in
order to make his followers imagine themselves the Royalists. He tried
in vain to force the road to Kenilworth; then drew his troops into a
compact circle, that last resource of gallant men in extremity, such
as those of Hastings and Flodden. Their ranks were hewn down little by
little, and the Prince's troops were pressing on, when a lamentable cry
was heard, "Save me! save me! I am Henry of Winchester!"

Edward knew the voice, and, springing to the rescue, drew out a wounded
warrior, whom he bore away to a place of safety. In his absence,
Leicester's voice asked if quarter was given.

"No quarter for traitors," said some revengeful Royalist; and at the
same moment Henry de Montfort fell, slain, at his father's feet.

"By the arm of St. James, it is time for me to die!" cried the Earl;
and, grasping his sword in both hands, he rushed into the thickest of
the foe, and, after doing wonders, was struck down and slain. Terrible
slaughter was done on the "desperate ring;" one hundred and sixty
knights, with all their followers, were slain, and scarcely twelve
gentlemen survived. The savage followers of Mortimer cut off the head
and hands of Leicester, and carried the former as a present to their
lady; but this was beyond the bounds of the orders of Prince Edward, who
caused the corpses of his godfather and cousin to be brought into the
abbey church of Evesham, wept over the playfellow of his childhood, and
honored the burial with his presence.

The battle of Evesham was fought on the 4th of August, 1265, fourteen
months after the misused victory of Lewes.

So died the Earl of Leicester, termed, by the loving people of England,
"Sir Simon the Righteous"--a man of high endowments and principles of
rectitude unusual in his age. His devotion was sincere, his charities
extensive, his conduct always merciful--no slight merit in one bred up
among the savage devastators of Provence--and his household accounts
prove the order and religious principle that he enforced. His friends
were among the staunch supporters of the English Church, and, unlike
his father, who thought to merit salvation as the instrument of the
iniquities of Rome, he disregarded such injunctions and threats of hers
as disagreed with the plain dictates of conscience. Thinking for himself
at length led to contempt of lawful authority; but it was an age when
the shepherds were fouling the springs, and making their own profit of
the flock; and what marvel was it if the sheep went astray?