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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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.

CAMEO XXXIV.

THE HAMMER OF THE SCOTS.
(1292-1305.)

_King of England_.
1272. Edward I.

_King of Scotland_.
1292. John Balliol.

_King of France_.
1285. Philippe IV.

_Emperors of Germany_.
1292. Adolph.
1298. Albert I.

_Popes_.
1287. Nicholas IV.
1291. Boniface VIII.
1294. Celestine V.
1303. Benedict XI.

The gallant line of Scottish kings descended from "the gracious Duncan"
suddenly decayed and dwindled away in the latter part of the thirteenth
century. They had generally been on friendly terms with the English, to
whom Malcolm Ceanmore and Edgar both owed their crown; they had usually
married ladies of English birth; and holding the earldom of Huntingdon,
the county of Cumberland, and the three Lothians, under the English
crown, they stood in nearly the same relation to our Anglo-Norman
sovereigns as did these to the kings of France. If France were esteemed
a more polished country, and her language and manners were adopted by
the Plantagenet kings, who were French nobles as well as independent
sovereigns of the ruder Saxons, so, again, England was the model of
courtesy and refinement to the earlier Scottish kings, who, in the right
of inheritance from St. David's queen, Earl Waltheof's heiress, were
barons of the civilized court of England, where they learnt modes of
taming their own savage Highland and island domains.

Thus, with few exceptions, the terms of alliance were well understood,
and many of the Cumbrian barons were liegemen to both the English
and Scottish kings. Scotland was in a flourishing and fast-improving
condition, and there was no mutual enmity or jealousy between the two
nations.

Alexander III. was the husband of Margaret, the eldest sister of Edward
I., and frequently was present at the pageants of the English court. He
was a brave and beloved monarch, and his wife was much honored and loved
in Scotland; but, while still a young man, a succession of misfortunes
befell him. His queen died in 1275, and his only son a year or two
after; his only other child, Margaret, who had been married to Eric,
Prince of Norway, likewise died, leaving an infant daughter named
Margaret.

Finding himself left childless, Alexander contracted a second marriage
with Yolande, daughter of the Count de Dreux; and a splendid bridal took
place at Jedburgh, with every kind of amusements, especially mumming
and masquing. In the midst, some reckless reveller glided in arrayed in
ghastly vestments, so as to personate death, and after making fearful
gestures, vanished away, leaving an impression of terror among the
guests that they did not quickly shake off--the jest was too
earnest.