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Cornell University Library
DA 32.T73 1909
Advanced history of Great Britain from t
3 1924 027 974 678
Cornell University
Library
The original of tliis book is in
tine Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027974678
Y
AN ADVAJSTCED HISTOEY OF
GEEAT BEITAIN
An Elementary History of England
With 88 Illustrations, Tables, Maps, and Plans.
BY
T. P. TOUT, M.A.,
Professor of Medieval and Modern History in the
"University of Manchester,
AND
JAMES SULLIVAN, Eh.D.,
Principal of the Boys' High School, Brooklyn,
New York.
Crown 8vo, JO-YS
An Atlas of English History
EDITED BY
SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER, D.C.L., LL.D.
With 66 Maps and 22 Plans of Battles, etc.
Small 4to, $1-50
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., NEW YORK.
AN ADVANCED HISTOKY
OF GREAT BEITAIN
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE
DEATH OF QUEEN VICTORIA
WITH 63 MAPS AND PLANS
By T. F. tout, M.A.
PEOPBSSOB OF MEDia!VAL AND MODBBN HISTOEY IN THE
UNIVEBSITY OF MANCHESTBB
NEW IMPRESSION
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1909
All rights reserved
CONTENTS
Pbbpacb ....
FA&E
< • V
List of Bibliogbaphies
xxxvi
List of Maps and Plans
xxxvii
List op Genealomcal Tables
xxxix
Table op Kinhs and Queens .
xl
List op the Chibp Ministeies
since
1689 '.
728
Index
731
BOOK 1
Up to 1066. BRITAIN BEFORE THE NORMAN
CONQUEST ....
Up to 55 B.C.
Chapter I.
Britain
Prehistoric and Celtic
1 330 B.C.
The Palseolithio Age
The Neolithic Age .
The Iberians
The Celts .
The Bronze and Iron Ages
The Voyage of Pytheas
55 B.C. -449 A.D. Chapter II. Roman Britain
55-54 B.C. Julius Caesar's Invasions of Britain
43-85 A.D. The Eoman Conquest of Britain .
85-410. Roman Bule in Britain
78-85. Julius Agrioola
The Two Eoman Walls
Roman divisions of Britain .
The garrison and the roads
Roman Civilisation ....
The Romano-British Church
Decay of the Roman Power
The Barbarian Invasions .
410. End of the Roman Power in Britain
410-449. The Plots, Soots, and Saxons
Permanent results of Roman Rule in Britain
i-Si
1-5
I
1
2
2-3
3
4-5
6-iS
6-7
7-9
9-14
9
g-io
10
II
II
12
12
14
14
IS
IS
VIII
CONTENTS
449-607. Chapter III. The English Conquest of
Southern Britain .
The Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles
The beginnings of England
The Jutish Settlements
The Saxon Settlements
The Anglian Settlements
The fate of the Britons
The Welsh .
The beginnings of Scotland
Conversion of the Picts and Soots .
Why England became the strongest
597-821. Chapter IV. The Early Overlordships
and the Conversion of the English to
Christianity .
The-first steps toward English Unity
The Heptarchy
The first English Overlords
The Celtic Church .
Pope Gregory the Great
597. The Landing of Augustine .
The Conversion of Kent and Essex
627, The Conversion of Edwin .
627-685, The Northumbrian Overlordship .
Aidan and the Scottish Mission
626-655. Penda of Meroia
Conversion of the rest of England .
Dispute between the Roman and the Celtic
Churches ....
664, Synod of Whitby
668-690. The work of Theodore of Tarsus .
716-821. The Overlordship of Meroia
802-899. Chapter V. The West Saxon Overlord^
ship and the Danish Invasions .
802-839.
839-858,
868-899,
878.
886,
The rise of Wessex ....
The Eeign of Egbert
Beginnings of the Danish Invasions
The Eeign of Ethelwulf
The Norse Migrations
The Sons of Ethelwulf
Settlements in England and the continent
Wessex saved by Alfred
Alfred and Guthrum's Peace
The Dane law .....
West Saxon Supremacy under Alfred
Alfred's Reforms ....
COtTTENTS
IX
.899-978.
899-924.
924-940.
937.
940-946.
946-956.
956-976.
975-978.
Chapter VI. The Successors of Alfred
and the Beginnings of the English
Monarchy .....
Edward the Elder, tlie first King of the English
The sons of Edward the Elder
Athelstan ....
The Battle of Brunanburh .
Edmund the Magnificent .
Reign of Edred .....
The Reigns of Edwy and Edgar
Archbishop Dunstan
The Reign of Edward the Martyr .
50-56
50-51
Si-52
51-52
52
52
52-53
53-54
53-56
55-56
978-1042. Chapter VII. The Decline of the English
Kingdom and the Danish Conquest 57-6i
978-1016. Reign of Bthelred, the Unready 57-59
Renewal of Danish Invasions 57-58
1002. The Massacre of St. Brioe's Day 58
1013. The Invasion of Swegen .... 58
1016. The Struggle of Onut and Edmund Ironside 59
1017-1036. Cnut, King of Denmark, Norway, and England 59-60
The Great Earldoms . 60
1035-1042. Eeigns of the Sons of Gnut . 61
1042-1066. Chapter VIII. The Reigns of Edward
the Confessor and Harold
1042. Accession of Edward the Confessor
Normandy and the Normans
The House of Godwin
Harold, Earl of the West Saxons .
1066. The Death of Edward the Confessor
Harold made King ....
Harold defeats Harold Hardrada .
Landing of William of Normandy
Battle of Hastings ' .
62-72
62
63
64-65
65
66
66
68
69
69
449-1066. Chapter IX. English Life before the
Norman Conquest .
Agriculture and land tenure
Thegns, Ceorls, and Theows
Towns
Houses
Pood and Drink
Architecture ....
Laws .....
The Shires ....
73-81
73
74
74
75
75'
76
76
77
CONTENTS
Hundreds and Townships .
Law Courts ...
77
77
The King's Officers .
Prithborh and Tithing
The King .....
78
79
79
The Witenagemot ....
The Church .....
79
79
Language and Literature .
Books recommended for the further study of the
86
Period ......
80-81
BOOK II
1066-1215. THE NORMAN AND ANGEVIN KINGS 82-158
1066-1087. Chapter I. William I. the Conqueror
1066-1071. The Norman Conquest
1071. Hereward subdued .
The Establishment of Feudalism
William and the Norman Barons
The Palatine Earldoms
The Forests .
1076. The Baronial Eevolt
1079. Eevolt of Robert suppressed
William and the English .
1086. The Domesday Book
1086. The Oath at Salisbury
The Normans and the Church
William as overlord of Britain
Foreign PoUoy of William .
1087-1100. Chapter II. William II. Rufus
1088.
1096.
1093.
1092.
1096.
1100.
The Sons of William the Conqueror
Baronial Revolt
Revolt of Robert Mowbray .
Ranulf Flambard
Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury
William 11. and Anselm
William 11., Scotland and Wales
Conquest of Cumberland
William 11. and Normandy
The First Crusade .
Death of Rufus
82-93
83
84
85
86
87
87
87
88
88-89
89
90
90-92
91-92
93
94-101
94-95
95
95
96
97
97-99
99
99
lOO-lOI
ICX3
101
1100-1135. Chapter III. Henry I.
Early Measures of Henry i.
Henry i. and the Normans
1101. Robert's revolt
102-110
102-103
103-104
103
CONTENTS
XI
DATE
1102.
1106.
1103-1107.
1120.
1138.
Fall of Robert of BeU^me .
Battle of Tinohebray
Quarrel of Henry and Anselm
Henry i. Scotland and Wales
Henry and Louis vi. . . . .
Roger of Salisbury and the Administrative System
The Loss of the White Ship
Normandy and Anjou
Death of Henry i. .
103
104
104-10S
106
107
107
108
108
109
1135-1154. Chapter IV. Stephen of Blois
1135. Accession of Stephen
1138. Battle of the Standard
Beginnings of Civil War
The Rivalry of Stephen and Matilda
Desolation of England
Geofirey of Mandeville
1141. The Battle of Lincoln
1158. The Treaty of Wallingford .
1154. The Death of Stephen
11I-115
III
112
112-113
"3
"3
114
114
"S
I IS
1154-1189. Chapter V. Henry II. of Anjou .
Character of Henry 11. .
The Restoration of Order .
Thomas Beoket ....
1164. The Constitutions of Clarendon and the quarrel of
Henry and Beoket
1170. Murder of Backet ....
Period of Amalgamation between Normans and
English .....
1166. Henry's Reforms. The Assize of Clarendon
1176. The Assize of Northampton
The Grand Assize .
1181. The Assize of Arms ....
1184. The Assize of Woodstock .
Henry 11., Wales and Scotland
The Norman Conquest of Ireland .
The Angevin Empire
Henry 11. and his family .
1159. The War of Toulouse
The Wars of 1173 and 1174
Henry's Foreign Alliances
Rebellions of his Sous
1189. Henry's Death ....
1 16-130
116
116-117
117-118
iig-120
120-121
122
123
123
123
124
124
124-125
I2S
126
127
127
127-129
129
129
130
1189-1199. Chapter VI. Eichard I. Coeur de Lion
Character of Richard i.
1189.
Richard and the Third Crusade
Richard's Captivity in Germany
131-136
131
131-133
133
Xll
CONTENTS
DATE
1189-1194. England during Eiohard's Absence
1194-1199. England from 1194-1199 .
1199. Eiohard's last Wars and Death
1199-1216. Chapter VII. John Lackland
Accession and Character of John .
Arthur of Brittany ....
The Loss of Normandy and Anjou
1214. Battles of La Eoohe au Moine and Bouvines
1205. The Disputed Election at Canterbury
1207. Appointment of Langton .
Quarrel of John and Innocent iii. .
1208. The Interdict ....
1209. The Excommunication
1213. John becomes the Pope's Vassal .
1213-1216. Quarrel between John and his Barons
1215. The Great Charter ....
Eenewal of the War of King and Barons .
1216. Death of John ....
1066-1216. Chapter VIII. Feudal Britain .
The Importance of the Norman Conquest
Britain and the Continent .
The King and the Great Council
Local Government .
Earls, Barons, and Knights
The Manorial System
Towns and Trade
Fashions of Living .
Pood and Dress
Norman Castles
Norman Churches .
The Beginnings of Gothic Architecture
New Monastic Movements .
Twelfth-Century Eenaissance
Latin Literature
English and French Literature
Books recommended for the further study of the
Period .....
FAGB
134
I34-I3S
135
1 37-145
137
138
139
139.140
140
141
141
142
142
143
143-144
144
145
145
146-156
146
147
147
148
148
149
ISO
151
>5i
152
153
153
154
155
155
156
158
BOOK III
1216-1399. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE ENG-
LISH NATION .
1216-1272. Chapter I. Henry III.
1216. Accession of Henry in. ....
1216-1217. Conflict between William Marshall and Louis of
France .....
159-253
159-177
159
159-160
CONTENTS
xm
DATR
1217.
1216-1219.
1219-1232.
1232-1234.
1234-1268.
1248-1262.
1258.
1259.
1259-1263.
1264.
1264.
1264-1265.
1265.
1265.
1265.
1265-1267.
1267.
1267-1272.
The Battle of Linooln and the Treaty of Lambeth
The Eule of William Marshall
The Rule of Hubert de Burgh
The Bule of Peter des Roches
The Personal Rule of Henry
The Allen Invasion — Provencals, Savoyards and
Romans .....
Edmund Rich and Robert Grosseteste
Henry's Foreign Failures .
The Poitevins in England .
Rise of the Principality of North Wales .
Simon of Montfort in Gasoony
Edmund, King of Sicily; and Richard, King of
the Romans ....
Political Retrogression and National Progress
The Mad Parliament
The Provisions of Oxford
The Treaty of Paris .
The Beginning of the Barons' War
The Mise of Amiens
The Battle of Lewes
The Rule of Earl Simon
The Parliament of 1265
The Revolt of the Marchers
The Battle of Evesham
The Royalist Restoration .
The Treaty of Shrewsbury .
The End of the Reign
1272-1307. Chapter II. Edward I.
1272-1274.
1277.
1282-1283.
1284.
1274-1290.
1289-1290.
1286-1290.
1290-1292.
1292.
1259-1293.
1293-1295.
1295.
1296.
1297.
1297.
1297.
1298.
Character and Policy of Edward i. .
The Government during Edward's Absence
The First Welsh War
The Conquest of the Principality .
Settlement of the Principality
Edward's Legislation
Trials of the Judges and Expulsion of the Jews
Scotland under Alexander iii.
The Maid of Norway
The Scottish Claimants
Accession of John Balliol .
England and France
The French and Scottish Wars
The Model Parliament
The Conquest of Scotland .
Clerical Opposition under Winohelsea
Baronial Opposition under Norfolk and Hereford
Confirmatio Cartarum
Scottish Rising under Wallace
Battle of Falkirk ....
Edward's Reconciliation with Prance and the
Church ......
PAOE
i6o
i6o
160-161
161
163
162-164
164
165
165
166
166
167
167
168
168
169
169
171
172
172
173
174
>7S
176
176-177
178-197
17S
179
179
181
182
182-185
18S
185-186
187
188
188
189-191
190-191
191
193
192
193
193
193-194
194
194
CONTENTS
Reconciliation with the Barons
1303-1306. The Second Conquest of Scotland
1306. Rising of Robert Bruce
1307. Death of Edward i. .
195
196
196
196-197
1307-1327. Chapter III. Edward II. of Carnarvon . 198-204
1307-1809. Edward ii. and Gaveston .
1310-1311. The Ordinances and the Lords Ordainers .
1312. The Murder of Gaveston .
1307-1314. Robert Bruce conquers Scotland .
1314. The Battle of Bannookburn
Thomas of Lancaster
1322 The Battle of Boroughbridge and the Parliament
of York .....
1322-1326. The Rule of the Despensers
Isabella and Mortimer
1326-1327. The Pall of Edward ii. .
198-J99
199
199
200
200-201
201-202
202
202
203
203
1327-1377. Chapter IV. Edward III.
1827-1830.
1828.
1328.
1383.
1339-1340.
1340.
1346.
1346.
1346-1347.
1348-1349.
1366-1366.
1360.
1367.
1869.
1869-1377.
1361.
1861-1868.
The Rule of Isabella and Mortimer
Treaty of Northampton
Accession of Philip vi. in Prance .
Character and Policy of Edward iii.
David Bruce and Edward Balliol .
Battle of Halidon Hill
David finally established in Scotland
Causes of the Hundred Years' War
Chief Peatures of the Struggle
The Netherlandish Campaigns
The Battle of Sluys .
War of the Breton Succession
The Invasion of Normandy
The Battle of Cr^cy .
Calais, Auberoche, Neville's Cross, and La Roche
Derien ....
The Black Death .
The Black Prince in Aquitaine
The Battle of Poitiers
The Treaties of Brfitigni and Calais
The Civil War in Castile .
The Battle of NAjera
The Revolt of Aquitaine
PaU of the English Power in Prance
The Statute of Labourers .
Anti-Papal Legislation
Edward iii. and his Parliaments .
Edward's Pamily Settlement
The Court and Constitutional Parties
205-227
205-208
205
206
208
208-209
209
209
210-21 1
212
212
212
213
214
214-215
216
216
217
217-218
218-219
219
221
221
222
223
223
224
225
226
CONTENTS
XV
DATE
1876. The Good Parliament
1876-1877. John of Gaunt and John Wyolifle ,
1377. Death of Edward in.
PAOB
226
227
227
1377-1399. Chapter V. Richard II. of Bordeaux . 228-237
1377-1381.
1378.
1381.
1386-1388.
1388.
1396.
1397.
1398.
1399.
The Eule of John of Gaunt
The Papal Schism ....
The Teaching of WyclifEe .
Causes of the Peasants' Eevolt
The Peasants' Revolt and its Suppression
The Baronial Opposition and Thomas of
Gloucester ....
The Attack on and Defeat of the Courtiers
The Merciless Parliament and the Lords Appellant
The Great Truce and the French Marriage
The Boyalist Beaction
The Banishment of Norfolk and Hereford
The Lancastrian Bevolution
The Deposition of Bichard ii.
228
229
229
229-230
231
232
233
234
Z3S
23s
236
236-237
237
1S16-1399. Chapter VI. Britain in the Thirteenth
and Fourteenth Centuries . . 238-253
Mediaeval Civilization
The King ....
The ParUament of the Three Estates
Convocation ....
The House of Lords
The House of Commons
The King's Council and the Lav? Courts
The Church and the Papacy
St. Francis and the Mendicant Friars
The Franciscans and Dominicans in England
The Universities
Gothic Architecture
The Concentric Castle
Arms and Armour .
Chivalry and the Orders of Knighthood
Cosmopolitan and National Ideas .
Latin Literature. Matthew Paris
French Literature. John Froissart
English Literature. Geoffrey Chaucer
William Langland .
John Wyolifie and the Begiiming of Modern
English Prose , . >
Books recommended for the further study of the
Period ....
238
238
239
239
239
240
241
242
242-243
244
244-245
245-247
247
248
249
249
250
251
251-252
252
252-253
253
XVI
CONTENTS
BOOK IV
DATE
1399-1485. LANCASTER AND YORK
1399-1413. Chapter I. Henry IV.
1399. The Constitutional Bsvolution
The Ecclesiastical Reaction
Henry iv.'s Character and Difficulties
Eichard ii.'s Death .
Owen Glendower
1403. Kevolt of the Peroies
Gradual Collapse of the Risings
Henry iv. and France
The Beauforts and the Prince of Wales
PAGE
255-307
255-260
255
256
257
257
257
258
259
259
260
1413-1432. Chapter II. Henry V.
1414.
1416.
1416.
1417-1419.
1420.
1421.
Early Measures of Henry V.
Oldoastle and the Lollard Rising .
Renewal of the Claim to the French Throne
First Expedition — Harfleur, Aginoourt
The Council of Constance .
The Conquest of Normandy
The Treaty of Troyes
Battle of Beaug6 ....
Third Expedition. Death of Henry
262-268
262
262-263
263
264-266
266
267
267
268
268
142S.1461. Chapter III. Henry VI.
1422.
1422-1428.
1422-1429.
1428.
1429.
1431.
1436.
1444-1445.
1447.
1449-1451.
1463.
1450.
1460.
1450-1466.
Regency of Bedford Established .
Bedford's Work in France .
Gloucester as Protector of England
The Siege of Orleans
The Mission of Joan of Arc
Battle of Patay. Coronation of Charles vi.
Martyrdom of Joan of Arc .
Coronation of Henry vi. at Paris ,
Congress of Arras and Death of Bedford .
The Peace and War Parties in England .
The Truce of Tours and the French Marriage
Deaths of Gloucester and Beaufort
The Loss of Normandy and Gascony
The Battle of Castillon and the End of the
Hundred Years' War
Murder of Sufiolk ....
Revolt of Jack Cade
The Position of Eichard Duke of York
Beginning of the Wars of the Roses
Characteristics of the Wars of the Eoses .
The House of Neville
270-2S3
270
270-271
272
272-273
273
273
275
275
276
276
277
277
278
278
278
279
279
280
281
281
CONTENTS
XVll
DATE
1455-1459.
1460.
1460-1461.
1460-1481.
1461.
Reoonoiliation and the Renewal of the Strife
York claims the Throne ....
The Pall of Henry vi. . . . .
Battles of Wakefield, Second St. Albans, and
Mortimer's Gross .....
Edward of York chosen King
PAGK
282
282
283
283
283
1461-1483. Chapter IV. Edward IV.
1461.
1469.
Edward iv. and the Yorkist Party
The Battle of Towton
Triumph of Edward iv. .
The Nevilles and the Woodville Marriage
Robert Welles and Robin of Redesdale
Alliance of Warwick and Margaret
The Restoration of Henry vi.
The Battle of Tewkesbury .
Edward iv., Burgundy, and Prance
Home Policy of Edward iv.
1478 and 1483. Death of Clarence and Edward iv.
1470-1471.
1471.
285-293
285
28s
288
288
288
289
289
291
292
292
293
1483-1485. Chapter V. Edward V. and Richard III. 295-299
1488. Accession of Edward v.
The Deposition of Edward v.
Richard ni. and Buckingham
1483-1485. Richard iii.'s Policy
The Beauforts and the Tudors
1486. The Battle of Bosworth and
Richard iii.
the Death of
295
296
297
297
298
298-299
1399-1485. Chapter VI. Britain in the Fifteenth
Century ..... 300-307
The Constitution in the Fifteenth Century
The Church. The Universities and Learning
Prosperity of the Pifteenth Century
The Towns and Trade
Late Perpendicular Architecture
Armours and Weapons
Literature — Poetry — Prose
The Invention of Printing. William Oaxton
Scotland in the Pifteenth Century
The End of the Middle Ages
Books recommended for the further study of the
Period ......
300
300-301
301
302
302-303
303
303-305
305
306
307
307
xvni
CONTENTS
BOOK V
DATE
1485-1603. THE TUDORS
1485-1509. Chapter I. Henry VII. •
Character of Henry vii.
Continuanoe of the old Party Struggles .
Lord Level's Rising . • • '
Lambert Sinmel's Imposture
The , Breton Succession, and the Treaty of
Staples . . . . •
Perkin Warbeck's Imposture
The Cornish Eising, and the Execution of
Warbeok and Warwick
1496 and 1S06. The Magnus Interoursus, and the Malus
Interoursus
The European Political System .
1601. The Spanish Alliance
1503. The Scottish Marriage
Henry's Domestic Policy. His Ministers
Eeduction of the Power of the Nobles
Welshand Irish Policy
1494. Poynings' Law ....
1486.
1487.
1492.
1492.
1497-1499.
PAGE
308-419
308-316
308
309
309
310
3II-3I2
312
312
313
313
314
314
315
315
316
1509-1529. Chapter II. Henry VIII. and Wolsey
1510.
1512-1513.
1513.
1514.
1520.
1521-1525.
1521.
1S1M529.
Character of Henry viii.
Execution of Bmpson and Dudley
The King's Ministers. Else of Wolsey .
Foreign Politics ....
Henry joins the Holy League
War all over Europe
Battles of the Spurs and Plodden .
Peace with Prance and Scotland .
The Young Princes ....
Eivalry of Charles v. and Francis i.
Wolsey's Foreign Policy. The Balance of Power
The Field of the Cloth of Gold
War with Prance ....
The Triumph of Charles, and the French Alliance
The Fall of Buckingham
The King and the Commons
The Eenascenoe ....
State of the Church ....
The Oxford Reformers
Erasmus and More ....
Wolsey and the Church
The Beginnings of the Eeformation ,
Luther, Zwingle, and Calvin
Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn
317-336
317
318
318-319
319.320
320
320
321-322
323
323-325
325
326
326
3^7
327
328
328
329
329
330
330
331
332
332-333
335
CONTENTS
XIX
1629.
The Origin of the Divorce Question
The Decretal Commission .
The FaU of Wolsey ,
PAGE
335
335
336
1529-1547. Chapter III. Henry VIII. and the Be
ginning^ of the Reformation
Progress of the Divorce Question .
Henry viii. and his Subjects
1629-1636. The Reformation Parliament
Henry Supreme Head of the Church
1632-1634, The Separation from Home
Oranmer and the Divorce .
Henry viii. and Protestantism
The Resistance to the Supremacy .
The Charterhouse Monks and Reginald Pole
1536. More and Fisher Executed .
Cromwell Vicar-General
State of the Monasteries
1636. The Suppression of the Smaller Monasteries
1636. The Pilgrimage of Grace .
1636-1639. The Suppression ot the Greater Monasteries
The English Bible and the Growth of Reforming
Opinions ....
The King and his Wives
1638-1547. Conspiracies
1639. The Six Articles ....
1840. Anne of Cleves and the Fall of Cromwell .
1540-1647. The Reactionary Period
1642-1646. War with Scotland .
1644. War with Prance ....
1546-1647. The New Wave of Reformation
Catharine Howard and Catharine Parr
The Pall of the Howards .
Henry vm. and Ireland
1636. Union of England and Wales
337-351
337
338
338
338
339
339
340
340
341
341
341
342-343
343
343
344
345
345
346
346
347
348
348
349
349
349
349.
350
350
1547-1553. Chapter IV. Edward VI.
1547.
1647.
1548.
1549.
1649.
1649.
1649.
1649-1663.
1662.
1663.
Somerset becomes Protector
Invasion of Scotland. Battle of Pinkie .
Postponement of the Scottish Reformation
Loss of Boulogne ....
Progress of the Reformation. First Prayer-Book
The Devonshire Rebellion .
Ket's Rebellion
Pall of Somerset ....
The Ascendancy of Warwick
Influence of the Foreigner Reformers
The Second Prayer-Book of Edward vi. .
The Forty-two Articles
352-360
352
353
354
354
355
356
356
357
357
357
358
358
XX
CONTENTS
DATE
1553.
Failure of the King's Health
Edward's Device for the Succession
Queen Jane and Queen Mary
PAGE
358
360
360
1553-1558. Chapter V. Mary
1563.
1564.
1554.
1665-1558.
1652-1569.
1657-1659.
1668.
Accession of Mary .
The Work of Edward's Eeign Undone
The Spanish Marriage
Eestoration of the Papal Supremacy
The Marian Persecution
Martyrdom of Eidley, Latimer and Oranmer
Want of Toleration in the Sixteenth Century
Isolation of Mary ....
War between France and the Empire
England at War with France
Death of Mary . . . •
361-367
361
361
362
363
363
364-365
365
366
366
367
367
1558-1587.
Chapter VI.
of Scots
Elizabeth and Mary Queen
1559.
1663.
1669-1676.
1565.
Character and Policy of Elizabeth
The Queen's Ministers
Leicester and the Courtiers
The Elizabethan Settlement of the Church
The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity
The Thirty-nine Articles
Archbishop Parker .
Elizabeth and the Eoman Catholics
Geneva and the Calvinists .
The Puritans and the Elizabethan Settlement
Parker's Advertisements
The Separatists
1676 and 1583. Archbishops Grindal and Whitgift
1593. Hooker's " Ecclesiastical Polity " .
John Knox on the Scottish Eeformation
Mary Queen of Scots
The Counter Eeformation .
The Treaty of Le Cateau-Cambr^sis
Philip II. and the Counter Eeformation
Francis 11. and his Queen .
Eivaby of Mary and Elizabeth
The Loss of Le Havre
Mary Queen of Scots in Scotland
The Darnley Marriage
Murder of Eicoio
Murder of Darnley .
Deposition of the Queen of Soots .
Mary's Flight to England .
Mary's Imprisonment
The Eevolt of the Northern Earls .
The Bull of Excommunication
1559.
1663.
1561.
1665.
1566.
1667.
1667.
1568.
1569.
1670.
368-389
368
369-370
370
370
371
371
371
372
372
373
373
374
374
374
375-376
376-377
377
378
378
379
379
379
380
380
381
381
383
383
384
384
38s
CONTENTS
XXI
DATE
1571.
1580.
1586.
1687.
The Bidolfi Plot ....
Philip II. and the Revolt of the Netherlands
The Seminary Priests
The Jesuit Invasion
The Bond of Association
The Babington Conspiracy ,
Execution of Mary Queen of Soots
386
386
386
388
388
388-389
389
1681.
1686.
1653.
1587-1603. Chapter VII. The Latter Years of the
Reign of Elizabeth
The Relations between England and Spain
Anglo-Prenoh Interference in the Netherlands
The Anjou Marriage Scheme
Leicester in the Netherlands
Spain and the Indies
The Beginnings of English Maritime Enterprise
Chancellor's Voyage
Protestantism and Maritime Adventure
Hawkins and the Slave Trade
Drake's Voyage round the World .
The Breach between England and Spain .
Philip's Plans for Invading England
The Spanish Armada
The Battle ofE Gravelines .
Results of the Protestant Victory .
Henry rv., king of France .
The War with Spain
The Capture of Cadiz
The First Attempts at English Colonies .
Ireland under Mary Tudor
Shane O'Neill and Elizabeth
Ireland and the Counter-Reformation
The Desmond Rebellion and the Plantation of
Munster .....
The Irish Revolt under Hugh O'Neill
Essex in Ireland ....
Mountjoy suppresses the Rebellion
Steps towards British Unity
The Cecils, Essex, and Raleigh
Continued Persecution of Puritans and Catholics
Elizabeth and her Parliaments
1697 and 1601. The Monopolies Contest
1603. Death of Elizabeth
1662-1667.
1677-1688.
1584.
1688.
1689.
1689-1603.
1696.
1579.
1598.
1699.
1600-1603.
390-407
390
391
391
392
392
393
393
394
394
396
396
397
397-399
399
399
399
400
400
401
401
402
402
402
404
404
404
404
405
406
406
406-407
407
1485-1603. Chapter VIII. England under the Tudors 408-418
The Beginnings of Modem Times .
The Tudor Monarchy
Parliament under the Tudors
Harmony between Crown and Parliament
The King and his Ministers
408
408
408-409
409
409
xxu
CONTENTS
The Oounoil
The Star Chamber and its Victims
Local Government .
Military Weakness of the Crown .
Social and Economic Changes
The Poor Laws
Increase of Refinement and Luxury
Education and Travel
Benascenoe Architecture .
Other Arts . . . •
Early Tudor Literature
The Beginnings of Elizabethan Literature
Spenser and the Poets
The First Public Theatres .
Marlowe and the Early Dramatists
Shakespeare and his School
Elizabethan Prose .
Books recommended for the further study of the
Period ...-••
410
410
411
411
411
412
413
413
414
414
41S
41S
416
416-417
417
417
418
418
BOOK VI
1603-1714. THE STEWARTS .
1603-1635. Chapter I. James I.
The Union of the English and Scottish Crowns
Failure of James' Projects for more complete
Union .....
Completion of the Conquest of Ireland
1610. The Plantation of Ulster .
1607 and 1632. Beginnings of English Colonies — Virginia and
Maryland
1620-1629. The Plantation o£ New England '.
1600. The Beginnings of the East India Company
1623. The Amboyna Massacre
The Stewarts and Parliament
Character of James i. . . .
Eobert Cecil and his Enemies
1604. The Hampton Comt Conference .
Archbishops Bancroft and Abbot .
1605. The Gunpowder Plot
James and his Parliaments .
1610. The New Impositions and the Great Contract
1614. The Addled Parliament
James's Family and Favourites
Kobert Ker. George Villiers
James's Foreign Policy
1617-1618. Ealeigh's Last Voyage and Execution
1618. The Beginning of the Thirty Years' War .
1622-1623. James's efforts to restore the Elector Palatine
420-S33
420-434
420
421
422
422
423
423
424
424
42s
42s
426
426
427
427
428
428
429
429
429-430
430
431
431
432
CONTENTS
xxin
DATE
1623.
16S1.
1631.
1634-1635.
Failure of the Spanish Marriage .
James's Third Parliament .
The Pall of Baoon .
James's Fourth Parliament and Death
1625-1649. Chapter II. Charles I.
1635.
1626-1627.
1638.
1628.
1629.
1639-1640.
1637.
1637.
1638.
1639.
1640.
1640.
1640.
1641.
1640-1641.
1641.
1641.
1641.
1641.
1642.
1643.
1643.
1644.
1645.
1645.
1645.
Character of Charles i. . . .
The War with Spain and Charles's First
Parliament ....
Home and Foreign Policy .
The French War and Charles's Second Parliament
The Forced Loan and Darnell's Case
Charles's Third Parliament and the Petition of
Bight .....
Murder of Buckingham
Dissolution of Charles's Third Parliament
Charles's Arbitrary Enle
Charles's Expedients for raising Money .
Ship Money. Hampden's Case
Charles's Ejcclesiastical Policy
Archbishop Laud and the Puritans
The Victims of Charles's Policy .
Thomas Wentworth
The Scottish Prayer-book .
The National Covenant
The First Bishops' War .
The Short Parliament
The Second Bishops' War .
The Great Council at York
Meeting of the Long Parliament .
Attainder of Strafford
Bemedial Measures of the Long Parliament
The Boot and Branch Bill .
The Incident
The Irish Eebellion ....
The Grand Remonstrance .
The Division of ParUament into Two Parties
The Attack on the Five Members .
The Bupture between King and Parliament
The Eoyalist and Parliamentarian Parties
The Campaign of Edgehill and Brentford .
Boyalist Successes ....
First Battle of Newbury .
Cromwell and the Eastern Association
The Cessation, and the Solemn League and
Covenant .....
Benewed Fighting. Battle of Marstou Moor
The Destruction of Essex's Army and the Bising
of Montrose ....
The New Model and the Self-Denying Ordinance
The Battle of Naseby
The Battle ^f Philiphaugh .
432
433
433
434
435-461
435
436
436
436
437
438
438
439
439
440
440-441
441
441
442
442-443
443
444
444
445
445
445
446
446
446
447
447
447
448
448
448-449
449
449
450-451
450
451-452
452
452'
453-4S6
457
457
458
459
XXIV
DATE
1646.
1648.
1648-1649.
CONTENTS
Charles surrenders to the Soots
Presbyterians and Independents .
Parliament and the Army . • , V, u
Charles intrigues with the Army and the Presby-
terians . . • • •
The Second Oiyil War . •,,',-,
The Triumph of the Independents and the Execu-
tion of Charles i. .
PAGffi
459
439
460
460-461
461
461
1649-1660. Chapter III. The Commonwealth and
the Protectorate . . . 462-472
1649. Establishment of the Commonwealth . . 462
Difficulties of the New Government . . 463
1649-1650. Cromwell's Conquest of Ireland . . 463
1649-1651. Charles 11., King of Soots .... 464
1650-1651. Battles of Dunbar and Worcester . . . 464
1652-1653. The Dutch War ..... 465
1653. The Expulsion of the Rump . , . 465
The Little Parliament .... 466
The Instrument of Government . . . 466
1663-1658. Cromwell as Protector .... 467
1655. The Major-Generals .... 467
Cromwell's Puritan State Church . . . 468
Cromwell's Foreign Policy .... 469
1655. The French Alliance . . . . , 469
1655, 1658. Jamaica, and the Battle of the Dunes . . 469
1657. The Humble Petition and Advice . . . 470
1658-1659. The Protectorate of Biohard Cromwell . . 470
The Hump Restored . . . . 471
1669. A Presbyterian Revolt Suppressed . . . 47 1
1660. Monk declares for a Free Parliament . . 471
1660. The Declaration of Breda and the Restoration of
Charles 11. . ■ . . . . 422
1660-1685. Chapter IV. Charles II.
1660-1661.
1661.
1661-1665.
1665-1667.
1663.
1667.
1681.
1667.
1667-1673.
Work of the Convention
The Restoration Settlement of the Church
The Clarendon Code
The Reaction against Puritanism .
The Restoration in Scotland
The Restoration in Ireland .
The Restoration and Foreign Policy
The Rivalry of England and Holland
The Dutch War
Growth of the American Colonies
Carolina
New York and New Jersey .
Pennsylvania
The Pall of Clarendon
The Cabal .
473-488
473
474
47-5
476
476
477
477
478
478
479
479
479
479
481
481-482
CONTENTS
XXV
DATE
1668. The Triple Alliance ....
1670. The Treaty o£ Dover
1672-1673. The Dutch War ....
1678. The Declaration of Indulgence, the Test Act, and
the ]?all of the Cabal
1673-1678. The Ministry of Danby
1678. The Treaty of Nijmegen
1678-1679. The Popish Plot ....
1679. The Habeas Corpus Act, and the Exclusion BUI
1679. Whigs and Tories. High Church and Low Church
1679. Battle of Bothwell Bridge .
1680. The Lords reject the Exclusion Bill
1681. The Oxford Parliament
1688. The Rye House Plot
1682-1685. The Tory Eeaction, and the Death of Charles ii,
482
482
483
484
484
48s
485
486
486-487
487
487
487
488
488
1685-1688. Chapter V. James II.
1685.
1685.
1685.
1685.
1688.
1683-1689.
1688.
Character of James 11. .
The First Parliament of James 11.
Argyll's Rebellion ....
Monmouth's Rebellion
Breach between James and the Tories
The Dispensing and the Suspending Powers
The Court of High Commission
The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
Tyrconnell in Ireland
The Declaration of Indulgence
The Invitation to William of Orange
The Pall of James 11. . . .
The Convention and the Declaration of Right
489-495
489
489
490
490
492
492
493
493
493
494
494
495
495
1689-1702. Chapter VI. William III. and Mary . 496-510
1689.
1689.
1689.
1689.
1690.
1691.
1689.
1692.
1689-1697.
1690-1692.
1697.
1694.
The Accession of William and Mary and the Bill
of Rights . . . . . .
The Mutiny Act and the Revenue .
The Toleration Act .....
The Low Church Triumph and the Schism of
the Non-Jurors .....
James's Power upheld in Ireland .
Siege of Derry and the Battle of Newtown Butler
Battle of the Boyne ....
The Protestant Conq[uest of Ireland
The Revolution in Scotland
Battle of KUliecrankie
The Massacre of Glencoe .
The War against France
Battles of Beaohy Head and La Hougue
Peace of Byswiok
Financial Policy
Death of Queen Mary
496
497
497
498
498
499
499
500
SCO
SOI
501
502
503
503
503
5°4
XXVI
CONTENTS
DATE
1696.
1696.
1695-1699.
1698-1699.
1700.
1698-1700.
1701.
1702.
The Bond of Association .
The First United Whig Ministry .
Beginnings of Cabinet Government
The Darien Scheme
The Spanish Partition Treaties
The Failure of the Partition Treaties
The Tory Reaction .
The Act of Settlement
The Constitutional Limitations in the Act of
Settlement
The Grand Alliance and the Death of William iii,
PAGE
505
505
505
506
507
508
509
509
509
510
1702-1714. Chapter VII. Queen Anne
1702-1708.
1702-1713.
1702-1703.
1703.
1704.
1704-1706.
1707.
1708-1709.
1710.
1702-1708.
1708-1710.
1709.
1710-1713.
1713.
1714.
1699-1702.
1703-1704.
1704-1707.
1707.
Character of Queen Anne .
The Rule of Marlborough and Godolphin
The War of the Spanish Succession
The Early Campaigns of the War .
The Methuen Treaty
The Battle of Blenheim
Victories of the Allies
The Battle of Almanza
Battles of Oudenarde and Malplaquet
Battle of Brihuega .
Party Contests
Marlborough's Whig Ministry
The Impeachment of Dr. Sacheverell
The Tory Ministry .
The Treaty of Utrecht
End of the Age of Louis siv.
The Tory Ministry and the Protestant Succession
The Pall of Oxford and the Death of Queen Anne
Strained Relation between England and Scotland
The Act of Security .....
The Flying Squadron and the Negotiations for
the Union ......
The Parliamentary Union of England and
Scotland .....
1603-1714.
Chapter VIII.
Stewarts
Great Britain under the
Colonial and Commercial Development .
Results of the Growth of Trade on England
Manufactures
The Poor and the Poor Law
London and the Towns
Amusements
Communications
Dress
Education
Natural Science . .
5"-S23
5"
512
512
512
513
513
515
515
515
S16
516
517
S17
S18
S18
520
520
521
521
522
522
523
524-533
524
524
525
525
526
526
527
527
528
528
CONTENTS
xxvii
Architecture . . . .
Painting, Sculpture, and Music
The Drama . . . , . ,
Milton and the Poets < . . , .
Dryden and the Poetry o£ the Bestoration '
Establishment of Modern Prose Style
Books recommended for the further study of the.
Period . ...
529
529
53°
531
S3Z
533
533
BOOK VII
1714-1820. THE HOUSE OF HANOVER AND
THE RULE OF THE ARISTOC-
RACY .... 536-641
1714-1727. Chapter I. George I.
1714.
1714-1761.
1715.
1715.
1716.
1715.
1716.
1714-1717.
1717.
1719.
1717-1720.
1718.
1720.
1721.
1727.
The Accession of George i. .
The Long Whig Bule
The Law and Custom of the Constitution
The Cabinet System
The Supremacy of the Cornmons . .
The Whig Aristocracy
The Jacobites
The Riot Act ...
The Highlands of Scotland .
The Jacobite Eising .
Battle of Sheriffmuir and Collapse of the Rebellion
The Septennial Act .
The Whig JMinistry .
The Whig Schism .
The Peerage Bill
Foreign Policy and Alberoni
Battle of Cape Passaro
The South Sea Bubble
The Bursting of the Bubble
Walpole Prime Minister
Death of George i. .
1727-1760. Chapter II. George II.
1721-1742.
1733.
1737.
George 11. and Caroline of Anspach
Character and Policy of Walpole .
Parliamentary Management
Walpole the First Prime Minister .
The Opposition to Walpole .
The " Patriot Whigs "
The " Boys " and William Pitt
Bolingbroke and the New Tories .
The Failure of Walpole's Excise Scheme
The Porteous Riots in Edinburgh .
536-545
536
537
537
537
537
538
539
539
539
540
541
541
542
542
542
543
543
544
545
545
546-569
546
547
547
548
548
549
549
549
550
551
. CONTENTS
DATE
172S and 1731. The Two Treaties of Vienna .
1738. The Third Treaty of Vienna
Outbreak of War with Spain
The War of the Austrian Succession
The Pall of Walpole
The Carteret Ministry
The Pelham Ministry
Battle of Dettingen ....
Battle of Pontenoy ....
Jacobite Revolt and the Young Pretender
The March to Derby
Battles of Falkirk and Culloden
The Subjugation of the Highlands
The Treaty of Aachen
Pelham's Domestic Reforms
The Newcastle Ministry and the Whig Schism
William Pitt and the Whig Opposition
The Duke of Devonshire's Ministry
The Pitt-Newcastle Ministry
Origin of the Seven Years' War
Commercial and Colonial Rivalry of France and
England ....
European Traders in India under the Mogul
Empire . . . . .
Dupleix's Plans ....
England and France in India
Olive and the Siege of Arcot
17S7 and 1760. The Battles of Plassey and Wandewaish
France and England in North America .
Fort Duquesne ....
The European Coalition against Prussia and
England .
British Disasters
Pitt as the Inspirer of Victory
The Conquest of Canada
Death of George ii.
1739.
1740-1748.
1742.
1742-1744.
1744-1754.
1743.
1745.
1745.
1745.
1746.
1748.
1748-1754.
1754-1756.
1756-1757.
1757-1761.
1740-1755.
1751.
1756.
1756-1757.
1757-1760.
1758-1760.
1760.
SSI
SS2
SS3-SS4
5S3
SS3
SS3
SS4
SSS
556
558
558
559
559
560
560
561
561
561
562
562
563
563
563
564
564
565
565
566
566
56S
569
1760-1789. Chapter III. George III. and the War
of American Independence
1761.
1761-1763.
1763-1770.
1763.
1763-1765.
1765.
1765-1766.
1766-1768.
Character and Policy of George iii.
George ni. and Pitt
Pitt driven from Office
The Bute Ministry and the Peace of Paris
George in. and Foreign Politics .
The Resignation of Bute
The Grenville Ministry
Wilies and the " North Briton " .
The Stamp Act and the Fall of Grenville
The Rockingham Ministry .
The Chatham Ministry
The Renewal of the Wilkes Troubles
570-592
570
571
572
572
573
573
574
574
575
575
576
576
CONTENTS
XXIX
Burke and Junius .
1768-1770. The Grafton Ministry
1770-1782. The North Ministry
Origin of the American Bevolution
1768-1770, Townshend's Customs Duties and the American
Resistance ....
1773. Lord North and the Tea Duty
Failure of Conciliation
1775. Beginning of the War. Lexington and Bunter'i
Hill . • . . .
1776. The Declaration of Independence . . .
Characteristics of the American. War
1777. The Capitulation of Saratoga
1778-1780. The European Attack on Britain .
Chatham and American Independence
1778. Death of Chatham ....
1781. Yorktown and the End of the American War
1782. Bodney restores British Naval Supremacy
Warren Hastings restores British Supremacy in
India ....
1780. The Gordon Blots .
Ireland imitates America .
1782. The Legislative Independence of Ireland
1782. The Second Bockingham Ministry .
Burke and Economical Eeform
1782-1783. The Shelbume Ministry
1783. The Treaty of Versailles
1783. The Coalition of Pox and North .
1783. The Coalition Ministry
Pox's India Bill
1783-1801. William Pitt's Ministry
Character and Policy of the Younger Pitt
1784. Pitt's India Bill and Warren Hastings
Pitt's Foreign Policy
1788. The Eegency Question
1789-1802.
1789.
1789-1792.
1793-1795.
1792.
1793-1797.
1798.
1798.
Chapter IV. George III. The French
Revolution and the Irish Union
France before the Bevolution
Voltaire and Rousseau
The Meeting of the States General
The New Constitution and its PaUure
The Reign of Terror
Europe at War with the Revolution
England and the French Revolution
The Reaction and Pitt
England joins the War against the Revolution
The Suspension of Cash Payments .
The Revolutionary War at Sea ■
Buonaparte in Egypt
The Battle of the Nile
593-606
593
594
594
S9S
59S
59S
596
597
597-598
598
599
599
600
XXX
CONTENTS
DATE
1799. The Mysore War ...
1799-1801. The War of the Second Coalition .
1800-1801. The Battle of Marengo, and the Treaty of
LunSville ......
The Arrtied Neutrality and the Battle of
Copenhagen ....
1801-1802. The Addington Ministry and the Treaty of Amiens
The Pilot that weathered the Storm
1782-1800. Ireland under Grattan's. Parliament
The United Irishmen and the French Bevolution
1793-1794. The Belief Act, and the Government of Lord.
Fitzwilliair. .....
1798. Irish Behelljon .....
Pitt's Irish Policy .
1800. The Union .
1801. Failure of. Catholic
Resignation of Pitt
Emancipation and the.
PAGE
6oo
6oo
6ot
6oi
6oi
6o2
6o2
603
603
604
604-605
605
605-606
1802-1820. Chapter V. George III. and Napoleon . 607-625
1803.
1803-1814.
1803.
1798-1805.
1804-1806.
1804-1805.
1805.
1805-1806.
1806.
1806-1807.
1806.
1807.
1807-1830.
1807.
1808.
1808.
1808-1809.
1809.
1809
1809.
1810.
1811.
1812-1813.
1814.
1812-1814.
1815.
1816.
The Eupture of the Treaty of Amiens
The Napoleonic War
Emmet's Bebellion
Wellesley establishes -British Supremacy in India
Pitt's Second Ministry
The Volunteer Movement .
The Army of England, and the Supremacy of the
Seas .....
Battle of Trafalgar ....
The Third Coalition and its Failure
Death of Pitt ....
Ministry of All the Talents
Death of Fox . .
The Resignation of GrenviUe
The Long Tory Rule
The Conduct of the War .
The Treaty of Tilsit . . . .
The Continental System
The Spanish Rising against Napoleon
Arthur Wellesley' s Conquest of Portugal
The Failure of Sir John Moore
The War between France and Austria
Walcheren and Wagram
The Battle of Talavera . . '
Torres Vedras and Busaco . . [
Fuentes de Ofioro and Albuera
The Bussian, German, and Spanish National
Revolts ....
The Fall of Napoleon . . '.
The War with the United States .
The Hundred Days .
Battle of Waterloo ..."
607
608
609
609
610
610
610
611
612
612
612
613
613
613
614
614
614-615
61S
616
617
617
618
618
620
620
620
621
621
622
622-623
CONTENTS
XXXI
DATE
1815. The Congress of Vienna
1815-1820. England after tlie Peace
1820. Death of George in.
623
625
625
1714-1820. Chapter VI. Great Britain during the
Eighteenth Century: The Industrial
Revolution ..... 626-639
Commercial Ascendency of Great Britain . . 626
The Age of Inventions .... 626-627
Roads, Turnpikes, and Tramways . . 627-628
Navigable Bivers and Canals . . . 628
The Factory System and the Industrial Revolution 628-630
The Agrarian Revolution .... 630-631
Pauperism and the. Corn LavfS . . , 631
The " Age of Reason " .... 632
The Methodist Movement .... $32-633
The Evangelical Movement . . (533-634
Religion in Scotland . . . , 634
Humanitarianism and Philanthropy . . 634-635
Social Life ...... 635
Art . ... . . . .636
Poetry and the Drama . . . . . . 637
Prose ...... 637-638
The Romantic Revival .... 638-639
Books recommended for the further study of the
Period ... . . 639
BOOK VIII
1820-1901. NATIONALITY AND DEMOCRACY . 642-727
1820-1830. Chapter I. George IV.
1820.
1820.
1820.
1822.
1827.
1827.
1827-1828.
1828-1830.
Accession of George iv. .
The Trial of Queen Caroline
The Oato Street Conspiracy
The Old and the Nevir Tories
The Canningites admitted to Office
Canning's Foreign Policy .
The Holy Alliance ....
The Revolt of the Spanish Colonies and the
Monroe Doctrine ....
Canning and the Greek Insurrection
Battle of Nav^rino ....
Peel's Reforms as Home Secretary
Huskisson'S Commercial and Financial Reforms
Canning's Ministry and Death
The Goderioh Ministry
The Wellington Ministry . . .
The Catholic Association and the Clare Bleotipn
642-649
642
643
643
643
644
644
644
64s
64s
646
646
647
647
647
^&
64b
XXXll
CONTENTS
DATE
1B29. Catholic Emancipation
Wellington's Foreign Policy
1830. Death of George iv. .
18304837. Chapter II. William IV. .
Democracy and Nationality
1830. Bevolutions on the Continent
The Agitation for Parliamentary Keform
1830. William iv. and the Grey Ministry
The Need for Parliamentary Keform
The Reform Movement under George iv.
1831-1832. The Struggle for Reform .
1832. The First Reform Act passed
Irish Repeal and the Tithe War
1832-1835. Other Reforms
Palmerston's Foreign Policy
1834. The Melbourne Ministry
Peel and the Conservative Party
1837. Death of William iv.
648-649
649
649
650-656
650
650
651
651
652
652
653
653
654
654
65s
6S5
65s
656
1837-1865.
Chapter III.
stou .
Victoria — Peel and Palmer-
Separation of England and Hanover
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert .
The Changed Conception of the Work of the
Monarchy and House of Lords .
Socialism and Chartism
Melbourne's Ministry
Conservative Reaction
Foreign Policy of the Peel Ministry
Young Ireland. Peel's Irish Policy
The Corn Laws and Popular Unrest
The Anti-Oorn Law League
Peel and Free Trade
The Failure of the Irish Potato Crop
The Repeal of the Corn Laws
Fall of Peel ....
Peelites, Protectionists, Liberals, and Radicals
The Russell Ministry
The Irish Famine and its Conseq[uenoes
The Year of Revolutions
Chartism and Young Ireland
Palmerston's Foreign Policy
1851 and 1852. Dismissal of Palmerston and RUssell
1852. The First Derby-Disraeli Ministry .
The Aberdeen Coalition Ministry .
Nicholas i. and the Eastern Question
Origin of the Crimean War
The Crimean War .
Palmerston's First Ministry
1835-1841.
1841.
1841-1846.
1839.
1845.
1846.
1846.
1846-1862.
1846-1847.
1848.
1848.
1852-1855.
1894-1856.
1855-18S8.
657-673
657
657
658
659
659
660
660
661
662
662
663
663
663
664
664
665
665
666
666
666
667
667
668
668
669
669
671
CONTENTS
XXXIU
DATE
1858-18S9.
18S9-1865.
1861-1865.
1865.
The Second Derby-Disraeli Ministry
The Second Palmerston Ministry .
Italian and German Unity
The American Civil War
Palmerston's Foreign Policy
The Death of Palmerston and its Eesults
671
672
672
672
673
673
1865-1886.
Chapter IV.
Disraeli
Victoria — Gladstone and
1865.
1865-1866.
1866-1868.
1867.
1868-1874.
1869.
1870.
1870.
1870-1871.
1874.
1874-1830.
1877-1878.
1878.
1879.
1880.
1880-1885.
1885.
1884-1885.
1886-1888.
1886.
1886.
Beginning of the Transition to Democracy
The Kussell Ministry and the Eeform Bill
The Third Derby-Disraeli Ministry
The Second Eeform Act
The Fenians ...
The First Gladstone Ministry
Disestablishment of the Irish Church
Irish Land System .
The First Irish Land Act .
The Education Act and Other Eeforms
The Pranoo-German War and its Eesults
Gladstone's Foreign Policy
Fall of Gladstone .
The Disraeli Ministry
The Home Eule Movement
The Eusso-Turkish War .
The Treaties of San Stefano and Berlin
The Dual Contest in Egypt
FaU of Beaconsfield
The Second Gladstone Ministry
Its Irish Policy
Egypt and the Sudan
The Death of Gordon
The Third Eeform Act
The First Salisbury Ministry
The Third Gladstone Ministry
Home Eule and the Break-up of the Old Parties
674-683
674
674
675
67s
676
676
676
676-677
677
677
678
678
679
679
679
680
681
681
682
682
682
683
683
684
684
684
685
1886-1901. Chapter V. Victoria-
the Empire .
-Home Rule and
. 686-694
1886-1892. The Salisbury tTniomst Ministry ... 686
The Plan of Campaign .... 686
1888-1889. The Parnell Commission .... 687
1890-1891. Pamellites and Anti-Parnellites . . . 687
1886-1892. Foreign Policy. The Triple and the Dual
Alliances . . . . . . 688
1887. The Queen's Jubilee .... 688
1892-1894. The Fourth Gladstone Ministry ... 689
1893. The Lords Eejeot the Home Eule Bill . .689
Filling up the Cup .... 689
XXXIV
CONTENTS
iJAl'E
1891-1895. The Eosebery Ministry
1895-1901. The Third Salisbury Ministry
Armenia and Crete. Other Foreign Troubles
1896-1899. The Conquest of the Sudan
1898. Fashoda . . . • •
Troubles in the Par East . . •
1897 and 1901. The Diamond Jubilee and the Death of Queen
Victoria ....-•
690
690
691
692
693
693
18204901. Chapter VI. The United Kingdom in
the Nineteenth Century . . . 695-708
Increase of the Functions of the State
Central Government
Local Government ....
The Army and the, Navy .
The Church .....
The Traotarian Movement and its Eesults
The Protestant Nonconformists
The Roman Catholics
The Established Church and the Free Church in
Scotland .....
Material Wealth ....
Steamboats .....
Steam Railways and other Inventions
Social and Industrial Progress
Architecture .....
Painting, Music, and Sculpture
Natural Science ....
Poetry and Prose ....
Education .....
695
69s
69b
697-698
698
698-699
699
700
700
701
701
702-703
703
704
70s
705
706-707
707-708
1820-1901. Chapter VII. British India in the Nine
teenth Century
1820.
1820.
1828-1835.
1834-1842.
1848 and 1846.
1849 and 1852.
1857.
1868.
1878-18S0.
The Indian and Colonial Empires .
The Condition of British India
The Condition of the Indian Vassal States
The Governorship of Lord WiUiam Bentinck
The Afghan War ....
The Conquest of Sind and the First Sikh War
Annexations of the Punjab and of Lower
Burma ....
Dalhousie's Doctrine of Lapse
Lord Canning and the Indian Mutiny
End of the East India Company .
Second AfghAn War ....
India at the End of Victoria's Reign
709-718
709
710
710
711
712
712
713
713
714
7'5
716
716
CONTENTS XXXV
DATE
1783-1901. Chapter VIII. The British Colonies in
the Nineteenth Century . . 719.727
British Colonies in the Latter Part of the
Eighteenth Century . . . . 71Q
Oplonial Expansion during the EeTolutionary
and Napoleonic Wars .... 720
Oeoay of the West Indies .... 720-721
The Enaigration Movement . . ', 721
Phases of Colonial Policy . . . ! 721
W40-1856. Growth of Colonial Independence . . 722
Colonial Federation .... 733
The North American Colonies . . 727
1867. The Dominion of Canada . . . .' 723
1901. The Commonwealth of Australia . , . 723-724
South Africa . ... 724
The Boer B«publios .... 724
The Band Mines and the Struggle of Boer and
Outlander . . »2i;
1899. The Boer War ...'.'. 726-727
The Establishment of English Supremacy . 727
Books recommended for the further study of the
Period . . . . . . 727.728
LIST OF BIBLIOGRAPHIES
Books reoommended for the further study of the Period, up
TAGE
to 1066
80-81
Books reoommended for the further study of the Period,
1066-1215 ......
158
Books recommended for the further study of the Period
1215-1399 ......
253
Books reoommended for the further study of the Period
1399-1485
307
Books reoommended for the further study of the Period
1485-1603 ......
418
Books reoommended for the further study of the Period
1603-1714 ......
533
Books reoommended for the further study of the Period
1714-1820 ......
639
Books reoommended for the further study of the Period
1820-1901
727-728
LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS
Roman Britain ......
South Britain after tlie English Conquest (about 607)
Map showing position of Nectansmere
The Welsh and English Lands in OfEa's Time
The Voyages and States of the Norsemen up to the Tenth Century
England after Alfred and Guthrum's Peace, 886
England at the Death of Edward the Confessor
The Battle of Hastings .....
The New Forest ......
England and Wales during the Norman Period
Plan of Christ Church, Canterbury ....
France in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, showing the
Continental Dominions of the Norman and Angevin Kings
The Crusade of Richard i. .
Plan of Ch§,teau Gaillard . .
The Battle of Lewes . ...
The Battle of Evesham .....
Wales and: the March, showing the growth of the power of
Llewelyn (1246-1267)
Wales and the March between the Conquest under Edward i. and
the Union under Henry viii. " . ...
English King's Dominion in Prance in the Thirteenth Century
The Battle of Bannookbum .....
Northern England and Southern Scotland in the Fourteenth
Century .......
The Cr6cy Campaign, 1346 .....
The Battle of Crfey ......
The Battle of Poitiers ......
The English Dominions in France after the Treaties of Br^tigni
and Calais (1860) ......
Some forms of Mediaeval Architecture
The Agincourt Campaign .....
The Battle of Agincourt ....
France in 1429 .......
xxxvii
XXXviii LIST OP MAPS AND PLANS
PAGE
The Battle of Towton . . . . . . .286
England, 1377-1509, illustrating the Wars of the Eoses . . ago
The French and Netherlandish Borders in the Sixteenth Century 321
The Battle of Ploddeu . . . . . .322
Europe at the Time of Charles v. . . . . . 324
English Bishoprics under Henry viii. . . 342
The Battle of Pinkie . . . . . . -353
Scotland in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries . 382
The Netherlands in the Beginning of the Seventeenth Century 387
Voyages and Settlements of the Sixteenth Century . . 395
The Course of the Spanish Armada ..... 398
Ireland under the Tudors . . . 403
Ireland in the Seventeenth Century .... 422
England and Wales during the Great Civil War —
1. May, 1643 . . . . 454
2. November, 1644 . . . . ^cc
The Battle of Marston Moor ...... 456
The Battle of Naseby .... . . ^rg
The English Colonies in North America under Charles 11. . . 480
The South of England, 1685-1689 . . .491
The Battle of Blenheim . . . . ?I4
Europe in 1718 ... . . cjn
Scotland and the North of England, illustrating the Jacobite
Risings of 1689, 1715, and 1745-1746 . . . 557
New England and New France, 1755-1783
The Thirteen Colonies in 1765
The Battle of Trafalgar
Europe in 1810
The Battle of Waterloo
Europe after the Congress of Vienna (1815) ,
Map to illustrate the Industrial Revolution .
The Neighbourhood of Sebastopol
Egypt and the Sudan .
India in 1906 ....
South Africa in 1899 .
The British Empire in the Early Twentieth Century
S67
579
606
619
623
624
629
670
692
717
726
730
LIST OF GENEALOGICAL TABLES
The Chief Northumbrian Kings
The Danish Kings ....
The House of Godwin .
The House of Leofrie ....
The Old English Kings of the House of Oerdio
The Norman and Early Angevin Kings
The Proven9als and Savoyards
The House of Lusignan
The Earls of Gloucester
The Last Welsh Princes
The Scottish Kings, showing the Chief Claimants in 1290
The French Kings of the Direct Oapetian Line, showing Edward
nil's claim
The English Kings from John to Richard ii.
The House of Lancaster, including the Beauforts
The Valois Kings of !E'rance, and the Valois Dukes of Burgundy
The House of York, including the Mortimers and Staffords
The Nevilles .
The Greys and WoodvUles
Charles v. and the Hapshurg Kings of Spain
The Howards and Boleyns
The Dudleys ....
The House of Tudor ....
The Cromwell Family
The Spanish Succession, 1700
The Stewart Kings in Scotland and England
The Bourbon Kings of France
The Buonaparte Family
The Pitts and Grenvilles
The House of Brunswick-Hanover .
PA UK
35
6i
65
65
72
157
163
170
171
180
187
207
254
261
269
284
294
299
325
334
358
419
472
507
534
535
616
639
640
TABLE OF KINGS AND QUEENS
CHIEF KINGS OF NOSTHTJMBEIA
^thelfrith, 393-617
Edwin, 627-6S3 .
Oswald, 635-642 .
Oswiu, 655-671
Eogfrith, 671-685 .
rAGR
27
3031
31-32
32-33
35
CHIEF EIN-QS OF MEBCIA
Peuda, 626-655
Bthelbald, 716-757
Ofia, 757-796
Cenulf, 796-821 .
31-34
36
36-37
38
CHIEF KINGS OF WESSEX
Egbert, 802-839 .....
Ethelwulf, 839-858 ....
Ethelbald, Ethelbert, and Ethelred, 858-871 .
Alfred, 871-899 .....
39-40
41
43
44-49
THE OLD ENGLISH KINGS
Edward the Elder, 899-924
Athelstan, 924-940
Edmund, 940-946 .
Bdred, 946-955 .
Edwy, 955-959 . .
Edgar the Peaceful, 959-975
Edward the Martyr, 975-978
Ethelred the Unready, 978-1016
Edmund Ironside, 1016 .
Cnut, 1017-1035 .
Harold Harefoot, 1035-1040
Harthaonut, 1040-1042 .
Edward the Confessor, 1042-1066
Harold, son of Godwin, 1066
xl
S0-51
51-52
52
52-53
S3
54-55
55-56
57-59
59
S9-6I
61
6i
62-66
66-69
TABLE OF KINGS AND QUEENS
THE NOBHAIT EmG3
William i., the Conqueror, 1066-1087
William ii., Kufus, 1087-1100 .
Henry i., 1100-1135
Stephen, 1135-1154
xli
PAGE
82-93
94-101
I02-II0
III-II5
THE HOUSE OF ANJOTJ
Henry 11., of Anjou, 1154-1189
Biohard i., 1189-1199
John, 1199-1216 .
Henry in., 1216-1272
Edward i., 1272-1307
Edward 11., 1307-1327
Edward in., 1327-1377
Eiohard 11., 1377-1399
116-130
131-136
137-13S
159-177
178-197
198-204
205-227
228-237
THE HOTfSE OF LANCASTER
Henry iv., 1399-1413
Henry v., 1413-1422
Henry vi., 1422-1461
and 1470-1471
255-260
262-268
270-283
289-291
THE
Edward iv., 1461-1470 .
and 1471-1483
Edward v., 1488 .
Eiohard m., 1483-1485 .
HOUSE OF YORK
285-289
291-293
295-296
296-299
THE HOUSE OF TUDOR
Henry vii., 1485-1509
Henry vm., 1509-1547
Edward VI., 1547-1553
Mary, 1553-1558 .
Elizabeth, 1558-1603
.308-316
317-351
352-360
361-367
368-407
THE HOUSE OF STEWART
James i., 1603-1625
Charles i., 1625-1649
The Commonwealth, 1649-1653 .
and 1659-1660 .
Oliver Cromwell, Protector, 1653-1658
Eiohard Cromwell, Proteotor, 1658-1659
Charles 11., 1660-1685
James n., 1685-1688
William m., and Mary 11., 1689-1694 1
William m., 1689-1702 . . ]
Anne, 1702-1714 .
420-434
435-461
462-467
470-472
467-470
470
473-488
489-495
496-504
504-510
5 1 1-523
xlii TABLE OF KINGS AND QUEENS
THE HOUSE or HANOVEE
George I., 17U-1727
George ii., 1727-1760
George III., 1760-1820
George iv., 1820-1830
William iv., 1830-1837
Victoria, 1837-1901
Edward vii-, 1901 .
536-S4S
546-569
570-625
642-649
650-656
657-694
BOOK I
BRITAIN BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST
{UP TO 1066)
CHAPTER I
PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN
Chief Dates:
? 330 B.C. The voyage of Pytheas.
1. There are few sxirviving written records of the doings of man in
the British Islands which are mnch earlier than the Christian era.
Yet the modern sciences of geology, arohseology, and philology prove
that these islands had been the dwelling-place of human beings for
many centuries previous to that period. The earliest certain evidence
of the existence of man in Britain is derived from
the discovery of large numbers of rudely shaped flint uthle Abb "
implements. Some of these have been found in the
gravels of river drifts, and others in the caves where early man
made his dwelling. A few skulls, discovered along with such primi-
tive tools, show that the dwellers in this remote age were of a low
intellectual type. Yet the survival of a rude but spirited drawing
of a horse on a flat piece of bone indicates that these savages had
the rudiments of an artistic sense. The age in which they lived is
called the palxoUthic, or old stone age. There is little proof that
the men of this age had any connection with the later races which
successively inhabited Britain.
2. Many ages passed away, and more abundant evidence is found
of the existence of man in Britain. We pass from the palseolithic
to the neolithic, or new stone age, where the roughly
fashioned tools of the primitive race were replaced by jj^^j^ ^'
more carefully constructed implements of smooth
polished stone. Such neolithic tools include arrow-heads, sharp
enough to transfix an enemy, axe-heads called celts, scrapers, knives,
B
2 PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN
dress-fasteners, and saws. The oare of the men of this period for
their dead is indicated by the solidly bnilt harrowt of long oval
shape, wherein huge stones, piled np to form a sepulchral chamber
for a whole clan, were then covered in with great mounds of
earth. Numerous remains of the dead found in these resting-
places suggest that the men of the new stone age were short in
stature, swarthy in complexion, and had long narrow skulls of the
type called doliehocephalie. To these people has been
S*® , sometimes given the name of Iberians, because they have
Iberians. ^ ^ jt • • i • -l -l*
been thought akin to the Basques, the original inhabi-
tants of Iberia or Spain, and some philologists have believed that a
few words of their tongue stUl lurk in some of our most ancient
place-names. However these things may be, there is good reason
to believe that the blood of this ancient race still flows in the veins
of many of those now dwelling in our land.
3. The Iberian inhabitants of Britain were ultimately attacked
by a stronger and more ingenious ra«e called the Celts. This
people belonged to the great Arycm family, whose
language was the origin of nearly all the civilized
tongues of Europe, and of those of a considerable part of western
Asia. Their physical characteristics were very different from those
of their short and swarthy predecessors. They were tall, fair-
skinned, with red or yellow hair, and their skulls were broader,
shorter, and more highly developed, belonging to the type called
hrachycephalic. They came to Britain in two great waves of migra-
tion. The earlier Celtic wave deposited in our islands the races
called Goidelic, or Oaelic, which are now represented
Gofdels ^y ^^^ Irish, the Scottish Highlanders, and the Manx-
men. The second migration was that of the Bryihonic
peoples, who were the ancestors of the Britons, afterwards called
the Welsh, as well as of the Bretons of Brittany and
Bpythons. *^® Comishmen. In each case the incoming race took
possession of the richer and more fertile southern and
eastern parts of our island, and drove the previous inhabitants into
the mountains of the west and north. The Goidels forced the
Iberians back into these regions, and were then in their turn pushed
westwards and northwards by the incoming Britons. By the time
that our real knowledge begins, the Britons had occupied the whole
of the south and east, and the mass of the Goidels had been driven
over sea to Ireland, and to the barren mountains of the north be-
yond the Forth and the Clyde. There was stUl, however, a strong
Goidelic element along the western coasts of southern Britain,
PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN 3
especially in the south-west peninsula, which now makes Cornwall
and Devonshire, in south Wales, and in the lands round the
Solway.
4 It is to these western and northern lands that we must look
if we would study the older populations of the British islands.
The Goidels, when driven into the west, seem to have become
amalgamated with the Iberians whom they had earlier pushed into
those regions. The result of this was the development
there of two physical types which have survived to our gamaUon" of
own days. The incoming Celt is still represented Iberians
in Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish Highlands by ^^^'^^^s-
occasional tall, fair men ; but the most usual type in those districts
is that of a short, dark-haired, dark-complexioned race, which is
probably largely derived from the blood of the pre-Celtic inhabi-
tants of our land. But for both types alike, the Celtic language
and the Celtic institutions became universal. There was, and is,
however, a great difference between the GroideTic speech of the
earlier Celtic migration, still spoken by some of the Irish, Manx,
and Scottish Highlanders, and the Brythonic tongue of the later
immigrants, stQl surviving in Welsh and Breton, and, till the nine-
teenth century, in Cornish.
5. Civilization now steadily progressed, though it is almost im-
possible to say for certain whether the next great steps forward were
the work of the earlier or of the later race. The people's increasing
care for the dead led them to erect huge circles of great stones, each
resembling the stone chamber of the barrow, stripped of its mound
of earth, and piled up in magnificent order in mighty
mejfaZi^ic monuments. Of these, Avebury in northern JJo^uments.
Wiltshire, and Stonehenge on Salisbury plain, are the
most famouB examples. After the coming of the Celts the fashion
of burial changed. Instead of the long barrow, destined to receive
the remains of many warriors, short round harrows, each the grave
of a particular chieftain or of his kin, became so usual as to be ex-
tremely numerous. In these were deposited the bodies, or some-
times the burnt ashes, of the dead, and along with them were put
implements of stone and bronze, ornaments of gold, jet, amber,
and glass, and pottery, made by hand, and unglazed, but rudely
ornamented, and polished by hard rubbing.
6. When this stage had been attained, the stone The Bronze
age was over, and the period was reached when the andiron
use of metals was known. This marked an enor- ^®*"
mous advance of civilization. First came the bronze age, which
4 PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN
was vdtunately succeeded by the iron age, which lias been going on
ever since. The Goidel came to Britain in the age of bronze,
and at the beginning of the iron age the Britons of the newer
Celtic migration had become the masters of the southern part of
our island, to which they had given the name of Britain.
7. The Celts were the first inhabitants of our island to attain
a respectable level of civilization. They wore clothes, used metal
weapons, and delighted in gold and glass ornaments,
^.^r'^ Celtic They tilled the ground, opened up tin and lead mines,
and began to trade with their neighbours. They were
brave, high-spirited, and enterprising ; had a real love of beautiful
things, and delighted in war and battle. They were split up into
different tribes, each of which had its own king, though occasionally
several tribes would join together under a common king, especially
in times of danger. The Celts were fickle and quarrelsome, and
seldom remained permanently under any other ruler than the
chief of their own tribe or clan. The gentry went to battle in war-
chariots, drawn by horses, which they managed with extraordinary
skill. They protected themselves by bronze helmets and body
armour, often beantifully enriched by ornament. Their weapons
were the sword, the buckler, the dart, and the axe. The Celts wor-
shipped many gods, and sought to propitiate them by human sacri-
fices. They held in great honour their priests, who were called
Druids, and who also were the poets, prophets, and judges of the
people. The chief wealth of the nation lay in their flocks and
herds, and the population lived for the most part in scattered home-
steads. They erected, however, as refuges in times of war, great
earthworks called dtms. Favourite sites for these fortresses were
the summits of high hills, from which they could overlook the
countryside. The majority of the Britons lived upon the uplands,
as the river valleys were swampy, unhealthy, and hard to cultivate ;
but some of them were fishermen or watermen, like the dwellers
in the lake villages discovered near Glastonbury. There was
enough intercourse between tribe and tribe for rough trackways to
be marked out over the downs and hills from one settlement to
another.
8. Though the Druids composed verses, wherein they com-
memorated the deeds of great men, and set forth the laws and
The voyage ''''isdom of their ancestors, the Britons had no books,
of Pytheas, so that no account of them from their own noint
of view has been handed down to us. The earliest
information that we have of the Britons comes from the travellers'
PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN 5
tales of Greek explorers from the Mediterranean. Somewhere
about 330 b.c, some merchants of the G-reek colony of Massilia
(now called Marseilles), in the south of Graul, sent a mathematician
named Pytheas to explore the lands on the Atlantic coast of
Europe in the hope of opening up a trading connection with them.
Among other countries Pytheas visited Britain, sailing through the
Channel and all up the eastern coast, and setting down his observa-
tions of the country and its people in writings of which, unluckily,
only fragments have come down to us. From the voyage of
Pytheas a trading connection between Britain and the commercial
cities of the Mediterranean was opened up, which soon became
important. There were also close dealings between the Britons
and their Celtic kinsmen the Gauls, their nearest continental neigh-
bours; Many Gauls settled in southern Britain, and stUl further
raised its standard of refinement. The tin, lead, amber, and pearls
of the Britons found a ready market in cities like Massilia, and by
this means some vague knowledge of the existence of Britain
became spread among civilized people. So active did commerce
become that the Britons struck coins of gold and tin, which were
rudely fashioned after the models of the Greek monies of the
period. So intercourse increased and civilization grew until, nearly
three hundred years after the voyage of Pytheas, the advance
of the Koman Empire brought Britain into the ftiller light of
history.
CHAPTER II
ROMAN BRITAIN (55 B.C.-449 A.D.)
Chief Dates :
SS-S4 B.C. Julius Caesar's expeditions to Britain.
43 A.D. Claudius begins the Roman conquest of Britain.
78-85. Government of Agricola.
122. Hadrian's Wall built.
297. Diocletian reorganizes the British provinces.
410. Withdrawal of the Roman legions.
1. Ix the generations preceding' the Christian era the Romans
established their dominion over the whole of the lands surrounding
the Mediterranean, the centre of the civilization of
Cffisar's First ^^® ancient world. The last step of this conquest
Expedition was the subjugation of Gaul by Graius Julius Caesar,
t°^''Jta'n. between 58 and 50 B.C. Brought by his triumphant
progress to the shores of the Channel, Csesar learnt
that the Britons had afforded refuge to the fugitives from his arms
in G-aul, and believed that their sympathy with their continental
brethren would make it harder for the Romans to keep Gaul
quiet. Accordingly he resolved to teach the Britons the might
of the Roman power, and in 55 B.C. he led a smaU expedition
over the straits of Dover, and successfully landed it in Kent,
despite the vigorous resistance which the Britons offered to his
disembarkation. Csesar found, however, that the Britons were
stronger than he thought, and that he had not brought enough
troops to accomplish anything great against them. For the few
weeks that he remained in Britain, he did not venture far from
the coast. Before long he returned to Gaul, convinced that he
must wipe out his failure by conducting a stronger army to England
as soon as he could.
2. Next year, 54 B.C., Csesar landed in Britain for the second
time. He then took with him more than twice as many soldiers as
on the previous occasion. Having established a camp on the coast,
6
55 B-C] ROMAN BRITAIN 7
he marched boldly into the interior. He was opposed by Cassivel-
launus, Idng of the tribes dwelling on the north bank of the
Thames. The light-armed Britons shrunk from a
pitched battle with the Romans, and failed to prevent J">'"s^
them from forcing their passage over the Thames, second Ex-
But their swift war-chariots hung upon the Roman pedltionto
line of march, threatened to destroy Csesar's camp on fl g {?'
the coast, and prevented him from winning any very
striking triumphs. However, some of the British tribes were jealous
of Cassivellaunus. Conspicuous among these were the Trinovantes,
his eastern neighbours, dwelling in what is now Essex. This tribe
sent envoys to Caesar, and submitted to him. Alarmed at this
defection, Cassivellaunus also made his peace with the Roman
general, and agreed not to disturb the Trinovantes. Some of the
tribes promised to yield up hostages and to pay tribute to the
Romans. Thereupon Csesar went back to the continent. He had
not even attempted to conq^uer Britain, but he had taug-ht the
Britons a lesson, and had prevented them from harming the
Roman power in Graul. The most enduring result of Csesar's visits
is to be found in the description of Britain and the Britons which
he wrote in his famous Commentaries. This is the first full written
account of our island that has come down to us. With it the
continuous history of our land beg-ins.
3. For ninety years after Csesar's landing no Roman troops were
seen in Britain. Increased commerce followed upon the greater
knowledge which Romans and Britons now had of
each other. The Trinovantes, who remained true to Britain,
the Roman connection, profited by it to make them- 54 B.C.—
selves masters of most of south-eastern Britain. Their ' '
power came to a head under their king Cunobelinus, the Cymbeline
of Shakespeare and romance. He struck coius which closely
imitated those of the contemporary Romans, made Camulodunum
(Colchester) his capital, and felt himself strong enough to throw off
Roman control. One of his brothers, disgusted at being supplanted,
appealed to the Romans for help, but his valiant son Caraotacus
continued his policy after his death. Thus strained relations en-
sued between the Romans and the Trinovantes. The promised
tribute was not paid ; Gaulish rebels were encouraged, and Gaulish
fugitives from Roman rule received once more a welcome.
4 The renewed hostUity of the Britons to Rome convinced the
Emperor Claudius that the only way of making Gaul secure was
by oonq^uering Britain. Accordingly, in 43 A.D., Claudius sent
8 ROMAN BRITAIN. [43-
a strong army to the island, under Aulus Plautius. With his
-,u n landinff the systematic Roman cono[uest of Britain
Tn© Roman ° ^ _ - at. j. /~n j •
conquest of began. Plautius soon made suoh progress that Olaucaus
Britain. himself visited the countiy, and witnessed his soldiers
taking by storm Caraotaous' sti-onghold of Camulodunum, which
soon became a Eoman colony — ^the first in Britain.
Plautius, When Plautius returned to Rome in 47, he had made
43-47 A.D. himself master of the south and midlands as far as
the Humber and the Severn. The next governor, Ostorius Scapula
Otis (47-62), strove to subdue the Silures and Ordovices,
Scapula, the fierce tribes that dwelt in the hills of southern and
47-52. central Wales, among whom Caraotaous found a refuge
after the conquest of his own district. The Eoman general defeated
Caractacus in a pitched battle, and forced him to flee northwards
to the Brigantes of the modern Yorkshire. Surrendered by these
to the Romans, the British king was led in triumph through Rome.
His brave and frank bearing won the favour of Claudius, who per-
mitted him to end his days in honourable retirement. But the
conquest of the Welsh hills was not lasting, and all the Romans
could do was to establish a ring of border garrisons at Deva
(Chester), Virooonium (Wroxeter), and Isoa Silurum (Caerleon-on-
Usk), whereby the wild mountaineers were restrained.
5. The Roman conquest of Britain was further advanced by
the governor, Suetonius Paullinus (59-62), who in 61 completed
Suetonius *^® subjugation of the hiU-tribes of the west by the
Paullinus, reduction of Mona or Anglesey, the last refuge of
59-62. ^jjg Druids. A sang-uinary insurrection of the Iceni,
the clan inhabiting what is now Norfolk and Suffolk, recalled
Paullinus. The Icenian King, Prasutagos, who had ruled under
Roman over-lordship, made the Emperor his co-heir, jointly with
his two daug'hters. On his death the Romans took possession of
his lands, brutally ill-ti'eated his daughters, and cruelly scourged his
widow, Boudicca (Boadioea), who strove to maintain their rights.
The indignant tribesmen took advantage of the governor's absence
to rise in revolt. Camulodunum was stormed, and all the Romans
witliin it put to the sword. A like fate befell Yerulamium (St.
Albans), the seat of Roman government, andLondinium (London),
the chief commercial centre of Britain. The legion that held the
northern frontier hurried southwards, but was out to pieces by the
Iceni in the open field. At last Paullinus, fresh from his triumph
at Mona, marched eastward at the head of the strong force which
had held down the disturbed western frontier. Defeated in a
-122.] ROMAN BRITAIN g
pitched battle, Boudicoa avoided captivity and shame by drinking
off a bowl of poison. The suppression of the rebellion completed
the reduction of aU Britain south of the Humber and east of the
Dee and Usk. But the mountaineers of what is now called Wales
took advantage of Paullinus' withdrawal to renew their freedom,
and for many years the Roman advance northwards and westwards
was stayed.
6. The next forward movement was under Julius Agricola, a
famous statesman and general, who was governor of Britain from
78 to 85. Agrioola's son-in-law, the famous historian, j-a&a%
Tacitus, wrote a life of his father-in-law in such detail Agpieola,
that we learn more of his doings in Britain than of '^^'^^•
those of any commander since Julius Cassar. Agrioola's first
military exploit was to complete the subjugation of the hill-tribes
of the west. Thereupon he turned his arms northwards and sub-
dued the fierce Brigantes, establishing a new camp at Eburaoum
(York), which soon became the chief centre of the Roman power.
Within the next few years he seems to have advanced stiU further
northwards, until he found a natural barrier in the narrow isthmus
which separates the Firth of Forth and Clyde, where he erected a
line of forts. Not contented with this, Agricola advanced beyond
this Hue into the mountains of northern Scotland, whose wild in-
habitants, called then the Caledonians, opposed him vigorously
under their chieftain Galgacus. At last, in 84, Agricola won a
victory over Galgacus at an unknown place called Mons Ch'aT^ius.
After this he circumnavigated the north coast of Scotland with a
fleet, and even talked of cono[uering Ireland. Next year, however,
he was recalled, and liis successors took up a less enterprising
policy. Even more important than Agrioola's victories were the
efEorts he made to civilize the Britons and spread Roman fashions
among them. The sons of the chieftains learned to speak Latin,
adopted the Roman dress, and followed their conquerors' habits of
life.
7. South Britain remained hard to hold. A revolt annihilated
the legion stationed at York, and about 122 the wise Emperor
Hadrian, abandoning the northern regions, which jy^^ ^^^
Ag-ricola had claimed as part of the province, erected Roman
a solid wall of stone, fortified by frequent forts, to walls,
form a scientific frontier for the region solidly held by the
Romans. The line chosen for this purpose ran from the mouth
of the Solway to the mouth of the Tyne — roughly speaking, from
Carlisle to Newcastle — a distance of more than seventy mUes. If
lO ROMAN BRITAIN [i43-
the still narrower frontier-line from Clyde to Forth were too
remote to be held with safety, the limits thus chosen were the best
that could be found. After nearly seventeen centuries the sub-
stantial remains of this great work, stretching across the high hills
that separate the valleys of the Tyne and the Solway, still con-
stitute by far the most majestic memorial of the Eoman power
in Britain. In 143, LoUius Urbicus, the governor of Britain
under the Emperor Antoninus Pius, went back to the limits once
conquered by Agrioola, and erected a new boundary waU between
the Forth and the Clyde. Built of sods laid on a basement of stone,
the northern wall of Antoninus was a much less solid structure than
the wall of Hadrian. It soon became unimportant, as the Eomans
made few attempts to occupy the barren moorlands that take
up most of the region between the two walls. Occasionally the old
aggressive spirit revived, and notably between 208 and 211, when
the able Emperor Septimius Severus spent four years in Britain,
and, like Agricola, waged fresh campaigns against the Caledonians.
On his death, at Eburacum, the Roman energies relapsed, and thus
the wall of Hadrian became the permanent frontier of Roman
Britain.
8. Roman rule, thus established by Agricola and Hadrian,
lasted in Britain for more than three hundred years. At first
Roman Roman Britain consisted of a single province, ruled,
divisions of like all the frontier districts, by a legate of the
Britam, Emperor. Severus divided the country into two
provinces, called Upper and Lower Britain {Britannia Superior
and Britannia Inferior), whose boundaries are not at all clear.
At last, the famous emperor, Diocletian, the second founder of the
Roman Empire, included Britain, about 297, in his general scheme
for the reorganization of the provinces. The number of British
provinces was increased to four, Britannia Prima, Britannia Se-
cunda, Flavia Csesariensis, and Maxima Csesariensis. To these a
fifth, Valentia, was afterwards added. We are almost entirely in the
dark as to the situation of these provinces. A special novelty of
Diocletian's reforms was the bringing together of neighbouring
provinces into larger administrative divisions, called Dioceses and
PrsetorianPrsifectures. All British provinces were joined together
in the diocese of Britain, ruled by a vicar, while the diocese of
Britain was but a part of the great praetorian prsef ecture of the
G-auls which extended over the whole of the west. This system
lasted as long as the Roman power.
9. The Roman occupation of Britain was mainly military. The
-297-] ROMAN BRITAIN
II
land was strongly held by a garrison of three legions, each con-
sisting of about 6000 regular troops, aU Boman citizens.
One legion, the Sixth, had its headquarters at "^^l^^
Eburacum, -while the Second was quartered at Isoa
Silurum, and the Twentieth at Deva, in positions which they had
held from the first century .onwards. Besides these regular troops,
a large number of irregular auxiliaries garrisoned the wall oi
Hadrian and the detached forts of the north. Both legions and
auxiliaries were largely recruited on the continent, and most
Britons who wished to serve the emperor were drafted to fight
upon the Rhine or the Danube. Well-constructed roads, paved
with stone, ran straight from garrison to garrison, and also served
as avenues of commerce. The most famous of the
Roman roads of Britain was the Wailing Street, which ^oads"
ran from the coast at Dubr» (Dover) to Londinium,
and thence by Yeralamium to Viroconium, from which point a
branch went south to Isoa, while the main road proceeded to Deva,
where it sent a branch to Segontium (Carnarvon). From Deva,
Watling Street was continued eastwards to York, and thence to
the frontier. The Urmine Street, the central part of the road that
connected Eburacum with Lindum (Lincoln), Camulodtmum, and
Londinium, was only less famous ; while the Watling Street was
crossed diagonally by a third great artery, called the Fosse Way,
which went from Lindum to Isca Dumnoriorum (Exeter). A
fourth road, named Akeman Street, connected Camuloduniun and
Verulamium with the watering-place of Aquae Sulis (Bath).
10. Along the chief routes grew up walled towns, which, at
least in the south and east, were not wholly military in character.
Under the strong Roman peace, marshes were drained, jfnman
forests cleared, and commerce furthered. Britain be- civilization
came one of the chief granaries of Europe, and its '° Britain,
iron, tin, and lead mines were extensively developed. Salt-works
were opened, and pottery and fine glass were made. Many Roman
oflScials, soldiers, and traders spread the use of the Latin tongue,
and, at least in the southern and eastern parts of the province, the
upper classes among the Britons themselves learnt to talk Latin,
and were proud to be considered as Romans. But the Romans
never romanized Britain as they had romanized Gaul. The best
proof of this is the fact that the Celtic tongue continued to be
spoken by the mass of the people, as is shown by its contiuuance
in Wales to this day. In Gaul, on the other hand, the use of Latin
became universal, and quite displaced the ancient Gaulish language.
12 ROMAN BRITAIN [287-
11. During the fourth century Christianity became the religion
of the Romans, and Constantino, the first Christiaa emperor
The Romano- (306-337), first took uplthe government of the Empire
Brftish™*""' at Eburacmn, where his father had died. Even before
Church. this there had been Christians in Britain, and during
the last persecution of the Christian Church by the Emperor
Diocletian (284-305), several British martyrs gave up their lives
for the faith. The most famous of these was Alban, slain at
Verulamium, where in after years a church was erected in his
honour that gave the Roman city its modern name of St. Albans.
During the fourth century we know that there were bishops at
Londinium, Isca, and Eburacum, many churches and monasteries,
and an active and vigorous ecclesiastical life. The British Church
became strong enough to send out missionaries to other lands, of
whom the next famous were St. Patrick, who completed the con-
version of the Irish to the faith, and St. Ninian, who first taught
the Caledonians, or Piots, the Christian religion. Britain even had
a heretic of its own in Pelagius, who denied the doctrine of original
sin, and made himself very famous all over the Roman world as the
foe of St. Augustine, the great African father. From the British
Church is directly descended the "Welsh Church, and less directly
the Churches of Ireland and Scotland. By its means civilization was
extended into regions which, though inaccessible to the Roman
arms, were brought by Roman missionaries into the Christian fold.
12. Gradually the Roman Empire decayed, and Britain suffered
much from its growing weakness. Towards the end of the third
century the legions garrisoning distant provinces grew
the Roman "^^ of hand, and, without regard for the central power
power in in Italy, made and unmade emperors of their own.
Thus in 287, Carausius, a Roman admiral, allied him-
self with bands of pirates, received the support of the soldiers,
seized the government of Britain, and strove to make himself
master of the whole Roman world. He conquered
CSiFSiUSiOS
287-293 ' P^'^t of northern Gaul, but in 293 was slain by his
and own chief minister, Alleotus, who ruled over Britain
293-29I' until he was slain in 296. It was to put down such
disorders that Diocletian carried out his reforms in
the administration, and Constantino, succeeding after a time to
Diocletian's power, continued his general policy, though he took up
a different line as regards religion. The reforms of Diocletian and
the recognition of Christianity by Constantine kept the Roman
Empire together for a century longer.
ROMAN BRITAIN
n
CALEDONIANS .e^^
ROMAN BRITAIN
Principal Roads sliouyn by
stouter lines thus:' ^■—
Forests tt^^ Marshes...
14 ROMAN BRITAIN [284-
13. Fresh troubles soon arose, which fell with special force on a
remote province like Britain. Despite the frontier wall, bands of
fierce Caledonidus, by this time more often called Picis,
Barbarian raided at their will the northern parts of the province,
and the ' Swarms of Irishmen, then generally called Scots,
efforts to similarly plundered the western coasts and efEect«d
ttiem off. 1^'^S'® settlements in regions so wide apai-t as Cornwall,
Wales, and Galloway. An even worse danger came
from the east, where swarms of pirates and adventurers from North
Germany, called Saxons by Romans and Britons, devastated the
coasts of the North Sea and Channel. To ward off these invaders
the Romans set up a new military organization. A new military
officer was appointed, called Count of the Saxon Shore (Gomes Uteris
Saxonici), whose special duty it was to protect the region specially
liable to these invasions. A series of forts, stretching from the
Wash to Sussex, formed the centres of the Roman defence against
the pirates; and the majestic ruins of Rutupiae (Richborough)
in Kent, Anderida (Pevensey) in Sussex, and Gariannonum (Burgh
Castle) in Sufiolk, show the solid strength of these last efforts to
uphold the Roman power. At the same time the northern defence
was reorganized, and the troops garrisoning the wall of Hadrian
were put under another high military officer, called the Duke of the
Britains (Dux Britanniarum), whOe the legionary army in its camps
was commanded by the Count of the Britains {Comes Britanniai-um).
AH these military changes date from the reign of Diocletian, and
were parts of his great scheme for reinvigorating the empire.
14. Early in the fifth century the Roman Empire upon the con-
tinent was overrun by fierce German tribes, anxious to find new
homes for themselves. The settlement of the Franks
drawal of ^'^ northern Gaul cut off Britain from the heart of the
the Roman empire, and Rome and Italy itseK were threatened,
ifu)""^' With the Germans at the gates of Rome, it became
impossible for the emperors to find the men and money
necessary for keeping up their authority in a distant land like
Britain. After 410, the year which saw the sack of Rome by
Alaric the Goth, the Romans ceased to send officials and troops
to Britain. Henceforth the Britons were left to look after them-
selves, and their entreaties to the emperors to help them in their
distress were necessarily disregarded.
15. Roman rule had, however, lasted so long in Britain that
the upper classes at least considered themselves Romans, and
strove to carry on the government after the Roman fashion. To
-449-] SOMAN BRITAIN 1 5
them it did not seem that Britain had ceased to be Roman : but
rather that they as Romans had to carry on Roman rule them-
selves, without the help of the emperor or the other
districts of the empire. It was soon found, however, j^eft fo''th°"^
that the Britons were not romanized enough to be own re-
able to maintain the Roman system. The leaders did sourees,
, " 4il 0—41419
not work together, and gradually the old Celtic tribal
spirit revived in a fashion that made united action and organized
government very difficult.
16. Before long southern Britain began to split up iuto little
tribal states, and this break up of unity made it possible for the
barbarians, who had been withstood with difficulty aU ~j^ „, ^
through the previous century, to carry everything Sects, and
before them. The Piots crossed the Roman wall, and Saxons,
plundered and raided as they would. The Scots from Ireland
estabKshed themselves along the west coast, and besides other
settlements, effected so large a conquest of the western Highlands
and islands outside the northern limits of the old provinces that
a new Scotland grew up on British soil. Even more dangerous
were the incursions of the Saxon invaders in the east. These were
no longer simply plunderers, but, like the Pranks and Goths on
the continent, wished to establish new homes for themselves in
Britain. Before their constant incursions the Britons were
gradually forced to give way. Within forty years of the with-
drawal of the last Roman governors, the process of German
conquest had begun.
17. The barbarian conquest went on gradually for about a
century and a half, and by the end of it nearly every trace of
Roman influence was removed. The ruius of Roman pg_~,__ent
towns, villas, churches, and public buildings ; the stiU results of
abiding lines of the network of Roman roads ; the con- Koman rule
tinuance of the Christian faith among the free Britons ;
a few Roman words stUl surviving in the language of the Celtic-
speaking Britons, and a few place-names (such as street from strata)
among their Teutonic supplanters, were almost all that there was
to prove the abiding traces of the great conquering people which
had first brought our island into relation with the main stream of
ancient civilization.
CHAPTER III
THE ENGLISH CONQUEST OF SOUTHERN
BRITAIN (449-607)
Chief Dates :
449. Jutes establislied in Kent.
S16. Battle of Mount Badon.
577. Battle of Deorham.
607. Battle of Cheater.
1. The Teutonic invaders, who began to set up new homes for
themselves in Britain after the middle of the fifth century, came
from northern Germany. Their original homes were
conquest°of ° along the coasts of the North Sea, the lower courses
Southern of the Elbe and Weser, and the isthmus that connects
Britain. ^j^^ Danish peninsula with Germany. Though all
were very similiar in their language and manners, they were divided
into three difflerent tribes — ^the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles.
Of these the Jutes were the least important, though
The Jutes. ^j^^^ ^^^^ ^-^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^-^^ ^ ^^^ island. They are
generally said to have come from Jutland, the Danish peninsula,
which used to be explained as meaning the land of the Jutes.
But there are difficulties in the way of accepting this view, and
some people now believe that the Jutes came from the lower
Weser, to the west of the other colonizers of Britain.
The Saxons came from the lower Elbe, and were so
numerous a group of tribes that before long nearly all the peoples
of North Germany were called Saxons. The Angles
A »le lived to the north of the Saxons, in the region now
called Holstein. So many of them crossed over to
Britain that their name soon disappeared from Germany altogether.
2. Each of the invading tribes included many small states, ruled
by petty kings or by elected magistrates, called aldermen. The new-
comers had no common name and no common interests. Each little
group lived in a vUlage apart from their neighbours, and aU of them
were very warlike, fierce, and energetic. They had dwelt farther
16
449 ] ENGLISH CONQ VEST OF SO UTHERN BRITAIN 1 7
away from the Bomans than the other barbarian invaders of the
empire, and were therefore much less influenced by Roman civi-
lization than nations like the Franks and the Groths. .jj^g jnstjtu.
For that reason they remained heathens, worshipping tions of the
Woden, Thor, and the other battle-loving gods of the Invaders,
old Germans. They had little of the respect for the Roman
Empire which made the Teutonic conquerors of Gaul and Italy eager
to be recognized by the emperors, and quick to learn many of the
Roman ways. It resulted from this that they made a much cleaner
sweep of Roman institutions than did their brethren on the conti-
nent, and that the more since the Britons fought against them more
vigorously and for a longer time than the Romans of Gaul or Italy
against their invaders. Yet their conquest of Britain is but a part
of that general movement called the Invasion of the Barbarians,
or the Wandering of the Nations, which everywhere broke down the
Roman power in western Europe. In fact, this was done more
completely in Britain than anywhere else.
3. The invaders of Britain had no common name for themselves.
Since the fourth century the Romans and Britons had called them
all Saxons, and to this day the Celtic peoples of the j^^ begin-
land, the Welsh, the Irish, and the Highland Scots, nlngs of
stUl continue the Roman custom in their own tongues. England.
But when the invaders had settled in Britain, and had begun to find
the need of a common word to describe them all, they used the
word Angle as a general name. Angle is only another form of
English, and as this has remained ever since the name of all the
new settlers and their descendants, it is perhaps better for us to
call them English from the first. They are, however, sometimes
styled the Anglo-Saxons — that is, the people formed by the union
of the Angles and Saxons. For convenience' sake we shall use
the word " English " in this broader sense, and keep the term
" Angle " for the tribes who shared with the Jutes and Saxons in
the conquest of Britain. The parts of Britain in which the new-
comers, whether Angle Jute, or Saxon, settled, were henceforth
England— thsA is, land of the English— and they were the fore-
fathers of most modern Englishmen. As time went on, however,
many people of British descent began to speak the English tongue
and regard themselves as English ; and nowadays a great many
Englishmen are in no wise descended from the old English.
5. We know very little of the fashion in which the English
tribes came to Britain. There are famous legends of some aspects
of the conquest, but it is impossible to say whether they are true
c
1 8 ENGLISH CONQ UEST OF SO UTHERN BRITAIN [449 "
or not, as they are first told many hundred years after the event.
There is a well-known story of the first settlement of the new-
comers in Britain. Yortigern, one of the British kings, we are
told, foUowed the fashion of the Komans of the continent, who
caUed in German warriors to help them to fight against their
enemies. Attracted by the high pay that he offered, a tribe of
Jutes, headed by their dukes, the brothers Hengist
lnKentr449, and Horsa, came to the aid of Vortigern against
and the Isle picts and Scots. But when they had done their work,
of Wight. ijigtead of going home, they resolved to settle in the
land of the Britons. In 449 they chased away the Britons, and
established themselves in Kent, which thus became the first English
settlement in Britain. Before long Kent became a kingdom, and
Hengist and Horsa were its first kings. Some years later another
Jutish settlement was effected in the Isle of Wight and on the south
coast of what is now called Hampshire. These were the only
Jutish conquests, and the very name of Jute was soon forgotten.
Though Kent long remained a separate kingdom, the Jutes of
Wight became absorbed in the larger population of Saxon settlers
who established themselves all around them.
5. The Saxons conquered and settled southern and south-eastern
Britain. The first Saxon settlement was made in 477, when a chief-
tain named .ffiUe set up the kingdom of SMSsea; — that
seUle^ents. i^' South Saxony— in the district that is represented
by the later county of the name. A very famous
incident of iEUe's conq[uest was the storming of the old Koman
fortress of Anderida (Pevensey), one of the strongholds set up
in the fourth century to protect the south coast from the
Saxon pirates. At last it was to succTimb to the fierce
' ■ assaults of their descendants. Before long, M\^% and
his men had set up new homes for themselves in the land of their
choice. The great and pathless oak forest of the Weald cut them
off from the Jutes, who settled to the east and west, and from
other Saxon tribes that later sailed up the Thames and established
the little kingdom of Bwrvey to their north. A more
important conq[uest began in 495, when the Saxon
chiefs, Cerdio and his son Cynric, landed at the head of Southampton
water and began the kingdom of Wessex, or West Saxony. This
was originally confitned to part of what is now Hamp-
wessex, shire, but it gradually extended its limits, absorbing
the Jutish kingdom of Wight and the Saxon kingdom
of Surrey, and gaining still greater advantages at the expense of
-547] ENGLISH CONQUEST OF SOUTHERN BRITAIN I9
the Britons of the upper Thames and lower Severn valleys and of
the regions of downs and hills that stretches from Hampshire west-
wards. Thus, unlike Kent and Sussex, which remained in their
original limits, the history of Wessex is from the beginning a
history of constant expansion.
6. Other Saxon kingdoms were established on the eastern coast
of England. The East Saxons set up the kingdom of Essex, and
the Middle Saxons that of Middlesex, a petty state
that owed its sole importance to containing within Middlesex
its limits the great trading city of London, whose
commercial prosperity was checked rather than destroyed by the
wave of barbarian conc[uest. Ultimately, however, Middlesex
became absorbed in Essex, just as its southern neighbour, Surrey,
was swallowed up in Wessex. Here the Saxon invasion was stayed.
7. The conquest of the east, the midlands, and the north was
the work of the Angles. To the north of Essex, Anglian swarms
peopled the lands between the great fens of the Ouse
vaUey and the coast of the North Sea. This region seUltmen^s.
became the kingdom of Bast Anglia, or East England,
and was divided geographically into a northern and southern
portion, whose names are preserved in the modern counties of
Norfolk — ^that is, land of the North folk— and Suffolk,
the land of the South folk. Other Anglian bands made f ngjin.
their way up the Trent valley, and gradually set up a
series of small states in Middle England, extending southwards
from the Humber to the northern boundaries of the Saxon settle-
ments in the Thames valley. The history of these districts is
very obscure, and is not preserved, as in the Saxon lands further
south, by the names and limits of the modern shires. Of the many
Anglian kingdoms of the midlands one only survived, and ulti-
mately absorbed aU the others. This was the little uerciaand
kingdom of Mercia — that is, the March or boundary the midland
land — set up in the upper Trent valley, and stretching kingdoms,
over the rough hill-land of Cannock chase towards the middle Severn
valley, where the Britons long held their own. North of the
Humber two weU-defined Anglian kingdoms grew up.
These were Deira, or the southern kingdom, which jj^j^ j^y
roughly corresponds to the modern Yorkshire, and the
more northerly state of Bernicia, which stretched along the east coast
from the Tees to the Firth of Forth, which was founded, it is said,
by Ida in 547. Both these kingdoms had as their western boun-
dary the wild uplands of the Pennine chain and its northern
20 ENGLISH CONQUEST OF SOUTHERN BRITAIN [516--
continuation, the Ettriok Forest. THs tangle of hiUs and moors was
difficult for the invaders to traverse, and long protected the freedom
of the Britons of the west coast between the Clyde and the Dee.
8. It took nearly a hundred and fifty years before the English
settlements were completely established. The Britons, who fonght
very stubbornly to protect their liberties, remembered
istte^of tti'e so much of the Roman discipline and organization that
English they remained formidable foes to a series of disorderly
conquest. tribes, each consisting of a small number of warriors
fighting for their own hands. The English brought over with them
their wives and families, and aimed not simply at conquering their
enemies, but sought to establish new homes for themselves. They
brought with them their Teutonic speech, the parent of our English
tongue. They preserved the manners, institutions, and religion
which they had followed in their original homes in northern Germany.
9. The best and bravest of the Britons withdrew before the
English and joined their brethren, who still remained masters
in the hills of the west. Such as remained in
theBrUons ^^ ®^* ^^^ south, as slaves and dependants of the
conc[uerors, gradually lost their ancient tongue and
institutions, and became one with the invaders. It shows how
thorough the conquest was that the Christian religion, professed
by all the Britons, was entirely rooted out in all the districts where
the English established themselves. Luckily for the English, the
Britons seldom acted together for any long time. The wiser
Britons held fast to the Roman tradition of unity, and set up war-
leaders who might take the place of the sometime Roman governors.
The most famous of these was the great Celtic hero, King Arthur,
Arthur and whose mighty victories stayed for a time the advance
Mount of the English, and perhaps saved the Britons of the
Badon, 516. ^^^^ ^^^^ 1^^ f^^g pf ^j^gjj. brethren of the east. The
best known of Arthur's battles was fought at a place called Mcrtis
Badonicus or Mount Badon, in about 516. Its situation is quite
uncertain, but it is most probably to bo found somewhere in
the south-west, possibly at Badbviry in Dorsetshire. It seems
that Arthur's triumph was over the West Saxons, whose
advance was stayed for nearly sixty years. But the Britons only
united when compelled to do so to meet the English attacks.
They split up into little tribal states, and, if the English had not
themselves also been disunited, the invaders could have probably
driven their foes into the sea. As it was, many of the more
strenuous Britons scorned to live any longer in the land which
-6o7.] ENGLISH CONQUEST OF SOUTHERN BRITAIN 2 1
they shared with their Saxon enemies. There was so large an
emigration of Britons to the Gaulish peninsula of Armorica,
that that land obtained the new name of Brittamy or Tj,e eml-
Britain, and to this day a large part of the inhabitants gration to
of this little Britain beyond the sea continue to ^'''*tany.
speak a Celtic tongue, very similar to the Welsh or Cornish, which
their forefathers took with them to G-auI when they fled from the
Saxon conquerors. Their withdrawal made easier the work of the
English, and it speaks well for the toughness of the British
resistance that so much of the island remained in their hands.
10. For about a century fresh swarms of English came to
Britain from beyond sea. After that the migration ceased, but
the stronger of the English kingdoms continued to j],g Bpjtons
advance westwards at the expense of the Britons. The become the
EngHsh did not call the Britons by that name, but de- W^^'^h.
scribed them as the Welsh — ^that is, as the foreigners, or the speakers
of a strange tongue. Gradually the Britons, who in the sixth
century were still proud to call themselves Romans, took the
name of the Cymi-y, or the Comrades, by which the Welsh are still
known in their own language. A Welsh monk named Gildas, who
lived in the sixth century, has written a gloomy picture of the state
of Britain during the period of the English conquest. The heathen
English were cruel and bloodthirsty ; but the Welsh were quarrel-
some and divided, and Gildas regarded their defeat as the just
punishment of their sins.
11. The warfare between Welsh and English still went on, and
at last the Welsh received a rude shock from two English victories,
which cut the British territories into three parts, and ^^ ^^^^ ^^
destroyed any hopes of future Celtic unity. The the period
West Saxons gradually made their way westward from ''^j?,"^"^'l
their original settlement in Hampshire, and in 577
Ceawlin, the West Saxon king, won a great battle over the Welsh
at Deorham (Dyrham), in Gloucestershire, which led to their
conquest of the lower Severn valley. Thirty years after this (607)
the Bernician king, ^thelfrith, won a corresponding victory at
Chester, which ptished forward the northern Anglian settlements
to the Irish Channel, and transferred the lands between Eibble and
Mersey from British to English hands. Up to these days the
Welsh had ruled over the whole west from the Clyde to the
English Channel. Henceforth they were out up into three groups.
Of thege the northernmost was called Cv/mbria or Cumberland —
that is, land of the Cymry or Welsh. This stretched from the
22 ENGLISH CONQUEST OF SOUTHERN BRITAIN [607
Clyde, the northern limit of the Britons, to the Rihhle, and was
separated from Bernioia and Deira by the Pennine chain. The
modern county of Cumherland still preserves for a
Cumbpia. ^^^^ ^^ ^y^ ^^^^ j^g ancient name. Enclosed within
this region was a colony of GoideUc Picts, in the extreme south-
west of the modern Scotland, which derived from its Groidelic
inhabitants its name of Galloway.
12. The central and chief British group of peoples is repre-
sented by the modern Wales, and by a large stretch of land to the
eastward, including the valley of the middle Severn, which has
since become English by a slow process of conquest
North Wales. ^^^ absorption. Split up among several rival kings,
this district lost, through its want of unity, some of the im-
portance which it gained by its size and by the inaccessibility of
its mountains. In early days the whole region was described as
North Wales — ^that is, Wales north of the Bristol
And West Channel. This was to distinguish it from West Wales,
the country still held by the Britons in the south-
west peninsula. Separated from North Wales by the West Saxon
victory of Deorham, West Wales still included the whole of Corn-
wall and Devonshire, and a good deal of Somerset. Both in
North and West Wales there were occasional colonies of Groidelic-
speaking Scots or Irish, who have left memorials of this tongue in
the Irish inscriptions, written in a character called Oyham, found
in many parts of Wales and Cornwall.
13. Thus was the old Roman diocese of Britain ujie(^ually divided
between the English and the Welsh. The great part of the district
north of the Forth and Clyde was in the hands of the Picts — a race
doubtless identical with the ancient Caledonians, and apparently
„, „, ^ made up of Goidelio tribes with a large Iberian inter-
The Picts.
mixture. But in the north-western parts of the
modern Scotland the Picts had been driven out by immigrant
Scots from Ireland, who had set up an independent kingdom of
the Scots in the western Highlands and islands,
running inland as far as the chain of liills called Drum-
alban, which forms the watei'shed of the eastern and western
seas. From these the north-west of Britain first got the name
of Scotland, or land of the Scots ; but at first this term was
only given to a very small fragment of the modern
to^um a, Scotland. Soon, however, the Scots began to influence
the Plots. Up to the sixth century the Picts, alone
of the Celts, still remained heathen ; but Columba, the greatest of
ENGLISH CONQ VEST OF SO tJTH£.kN BRITAIN 2 3
SOUTH BRITAIN
after the English Conqaest
(about 607.)
24 nmUSH CO^TQUEST OF SOUTHERM BRITAIN [597-
the Irish saints, settled down in a monastery in the little island of
lona, among the British Scots, and devoted the rest of his life,
until his death in 597, to the conversion of the Picts. Two and a
half centuries after the Picts had learnt their faith from the Soots,
they obtained a Scot for their king. In 844 Kenneth Mac Alpine
(that is, son of Alpine), King of the Scots, succeeded through his
Union of the mother to the Pictish kingdom beyond Drumalban.
Picts and His successor continued to rule Pictland as well as
Scots. Scotland, and as they were Scots by race, and the
difference between the two peoples was not very great, Picts and
Scots were gradually fused into one people. The result was that
the whole of the population north of Forth and Clyde acquired
the name of Scots, and their country was called Scotland. For
many centuries, however, the Irish continued to be called Scots,
until at last confusion was avoided by the term becoming gradually
restricted to their brethren in northern Britain.
14. By the end of the sixth century the British islands
were settling down into something like their modern divisions.
There was an England, much smaller than modern
of England, England, though extending further northwards to the
Wales, Scot- Firth of Forth, and gradually making its way west-
IrelanX"* ward at the expense of the Welsh. There was a Wales,
much bigger than the modern Wales, but cut into
three portions by the fights at Chester and Deorham, with the result
that the largest of the three, represented by the modern Wales,
became in a special sense the representative of the ancient Britons.
There was a new Scotland, comprising the lands beyond Forth and
Clyde, and Ireland, though still a land of Scots, became quite
separated from it.
15. In aU these districts, Anglian and Saxon, British and
Goidelic, the land was split up into many small states, constantly
Why Eng- ^^ ^^^' ^*^ ^^"^ other, and filling the country with
land be- ceaseless confusion. While the Celtic states, owing to
strongest ^^^ strength of the tribal system, seldom showed any
tendency to be drawn together, the English tribes,
on the contrary, began almost from the beginning to unite with
each other, and so bring about the beginnings of greater unity.
The Celts were Christians, and infinitely more civilized and culti-
vated than their enemies ; but they lacked the political capacity and
persistent energy which made the English stronger in building up
a state. The result was that supremacy fell more and more into
English hands. Wliile the struggles of Celtic chieftains resulted
-844.] ENGLISH CONQUEST OF SOUTHERN BRITAIN 2?
in notliing at all save bloodshed and confusion, the e(jually cruel
fighting between the English tribes led to the absorption of the
weaker into the stronger kingdoms, and so prepared the way for
the growth of English unity. This tendency became the more
active when the conversion of the English to Christianity gave
them a common faith and a common Church organization. In the
next chapter we shall see how the early steps towards English unity
were made, and how the English became Christians.
CHAPTER IV
THE EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS AND THE
CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH TO
CHRISTIANITY (597-821).
Chief Dates :
S97. Death of St. Columba and landing of St. Augustine.
627. Conversion of Edwin.
664. Synod of Whitby.
668. Theodore, Archbishop of Canterburj'.
685. Death of Ecgfrith.
757- Death of Ethelbald of Meicia.
796. Death of OfEa.
821. Death of Cenulf.
1. We have seen kow numerous were tlie kingdoms set up by the
English, who conc[uered southern Britain. The settlement was,
however, hardly completed when a strong tendency
steps to- towards amalgamation set in among them. In aU
wards Eng- oases the union of kingdoms was due to conquest hy a
lish Unity. stronger and more vigorous king. It was rarely, how-
ever, that such a monarch was able to eflect a complete suhjection
of his weaker neighbours. In most instances he was content with
forcing his defeated enemy to acknowledge his superiority, and
perhaps to pay him tribute. Thus more frec[uent than downright
conquests of one kingdom by another *as the establish-
Q„t^^^. ment of such overlordships on the part of a more
ships of one vigorous state over feebler kingdoms. Of brief duration
state over ^^^ indefinite meaning, these overlordships were of
importance in preparing the way to more complete con-
c^uest. By these processes the original kingdoms of the settlers
were by the early part of the seventh century reduced to seven in
number. These were the states long known as the
He^t^arehv Septarchy, a word intended to mean a land divided
into seven kingdoms. In reality, however, the " Hep-
tarchic " states represent not the first but the second stage of the
26
655-] THE EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS 27
history of the English, in. Britain. They were Northumbria, Mercia,
Wessex, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, and Snssex, and among them
the first three were very much stronger than the last four.
2. Northumbria, or Northumberland — that is, the land north
of the Humber — ^was formed by JEtheHrith, king of Bernicia
(593-617), conquering his southern neighbours in
Deira, and driving their king into exile. It was the The stpongep
great power gained by ^thelfrith after this victory Nopthumbria
which enabled him to defeat the Welsh at Chester, and imdep
add the lands between Ribble and Dee to his kingdom. 593-617
But he had so much to do fighting the Welsh and
Soots that he had little leisure to concern himself with the affairs
of his southern neighbours.
3. In the south, Ceawlin, king of the West Saxons (560-693),
played rather earlier a similar part to that of JEthelfrith in
the north. Wessex had long been extending itself
beyond its original scanty limits. It absorbed the under
Jutish kingdom of Wight and the Saxon kingdom of Ceawlin,
Surrey ; but its main advance was at the expense of 6O-593.
the Welsh. By this time the districts now comprised in Wiltshire,
Berkshire, and Dorsetshire had been added to Cerdic's original
kingdom. Moreover, for a time, Wessex crossed the middle and
upper Thames, and extended into midland districts that finally
became Mercian. The victory of Deorham made Gloucestershire
and part of Somerset included within Wessex, so that Ceawlin
is as much the creator of the later Wessex as ^thelfrith is of
Northumbria.
4. More than a generation after this, a similar process in the
midlands created a third great English state iu Mercia. Up to the
days of its king, Penda (626-655), Mercia was only uepeia undep
a little AngHan kingdom in the upper Trent valley. Penda,
By a series of successful wars, Penda destroyed the "
power of nearly all the other Anglian monarchs in middle England.
Moreover, he wrested from the West Saxons some of their conquests
from the Welsh in the lower Severn valley, and took from the Nor-
thumbrians a good deal of what ^thelfrith had won at Chester.
The result of his work was to create a greater Mercia that included
the whole of middle England. So completely was this conquest
effected that the very names and boundaries of the kingdoms
conquered by Penda became almost forgotten.
5. Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex became the three great
English states ; but the little kingdoms of the south-east. Bast
28 TBE EARLY OVERLORDS HIPS [597"
Anglia, Essex, Kent, and Sussex, were so well established and
so clearly marked out by natural boundaries tiat tiiey long
The king- continued to maiutain their individuality. Downright
doms of the conquest was here extremely difficult, but the abler
south-east, jjjjjgg succeeded in turn in setting up an overlord-
ship over their neighbours. Sussex and Essex were too weak to
accomplish anything, but one vigorous king gave to Kent, and
another procured for East Anglia, a brief period of supremacy.
Profiting by the confusion that fell over Wessex after Ceawlin's
Ethelbert death, Ethelbert, king of the Kentishmen, defeated
and Red- his West Saxon neighbours and ruled as overlord
wald, 616. p^gj. ^jj^g kingdoms of the south-east. His power is
shown by the fact that he was the first English king who had
any dealings with the continent, choosing as his wife, Bertha, the
daughter of one of the Frankish kings ruling over G-aul. On
Ethelbert's death in 616, his power passed to Redwald, the king
of the East Anglians. To Ceawlin, Ethelbert, and Kedwald the
name of Bretwalda, or ruler of the Britons, has sometimes been
given by later writers. It has, of course, no appropriateness
except in the case of the conqueror of the Britons at Deorham, but
it shows the impression left by their power.
6. Though planted for a century and a half in a land once
Christian, the English still remained heathens at the end of the
sixth century. They scorned to accept the religion
Church °^ ^^® conquered Britons, and the Welsh had no wish
to share with their hated supplanters the benefits
of their faith. Yet the Welsh were ardent Christians, and the
Welsh Church attained the highest of its power and influence by
this period. It was the g-reat age of the Welsh saints, such as
David, the founder of the bishopric of St. David's; Daniel, first
bishop of Bangor ; Dyvrig, bishop of LlandafE, and Kentigern, first
bishop of G-lasgow, then a British town, and afterwards the founder
of the see called from his disciple and successor, St. Asaph. Even
more flourishing was the state of the Church in Ireland, where
Columba, the missionary of the Picts and the founder of the abbey
of lona, was the greatest of a long catalogue of Irish saiuts.
Celtic Britain was, however, so far cut off from the continent that
it developed during these years a type of Christianity of its own,
differing in some respects from the Church of the western world,
which was attaining increased unity and vigour under the supre-
macy of the popes or bishops of Rome. The Celtic Church took
little heed of what the Roman Church was doing. It celebrated
-6i6.] THE CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH 29
the Easter feast according to a difEerent calculation from that which
was accepted on the continent. It was so much influenced by the
monastic movement that the bishops of the Church, especially in
Ireland, became in practice subordinate to the abbots, who, though
simple priests, ruled over the great houses of religion that Celtic
piety had established. Thus Columba, priest and abbot only,
governed all the churches of the Scots of the Highlands and also
over his converts the Picts. His death in 597 is doubly memorable
because in that same year the first effort was made to preach
Christianity to the English.
7. Bertha, the wife of Ethelbert of Kent, was, like all the
Franks, a Christian, and a Christian bishop went over with her to
Kent as her chaplain. For his wife's use Ethelbert
set apart a church, deserted since the English con- Ethelbe^f ^
quest, which still remained erect in the old Roman
city of Durovernum, from which Ethelbert ruled over the Kentish-
men, and which the English now called Canterbury — that is, the
borough of the Kentishmen. But though tolerant to his wife's
faith, he showed no disposition to embrace it.
8. The power of Home stiU counted for much, and the Roman
Empire, after it had ceased to rule the West, still went on in the
East, though the emperors had abandoned Italy, and Gregory the
now lived at Constantinople. Their withdrawal made Great and
the pope the greatest man in Rome, and by this time Augustine,
the influence of Rome in the West meant that of the Roman
bishop even more than that of the emperor. It happened that
one of the greatest of all the popes was ruling the Church while
Ethelbert was king of Kent. This was Gregory i., or the Great,
whose high character, strong will, and profound earnestness did
much to extend permanently the iufluence of the Roman see over
Christendom. Gregory still looked upon Britain as part of the
Roman Empire, and was pained that a once Christian province had
fallen largely into the hands of heathen barbarians. Accordingly
he set Augustiue, abbot of a Roman monastery which Gregory
himself had founded, at the head of a band, of monks, and in-
structed them to make their way to Britain and preach the gospel
to the English heathens. In 597 Augustine and his companions
landed in Kent, at Ebbsfleet in Thanet, where it was believed that
Hengist and Horsa had landed a century and a half earlier.
Ethelbert welcomed the missionaries, and allowed them to preach
freely to all who chose to listen to them. Meanwhile the monks
lived at Canterbury, hard by the king's court, and before long the
30 THE EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS [397"
example of their pious and unselfish lives induced Ethelbert and
The conver- '^°®* °^ ^* subjects to receive baptism. After the
siou of king's conversion Augustine crossed over to G-aul,
Kent, 597, whence he soon came back to England as archbishop
ssex. ^^ ^^ English Church. He built his cathedral at
Canterbury, which, as the capital of the iirst Christian king among
the English, remained ever after the chief bishopric of the English
Church. Before long another bishopric was set up at Rochester,
which, as its name shows, was also an old Roman city, and before
long the new faith spread beyond Kent to the dependent kingdom
of Essex, over which Ethelbert's influence was strong. The East
Saxon bishopric was set up at London, the commercial capital of
the land since Roman times.
9. Before long the East Angles began to turn Christians also,
but their king, Redwald, though professing the Christian faith,
The convep- ^° continued to worship idols. Redwald was a strong
sion of ruler, and after Ethelbert's death the overlordship of
^'^rt'th' ^^^' south-eastern Britain passed over to him. He gave
supremacy shelter to Edwin, son of the king of Deira, whom
of Nopthum- ^theKrith of Bernicia drove out of his home when
he united the northern kingdoms with Northumbria.
.Slthelfrith went to war against Redwald when he refused to yield
up the fugitive, but at a battle on the Idle, near Retford, JEthel-
frith was slain. Thereupon, with Redwald's help, Edwin made
himself king over aU Northumbria. He married the daughter of
Ethelbert of Kent, whose name was Ethelburga. Being a Christian
this lady took with her to her husband's court at York a
Christian monk, called Paulinus, as her chaplain. Before long the
influence of his wife and Paulinus prevailed over Edwin, and in
627 the Northumbrian king received baptism from Paulinus, who
was soon consecrated archbishop of York. In a short time most of
Beginnings ^^^^^ '^^ '^'^^ o^^^ '^ '^'^ ^6w faith. This triumph
of the Nor- was the more important since the newly converted ruler
thumbpian soon proved a mighty warrior. When Redwald died,
p. j]^^jj^ became the strongest of the kings of the Eng-
lish. Under him a more real overlordship over the lesser kingdoms
was set up than that which had prevailed under any earlier
monarchs. To him and his two successors the title of Bretwalda
was also sometimes given. '
10. Augustine was already dead, but Paulinus was one of his
followers, and his conversion of the Deirans was the greatest result
of the mission which his master had led from Rome to England.
-635.] THE CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH 3 1
To have done so much in so short a time might well seem to be
a great success ; but Pope Gregory had formed even more ambi'
tious schemes for Augustine than the good monk was
able to carry out. Gregory expected Augustine to suece^ss°of ^
convert aU the English, to make friends with the the Augus-
British Christians, and to set up two archbishops and *'"'*"
mission
twenty-four bishops, under whom the whole Church of
Britain was to be governed. But Augustine had only taught Chris-
tianity to the little kingdoms of the south-east, and, though he met
some of the Welsh bishops at a conference, he had been unable to
establish friendly relations with them. They rejected his claims
to be their superior, and Augustine, denouncing them as schismatics
who stood outside the true Church, prophesied terrible disasters if
they would not join with him in converting the English. The
victory of the heathen .ffithelfrith over the Welsh a few years later
at Chester seemed to the Christians of Kent only a fulfilment of
Augustine's prophecy. Under these circumstances there was no
chance of carrying out Gregory's scheme for bringing aU the
Churches of Britain into one fold.
11. Even in Kent and Essex many fell away from the faith
after Augustine's death. The English converts found that the
Christian missionaries wished them to give up many penda and
of their old customs, and held up to their admiration the heathen
humble and weak saints whom they despised as ''s^'^tion.
useless for fighting. A great heathen reaction arose, and the old
king of the Mercians, Penda, whose victories had made him master
of central England, made himself the champion of the grim gods
of pagan Germany. The power of the Christian king, Edwin, had
grown so great that aU his neighbours were afraid of him, and
Penda hated Edwin both as a Christian and as the enemy of Mercia.
Edwin had also won victories over the Welsh, and harried the
Welsh king, Cadwallon, so much that he forgot his Christian faith,
and made a league with the heathen Penda against the Northum-
brians. It was the first time that Englishmen and Battle of
Welshmen had fought on the same side, after nearly Heathfleld,
two centuries of bitter hostility. The combination
was irresistible. In 633 Penda and Cadwallon defeated and slew
Edwin at the battle of Heathfield, in southern Yorkshire.
12. For a year Welsh and Mercians cruelly devas- Oswald of
tated Northumbria. Christianity was almost blotted Northum-
out, and Paulinus fled to Kent, where he died bishop *"■'*•
of the little see of Rochester. In 635, however, a saviour arose
32 THE EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS [635-
for the north in Oswald, the son of the mighty JEthelfrith, who,
on Edwin's accession, had been driven into exile among the
Scots of Britain. In a battle at Heavenfield, near the Roman wall,
Oswald overthrew the British king, and henceforth reigned as king
over the Northumbrians. Cadwallon was the last British king who
was able to seriously check the course of the English conquest. After
his death the "Welsh of Cumbria were forced to accept Oswald as
their lord. Thus, though Penda was still xmsubdued, the son of
JEthelfrith succeeded to most of the power of his rival Edwin.
13. Oswald was as good a Christian as Edwin, and, after his
accession, the new faith was once more preached in Northumbria.
Aldan and ^"^* Oswald had learnt his religion after a different
the Scottish fashion from that in which his predecessor had been
mission. taught. He had been instructed in the faith at
lona, the great Scottish island monastery where the successor of
Columba still ruled over the Churches of the north ; and when he
became king, Scottish monks from lona came at his bidding into
Northumbria, and took up the work laid down by the Roman mis-
sionaries. Their chief, Aidan, became bishop of the Northumbrias,
and set up his cathedral in the little island of Lindisfarne, ofE the
coast of Bernicia. Before long his zeal and piety had won most
of Bernioia to the Christian faith.
14. The work of Oswald and Aidan was soon out short. In 642
there was a fresh war with the Mercians, and Penda slew Oswald
at the battle of Maserfleld, near Oswestry. Again there
Oswiu^" was a period of terrible confusion in Northumbria,
but again a strong king was found in Oswald's brother
Oswiu, who in 655 defeated and killed Penda at Winwood. On
the Mercian's death the Northumbrian overlordship, which had
gone on fitfully despite the victories of the heathen king, was
established on a more solid basis than ever. It lasted for the rest
of Oswiu's reig-n, and also for that of his son and successor,
Ecgfrith. During this period the conversion of the English was
completed, and the Church established on a firm and solid footing.
15. Even during Penda's lifetime the Christian missionaries
had no need to despair. Though no saint like Oswald, Oswiu was
The final ^ good friend of the Christians, and even in Mercia
oonvepsion the new religion had made such progress that in his
of Nopthum- old age Penda had been compelled to tolerate it.
Penda's son and successor was a Christian, and wel-
comed the Scottish and Northumbrian missionaries that Oswiu
sent to his people. The most famous of these was Ceadda, or
-664.] THE CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH 33
Chad, who became famous as the apostle of Mercia and the patron
saint of the Mercian bishopric at Lichfield. Though an English-
man, Chad had been brought up by Scottish monks, and thus was
friendly to the customs of the Celtic Church.
16. By this time the other English kingdoms had become
Christian also. Some of them were converted by Scottish mis-
sionaries ; others by Roman teachers from Kent or the _,
continent. Thus East Anglia was won over by Felix, eonversion
a Burgundian ; "Wessex by Birinus, a E.oman ; while °^ '•'^ ^^^^
Gedd, a brother of Chad, had revived the waning °^ ^"Sf'^'"'*-
faith of the East Saxons ; and Wilfrid of Eipon, a Northumbrian
monk who was an eager friend of the Roman usages, converted
the South Saxons, the last Englishmen to give up their ancient
gods. But there was no order or method in this piecemeal process
of conversion. Each state had its own bishop, whether it was a
great state like Mercia, or a little state like Sussex. The
successor of Augrustiae at Canterbury, though still called arch-
bishop, had small power outside Kent, and was in practice little more
than bishop of the Kentishmen. AU over the north and midlands
there were eager champions both of the Roman and of the Scottish
Easter, and it seemed as if the war between Christian and heathen
was only to be succeeded by war between the two rival forms of
Christianity.
17. Oswiu was only a rough warrior, but he saw the need of
stopping the conflict of Scot and Roman, and in 664 summoned
a synod, or Church council, of both parties in the
Church to Streoneshalch, on the coast of Deira, better ^y°|jy 664.
known by its later Danish name of Whitby. His object
in doing this was that he might hear what was to be said in favour of
their teaching, and so make up his mind as to which form of the faith
he should adopt. The chief point of dispute was the right time of
celebrating Easter. WiKrid of Ripon upheld the Roman usage ;
the Scottish bishop Colman, Aidan'a successor at Lindisfarne,
pleaded for the traditions of Columba, and Chad of Lichfield
sought to mediate between the two. At last Oswiu declared in
favour of the Roman Easter, whereupon Colman and the Scots
withdrew to lona. Oswiu was strong enough to make aU England
accept his decision, and this secured that English Christianity
should follow Rome and not lona. This was a good thing, for
though the Scottish monks were the saintUest of men and the best
of missionaries, their Church had more faith and enthusiasm than
order or method. In declaring for the Roman Easter, Oswiu
D
34 ■ THE CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH [664-
prevented the English Church being cut off from the Church of
the world at large. He secured for England the priceless blessings
of order and ciTilization, which were in those days represented by
Rome. Before long the Roman Easter was accepted even by the
Scots and Britons. Thus all the Churches of the British Islands
were brought into the same system.
18. Four years after the synod of Whitby, a Grreek, Theodore
of Tarsus, a native of the city where St. Paul had been bom,
Th k f ^^^ ^^^ from Rome as archbishop of Canterbury.
Theodore Theodore was a much wiser and stronger man than
of Tarsus, any of the other early bishops of the English. He
made friends with Oswiu, and after that king's death
in 671, became equally intimate with his son Bcgfrith. Archbishop
for more than twenty years, Theodore was able, before his death in
690, to organize the English Church in a very satisfactory fashion.
He divided all England into bishoprics, and set up several different
bishops in each of the three great kingdoms. He forced every
bishop in England to pay obedience to the archbishop of Canter-
bury, who in those days was the only archbishop in the land. He
set up schools for the training of the clergy, and took care that
each bishop should have a number of priests and monks to work
xmder him. It has sometimes been said that Theodore divided
England into parishes, each under its priest ; but this was done
very gradually, and not until long after Theodore's day. Theodore
also provided that the clergy of the English Church should meet
from time to time in national councUs. This was very important,
since it brought Englishmen, subject to different kings, into close
contact with each other. Thus Theodore united England under a
single Church long before she had become united into a single
kingdom. He could not have done his work so effectively but for
the power of the Northumbrian kings, whose overlordship was a
real step towards political unity.
19. From Theodore's time onward, the English Church pros-
pered greatly. It soon became unnecessary for England to get its
The glories ^i^^iops from abroad, and Theodore's successors were
of the Old nearly aU EngHshmen. During the eighth century
^"sHsh the Church of England became a pattern to all the
West. It sent out missionaries who made Germany a
Christian land, the chief of these being Boniface, the first archbishop
of Mainz, who did for the German Church what Theodore did for the
Church of England. Famous monasteries and schools arose in Eng-
land, and especially in Northumbria, which were flUed with learned
-685.] THE EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS 35
and pious men. In one monastery at "WMtby, ruled by a royal
abbess named Hilda, dwelt Caedmon, a poor lay brother, whose
rare gift for song made him the greatest of the old English poets.
In another, Jarrow-on-the-Tyne, lived the monk Bede, the first
English historian, whose Ecclesiastical History of the English People
tells us nearly aU that we know of our history up to his own life-
time. Auother distinguished EngKshman of those days was Egbert,
bishop of York, who won back for his Church the position of an
archbishopric, which it had held under Paulinus, though for many
centuries the archbishops of York were bound to profess obedience
to the archbishops of Canterbury. Under Egbert the schools of
York became very famous, and one of their disciples, Alcuin, was
so well known for his learning that he was called from York
to Graul to be the head of the school which Charles the Great,
the famous king of the Franks, set up in his palace. Thus
England, which previously had been barbarous and ignorant,
became, after its conversion, a centre of light and learning to all
western Europe.
20. The eighth century was the great age of the Northiunbrian
Church, but the Northumbrian political supremacy had utterly
passed away. Oswiu was the last Northumbrian king
to be caUed Bretwalda, though his son Ecgfrith (671- g^f -685*
686) was not much less powerful than his father. In and the fall
685, however, Ecgfrith tried to conquer the Plots, but of Northum-
was defeated, and met his death at the battle of supremacy.
Nectansmere. None of his successors were strong
enough even to rule his own kingdom.
GENEALOGY OF CHIEF NOETHUMBKIAN KINGS
jEthelfeith.
!
I
Oswald. Oswiu.
I
ECGFKITH.
21. Mercia soon stepped into the place of supremacy left vacant
by the fall of Northumbrian greatness. Ever since the victories
of Penda she had been a great state, 'though over- The Mercian
shadowed by the superior power of the Northumbrians, overlord-
For the greater part of the eighth century Mercia ^'"P'
was by far the strongest of all the English kingdoms. During most
36 THE EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS [716-
of tliis period she was ruled by two great kings, each of whom
Under reigned for an exceptionally long period. The first of
Ethelbald, these, Ethelbald (716-757), became so powerful that
716-757. j^g ^^ j^p^ content to be called king of the Mercians,
but styled himself "king of all the South EngKsh." Under his
Sketch Map showing position of Nectansmere.
successor, OfEa the Mighty (757-796), the Mercian supremacy
attained its culminating point. Offa drove the
75'?-796*' Northumbrians out of the lands that now form
southern Lancashire, and incorporated them with his
kingdom. He conquered from the West Saxons all their territories
north of the Thames, which henceforward remained the boundary
of the two states. He made Shrewsbury an English town, driving
the Welsh from the middle Severn valley, and digging, it is said,
a deep ditch and mound, called Offds Dyke, between the mouth of
the Dee and the mouth of the Wye, to separate Mercia and Wales.
He slew the king of the East Angles, and annexed Kent. He
appointed two sons-in-law as dependent kings over Wessex and
If orthumbria. In every way he exercised more authority over the
rest of England than any king before his days. He was one
of the few Old English kings powerful enough to have much
-796.]
TtIM EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS
17
influence beyond sea. The great Frankish king, Charles the
Great, was his friend, and often corresponded with him. Though
a fierce warrior, like all the great Mercians, OfEa was a good friend
of the Church, and built the abbey of St. Alban's in honour of
Emery ^ydltte^ &>:..
the first British martyr. OfBa thought it unworthy of the great-
ness of Mercia that it should be subject to an archbishop who
lived outside Mercia. He therefore persuaded the pope to make
Lichfield, the chief Mercian see, an archbishopric. If this plan
had succeeded, each of the three chief states of England would have
38 THE EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS fSzi.
had an archbishop of its own, for Northmnbria had its primate
at York, and Canterbury, cut off from ruling the Midlands, would
soon have become the archbishopric of the West Saxons only.
The result of this would have been to destroy the unity of the
English Church as established by Theodore. Luckily Offa's plan
did not last long, for only one archbishop ever sat at Lichfield.
22. Offa's successor, Cenulf (796-821), was less powerful than
he, and was so much afraid of the persistent hostility of Canterbury
that he gave up the plan of making Lichfield an arch-
793-821 bishopric. When Cenulf died, Meroia fell into anarchy,
and the fall just as Northumbria had done after the death of
orMercia. Ecgfrith. Supremacy depended mainly on the character
of the king, and no kingdom had the good luck to have an
uninterrupted succession of kings strong enough to rule their
naighbours. But each fresh overlordship was a fresh step towards
the unity of England, and Offa had done much towards it by
breaking down the power of the lesser kingdoms. The smaller
" heptarchic " states had by this time ceased to have amy real
independence. Only the three great states counted any longer.
Of these Northumbria and Mercia had exhausted themselves, so
that soon after CenuK's death supremacy once moi'e passed south-
wards, when the supremacy of Wessex succeeded upon that of the
midland and the northern kingdoms.
CHAPTER V
THE WEST SAXON OVERLORDSHIP AND
THE DANISH INVASIONS (802-899)
Chief Dates :
802. Accession of Egbert.
825. Battle of EllaDdune.
858. Death of Ethelwulf.
871. Alfred's year of battles.
878. Treaty of Chippenham.
886. Alfred and Guthrnm's Peace.
899. Death of Alfred.
911. Normandj'' established.
1. DiTBixG the Northumbrian overlordship Wessex was steadily
making its way westwards at the expense of the "West Welsh, and
eastwards at the cost of the little Saxon and Jutish
kingdoms of the south-east. Its progress was stayed ^^ '''^^ °*^
for a, time when its neighbour, Mercia, replaced
Northumbria as the supreme state among the English. During
this period Wessex was forced to surrender to Mercia the West
Saxon lands north of the Thames and its supremacy over Kent
and the little kingdoms of the south-east. On the west, however,
Wessex did not cease its gradual conquests over the West Welsh.
It was during the eighth century that Wessex added to its posses-
sions all that is now Somersetshire and the south-east pai'ts of
Devonshire, including Exeter and Crediton.
2! The worst blow to West Saxon, power was when Offa set
up his son-in-law as its king, and drove beyond the seas the .Sithel-
ing (prince) Egbert, who was forced to live many xhe reign
years as an exile at the court of Charles the Great, of Egbert,
the king of the Franks. When Egbert was still with 802-839.
Charles, the great Erankish king was crowned Roman emperor at
Home on Christmas Day, 800, by the pope. Two years later, after
his rival's death, Egbert was called home to be made king of the
West Saxons (802). A skUful statesman and a bold warrior, he
employed the first years of his reign in waging war against the
39
40 THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES [825-
West Welsh, whose power he broke for ever, conquering' all
Devonshire up to the Tamar, and forcing the still unsubdued
Comishmen to pay him tribute. After Cenulf's death in 821,
Mercia fell into such confusion that Egbert was tempted to attack
it. In 825 he defeated the Mercians at a great battle
of the'wfs\ ^^ Ellandune (Ellingdon near Swindon), in Wiltshire.
Saxon supre- The Mercian supremacy collapsed in that single day,
maey, 825. ^^^ henceforth Egbert was overlord, or Bretwalda,
over all the English and most of the Welsh. Kent, Sussex,
Essex were reconquered by Wessex; East Anglia, in its hatred
of Mercia, wiUingly yielded to West Saxon supremacy ; the Nor-
thumbrians submitted as soon* as a West Saxon army approached
their southern frontier; and the Welsh of North Wales were
forced to make humble submission. Thus began that West Saxon
overlordship out of which ultimately grew the tmited English
monarchy.
3. Despite all his triumphs, Egbert did not die in peace.
Though no foes ventured to stand up against him in Britain, new
„ . , enemies came from beyond the sea, whose ravages
of the soon threatened to undermine the West Saxon power.
Danish in- After some centuries of rest, fresh swarms of Teutonic
barbarians began to seek for spoil in the lands which
had once acknowledged Rome as their master. These were the
fierce pirates known in England as Danes, in Germany as East-
men, and Gaul as the Northmen. They came from Scandinavia,
both from Norway and from Denmark. These regions were at
this period much in the same condition as North Germany had
been four centuries before, when it sent the Angles and Saxons to
the shores of Britain. The country was too poor and remote to
satisfy the wants of its inhabitants, who gradually got into the
habit of seeking plunder and adventure at the expense of more fertile
and sunny districts. The road by land southwards to the continent
was blocked by the armies of Charles the Great, so the Norsemen
took to the sea, and sought out the coasts of Britain and Ireland
as places where booty might be won at no great risk to themselves.
Greedy, ferocious, but terribly efficient, they could generally break
down the resistance offered to them. They were still heathens,
and took special delight in plundering Christian churches and
monasteries. Before Offa's death they had begun to devastate
Northumbria. In the latter years of Egbert they ventured to
attack Wessex itself. The Cornish Welsh were so afraid of Egbert
that they gladly made common cause with the new-comers.
-872.] THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES 4 1
Egbert's last victory was gained at Hengston Down, in East Corn-
wall, over a joint force of Danes and Cornislinien.
4. Two years afterwards, in 839, the great king died, leaving to
Ids pious and gentle son, Ethelwulf (839-858), the task of dealing
with these terrible foes. Ethelwulf was a weU-mean- yjjg reign of
ing king, but he was not strong enough to uphold Ethelwulf,
West Saxon supremacy against such formidable rivals. ^^^'^S^-
He gained some victories over them, but the pirates soon found that
they had only to persevere in their incursions to obtain what they
sought. At first they had come in summer-time as plunderers, and
were content to sail home in aulTimn, with their ships laden with
booty, that they might revel in their own homes all through the dark
and long northern winter. Before long they began to winter in
England, and thereby found that the land was a pleasanter place to
live in than their own country. Thus, like the English before
them, they ceased to be mere plunderers, and began to wish to
make settlements.
5. Great chang-es in Scandinavia soon increased the desire of the
Danes to win new homes outside their mother-oouutry. Up to this
time Danes and Norsemen had been split up into a ^j^g Norse
large number of little states, ruled by petty chieftains, migpations
called mrfe. But now some of the chieftains proved °'^ ^^ ninth
themselves stronger than their rivals, fought against
them, and conquered them after the same fashion in which some
of the English kingdoms were constantly bringing their weaker
neighbours into subjection. Before long there was a single king
governing all Norway, another all Denmark, and another aU
Sweden. The most famous of these was Harold Fairhair
(860-872), the first king of all Norway. So sternly did Harold
rule over the cpnquered tribes that the freedom-loving Norse-
men bitterly resented his supremacy. As they were unable to
overthrow him in his own land, many of them abandoned their
native valleys, and sought out new abodes for themselves in the
lands which they had already got to know during their plundering
expeditions. Thus the latter part of the ninth century saw a
great Norse inigration, which profoundly affected the whole of
western Europe. The first places chosen for these new settlements
were the islands that were nearest to the coasts of Norway. After
this fashion Iceland, hitherto almost uninhabited, became a Norse
island, and ultimately the special home of the bravest, strongest,
and most typical of the Scandinavian race. Some of the Norsemen
made their way beyond Iceland, settled in Greenland, and sent
42
THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES
[858-
out explorers, who discovered, six centuries before Columljus, tlie
continent of North
America. The dis-
tricts at which they
touched, which were
afterwards called New
England, they called
VMand, the land of
the vine.
6. More important
for us than the move-
ment westward was
the migi-ation south-
ward, which now
made the 'Faroe
Islands, OrTcney and
Shetland the homes
of Norse settlers. Be-
fore long the hardy
seamen made their
way to the coasts of
Britain. They estab-
lished themselves on
the mainland of the
extreme north, driv-
ing out the Celts from
the northern parts of
the modern Scotland,
and estabKshing the
Norse tongue and the
Norse people in. Caith-
ness and Sutherland.
This latter district,
the south land, marked
the southern limit of
their settlements on
the mainland. But
along' the western sea-
board of Scotland the
Norsemen penetrated
very much further.
They settled in the
-871 ] THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES 43
Hebrides, and pushed their way from island to ishind until they
had conquered the Isle of Man. Ireland, which had learnt nothing-
from the Romans save the Christian faith, and had „^ „
, »~— - ^Jjg NOFS6
stood outside the rang-e of the English conquest, was settlements
now at last brought into the general current of great '" Celtic
European movements by the establishment of Norse ^° ^'
settlements upon its coasts. However, in Ireland, as in the
Hebrides and southern islands, the invaders did not utterly dis-
place the former inhabitants as the English had done in south-
eastern Britain, and the Norse in Orkney, Shetland, and Caithness.
Side by side with the new Danish states, the old Celtic tribal
states still lived on ; and perpetual wars were waged for many
centuries between the new-comers and the older inhabitants.
7. At last South Britain itself was exposed to the Norse
migration. The dependent kingdoms of the north-east of England
were not strong enough to resist it, and before long
East Anglia, southern Northumbria, and the northern settlements
parts of Mercia were conquered by the Danes. Nor in England
were the British islands alone exposed to Danish settle- and the
continent,
ment. Other swarms of Norsemen sought out new
abodes on the Continent. A Swedish chief, named Rurik, conquered
the Slavs on the east of the Baltic, and laid the foundations of the
modern Russia. In the next generation they set up a Scandi-
navian state upon the north coast of Gaul, which took the name of
Normandy, or land of the Northmen.
8. Wessex was the last English state to feel the impact of the
victorious Scandinavians. Yet even in Ethelwulf 's lifetime Danish
armies had taken up their winter quarters within his
dominions, as, for example, in 855, when the Northmen o„^;i^essex.
settled for the cold season in Sheppey, an island ofi
the coast of Kent, which had now virtually become a part of the
West Saxon realm. During the short reigns of Ethelwulf's sons
the full force of the Norse migration threatened Wessex with the
fate of East Anglia and Mercia.
9. Ethelwulf died in 858, and was succeeded by Ms four sons in
succession. After the Frankish fashion, he divided his dominions,
making his eldest son, Ethelbald, king of the West j^e sons of
Saxons, while Ethelbert, the second, became under- Ethelwulf,
king of Kent. But after a short reign of two years ^°°'^^^-
Ethelbald died, whereupon Ethelbert became king of Wessex from
860 to 866. He was in turn succeeded by Ethelred, king of Wessex
from 866 to 871. On Ethelred's death, Alfred obtained possession
44 THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES [871-
of tte throne, and ruled until 899. During the first three of these
reigns the Danes perpetually troubled Wessex ; but it was not
untU the last year of Ethelred's reign that they began the
systematic conquest of that kingdom. Ethebed, a, strenuous and
mighty warrior, withstood the invaders with rare spirit and with
partial success, and was ably supported by his younger brother,
Alfred's t^^e ^theling Alfred. In one memorable year, 871, the
year of West Saxons fought nine pitched battles against the
battles, 871. jjangs. The most famous of these was the battle of
Ashdown on the Berkshire downs, where the invaders were so
rudely repulsed that they withdrew for a time to their camp at
Reading. Within a fortnight, however, they resumed the attack,
and, after another fierce fight, Ethelred died, worn out with the
strain and exposure involved in the resistance to them. Alfred, his
feUow-worker, then a young man of twenty-three, at once assumed
the monarchy of the West Saxons. He assailed the Danes so
fiercely that they were glad to make peace and withdraw over the
Thames. Eor the next few years they left Wessex to itself.
During tliis period they completed the conquest of Mercia by
dividing its lands amongst their leaders. When this process was
once accomplished, Wessex was once more to feel the weight of
their power.
10. In January, 878, the Danes again invaded Wessex. They
were led by a famous chieftain, Guthrum, and fought under a
Alfred saves hanner bearing the sign of a raven. It was unusual
Wessex, in those days to fight in winter, and Alfred was un-
*^^" prepared for their sudden onslaught. He was driven
from Chippenham, where he was residing, and forced to withdraw,
while the enemy overran his kingdom. But even in this crisis he
kept up his courage. With a little band he made his way by wood
and swamp to Athelney, an island amidst the marches of Mid
Somerset, at the confluence of the Tone and Parret. There he
btiilt a fort, from which he kept fighting against the foe. Before
long he was able to abandon his refuge and gather an army roimd
him. In May he defeated Guthrum in a pitched battle at Edington
in Wiltshire. The Danes fied in confusion to Chippenham, where
they had entrenched a camp, and were pursued and besieged by
Alfred. After a fortnight's siege, Guthrum was willing to make
peace with his enemy. The Danes " swore mighty oaths that they
would quit Alfred's realm, and that their king should receive
baptism." Alfred stood godfather to Guthrum, and entertained
him at Wedmore, in Somerset, for twelve days. For this reason
-886.] THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES 45
the treaty between Alfred and the Banes is often called the treaty
of Wedmore. By it the Danes not only agreed to withdraw from
Wessex; they left southern and western Meroia in the hands of
AKred, and contented themselves with the northern and eastern
districts of Meroia, where they had already made an efEeotive
settlement. But they kept their hold over Essex and London, and
besides this, were rulers over eastern Meroia, East AngUa, and
Northiunbria. Thus Alfred saved Wessex from the Danes, and in
saving his own kingdom, he preserved all England from becoming
a merely Danish land.
11. For a season there was peace between Alfred and the
Danes. Seven years later more fighting broke out, and Alfred once
more proved victorious. In 886 Gruthrum was once Alfred and
more forced to make a disadvantageous peace, by Guthpum's
which he yielded up London and its neighbourhood to ^^ace, 886.
the "West Saxons. By the second treaty, called Alfred, and
Guthrum's Peace, the boundary between Alfred's kingdom and the
lands of the Danes was fixed as follows : It went up the Thames as
far as the river Lea, then up the Lea to its source, and thence to
Bedford, from which town it continued up the Ouse to WatUng
Street. Beyond that it is not known for certain where the dividing-
line ran, but it is often thought that it followed the old Soman
road as far as Chester, which thus became the northern outpost of
Alfred's kingdom. Thus West Saxon Mercia formed a great
triangle, whose base was the Thames, whose other sides were the
Watling Street and the Welsh frontier, and whose apex was the old
Koman city of Chester. Within these limits Alfred ruled as he
pleased. But the tradition of independence was still strong in
Mercia, and Alfred thought it wise to set up a separate government
for that part of the midland kingdom which now belonged to him.
He made Ethelred, a Mercian nobleman, alderman of the Mercians,
and ensured his fidelity by marrying him to his own daughter,
Ethelflaed. Before long the many princes of Wales submitted to
his overlordship, and promised to be as obedient to him as were
Ethelred and his Mercians. Alfred thus ensured West Saxon
supremacy over all southern Britain that was not governed by the
Danes.
12. North of the boundary line the Danes still remained
masters. They ruled the country after the Danish fashion, divided
the lands among themselves, and forced the English The Dane-
to work for them. The Danish districts were called law.
the Danelmo, because they were governed according to the law of
46
THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES
[886-
the Danes. But tlie Banelaw did not long keep itself distinct from
tke rest of England. The Danish conquerors were few in nmnher,
ENGLAND
after Alfred & Guthrum's Peace
886.
Danish and Norse ^^
Celtic ^M
irvMii-M^i^^X^cA The Fiue Danish Boroughs...*
NORTH
SEA
Emery WaiSer ec,
and not very different, either in language or in manners, from the
-892.] THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES 47
English, among' whom they lived. They soon followed Guthrum's
example, and became Christians. When they had renounced their
old heathen gods, the chief thing that separated them from the
English disappeared. G-raduaUy they abandoned their own tongue
and used the language of the English, which was not very unlike
their own speech. The result was that English and Danes in the
Danelaw were joined together in a single people, difiering only
from their West Saxon neighbours in the south because they still
retained something of the fierceness and energy of the Danish
pirates from whom some of them were descended. Eor many
generations the mixed Danes and English of the north and mid-
lands remained more warlike and vigorous than the sluggish West
Saxons of purer English descent. Finally, however, it only
became possible to distinguish the Danelaw from the rest of the
country by the oeourrenoe of certain Scandinavian forms in place-
names such as "by," "ness," "force," "thwaite," and the like.
Wherever such forms cluster thickly, as in Yorkshire and the
northern midlands, there we know that the Danes had at one time
settled most numerously.
13. Though the men of the Danelaw were better fighters, the
greater civilization of the West Saxons still enabled them to
exercise influence over the ruder north country. More-
over, while Wessex remained under Alfred and his restoration
successors a single state ruled by a strong king, the of West
Danelaw was broken up into many petty states, each supremacy,
governed by its own jarl, or alderman. This division
of the Danish power made it easy for AMred to restore his overlord-
ship over northern and eastern England, so that before he died he
held q^uite as strong a position as ever Egbert had done. Thus the
West Saxon supremacy, threatened with destruction by the Danish
invasion, was restored on a broader basis after a very few years.
The Danes had destroyed the old local lines of kings, whom Mercians
and East Anglians had so long obeyed. This made it easier for the
West Saxon kings to exercise authority over the north and east
than had been the case in earlier times. Alfred had, in. fact, done
more than revive the overlordship of Egbert. He laid the founda-
tions of that single monarchy of all England which was soon to
become a reality under his son and grandson. " He was," says
the English Chronicle, " king over the whole kin of the English,
except that part which was under the sway of the Danes." But
he stiU generally called himself " king of the West Saxons," like
his predecessors. His self-restraint was wise, for the old English
48 THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES [892-
local feeling still remained very strong, and tlie new blood in the
Danelaw did something to strengthen it.
14. Alfred took care to prevent the renewal of Danish invasions
by devising improved ways of marshalling the "fyrd," or local
Alfred's militia, in which every free man was bound in those
military days to serve. This force he divided into two parts,
reforms. « g^ ^^^^ always half were at home and half were on
service." He also increased the number of fortresses in England.
Moreover, he saw that the best way of keeping the Norsemen out
of his kingdom was by building ships and trying to defeat the
enemy at sea, so as to prevent them landing at all. He caused a new
type of ships to be made, which were bigger and stronger than the
fraU craft of the Danes. Yet aU his pains could not prevent his
kingdom being assailed once more by a chieftain named Haesten,
who, being driven from the continent in 892, tried to
His wars ' o ^
■with efEect a regular conc[uest of Wessex. After a good
Haesten, fleal of bloodshed, Haesten withdrew baffled. After
his failure little is heard of fresh Danish invasions for
the best part of a century. There was plenty of fighting, between
English and Danes, but the Danes against whom Englishmen had
to contend were the Danes settled in England. The great period
of Danish settlement was at last over, not only in Britain, but also
Beginnings '^^ ^^ continent. There, in 911, the Norsemen,
of Nor- under the leadership of a sea-king named Eolf , made
mandy, 911. ^jjeji- last and most famous conquest in the lower part
of western France, on both sides of the lower Seine. From them
the land took its name of " Normandy," or " land of the Northmen,''
and its people were called Normans, a softened form of Northmen.
But just as the Norsemen in England quickly become English, so
did their kinsfolk in France quickly become French. We shall
see later how important these Normans became in English history.
15. In resisting the Danes, Alfred won great fame as a warrior.-
But there were many soldiers in that age of hard fighting who
Alfred's approached Alfred in military reputation. It is his
peaceful peculiar glory that he was as strenuous and successful
reforms. :^ ^j^g ^^^ ^^ peace as in the arts of war. He stands
far above the mere soldier-king by his zeal to promote good laws,
sound administration, and the prosperity and civilization of his
people. He found England in a terrible state of desolation after
the Danish invasions. He laboured with great zeal and no small
measure of success to bring back to the land the blessings of peace
an^ prosperity. He collected the old laws by which the West
-899-] THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES 49
Saxons had long been ruled, and put them together in a convenient
form, long famous as the laws of Alfred. He encouraged trade,
repeopled London, which the Danes had left desolate, and was
a, special friend to merchants and seafarers. He encouraged sailors
to explore distant seas and teU him the results of their inq^uiries.
He corresponded with the pope and many foreign kings, and sent
gifts to foreign Churches, including the distant Christian Church
of India. Yet his own country was always foremost in his mind.
In England he restored the churches and monasteries that had
been destroyed by the Danes, and strove to fill them with well-
educated priests and monks. In his early years he had been
appalled at the ignorance of his clergy. " There was not one priest
south of the Thames," said he, " who could understand the Latin
of the mass-book, and very few in. the rest of England." To spread
knowledge among those who did not understand Latin, he caused
Several books of importance to be translated, among them being
Bede's Ecclesiastical Sistory and a treatise by Pope Gregory the
Grreat on Pastoral Care. Moreover, he ordered the compilation of
an English Chronicle, in which was set down aU that was then
known of the history of the English people, and which, continued
in various monasteries up to the twelfth century, became from that
time onward the chief source of our knowledge of Old English
history, and the most remarkable of the early histories which any
European people possesses written iu its own language. He set up
schools in the royal court, after the example of Charles the Great.
As he found few West Saxons able to co-operate with him in these
learned labours, he welcomed to his coast scholars from foreign
lands, from Meroia, from Wales, and from the continent. The
most famous of these was a Welshman named Asser, who became
bishop of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, and afterwards wrote Alfred's
life. Alfred's work was the more remarkable since he was
constantly troubled by a painful Ulness, and never succeeded in
winning many eifioient fellow- workers among his sluggish fellow-
countrymen. Even more wonderful than what he did was the
spirit in which he worked. His character is among the noblest
and purest in aU history. He was truth-telling, temperate,
virtuous, high-minded, pious, liberal, and discreet, the
friend of the poor, and so eager to uphold justice that Arfped,°899.
he often administered the law himself, and always
kept a watchful eye on the decisions of his judges. He died in
899, amidst the lamentations of his subjects, and has ever since
been known as King Alfred the Great.
E
CHAPTER VI
THE SUCCESSORS OF ALFRED AND THE
BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH MON-
ARCHY (899-978)
Chief Dates :
899-924. Reign of Edward the Elder.
924-940. ReigQ of Athelstan.
940-946. ReigQ of Edmund the Magnificent,
946-955. Reign of Edred.
955-959- Reign of Edwy.
QS9-97S- Reign of Edgar.
975-978. Reign of Edward the Martyr.
1. AxrRED was suooeeded by liis eldest son, Edward, called
Edward the Elder, who had already been associated in the govern-
Edwapd the ™ent during his father's lifetime. Though carefuUy
Eldep, educated, Edward showed no trace of his father's love
899-924. £qj, ^Jj^q ^j^g q£ peace. He was, however, as strenuous
a warrior as ever Alfred had been. He worthily carried on the
great king's work of bringing together England into a sing-le
state. In this he was much helped by his brother-in-law, Ethelred
of Mercia, and, after his death, by his sister Ethelflaed, whom he
continued in the government of Mercia with the title of the Lady
of the Mercians. Edward and his sister waged constant war
against the Danes. They strengthened their frontier both against
the Danes and the Welsh by building or restoring " boroughs," or
fortified towns, from which they mig-ht attack the enemy in his own
lands. A further step soon followed when the West Saxons and
Mercians overstepped the line drawn by Alfred, and gTaduaUy
conq[uered the Danelaw after much hard fighting. The most
famous of these contests centred round the district dependent on
the Five Banish Boroughs of Derby, Stamford, Nottingham,
Leicester, and Lincoln. At the moment of their final contest
Ethelflaed died. She had shown as much warlike skill as her
brother, and had loyally worked with him. Edward felt so much
stronger than Alfred that he appointed no successor to his sister,
50
924 ] BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH MONARCHY 5 1
but took over the government both of Danish and of English Mercia
into his own hands. He next assailed East Anglia, and easily-
subdued it. Then came the turn of Northumbria, in which Deira,
or Yorkshire, was ruled by a Danish jarl, while Bernioia, which
had escaped Norse oonq^uest, was governed by an independent
English alderman. Edward prepared for his northern advance by
building a fresh line of fortresses from Chester eastwards along
the line of the Mersey. In 923 he made his first conquest of
Northumbrian territory by taking possession ' of "Manchester in
Northionbria."
2. By this time the rulers of Britain perceived that there was no
use in fighting against the great "West Saxon king. Immediately on
the conquest of Mercia the kings of the "Welsh and all ^^ ^
their people sought Edward as their lord. At their firJt Mn'g ^
head was Howel the Good, the famous law-giver, and of the
the most distinguished of the "Welsh princes for many '^"^"^''' ^^4.
generations. " And in 924," says the Chronicle, " then chose him
for father and lord the king of the Scots and the whole nation of
the Scots, and all those who dwell in Northumbria, whether
English or Danes, and also the king of the Strathclyde "Welsh and
all the Strathclyde "Welsh." This was the culminating act of
Edward's reign. He died before the end of 924, when still a young
man. Conscious of his increasing power, he was not content to
call himself king of the "West Saxons as AKred had done. He
preferred to describe himself as king of the English, or king of
the Anglo-Saxons — that is, of the two races of Angles and Saxons
which we collectively call the English. From his day onward the
monarchy of England, though often threatened, became a perma-
nent thing. Thus the "West Saxon overlordship grew into the
kingdom over aU the English.
3. Three sons of Edward the Elder now ruled successively over
the English. Of these, Athelstan, the eldest, was as vigorous a
warrior as his father. He put an end to the dynasty of
Danish princes that had hitherto reigned in Deira, and 924^949 "'
added that district to the dominions directly governed
by him. He ruled, we are told, over all the kings that were in
Britain. So firmly did his power seem established that foreign
princes sought his alliance, and the greatest rulers of the age were
glad to marry themselves or their kinsfolk to Athelstan's sisters.
The empire of Charles the G-reat had now broken up, and separate
kingdoms had arisen for the East and the "West Franks, out of
which the later kingdoms of Germany and France were soon to
52 BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH MONARCHY [924-
arise. Henry the Fowler, king of the Bast Pranks, or Germans,
married his son Otto to Athelstan's sister Edith. This was the
Otto who afterwards became the Emperor Otto the Great, the
reviyer of the Roman Empire and the founder of the great German
monarchy, which annexed, so to say, the title of Roman emperors
for itself. Other sistei-s of Athelstan were married to Charles the
Simple, king of the West Pranks, or French, and to Hugh, duke
of the French, whose son, called Hugh Capet, finally put an end to
the rule of the Carolings, or descendants of Charles the Great,
and begun the Capetian dynasty which ruled over France as long
as France retained the govemm.ent of kings. The result of all
these alliances was that no Old English king was so well known on
the continent as Athelstan.
4. In 937 jealousy of their West Saxon overlord drew the
dependent rulers of Britain into a strong coalition against him.
The battle '^^® leaders of this were Constantine, king of Scots,
of Brunan- the Danish kings of Dublin, and some of the Welsh
Duph. princes. But Athelstan met the confederate army and
crushed it at Brunanburh, a place probably situated in the north-west
of England, though its exact site is unknown. This fight is com-
memorated in a magnificent war-song given in the English Chronicle.
It ensured peace for the rest of Athelstan's lifetime. Three years
later he died, in 940. Men called him Glorious Athelstan. He
made many good laws, and was a great friend of the Church.
5. Athelstan's younger bi'other, Edmund, who had shared in
the glory of Brunanburh, then became king. He was soon con-
Edmund the fronted by revolts of the Danes of northern Mercia
Magnificent, and Deira. But he easily reconquered both the Five
Danish Boroughs and Danish Yorkshire. He then
took Cumberland from its Welsh princes and gave it to Malcolm,
king of Scots, "on the condition that he should be his feUow-
worker as weU by sea as by land." For these exploits he was
called the Magnificent, or the Deed-Doer. His career was cut
short in 946 through his murder by an outlaw.
6. Edmund left two sons, named Edwy and Edgar, but they
were young cliildi-en, and no one thought of making either of them
king. The nobles turned rather to their uncle Edred,
946^955. *^^ youngest of Edward the Elder's sons, who was at
once chosen king. Unlike his two brothers, Edred
was weak in health and unable to play the warrior's part. But he
was prudent enough to put the management of his affairs into the
hands of the wisest man in all England. This was Dunstan, abbot
-959] BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH MONARCHY 53
of Grlastonbnry, who was already famous for having' reformed the
lax state of the monks under his charge, and who now showed that
he was a shrewd statesman as well as a zealous ecclesiastic. Under
his guidance the West Saxon monarchy continued in its career
of victory under its sickly king, though, as a rule, in those days
a weak ruler meant an xmlucky reign. Once more Northumbria
was oonc[uered from the Danes in 954, and with this event the
unity of England seemed accomplished. Proud of Ms great power
Edred was no longer content to call himself king of the English.
He sometimes styled himself emperor, hing, and Csesar of Britain,
as if to the English monarchy he had added the dominion over all
the island. These titles must not be taken too seriously, yet they
show that the aim now before the West Saxon house was nothing
less than supremacy over all the Bi-itish isles. Thus under Edred
the work began by Alfred was completed. It was rendered the
easier by the fact that Danes and English of the Danelaw had by
this time become blended into a single people. Dunstan was wise
enough to allow the men of the north country to retain their own
laws and be ruled by their own earls. It was the best way to make
them obedient to their West Saxon king. But the gi-eat difierence
of temper between north and south still remained, and there soon
arose an opportunity for it to assert itself.
7. Edred died in 955, and his nephew Edwy, though hardly yet
a man, was chosen king as the oldest member of the royal house
available. Under him troubles soon began. The young
king quarrelled with Dunstan, and drove him iato 95^959
banishment. The abbot was popular among the
Northumbrians and Mercians, though he had many enemies among
the West Saxon nobles who swayed the mind of the young king.
It is very likely that after Dunstan's exile the rule of Edwy over
the Northumbrians and Mercians became more severe than the
mild government of Edred. Anyhow, Mercia and Northumbria
rose in revolt, and declared that they would no longer have Edwy
to reign over them. They then chose as their king the .^theHng
Edgar, Bdwy's younger brother. England was now so far united
that even those who wished to divide it could only iind a king in
the sacred royal house of Wessex:
8. Edgar easily became king of the north and midlands. He
at once recalled Dunstan from exUe, and made him Edgar the
bishop, first of Worcester, and afterwards of London Peaceful,
as weU. For the rest of his life Edwy reigned 859-975.
over Wessex alone. His early death in 959 resulted, however, in
54 BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH MONARCHY [959"
tke reunion of England. Thereupon the West Saxons cliose Edgar
as tlieir king. From that day till his death Edgar ruled over aU
England, and, alone of the great West Saxon kings, ruled without
the need of fighting for his throne. For that reason men called him
Edgar the Peaceful. Again, as under Edred, Dunstan became the
king's chief adviser. He was made archbishop of Canterbury, and
the crown became powerful and the country prosperous under his
strong but conciliatory government. A great proof of Dunstan's
willingness to make sacrifices to keep the peace was to be seen in
the dealings between England and Scotland. In the weak days
of division the Scots had taken possession of the border fortress
of Edinburgh, hitherto the northernmost Northumbrian town.
To avoid war and obtain the goodwill of the Scots, Edgar yielded
up to their king the Northumbrian district called Lothian. Up
to now the Scots had been Highland Celts, but since Edmund's
cession of Cumbria the Scottish kings had had Welsh subjects.
Now they had English subjects also. And before long the English
element grew, until the modern Scottish Lowlands became EngHsh-
speaking and very like England, and only the Highlands retained
the Celtic tongue and manners of the old Scots.
9. The kings and chieftains of Britain gladly acknowledged the
overlordship of a monarch so just and strong as Edgar. It is said
Edgar as ^^^* "'^ °^^ occasion he went to Chester, where he met
emperor of six under-kings, who all took oaths to be faithful to
n. j^jj^ . ^^^ ^^^ ^jj^g gj^ kings rowed their overlord in a
boat up the Dee to the Church of St. John's, outside the walls. The
six were the king of Scots, liis vassal the king of Cumberland, the
Danish king of Man, and three Welsh kings. Even the Danish
kings who ruled over the coast towns of Ireland submitted them-
selves to his dominion. It was no wonder that Edgar, like Edwy,
took upon himself high-sounding titles. He called himself emperor,
Augustus, and Basileus of Britain. Under him the process that
begins with Alfred attains its culminating point. Edgar was the
most mighty of English kings before the Norman conquest.
10. At home Edgar ruled sternly, but so justly, that the only
fault that his subjects could find with him was that he loved
Dunstan foreigners too much.- The chief event of this time was
and the a religious revival, which Dunstan did much to foster.
revival"""^ Despite AKred's strenuous efforts at reform, the Church
remained corrupt and sluggish. In particular, the
monasteries were in a very lax state. Dunstan was first famous
as the reformer of his own abbey of Glastonbury. He became
-975- J BEGINNINGS OF TIlE ENGLISH MONARCHV 5$
more eager for reform after ]iis exile. When abroad lie had seen
the good results whioh had happened from a monastic revival that
had already been brought about on the continent. Brought back
to power, he strove with all his mig-ht to revive in England the
spirit of the austere Benedictine rule which derived its name from
St. Benedict of Nursia, the father of all later monasticism, who
lived in the sixth century, and whose sygtem St. Augustine had
first introduced into this country. Dunstan was anxious to make
the easy-going monks of England live the same strict life of
poverty, chastity, and obedience which St. Benedict had enjoined,
and wliioh he had seen in operation during his banishment. More-
over, he felt sure that the career of the monk was higher and nobler
than that of the secular clerk, who held property, married, and
generally lived a self-indulgent and easy-going life. By this time
many of the monasteries of earlier days had been changed into
what were called churches of secular canons — ^that is to say, they
were served by clergymen who did not take the monastic vows,
but lived in the world side by side with laymen. Dunstan was
disgusted at the lax ways of the secular canons, and did his best
to drive them out of their churches, and put Benedictine monks in
their place. But the canons were often men of high birth, and
had powerfvil friends among the nobles, who disliked Dunstan's
poUcy even in matters of state. Hence the attempt to supersede
canons by monks met with much opposition, and Dunstan, who
was a very prudent man, took care not to go too far in upholding
the monks. Yet he managed to establish monks in his own
cathedral of Christ Church, Canterbury, which henceforth remained
a Benedictine monastery until the E,eformation. Some of his
fellow-workers were less cautious than Dunstan, and the struggle
of monk and canon led to almost as much fighting as the contest
between the West Saxons and the Mercians. As long as Edgar
lived, however, Dunstan managed to keep the two parties from
open hostilities.
11. Edgar died in 975, and with him ended the greatness of the
West Saxon house. He left two sons by difEerent mothers. Their
names were Edward and EtheLtred. North and south, Edward the
friends of monks and friends of canons, (juarreUed as to Martyp,
which of the two boys should become king. For the 975-978.
moment the influence of Dunstan secured the throne for Edward,
the elder son. For four years the great archbishop went on ruling
the kingdom as in the days of Edgar. But his task was much
harder now that he was virtually single-handed. In 978 the young
S6 BkGlNNtNGS OF THE ENGLISH MONARCHY t978.
king- was stabbed in the back, it was believed, at the instigation of
his step-mother, who wished her own son, Ethelred, to mount the
throne. This cruel death gave Edward the name of Edward the
Martyr. His half-brother, Ethelred ii., succeeded to the throne
prepared for him by his mother's crime.
12. Dunstan's last important public act was to crown the new
monarch. Soon afterwards the great archbishop withdrew from
political affairs, and devoted what life was stiU. left to
DUnstam °^ ^^^ *° '^'^ government of the Church and the carrying
on of tlie monastic revival. He lived long enough to
see the peace, which Edgar and he had upheld, utterly banished
from the land, and to witness the ruin of the religious reforma-
tion amidst the tumults of a dreary period of civil strife and
renewed invasion. He was the first great English statesman
who was not a king and a warrior. In after days monks, who
wrote his life, gloriflied him as the friend of monks with such exces-
sive zeal that the wise statesman, who did so much to bring about
the unity of England, was hidden underneath the monastic zealot
and the strenuous saint. Yet, both as a prelate and as a politician,
Dunstan did a great work for his country. In him the impulse to
union and civilization, whichbeg-an with Alfred, attained its highest
point. He closes the great century which begins with the treaty of
Cliippenham, and ends with the murder of Edward the Martyr.
CHAPTER VII
THE DECLINE OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOM
AND THE DANISH CONQUEST (978-1042)
Chief Dates:
978-1016. Eeign of Ethelred the Unready.
1002. Massacre of St. Brice's Day.
1013. Swegen's conquest of England.
1016. Eivalry of Edmund Ironside and Cnut.
1017-1035. Eeign of Cnut.
103S-1037. Eegency of Harold Harefoot.
I037-1040. Eeign of Harold Harefout.
1040-1042. Eeign of Harthacnut.
1. The long reign of Etkelred 11. (978-1016) was a period of
ever-deepening confusion. At first the king was a boy, and the
nobles managed things as they wished. But after Ethelred the
Ethelred became a man things grew steadily worse. Unready,
The son of Edgar had none of the great qualities of 978-1016.
his race. Quarrelsome, jealous, and suspicious, he was always
irritating his nobles by trying to win greater power for himself.
Yet he was too weak and foolish to know what to do with the
authority which he inherited. In scorn men called him Ethelred
the Unready — ^that is, the Redeless, the man without rede, or good
counsel. Under his nerveless sway the unity of the kingdom began
to break up. Local jealousies and pei'sonal feuds set the great men
by the ears, and the guiding hand of a wise monarch was no longer
to be expected.
2. To make matters worse the Danish invasions soon began
again. Wow that the Danes in England had become Englishmen,
their kinsfolk beyond sea, learning the helplessness of Renewal of
the land, again began to send plundering expeditions the Danish
to its shores. Ethelred was too cowardly and lazy to iivasions.
meet the pirate hordes with an adequate force of armed men. He
persuaded his nobles to impose a tax on land, whereby a large sum
of money was collected to buy them off. The Danes took the bribe
and departed, but naturally they came again and wanted more.
57
5 8 THE DANISH CONQUEST [978-
Before long Danegeld, so this tax was called, was regularly levied,
but every year the horrors of Danish invasion became
worse and worse. As another means of conciliating the
Danes, Etlielred married Emma of Normandy, the daughter of the
duke of the Normaoas, who was himself a Norseman by descent,
and the ally of the Danish kings.
3. In the same year as his marriage, Etlielred, with equal folly
and treachery, ordered all the Danes that happened to be living in
England to be put to death. The day chosen for this evil deed
Massacre of '^^^ ®*- Brice's Day, November 13, 1002. Tidings of
St. Brice's the massacre only served to infuriate the Danes in
Day, 1002. Denmark ; and Swegen, their king, resolved to revenge
his slaughtered countrymen by undertaking a regular conquest of
Ethelred's kingdom. The state of the Scandinavian north was
different from what it had been in the days of Alfred. There was
now a strong king ruling aU Denmark, and another ruling all
Norway. In earlier days the Danes came in comparatively small
and detached bands, whose greatest hope was to conquer and colonize
some one district of England. It was now possible for the king
of all Denmark to invade England with an army big enough
to tax all the resoui-ces of the ooxmtry. In 1003 Swegen carried
out his threat. He came to England with a large fleet and
army, and set to work to conquer it. Ethelred made few
attempts to organize resistance to him, and, though
Invaffons some districts fought bravely and checked the Danish
advance, there was no central force drawn from the
whole country capable of withstanding the foe. For the next ten
years England suffered unspeakable misery. One famous incident
of the struggle was the cruel death of the archbishop of Canter-
bury, .ffilfheah, or Alphege, whom the Danes, after a drunken
revel, pelted to death with bones because he would not con-
sent to impoverish the poor husbandmen who farmed his lands
by raising from them the heavy ransom demanded by the in-
vaders. Alphege was declared a saint, and Ms memory long held
in honour.
4. At last Englishmen began to see it was no use resisting
Swegen, or in upholding so wretched a king as Ethelred. In 1013
The rule of ^^^^ Danish king again appeared in England, and easily
Swegen, conquered the greater part of the country. There-
1013-1014. ^ppj^ Ethelred fled to Normandy, the country of his
wife. His withdrawal left Swegen the real ruler of England. Had
he been a Christian, the English might well have chosen him as
-1017.] THE DANISH CONQUEST 59
their king. As it was, some districts still resisted when Swegen
died in 1014
6. The Danish soldiers chose Swegen's son Cnut as their king.
Cnut was as good a soldier as his father. Moreover, he was a
Christian and a wise and prudent man. But the ^^, , ..
Tn T 1 _L'n i J n .1 . 1 -. 1 . 1 ,. Etnelreas
English still regretted their old king, and some of return,
them fooUshly asked Ethelred to come back from Nor- l"!*- »•"<*
mandy and take up his kingship again. Ethelred re- '
turned, and war went on between him and Cnut until 1016, when
Ethelred died.
6. Ethelred's successor was a man of very different stamp.
Edmund, his son before his marriage with Emma, was a strenuous
warrior, so valiant and persistent that men called him -,. _iyj,]_„
Edmund Ironside. In him Cnut found a worthy foe, of Edmund
and a mighty struggle ensued between the two rivals, Ironside and
which made the year 1016 as memorable in military '
history as the " year of battles " in the midst of which Alfred
mounted the throne. Six pitched battles were fought, the most
famous of which was one at Assandun (now Ashington), in Essex,
in which Cnut won the day. In the long run neither side obtained
a complete triumph over the other, and before the end of the year
the two kings met at Olney, an island in the Severn, near
G-loucester, where they agreed to divide England between them.
By the treaty of Obiey, Cnut took Northumbria and Mercia, and
Edmund, Wessex. A little later Edmund diedj and in 1017 the
nobles of Wessex, weary of fighting, chose Cnut as their ruler.
7. Cnut thus became king, first of part and then of the whole
of England, very much as Edgar had done. Though his real
claim to the throne was not the choice of the people,
but his right as a conquerer, he soon proved himself < 017-1035
an excellent king. Under him the prosperity of
Edgar's days was renewed. He sent home most of his Danish
troops, chose English advisers, and married Emma, Ethelred's
widow, so as to connect himself as closely as possible with the
West Saxon royal house. He promised Danes and English in
England to rule according to King Edgar's law. But Cnut was
king of Denmark as well as of England, and a few years later
became king of Norway also. Visions of a great northern empire
rivalling the realm of the German emperors, who stUL called them-
selves emperors of Eome, may well have floated before his mind.
But he was wise enough to make England, not Denmark, the centre
of his power. Kough as England then was, Scandinavia was still
6o THE DANISH CONQUEST [1017-
ruder. It was still largely heathen ; and the only way in which the
power of Cnut could be kept together there was for him to use
English bishops and monks to help him in civilizing and teaching
the faith to his born subjects in the north. But though English-
men thus foimd new careers in the service of their conqueror, the
cares of his great empire compelled Cnut to absent himself from
England for long periods. Besides necessary journeys to his
northern kingdoms, he made a pilgrimage to Rome, whence he
wrote a touching letter to his subjects, declaring that he had
" vowed to live a right life in aU things, to rule justly and piously,
and to administer just judgment to all." He steadily lived up to
the high ideal thus set out before him, and in every way proved
himself to be one of the best of our kings. He was enabled to
rule his realm strongly, as he kept up a sort of standing army in a
force of two or three thousand House carles, or palace guards, whom
he paid well and kept under discipline. It was dangerous to rebel
against a monarch with such a force always ready at his disposal.
8. Early in his reign Cnut divided England into four parts.
One of these, Wessex, he kept for himself, but the other
three, Mercia, Northumberland, and East Anglia, he
earldoms handed over to be governed by great earls, or, as they
had been called in earlier days, aldermen. Before his
death he seem.s also to have assigned Wessex to an earl. For this
important post he chose a wealthy, eloquent, and shrewd English-
man named Godwin, whom he married to a lady of the Danish
royal stock, and to whom he showed many other signs of favour.
As long as Cnut lived these great earls remained faithful to him,
but their establishment was a dangerous experiment. They wei-e
necessarily entrusted with a great deal of power. When they had be-
come well established in their jurisdictions they made themselves the
centres of the old local traditions that still remained strong, despite
a century and a half of centralization. Things grew worse when
son succeeded father in the earldoms as in the ancient sub-king-
doms that had preceded them. Finally, the great earldoms revived
in fact, if not in name, the separatist feelings of Mercia, North-
umbria, and Wessex. The next half -century showed the realm of
Edgar gradually splitting up into its ancient threefold division.
9. Cnut died in 1035. He left two sons, Harold, the firstborn,
and Hartliaenut, liis son by Emma of Normandy. A meeting of
the wise men took place at Oxford to decide how the succession
was to be settled. Party feeling ran high, and Leofric, earl of
Mercia, stood in fierce antagonism to Godwin, earl of Wessex.
-I042.1 THE DANISH CONQUEST 6l
Grodwin and the "West Saxons wished to make Harthacnut king,
but he was away in Denmark, and this fact played into the hands
of Leofric, who was supported by north and midlands „ , ^ „
in his efforts to uphold the cause of Harold. Finally, foot and
as a compromise, it was agreed to make Harold regent of Harthacnut,
all England, on behalf of himself and his absent brother.
This suggests that a division of the kingdom was contemplated,
but for more than a year England had no king at all. However,
Harthacnut abode obstinately in Denmark, and neither Godwin
nor Emma could long maintain the rights of an absentee claimant.
In 1037 Harold was definitely chosen king. He drove Emma out
of the country, and reigned untU his death in 1040. Harthacnut
was then at Bruges, in Flanders, where his mother lived, and was
waiting with an army in the hope of invading England. He was at
once sent for, and elected king of aU England. He showed great
sternness to his enemies, casting his dead brother's body into a
sewer, and levying heavy taxes on those who had resisted his
authority. He was much under Emma his mother's influence, and
to please her called home from Normandy her son by King Ethelred,
whose name was Edward. However, Harthacnut proved a bad
ruler, and, says the Chronicle, "' did nothing like a king during his
whole reign." In 1042 he died suddenly at the wedding-feast of
one of his nobles. With him expired ignominiously the Danish
line of kings which had begun so weU with his father. The
influence of Emma and G-odwin secured the succession for his
half-brother Edward, and Englishmen rejoiced that the son of
Ethelred had obtained his true natural right to the throne of his
ancestors.
GENEALOGY OF THE DANISH KINGS
Swegen.
Cnut, m. (2) Emma of Normandy.
I (2)
Haroi-d Hakefoot. Harth.^cnut.
CHAPTER VIII
THE REIGNS OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR
AND HAROLD (1042-1066)
Chief Dates :
1042. Accession of Edward the Confessor.
1052. Godwin's return from exile, and death.
1064. Harold's Welsh war.
1066. Jan. 5, Death of Edward the Confessor. Jan. 6,, Accession of
Harold, son of Godwin. Sept. 25, Battle of Stamford Bridge.
Oct. 14, Battle of Hastings. Dec. 25, Coronation of William
the Conqueror.
1. Edwakd, the new king, was nearly forty years old when he was
called to the throne of his ancestors. Driven from England as a
rh raeter mere child, he had been brought up ia his mother's
and pule of land of Normandy, and was Norman rather than
Edward the English in speech, manners, and tastes. A pious,
affectionate, gentle, weU-eduoated man, his outlook on
life was that of the cultivated Norman cleric rather than that
of the hard-flghting English warrior-king. His austerity and
religious zeal gave him such a reputation for sanctity that he was
canonized after his death, and became famous among royal saints as
Edward the Confessor. But he was of weak health, feeble character,
and somewhat ohUdish disposition. He was too old and sluggish
to learn anything fresh, and too wanting in self-confidence to be
able to live without favourites and dependants. Under such a
weakling the government of the country passed largely into the
hands of the great earls, such as Siward of Northumbria, Leofrio
of Mercia, and, above all, Godwin of Wessex. It was Godwin who
had secured Edward his throne, and for long the king leant upon
his strong and resolute counsel. Godwin's chief helpers were his
vigorous young sons, chief among whom were Harold and Tostig,
who held dependent earldoms under their father. Godwin's
daughter Edith became King Edward's wife, and for a time all
seemed to go weU. But Edward had little sympathy with his wife's
strenuous kinsfolk, and gradually gave his chief confidence to
62
I042.] EDWARD THE CONFESSOR AND HAROLD 63
Korman clerks, soldiers, and adventurers, wlio crossed over to
England, hoping to win a career in a country wiose monarch was
so devoted to Normans and Norman ways. Thus it happened
that England, which had withstood successfully all foreign influence
when ruled by her Danish sovereigns, was threatened with some-
thing like foreign domination as the result of the restoration of the
old line of kings.
2. The Normans had many great qualities that explain Edward's
devotion to the land of his mother's kinsfolk. Though little more
than a hundred years had passed since E.0K and his Normandy
followers had established themselves in their new and the "
homes in northern France, the Norman duchy had Normans,
already won a notable place for itseM in western Europe. The same
ready sympathy for the people among whom their lot was cast,
which had rapidly made Englishmen of the Northmen of the
Danelaw, had made Frenchmen of the Northmen on the banks
of the Seine. They had dropped their old tongue and spoke French.
They had adopted French customs and manners. But like the
Anglo-Danes of England, the Normans retained much of the
energy and fierceness of their pirate ancestors. They were more
active, enterprising, and vigorous than most Frenchmen. They
took up with every new movement, were great champions of the
growing authority of the Church, and were learning the newest
fashions of fighting, ruling, and holding land. Their duke, though
a subject of the French king, was quite as powerful as his master,
and was generally strong enough to restrain his turbulent, unruly
subjects. The duke of the Normans at that time was Edward's
cousin William. William had come to the throne as a child with
a disputed title. But he had from earliest manhood shown so
much activity and skill that he had put down the revolts of his
fierce nobles, and made himself almost a despot. The gentle
English king always looked up greatly to his stem cousin, and
gladly took his advice.
3. From the beginning of the reign many Normans were raised
by royal favour to eminent positions in Church and State in Eng-
land. They were not always the best of their class, for
Edward had very Uttle discrimination ia his friend- ^n !„ "f™^"^
ships. One Norman friend of Edward's was a bishop,
" who,'' said the English chronicler, " did nought bishop-like ; "
and a Norman raised by Edward to an English earldom became
infamous in his new home as the " timid earl." Highest in rank
among Edward's Norman favourites was Eobert, abbot of Jumieges,
64 EDWARD THE CONFESSOR AND HAROLD [1051-
who, to the disgust of Englishmen, was made archbishop of Canter-
bury. After ten years the Normans had won so many places and
estates that a loud outcry was raised against them. Godwin and
his sons, who gradually lost all influence over the king, made them-
selves the spokesmen of the national hatred of the foreigners. In
1051 they gathered together an army and prepared to drive the
Normans from court. But the old jealousy of Wessex and
its earl was stUl strong in the north and midlands. Siward of
Northumbria and Leofric of Mercia took sides with Edward and
his Normans against the house of Godwin. Godwin could not at
And the '^'^ moment resist such odds. His army melted away ;
exile of he and his sons were banished, and his daughter was
1 0M '"' ^^'ok by her husband into a nunnery. Soon after, as
if to complete the Norman triumph, William, duke
of Normandy, came to England with a great company of French-
men, and was royally received by his cousin. Edward, who had
no children and no near relations, seems to have promised William
to make him his successor to the throne. Thus the permanence of
Norman influence seemed assured.
4 Godwin and Harold did not remain long in exile. In 1052
they gathered together a fleet and an army, sailed up the Thames,
The return ^^^ beset London. Edward and his Normans collected
and death another army to withstand them ; but the English
?n?9"^^'"' P*'opl6 were so strongly on Godwin's side that even
Edward's soldiers were loath to fight for him. They
said to each other that they ought not to fight against their ow-n
countrymen, and insisted upon negotiating with the invaders.
Edward was powerless in their hands, as there were not enough
Normans to make a good show in a battle. The result was that
Godwin and Harold were restored to their earldoms, " as fully and
freely as they had possessed them before." " And then," writes the
English chronicler, "they outlawed all the Frenchmen who had
judged unjust judgments and had given ill counsel, save only such
as they agreed upon whom the king liked to have with him and
were true to his people." Archbishop Robert and two other
Norman bishops escaped with difSoulty beyond sea ; and English-
men were appointed as their successors, the new archbishop's name
being Stigand. Edith came back from her cloister to her husband's
court. The threatened tide of Norman invasion was driven back
for the rest of Edward's lifetime.
5. Godwin died soon after his restoration, and Harold then
became earl of the West Saxons. He was a brave warrior and a
-1064.] EDWARD THE CONFESSOR AND HAROLD 65
shrewd and self-seeking statesman, strong enongh to dominate the
will of his weak brother-in-law and control his policy. When
Earl Siward died Harold made his brother Tostig Harold, earl
earl of Northumbria in his place, while his younger of the West
brothers, Grnrth and Leofwine, were made earls of East Faxons.
Anglia and Kent. Two-thirds of England was now directly ruled
by the house of Godwin. After this Leofric of Meroia was the only
great earl who was independent of Harold. He soon died, but his
son ^Ifgar secured the succession to Mercia, and tried to strengthen
himself by making an alliance with his "Welsh neighbours. The
Welsh were excellent soldiers, but as a rule they were too much
divided under the rule of rival kings, and too jealous of each
other to be able to make headway against the English. It
happened, however, at this time that a very powerful Welsh prince,
Griffith ap Llewelyn — that is, "son of Llewelyn," had defeated
all his rivals, and had made himself king over all Wales. Griffith
married Earl .SlMgar's daughter, Ealdgyth, and became Ms close
friend ; but iElfgar soon died, and the Mercian alliance profited
him very little. At last, in 1064, Harold led an army into Wales,
and overran the country. The Welsh suffered so cruelly that
they abandoned their own king, and made their submission to
Harold. Soon Griffith was murdered by some of his own subjects,
and Harold divided Ms dominions among Bleddyn and EMwaUon,
two representatives of a, rival family. Eor the first time since the
days of OfEa, the English boundary was pushed westwards at the
expense of the Welsh as far as the Clwyd, the Radnor moors, and
the TTsk. Harold MmseM married Griffith's widow, the daughter of
the Mercian earl. Her brother Edwin, now earl of Mercia, was not
strong enough to give Harold any trouble.
THE
HOUSE OF
Godwin.
i
GODWIN
King Harold.
m. Ealdfcyth,
dau, of .aSlfgar.
Tostig.
THE
Gurth.
HOUSE OF
Leofric.
jEIfgar.
Leofwine. Edith,
m. Edwakd the
Confessor.
LEOFRIC
Edwin.
Morcar.
Ealdgyth,
ni. (1) Griffith ap
Llewelyn ; (2) Hakold,
son of Godwin.
66 EDWARD THE CONFESSOR AND HAROLD [1066-
6. Tte only foes Harold now feared were those of his own house-
hold. His brother Tostig ruled so badly over the Northumbrians
that they rose in revolt against him, and forced Edward
Edward the *« banish him. They chose as his successor Morcar,
Confessor, the brother of Edwin of Mercia. It was the greatest
1066. yA.'OTf that Harold's power had received, and was the
more formidable since the king's health was now brealdng up.
Since the expulsion of the Normans, Edward had withdrawn him-
self more and more from politics. His chief interest now was in
building a new monastery dedicated to St. Peter on a marsh hard
by the river Thames, some distance to the west of London, in a
region which took from the king's foundation its later name of
Westmuister. He just lived long enough to witness the com-
pletion of the magnificent church which Norman craftsmen had
erected for him in honour of his favourite saint. On Innocents'
Day, December 28, the abbey church was dedicated, but Edward
was too iU to be present. He died on January 5, 1066, and the very
next day was buried behind the high altar of St. Peter's Church.
Miracles, it was believed, were worked by his remains as attestation
of his claims to sanctity.
7. The same day that Edward was buried, Harold was chosen
king, and crowned in the new abbey. For many years he had been
The reign king in aU but name, and it seemed the easiest course
of Harold, to give him the office which his ambition had doubt-
1066. jggg long coveted. But though the old English throne
was in a sense elective, the choice of Harold constituted a real
revolution. Save in the case of the Danish kings, the Witenagemot,
or Council of the Nobles, had never gone outside the sacred house
of Cerdic in their choice of the ruler. All that election had really
meant hitherto was some liberty of deciding which member of the
royal house should mount the throne, and this freedom of choice
was limited in substance to preferring a brother of the late king
who was old enough to govern, to his children who were still under
age. Even the election of Cnut was no real exception, since it
was simply the recognition of the power of a foreign conqueror.
But Harold was in possession of power, and it is hardly likely that
the Witenagemot had much really to say in the matter. The
nearest heir to the dead king was his great-nephew, Edgar the
^theling, a grandson of Edmund Ironside, a mere boy, and very
little known. Practically the same course was pursued as in France,
where in 987 Hugh Capet, the greatest of the French nobles, was
made king in preference to the heir of the house of Charles the
-lo66.] EDWARD THE CONFESSOR AND HAROLD 6/
Great. French history showed that Hugh, though the strongest of
dukes, was the weakest of kings. It was the same with Harold.
He had not the mysterious dignity which came from membership
of the sacred royal house. His brother earls were jealous of him,
England at the death
of Edward the Confessor,
English Miles
House of Oodivin..
Houae of Leofric...
Other Families
Wates..
EmeryWalkcr sc
and thought themselves as good as he was. Thus the election of
Harold proved a failure ; and with aU his energy and strenuousness
he was not able to hold his newly won throne for a year.
g. William of Normandy had not forgotten the promises made
68 EDWARD THE CONFESSOR AND HAROLD [1066-
him by Edward in 1061. Two or three years before his accession
Harold had been shipwrecked, in France. The lord of the dis-
trict where the wreck had taken place threw him
Nopiimndv's ™^° prison. William procured his release, and enter-
prepara- tained him with great kindness at his court. However,
tions for before he allowed Harold to go home, William had
forced him to take an oath that he would help him to
become king of England after Edward's death. The Norman duke
now claimed the crown as King Edward's heir, and denounced
Harold as a perjurer for breaking his oath. He began at once
making preparations for invading England, and many adventurers
from aU parts of Prance joined with his Norman subjects in
an expedition which held out great prospects of glory, pay, and
booty. Moreover, the pope gave his support to the expedition.
Stigand, the archbishop of Canterbury, had taken the place of
Robert of Jumieges without asking the pope's permission, and had
offended Rome by other irregularities. All therefore who joined
William were looked upon as fighting for the cause of the Church.
9. Before William's expedition was ready another trouble came
upon England. Tostig, the sometime earl of Northumbria, hear-
Tostig and ^'^8' °' ^^ brother's elevation to the throne, was
Harold anxious to win his earldom back by force. With this
Hardpada. object he made an alliance with the king of the Nor-
wegians, Harold Hard/rada — ^that is, Hard rede, or Stern in Counsel.
Hardrada was a true descendant of the Norse pirates, and had had
adventures and expeditions in many lands. He gladly took up
Tostig's cause, hoping, perhaps, that i£ successful he might, Kke
Cnut, rule over England as well as his own land. In September
the fleet of Harold and Tostig sailed up the Humber. Earl Morcar
came to defend his earldom, and his brother Edwin joined him
with the Mercian levies. But they were defeated by the invaders
at Pxdford, and on September 20 the victors took possession of
York.
10. When the Norwegians landed, Kong Harold was in the south,
waiting anxiously lest William shoiild cross the Channel. He at
Battle of ^^'^^ proceeded northwards, and joined his forces with
Stamford those of the northern earls. On his arrival Hardrada
s" t^25 ^^^ Tostig took up a position at Stamford Bridge on
the Derwent, a few miles east of York. On Sep-
tember 25 Harold fell stoutly upon them. The English won a com-
plete victory. Tostig and the Norwegian king were slain, and the
survivors of the northern host gladly made peace, and returned
-lo66.] EDWARD THE CONFESSOR AND HAROLD 69
Home. It was the last of the great Norse invasions, and the defeat
of so famous a hero as Hardrada proved once more the skill of
Harold as a soldier.
11. Three days after the battle of Stamford Bridge, William
of Normandy crossed the Channel. Landing at Pevensey ia
Sussex, he made Hastings his headquarters, and set np Landing of
there a wooden castle. On news of his arrival reaching William,
York, Harold at once hnrried southwards to meet the ^^P*- 28.
Norman invasion. But Edwin and Morcar did not foUow him,
though he had saved the latter his earldom. Very few of the heroes
of Stamford Bridge accompanied Harold against his new enemy ;
and he paused in London while the levies of the south country
poured in to reinforce his scanty ranks. Tidings came that the
Normans were horribly wasting the lands near the coast, and Harold
resolved to march out of London and give battle to them. He
led his troops to within seven ntiles of Sastings, when he
halted, took up a strong position on the hill, on which the town of
Battle now stands, and passed the night of October 13. The place
was far removed from human habitations, and had not even a name.
For that reason the fight which was to be fought next day took its
name from Hastings, the nearest town.
12. Early on the morning of October 14 the English saw WiUiam
and his Normans arrayed on another ridge, some distance to the
south of the hill on which they were posted. The Battle of
great battle began soon afterwards. It was a struggle, Hastings,
not only between two nations, but between two different ^'^^- ^^•
schools of warfare. After the fashion of both English and Danes,
Harold's army fought on 'foot. The best soldiers, iaoluding
Harold's house-carles and parsonal followers, were arrayed on the
top of the hiU, facing southwards towards the enemy. They were
armed with helmets and long coats of chain-mail, and their chief
weapons were axes, broadswords, and heavy javelins, which they
hurled at the enemy. They stood shoulder to shoulder in close
array, and protected themselves with their long, kite-shaped shields,
which interlocked with each other so as to form a shield-wall,
which it was difficult for the enemy to break through. On the two
wings of the main array, where the precipitous nature of the
ground made a frontal attack very difficult, were stationed the
swarms of iQ-oovered but zealous countryfolk, who had flocked to
the king's standards to defend their country against the foreigner.
Harold ordered his troops to maintain their close order, and on
no account to break their ranks by pursuing the enemy.
70 EDWARD THE CONFESSOR AND HAROLD [1066-
13. The Normans prepared to fight after the newer fashion
which had recently grown up in France. The infantry, mostly
The early archers, were sent on in advance to wear down the
stages of enemy by volleys of arrows. But their shafts had
the flght. ^^^ ij^ig glfgg^_ ^^^ ^jjg siiield-waU stiU remained
unbroken on the crest of the hiU. Then came the turn of the
cavalry, in whom William placed his chief confidence. The best
soldiers of the Norman host fought on horseback, wearing helmets
and armour very similar in pattern to that of the English, and pro-
tecting themselves by great shields, also of the same type as those
of their foes. Their chief weapon was a long lance, but they also
used swords at close quarters. In the centre of the Norman line
was Duke WiUiam with his brothers, Odo, bishop of Bayeux, a
hard-fighting prelate, and Robert, count of Mortain. Around him
were his Normans, and against them the shield-waU of Harold.
The right and left wings of WUliam's army were held by his French
and Breton mercenaries ; these were opposed to the lightly armed
levies on the wings of the English host.
14 Time after time the Norman army charged on horseback up
the slopes of the hUl. Each time they failed to break through the
. impenetrable shield-wall, and retired discomfited to
of William their original position. But William was a shrewder
and the commander than the English king. His troops were
Harold" better equipped, and more easily moved ; they could
shift their position and method of attack at wiU;
while all that the English could do was to stand firm in their ranks
and await each fresh assault. Finding Harold's centre quite im-
penetrable, William threw his main energy into assailing the lightly
armed troops of the wings. His archers discharged repeated flights
of arrows, which spread havoc among the unarmoured English
peasantry ; and in order to lure them to break through their close
formation, the Norman cavalry were ordered by their duke to pre-
tend to run away. The English believed that they had gained the
victory. Rashly breaking their ranks, they rushed down the slopes
of the hill in pursuit. Then the Normans turned, and it was soon
foujid that in open fighting the bravest of foot soldiers were no
match agaiast the mail- clad horsemen. The Normans thus gained
access to the crest of the hiU, and furiously attacked the tried troops
on Harold's centre, who alone still maintained a semblance of
order. The Norman archers now shot their arrows high into the
air, so that they might fall on the English from above. Ono
shaft struck Harold in the eye, and ho fell, bravely fighting to the
-Io66.] EDWARD THE CONFESSOR AND HAROLD yi
last, close by his own standard. Witli him died his brothers Gnrth
and Leofwine, and the bravest of his followers. The day was now
won, and at nightfall the Normans pitched their tents upon the
blood-stained field. In pious memory of his victory "William erected
an abbey for monks on the site of the English lines, and called it
the Ahhey of the Battle, a name which also attached itself to the
little town that grew up round its walls. The high altar of the
a. site of Abbey Church, the X marUs
the position of High Altar/Harald's Standard.)
EmcryWallEer sc.
EATTI^E OF HASTINGS.
abbey church marked the spot on the crest of the ridge where
Harold's banner had once stood.
15. In the weeks succeeding the battle WiUiam busied himself
with securing the strong places in the south-eastern coiinties.
Edwin and Morcar at last appeared in London with
their troops. The Witenagemot met and chose Edgar to London
the ^theling as king of the English. Thereupon and eorona-
the two earls went home with their men, leaving ^inj'^w, .
London and the south to depend upon their own
resources. WiUiam then advanced almost to the gates of London,
but made no efEort to attack it. He next marched up the Thames
72
EDWARD THE CONFESSOR AND HAROLD [1066.
valley as far as Wallmgfford, crossed the river, and approached
London from the north, so as to cnt off all hope of succour in case
the two earls once more changed their minds, and reassembled their
levies. The best soldiers of Wessex and the south lay dead at
Hastings, and there was no hope of opposing the conq[ueror without
the help of the north and midlands. In these oiroumstances the
West Saxon nobles thought further resistance useless. With Edgar
at their head, they sought out William and accepted him, like another
Cnut, as their king. On Christmas Day, December 25, WiUiam was
crowned king in Westminster Abbey, which thus within a year
of its completion saw two coronations and one royal burial. The
first stage of the Norman conq[uest of England was completed when
the duke of the Normans became the king of the English.
GENEALOGY OF OLD ENGLISH KINGS OF THE HOUSE
OF CEEDIC
Egbert, 802-839.
Ethelwulf, 839-858.
I
Ethelbald,
858-860.
Ethelbekt,
860-866.
Ethelred,
866-871. ■
Alfred,
871-899.
Edwakd the Elder,
899-924.
I
Athelstan,
924-940.
Edmund,
940-946.
Edred,
946-955.
Edwy,
955-959.
Edgar,
959-976.
I
Edith, m.
Otto the Saxon,
afterwards the
Emperor
Otto I.
dau. m.
Charles the
Simple,
kinft of the
West
Franks.
dau. m.
Hugh,
duke
of the
French.
Edward the Martyk,
976-978.
Edmund Irohside,
1016.
Edward.
I
Ethelred the Unready,
978-1016, m. (2) Emma
of Normandy.
! L2)
I
Edgar the
^theling.
Edward the Confessor,
1042-1066, m. Edith,
dau. of Godwin.
I
St. Margaret,
m. Malcolm Canmore,
king of Soots.
Matilda, m. Henrt I., 1100-1135.
(See table on page 157.)
CHAPTER IX
ENGLISH LIFE BEFORE THE NORMAN
CONQUEST
1. BEroKE the Normaa ooactuest England stood qrnte isolated
from the rest of the world. Not only was there little intercourse
between our island and lands beyond sea; there
were few dealings between different districts in Eng- Agpieultupe
land, and each single gronp of villagers lived a life of tenure
its own, self-sufficing and self-contained, and cut off before the
from intercourse with any but its nearest neigh- gon^ggf
hours. The English were a nation of farmers and
herdsmen, tilling their iields and watching their cattle after the
fashion of their forefathers, and dwe llin g either in scattered
homesteads or in little villages, whose houses were placed to-
gether for mutual protection, and surrounded by a quickset
hedge. Land held by individuals was called folMand, when
the title to its possession depended upon witness of the people
and common fame. It was called hooTcland when the owner's
claim to it was based upon a written document, a book or
charter. Most free Englishmen held land of their own. But
when harvest was over all the villagers had the right to feed their
flock upon their neighbours' fields as weU as their own ; and there
were wide commons and wastes which belonged to the community
as a whole. The chief products of the soil were corn and grass, and
custom prescribed a regular rotation of crops, which no husband-
man dreamt of departing from. The land was ploughed by rude
heavy ploughs drawn by teams of oxen, and every year a half or a
third of the arable soil lay fallow. The richest and most thickly
inhabited part of the country was the south-east, where the open
downs afforded rich pasture for sheep, and the forests provided
plentiful store of acorns and beechmast to fatten swine. But the
whole land was scantily peopled, and England contained less than
two million inhabitants. The rude system of agriculture with the
wasteful fallows yielded a scanty return to the farmer's labour.
73
74 ENGLAND BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST [449-
Moreover, oommunioations were so difficult that a bad harvest in
a district meant famine to its inhabitants, even if there were
plenty a few shires off. Each farmer grew enough to support his
own household, and was independent of fairs and markets, except
for a few luxuries.
2. The nobles possessed great influence, and held great tracts of
land scattered over the country, which were cultivated by their serfs
Thegns ^^^ dependants. The most important of the nobles
ceorls, and were called the king's thegns, or servants. The service
theows. q£ ^j^g crown was thought in itself to ennoble ; the king's
thegns received grants of land from their master, and were bound to
fight his battles for him. They attended his councils, helped him in
the government, and often became so powerful that they were a source
of trouble and danger to him. In later Anglo-Saxon times the
nobles became increasingly important. In many cases the smaller
freemen, or ceorls, found it hard to make their Hving, and had
a difficulty in resisting the greediness of the great landlords, who
wished to make them their dependants. Many surrendered their
estates to a neighbouring noble, and took them back to be held of
him in return for protection. This was particularly the case in
Wessex and the south. In Northumbria and the Danelaw there
was still a large class of small free landkolders up to the days of
the Norman conquest. But even there the great nobles had the
preponderating influence. Men who did not possess land were com-
pelled to choose a lord to be answerable for them in the law courts.
The lowest class of the community were bond-slaves, called theows.
These were bought and sold in the markets like cattle. Poor men
sometimes sold themselves in order to avoid starvation, and others
became slaves of those to whom they owed money. There was a
brisk slave trade, especially from Ireland, and slaves were perhaps
the most important article of merchandise.
3. There was little trade and towns were few. The English were
not strenuous enough to make great gains by commerce, and the
self-sufficing life of each family made it unnecessary
to go often to market. The result of this was that
most of the towns were more important as fortresses than as
commercial centres. Surrounded by a ditch and earth- works, and
fenced about with timber stockades, they were more defensible
than the houses of the nobles scattered over the country, or than
the ordinary village packed thickly together behind its quickset
hedge. Stone walls were almost unknown even for towns, and
stone houses were also very rare. Most of the people dwelling
-lo66.] ENGLAND BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST 75
within the towns' earthen ramparts were farmers living on the
land, who huddled together for protection from Danes, robbers,
and turbulent nobles. Some of the greater towns were on Roman
sites, like London, Chester, York, or Iiincoln. Others became
important as chief residences of kings, such as Tamworth, the royal
city of the Mercians, Canterbury, the home of the kings of Kent,
and Winchester, the favourite abode of the West Saxon royal house.
Others grew up round famous churches and monasteries, such as
Peterborough or Lichfield. But it was characteristic of the old
English dislike of town life that most of the bishops lived not in
the chief towns, but in country places that owed their whole im-
portance to their being the bishop's residence. In Trance and
Italy every important town had its bishop as a matter of course.
Some towns united these various elements, as, for example, York,
a Roman city, a strong fortress; tie sometime residence of Nor-
thumbrian kings, and the seat of the northern archbishopric.
London was by far the most important commercial town. It had
been so in Roman days, and was so again by the time that the
English became Christians. Desolated by the Danes, Alfred again
filled it with inhabitants. Edward the Confessor preferred it to
Winchester, and the royal palace that grew up hard by the great
abbey of Westminster made it in Norman times the seat of
government as well as a great commercial centre.- When London
submitted to WiUiam the Norman, the whole country accepted him.
as its king.
4. Even the houses of the wealthy were made of wood, and so
roughly put together that hangings of tapestry were necessary to
keep out draughts. Glazed windows were almost
unknown, and when the openings in the walls were
closed with wooden shutters the interiors must have been dark
and depressing. The chief feature of a nobleman's house was
the great hall, where the lord and his dependants lived and
feasted, and where the majority of the inmates slept on the ground.
There were no chimneys. A big fire blazed in the middle
of the floor, and the smoke found its way out through a hole
in the roof. Yet there was plenty of good cheer,
hard drinking, and coarse revelry, aU of which men ^°°nk*""*
loved even more than fighting. The nobles amused
themselves with hunting and hawking ; and when indoors listened
to songs and stories, watched jugglers and tumblers, guessed
riddles, and played chess. The chief luxuries were foreign silk,
Unen cloth, quaint jewellery, and jugs and vessels made of silver
^6 ENGLAND BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST [449"
and glass. These latter were so curiously fasMoned that they
would not stand upright, so that the reveller had to empty his
cup before he could set it down. The chief sweetmeat was
honey, for sugar and spices were rare, and costly foreign luxuries.
The women were engaged in spioniug, weaving, and embroidery.
Most clothing was made of wooUen cloth, which the women spun
and wove from the fleeces of their own sheep. The people
drank mead, made from fermented honey, and sweet thick beer,
brewed from malt without hops. In the south some wine was
made, and the rich used also wine imported from France. Food
consisted chiefly of barley bread, oat cakes, and the flesh of oxen
and swine. At the approach of winter most of the live-stock was
killed, and the people lived on salt flesh until the spring allowed the
grass to grow, and fattened the half- starved flocks and herds that
had escaped the autumn slaughtering.
5. There were so few large rooms that meetings and councils
commonly took place in the open air. Even the churches were
small rude structures of wood. Stone churches were
f ''pl''*^°' the exception, though some of them have come down
to our own days. They were described as being built
"after the Roman fashion." They were small in size, roughly
finished, with round arches and narrow, round, or triangular-
shaped windows. Some of the towers were elaborately ornamented
with patterns marked out in stone. They were often used as
fortresses and meeting-places as well as for worship. It was quite
a revolution in English building when Edward the Confessor's
Norman craftsmen erected Westminster Abbey on a scale almost
as large as the present church, though much less lofty.
6. The laws of the old English were short and simple. Few
new laws were passed, and kings like Alfred, who were famous as
legislators, did little more than collect in a convenient
form the traditional customs of the race. The greater
part of the Anglo-Saxon codes is taken up with the elaborate
enumeration of the money penalties which could atone for almost
every offence. Even murder could be bought off by a payment
in money. The price paid for a man's life was called his wergild.
It varied according to the rank of the person slain. At one end of
the scale was the wergild of the king and archbishop, and at the
other that of the common freemen. The sum thus paid went to the
kinsfolk of the murdered person. Very often, however, the kins-
men took the law into their own hands, and executed summary
vengeance upon the manslayer.
-lo66.] ENGLAND BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST TJ
7. The land was divided into shires, hundreds, aad town-
ships. The orig'in of the shires difEei-ed in various parts of the
country. Some of them represent the lesser king-
doms which were gradually absorbed in larger ones as s r s.
English unity grew. Kent, Sussex, Essex, Middlesex, and Surrey
have stiU. the boundaries of the little kingdoms from which they
took their names. Torkshire is a somewhat smaller Deira, with
a new name taken from its chief town. Northumberland is
what is left of Bernioia, after Lothian had been given to the
Scots, and other districts put under the government of the
bishop of Durham. East Anglia is represented by the two
shires of Norfolk and Suffolk, names which indicate the division
of the East Angles into a northern and a southern people.
The West Saxon shires are different in origin. That kingdom
became so large that some sort of subdivision of it was found
necessary. By the ninth centiiry most of the West Saxon shires
had come into existence. They are sometimes said to represent the
lands held by different tribes of the West Saxons. It is more
likely that they owe their existence to divisions of the kingdom
between different members of the royal family, who held sub-
kingdoms xmder a chief king. Beyond Wessex, Cornwall represents
the old kingdom of the West Welsh, which was absorbed in Wessex
by the tenth century. The midland or Mercian shires are later in
origin, and were artificial in character. Each of them (except
Rutland) takes its name from the county town, and in nearly
every case that town is, or was, the real centre of the life of the
district. They were probably created at the time of the conquest
of Mercia and the Danelaw by Alfred and his successors. Some
of the east midland shires may be Danish in origin.
8. The shire was divided into smaller districts, called Ivumd/reds,
except in the Danelaw, where they are generally called Wapentakes.
They vary very much in size in various parts of the Hundreds
country ; those in the south being, as a rule, smaller and town-
and therefore more numerous than those of the north. ®" P^"
Each hundred in its turn consisted of a number of townships, or
9. Both shires and hundreds each had a moot, or court, of their
own. Both shire moot and hwndred moot were attended by four
men and the reeve, or chief officer of every town-
ship within it. Besides these, the thegns, landholders,
and other persons of importance had the right to be present.
Lawsuits were dealt with first by the hundred, and afterwards
y8 ENGLISH LIFE BEFORE NORMAN CONQUEST [449-
by tL.6 shire. The method of trial was very rigid and formal.
Everything depended on the suitors saying the right word or
doing the right thing at the proper moment. If a man were
accused of a crime he answered it by producing com/pwrgaton — ^that
is, persons of good character, who, knowing the person and the
district, took oath that in their opinion he was guiltless of the
ofience. Another way of clearing an accused person was by
the ordeal, or appeal to the judgment of Grod. The suspected
criminal grasped hot iron or was thrown into water. It was
believed that if he were innocent a miracle would be wrought ;
the iron would not burn or the water drown. The whole body of
suitors and members formed the judges, so that justice must have
been of a very rough-and-ready sort. Besides these local popular
courts, kings and great lords also had courts of their own, where
they exercised jurisdiction over their dependants and servants.
As time went on many nobles received special grants of jurisdiction
over their lands, which had the effect of removing their tenants
from the sphere of the hundred court altogether. But the shire
court always remained of great importance. It was not only a
court of justice, it was also the means of governing the country,
and those attending it took advantage of its periodic meetings to
transact aU sorts of business with their neighbours. Its activity
kept vigorous the local life, but also made it more difficult to
induce the men of various shires to work together for the general
projB.t of the nation.
10. The king was the head of the people, and surrounded by
every form of respect. His chief officers were the alder'men, called,
from Cnut's time onward, the earls. An earl or
offl^eps^^ alderman seems to have been set over every shire.
But it became customary to assign several shires to
the same alderman, and this habit received a further extension in
Cnut's great earldoms, which in practice revived the old kingdoms
under a new name. The earls thus became such dignified persons
that they could not spend their time going round to the various
shires and holding shire moots. A new officer, called the shire
reeve, or sheriff, seems to have been created as the earls withdrew
from the administration of their shires. By the Norman period the
working head of the shire was the sheriff and not the earl. But
the earl continued the natural commander of the fyrd, or military
levy of the shire. This consisted of all the landowners, who were
bound to provide themselves with arms and ^erve the king in the
defence of the country.
-lo66.] ENGLISH LIFE BEFORE NORMAN CONQUEST 79
11. The administrative machiaery was very simple. The local
courts and the great landlords had to see that the law was observed.
If a landholder broke the law, his land oonld be seized Frithborh
as a pledge of his making amends. The lords were and
responsible for landless men and others who had t"''''"^.
become their subjects. Moreover, the whole nation was divided
into frithhorhs, or tiihings — ^that is, into groups of ten men, who
were mutually made responsible for each other's doings, and com-
pelled to pay the fines of their erring associates. Tet the land
was full of disorder ; outlaws and robbers lurked in every moor
and forest, and increasing difficulty was found in making the
nobles obey the king.
12. The central power was vested in the king. He had a small
revenue, and, xintil Cnut's house-carles, no standing force of soldiers
at his disposal. Yet if he were a strong man he could
generally enforce his will. If he were weak, every
great man took the law into his own hands, and the country was
plunged into confusion. There was no popular council of the
nation to correspond with the local moots. But a gathering of
magnates met together at the chief festivals of the (jhurch, and gave
the king their advice. This body was called the Witenagemot — ■
that is to say, the Council of the Wise Men. It in-
cluded aU the earls, archbishops, bishops, the chief agemot^"'
abbots, and sometimes "Welsh kings and other subject
princes. Besides these the Mthelings, or near kinsmen of the king,
sat in it, as also a number of king's thegns. These latter, who
were more dependent on the king, were generally numerous
enough to outvote the official leaders of Church and State. The
Witenagemot assented to the passing of new laws, ratified royal
grants of public lands, elected the kings, and discharged the general
functions of a great council of the nation. We have no evidence,
however, that it acted as a real check on the monarch. If the ruler
were strong, he could have his own way; if he were weak, the
different members each took their own course. The Witan were
useless in moments of trouble to the kingdom.
13. The Church held a great position, but after the days of
Dunstan it was afflicted with the same deadness that had gradually
seized upon the State. The bishops were very great ,^^ church
and powerful personages ; but there were so few men
fit for high rank in the Church that the custom grew up of giving
more than one bishopric to the same individual. The chief ecclesi-
astics of the eleventh century were politicians rather than teachers
8o ENGLISH LIFE BEFORE NORMAN CONQUEST [449-
of tke people. They advised the king in the Witenagemot, sat
with earl and sheriff in the shire moot, and took a leading share
in the government of the oonntry. The monasteries became
increasiagly stagnant. Great movements profoundly influenced
the Church on the continent, but the English Church was quite
indifferent to them. Like the English State, it stood apart from
the rest of the world. Though the pope was treated with great
respect, and every archbishop went to Rome to receive from his
hands the palUtim, a stole that marked the dignity of the arohi-
episcopal office, there was no country in Europe where the Boman
Church had less real power, or took less part ia the daily life of the
local churches. Thus the Anglo-Saxon Chtirch corresponded in its
sluggishness, as in its independence, to the Anglo-Saxon State.
14. Language and literature reflect the same characteristics.
Though Latin was the tongue of the Church and of most learned
Language books, the old English language had a greater place
and litera- in letters than had the vernacular speech of the
*'"''®' continent. We have seen how Alfred busied himself
with translating books from Latin into English. The English
Chronicle, which the same great king began, was still kept up in
various monasteries, and stands quite by itself as a contemporary
history written in the speech of the country. The noble songs
it contains, as, for example, that of Brunanburh, show that the
poetic spirit had not yet left the English people. But the great
age of Anglo-Saxon poetry was over. Homilies, translations of
Scriptare, lives of saints, collections of medical prescriptions and
lists of leading plants, now formed the bulk of the literary output.
Alfred himself complained that whereas foreigners had of old come
to Britain to get learning from the English, the English had now
to get their knowledge abroad, if knowledge they would have at all.
The language was rapidly changing. Not only did many new words
come in with the Danes, but the English tongue was throwing off
its old inflections, and becoming more like modern English. In
letters, as in so many other ways, Anglo-Saxon England had worn
itseK out. The new blood brought in by the Danes did not do very
much to restore it. It needed the stern discipline of the Norman
conquest to restore the vitality of the sluggish race, and direct
England into new channels of progress.
Books Recommended fok the Fukthee Study of Book I
For Prehistoric Britain, W. Boyd Dawkins' Early Man in Britain and
B. C. A. Windle'a Ranains of the Prehistoric Age in England. For Celtic
•1066.] ENGLISH LIFE BEFORE NORMAN CONQUEST 8 1
Britain, J. Rhys' Critic Britain; and, for the Church, H. Zimmer's Celtic
Church in Britain and Ireland, translated by A. Meyer, and E. J. I^ewell's
History of the Welsh Church. For Roman Britain, Haverfield's map of Roman
Britain in Oxford Historical Atlas • Mommsen's Roman History, vol. v.' ch. v.,
translated by Dickson ; and Scarth's Homan Britain. For Early English history
a brilliant but somewhat imaginative account is contained in J. R. Green's
MaMng of England and Conquest of England. For institutions, W. Stubbs'
Constitutional History/ of England, vol. i. chaps, i.-lx. For social and economic
history, Social England, by various writers, vol. i., especially the illustrated
edition ; and W. Cunningham's Growth of English History and Commerce
during the Early and Middle Ages, pp. 1-128. For the whole period, the
Political History of England, edited by W. Hunt and R. L. Poole, vol, i,
(to 1066), by T. Hodgkin.
BOOK II
THE NORMAN AND ANGEVIN KINGS
CHAPTER I
WILLIAM I. THE CONQUEROR
(IO66-IO87)
Chief Dates:
1066.
Accession of William i.
1067-1070.
English revolts.
1071.
Hereward subdued.
I07S.
Revolts of Earls Ealph and Roger.
1079-
Battle of Gerberoy.
1086.
Domesday Book.
1087.
Death ofWilliam i.
1. The coronation of "William was succeeded by a few months of
peace so profound that it looked as if England had been completely
gg^ply subdued, and that the king would have no more trouble
policy of with his new subjects than Cnut had had. William
William I. gave himself out as the lawful successor of Edward
the Confessor. Those who had fought for the usurper Harold
were traitors, and had forfeited their lands for their treason. It
was natural that WiUiam should hand over their estates to his
Norman followers. But Englishmen who had not been in arms
against him were allowed to continue in their possessions, and nearly
all the old officers in Church and State were kept on. Edwin and
Morcar stUl governed the midlands and north. The king brought
in no new laws, upheld the old courts, and pi'omised to rule as
Edgar and Cnut had governed.
2. Despite William's fair words and acts, the English soon
found that he had very different ideas as to how a king should
The English govern his country from those of any of his pre-
pevolt of decessors. In particular, he was not likely to follow
l"^^- the example of Edward the Confessor, and be content
with a nominal superiority over earls like Edwin and Morcar.
8a
io68.] WILLIAM I. THE CONQUEROR 83
Bitter experience in. Normandy had taught him to distrust the great
nobles, and he had also to satisfy the swarm of Norman adven-
turers who had helped him, and who were by no means content
with the small reward meted out to them after Hastings. Before
long nothing but the fierce will of the king kept the English nobles
from rebeUing, or his Norman followers from robbing the conquered
people of their lands and offices. In 1067, however, William was
forced to revisit Normandy. He left the government in the hands
of his brother. Bishop Odo of Bayeux, and of William Fitzosbern,
a great Norman noble. These men began to oppress the English
terribly, and encourage the greedy Normans to seize their lands
and buUd castles upon them. Only the south had reaUy felt the
weight of the Norman power. The lands north of the Thames had
submitted, and had not been conquered. They at once rose in
revolt against the misdeeds of William's regents. The king came
back from Normandy and discovered that his conquest of England
had only been begun at Hastings. For the next five years he was
busily engaged in putting down rebellions, and subduing England
piece by piece. It was not till 1071 that the process was completed.
3. AU through these years the English were constantly in revolt.
They fought bravely; but their leaders were incompetent, and '
were always quarrelling with each other. Moreover, The corn-
different parts of the country did not work together, pletion of
One district rebelled and was subdued, and then the conquest
next region rose in rebellion. It was, therefore, 1067-1071.
possible for the Normans to put down piecemeal these piece-
meal rebellions. Had the English shown as much union as their
enemies, they might well have avenged the death of Harold. As
it was, whenever the Normans conquered a district, they erected
in it a castle, whose garrison kept down the English in obedience.
Even if another revolt broke out, the Normans could take refuge
behind the walls of the castle until the king was able to come up
and release them. The English, unaccustomed to fortresses, had
few means of capturing these new strongholds. Before long the
whole land was covered with Norman castles.
4. The extremities of the country, the north and the west, were
the most difficult to conquer. The men of the south-western shires
rose in rebellion in 1068, and called in the sons of ^he conquest
Harold, who had taken refuge in Ireland, to help of the West
them. But before the end of the year the king cap- ^""^ ^'"'"'•
tured Exeter, and put down the western revolt for good. William
had harder work in the north ; but even here the divisions of the
84 WILLIAM L THE CONQUEROR [1068-
enemy greatly helped his progress. Edwin and Morcar more than
once headed a revolt. But they were not strong or resolute enough to
prove successful leaders, and were divided between their anxiety not
to compromise themselves fatally with William, and their conviction
that William's supremacy meant the loss of the great position so
long enjoyed by the house of Leofric. After a half-hearted attempt
they made their submission to William, who treated them with
remarkable leniency. ISTor was the north country more fortunate
when Edgar the ^theling appeared among them, and they chose
him as their king. Edgar had, however, one powerful backer in
his brother-in-law, Malcolm Canmore (or Big Head), the most
powerfid king the Scots had yet had; and the Northumbrians
expected much from him in their struggles against William.
The Danes, however, were also called upon to help them, and
Malcolm was so jealous of the Danes that he gave the rebels little
help. A Danish fleet appeared in the Humber, and lent its
powerful aid to the English. The Danes joined with the best of
the northern rebels, Waltheof, earl of Huntingdon, and son of
Siward, the sometime earl of Northumbria. But after WiUiam
came up, the Danes withdrew to their ships, and Waltheof made
liis submission. William treated him with marked favour, and
reinstated him in his earldom. But the king wreaked a terrible
revenge on the rebel country. He laid waste the whole land
from the Humber to the Tees. Many years afterwards all Tork-
shire stUl lay desolate and untiUed. It was an awful example of
the ruthlessness of WUliam, and effectually stopped future re-
bellion in the north country.
5. In 1070 the last English revolt against WiUiam broke out
in the district bordering on the Wash. Driven out of the open
Herewapd country, the rebels took refuge in the Isle of Ely, a
subdued, real island in those days, and surrounded on every
side by a wilderness of fen and morass. At the
head of this gallant band was a Lincolnshire thegn, named
Hereward, whose wonderful deeds of daring made him the hero
of the English. Among others who joined him were Edwin
and Morcar, who had learned too late that their hesitating policy
was of no avail against the power of William. For long the Ely
fugitives defied the power of WiUiam ; but at last the king made
his way to their camp of refuge by building a hard causeway over
his fens, so that his soldiers could attack Hereward's position. In
1071 Ely was captured. Hereward reconciled himself to William,
and was kindly treated by him. So faithful was he henceforth that
-lo7t.] WILLIAM /. THE CONQUEROR 85
Williain gave Mm a high command in the army, with which two
years later the king oonctuered Maine. Edwin was murdered by his
men during the siege of Ely, but Morcar submitted, and was also
pardoned. Gentle to the leaders, "William was inexorable to the
common rebels. But he had taught the English their lesson.
Henceforth neither he nor his sons had anything to fear from them.
6. During the years of confl[uest nearly all the leading English
lost their lands and offices. Waltheof was the only English earl
now left, and such Englishmen as still held estates xhe estab-
were, as a rule, poor and insignificant. Their sue- lishraent of
cessors in property and power were WiUiam's Norman feudalism,
followers, who soon formed a new foreign aristocracy of land-
holders. They did not, however, hold their estates in the same
fashion as their English predecessors. After the system already
prevalent in Normandy, William granted lands to his followers on
condition of their serving him in his wars. Already before the
conc[nest the English kings had looked to their thegns, or personal
followers, for help in fighting their battles. But what was pre-
viously the exception now became the general rule. The result was
the general establishment in England of what was called/ewdaKsm.,
or the feudal system. Under it William, as king, was lord of the
whole land, and his followers held their estates of him as his vassals,
or subjects. A piece of land was called a fief, and the person
receiving it took an oath to be faithful to his lord, called the oath
oi fealty, or fidelity. Those who took this oath also did homage — that
is to say, they promised to become the men, or vassals, of their lord.
Ultimately the whole country was divided into hnight's fees, each
knight's fee being sufficient land to support the knight, or heavily
armed horsemen, on whom, after Hastings, the strength of every
army depended. Thus there grew up the system of military
tenures, or tenure by knight service, whereby the landholders paid
their rent to the king by equipping and paying for knights to fight
for him. The most important of the nobles held their lands
directly of the king, and bound themselves to supply him with a
lai-ge number of knights. They were called the king's tenants in
chief, or tenants in capite, and were about fifteen hundred in
number. Often they were called ba/rons, from a word which
originally meant man, but which soon became equivalent to land-
holding nobleman. But each tenant in chief granted out a large
part of his land to vassals of his own, who were called sub-tenants,
or mesne (that is, mediate) tenants. These were, in their turn, bound
to fight for their immediate lord, and it was only with their help
86 WILLIAM I THE CONQUEROR \^o^\-
that the tenants in chief could fidfil their feudal obligations to the
king. Sometimes the sub-tenants, in their turn, granted out their
lands to minor sub-tenants, so that many links were forged in the
feudal chain. Though some of the lesser landlords continued to be
English, the majority of those to whom by this system military
power was entrusted were Normans. The mass of the English sank
to the bottom of the social scale. They became the dependants of
the Norman barons, and lost their tradition of freedom as they
grew accustomed to serve foreign masters.
7. Soon a great division of interests began to show itself between
William and the Norman barons. William and his nobles were at
William and °^^ ^'°- bringing in the feudal system of land tenure,
the Norman But the barons were not contented with this. They
barons. wished to extend into England the system which
prevailed in Normandy, whereby each feudal landlord was like a
little king over his own estate. William wished to be a strong
monarch, ruUng with the help of his barons, but never allowing
them to set up their will against his. The nobles, on the other
hand, looked with great alarm on the establishment of a royal
despotism. They were willing to acknowledge the king as their
superior lord, provided that in practice he delegated aU his power
to the great landlords. They cared nothing for the unity of the
kingdom, or the prosperity of the people. They thought of nothing
but their own estates, and they bitterly resented all attempts to
restrain their liberty of ruling their vassals after their own fashion,
even when the attempt came from the king himself.
8. William did all that he could to prevent the Norman barons
from becoming too powerful. He put an end to the great earldoms
which, since the days of Cnut, had threatened to revive the old
kingdoms. Even the earldoms over one county he looked upon
with suspicion, and took care that only the most faithful of his
followers should be advanced to these dignities. He
earldoms "^ ^^ anxious to prevent the growth of great local
powers, and, luckily for him, he found that the chief
Anglo-Saxon landlords had held widely scattered estates. He took
care that the estates of the Norman barons should, like those of their
predecessors, be distributed over different parts of England. A
baron tvho held lands in Cornwall, Norfolk, and Yorkshire was
less dangerous than one whose whole estate was concentrated in one
of those counties. Pew exceptions were made to this general rule ;
and the chief of these were in the border districts, where military
nefcassities made it desirable that there shovild be a strong local
-I07S.] WILLIAM /. THE CONQUEROR 87
earl, able to protect the boundary from the invasion of foreigners
■with the help of his local levies. On this account there grew up
on the Welsh and Scottish borders powers afterwards known as the
Palatine Earldoms. In these regions the great feudal landlord was
allowed to play the part of a petty king. The palatine earl raised
the taxes, ruled the local army, made laws, set up law courts, and
gave judgments in them according to his own pleasure. Nothing
bound him to the king save Ms oath of fealty and act of homage :
for most purposes he was an independent prince. Earldoms of
this sort grew up on the Welsh frontier, at Chester, Shrewsbury,
and Hereford, though the latter two were of brief duration.
Moreover, on the Scottish border, the bishop of Durham was
similarly invested with such great power over his extensive estates
that his bishopric practically became a palatine earldom like those
of the west. If such powers had to be established, they were less
dangerous in the hands of a priest, who could not be the founder
of a legal family, than in those of a layman, whose children
succeeded to him by hereditary right. This process of reasoning
accounts also for the establishment of Odo of Bayeux as earl of
Kent with hardly less authority than that of the border earls.
9. In one part of his dominions William's power was particularly
oppressive. Like aU his race, he was a mighty huntsman, and he
set apart great forests all over England, where
husbandry had to stand aside in order that he might
chase deer freely. " He made," says the English chronicler,
" great forests for the deer, and passed laws for them that whoso-
ever killed a hart or a hind should' be blinded. As he forbade
killing deer, so also did he forbid slaying boars : and he loved the
tall deer, as if he had been their father." The most famous of
WiUiam's forests was the district still called the New Forest in
Hampshire. Henceforth the forests were treated as exempt from
the ordinary law. In them the king's wiU was almost unrestrained.
For generations the English had no more real grievance than the
cruel forest laws of the Normans.
10. The Norman barons watched with great discontent the anti-
feudal policy of the Conc[ueror. Before long they formed schemes
to overthrow him, and strove to make common cause ^he baronial
with the few English nobles that were still left. In revolt of
1075 Eoger, earl of Hereford, associated himself with ^°''^-
Ralph, earl of Norfolk, in a plot against the king, and the two
invited Waltheof to join them. Their plan was to dethrone William,
and divide England into three parts, ruled severally by one of
88 WILLIAM I. THE CONQUEROR [1075-
ttemselves, the cMef of whom was to bear the title of king. It was
practically a proposal to go back to the state of things imder
Harold. "Waltheof was now earl of Northumberland and married
to the Conqueror's niece Judith. He refused to have anything to
do with the conspiracy, though he thought himself bound in
honour not to reveal to the king what the two earls had suggested
to him. Before long earls Ralph and Roger rose iu rebellion, but
were easily subdued. Ralph fled to the continent, and Roger lost
his earldom and was imprisoned for life. No later earls of Here-
ford were allowed to exercise the palatine privileges which Roger
had enjoyed. A sterner fate was meted out to Waltheof, whose
wife told William of his negotiations with the rebels. Waltheof
confessed that he knew of their designs, and thereupon William
beheaded biTn as a traitor. Thus perished the last of the Eng-
lish earls. Henceforth the Norman traitors could not obtain even
the partial support of men of native birth. Yet for the next
hundred years there was a continued struggle between the Norman
feudal party and the Norman king. Whenever the ruler was
weak or embarrassed, there was sure to be a rising like that of
Ralph and Roger. But though the barons sometimes won a
temporai-y triumph, the final victory was with the king.
11. Very soon the barons had another chance of attacking the
monarchy. William's eldest son, Robert, was an open-handed, good-
Rebellion tempered soldier, eager for personal distinction, but
of Robert, weak, easily led, and impolitic. In 1077 Robert rose in
revolt against his father, and found support from
many of the barons, both in Normandy and in England. The
Conqueror's strong hand prevented any fighting in England, but
in Normandy Robert waged war against his father, with the help
of the Trench king. In 1079 WUliam besieged his son in Gerberoy,
on the eastern frontier of Normandy. In a souffle that ensued
Robert wounded Ms father with his own iand ; but WiUiam loved
his children fondly, and soon forgave him and restored him to
favour.
12. The disloyalty of the Normans led William and his suc-
cessors to rely more and more upon the English. The English
soon found that the barons were their worst oppressors,
the Engirsh? WiUiam, though terrible when opposed, was anxious
that those who obeyed him should be justly governed
and live in peace. No such thoughts of policy or prudence checked
the rapacity and violence of the Norman barons. Before long the
English began to look up to their foreign king for protection
-1086.1 WILLIAM I. THE CONQUEROR 89
against the nobles. Thus WiUiam cleverly played off the two
nations against each other. "Without the Normans he could never
have subdued the English. When they were put down, he used
the English to keep his overpowerful countrymen in check. In
the same way he claimed every right of the old English kings, and
added to them every power which the Norman diikes exercised in
their own country. This combination of the national position' of the
English king, and the feudal status of the Norman duke, gave
William a position of very great authority; the more so as the
chief checks on both powers were no longer operative. William was
the first English king who was strong enough to control the whole
of the land. Though his power destroyed liberty, it made order
possible. And the great want of England in those days was a
strong government, keeping good peace. Such a rule William pro-
vided for England, but the country had to pay heavily for it. He
was the first king to raise much money by direct taxation, and his
subjects groaned under his exactions. " The king and his chief
men," wrote the English chronicler, " loved overmuch to amass
gold and silver. The king made over the lands to him who offered
most and cared not how his sheriffs extorted money from the
miserable people.'' Yet the same authority recognized the benefits
of his rule. " He was a stern and wrathful man, and none dui-st
do anything against his pleasure. The good order which he
established is not to be forgotten. He was a very wise and a
very great man."
13. In 1085 William ordered an inquiry to be made as to the
wealth and resources of England. His object was to find out how
many taxes he could raise from his subjects without jj,g Domes-
altogether ruining them. " He sent," said the day Book,
chronicler, "his men into every shire, and caused
them to find out how much land it contained, what lands the
king possessed therein, what cattle there were, and how much
revenue he ought to receive. So narrowly did he cause the
survey to be made that there was not a single rood of land, nor
was there an ox or a cow or a pig passed by that was not set
down in his book." In 1086 information thus collected was put
together in the famous Domesday Book. Its exactness gave much
offence to the tax-hating Englishmen; but WiUiam's inqtiiries
have this great advantage to us, that they enable us to draw a
picture of the England of his day such as we can form of no
other country at so remote a period. Even after fifteen years
of peace the desolating work of the Conqueror's early years stiU
go WILLIAM /. THE CONQUEROR [1086-
left its mark. Very commonly tte value of land and property
was less than in King Edward's days. In some districts, notably
in Yorkshire, great tracts stUl remained waste.
14. Soon after the commissioners had done their work, William
summoned a great moot, or council, at Salisbury. " There,"
The oath at ^^1^ *^^ chronicler, " there came to him aU the land-
Salisbury, holders in England, whose soever vassals they were,
1086. ^^^ they all became his men, and swore oaths of
loyalty to him that they would be faithful to him against all
other men." In this fashion William maintained his hold over the
under-tenants, who held their land of the great barons. There
was a danger lest their immediate lord should usurp such authority
over them that they would be expected to follow him, even when
he waged war against the king. The Salisbury oath bound all
men of substance to put their duty to the king above their duty
to their immediate lords.
16. The conquest afEected the Church as profoundly as the State.
Sent to England with the pope's blessing, William did his best to
Lanft-anc carry out the pope's wishes and make the English
and the Church like the Church on the continent. He de-
Church, prived Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury, of his oflce,
and appointed as his successor Lanfranc, abbot of the monastery
of St. Stephen's at Caen, which William himself had founded.
Lanfranc was an Italian lawyer from Pavia, who made his way to
Normandy to push his fortune. Seized with a sudden religious
impulse, he forsook the world and became a monk at a new
monastery called Bee. The fame of his learning and piety soon
made Bee a famous place, and before long Lanfranc was made its
prior, the chief ofGioer after the abbot. He became William's
friend, and was called away by him to Caen, and afterwards to
Canterbury. William and Lanfranc henceforth worked har-
moniously together for the reform of the English Church. They
gradually filled up the bishoprics and abbeys with Normans, so
that in Church as in State all the high places in England went
to the foreigners. Up to now many bishops lived in the country,
far away from such towns as England then possessed. The
Norman bishops transferred their residences to the leading towns
of their dioceses, as, for example, the bishops of Lichfield went to
Chester, the bishops of Dorchester in Oxfordshire removed to
Lincoln, and the bishops over Northumbria and East Anglia took
up their abodes in Durham and Norwich. In their new sees they
built magnificent cathedrals after the Norman pattern which
-loS;.] WILLIAM. /. THE CONQUEROR 91
Edward the Confessor had first introduced into England at West-
minster. More learned, energetic, and vigorous than their
English predecessors, the Norman prelates did much to reform the
English Church. They made the clergy more hard working, better
educated, and more zealous.
16. The Normans brought in the new ideas as to how the Church
should be goremed, which had been growing up on the continent,
but were quite unknown in England. These views,
first taught by the monks of Cluny in Burgundy, trandiife"
were now upheld by the famous Hildebrand, arch- movement
deacon of Rome, who, soon after William's accession, |ngiand^ *°
became pope as Gregory vii. Horrifled at the world-
liness of the clergy, and of the power which lay rulers of evil
life exercised over the Church, Hildebrand wished to separate
the Church as strictly as he could from the State. He waged war
against simowy, or the selling of benefices for money or corrupt
consideration. He taught that the clergy should, like monks,
refrain from marriage, for if they had families of their own there
was danger lest they should be too much mixed up in worldly
affairs, and should aim at advancing their children and handing on
their benefices to them rather than devote themselves to advancing
the cause of the Church. He saw everywhere cruel kings and
princes dominating the Church and oppressing the clergy, and
thought that the best remedy for this was to claim for the Church as
complete a freedom as was possible from the secular power. With
that object he prohibited secular rulers from continuing the old
custom of investing or conferring on bishops and abbots a ring
and staff, which were looked upon as the symbols of their ecclesi-
astical office. In carrying out this object he fell into a fierce
conflict with the emperor, Henry iv., who refused to surrender his
ancient rights. This struggle, called the Investiture Contest, lasted
nearly fifty years, and iiiled all Germany and Italy with coiifusion.
It was soon clear that Hildebrand, in trying to reform the Church,
was likely to set up an ecclesiastical despotism which in the long
run was more dangerous than even the despotism of kings and
emperors. But the fuU results of this were not yet seen, and most
of the more high-minded and enthusiastic reformers were on the
side of the pope. .:
17. William and lanfranc were quite in agreement with
Hildebrand. To keep^ the Church apart from the world, WiUiam
passed a new law separating the courts of the Church from the
courts of the nation, and enacting that every bishop shoxdd
92 WILLIAM /. THE CONQUEROR [1072-
henceforth try his clergy in his own ecclesiastical court, and not
in the hundred or shire court. Lanfranc held a series of councils,
in which he introduced into England the pope's laws
tlon ot against simony, and for the first time ordered that
Church and no clergyman should marry. From aU this it resulted
tate. ^j^^^ |.j^g Church and State in England were separated
clearly from each other ; the courts and law of the Church were
strengthened, and the pope's power over England was greatly
increased. All these changes made the Church stronger, though
it also became less national. William, as the ally of the Church,
profited by its strength, and his close friendship with Lanfranc
and the reformers did much to increase the royal power. G-regory
was so well satisfied with William that he took no steps to
prevent him from investing his bishops in the fashion that was
not allowed to the emperor. For the moment the friendship of
William and Lanfranc united the Church with the State.
18. There was danger, however, in the background. The clergy
were constantly claiming more and more authority, and some
. , ... of them spoke as if kings and princes only existed in
posed on ec- order to carry out the orders of popes and prelates,
clesiastlcal William himself was aKve to the danger of clerical
usurpations, and sought to strengthen himself against
them by keeping up the traditions of English independence. He
ordered that no pope should be obeyed in England until the king
had recognized him. He would not allow Church councils to
meet or pass canons, or Church laws, without his sanction. He
prohibited the introduction of papal hulls, or letters, into England
unless he approved of them. When Gregory vii. requested
WiUiam to do homage to the Eoman Church, he refused to obey
him, on the ground that no previous English king had ever per-
formed such an act. Thus in the Church as in the State,
William' strove to limit the action of the forces that he himself had
brought into the country. The pope, like the barons, was useful
to the king in establishing his hold over England ; but both were
dangerous if not kept within strict bounds. The reign of William's
sons showed the wisdom of the Conqueror in watching narrowly
the power of the Church.
19. Master of England, William strove to revive the English
William as overlordship over the rest of Britain which Edgar
overlopd of and Cnut had exercised. Malcolm Canmore's support
Britain. ^^ Edgar the .Sltheling gave the English king a good
excuse for attacking Scotland. In 1072 William crossed the
-loSy.] WILLIAM I. THE CONQUEROR 93
border, and advanced to Abernethy, on the Tay. There Malcolm,
despairing of resistance, went to meet him, and did homage to him
as his lord. The Welsh were also brought under WUliam's power.
Defeated and divided since Harold's days, they were kept in check
by the border earldoms, and could offer no effective resistance.
William accordingly pushed Harold's conq[uests still further west-
wards. He went on pilgrimage to St. David's, and built a castle at
Cardiff. Like Edgar, he established relations with some of the
Danish princes in eastern Ireland, and thought of crossing over
St. George's Channel and cono[uering that land. Never had an
English king exercised wider power. Like Cnut, he was lord of
all Britain, and also governed great continental possessions.
20. The union of England and Normandy under one ruler
made foreign poKcy more important than ever it had been before.
William had plenty of feuds with his French neighbours William's
and many designs to extend his Norman dominions, foreign
He was glad to get the help of the English to carry out P°'"'y'
these enterprises, and within a few years of the completion of the
conctuest we find Englishmen loyally fighting William's battles in
France. To the south-west of Normandy was the county of Maine,
whose capital is the city of Le Mans. It had long been an object
of Norman ambition to conquer this district. In 1073 William
succeeded in effecting this purpose. The army which conquered
Maine was largely composed of Englishmen, among them being the
gaUant Hereward. William was often on xmfriendly terms with
his overlord. King Philip i. of France, who was jealous of his over-
mighty vassal's power. Philip gladly intrigued with his barons
against William, and gave ■ help to Eobert in the days of his
rebellion. At last, in 1087, there was open war between the two
kings. The English king headed a raid from Normandy up the
Seine vaUey, and took possession of the town of Mantes. He set
the town on fire, and rode out on horseback to witness the ruin
that he was working. His horse stumbled and threw him from the
saddle. He was now an old man and very stout, so that the heavy-
fall caused him a fatal injury. Borne by his followers to Rouen,
he died on September 9, and was buried in his own favourite
foundation of St. Stephen's at Caen. Stern and cruel though he
had shown himself, he was, after his own lights, a just and religious
man. With all his faults, he did much good to England. His
reforms changed the whole course of our history.
CHAPTER II
WILLIAM II., RUFUS (1087-1100)
Chief dates :
1087. Accession of William ii.
1088. Revolt of the Norman barons.
loSg. Death of Lanfranc.
1093. Anselm made Archbishop of Canterbury.
1095. The First Crusade.
1097. The exile of Anselm.
iioo. Death of William ii.
1. By his wife, Matilda of Flanders, William the Conqueroi" left
three sons, Robert, William, and Henry. As the firstborn.
The sons of Robert was his father's natural successor. But he had
William the forfeited William's favour by his rebellion, and the old
Conqueror, -^jj^g feared lest, under Robert's weak and sluggish
rule, the feudal barons should upset aU his plans for the continuance
of a strong monarchy. Normandy was a strictly hereditary fief,
and the Conqueror neither could nor would prevent Robert from
succeeding to it. But England was the conquest of his own hand,
and just as he had claimed its throne as the nominee of the
Confessor, so he professed to. have- some right of disposing of
the succession. On his death-bed he had expressed a wish that his
second son, WUliam, should become the next king of England, and
sent him to England with a letter to Lanfranc. The archbishop,
faithful as ever to his master's policy, used all his great influence
to carry out the dead ruler's wishes. The young prince strove
to purchase the people's good-will by releasing some of his
father's captives, among them being Morcar, the sometime earl of
Northumbria, and Odo, bishop of Bayeux, whom he restored to his
earldom of Kent. All turned out as the Conqueror had wished.
No opposition was raised to William's accession, and on September
26, 1087, Lanfranc crowned him king in Westminster Abbey.
2. In person the new king was stout and strong, with red hair
and a ruddy complexion. On this account men called him Bufus,
or the Red King. In character he was a coarse copy of his father.
94
-I09S.] WILLIAM //., RUFUS 95
He had the strong will, the high courage, the shrewd percep-
tion of his own interest, and the fierce resolution to rule England
after his own fashion that distinguished the Con- character
queror. He was a faithful son, a gallant soldier, of William
and a bountiful master to his servants. But he had ^"f"^-
none of his father's higher qualities, such as piety, sense of duty,
and love of justice. His life was foul, his passions unbridled, his
cruelty and avarice unchecked by pity or fear. One of the wickedest
men who have ever filled the throne, he was nevertheless a strong and
capable king. Under Lanfranc's influence he began to reign well.
3. It was at once clear that WiUiam would be an active king,
and the barons soon began to regret that they had lost theii-
chance of being ruled by a weakling like his brother. Tj,e baronial
In 1088 they rose in revolt in favour of Robert, revolt
Though Robert sluggishly stayed in Normandy, and o» 1"°°'
gave them no help, their rebellion was a formidable one. Odo of
Bayeux, regardless of his nephew's recent mercy, put himself at
their head, and aU over the country the barons plundered the
king's subjects and laid waste their lands. In his distress William
turned to the English. He promised them better laws than they
had ever had before, and declared that he would not tax them
unjustly or carry out the forest laws oppressively. A great force
of Englishmen then flocked to the king's banners, and drove
Bishop Odo to take refuge in his strong castle of Rochester.
After a long siege Rochester was subdued, and Odo was deprived
of his earldom and banished from England for good. Thanks to
English help, William put down the rebeUion, and some of the
greatest barons in England shared Odo's fate. Those who. stiU
retained their estates soon found that the tyranny of Rufus bore
more hardly upon them than even the strong rule of his father.
But they were powerless to resist him to any good purpose. Once
in 1095 Robert Mowbray, earl of Northumberland, i._„ni. .»
plucked up courage to take up arms against the king. Robert
WiUiam hurried to the north, and shut up his Mowbray,
rebellious vassal in his castle at Bamburgh. As he
could not reduce the stronghold, William built a castle over against
it, which he called Mahioisin, or Evil Neighbour, and went back to
the south. Mowbray soon ventured to leave his castle, whereupon
the garrison of Malvoisin fell upon him and took him prisoner.
Mowbray forfeited his immense estates and was imprisoned for
Ufe. The feudal party, thoroughly cowed, remained quiet for the
rest of Rufus's reign.
96 WILLIAM II., RUFUS [1089-
4 As long as Lanfranc lived, Rnfus was restrained from his
evil courses by his old friend's wise advice. But Lanfranc died in
1089, and henceforth the king chose counsellors of a very different
stamp. His favourite minister was now Ranulf Flam-
Fl^nbard ^^^"^ — ^^^ ^^' ^'^ Torch — a sharp-witted and un-
scrupulous Norman clerk, who rose from a low station
by his readiness to suggest clever ways of fllling the king's
treasury. Finally, Eanulf was appointed to the rich bishopric of
Durham. He was called the king's Justiciar, and in his hands the
office so named became a permanent post. William i. had appointed
regents to govern during his absences abroad, and had called them
justiciars. But henceforth the justiciar acted in the king's
presence as well as when he was beyond sea. From Flambard's
time the justiciar was the prime minister and chief helper of the
Norman sovereigns.
5. Flambard showed great ingenuity in using the king's feudal
rights over his vassals as pretexts for extortion. Thus when a
tenant in chief died the king as his lord had the right
extortions °^ exacting a relief, or money payment, from the heir
before he handed over to him his father's estate. In
the same way the king had the right of levying aids, also money
payments, from his vassals when he had any special occasion. He
also was in the habit of acting as guardian over tenants who were
not of fuU age, and of demanding a sum of money from tenants
who wished to marry, and had to obtain their lord's consent before
they ventured to do so. All these feudal dues, as they were called,
had been levied by the Conqueror in a moderate and reasonable
spirit. Flambard and William crushed the barons by exacting
outrageous sums as reliefs or aids. They wasted the estates of
minors, cut down their woods, and handed over to them lands so
pillaged and tenants so impoverished that their property was a
burden rather than a, benefit. The penniless and disreputable
courtiers of the king were enriched by being married to unwilling
heiresses. The heavy hand of Flambard lay upon every baron in
England. Though they chafed under the burden, they dared not
throw it off. Nor were the English much better situated. The
weight of taxation was far more oppressive than under the Con-
queror, and Rufus, though protecting the people from the barons,
was intolerably capricious in all his dealings with them.
6. Rufus was even more shameless in maltreating the ecclesi-
astics than in robbing the lay barons. He scofPed at religion, and
delighted to oppress its ministers. A bishopric or an abbey seemed
-I093.] WILLIAM II., RUFUS 97
to him to be just like a lay fief, except that the defenceless cha-
racter of the clergyman who held it made it easier to roh him with
impunity. One of the royal rights which William
most abused was called the regale, by which the king fh'^ch*"'h
had the custody of the lands of all vacant bishoprics.
The idea was that the king would protect the estate from violence,
and hand it over in good condition to the new bishop when he was
appointed. William resolved to keep rich bishoprics vacant as long
as possible, so that he might keep the rents of the lands of the see
for as long a period as possible. Accordingly, when Lanfrano died,
the king prevented the appointment of a new archbishop for four
years, during which period he plundered and mismanaged the
archbishop's estates so as to get all he could out of them. So long
as William was healthy and well, he persisted in his evil courses ;
but in 1093 he was prostrated by a violent fever, and feared that he
was going to die. He was then smitten with repentance for all the
evil that he had done, and in particular for his oppressions of the
Church. He resolved, by way of atonement, to fill up at once the
archbishopric of Canterbury, and he chose the best possible priest
available to occupy the great office.
7. At that time Lanfranc's old monastery of Bee was ruled over
by the abbot Ansebn of Aosta. The son of a nobleman in the
Alpine valley of Aosta, Anselm's outward history was , ,
curiously similar to that of Lanfranc. Like Lanf ranc, archbishop
he crossed the Alps and sought a career in Normandy, of Canter-
where he was impelled by an outburst of religious '
zeal to forsake the world to become a monk at Bee. There he won
by his writings a reputation which far exceeded the literary
fame of Lanfranc, and was venerated for a sanctity to which the
hard and lawyer-like friend of the Conqueror had but few pre-
tensions. In an age of brutal violence and cunning self-seeking,
the gentle, compassionate, and kindly nature of Ansebn was the
more beautiful because of its rarity. He was now becoming an old
man, and heard with alarm that the repentant king was wishing to
raise him to the see of Canterbury. He was, he said, a, weak old
sheep, who should not be yoked to a fierce young bull like the
English king. But Anselm, who happened to be in England at
the time, was forced to appear at the bedside of the sick king, and
UteraUy compelled to accept the perilous preferment.
8. Anselm had not wished to be archbishop ; but having re-
caived the office, he was resolved to discharge all its duties to the
utmost of his capacity. Very soon William recovered, and fell
H
g8 WILLIAM 11, RUFUS [1093-
baok on his old courses of extortion, profanity, and profligacy.
Anselm was horrified at the wickedness that went on unrestrained
Quarrel of ^^ court, and wished to summon a council of bishops
Anselm and to devise means for reforming the morals of the
king and his friends. At the same time he strove
to put an end to the scandal caused by the prolonged vacancies of
bishoprics and abbeys. Rufus was moved to extreme anger. He
refused to allow the reforming council to meet, and bitterly re-
pented that he had weakly raised Anselm to the primacy. " What
are the abbeys to you ? " he cried. " Are they not mine ? " " The
abbeys are yours," replied Anselm, " to protect, and not to destroy.
They belong to Grod, and their revenues are intended to maintain
God's ministers, not to support your wars." Meek and gentle
though he was, Anselm was strong enough to withstand William
to his face, and a complete breach between them soon followed.
9. At this time there were two rival popes in Christendom.
Urban 11. was generally acknowledged by the Church, but the
The Council investiture contest was stUl raging between Papacy and
of Rocking- Empire, and the emperor had set up as a rival to
am, . ■[jrban a partisan of his own named Clement. Anselm
asked leave of William to go to Rome to receive the pallium ' from
Urban. WUliam answered that he did not recognize either Urban
or Clement as pope, and refused Anselm permission to leave the
country. In 1095 a great council met in the royal castle of
Rockingham in Northamptonshire to discuss the rival claims of
pope and king on the allegiance of the archbishop. WUliam
declared that he would deprive Anselm of his archbishopric if he
persisted in obeying the pope, whom the king had not acknow-
ledged. The majority of the bishops were on the king's side, and
advised Anselm to submit. The lay nobles were friendly to Ansebn,
and the king dared not carry out his threat. The council broke up
without coming to any conclusion, but the resolution of the primate
had won a moral victory over the time-serving of the bishops and
the impotent violence of the king.
10. During the next two years the relations of king and arch-
bishop became worse and worse. The original cause of dispute
was ended when Rufus suddenly acknowledged Urban, and, though
not permitting Anselm to go to Rome for his pallium, allowed him
to receive it from a papal legate who brought it from Rome. But
fresh difficulties arose : Anselm would not pay the large sums of
' For the pallium, see page 80.
-1097-] WILLIAM II., RUFUS 99
money which William required him to contribute to the expenses
of his campaigns. He irritated William by sending to a Welsh war
a contingent of soldiers which the king thought too Anselm
small in numbers, and too ill-equipped for the work, driven into
When the king appealed to his own court to settle ^^*'^> 1097.
this dispute, Ansehn declared that the matter must be referred to
the pope. In 1097, upon this appeal, he withdrew to Rome, and
WiUiam at once laid violent hands upon his estates. The arch-
bishop remained in exile for the rest of the reign. Alone of the
king's subjects, he had dared to resist his will.
11. The dispute between Church and State did little to check
the prosperous course of the king's affairs. Master of England,
Rufus threatened the independence of Scotland and
Wales even more signally than his father had done. Cumberland
In 1092 he conquered Cumberland, which had hitherto and death of
been an independent state, tracing back its origin to the c,t,-amme
old kingdom of the Strathclyde Welsh. Cumberland
was made a new English county, and Carlisle, now an English
city, became in the next reign the seat of a new bishopric. In
1093 there was war between William and Malcolm Canmore. Mal-
colm invaded England, but lost his life at Alnwick. His reign
is of the greatest importance in Scottish history. The rude High-
land chieftain had been tamed into civilized ways by his saintly
wife Margaret, the sister of Edgar the JEtheling. Through
Margaret's influence English fashions of life were spread through-
out the Celtic kingdom. Her influence lived on during the reigns
of her sons, and as Scotland became more English, it was inclined
to be more friendly with the English kings.
12. Even more notable was the advance of the English power in
Wales, though here it was brought about after a different fashion.
The Welsh princes remained as fiercely Celtic as Yba Norman
before, and WiUiam himself did not manage to subdue conquest of
the stronger of them in any real fashion. But many South Wales.
Norman adventurers, debarred by Ruf us's strong hand from ruling
England as they wished, swarmed over the boundary-line, and,
fighting for their own hands, carved out with their swords new
lordships for themselves at the expense of the Welsh. Soon all
eastern and southern Wales was overrun by Norman barons, who
set up castles to hold the lands they had conquered. Thus arose
what was afterwards called the lordships marcher, or border lord-
ships of Wales. These were small feudal states, ruled almost
indspendently by great Norman families, and owing little but bare
lOO WILLIAM 11, RUFUS [1095-
allegfiance to the Eng'lish king, who permitted their establishment
because it was a cheap way of occupying his restless barons and
keeping the Welsh in check. Prominent among these feudal states
were the palatine earldom of Pembroke, the lordships of Glamorgan,
Brecon, and Montgomery. Only amidst the hills of Snowdon did
the Welsh succeed in maintaining their independence.
13. The separation of England and Normandy hardly lessened
William's importance in continental affairs. Robert's weakness
made his government of Normandy a sorry failure.
Nopmandv -^^ ^*^ ioon. in such dire distress for money that he
sold the Cotentin and the Avranohin, the western
districts round the towns of Coutances and Avranches, to Henry,
the youngest and wisest of the Conqueror's sons. When William
in his turn invaded Normandy, Robert bought off his hostility by
yielding to him also a large tract of territory in the east. Maine
revolted from Robert, and once more was ruled by her own line of
counts. Sometimes William and Robert acted together. They
grew jealous of Henry's power in the Cotentin, and united for a
moment to drive him out. Before long, however, the prudent
Henry found his way back ag-ain.
14. In 1095 Urban 11. urged all Europe to join in a holy war
to rescue the sepulchre of Christ and the other holy places in
The First Palestine from the yoke of the Mohammedans.
Crusade, Palestine had been ruled by the Mohammedans for
many centuries, but so long as its masters were the
Arabs, Christian pilgrims were still permitted to visit the spots
consecrated by Christ's presence. Recently, however, the Turks,
» fierce race of barbarians from central Asia, had made them-
selves the greatest power in the Mohammedan world, and had
taken possession of Syria. Their fanaticism put all sorts of diffi-
culties in the way of the pilgrims, and their complaints at last
moved the pope to take up their cause. He promised the favour
of the Church and all sorts of spiritual privileges to aU who would
join in the holy war. Those who agreed to go wore a cross sewn
upon their garments, and the holy war was called a Crusade. It
was just the sort of enterprise to appeal to a time when the warrior
and the monk represented the two types of life that were most
generally esteemed. All Europe sent its chivalry to fight against
the infidel at the command of the pope. The First Crusade,
as it was called, was a wonderful success. The Turks were
expelled from the Holy Land, and Godfrey of Boulogne was
established in 1099 as Christian king in Jerusalem.
-I loo.]
WILLIAM II., RUFUS
ICl
15. Robert of Normandy was anxious to go on crusade, but lie
had no money to equip himseK or his followers for the expedition.
In 1095 William advanced him a sufficient sum, and ™.,,.
Robert handed over to him Normandy as a pledge gains Nor-
that he would repay it. This prudent bargain allowed mandy and
Robert to win glory in Palestiue while WiUiam ruled '^^'
Normandy. Among Robert's companions in the holy war was
Edgar the .Sltheling. Meanwhile WiUiam's stern government
soon restored order in Normandy. He won back Le Mans, and
went to war against Prance. His success enchanoed his -reputation,
and, to the alarm of the French king,
Duke "William of Aquitaine, anxious,
like Robert, to go on crusade, offered
to pledge his great duchy to him
in return for the necessary funds.
Visions of a power in Trance ex-
tending from the Channel to the
Pyrenees floated before William's
eyes ; but before he could take any
steps to realize his dreams he was
suddenly cut off. On August 2, 1100,
he went to hunt in the New Forest.
There an arrow drawn by an unknown
hand pierced biTn to the heart. The
courtiers scattered, and next day
some foresters bore the corpse to Winchester on a cart, and it was
laid, without service or ceremony, in a tomb in the minster. A
stone, called Rufus's stone, marks the place where the tyrant was
traditionally said to have met his death. William, says the English
chronicler, " was loathsome to all his people and abominable to
G-od, as his end shewed, for he departed in the midst of his
unrighteousness without repentance or atonement."
Walker&CockerelUu.
THE KEW FOREST
CHAPTER III
HENRY I. (1100-I135)
Chief dates :
1100. Accession of Henry i.
1102. Fall of Robert of Belleaie.
1106. Battle o£ Tinchebray.
1107. Eeconciliation of Henry anl Anselm.
1120. Lisa of the White Ship.
1 13s. Death of Henry i.
1. Henuy, the dead king's younger brother, was a member of the
hunting party in which Eufus met his fate. Without a moment's
delay, he hurried to Winchester, secured the royal
and early treasure, and procured his election as king by the
measures of handful of magnates who happened to be there.
ffoo^ ' Thence he hastened with all speed to London, where,
on August 5, the fourth day after the New Forest
tragedy, he was crowned as king.
2. Immediately after his coronation, Henry issued a Charter of
Liberties, wherein he sought to win the favour of every class by
Henry's promising to reign after a better fashion than his
Charter of brother. To the Church, suffering from Rufus's
Liberties, constant encroachments on her liberties, he promised
freedom of election to all bishoprics and abbeys, and declared
that henceforth he would not sell or favour the revenues of vacant
sees. To the barons he annotineed that he would not insist on
the unreasonable reliefs, excessive marriage fines, oppressive ward-
ships, and other exactions of his brother's days. To the nation at
large he offered the abrogation of "aU the evil customs whereby
the realm has unjustly been oppressed," and the renewed enjoy-
ment of the laws of Edward the Confessor. He stipulated that he
would take care that his barons gave the same concessions to
their tenants as he himself had given to his tenants in chief. Only
in respect to the forests would Henry yield nothing. Besides
issuing this charter, Henry imprisoned Kanulf Flambard in the
Tower of London, wrote at once to Anselm to urge him to i-eturn
102
I102.] HENRY I. 103
to England, and married Edith, daughter of Malcolm Canmore and
St. Margaret, and sister to Edgar, the reigning king of Soots.
In all these acts Henry posed as the friend of the English and the
foe of the feudal baronage. His marriage with a descendant of
the West Saxon kings was particularly popular, though to please
the Normans he changed the lady's name to Matilda, or Maud, the
name of his mother. She soon became loved as the good Queen
Maud. But the Normans sneered at Henry's affectation of Eng-
lish ways, and derided him and his wife by nicknaming them
Godric and Godiva.
3. Within a few weeks of his brother's accession, Robert of
Normandy came back from the Holy Land, having won great glory
by his exploits as a crusader. He resumed the p ji „ f
government of Normandy, which again fell into the Robert's
disorder which it needed a strong hand like that of revolt,
Henry to check. Kanulf Elambard escaped from the
Tower, and told Robert that the Norman barons were eager to put
bim on the English throne in place of Henry. Accordingly, in
1101, Robert collected an army and landed at Portsmouth in quest
of his brother's crown. But the English rallied around their king,
and Ansehn, now back in England, marshalled all the forces of
the Church on the same side. Robert saw that the good will of the
barons availed binn nothing against such odds. He was the last
man in the world to persevere in a hopeless enterprise. He gladly
accepted Henry's proposal to hold a personal interview. When
they met the brothers made friends. Robert agreed to yield up his
claim on England on consideration of Henry giving him a pension,
and surrendering to him his lands in the Cotentin.
4. Abandoned by Robert, the Norman barons in England were
now exposed to the wrath of King Henry. The fiercest, strongest,
cruellest of them was Robert of Belleme, who added _. . ,, -
to vast dominions in Normandy the lordships of Robert of
Arundel and Chichester in Sussex, and the palatine Jfi',™®'
earldom of Shrewsbury on the Welsh border. A
mighty warrior, Robert had been one of the foremost of the
Norman conquerors of Wales, and nearly all Mid Wales and much
of South Wales was ruled by him and his brothers. In 1102
Henry picked a quarrel with him, and Robert had to defend him-
self. But his tyranny had made him odious to all ; the Welsh and
English refused to fight for him, and the weak Duke Robert was
easily persuaded by Henry to attack his possessions beyond sea.
The king mMe himself master of Arundel and other castles of his
104 HENRY I. tno2-
enemy. Robert of Belleme strove to defend himself in his Shrop-
shire estates. But Henry besieged the mighty new oastle which
Robert had erected at Bridgnorth, on the Severn, and the townsmen
compelled the garrison to surrender. Driven to a last refuge at
Shrewsbury, the lord of Belleme was forced to make his submission.
He was allowed to leave England for Normandy, but all his
English lands were forfeited to the crown. Henry put an end
to the palatine earldom of Shrewsbury, as the Conqueror had put
an end to the palatine earldom of Hereford. The English were
overjoyed at the fall of the tyrant. " Rejoice, King Henry," ran
■' popular song that they sung, " and give thanks to the Lord Grod,
for thou hast begun to reign freely now that thou hast cong^uered
Robert of Belleme, and hast driven him from the boundaries
of thy kingdom." Henceforth the feudal nobles were cowed, and
Henry, having had good reason to distrust them, now gave his
confidence to knights and clerks of lower birth, but of greater
fidelity. Some of his ministers were even men of English origin.
5. Henry was soon able to turn the tables on his brother.
Robert found Normandy was gradually slipping away from him.
Battle of Robert of Belleme, now limited to his Norman estates,
Tinchebray, deprived him of many great tracts of territory. In
two successive expeditions Henry conquered much of
Normandy for himself. At last, in 1106, Henry made a final in-
vasion of such of his brother's inheritance as still remained faithful
to him. The decisive battle was fought at Tinchebray, where Robert
lost both his dominions and his liberty. For the rest of his life he
was kept in kindly custody in his brother's English castles, and
died at Cardiff nearly thirty years later. His comrade on the
crusade, Edgar the .^theling, and Robert of Belleme, were also
taken prisoners at Tinchebray. Henry released them both from
custody ; but while Edgar lived for the rest of his life in obscurity
in England, Belleme plunged into fresh revolts that involved him
in lifelong captivity. Henceforth Henry ruled Normandy as well
as England, and the duchy, like the kingdom, was reduced to
good order.
6. Ansehn had loyally helped Henry against the barons, yet
from the moment of his return a grave question of principle in-
The Investl- ™1^^^ ^ lO'^B' dispute between the king and the aroh-
ture Contest bishop. During his exUe, Amsebn had taken au
ilni*?'.^^' active part in the famous Investiture Contest which
*10o~llU/, 1.11 . 1 J
was still raging between the pope and the emperor.
He had attended a council in which prelates had been forbidden
-1107.] HENRY I. 105
to receive investiture from lajrmen, or even to perforin homage to
ttem. Hitterto English, bishops, including Anselm. himself, had
received investiture from the king and done homage to him without
a scruple. Now Anselm refused to renew his homage to the new
king, and declared that he could not countenance any bishops
following the ancient custom. The dispute was carried on in a
good-tempered way, and, though Henry and Anselm were quite
firm on the matter of principle, neither party lost Ms respect for
the other. At last, in 1103, Anselm withdrew from England to
lay his difficulties before Pope Paschal 11., at Rome. The arch-
bishop remained in exile until 1107. Then a satisfactory com-
promise was arranged, by which he was allowed to return. Henry
yielded one of the points at issue, but Anselm surrendered on the
other. The king utterly renounced lay investitures, while the
archbishop withdrew his objection to clerks performing homage to
the king. Henry's change of front was intelligible, since lay
investitures were hard to defend upon the principles which all men
then accepted, for the ring and the stafE were admittedly symbols
of spiritual dignity, and no lay prince had any authority to confer
spiritual jurisdiction. But Henry regarded investiture as the
means by which he asserted his authority as king over the prelates
of his reahn. Anselm, by giving up his point about homage,
enabled the king to maintain his hold over the higher clergy in a
way less offensive to their scruples. Henceforth, in return for the
abandonment of investitures, it was arranged that no bishop was to
be consecrated or abbot enthroned until he had rendered homage to
the king for his temporal possessions. Seemingly, the compromise
was in favour of the Church, for Henry had given up lay investi-
tures. But Henry might well maintain that he had surrendered
the shadow and retained the substance. How fan the compromise
would work depended upon the good sense and forbearance of future
kings and prelates. But it gave peace for the time, and was so far
looked upon as satisfactory that, more than fifteen years later, the
original conflict between pope and emperor was ended upon the
lines of the agreement of Henry and Anselm by the Concordat of
Worms. But the dispute, which in England was amicably settled
after five years of negotiations, had plunged aU Germany and Italy
into confusion for nearly fltfty years.
7. Master of Church and State alike, absolute lord of England
and Normandy, Henry's power exceeded that of his brother
and father. Scotland, ruled by the queen's brothers and nephew,
was friendly and submissive, and so close were the relations of
I06 HENRY I. [1107-
the two courts that pushing' Norman adventurers began to in-
sinuate themselves into the good wUl of the Scottish kings, and to
receive so many lands and favours from them that
ofNopman ^lie Scottish nobility became ultimately almost as
influence Norman as the baronage of England. After 1124
land ^°°' ^^^ ^"'S' °* ^°°*^ ^*^ David, Matilda's nephew, who
had passed his youth at his aunt's court, and as the
husband of Waltheof 's heiress, received Waltheof 's old earldom of
Huntingdon. David was even more thoroughly normanized than
his father, Malcolm, had been angUciaed. He had no scruple in
frequently attending King Henry's court, or in performing homage
to him. Norman ideals of warfare, law, government, and social life
spread from his example over aU northern Britain. In this in-
direct way a sort of Norman conquest of Scotland was gradually
brought about ; but it was due, not to violence, but to the peaceful
permeation of Norman influence.
8. During the same years the more forcible Norman conquest
of Wales which began under Eirfus was completed, save that the
Welsh princes of G-wynedd, or North Wales — ^they no
of The^ '°" longer were called kings — held their own amidst the
Norman hills of Snowdon, where Henry was powerless to dis-
South Wales ^°^^® them. In the conquests of the marchers, Henry
" had little interest, for after the fall of Robert of
BeUeme none of them were strong enough to threaten his power.
Yet it was with his good will that Flemings were settled in the
earldom of Pembroke, where their successors became so numerous
that they drove out the Welsh speech from southern Pembroke-
shire, and, adopting the English tongue, made that district the
" Little England beyond Wales," which it stiU remains. More-
over, a prudent ijiarriage secured to Henry's own family some of the
chief spoils of conquest. The king married his favourite illegitimate
son, whose name was Robert, to the daughter of Robert Fitzhamon,
R be t f -^"^^ "^ Gloucester and conqueror of Glamorgan.
Gloucester Robert inherited his father-in-law's possessions which
?;'"* were erected by Henry into the earldom of Gloucester.
This earldom of Gloucester, always including the great
marcher lordship of Glamorgan, was henceforth one of the greatest
of English dignities. Robert himself was a famous warrior and
man of ability. He loved literature, and particularly history, and
showed such sympathy for the legends of his Welsh subjects, that
it was at his direction that a Welsh clerk, named GeofErey of
Monmouth, wrote his History of Britain. This book made famous
-II24.] HENRY I. 107
all over Europe tte picturesque romance which Geoffrey palmed
off as true history.
9. After the conquest of Normandy, Henry had constant
trouble with Prance, now ruled by Louis vi., a much more capable
and powerful king- than his predecessor, Philip i.
Duke Robert's son WiUiam sought to drive his uncle ?®".''^„l- *"^
J. i> -iLx ■» -1 Louis VI,
out ot JS ormandy, and was supported by Louis, who
was jealous of Henry's power. There was a good deal of fighting,
in which Henry was generally successful. At last the chief source
of danger was removed by the death of William.
10. Li England Henry ruled as an absolute king, after the
fashion of his father. He chose as his justiciar, or prime minister,
a Norman priest named Roger, who became bishop
of Salisbury. Roger was as devoted to the king's in- Salisbury
terests as Plambard had been, but he was no mere and the
extortioner, but an orderly-minded, careful, and uy™sy'|Jem
prudent statesman with a genius for administration
and organization. He set up a body of well-trained clerks and
lawyers, whose help and advice enabled the king to govern
his dominions better than they had ever been ruled before. Two
great courts arose, each with its staff of trained officials, which
divided between them the chief business of the crown. One of these,
the Gwiia Regis, or King's Cowrt, was mainly a judicial body. It
sat in judgment on cases where the tenants in chief were concerned,
and on other cases which were transferred to it from the courts of
the barons, or from the shire moots. It sent its judges, called
justices, all over the country, to hold periodical circuits and try
locally cases that it was not convenient to bring before the king's
presence. It soon became a privilege to have a cause tried by the
king's judges rather than in the local courts, and henceforth the
Curia Regis proved a formidable rival to the ancient Anglo-Saxon
moots as well as the private courts of the nobles. Side by side
with this body was the Exchequer, served by officials called barons
of the Exchequer. This assembly collected and controlled the vast
revenue which Henry exacted, and in return for which the people
got peaca and sound rule. Despite the heavy price they paid for it,
the people gained by the process. The land became prosperous,
and such good justice was done between man and man that the
English called Henry the " Lion of Righteousness."
11. Misfortunes clouded Henry's later days. His queen,
■ Matilda, died, leaving him a son named WiUiam and a daughter
named Matilda. The latter was married when a young girl to
Io8 HENRY I. [1120-
the Emperor Henry v., the same prince wto concluded with, the
pope the Concordat of Worms. "William was drowned in 1120,
The loss of 'w^hen returning from Normandy to England. The
the White king's son sailed in a vessel called the White Ship. He
Ship, 1120. gayg ^\q sailors so much wine that they became care-
less, and kept a bad watch. Then the ship struck on a reef of rocks,
and soon began to sink. A boat was got out, and WUliam and others
embarked in it and rowed away from the wreck. But then he
found that one of his sisters had been left behind, and returned to
save her. When the boat came alongside, a rush of the panic-
stricken crew swamped it and drowned the heir to the throne.
The blow was a cruel one to Henry, and it is said that he never
smiled again.
12. Henry married a second wife named Adelaide of Louvain,
but she brought him no children. In 1125 the Emperor Henry v.
died, and his childless widow, Matilda, came back to
and'Aniou England. Henry had resolved to make his daughter
his heir. It was an unheard-of thing in those days
for a woman to rule a race of warriors like the Normans, and
Henry's barons were disgusted at the proposal. But they dared
not withstand the king's will, and bit by bit they were cajoled or
dragooned into taking oaths to recognize Matilda as Henry's
successor. She found another husband in Geoffrey, count of
Anjou, called G-eoffrey Plantagenet, because he wore a sprig of
bloom, or planta genista, in his helmet as his cognizance. The
county of Anjou was but a small district situated on the lower
Loire, with Angers and Tours as its chief towns, and divided from
Normandy by the county of Maine. Yet the race of counts that
ruled this little territory was so fierce, enterprising, and able that
Anjou was a much more important state than most lands of its
size. Anjou and Normandy had long- been rivals, and the Nor-
mans hated its people, who were called the Angevins, while the
Angevins grudged the Normans the possession of Maine, which
they thought ought to be theirs. Henry married Matilda to
Geoffrey, hoping that the match would end the long fend between
the two lands, and would ultimately unite the two countries.
He was delighted when the young couple had children, and fore-
saw the time when his grandson Henry would be lord of England,
Normandy, and Anjou.
13. Henry died in 1135, his end being hastened by an over-
hearty meal of lampreys, which he ate contrary to the orders of
his physician. He was buried in Reading Abbey, a monastery of
-II25 ]
HENRY I.
109
his own foundation. He was a g-ood king, though personally he
was as hard and selfish as ever Ruf us had been. But he was wise
Emery Walker sc.
enough to see that his interests req[uired that his dominions should
enjoy peace and prosperity, if only because he could raise heavier
no HENRY I. [1135.
taxes from prosperous than from impoverished subjects. Unlike
Ruf us, he kept his fierce passions in such check that he never did
Death and cruel deeds save with a politio object. His subjects
eharaeter of respected hiTn even though they feared him. The
Henry I; English chronicler thus writes about him : " He was
a good man, and there was great awe of him. No man durst misdo
another in his time. He made good peace for man and beast.
Whosoever bore his burden of gold or silver, no man durst say-
ought to him but good." Under bim the full effect of the Con-
queror's policy was worked out, and England became a peaceable,
orderly state, ruled by a strong but wise despot.
CHAPTER IV
STEPHEN OF BLOIS (1135-1154)
Chief dates:
1135. Accession of Stepben.
I138. Battle of the Standard.
I141. Battle of Lincoln.
1153. Treaty of Wallingford.
1154. Death of Stephen.
1. AMOif& the kinsfolk to whom Henry i. had given lands and
power was his nephew, Stephen of Blois, a younger son of the
powerful count of Blois, who ruled over the Loire Accession of
country between Anjou and the domains directly Stephen of
governed by the French king. Stephen's mother was Blois, 1135.
Adela, a daughter of WiUiam the Conqueror. Henry i. had shown
marked favour to his sister's sons. He had procured Stephen's
marriage to Matilda, heiress of the rich county of Boulogne, and
had obtained the important bishopric of Winchester for his younger
brother Henry. During his lifetime Stephen had been unswervingly
faithful to his uncle, and had joined with the other barons in taking
oaths to acknowledge his cousin, the Empress Matilda, as Henry's
successor. But he knew how unpopular among the barons was the
prospect of being ruled by a woman and an Angevin, and on
Henry i.'s death made a bold and successful attempt upon his crown.
He hurried to England, and was welcomed by most of the barons.
The wealthy citizens of London showed him marked good will, and
his brother. Bishop Henry of Winchester, xised his powerful interest
in his favour. Even the justiciar, B/Oger of Salisbury, forgot his
pledges to his old master and declared for Stephe^ and his action
brought all the justices and of&cials of the old kin^o take the same
side. Accordingly Stephen was chosen king, and crowned by the
archbishop of Canterbury, WiUiam of Corbeil. Like Henry i., he
issued a charter, and tried to win to his side all sorts of supporters.
His first charter was a, hasty affair, and couched in vagTie lan-
guage. He soon supplemented it by a fuller one, in which he set
112 STEPHEN OF BLOTS [1135-
forth in detail the many liberties which he was willing to give to
the Church. He promised to root out all injustice and extortion,
Stephen's ^'i^ pledged himself to uphold the good old laws and
Charters of customs of the realm. Though keeping for his use
Liberties. ^j^g forests as they were under the two "Williams, he
offered to relinquish the new ones created by Henry I.
2. At first Stephen seemed to have won complete recognition
as king. The barons of Normandy, hating the rule of the Angevin
and his wife, recognized him as their duke. It was to no purpose
that some of the English baronage, seeing that he was carrying
on the same policy as that of Henry I., rose in revolt against him.
He was equally successful in dealing with David, King of Scots,
who in 1138 invaded the northern coxinties as the champion of
Matilda. Thurstan, the old archbishop of Tork, stung to indignation
at the merciless raiding of the Scots, summoned the levies of the
north to repel them. The English met the Scots at Northallerton.
Battle of the In the middle of their ranks was a cart, on which were
Standard, placed the standard of the king and the banners of
* ' ^®" the three most famous Yorkshire saints. The English
fought on foot after the old fashion, but they broke the charge
of King David's knights, and drove the Scots in disorder from the
field. The fight was called the Battle of the Standard.
3. Stephen was a man of very different mould from Henry i.
Like Robert of Normandy, he was a gallant soldier and a kind,
stenhen's open-hearted, chivalrous gentleman. Yet a worse man
quarrel with of greater firmness and policy would have proved a
Roger of better king. If Stephen's earlier years remained
peaceful, the merit was due not to the sovereign, but to
Koger of Salisbury and the tried ministers of Henry i. Unluckily,
Stephen grew to mistrust the justiciar, and became jealous of the
great power which he and his kinsfolk were wielding. Besides
Roger's own high offices in Church and State, his son was
treasurer and two of his nephews were bishops of Ely and Lincoln.
Fearing lest so mighty a family should encroach still further on the
royal dignitji Stephen in 1138 called upon Roger and his nephews
to surrender their castles. The result was a complete breach
between the k^^ and the powerful official class. Roger was
driven from office, and no competent successor to him was found.
Gradually the administrative system set up so laboriously under
Henry began to grow weaker, and henceforth nothing prospered
with Stephen.
4. Robert, earl of Gloucester, was a partisan of Matilda, but he
-1 138.1 STEPHEN OF BLOIS II3
had been compelled to acknowledge Stephen after his father's
death. Within a few weeks of Roger's disgrace he Beginnings
landed in England, accompanied by the empress, who of civil
now demanded Stephen's throne. CivU war at once ^^^'
broke out, and went on with hardly a break for the rest of
Stephen's reign.
5. Stephen strove to withstand Matilda with the help of riemish
mercenaries, hired with Henry i.'s gold. He never threw himself
upon the people as Henry i. had done, and never The rivalry
obtained much support from them. Matilda was of Stephen
almost as badly ofE. Her only competent adviser was ^"^ Matilda.
Robert of Gloucester, for the barons who professed to uphold her
cause f oug'ht in reality for their own hands. Whichever side they
championed, the barons had no wish for either Stephen or Matilda
to win outright, but preferred that the civil war should go on as
long as possible, so that they should make their profit from the weak-
ness of both rivals. The result was that neither party was strong
enough to defeat the other, and neither was able to control its
followers or govern the territory which it held. The barons took
advantage of the dispute to win for themselves the independent
position which the first three Norman kings had denied them.
England was plunged into indescribable anarchy and confusion,
and the wretched peasantry suffered unspeakable misery.
6. The English chronicler, who finally laid down his pen at the
end of this reign, gives us a moving picture of the desolation of
the country. " Every nobleman built a castle and
held it against the king ; and they flUed the land with ^f Ingland.
castles. When the castles were made, they filled them
with devils and evil men. Then they took aU who had any
property and put them in prison and tortured them to get their
gold and silver. They taxed the villages, and when the wretched
countrymen had no more to give them they bximt their villages.
Then was com dear, and meat and cheese, for there was none
in the land. Men starved for hunger, and some that were once
rich men went about begging their bread. They robbed chtirches
and churchmen, and though the bishops and clergy were ever
cursing them, they oared nothing for their curses. The land was
aU undone with their deeds, and men said that Christ and his
saints slept." Another writer says that " there were as many
kings, or rather tyrants, as there were lords of estates."
7. A few greedy nobles profited by the necessities of the rival
claimants to make their own profit out of both. Conspicuous
J
114 STEPHEN OF BLOIS [1141-
among these was Geoffrey of Mandeville, a cuaning, strong, and
cruel self-seeker, who, by joining first one side and then the other,
obtained from both grants of enormous estates and
MandertlSe ^® recognition as earl of Essex. At last he overreached
himself, and provoked Stephen to make a mighty
effort to crash him. Geoffrey fled to the fens, the region once
famed for the daring deeds of Hereward. He held his own there
untU he was slain in a chance skirmish. His power perished with
him, but there were plenty of others to take his place, though
none could play his daring game so cleverly or so successfully.
8. The course of the war between Stephen and Matilda had
little effect on the country at large. Stephen's strongest partisans
were the Londoners and the rich and populous shires of the south-
east and south. Matilda's chief strongholds were Bristol and
Gloucester, the main centres of the power of her brother. Earl
Robert. The greater barons were largely on her side, among them
The Battle being Robert's son-in-law, Randolph, earl of Chester,
of Lincoln, In 1141 Robex-t and Randolph strove to relieve
Lincoln, which Stephen was besiegiug. In a battle
fought outside the town Stephen's army was overwhelmed and he
himself taken prisoner. Many of the king's partisans fell away
from him now that he was helpless. His own brother, Henry
of Winchester, deserted him and declared to a council of barons,
gathered in his cathedral city, that by the defeat of Lincoln
God's judgment had been clearly shown to be against Stephen's
claim to the throne. The barons then chose Matilda as their
_ q[ueen, and she went to London to be crowned. But
faUuret^ ^®^ ""^"^ *"■* haughty manner disgusted her best
friends, and the Londoners, who always wished well
to Stephen, rose in revolt and drove her from their city. A strong
reaction ia favour of Stephen broke out. Henry of Winchester
again changed sides, and in a battle fought at Winchester, Robert
of Gloucester was taken prisoner in his turn. Matilda now had to
lead her own side as best she could, while Stephen's cause was ably
upheld by his heroic wife Matilda of Boulogne. Before long, how-
ever, the two Matildas agreed to exchange Stephen and Robert
for each other, and so the war went on as before. But the
empress had lost her best chance, and in 1148 the death of her
wise and strenuous brother ruined her last hopes. In despair
she c[uitted England for Normandy, and Stephen henceforth reigned
nominally as sole king. But the land remained in horrible con-
fusion, and the broken-spirited monarch was far too weak to restore
-IIS4] STEPHEN OF BLOIS II5
order. Only in the northern counties, where David, king of Soots,
was in possession, was there any approach to good government.
The Welsh profited by England's anarchy to throw off the yoke of
the marcher lords.
9. In 1153 Matilda's eldest son, Henry, landed in England to
claim his mother's heritage. Though only twenty years old, he
had made himself duke of Normandy. On his father's ^^^ Treaty
death he had succeeded to Anjou, and a prudent of Walling-,
marriage with Eleanor, heiress of Poitou and Aqui- ""'°> 1153.
taine, the divorced wife of Louis vi. of Prance, had secured him
the overlordship of aJl France from the Loire to the Pyrenees.
Carefully trained in war and statecraft by his uncles Kobert and
David, he proved himself a much more formidable enemy to
Stephen than ever his mother had been. The king had no heart
to struggle against his young rival, and the deaths of his high-
souled queen and of his eldest son Eustace made him anxious to
end his days in peace. Accordingly, he yielded to the advice of
his wisest counsellors, and made terms with Henry by the treaty
of Wallingf ord. By this it was arranged that Stephen was to go
on reigning for the rest of his life, but that Henry was to succeed
him to all Ms dominions. Henry remained in England for a time,
and did his best to help his rival to pacify the kingdom.
10. Soon after Henry's return to Normandy, Stephen died.
His reign is only important because it showed what the rule of the
barons really meant. The cruelties of the Conqueror jjeath of
and his sons pale into nothingness as compared with Stephen,
the horrors wrought in the name of this weU-meaning ii°*f
king. Stephen's failure showed how vital to England's prosperity
was that strong and ruthless despotism which the Norman kings
had set up. The power of the crown was proved to be necessary,
since it was the only way of saving England from anarchy.
CHAPTER V
HENRY II. OF ANJOU (1154-I189)
Chief dates:
11S4. Accession of Henry ii.
I159. War of Toulouse.
1164. Constitutions of Clarendon.
1 166. Assize of Clarendon.
1170. Murder of St. Thomas.
1171. Norman conquest of Ireland.
1174. Feudal revolt suppressed.
1181. Assize of Arms.
1184. Assize of the Forest.
I189. Death of Henry ii.
1. On Stephen's death Henry of Anjou became Henry 11. according
to the treaty of Wallingf ord. Under him the houses of Normandy
and Anion, hitherto rivals and enemies, became nnited.
Accession
and eharac- Moreover, through his mother, Matilda, queen of
tap of Henry I., Henry was descended from the old English
jfgf'^ ■' line of kings. He was one of the ablest of all our
monarohs, and no ruler has left a deeper impress on
our history. He was a strong, restless man, who worked so hard
that he woidd never sit down except at meals and at council
meetings. He had little respect for tradition, and was fond of
making experiments iu government. A mighty warrior, he showed
even more abUity as a statesman and a lawyer. He was well edu-
cated, and amused himseK with reading as well as with hunting. He
took no pains to win popularity, and was iadifEerent to royal pomp.
Generally shrewd and prudent, he was at times swayed by fierce
bursts of passion which made him the terror of all around him.
2. Henry's first business was to put an end to the disorders of
The restora- Stephen's reign and bring back England to the con-
tlon of dition in which it was when Henry I. died. He sent
order. Stephen's Flemish mercenaries back to their work-
shops. He annulled his predecessor's lavish grants of land, and
called upon the barons who had built castles without the king's
116
II62.] HENRY n. OF ANJOU 11/
permission to destroy them at once. These strongholds were called
adMlterine castles, and. the barons bitterly resented their destruction.
Some tried to resist by force, but Henry easily put down their
rebellions. He compelled Malcolm iv., king of Scots, who had
recently succeeded his father David, to surrender the northern
counties and pay him homage. He led an expedition against
Wales, and though his troops fled from the Welsh in disgraceful
panic, the Welsh prince Owen found it prudent to make peace
with him. But Owen's success secured the freedom of Gwynedd,
even though, with Henry's help, the lords marcher regained their
power in the east and south of Wales.
3. After a few years the administrative system of Henry i. was
fully restored. The Curia Regis and Exchequer were again hard at
work; justice was executed, and the reign of law
upheld. In carrying out these changes, Henry's chief Bg°w^
helpers were Richard of Lucy and Robert, earl of
Leicester, who divided between them the ofELce of justiciar.
Nigel, bishop of Ely, Roger of Salisbury's nephew, became treasurer.
Perhaps the king's most trusted oflcer was Thomas of London, the
chancellor, called in later times Thomas Beoket. Thomas was the
son of a London ip.erchant, and first became important as arch-
deacon of Canterbury. He was as indefatigable a worker as Henry
himself. Though an ecclesiastic, he seemed wholly devoted to the
interests of the king. So convinced was Henry of his loyalty that
in 1162 he procured his appointment as archbishop of Canterbury.
Henry's wish in raising bi'm to this office was to have an arch-
bishop of his own way of thinking. He was jealous of the growing-
claims of the Church, and thought that the privileges claimed by
ecclesiastics stood in the way of the extension of the royal power.
He thought the best way to make his reforms acceptable to church-
men was to have an archbishop by his side with whom he could
work as cordially as William i. had worked with Lanfranc.
Thomas took a very difEerent view of his new office. He hesitated
to accept the post because, as he said, he knew that Hem-y's
ecclesiastical policy would differ from that which as archbishop it
would be his duty to uphold. Much to Henry's disgust he resigned
the office of chancellor. As chancellor he had been the most
zealous of servants of the king, but as archbishop he became a
strenuous upholder of ecclesiastical privileges. He gave up his
pompous and magnificent manner of life, and lived as strictly and
austerely as a monk. He took Anselm as his model, and resolved
to maintain strenuously all the rights of the Church. It was
Il8 HENRY II. OF ANyOU [1162-
inevitable, Tinder these oiroumstanees, that Henry and Thomas
should soon quarrel. Disputes at once arose upon various grounds.
Thomas complained that the king had appropriated some of the
property of the archbishopric, and opposed a plan of Henry's for
ohangiug the method of levying some taxes. Soon these quarrels
sank into insignificance as compared with the question of the trial
of criminous clerks.
4. From early times the Church had had courts of its own
under the control of the bishops. Ever since William the Con-
queror's law separating the bishop's court from that
and the ^^ ^'^ hundred, these ecclesiaBtical courts had been
question of steadily increasing in importance. They administered
T'°k"°"^ a special law of their own called Canon Law, whose
chief source was the decrees of the popes. The anarchy
of Stephen's reign had immensely increased the importance of the
Church courts, for they continued their regular meetings when
civil war had made irregular the sessions of the king's courts of
justice. By this time the courts of the Church had become rivals
to the courts of the State. They claimed to try not only all
ecclesiastical suits, but all cases in which clergymen were concerned.
It was thought to be against the privileges of the Church for a clerk
to be brought before one of the king's courts. This claim was the
more dangerous from the wide sense in which the word " clerk " was
used. Not only persons in holy orders, bishops, priests, deacons,
and sub-deacons, were clerks ; the term included a multitude of
persons in minor orders, and a stUl larger number who had merely
been set apart to the service of the Church by receiving the tonsure.
In short, nearly every man who could read was called a clerh, and
claimed as such the privilege of being tried in the Church court
only. Things were made worse because the ecclesiastical judges
were lenient to brother clergymen, and because they could inflict
no harsher punishment than imprisonment. In those days death,
mutilation, and torture were regarded as the appropriate penalties
for more heinous crimes.
6. To an order-loving king like Henry, the exemption of the
clergy from the jurisdiction of his courts was most unpalatable.
The dispute ^^ ^^^ brought several clerks before his own judges,
between and was bitterly indignant when Thomas denounced
Henry and j^^g action as a breach of the liberties of the Church.
In great disgust, Henry summoned the bishops to
meet at Westminster, and asked them whether in the future they
were wiLL'cng to accept the old customs of the realm as they existed
-1164] HENRY n. OF ANyoU II9
in the days of his grandfather. The bishops agreed to this " saving-
the rights of their order." Thereupon, Henry drew up in writing
a list of these ancient customs which in January, 1164, was laid
before a great council held at the king's hunting-lodge of Clarendon,
near Salisbury. For this reason it was called the Constitutions of
Clarendon.
6. The sixteen articles of the constitutions covered the whole
ground of the relations of Church and State. They provided that
clerks accused of crimes should be brought before the _,. „ ,._
king's justices. If they could prove that they were tutions of
clergymen they were to be sent to the Church courts Clarendon,
to be tried ; if convicted, the ecclesiastical court was
to degrade them from their orders, and then they were to be
brought back to the king's court and to receive, as laymen, a lay-
man's punishment. The Church courts were to be carefully
watched, and their jurisdiction limited to strictly ecclesiastical
matters. Moreover, the rules which William the Conqueror had
drawn up to determine doubtful points between Church and State
were to be reasserted. The compromise arranged between Henry i.
and Anselm was reaffirmed, and bishops were to hold their lands
like other barons. Appeals to Eome were not to be made without
the king's consent, and prelates were to be elected in the king's
chapel under the king's eye.
7. After a momentary acquiescence, Thomas refused to accept
the Constitutions of Clarendon, declaring them to be against the
liberties of the Church. Henry was moved to deep xhotnas
indignation, and resolved to niin him. Corn-tiers leaves
were encouraged to bring lawsuits against him, and England.
Henry called upon him to give an account of the money which he.
had received when he was chancellor. The king's violence gave
Thomas a better argument than he had previously had for rejecting
the constitutions. If the king's courts could be made the instru-
ment for ruining the king's enemies, it was not unreasonable that
the Church should strive to protect her clergy from such unright-
eous bodies. As in the days of Anselm, most of the bishops were
on the kiag's side, and begged Thomas to submit. In the Council
of Northampton, October, 1164, the archbishop met Henry face to
face and refused to surrender. The justiciar declared Thomas
a traitor, whereupon the archbishop appealed to the pope and
withdrew. A few days later he sailed in disguise to Prance. The
angry king banished all his kinsfolk from England.
8. For six years Thomas remained abroad and carried on
I20 HENRY n. OP ANJOU [1164-
a violent controversy witli the king. He was disgusted to find
that the pope, Alexander in., gave him only a lukewarm support.
-,. , Alexander himself was engaged at the moment in
return to a great q[uarrel with the powerful Emperor Frederick
England, Barbarossa, who had driven him from Italy to France.
In Ms distress the pope was anxious not to hreak
utterly with so mighty a prince as Henry, and did what he could
to smooth matters over. Henry, on his part, was desirous of avoiding
a breach with the pope. Gradually he became more reasonable,
and after years of exile even Thomas was less stifE in his attitude.
At last, in 1170, a vague agreement was patched up. Henry and
Thomas met in France ; they said not a word about the Constitutions
of Clarendon, but the king promised to restore the archbishop and
his friends, and to be guided by his counsel in future. On Decem-
ber 1, 1170, Thomas returned to England and took up his abode
at Canterbury. During the negotiations for his restitution fresh
causes of difficulty had arisen. The king's eldest son, Henry, was
now a young man, and the king, following a custom usual in France,
resolved to have him crowned during his own lifetime, so that the
prince might learn the business of kingcraft under his father's
eye, and share with him the heavy task of governing his vast
dominions. The younger Henry's coronation took place on Whit
Sunday, 1170. To crown the king was one of the most cherished
rights of the archbishop of Canterbury, but, as Thomas was still
abroad, Roger, archbishop of York, a close supporter of the king,
had performed the ceremony. Thomas bitterly complained of this
as a violation of the privileges of Canterbury, and excommunicated
Archbishop Roger and all the bishops who took part in the cere-
mony. Matters stood thus when Thomas returned to England.
It is strange that Henry should have omitted to make terms with
Thomas in this matter, but he probably thought that their agree-
ment to let bygones be bygones included the question of the corona-
tion as well as the Constitutions of Clarendon. He was at once
disappointed in this hope. No sooner was Thomas established at
Canterbury than he renewed the excommunication of the offending
prelates.
9. Henry was moved to a characteristic outburst of temper
Murder of when he learned that the archbishop's return meant
Thomas, a new quarrel. "What fools and dastards have I
• nourished in my house," he cried, "that not one
of them will avenge me on one upstart clerk ? " Four knights
took Henry at his word, and rode straightway to Canterbury,
MI70.]
HEMRY II. OF ANJOV
121
whioli they reached on Decemher 29. They made their way
to the archbishop's chamber and bade him forthwith obey the
king's order and absolve the exoommiuiioated bishops. Thomas
declared that he was only obeying
the pope, and gave the knights
no satisfaction. They left biTn
in a rage, and the archbishop
went into the cathedral, whero
the terrified monks were singing
vespers. Meanwhile the knights
put on their armour and, accom-
panied by a band of soldiers, fol-
lowed Thomas into the chnrch.
The archbishop's attendants
would have closed the door which
led from the cloister into the
north transept. Thomas forbade
them to do this, and moved
slowly up the steps into the
choir, as the four knights burst
into the building. They cried,
" Where is the traitor P "
Thomas then returned to the
transept, crying, " Here am I ;
not traitor, but archbishop and
priest of G-od." A fierce alter-
cation followed, but soon the
knights drew their swords and
slew him as he stood. His last
words were, " For the Name of Jesus and in defence of the
Church, I am ready to embrace death."
10. The cruel murderers of Thomas had done the worst service
they could to their master. Against the living archbishop Henry
had been able to contend on equal terms, but he was c.arinrAT.a.-
powerless to hold his own against the outburst tionofSt.
of popular indignation which attended their deed Thomas of
of blood. Men forgot that the cause for which Canterbury.
Thomas had died was not the cause of the Church, but the cause
of the see of Canterbury over its rival York. They hailed the
dead archbishop as a martyr who had laid down Ms life for the
sake of justice. Stories were spread of his sanctity and devout-
ness. It was believed that miracles were wrought by his mangled
' X P/ace where St. Thomas tuas slain.
PLAN OF CHRIST CHUKCH, CANTER-
BURY.
(The buildings are mainly of later date
than 1170.)
122 HENRY II. OF ANJOU [1166-
remaias. Pilgrims flocked from all Christendom to do honour
to the martyr's tomb in Canterbury Cathedral. Alexander iii., who
had neglected him in his life, declared him a saint after his death.
All went iU with Henry until he solemnly renounced the
Constitutions of Clarendon, bought off the -threatened censures of
the pope by an unconditional submission, and purged himself of
complicity in Thomas's death. As the last sign of his penitence
Henry himself went on pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas,
and was scourged with rods as a penance for his hasty words. In
the broader c[uestion of the treatment of criminous clerks the
martyred archbishop secured a substantial victory. Prom that
time till the Kef ormation the ecclesiastical courts remained the sole
tribunals in which a clerk could be condemned. All that Henry
gained was that henceforth all persons accused of crimes were in
the first instance brought before the king's tribunals ; but any
criminal who could prove that he was a clergyman, was allowed
what was called benefit of clergy, and the king's courts had no more
to say to him. It shows how widespread was clerical privilege that
the proof of clergy required was ability to read Latin. Despite
all Henry's power the Church remained a state within the State,
and the strongest of his successors was warned by the great king's
failure to respect those inordinate privileges of the clergy for which
Thomas thought he had laid down his life.
11. The long struggle with Archbishop Thomas quickened rather
than slackened Henry's zeal to improve the government of his
Henry's dominions. Hitherto he had been content to restore
reign as a the system of Henry I. Now that he had accomplished
period of -tj^^t, he began to devise new laws of his own. Henry i.
tion between ^^^ done a great work, but in his scheme the old
Normans popxilar institutions of Anglo-Saxon times and the new
and English, monarchical institutions of the Norman kings had
not been completely welded into a single scheme. It was the
special work of Henry 11. to put an end to this double system. His
reign has been called a period of amalgamation, because he joined
together what was best in old and new alike. Before he died the
old local courts of the shire and hundred were closely bound
together with the new royal courts administered by the king's
officials. Not only was there an amalgamation of English and
Norman institutions ; the English and Norman races, which had
hitherto stood apart from each other, were similarly united by
community of interests and frequent intermarriages. We have the
testimony of one of Henry's ministers that the two peoples were
-I176.] HENRY II. OF ANJOU 123
already so indistinguisliable that no one knew trlio was a Norman
or who was an Englishman by race. The higher classes still spoke
French, and French Christian names alone were popular. But
these French-speaking Englishmen were becoming English in feel-
ing, and as the old Norman families died out, new ones arose who
had neither estates nor kinsmen in Normandy, and were sometimes
purely English in. blood.
12. Henry 11. was one of the greatest legislators in English
history. The most important of his laws are called Anises, and
the first of these was the Assize of Cla/rendon, drawn up jj,e Assize of
in that same Wiltshire hunting-lodge that had witnessed Clarendon,
the beginning of Henry's struggle with Beoket. The ®"
Assize of Clarendon completed the con^stitution of the new judicial
system, towards which things had been drifting since the reign of
Henry i. By it the king's justices were directed to go on circuit
throughout the country, and visit every shire in turn and try
criminals. At their coming each county court was to choose a
committee of landholders, which was to bring before it aU persons
suspected of criminal ofEenoes within the shire. This body was
called a jury because its members were sworn (jiorati) to accuse
truly. It was called a jury of presentment because it presented
criminals for trial before the justice. The justice represented the
new jurisdiction of the crown, the jury the old popular court of the
shire. Their combination in this judicial system proved permanent.
The modem Grand Jury still continues to discharge the work of
Henry's juries of presentment, and to this daythe king's ^jje Assize of
judges go on oirouit to each shire after the fashion Northamp-
systematized by the Assize of Clarendon. Ten years *°"' *^'°-
later the Assize of Clarendon was reissued in the Assize of North-
a/mpton, which imposed severer penalties on ofEenders.
13. Another law of Henry's, the Grand Assize oi xnic&rtain date,
extended the jury system from criminal to civil cases. Since the
Norman conquest, the ordinary way of deciding dis-
putes about land was by trial by battle. The idea was AssiM.*"*^
that the two claimants should fight out their claims
with each other, and that God would work a miracle by giving the
victory not to the better warrior, but to the man with the better
claim. So crude a system now seemed impious to the clergy and
foolish to the lawyer. The Grand Assize gave claimants to estates
the opportunity of referring their claim to the decision of a jury, as
an alternative to the barbaric custom of trial by battle. This was
welcomed as an especial boon to the weak and feeble.
124 HENRY II. OF ANJOU [1166-
14 Another famous law of Henry's was tte Assize of Arms of
1181, by which the old English national militia of the fyrd was
The Assize revised and organized. By it every freeman was re-
ef Arms, cLuired to provide himself with arms of a kind suitaMe
^^®^- to his estate, so that he might when called upon defend
the country from invasion or assist in putting down rebellion. This
assize made the feudal service of the barons less important. Long
before this the kings had established the custom of levying taxes
called scutage, or shield-money, from the military
tenants, whereby they paid to the crown sums of money
instead of serving personally. With this money the king was able
to hire professional soldiers, who fought better than the barons.
But the mercenaries were expensive and unpopular, and after the
Assize of Arms Henry employed them for foreign service only,
and depended chiefly on the fyrd for home service. Despot
though he was, he was popular enough to be able to trust the
EngKsh people to bear arms, even though those arms might be used
against him.
15. In 1184 Henry issued the Assize of Woodstock, or the Assize
of the Forest. He was an indefatigable hunter, and his chief object
The Assize of ^^® *° protect the game which he preserved for his
Woodstock, sport. Moreover, Kke his predecessors, Henry regarded
the forests as the districts specially subject to his
arbitrary control. This assize accordingly was very severe, and shows
Henry's government at its worst. It was the first formal code of
regulations drawn up for the forests, and something was gained
when even a severe law was set up in place of the royal caprice
which had hitherto alone regulated them. A system of forest
courts was established analogous to those of the rest of the country.
Even in the forests Henry fotmd scope for his favourite system of
juries.
16. Henry 11. won back the authority over Britain as a whole
which his grandfather had exercised. The lords marcher in Wales
Henry II 's regained the position which had been threatened under
relations to Stephen ; but the princes of Gwynedd, though acknow-
Wales and ledging Henry as their overlord, were able in practice
to keep him at arm's length. Thrice Henry led ex-
peditions to the wilds of Snowdon, but not one of them was really
successful. The result of this was that North Wales remained a
strong and nearly independent national Welsh state ; but Welsh
and marcher lords alike looked up to Henry as supreme. Under
him the Welsh bishops finally accepted the claims of the archbishop
-Ii88.] HENRY II. OF ANJOU 125
of Canterbury to be their metropolitan. In 1188 Arobbishop
Baldwin traversed Wales from end to end to preach a new
cmsade. Scotland, even more than "Wales, felt the weight of
Henry's arm. We have seen how he compelled Malcolm iv. to
surrender the advantages won by David under Stephen. Mal-
colm's brother and successor, William the Lion, was a warlike and
powerful kiag. In 1173 he united with Henry's foreign and
baronial enemies in a great attack on his power. Taken prisoner
at Alnwick, he was forced, as the price of his release, to sign the
ignominious treaty of Falaise ; by this he fully accepted Henry as
liege lord of Scotland, and admitted English garrisons into Edin-
burgh and other chief towns of his realm.
17. Henry ii.'s reign is remarkable for the extension of the
Norman power to Ireland. Ireland, which in the days of Anglo-
Saxon barbarism had been the most civilized country ~ , ^
in western Europe, had now faUen far away from its period of
ancient glory. The land was divided among many Irish inde-
petty kings, who were always waging war against each
other. 'Though one of these claimed to be overlord of the whole
land, he had little real power. The old Celtic system, by which
the chief of each tribe really ruled over his clansmen, stiU prevailed,
and kept back the poHtioal development of the island. Danish
chieftains bore rule over coast towns, such as Dublin, Cork, and
Limerick, and added a new element to the general confusion. The
Church was as disorganized as the State.
18. The q^uarrels of the Irish with each other first gave the
Normans a pretext for establishing themselves in Ireland. The
heroes of the Norman conquest of Ireland were the ^jjg uorman
Norman marchers of South Wales, who extended their conquest of
power over the island by the same devices that had 'reland.
secured for their grandfathers the richer parts of South Wales.
Dermot, king of Leinster, was driven in 1166 from his dominions,
and rashly invited some of the Norman lords of South Wales to
help him to win them back. At their head was Richard of Clare,
surnamed Sironghow, lord of Chepstow and palatine earl of
Pembroke. He restored Dermot to his kingdom, married his
daughter, and seized upon his dominions after his death. Other
Norman adventurers followed his example, and added to the con-
fusion of Ireland by setting up small feudal lordships in the districts
which they had won by their swords. Henry ii. had no part in
their conq^uests, but he became alarmed lest they should establish
a power dangerous to himself. In 1171 he betook himself to
126 HENRY 11. OF ANJOU [1159-
Ireland, in order to establish his authority over Irish, Dane, and
Norman ahke. None dared resist him. The native Irish welcomed
him as their protector against the new-comers from Wales, and the
Normans submitted because they had not sufficient strength to
withstand him. In these circumstances it was easy for Henry
to obtain acknowledgments of his supremacy from all the chief
powers in Ireland. He added to his titles that of lord, of Ireland,
and set up an English government iu Dublin. He introduced
Norman ecclesiastics, who strove to reorganize the Irish Church
after the Roman pattern. English traders established themselves
in the towns, and strong castles kept the fertile plains in subjection.
But the Irish clans held their own amidst the mountains and bogs,
and everywhere Henry's influence was very superficial. In this
fashion Henry carried out in a way the dreams of Edgar and
"WUliam i. He was the first English king who was in any sense
lord of aU the British islands.
19. By inheritance and marriage Henry was suzerain over all
western France. From his father came the county of Anjou
and Touraine; Normandy and Maine he inherited
EmDire^^ from his mother; his marriage made him duke of
Aquitaine. His wife, Eleanoi:, was the heiress of the
old line of the dukes of Ao[uitaine, whose authority extended over
all south-western France, from the river Loire to the Pyrenees, and
from the Bay of Biscay to the mountains of Auvergne and the
Cevennes. The northern part of this region was the county of
Poitou, whose capital was Poitiers. More to the south lay Gruienne
and Gascony, of which the chief towns were Bordeaux and Bayonne.
Over the whole of this region the French kings had never exercised
any substantial authority, and even the dukes of Aquitaiue were little
more than its overlords. Heal power belonged to the turbulent
feudal nobles, whose constant feuds with each other, and with the
towns, kept the whole land full of violence and bloodshed. Never-
theless it was a rich and vigorous region, differing so widely from
northern France that its inhabitants looked upon both king of
Paris and dukes of Eouen as foreigners. South of the Dordogne
the people spoke the Gascon or Provencal tongue, which was a
different language from the French of the north. They cherished
dearly their local independence, and even a strong ruler like Henry
was not able to subject them to the severe discipline which had
made England peaceable and law-abiding.
20. Eleanor of Aquitaine was a woman of vigorous character and
unrulv disTJOsition. She had married Henrv because she had been
-II74-] HENRY 11. OF ANJOU 12/
at variance with, her first husband, Lonis vii. of France, who had
wedded her for the sake of her dominions. Before long she quar-
relled with Henry also, and inspired her sons to join Henry II
with her former husband in attempts to overthrow and his
their father. It was easier for her to do this, since *i^"i*'y-
Henry was an affectionate father, and anxious to share with his sons
the government of his dominions. We have seen how he crowned
his eldest son Henry king in 1170, and proposed to make him his
partner in power. He wished to establish the younger sons also
in the government of some outlying portion of his dominions.
Kichard, the second son, was made duke of Aquitaine, and showed
great valour and energy in his efforts to reduce his mother's in-
heritance to some sort of order. GeofErey, his third son, married
the heiress of Brittany^ and the lands under Henry's overlordship
were stiU further extended when Greoffirey became reigning count of
Brittany under his father's supremacy. John, the youngest and
best beloved of Henry's sons, was married to the heiress of the
great Gloucester earldom, and sent to rule Ireland. But none of
Henry's sons were worthy of their father's generosity ; their con-
stant intrigues and rebellions embittered the last years of his life.
21. Neighbouring princes were extremely jealous of Henry's
great position, and did their best to undermine his power. Among
his chief enemies was the count of Toulouse, the here- Henry's
ditary rival of the duke of Aquitaine, and against him foreign
Henry waged, in 1159, a war called the war of Toulouse ; Po"cy.
later on he compelled the count of Toulouse to do homage to him.
The count of Toulouse was only saved from destruction by the help
afforded him by Louis vii. of France, against whom 75,3 ^^p of
Henry had scruples in waging war because Louis was Toulouse,
hisoverlord. Inthehopeof keepingupfriendlyrelations "°^'
with France, Henry married his eldest son to Louis's daughter ;
but Louis was as treacherous as Henry's own children. During the
period when the outcry against Henry as the cause of St. Thomas's
death had turned publio opinion against him, Louis made an
aUianoe with the young king and his brothers Richard and Geoffrey.
This grew into a great confederation of all the English king's
enemies. William of Scotland, as we have seen, joined the league,
and the feudal barons, both in England and Normandy, jj,g ^^ps of
though afraid to attack Henry so long as he was at peace, 1 1 73 and
eagerly availed themselves of his difficulties with his ^174.
children and foreign neighbours to unfurl once more the banner
of baronial independence, In 1173 and 1174 the great struggle
128
BENRY 11. OF ANJOV
[1174-
William I's Posessions in France-
County of Anjou..^
Corrti'nental Lands of Stephen
Inheritance of Eleanor of Aquitame
County of Brittany .._
French King's Domain in 1185 c^^
Boundary of French Monarchy
Emery ^VaIl^cr sc.
FRANCE IN THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES, SHOWING THE
CONTINENTAL DOMINIONS OF THE NORMAN AND ANOEVIN KIN^S.
-1 189.] HENRY II. OF ANJOU 1 29
between Henry and his enemies extended from the Tweed to the
Pyrenees. Henry was everywhere victorious. We have seen how
he crushed William of Scotland and forced him to sign the
hxmiiliatiag' treaty of Falaise. Louis of France failed in his
iuvasion of Normandy, and the fleet with which the younger Henry
set out to iavade England was scattered by a storm. The fidelity of
the official class, and the loyalty of the English people, made it an
easy matter for Henry to suppress the baronial rebellion. Over
his nobles his triumph was a permanent one ; the rising of 1173
and 1174 was the last of the many feudal revolts against the
national monarchy which had begun a hundred years earlier with
the rebellions of earls Ralph and Roger against WiUiam i.
22. For the next few years Henry ruled in peace. With wonder-
ful magnanimity he forgave his rebellious children, and restored
them to their governments. He was now one #f the Henry's
greatest kings in Christendom, and foreign princes foreign
eagerly sought his alliance. He married his daughters ^'''^n^^s.
to the kings of Castile and Sicily, the count of Toulouse, and to
Henry the Lion, the greatest of the German dukes and the rival
of the mighty Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. By these alliances,
and by other means, Henry obtained powerful support against his
natural enemy the king of France. He established friendship
which long outlasted his life with Castile, the chief Spanish king-
dom, with Germany, and with Flanders. For the rest of the Middle
Ages there was a traditional friendship between England and these
three lands, just as there was a traditional enmity with France.
Thus the foreign policy of the Angevin king coloured the foreign
policy of England for several centuries.
23. The folly and wickedness of his children cast a gloom over
the last years of Henry's life. The young King Henry went to
war with his brother Richard, and forced the old king .pj^^ pgu.,.
to take up arms on behalf of the latter. In the course Uons of
of the struggle the young king expired in 1188. Henry's
Geoffrey of Brittany died two years later, in 1186 ;
but Richard still gave him plenty of trouble. In 1189 Richard
once more rose in revolt, and made a close alliance with the son of
Louis VII., Philip 11., called Augustus, who became king of Prance
in 1180. It was a grievous disappointment to Henry that his
youngest son, John, who had hitherto remained faithful, joined his
brother in this rebellion. After this Henry had no heart to fight
against his treacherous sons. Smitten with a mortal illness, he
threw himself on Ms bed, and cried, " Let things go as they will ;
13° HENRY II. OF ANJOU [1189.
I care no more for myself or for anythmg else in the world." A
few days later he died, on July 7, mnrmtiring, " Shame, shame on
a conquered king." Here Henry was unjust to him-
death 1 189 ®®^ ' ^^ work was far from being undone, even by the
treachery of his own sons. He had established the
unity of England on so firm a basis that it could not be shaken
even by the incompetence of those who came after him.
CHAPTER VI
RICHARD I. CCEUR DE LION (1189-1199)
Chief dates :
1 189. Accession of Eichard i.
I189-1192. Richaid on Crusade.
1194. Richard's release and second visit to England.
1199. Death of Eichard i.
1. RioHAKD OP Aquitaine Succeeded without difficulty to all his
father's dominions. Despite his treachery to his father, he was
not without noble qualities, and shed hitter tears
when he heard of Henry's miserable end. Brought R^^ardT °^
up amidst the constant tumults of his mother's in-
heritance, he became a consum.mate warrior and a famous knight.
He was taU and handsome, with fair hair and blue eyes. Well
educated, he could, it was said, talk Latin better than an arch-
bishop. He loved poetry, and was himself a poet, while among-
his friends was Bertrand de Bom, the greatest of the troubadours,
or poets, of southern France. He had ability enough to make him
a good ruler ; but he cared little for extending his power over his
dominions, and threw his whole soul into the quest of personal
adventures. He was the least English of our kings, and during
his reign of ten years only paid two short visits to England.
During those years his exploits as a warrior made him the hero of
all Christendom, and gained him his surname of Eichard the Lion
Heart. But the personal adventures of the king go on quite
different lines from the history of his kingdom.
2. When Richard became king, aU Europe rang with the preach-
ing of a new crusade. The Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, estab-
lished by the First Crusade, had long fallen into evil „. , , ,
mi on jiTi.^-.. Ricnapd and
days. The energy of the western lords of Syria the Third
withered away amidst a tropical climate and oriental Crusade,
surroundings. For a time the Crusaders held their
own because of the divisions of their Mohammedan enemies. At last
a great Mohammedan state grew up in Syria, whose head was the
131
132
RICHARD I. CCEUR DE LION
[1187-
Stiltan Saladin. In 1187 Saladin won a great victory over the
Christians, and wrested from them Jerusalem itseK. The crusading
kingdom was reduced to a few seaport towns, and would clearly be
destroyed altogether unless Christendom united iu a great crusade
to restore it. The new expedition, called the Third Crusade, was
preached with energy and success. Frederick Barbarossa, the old
emperor, and Philip Augustus, the young kiug of France, both took
the cross. To Richard the crusade offered the chance of personal
The Crusade of Richard I.
Outward route shown thus:-... >
Homeward ,f ,, ,, ^.
adventure and military distinction such as he loved. He went to
England, was crowned king, and used every means to raise money
to e(iuip himself and his followers on the crusade. He sold to the
highest bidder the chief offices of Church and State in England.
WiUiam Longohamp, bishop of Ely, a foreigner by birth, bought
the offices of chancellor and justiciar. He allowed William of Scot-
land to renounce the hard conditions of the treaty of Falaise in
return for a money payment. So eager was he to amass treasure
that he declared that he would have sold London could he have
found a purchaser. Then he started for Palestine, and England saw
no more of him for five years. Richard travelled to the Holy Land
by way of France. At Marseilles he took ship for the East, but
tarried on his way in Sicily and Cyprus, where he married his wife
Berengaria of Navarre. In 1191 he landed near Acre, the chief
-II94-] RICHARD I. CCEUR DE LION 133
port of the crusading kingdom, and a place which still held out
against Saladin. Philip Augustus had arrived there before him, and
the two kings soon forced Acre to surrender. Prom Acre Richard
marched towards Jerusalem, and arrived within twelve miles of the
holy city ; but bad weather prevented further progress, especially
as the French and English elements in the army were quarreUing
bitterly with each other. Philip Augustus was already jealous of
his old ally, and hTirried back to Europe to profit by his absence.
In these circumstances aU Richard's personal heroism could not
procure complete success to his cause. In 1192 he made a truce
by which the Christians were consoled in some measure for the
loss of Jerusalem by the condition that pilgrims were allowed free
access to the holy places.
3. Richard then started to return to Europe ; news reached him
that Philip Augustus was so hostile that the direct route back
through France was unsafe. Richard therefore Kiohard's
determined to travel by way of Germany. To avoid captivity in
attention he went in disguise, accompanied by only a "^'''"s.ny.
few followers ; but he soon attracted notice, and near Vienna was
arrested by Leopold, duke of Austria, an old crusader with whom
he had quaiTelled in the Holy Land. The supreme ruler of Ger-
many was now the Emperor Henry vi., son of Frederick Barbarossa,
who had died on the crusade. Henry vi. hated Richard because
he had given a refuge to his brother-in-law, Henry the Lion,
whom Frederick Barbarossa had expelled from Germany. He
welcomed the accident which had brought Richard within Leopold's
power, and soon the Atistrian duke handed Richard over to the
emperor's direct custody. Henry kept Richard in prison until he
agreed to pay the enormous ransom of £100,000 — a sum almost
amotinting to two years of the royal revenue, at a time when the
people were taxed to the uttermost. Besides this, Richard was
forced to surrender his kingdom to the Emperor, and receive
it back as a fief of the empire. In compensation for this humi-
liation Henry granted Richard the kingdom of Burgundy, or
Aries — a grant which meant nothing at all, as Henry had little
power over that district. Meanwhile strenuous efforts were made
to raise the king's ransom. Every landholder was called upon to
pay a fourth of his income, and the very chalices in the churches
were melted down to make up the sum. By 1194 the money was
paid, and Richard was free to go home.
4 During the five years of Richard's absence there had been
much confusion and some civil war in England. Yet it was a
134 RICHARD I. CCEUR DE LION [1189-
remarkable testimony to the abiding strength of Henry 11. 's
administrative system that the machinery of government continued
_ . to work even in the absence of the sovereign. Bishop
during Longchamp, the justiciar ,was not a successful minister.
Richard's He offended the barons by his pride and his foreign
tl89-l 194 '"'^y^' ^"^'^ '''^^y called on Earl John, the king's younger
brother, to help them to drive him from power.
Longchamp could not resist the force they brought against him,
and was forced in 1191 to quit the realm. At that moment
Walter of Coutances, archbishop of Rouen, came back from
crusade with a letter from Richard, nominating him as justiciar.
The barons accepted the king's candidate, and the archbishop
ruled England peaceably for two years. But when Richard's
captivity was known, Philip of France invaded Normandy, and
tried to capture Rouen. John allied' himself with the French
king, and rose in revolt against Richard. It is good evidence
that the archbishop of Rouen was a wise minister, that he drove
Philip out of Normandy, put down John's revolt, and raised the
king's ransom.
6. In 1194 Richard again appeared in England. His second
visit was almost as short as his first, and, as before, he devoted
England most of his energy to raising money. He generously
from 1194 forgave his treacherous brother, but was eager to have
to 1199. reveng'e on the French king, who had striven to rob
him of his dominions when he was the emperor's captive. Leav-
ing his comrade on the crusade, Hubert Walter, archbishop of
Canterbury, as justiciar, Richard soon left England, and was never
seen there again. He spent the rest of his life in waging war
against the French king, and left the whole administration of
England in the hands of the justiciar. Hubert Walter was a
nephew of Ranulf Glanville, justiciar of Henry 11., and had been
weU trained in the work of administration. He was powerful
enough to make several improvements in the administrative
system, and was ingenious in devising expedients to supply Richard
with money for fighting his battles. In 1198 he imposed such
burdens upon the people that they could bear them, no longer.
When called upon to f ui-nish knights to fight for Richard in Prance,
the barons resisted. Hugh of Avalon, bishop of Lincoln, a saintly
man who had once been a hermit, made himself the spokesman
of the opposition. He declared that he would rather go back to
his old hermit's life than lay fresh burdens on the tenants of his
-"99-]
RICHARD I. CCEUR DE LION
135
after resigned office. His successor was a layman, Geoffrey Fitz
Peter, earl of Essex.
6. During- aU these years Rickard was doing his best to break
down the power of Philip of Prance, and achieved a fair measure of
success. To protect Rouen and Normandy from in- Ri-hard's
vasion he built a new castle on a chalk cliff dominat- last wars
ing the Seine, near the town of Les Andelys. It was ^"'1 death,
a large and well-planned structure, and it was built
within twelve months. Proud of his skill as an engiaeer, Richard
cried, " Is not this a fine saucy baby of mine, this child of a year old P "
Prom this jest Richard's
castle took its name of Cha-
teau Gaillard — ^that is, Saucy
Castle. Gallant soldier though
he was, Richard's campaigns
were somewhat unfruitful.
His energies were consumed
iu petty wars which had no
real influence on events. In
one of these he met his death
in 1199. A vassal of Richard's,
lord of Chains, near Limoges,
discovered a treasure buried
in the earth. Richard claimed
the find for himseM, on the
ground that, as treasure-trove,
it belonged to him as over-
lord. His vassal resisted, and
Richard went in person to be-
siege the castle of Chains,
which the rebel held against
him. One day, as the king
was watching the progress of the siege, he was struck in the breast
by the bolt of a crossbow. The wound was treated by so unskUful
a surgeon that the flesh mortified. As Richard lay dying the
castle was taken, and the soldier who had shot him was brought
captive before him. " What have I done to thee," said the dying
king, " that thou shouldst slay me ? " " Thou hast slain," answered
the archer, " my father and two of my brothers ; tortiu-e me as thou
wilt, I shall die gladly since I have slain thee." Richard ordered
the man to be set free. He then gathered his barons round him,
and urged them to accept John as his successor. He died on
Emerv Walker ac.
PLAN OF CHATEAU GAILLARD.
136 RICHARD I. CCEUR DE LION [1199.
April 6, 1199, and, in spite of his commands, the crossbowman
was cruelly put to death. Though he had done so little for
England, Richard's reputation as a warrior long kept his memory
green. Apart from his personal exploits, the importance of his
reign rests in the fact that it proved that the foundations of the
system of Henry 11. had been so carefully laid that the ministers
were able to rule England in peace, despite Richard's absence and
neglect.
CHAPTER VII
JOHN LACKLAND (1199-1216)
Chief dates :
1199. Accession of John.
1204. Loss of Nonnandy.
1208. England put under Interdict.
1213. John's submission to Innocent iii.
1215. The Great Charter.
1216. Death of John.
1. On Eiohaxd's death. Jolin hurried to England, and easily got him-
self accepted as king. He was not the nearest heir by birth, for
his elder brother, G-eoffrey of Brittany, had left a son
named Arthur. Many who distrusted John wished j/hn^i?99°^
that Arthur should succeed Richard. But Arthur was
a boy, and it was quite in accordance with old English precedent
that his uncle, who was a grown man, should be preferred to him.
Philip of Prance, ever anxious to make mischief in the AngeTin
dominions, supported Arthur's cause ; but Queen Eleanor, though
now very old, used all her influence against her grandson, and in
favour of her youngest son. On May 27 John was crowned in
"Westminster Abbey by Hubert Walter.
2. John's previous career was ominous for the future. "When
sent as a young man to rule Ireland, his petulance and folly had
so disgusted the Irish chieftains that Henry ii. was
compelled to withdraw from him the government of pae^gp!^'
the island. We have seen already his treachery and
ingratitude to his father and elder brother. Able, like all the
Angevins, and capable, on occasion, of energetic action, both aS a
warrior and statesman, he wrecked his whole career by the narrow
selfishness which sacrificed aU his highest interests to gratify the
caprice of the moment. His life was foul ; he was cruel, treacherous,
and deceitful ; he could be bound by no promise, and kept stead-
fast in no course of action. The liistory of WUliam Rufus had
shown that a bad man might be a competent king. As a man, John
137
138 JOHN LACKLAND [1199-
was not much worse than Rufus ; as a king, he was utterly lacking
in that intelligent sense of self-interest which gave purpose to
Rufus's wickedest acts of tyranny. From the heginning of his reign
he was only saved from disaster by the restraining influence ex-
ercised over him by three wise advisers. His mother, Eleanor,
secured his succession to the whole of the Angevin Empire.
Hubert Walter, the archbishop of Canterbury, kept up some sort
of terms between him and the Church. The justiciar, Geoffrey Eitz
Peter, managed, despite many obstacles, to carry on the internal
government of England on the Unes laid down by Heruy 11. As
time went on the removal of these three faithful friends left John
free to follow his own caprice, and in each case his personal action
involved him in humiliation and disaster. The death of Eleanor
was quickly followed by the loss of Normandy. The death of
Hubert Walter soon led to a mortal quarrel with the Church.
When Fitz Peter died John blundered into a quarrel with his
English subjects which cost him his greatest and last humiliation.
Round these three great calamities the history of his reign centred.
The Angevin Empire, which had survived the neglect of Richard,
was destroyed by the active tyranny of John.
3. It was with great difficulty that Eleanor had succeeded ia
winning over all the Angevin dominions in France to John's side.
John and ®^^ '^^'^ helped by the treachery of Philip 11., who
Arthur of took up arms on Arthur's behalf, but kept all the con-
Bplttany. quests he made for himself. This annoyed Arthur's
friends so much that they made terms with John, and finally,
in 1200, Philip himself recognized his rival as his brother's heir.
Within a few months of this recognition John's folly and greed
compelled him to fight once more for his dominions. He repudiated
his rich wife Isabella of Gloucester, and married Isabella of
Angouleme, the heiress of the county of that name. Isabella was
betrothed to Hugh of Lusignan, count of La Marche, the most
powerful of the lords of Poitou, who was bitterly incensed at losing
both the lady and her possessions. He called upon the barons of
Poitou to help bim ; many of these had grievances of their own
against their capricious sovereign, and they wiUingly appealed to
Pliilip II. as overlord to protect them from the lawless acts of their
immediate lord. After long delays Philip accepted their appeal,
and in 1202 summoned John to Paris to answer the complaints
brought against him. John refused to appear, and the court of the
French king condemned him to lose aU his lands in France. Philip
at once invaded Normandy, in the hope of enforcing the sentence
I2I4.] JOHN LACKLAND 1 39
in person. He recognized Arthur of Brittany as lord of Ao[uitaine
and Anjon, and invited him to conquer his inheritance. Arthur,
though only fifteen years old, showed gallantry and resolution. He
invaded Poitou, and took possession of Mirebeau, one of its chief
strongholds. His grandmother, Eleanor, who was in the town, was
forced to take refuge in the castle, where she was strictly blockaded
by her grandson. John himself came to his mother's rescue,
defeated Arthur's troops, and took his nephew prisoner. Arthur
was imprisoned at Eouen, and was murdered in 1203 by his uncle's
orders. Next year old Queen Eleanor died, and John's cause
speedily collapsed.
4. Philip II. threw all his energies into the conquest of
Normandy. John remained inactive at Eouen, and seemed un-
moved by his rival's successes. " Let Philip go on,'' The loss of
he said; "whatever he takes, I shall retake it in a Normandy
single day." At last Phffip besieged Chateau GaiUard. a-ndAnjou.
Richard's favourite castle held out gallantly for eight months, and
its reduction was one of the greatest feats of military engineering of
the time. John made but feeble efforts to succour the garrison, and
in April, 1204, Philip captured the place by assault. Normandy was
now open to attack, and many of its barons, disgfusted with John's
slackness, made common cause with the French king. With the
surrender of Rouen in June, the whole of the duchy passed into
Philip's hands. Next year Philip established his power over the
greater part of Poitou. Anjou was overrun with equal ease, and
by 1206 John's authority over Prance was limited to the lands
south of the Charente.
5. For the rest of his reign John made half-hearted and gene-
rally unsuccessful attempts to reconquer his father's lands, and the
levity and instability of the Poitevin barons gave him
many chances of turning the tables on Philip. His l^ Roche au
most serious attempt was made in 1213, when he Moine and
managed to win back much of the ground lost in lai'I °^^'
Poitou and Anjou. His nephew Otto, son of his
sister and Henry the Lion, who had been brought up at his court,
was now Roman emperor, through the support of Pope Inno-
cent in. Otto, however, soon quarrelled with the pope, and as
John was also on bad terms with Rome, uncle and nephew worked
closely together. As Philip of France was the close ally of Inno-
cent, Otto and John formed a great league of excommunicated
princes against him. In 1214, while Otto carried on the war in the
northern frontier of France, John went to Anjou and besieged the
I40 JOHN LACKLAND [1205-
castle of La Eoohe au Moine, on the Loire. Louis, Philip 11. 's
eldest son, led an army to its relief, and a battle seemed imminent,
but at the last moment John shirked an engagement, and fled to
the south. In the same year Otto was defeated by Philip in a
great battle at Bouvines, near Tournai. This double disaster broke
up the coalition. It secured the establishment of Philip's power
in Anjou and Poitou, and for the rest of his life domestic concerns
occupied John too fully to allow hiTn to contend any longer against
his adversary. Henceforth the northern parts of the Angevin
empire were permanently annexed to France. Though the circum-
stances of their loss was very disgraoeftd to John, yet the separa-
tion of England and Normandy proved, in the long run, a good
thing for France and England. The two countries were bound to
remain separate and independent nations, and it was best for both
that they should be so. Philip's conquests so immensely increased
the strength of France that henceforward the French monarchy,
so feeble under the early Capetians, became one of the greatest
states of Europe. It was also a gain to England that Normandy
should no longer be under the rule of the English king. Up to
then many English barons had had estates in both countries, and
the consequent division of their interests made it hard for them to
become good Englishmen. They had now to choose between
France and England. Those who had their main estates in
England lost their Norman possessions, so that their sole interests
were for the future on this side of the channel. Thus the separa-
tion of the kingdom and the duchy was another step forward in the
growth of English unity and English national feeling. The
Norman aristocracy of England had no longer any reason for acting
otherwise than as Englishmen.
6. In 1206 Hubert Walter, the wise archbishop of Canterbtuy,
died. His death removed a powerful check from the king, and a
The disDuted dispute about the succession soon led John into a
election at fierce conflict with the Church. The right of electing
?9n^^'''"""^' ^^^ hishop rested with the chapter of his cathedral,
and the Benedictine monks of the cathedral of Christ
Church, Canterbury, had an undoubted legal claim to choose the
new archbishop. But the monks were apt to take a narrow view
of their duty, and to forget that the selection of the head of the
English Church was a business that concerned the whole country.
As a matter of fact, the king had always a large share in deciding
who was to be archbishop, and the tendency was to reduce what
was called the canonical election by the chapter to the mere form
-I207.] JOHN LACKLAND 141
of the monks accepting the king's nominee. On this occasion,
however, the monks of Christ Church ootJd not agree among each
other or with the king. The yoTinger brethren, thinking of the
interests of their monastery, rather than the interests of the
Church as a whole, elected as archbishop their sub-prior Reginald,
a boastful and commonplace monk, with no claim to so distin-
guished an office. They did not ask John's permission to proceed
to election, and made their choice in the utmost secrecy. They
sent Reginald to Rome to get the paZZiitm. from the pope, and told him
to say nothing about their action. Reginald, however, was so pleased
with his new dignity that he could not keep it to himself. News of
the monks' hasty choice soon reached John, who in great anger
ordered the chapter to choose one of his ministers, John de Grey,
bishop of Norwich, who was a mere politician. Some of the monks
consented to do this from fear of the king, and soon G-rey also was
urgiag the pope to give him the palliutn as the rightly elected
archbishop.
7. As supreme head of the Church the popes had long claimed
a voice in the appointment of the chief ecclesiastical dignitaries.
A disputed election such as this always gave them a
special opportunity of interfering with effect. The procures
Roman see was now held by Innocent iii., who was Langton's
perhaps the most powerful of aU the popes of the ^gnt 1207
Middle Ages. He was eager to extend his influence in
every direction, and being a high-minded and honourable man,
was anxious that the best possible person should become archbishop
of Canterbury. He soon convinced himself that both Reginald
and John were unfit for so great a burden. He summoned repre-
sentatives of the chapter to Rome, and advised them to pass over
both candidates and make a fresh election. He recommended them
to choose Stephen Langton, an Englishman by birth, and a famous
theologian, who was then living at Rome as a cardinal of the
Roman Church. The monks could not resist papal pressure,
and elected Langton. Thereupon Innocent gave him the pallium,
and consecrated him bishop with his own hands.
8. Langton was likely to be a much better archbishop than the
foolish monk and the greedy worldling respectively favoured by
chapter and king. Buthowever wise Innocent's appoint- Quarrel of
ment was, it was a dangerous thing that the head of John and
the EngUsh Church should be forced upon the country I°"oeent III.
by the pope, and wiser kings than John might weU have hesitated
to accept the nomination from Rome. There is no need, however, to
142 JOHN LACKLAND [1208-
suppose that deep motives of policy and a high-minded desire to
resist papal aggression moved John to resist Innocent's nominee.
John's sole wish was to get as archbishop a dependant who would
help him to plunder and oppress the Church. But, whatever his
motives, he would not give way to the pope, and as Innocent was
equally unbending, a fierce conflict broke out between them. Mean-
while the church of Canterbury remained vacant, for Innocent
would not recognize Grey, and John would not allow Langton
to enter the country. After a year Innocent put Eng-
T?'^ '?poR \wi^ under an interdict. An interdict was one of the
severest punishments which the Church could inflict.
By it aU public worship was forbidden ; churches were closed ; no
beE was tolled ; the dead were buried in unconsecrated ground
without any religious rites ; it was a favour that the dying were
admitted to the last sacraments, and baptism allowed to the new-
born child. Men thought that God's favour was withdrawn from a
land under interdict, and in that age of faith the loss of the con-
solations of the Church was a thing grievous to be borne. John,
who was as godless as William Hufus, cared little for the interdict.
He was strong enough to force many of the clergy to continue their
services and ignore the pope's orders. Those priests who obsei-ved
the interdict were driven into banishment. A year passed by,
John's ex- ^^^ John remained as obstinate as ever. In 1209
communica- Innocent excommunicated John ; that is to say, he
tion, 1209. refused to allow him to participate in any of the ser-
vices of the Church. The king was as careless of excommunica-
tion as he had been of the interdict, and Innocent was forced to
seek a more effective weapon against him. As head of the Church
the pope had long claimed the power of declaring that princes who
were foes to the Church had ceased to reign over their dominions.
By virtue of this Innocent had ah-eady deposed John's nephew,
Otto. In 1212 he declared that if John resisted any longer he
would deprive him of his throne. Innocent called upon John's
enemy, Philip II., who was now a close friend of the papacy, to
execute the sentence. PhiKp willingly accepted the commission,
and prepared to invade England.
9. John was seriously alarmed, and sought to buy off the
John's sub- pop^'s hostility by an offer to accept Langton as
mission to archbishop. Innocent insisted on a more abject sub-
Jo^o"^"'" mission, and John, in despair, yielded to all his
demands. In 1213 there came to Dover a papal envoy
named Pandulf, appointed to reconcile John to the Church if he
-I2I3.] JOHN LACKLAND I43
fulfilled the hard conditions imposed upon him. John agreed to
recognize Langton as archbishop, to restore to their benefices the
partisans of the pope whom he had banished, and to surrender his
crown to the triumphant pope. Two days later he received it back
again from Pandulf, on promising to be the pope's vassal for the
future. Like any other feudal vassal, he took an oath of fealty to
Innocent as to his suzerain, and performed the humiliating act of
homage to the pope's representative. Moreover, he agreed to pay
henceforth a tribute of 1000 marks a year to the Roman see.
10. Thus John became the vassal of the pope, as Kichard had
become the vassal of the emperor. To the men of the time there
seemed little that was humiliating in both acts ; to . j^ ^
moderns both seem equally disgracefid. As regards comes the
their consequences, there was all the difierence in the J'^^^p' °'
world between the two surrenders. The emperor's
power was small, and constantly growing less. He had no means of
enforcing his lordship over England, so that Richard's surrender
was a mere form which even the emperor did not care to revive,
and which was soon forgotten. The pope had more influence in
every country in western Europe than the king, and he had in the
clergy permanent agents of his will. To the enormous ecclesias-
tical authority exercised by the pope in England after the Norman
conquest was now added political supremacy as overlord. Hence-
forth England was regarded as depending on Rome in the same
way that Grascony depended on Prance, or Wales on England.
John, however, thought little of the ultimate consequences of his
act, for to him it was but a move in the game. Henceforth he had
the pope on his side, and having by his surrender stopped the
French invasion, he was in a position to renew the attacks on
France, which ended so disastrously, as we have seen, at La Roche
au Moine and Bouvines. Luckily he was turned from this purpose
by a quarrel with his subjects.
11. From his accession John had ruled England capriciously
and tyrannically, and had offended many of the most powerful of
his barons. It was, however, no new thing for king ^.^^ breach
and nobles to be at variance. Since the days of the between
conquest the king always relied upon his people as a ^?''" ^''^^
whole to support him against aristocratic revolt. But
times had changed since the reign of Henry 11. Cut off from
Normandy, the barons now thought mainly of England, and were
rapidly forgetting the feudal tradition which had made it the
ambition of each one of them to be a little king over his own
144 JOHN LACKLAND [1213-
estate. The baronial leaders were still tarbulent and seMsh in their
policy, but their object was henceforward not to upset the central
government so much as to take a prominent share in its ad-
ministration. Their aims were henceforward so far national that
there was no reason why Englishmen should not support them.
Moreover, John had ruled so badly that the people might weU
support any party which aimed at reducing his authority.
12. John's excessive demands for foreign service first fired the
indignation of his barons. In 1213 many refused to follow him to
Progress of Poitou, and in 1214 the same magnates declined to
the quarrel, pay a scutage which he demanded. While the king
1213-1215. ^^g abroad the barons met in council, and Langton
laid before them Henry i.'s charter of liberties, and advised
them to obtain a similar document from John. Up to 1213 the
prudent rule of the justiciar, Fitz Peter, had partly checked
John's tyranny ; but the justiciar now died, and John, with
characteristic ingratitude, rejoiced at the removal of the restraint
which G-eoffrey had imposed upon him. During John's long absence
abroad the barons organized resistance. When he returned in 1214,
he came back disgraced and vanquished. Finding that there was
no chance of exacting concessions by peaceful means, the barons took
arms and went to war against their sovereign. Every one now
deserted John, save a few faithful nobles like William Marshall,
earl of Pembroke, who believed that they were bound to support
the king, even when he was a bad one. John's main reliance was
upon his foreign favourites and mercenary soldiers imported from
abroad to overawe his kingdom. With such backing it was im-
possible for John to hold out long against his subjects, and he soon
yielded as abjectly to his barons as he had formerly surrendered to
the pope. On June 15, 1215, he met the baronial leaders at a
meadow on the banks of the Thames, between Windsor and Staines,
called Eunnymede. There he sealed the articles of submission
which the barons had drawn up for his acceptance.
13. This document is famous as Magna Carta, or the Great
Charter, and is justly regarded as marking the beginnings of
The Great English liberty. Prom the conq^uest to this date the
Charter, Norman kings had reigned as despots. The union of
• all classes against John now forced the king to agree
that his authority should be limited. The clauses of the charter
were to some extent modelled on that of Henry i., but there was a
great difEerenoe between a charter granted with the king's goodwill
and a charter imposed on a reluctant king at the point of the sword.
-I2i6.] JOHN LACKLAND 145
Moreover, the charter o£ 1215 was a much fuUer dooument than
that of 1100. It contamed few novelties, but clearly stated the
customs of the realm in the days of Henry 11. It promised free-
dom to the English Church, and especially freedom to chapters to
elect their bishops. A large number of clauses carefully limited
the rights of the crown to exact feudal dues from the barons, and
the barons were similarly required to treat their own tenants
leniently. London and the towns were to have their liberties
preserved ; merchants had freedom to trade in times of peace. No
new aids or taxes were to be levied by the king without the con-
sent of the great council of barons. Justice was to be denied to
no man, and no freeman was to be imprisoned or outlawed, save
according to the judgment of his peers and the law of the land.
14. John accepted the barons' demands without the least intention
of keeping his word. His object was to gain time, and, as soon as
he could, he repudiated his promise. He persuaded _
Innocent in. that the charter was against the interests the war of
of the Bioman Church because it reduced the power of •^'"^ *id
the pope's vassal. In conseq[uence of this Innocent
issued a bull declaring the document invalid. John then raised an
army of foreign mercenaries, and went to war against the barons.
For once he showed energy and activity. Before long he pressed
the nobles so hard that they were forced to call in foreign aid.
They requested Louis of France, who had defeated John at La Roche
au Moine, to come over and help them and be their king. Louis
at once accepted their offer, and landed in England. Even with
his aid the barons had still a hard task before them. The pope
excommunicated Louis, and few of the clergy dared to support
him, while many of the officials of the school of
Henry 11. faitlifuUy rallied round the king. However, j^^n 12I6
on October 19, 1216, John died suddenly in the midst
of the struggle. He was the worst of English monarohs, and his
persistent ill fortune was entirely his own faidt. It was no wonder
that men called him, in shame, John Lackland. With him the
Norman despotism came to an end. It had done its work in
making England peaceable and united, and was no longer needed.
CHAPTER VIII
FEUDAL BRITAIN
1. The chief resiilts of the Norman coiic[iiest were to stimulate the
energy of England, to promote its unity, and to break down the
. • wall of separation that had hitherto divided it from
tance (rf the ^^^ ^^^^ "^ the world. In a lesser degree the Normans
Norman exercised a similar influence over the non-English
a°l°Bpftain?'" ^^^ °* *^^ British Islands. They made EngUsh-
speaking Scotland a feudal land as much as England.
Though their influence was more superficial in Celtic districts, they
made their power felt in Celtic Scotland, in Wales, and in Ireland.
Reduced to a common subjection under their restless and masterful
Norman lords, the Irish and the Welsh, like the English, lost some-
thing of their ancient freedom, and were for the first time brought
into more than nominal dependence upon an English king. Thus
the Norman conquest, which finally brought about the union of
England, did much to prepare the way for the later union of the
British Isles. While, however, Norman and Englishman were
amalgamated by the twelfth century into a single people, Celtic
tribalism and Norman feudalism lay too far asunder to be capable
of fusion. It resulted from this that Norman influence over
Celtic lands ever remained what it originally was in England — ^that
is, the rule of the alien based simply upon military force. Eor
that reason it was more superficial than was the case in England.
Nevertheless, the history of the British Islands would have been
very different had there not been Norman conquests of Scotland,
Wales, and Ireland, as well as of England. To all these countries
alike the conquest marks the chief turning-point of their history.
2. We have seen how the Norman kings completed the estab-
lishment of the feudal system of land tenure in England. In so
doing, they brought our country into line with the general civi-
lization of that mediseval Europe of which England soon became
one of the important powers. Henceforward the isolation of
Anglo- Saxon England was replaced by openness to new ideas, and
I2i6.] FEUDAL BRITAIN lA.'J
constant participation in all the great movements of the time.
While Anglo-Saxon England lived its life apart in sluggish
indifference to the world beyond, Norman and Angevin
England stood in the forefront of every great Euro- deah^ngs**
pean movement. Its kings were as powerful across between
the sea as in Britain. Its feudal institutions were Britain and
those of the western world. Its knights lived the same nent.
life and fought after the same fashion as the warriors
of the continent. Englishmen took their full share in the crusades
and the other international movements of the time. This communion
of sympathy was even greater in the domain of ideas than in the
world of action. We shall see this in detail when we study the new
position of the English Church.
3. The vital fact of the Norman and Angevin periods was the
permanent establishment of the centralized despotism of the king.
The only real checks to the caprice of the monarch Thekinir
were the nobles and great ecclesiastics, and even these and tlie
had little power to control the king, save by directly Great
waging war against him. The place of the Witei lageniot
as the council of the nation was now taken by the Great Covmcil,
which did not differ very greatly from it in constitution or powers.
It was composed, during the twelfth century, of all the tenants in
chief of the crown, but in practice only the more important tenants
were in the habit of attending it. It agreed to new laws and to
extraordinary taxes; but, lite the Witenagemot, it seems seldom
or never to have ventured to resist the wishes of a strong king.
Even more under the monarch's control were the courts composed
of oificials appointed by him, such as the Curia Regis and the
Exchequer, of which we have spoken elsewhere. In both of them
the chief ministers of the crown had seats. Besides the Justiciar,
the regent in the king's absence, and the prime minister when he
was in England, the king's chief ministers were the Chancellor, who
was a sort of secretary, issuing all writs and documents, and the
Treasurer, who controlled the finances. It was generally thought
best to give these ofB.ces to ecclesiastics, who were better educated
than laymen, and were not able to hand on their powers to their
families. The offices of state, held by lay lords, such as the military
dignities of Marshal and Constable, became hereditary.
4 The local courts of the Shire and Hundred were stiU con-
tinued. Thoiigh the feudal courts of the gfreat landlords often
usurped the jurisdiction of the hundred, the shire moot remained
a strong body, though it also became in practice a court of the
148 FEUDAL BRITAIN [io66-
landlords. The circuit and jury system of Henry 11. brought it
into close relations with the central government, and the kings
found it very useful as a means of raising money and
government °* ascei-taining public opinion. The immense revenue
of the crown was mainly derived by taxes on land.
It was collected by the Sheriffs of the shires, who went twice a year
to the Exchequer at Westminster to present their accounts and
pay over the money they had raised. They were the chief agents
of the king in dealing with the local government, and had much
more power and importance than before the conquest.
5. Great as were the changes brought about by Norman in-
fluence, the vast majority of Englishmen still lived a Ufe not very
Earls different from that of their ancestors before the
barons, and conquest. Land remained the chief source of wealth,
knights. g^jj^ nearly everybody depended on agriculture for his
livelihood. Like the Anglo-Saxon thegns, the Norman nobles
owed their importance to their being possessors of large landed
estates. Though the kings looked with suspicion upon the political
ambitions of the barons, they put no obstacles in the way of the
accumulation of great estates under a single hand. War, however,
and the unhealthy conditions of life made the duration of a baronial
house extremely short. By the beginning of the thirteenth century
there were few Norman houses left which could boast an uninter-
rupted descent from those who came over with the Conqueror.
This was particularly the case with the earldoms, whose possessors
still formed a small and powerful class at the head of the aristocracy.
Next to them came the greater harons, who included aU tenants in
chief important enough to be summoned to the king's council by a
special writ. By the thirteenth century, these were not more than
a hundred in number. The lesser harons were the tenants in chief,
who were called to the king's councils by general wi-its addressed
to the sheriff of each county. They ultimately became combined
with the mesne tenants, to form the lesser nobility, or knighthood,
which plays in medissval history the same part as that taken by the
country gentr'y of more modern times. Properly, a hniglii was a
fully armed and mounted soldier who had been solemnly admitted
to the use of arms by his older and tried comrades. The greatest
kings and soldiers were proud to be dubbed knight by some famous
warrior; but every landowner of a fair-sized estate was, by the
thirteenth century, compelled by the king to become a knight, so
that a knight often meant simply a smaller landlord.
6. The estates of the nobles and gentry were divided into
I2i6.] FEUDAL BRITAIN 1 49
mmwrs, wMcli were all much of the same type. Each manor had
its lord, who controlled all the land and exercised jiirisdiotion
in his manorial court oyer his tenants. Sometimes
the lord had special rights of jurisdiction, as, for ex- gy^tera"'"''^'
ample, the trial of criminals. In this case, he also held
a court-leet, in which these powers were exercised. If the lord were
a great man, he held many manors scattered all over England, and
was in conseq^uence seldom in residence. His'i steward, or repre-
sentative, then acted on his behalf, while in any case his bailiff
looked after the details of cultivation and the management of the
estate. There was probably a haU. where the lord could reside
with his family and servants. The land was divided into two
parts. First, there was the demesne, or home farm of the lord,
which was cultivated by his baUiffi for him, by the help of the
villagers, who were compelled to work on their lord's . .
estate for a certain number of days in the year. The
rest of the manor was divided among the villagers, most of whom
belonged to the villein class. The villeins were serfs, bound to the
soil, who could not move from the estate of their lord. In some
ways they were not badly ofE. Each had his cottage and little
patch of ground, from which he could not be turned ofi so long as
he performed the services of his lord. Though they had no luxuries,
the villeins seem to have had in ordinary times plenty of meat,
bread, and ale, and enough warm wooUen clothing to keep out the
cold. They were, however, exposed to the caprice of their lords,
and, though not called upon to perform military service, were the
first to STiffer whenever war broke out. Though the Norman
conquest increased the number of villeins, there was this compen-
sation—that the absolute slavery which was common in early
England died out during the Norman period.
7. There was little variety in the cultivation of the soil. The
ploughs were heavy, and were drawn by several yoke of oxen.
The old succession of corn-crops and fallow still went
on. The lands tilled by the tenants were not grouped hifsbandry.
together in compact holdings, but were scattered in
long narrow strips all over the manor. This was also the case
with the lord's demesne. In most other ways the Anglo-Saxon
system was continued. There was still a large extent of common
land, and after harvest any tenant could still pasture his cattle
on the arable fields. The farmer's object was still to raise enough
corn and meat to keep himself and his family through the winter.
Though trade and markets were becoming more important, there
ISO FEUDAL BRITAIN [1066-
was little interoonrse between various districts. The estabUsliment
of the strong Norman despotism greatly added to the happiness
of the ordinary man, who oonld till his fields and go about his
business in comparative safety.
8. Towns and trade received an immense impetus as a result of
the Norman conquest. Towns not only became bigger and richer ;
they ceased to be mainly the homes of husbandmen or
To^ras and refugees in time of war, and henceforth were centres
of trade and industry. The merchants of the chief
towns formed societies called Merchant-guilds, and in many places
the merchant-guild secured a monopoly of trade for its members,
as well as virtual control of the government of the borough. The
Norman trader was as restless and energetic as the Norman soldier,
and since Edward the Confessor's days many Normans had settled
down in English towns, and actively busied themselves in commerce.
The father of St. Thomas of Canterbury was, for example, a Norman
who had established himself in London and won a high position for
himself in the city. After the conquest Jews began to take up
their abode in the greater English towns, and made much profit for
themselves as money-lenders. In this business the Jews had a
practical monopoly, since the law of the Church for-
bade all Christians to lend money on usury. They
were unpopular, and were often cruelly persecuted. They were
forced to wear a distinctive dress, and live in a special part of
the town, called a Jewry. But they generally enjoyed the king's
protection, because they could afford to pay heavily for it. Gradually
they obtained special laws, courts, and recognized customs of their
own. They were much richer than the Christians, and were
among the first private people who buUt stone houses to live in.
9. Even before the conquest London was the most important
town in England; Prom Edward the Confessor's time omvard, the
London and "ourt made Westminster its chief centre, and it followed
other chief from this that London gradually became a recognized
°^"^" capital. It received many liberties by royal charters, of
which the most important was one issued by Henry i. Its citizens
took an active part in politics, and their zeal in supporting Stephen
and in opposing John were especially noteworthy. Under Richard i.
London obtained the right of choosing its own mayor, and was
lienceforth self-governing in every respect. The country towns
were contented to obtain from the king charters which extended to
them privileges which were already possessed by the Londoners.
rinnsnicnmiK nmci-ncf -i^Tift-m xtavo "Vm-V +.lio ^q.-i^i+qI r»-P +1,q rl/^■»»^-■^^ .
-I2i6.] FEUDAL BRITAIN 151
Exeter, the chief town of the west ; Bristol, the most important
port after London ; and Norwich, the leading manufacturing city.
Among the ports, those of the south-east coast were particularly
conspicuous. They were called the Cinque Ports, because they were
originally five in number. They formed a confederation among
themselves, and showed great activity. When war arose, the ships
of the Cinque Ports formed a large part of the royal navy. The
most famous of them was Dover, the chief port of passage between
England and the continent. As the Norman power was extended
over Wales and Ireland, towns grew up for the first time in those
countries xmder the protection of the Norman lords. Despite the
great development of town life, the English were still not very
energetic iu commerce. What foreign trade there was remained in
the hands of foreigners. It was for that reason that the Great
Charter laid special stress upon protecting foreign merchants, and
giving them free access to England in. peace time.
10. Life was stiU simple, primitive, and hard. Even the king
and the great nobles had no high standard of comfort. There was
little money in the country, and a great man could
only support his numerous train of followers by wan- Kyf^l""^ °^
dering ceaselessly from one of his estates to another.
When the produce of one estate was eaten up, the magnate went
on to the next, for it was easier for men to move about than
it was for produce to be carried for long distances. Kings and
nobles were thus forced to change their abode so often that it was
never worth while to collect much furniture or make their dwellings
comfortable. Houses were stUl mainly built of wood, and the
castles, erected for military purposes, were cramped and dark places
to live in. There was much dirt and overcrowding among most
orders of society, and only the great had any chance of privacy.
Men huddled together to sleep in the same room in which they
lived or ate. There were few amusements, and scanty means of
keeping out the cold of winter.
11. Despite these disadvantages, the Normans brought in a
more refined way of living than that which had prevailed before the
conquest. They cooked their food more delicately,
and despised the gross feeding and heavy drinking of j°essf "
the EngUsh. They also brought in new methods of
dress, which were especially exemplified by the profligate dandies
of WiUiam Kufus's court, whose rich mantles, embroidered tunics,
and long shoes, curling up to a point, were bitterly denounced by
An Helm and the zealous ecclesiastics. Normans cut their hair short,
152 FEUDAL BRITAIN [1066-
and sliaved tlieir faces, so that to tlie English they ail looked like
priests. Married -womeii wore a wimple and veil, and dressed very
much as nuns stiU do. Unmarried women and men went bare-
headed, though in stormy weather travellers would protect them-
selves hy low round hats. Foreign luxuries were more common
than formerly, and furs were used by the wealthy of both sexes.
The weapons and armour of warriors long remained similar
to those used by the Normans in the battle of Hastings. By
the tweKth century horses as well as men-at-arms were protected
by armour. The knight's hauberh of chain-mail was supplemented
by other trapping's to protect him better from attack. The helmet,
hitherto open, save for a nasal, protecting the nose, became an
elaborate structure, closed by a grating, or visor, with holes for
the eyes and mouth. Under the helnaet was worn a skull-cap of
steel, covered by a hood of maU, protecting the head and neck.
12. The towns and villages were stUl rude collections of wooden
and mud huts, but great care was taken in the erection of castles,
churches, and monasteries. The first Norman castles
casS" were hastily built structures of wood, raised upon a
lofty artificial mound of earth, which was surrounded
by a deep ditch and defended by a thick palisade. Soon stone
castles began to be erected. These were of two types. In
both, the defences centred round a great tower, called the heep.
Sometimes the keep was a high square tower built of solid stone
with walls of enormous thickness, and roofed either with wood or
by vatilts of stone, so that the whole area within its walls served
for habitation or storage. Sometimes the keep was more lightly
erected on the top of an artificial mound of earth, which was not
strong enough to bear the ponderous weight of the former variety.
This latter species was called the shell-hoep, and was often hexagonal
or polygonal in shape. In this the exterior wall of the tower served
only as a curtain, and the buildings were roughly erected in wood
or stone within its area. The White Tower of the Tower of London,
and Rochester Castle, are famous instances of the sq^uare keep,
while the keeps of Lincoln and Carisbrooke exemplify the shell-keep.
In each type of castle there were exterior defences, enclosing a
wide area by stone walls, high earthworks, and deep ditches fiUed
with water. Later on, the Norman builders sometimes erected
round, instead of square keeps, as, for example, at Pembroke, or at
Conisborough, near Donoaster, in Yorkshire, where the huge round
tower is further strengthened by buttresses, and its interior is
richly fitted up and adorned. Wherever the Normans went they
-12 16.] FEUDAL BRITAIN 153
built their fortresses, so that the march of Wales, even more than
England, became pre-eminently a land of castles. The famous
Chateau Gaillard, built by Kiohard i. in Normandy, was the most
elaborate castle of its day (see ground plan on page 135), and pre-
pares the -way for the magnificent and complicated fortresses of the
thirteenth century.
13. The Norman style ofarcliUecture, roughly illustrated by their
military buildings, attained its richer and more artistic develop-
ment in the solemn and mighty churches which the
piety of the new-comers erected in every part of the „jJu™]ies
land. Edward the Confessor's, abbey of Westminster
shows that this fashion had begun before the conquest. The
removal of the cathedrals from the country to the great towns, and
the wonderful development of monastic life which followed the
conquest, gave many opportunities for erecting Norman churches
in every part of England. The nave of Durham Cathedral, com-
pleted by Eanxdf Flambard, and the cathedral of Norwich, erected
by bishop Herbert of Losinga, represent the earlier Norman
type ; while the naves of the cathedrals of Peterborough and Ely
illustrate the richer Norman of the twelfth century. Both are
characterized by the prevalence of the round arch and by massive
solemnity of proportion, while in the later examples there is much
barbaric richness of decoration. They belong to the Bomanesqwe
type of architecture which the Romans bequeathed to all Europe.
14. The Eomanesque bxdlders were unable to erect vaults of
stone over large or high buildings. About the middle of the
twelfth century successful experiments in the art of ™j^ j^ -
vaulting large spaces resulted in the Gothic style of nings of
architecture, which began to replace the Romanesque. Gothic
The earliest Gothic buildings were erected in France. t„pg_' ^'''
There was no sudden change from the old to the
newer style. Gothic grew gradually out of the older Romanesque,
and we can trace, especially in the buildings of Henryji.'s time, how
the one style fades into the other. Examples of the transition are
to be seen in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral, built by a French
arcliiteot soon after the murder of St. Thomas, and in the great
abbeys erected to accommodate the Cistercian and other new
orders, conspicuous instances of which are the picturesque ruins of
Fountains or KirkstaU in Yorkshire. In these round arches, after
the Norman fashion, are found side by side with the pointed arch
of the later style. The Gothic vault is largely employed, and the
general structure is lighter and more masterly than that of the
154 FEUDAL BRITAIN [1066-
Worman builders. When, tlie Gothic style had attained its full
proportions, the pointed arch replaced the round Norman arch.
The first truly Gothic building erected in England was the choir
of Lincoln Cathedral, built by its bishop, St. Hugh, at the very
beginning of the thirteenth century.
15. "We have already seen that a remarkable development of
monastic life followed the Norman cono[uest. In the abbey of
New monas- Battle, erected on the site of his victory over Harold,
tic move- the Conqueror set a model which his followers faith-
ments. fully adopted. New monasteries rose up all over the
land, and many French houses of religion received great estates in
England. At first the new abbeys aU followed the rtile of St.
Benedict. Early in the twelfth century fresh monastic types were
brought from the continent into England. Conspicuous among
these were the Cistercians, or White Monks, who sought
to save themselves from the temptations of the Bene-
dictine houses by extreme asceticism of life, by withdrawing from
the haunts of man and setting up their abbeys in the wilderness,
and by eschewing all pomp and ornament even in the conduct
of Divine worship and the building of their habitations and
churches. For this reason the Cistercian monks chose for their
abodes remote districts, such as the hiUs of Yorkshire and the
mountains of Wales. About the same time there came to England
the Canons Regular, who, while living the life of
Regular. monks, strove to do also the work of clerks, and
busied themselves with teaching and preaching as well
as with meditation and prayer. Another new monastic type was
that of the Military Orders, which were set up as the result of the
Crusades. The chief of these were the knights of the Temple and
the knights of St. John. These orders lived, when at peace, the
life of the canons regular, but their special mission
tapy Orders ^** ^° fight the heathen and the infidel, and in par-
ticular to defend the sepulchre of Christ from the
assaults of the Mohammedans. In them the two great types of
the Middle Ages, the warrior and the monk, were curiously com-
bined. All these new orders took deep root in England, notably
during the anarchy of Stephen's days, when men, despairing of
this world, were fain to turn to the cloister for refuge. As a result
of the monastic movement, a great religious revival ai-ose. Even
more conspicuously important than those in England were the
monastic and religious movements which followed in the train
„£ -NT ,-„a„„„„„ ;„ T5ir„l„„ C!„„4.1„«,l „«j t„„i„«j t„ il,„„„
-I2i6.] FEUDAL BRITAIN 1 55
lands the Norman priests and monks eradicated the last traces
of the ancient independence of the Celtic chniohes, and brought
in the Roman types of ecclesiastical life, organization, and art,
for which they had already secured a paramoimt position in
England.
16. The twelfth century saw the best results of the improve-
ments in government and civilization and the revival of religion
which followed upon the Norman conquest. The life ,^^ Twelfth
of learning and study again became possible. At first Century Re-
the chief teachers and students came, like Lanf ranc and "aissance
Anselm, from the monasteries. Before long, however, beginnings
the love of knowledge spread to secular clerks, and of Univer-
even to laymen. Masters or teachers collected round ^ ®^'
them bands of eager students of philosophy, philology, and litera-
ture. So numerous did these groups of teachers and students
become that permanent schools grew up at various centres. Before
long the teachers in each place became an organized society or
corporation, with special privileges and strong position. These
organized schools were called Universities, a word which means
simply a corporation. The most famous university in the west was
that of Paris, to which students flocked from every part of Europe.
In the course of the reign of Henry 11. an English university arose
at Oxford, one of the most important towns of the south midlands.
It was not, however, until the thirteenth century that the univer-
sities became ftJly organized and played a great part in the history
of thought and learning. As time went on, even the households
of kings and great nobles became centres of study and intellectual
interest. Robert of Gloucester, as we have seen, did much for
historical learning in his day. The court of Henry 11. was a
famous home of intellectual activity and literary composition.
17. Latin was stUl the universal language of scholars, the clergy,
and statesmen. In it all serious books were written, and all legal
documents, state papers, and diplomatic correspon-
dence drawn up. It was the everyday speech of Latmlitera-
clergy and scholars, and aU lectures at the universities
were given in it. Most of the best writing set forth by EngKsh-
men was in this tongue, notably the chronicles and histories, which
during the twelfth century attained a high level of thought and
style, as is shown by WiUiam of Malmesbury, WiUiam of New-
burgh, Roger of Hoveden, and many others. Men read the Latin
classics eagerly, and based their style upon them, as was notably
the case with WiUiam of Malmesbury. Even a great romancer Kke
156 FEUDAL BRITAIN [1066-
Geoffrey of Monmouth composed his book in Latin, and gave it
out to he a serious history.
18. The English tongue was not much affected in form or
Yocabulary by the Norman conquest. The effect of the coming
English and °^ ^'^ Norman was, however, that fewer books were
French written in it. For example, the English Chronicle,
literature, ^i^igi^ -j^^^ j^gen kept up since Alfred's days in some of
the great monasteries, was after the conquest continued at Peter-
borough only, and ceased even there by the end of the reign of
Stephen. Latin was now used where English had often been em-
ployed earlier. English lost even more ground, however, as a spoken
tongue than as a written language. The Normans brought French
with them, and down to the thirteenth century French continued
to be the ordinary vernacular speech of the ooiirt, the nobles, and
the mass of the landed classes. The lighter popular literature,
which was written to amuse lords and ladies, was henceforth largely
composed in French also. The result was that English became
the spoken language of peasants and the poor. There was no longer
a literary standard, such as that which has been set at the "West
Saxon court, and everybody spoke and wrote in the dialect of his
native district. There were three chief dialects, corresponding
roughly to the three Ang-lo- Saxon great kingdoms of Northumbria,
Mercia, and Wessex. Of these, the southern dialect was the most
like the old English of the West Saxon court. The northern dialect
was marked by a certain number of Danish and Norwegian words.
It was the beginning of the Lowland Scots of a later age, as well as
of the popular dialects of the north of England. The midlcmd
dialect is more important to us, because it is the source of the
standard English which all write and speak nowadays. In all these
varieties there was a movement towards the cutting down of cases
and inflexions, and the simplification of grammatical forms, so that
the language — now called Middle English — forms a sort of bridge
between the old English of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman days
and the modern English which we now use.
-I2l6.]
FEUDAL BRITAIN
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158 FEUDAL BRITAIN [1216.
Books Reoosimended fok the Furthek Study of Book II., 1066-1216.
Good detailed accounts of the history of the whole period can be found in
H. W. C. Davis' England under the Normans and Angevins, and in G. B.
Adams' History of England, 1066-1215 (Longmans' "Political History o£
England," vol. iii.). Stubbs' Constitutional History of England, vol. i. chaps.
ix. to xiii., contains the most authoritative account of the constitutional
development of the period. Useful biographies of important characters are
Freeman's William the Conqueror and Mrs. J. R. Green's Henry II., both in
Macmillan's " Twelve English Statesmen series." R. W. Church's Life of St.
Anselm gives a picturesque delineation of the life and times of the greatest
English churchman of the period, and the story of Becket can be read in J.
Morris' Life and Martyrdom of St. Thomas Bechet. For general Church history,
W. R. W. Stephens' History of the English Church, 1066-1272, is useful, and
Miss Kate Norgate's England under the Angevin Kings and John Lackland are
valuable from the accession of Henry 11. onwards, and Stubbs' Early Plan-
tagenets (Longmans' "Epochs of Modern History ") gives a masterly account
of the Angevin period on a small scale. T. A. Archer's Crusade of Richard I,
sets forth from translated extracts of contemporary writers a good account of
the Third Crusade. Miss Mary Bateson's Medimval England, 1066-1350, parts
i. and ii., give an admirable picture of the social life of the period. Barnard's
Companion to English History (Middle Ages) contains a series of usefid
articles on trade, social life,' architecture, warfare, art, learning, etc. The
maps in Poole's Oxford Historical Atlas are of importance for the study of
British historical geography.
BOOK III
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH NATION
(1216-1399)
CHAPTER I
HENRY III. (1216-1272)
Chief dates :
1216. Accession of Henry in.
1217. Battle of Lincoln.
1219. Death of William Marshall.
1232. Fall of Hubert de Burgh.
1242. Battle of Tailleboiirg.
1248. Simon of Montfort, governor of Gascony.
1258. Provisions of Oxford.
1259. Treaty of Paris.
1264. Battle of Lewes.
1265. Montfort's Parliament and the Battle of Evesham.
1267. Treaty of Shrewsbury.
1272. Death of Henry iii.
1. John's eldest son was only niae years old at his father's death,
but the dead king's friends at once proclaimed him as Henry iii.
Griialo, the pope's legate, procured for him the ™j^ -.
support of the Church, and showed that John's sur- between
render to the pope was a reality by taking on him- William
self the supreme direction of the kingdom. Gualo ^^^ Louis
worked in close harmony with the leader of Henry's of France,
English partisans, William Marshall, an aged baron ^^'®' ^^Vl.
of unblemished honour, who had married Strongbow's daughter,
and thus become earl of Pembroke and lord of Strongbow's
great possessions in Wales and Ireland. Pembroke was appointed
B/uler of the King and Kingdom, a title which was practically
equivalent to that of regent. The prudent measures taken by
Gualo and Pembroke soon began to increase the party of the
^59
l60 HENRY HI. [1217-
little king. The robelliotis barons had taken up arms to secure
the privileges contained in the Great Charter. Reversing the policy
of Innocent III., Grualo now allowed Pemhroke to issue a con-
firmation of the charter in Henry's name. This wise step cut the
ground from under the feet of the partisans of Louis. Those who
had hated John the most had no ill will to the monarchy, and the
innocent boy on the throne was in nowise responsible for the
crimes of his father. Gradually the friends of Louis fell away
from him and declared for Henry. The feeling grew that it was
a dangerous thing for England to be ruled by a prince who would
one day be king of France ; but the chief thing that weighed with
the deserters was their knowledge that the pope and the Chuxoh
had declared against Louis. Even Philip 11. of France dared not
give any help to his son, because he was afraid of provoking a
quarrel with the pope. In these circumstances Louis steadily lost
ground. In 1217 Marshall defeated him in a pitched battle in the
streets of Lincoln. Later on in the year a fleet sailed
The Battle from France, bringing him reinforcements ; but Hubert
and the ' "i® Burgh, the justiciar, met the French fleet off
Treaty of Sandwich, and utterly destroyed it. It was useless
1217 ^°^ Louis to persevere any longer. In September,
1217, he made the treaty of Lambeth with William
Marshall, by which he agreed to leave England. No sooner had
he gone than Magna Carta was once more reissued, in what was
substantially its permanent form. Besides this, a Forest Charter
was also published by the king, which mitigated the severity of
Henry ii.'s Assize of Woodstock, and laid down the great principle
that no man was to lose life or Hmb for bi-each of the forest
laws.
2. WiUiam Marshall continued to rule England till his death
in 1219. He had put an end to the civil war and restored the
The rule monarchy, but he did not venture to interfere with
of William the supremacy of the pope, and was much hampered
Marshall, \,j the fact that he was obliged to trust the greedy
and Hubert foreigners who had been the chief supporters of John,
de Burgh, On his death no new regent was appointed. At first
1219-1232. ^j^g pope's legate practically acted as regent. The
legate was now that Pandulf who had received John's submission
in 1213. His constant interference in the details of government
provoked much resentment in England, and at last Archbishop
Langton went to Rome and persuaded the pope to recall him.
Prom that time there was no regular papal leg-ate in England, save
I234-] HENRY III. l6l
the archbishop of Canterbury himself. Langton henceforward
did his best to restore peace and prosperity to England, and
worked well with Hubert de Burgh, the justiciar, who, after
Pandulf's recall, was the chief ruler of England. Hubert was a
capable and vigorous man ; he made it his chief object to restore
the system of strong rule which had prevailed under Henry ii.
Many difficulties stood in his way. During the long civil war the
feudal party had revived, and Hubert, like Henry ii., at his
accession was obliged to put down adulterine castles and compel
the nobles to obey the law. Ati even graver trouble arose from
John's foreign friends. The chief of these were Peter des Roches,
a native of Poitou, who was bishop of Winchester, and a mercenary
soldier, Falkes of Breaute, who had fought John's battles so well
that the late king had given him enormous territories. In 1224
Falkes rose in revolt, but Hubert captured and destroyed his chief
castle at Bedford and drove him into exUe. With the fall of
Falkes the reign of the foreigners was over, and the government
of England again fell into English hands. Disgusted with his
rival's success, Peter des Roches left England to go on crusade.
3. In 1227 the pope declared that Henry was old enough to
govern his kingdom ; and Langton died in 1228. Hubert continued
to act as justiciar tiU. 1232 ; but his severity raised up _. r n r
a host of enemies against him, and he gradually lost Hubert,
the support of the yoxmg king. At last Peter des *^^^> *"''
Roches returned to England, and cleverly brought of Peter
about his fall. Henry dismissed the faithful Hubert, des Roches,
and persecuted him with much ingratitude. Peter des 1232-1234.
Roches succeeded Hubert as justiciar, but held power for only
two years. He gave the chief offices of the state to his friends and
kinsfolk from Poitou, and soon excited the bitterest indignation
among the English barons. Richard Marshall, earl of Pembroke,
the son of the late regent, made himself the spokesman of the
barons' discontent, and finally headed a revolt against the justiciar.
Peter maliciously revenged himself by stirring up a rebellion against
Richard in his Irish estates. Richard was forced to go to Ireland,
where he was treacherously slain; but Henry was horrified when
he heard of the justiciar's deceit, and was easily persuaded by
Edmund Rich, a saintly scholar who had just become archbishop
of Canterbury, to drive Peter and his Poitevins from office.
4. With the fall of the bishop of Winchester, the first period of
Henry ni.'s reign comes to an end. During all these years Henry
had been either a minor or xinder the control of one powerful
M
1 62 HENRY in. [1234-
mind which he covild not easily resist. For eighteen years, then,
the personal authority of the king was small. This circumstance
Growth of helped to spread the notion of a limited monarchy,
limited with which was combined the Tiew that the natural
monapchy. jjglpers and advisers of the crown were the great
barons who sat in the royal co^lncil. We already seem far away
from the Angevin despotism. Though the charters were often
broken in their details, the spirit of them had begun to enter into
English political life.
6. With the fall of Peter des Roches, Henry iii. personally
undertook the government of the country. The king was resolved
The ner- ^^^^ henceforth he would submit to no master. He
sonal pule of would be his own prime minister, holding in his own
^^^y^ho hands all the strings of policy, and acting through
subordinates, whose duty was to carry out their
master's orders. Under such a system the justiciarship practically
ceased to exist, for Des Roohes's successor, Stephen Segrave, was
a mere lawyer who never aspired to be chief minister. Before
long the justiciar had become a simple president of the law courts.
"Unluckily, Henry iii. was not hard-working or possessed of suffi-
cient strength of wiU to mle England effectively. He possessed,
indeed, some noble and many attractive qualities ; his private life
was pure ; his piety was sincere ; he was well educated and loved
fair churches, beautiful sculpture, and richly illuminated books.
Born and brought up in England, he was proud of his English
ancestors, was devoted to English saints, and gave his children
English names like Edward and Edmund. Nevertheless, Henry
showed less sympathy with English ways than many of his foreign
predecessors. Too feeble to act for himself, too suspicious to trust
his barons, he leant upon the support of foreign favourites and
kinsmen. From 1234 to 1258 he sought to rule England through
foreign dependants. The work of Hubert seemed altogether un-
done when swarm after swai-m of aliens came from abroad, and
obtained place and power beyond their deserts through the weak
complacency of the king.
6. The new alien invasion began soon after Henry's marriage in
The alie ^'^^ yntOci. Eleanor, daughter of the count of Provence
invasion. and sister to Margaret, wife of Louis ix., who in 1226
The Pro- succeeded his father, Lotiis viii., the sometime invader
Savoyapdsf °* England, to the French throne. Eleanor's mother
was a daughter of the count of Savoy, and her numerous
Savoyard uncles, having but a slender endowment in their own
-1258.]
HENRY III.
163
mountain land, made tlieir way to England to share King
Henry's boxinty. It soon became known that Henry was willing'
to welcome any attractive foreign adventurer of high birth, and
many such flocked to the land of promise. Among them was
Simon of Montfort, son of a famous Simon of Montfort who had
been a chief instnunent in extending North French and orthodox
influence over the hei'etical Albigenses of southern France, and who
had won for himself by his sword the county of Toxdouse, and
quickly lost it again. From his mother the elder Simon inherited
a claim of the earldom of Leicester. The younger Simon per-
suaded his brothers to make over their pretensions to him, and
went to England to demand the Leicester titles and estates. Henry
recognized Simon as earl of Leicester, married him to his sister,
and lavished on him many marks of favour.
THE PEOVENgALS AND SAVOYARDS
Amadeus,
count of Savoy.
I
Bealrice,
m, Raymond Berengar,
connt of Provence.
Boniface of Savoj',
archbishop of
Canterbury.
Other sons and
daughters.
Margaret,
m. Louis IX.,
king of France
Philip HI. of
France.
Eleanor,
m. Henry iii.
of England .
Edward i.
Sanchia,
m. Richard of
Cornwall, king
of the Romans.
I.
Beatrice,
m. Charles of
Anjou, king
of Sicily.
7. Another foreign element that weighed with increasing force
on England was the power of the pope. The successors of Inno-
cent III. pressed stiU further the exalted claims of their
predecessor. They declared that it was their right to no^ans.
appoint their nominees to any bishopric or benefice.
At their caprice they issued what were called papal provisions, by
which the rights of electors, or patrons, were put aside in favour
of the pope's nominee. The result of this was that a swarm of
Italian and French priests were established by the pope in English
benefices, and grew rich on the spoils of the English Church with-
out attempting to do the work of their offices. Besides this, the
pope claimed the right of taxing the Church at his will. About
this time papal taxation became more severe on account of a quarrel
which broke out between Pope Gregory ix. and the Emperor
164 HENRY III. [1234-
I'rederick 11. Frederick 11., the son of Henry vi., had been
made emperor by Innocent in., after the fall of Otto iv. He
was now waging deadly war against the papacy, and Gregory
looked upon the English Church as a sure source of supplies to
ec[uip armies to fight the emperor. Though Henry had married
his sister to Fi-ederiok 11., and was on friendly terms with him, he
dared not resist the pope's demands. Things became worse in
1237, when the pope sent to England the first legate despatched
from Rome since the days of Pandulf. This legate, a cardinal
named Otto, made himself unpopular both by his strictness in
reforming abuses and by the zeal with which he furthered his
master's interests. In 1238 he visited Oxford, where a great
school or university had recently sprung up. An affray broke out
between the legate and the scholars, and the latter forced the
pope's representative to take refuge in a church steeple rmtil the
king could send soldiers to effect his release. At last Otto went
back to Bome, leaving very bitter memories behind him.
8. The gentle Archbishop Edmund did all that he could to save
the clergy from the exactions of pope and king. Though high-
Edmund minded and well-meaning, he was not strong enough
Rich and to grapple with the difficult task before him. In 1240
Robert jjg left England in disgust, and soon afterwards died
Grosseteste.
abroad. His reputation for holiness was such that he
was soon canonized as St. Edmund. His successor at Canterbury
was a man of very different stamp. The new archbishop was
Boniface of Savoy, one of the queen's uncles. He owed his office
entirely to the favour of the king and pope, and made no effort to
protect the clergy from them. In these circumstances the leader-
ship of the clergy passed to Robert Grrosseteste, bishop of Lincoln,
a famous writer, a saintly man, and the most practical reformer of
Church abuses of his day. Innocent iv., Gregory ix.'s successor,
made even severer demands on England than his predecessor. In
1245 he deposed Frederick from the empire, and persecuted him
relentlessly till his death in 1250. Frederick was the last of the
great emperors of the Middle Ages, and his fall marked the end
of the long struggle between papacy and empire, which began
with the investiture contest between Gregory yii. and Henry iv.
Grosseteste continued his protest, and even ventured to withstand
Innocent iv. face to face. Nothing, however, came from his
complaints. However much the clergy grumbled, Henry gave
them no help, and they were forced to pay whatever the pope
exacted.
-1258.] HENRY III. 165
9. As Henry m. grew older he felt the disgrace of his father's
failure to retain the Angevin Empire abroad. In 1230 he led an
expedition to recover Poitou, but obtained nothing by Henry's
his attempt. In 1242 he again went in person to foreign
prosecute his rights to the Angevin inheritance which ^^""''^s.
was fast slipping away owing to the growing power of Louis ix.
The French monarch was a high-minded and conscientious king, as
wise as he was good, and so universally admired and beloved that
after his death he was canonized as St. Louis. But he was anxious
to extend his authority and complete the work of his grandfather,
Philip II. With this object Louis made one of his brothers count
of Poitou and of Toulouse, and thus threatened the last hopes of
Henry in Poitou. But the barons of Poitou were even more afraid
of the growth of the French power than was the English king, and
now turned to Henry and besought him to save them from French
domination. At their head was Hugh of Lusignan, count of
La Marohe, the mighty Poitevin baron, whose rage at John's
abduction of Isabella of Angouleme had given the signal for the
conquests of Philip 11. Hugh of La Marche was now Henry iii.'s
step-father, for on John's death Isabella had gone back to France
and married her old lover. She added her appeals to those of her
second husband, and Henry, always dutiful to his family, willingly
listened to his mother's entreaties. But when Henry got to Poitou,
he found that Hugh and Isabella had no real care for his interests,
and simply used him as a tool to prosecute their grievances ag'ainst
the French king. He learnt how impossible it was to build upon
Poitevin promises. The army of Louis ix. defeated his troops at
Taillehourg, near Saintes, and drove him in panic flight to Bordeaux.
The expedition was an utter failure, and henceforth Louis's brother
ruled Poitou as he would. On his death Poitou became part of
the direct domains of the French king.
10. The chief result of the expedition was the ruin of the house
of Lusignan. The numerous children of Hugh and Isabella,
finding that they had no prospects in France, crossed ^he Poite-
over the Channel and threw themselves on the bounty vins In
of their half-brother. Henry welcomed them warmly, "^ ^" '
and loaded them with grants aaid presents. He married one of them,
WiUiam of Valence, to the heiress of the Marshalls, earls of Pem-
broke, whose house had recently died out in the male line. Another
brother, Aymer, a violent and incompetent man, became bishop of
Winchester. Henry's half-sisters found husbands among the richest
of the earls. Henceforth the Poitevin half-brothers of the king
l66 HENRY in. ['246-
rivalled the Savoyard imoles of the queen in wealth, pride, and
impopxilarity.
11. The government of England by Henry and his foreign
friends was not only expensive and unpopular, but weak and in-
Ri e of the efiective. Though the people paid heavy taxes, good
Principality order was not maintained. Under a feeble king like
of North Henry, the princes of North Wales became very power-
Wales, j^ ^^^ extended their power to the south at the
expense of the lords marcher. Since the days of Griffith ap
Llewelyn no Welsh prince had been as mighty as Llewelyn ap
lorwerth. He joined with the barons in wresting Magna Carta
from John, and took advantage of the troubles of Henry's minority
to push his dominions from the Dovey to Carmarthen Bay. Though
married to Henry's sister, he was constantly at war with his brother-
in-law. Under his grandson, Llewelyn ap Grif&th, who became
prince in 1246, the Welsh principality became even stronger.
12. Henry's remaining dominions in France were, like Wales,
slipping away from his control. All that now i-emained of the
„. . inheritance of Eleanor of Aquitaine was Gascony, but
Montfort In even in Gasoony Henry's power was very small. The
Gaseony, nobles behaved like independent princes, and great
1248-1252 X- ' o
towns like Bordeaux were becoming little republics
which cared nothing for the commands of their duke. Things got
to such a pass that even Henry saw that something had to be done.
In 1248 he made his brother-in-law, Simon of Montfort, governor,
or seneschal, of Gaseony, and gave him full power to reduce the
unruly Gascons to obedience. Simon threw himself into the mde
task with wonderful ability and energy. He restored order, but
showed little regard for impartiality or justice. The Gascons
sent piteous complaints against him to England. Henry listened
to their murmurs, and gradually withdrew his confidence from
Simon. Profoundly irritated at this shabby treatment, Simon
resigned his office in disgust in 1252. Henceforward he became
Henry's bitter enemy. Returning to England, he put himself
at the head of the opposition which the king's fatuous government
had created.
13. For many years many protests had been raised against
Henry's misrule, but, for want of competent leaders, nothing had
come out of these efforts. For a time Henry's younger brother,
Richard, earl of Cornwall, had led the baronial opposition ; but
Richard now married Sanohia of Provence, the queen's younger
sister, and reconciled himself with the court. The failure of all
-1258.] HENRY III. 167
attempts to check him encourag-ed Henry to adopt a more adven-
turous policy. His children were growing up, ajid he wished to
establish them in life. To his elder son, Edward, he
made over the earldom of Chester which had recently Edmund,
lapsed to the king's hands, all his lands in Wales, sicUy; and
and the duchy of Gasoony. Edmund, his second Richard.
son, was still unprovided for, and Henry eagerly oJeRomans
grasped at a chance of establishing him in a foreign
kingdom which the pope now offered. After the death of
Frederick 11., the popes continued to wage unrelenting war against
his children. They were particularly anxioiis to prevent the
kingdom of Sicily, which Frederick had ruled, remaining united
with Germany and the empire. Accordingly the pope offered to
make Edmund king of Sicily, and Henry greedily swallowed the
tempting bait. Edmund, who was a mere boy, remained in
England, but Henry allowed the pope to wage war in Sicily in
Edmund's name, and promised to defray the expenses. This
was not the only foreign kingdom which Henry's kinsfolk
obtained. In 1257 Richard of Cornwall was elected emperor after
the death of Frederick 11. 's son. His title was disputed, and
as he was never crowned by the pope, he was called king of the
Komans.
14 Each new adventure of Henry and the pope imposed a fresh
burden upon Englishmen. The taxes became heavier, and the
king's misgovemment steadily became worse. Henry's _ .... .
■ 1 XI. • ■ -n 1 J • j.1. Political pe-
misrule was the more grievous, since England m other tFogresslon
ways was full of life and progress. It was the time of and
the great religious revival which saw the establishment ^pQ^f'g
of the Mendicant Friars, whose two chief orders, the
Dominicans and the Franciscans, came to England in 1221 and 1224.
It was a time of remarkable intellectual progress, of the growth of
the universities, yrhetQ flourished many famous scholars, philosophers,
and theologians. It was the time when mediaaval art attained its
highest development in the growth of Gothic architecture. The
country was becoming increasingly wealthy through the spread of
manufactures and convmerce, and towns and town life became more
important than they had ever been before. It was now also that
English national sentiment was becoming conscious of itself. In
every direction there was rapid progress, but political progress was
stayed by the incompetence of the king and his advisers. But the
day of reckoning was now at hand. Led by Earl Simon, the barons
at last knew what they wanted. In 1258 the storm of indignation
1 68 HENRY in. [1258-
burst, and drove Henry and his favourites from the position which
they had so long misused.
15. The crisis was hastened by the enormous demands of the
pope for the prosecution of the war waged for Sicily in Edmund's
The Mad name. Henry could only satisfy the pope by raising
Parliament, fresh taxes, and to do this he had to obtain the
*25^- consent of the barons. In a council, or as it was
now called, a parliament, at Westminster, the barons utterly
refused to give the king any money, and forced him to consent to
a drastic reform of the government. In June a second parliament
met at Oxford. Taking advantage of a summons for an expedition
against the Welsh, the barons came arrayed for war and attended
by their armed followers. The king's friends called this assembly
the Mad Parliament, but the barons knew very well what they were
doing. A committee of twenty-four, chosen in equal proportions
by king and barons, laid before the Oxford parliament an elaborate
scheme for the future government of the realm. The new con-
stitution was called the Provisions of Oxford, and readily adopted
by the barons. By it a standing cowncil of fifteen was established,
by whose advice and consent Henry was henceforth to exercise all
his authority. All aliens were to be expelled from oflce and new
ministers were appointed under stringent conditions. To save the
barons the expense of attending frequent parliaments, a body of
twelve was appointed to represent the whole nobility. This was to
meet three times a year and to discuss public affairs with the
committee of fifteen.
16. The Provisions of Oxford carried to a still fui-ther point the
idea of limited and constitutional monarchy first expressed in the
The Pro- Great Charter. Every royal power was to remain
visions of unimpaired, but henceforth it was to be exercised not
Oxford. ^y. ^}^g king in person, but by a committee of the
barons. The feudal tradition, when each baron's dearest wish was
to. break down the monarchy and reign like a king over his own
lands, was thus quite forgotten. The scheme was quite effective to
check the autocracy of the crown. The danger was lest it should
set up in the place of the Angevin despotism a narrow baronial
oUgarohy, as careless as the king had been of the welfare of the
country as a whole. There was no time, however, to think of
future dangers at the moment. Headed by William of Yalence,
the king's half-brother, the foreigners steadily resisted the new
scheme. They were soon overpowered and driven into exile;
Henry and his eldest son were forced to take oaths to observe the
-1259.] HENRY III. 1 69
Provisions. Next year, when King Richard came back to England,
he was not allowed to land vintil he took the same oath. Thus
the fifteen tritunphed over all opposition. Henceforth they, and
not Henry, were the real rulers of England.
17. One result of the baronial victory was the abandonment
of Henry's ambitious schemes of foreign domination. His son
Edmimd renounced his phantom kingdom of Sicily, jjig Treaty
and the pope found a more competent instrument for of Paris,
his purpose in Charles of Anjou, a younger brother 12S9.
of Louis IX. Charles, who had married the youngest sister of
Queen Eleanor, had already won for himself her father's county of
Provence. In 1265 he established himself in Naples and Sicily,
and was the ancestor of a long line of kings ruling over southern
Italy under the pope's supremacy. In 1259 Henry went to Paris,
where he concluded a permanent peace with the king of France.
By this treaty 0/ Taris he renounced aU his claims over Normandy,
Aujou, and Poitou, retaining only the Channel Islands, a fragment
of the Norman duchy, over which the English kings still ruled
because they were stronger by sea than the French. Besides this,
Henry agreed to perform homage to Lotus for the duchy of Gascony,
which remained under its English dukes. Louis was so anxious
to make peace that he voluntarily handed over to Henry some pa,rts
of Gascony which were actually in his possession and also paid him
a considerable sum of money, nominally to eq[uip knights to fight
on a crusade. This treaty was the first peace made between
England and France since Philip 11. 's conquest of Normandy. It
failed, however, to establish permanent friendship between the two
countries. So long as Gascony remained ruled by dukes who were
also English kings, real cordiality between them was impossible.
18. In England the fifteen ruled for some years in Henry's
name, but they governed in such a selfish and narrow way that
murmurs, almost as loud as the old outcry against k e k-
Henry, arose against them. Earl Simon of Leicester up of parties
took broader views than most of the barons, but he f otmd and the
it very difficult to make the other nobles accept his of f^e
policy. After all he was a newcomer and a foreigner, Bapons'
and with all his greatness he was so masterful and ^ap, 1259-
overbearing that he was not easy to work with. The
majority of the barons deserted his leadership for that of Richard of
Clare, earl of Gloucester, the most powerful of the earls of English
birth. Gloucester was a much less able man than Simon, and looked
with suspicion upon his rival. From their disputes arose a division
I/O ffENRY ///. [1259-
in the baronial ranks, which gave Henry iii. a good chance to win
back power. Henry himself was not clear-sighted enough to make
the most of his opportunities ; but Edward, his eldest son, now a
grown man, did much to compensate for his father's weakness.
The king's son put himself at the head of a popular royalist party,
and showed himself more disposed to trust the people than
Gloucester. It was plain that he had no sympathy with Henry's
past misdeeds, and that under him there would be no danger of
the domination of foreign favourites. In fact, Edward stood
to the royalist party as his imcle Leicester stood to the
baronial oligarchy. For a time Edward and Simon worked well
together, but they were too much like each other to agree long.
Ultimately Edward proved himself Simon's most deadly enemy.
He persuaded many of the barons to desert to the royalist side,
and in particular won over from the opposition the fierce and
warlike lords of the Welsh March, of whom, as earl of Chester, he
was the natural leader. By 1263 the royalist party had become
so strong that Henry repudiated the Provisions, and shook himself
free of the control of the fifteen. He persuaded the pope to annul
the Provisions, and absolve him from the oath which he had taken
to observe them. This growth of the royalist power forced the
barons to unite again, and their reunion was easier since Earl
Richard of Gloucester died, and Ms young son. Earl Gilbert of
Gloucester, was a devoted follower of Montf ort. Open hostilities
broke out between the king and the barons, which were called the
Barons' War. In this struggle both parties were so evenly matched
that neither could obtain a victory over the other. The best way
out of an impossible situation seemed to be to appeal to the
arbitration of some impartial outsider. Accordingly, in December,
1263, the two parties arranged to submit aU disputes between them
to the judgment of Louis ix.
THE HOUSE OF LUSIGNAN
Isabella of Angouleme.
m, (1) John, King of England.
(2) Hugh of Lusignan, count
of La Marche.
(1) m (2)J (i) (2)
Henry iii. Richard, William of Valence, Aymer of Other sons
king of king of m. heiress of the Valence, and daughters
England. the Komans. Marshalls, carls bishop of settled or
of Pembrolic. Winchester, married in
Aymer of Valence,
earl of Pembrolce,
England.
-1264.] HENRY III. 171
THE EARLS OF GLOUCESTER
Henry i.
Robert,
earl of Gloucester, d. 1147.
Wiuiam,
carl of Gloucester.
I i
Amicia, Isabella of Gloucester,
m. liichdrd of Clare. m. King John.
Gilbert of Clare,
carl of (Aoucester.
. I
Ricbard of Clnre,
earl of Gloucester, d. 1262,
Gilbert of Clare,
earl of Gloucester, d. 1295,
m. Joan, daughter of Edward i.
.. i i ^1 I
Gilbert, Eleanor, Margaret, another
earl of Gloucester, m. Hugh le Despenser m. Peter of Gaveston. daughter,
d. 1314. the younger.
The names in italics are not referred to in the text.
19. The king of France was the justest of kings ; but, after all,
he was a king, and naturally prejudiced in favour of a sovereign
waging war agaiust his subjects. In January, 1264, _j^ failure
he issued his decision in a document called the Mise of the Mlse
of Amiens, which pronounced the Provisions invalid, of Amiens,
mainly because the pope had already condemned them.
This judgment was too one-sided to be accepted, and the barons,
headed by Leicester, resolved to continue the war. In taking this
step Simon deliberately broke his pledged word, but he was not
more forsworn than the king, who had so solemnly promised to
abide by the Provisions. Though deserted by many of his
followers, Simon did not lose heart. The defection of his allies
gave him almost uncontrolled power over the baronial party, and
he now showed himself as good a general as he had been a states-
man. War was renewed, and at first the royalists gained some
successes. At the head of their victorious troops, Henry and
Edward marched triumphantly through Kent and Sussex, and at
last took up their quarters at Lewes, where, on May 14, the decisive
battle of the campaign was fought.
1/2
HENRY in.
[1264-
20. Tlie royalist army was holding the town, of Lewes, which is
situated on a sort of peninsula on the rig'ht bank of the i-iver Ouse.
The Battle Early in the morning, Montf ort's army advanced from
of Lewes, the north and made their way over the open chalk-
1264. downs which encompassed Lewes on three sides.
Simon's hope was to surprise the royalists in their camp, but they
obtained information of his approach, and swarmed out of the
town to meet him. The baronial troops moved in two great
divisions along two spurs of the downs, separated by a valley.
Their best soldiers were on the right wing, and their left wing
largely consisted of the Londoners, who were ardent partisans of
Earl Simon. Edward, who commanded the right wing of the
royalists, attacked the Londoners with such fury that he drove
jimery Walker sc.
them in confusion many miles from the field. During his absence,
however, Montfort with his right wing had captured Lewes town,
utterly defeated the king's troops, and taken prisoners Henry and
his brother, the king of the Romans. "When Edward returned from
the pursuit it was too late to renew the conflict. Next day the
king's son surrendered, so that the barons won a complete triumph.
21. The victors drew up a new plan for the government of the
country, called the Mise of Lewes. By it the king's power was
The rule handed over to a committee of nine, and Henry and
of Earl Edward were forced to swear to observe its provisions.
In reality, however, Montfort now governed England.
His position was much stronger than it had been in
the early years of the struggle, and for the first time he was able
Simon,
1264-1265.
-126s.] HENRY TIL 1 73
to enforce his policy upon all his party. His position, however,
was still very difllcTilt. The lords of the "Welsh March were still
in arms for the king, and the pope was Henry's warm partisan.
Queen Eleanor and her kinsfolk assembled an army on the French
coast, and waited for an opportunity of invading- England.
22. Montfort saw that the best way of resisting the formidable
forces opposed to him was to oaU upon the people as a whole to rally
round him. With this object he summoned, in Ytia Parlia-
January, 1266, a parliament which, unlike the Parlia- ment of
ment of 1258, was not a mere council of barons. He ^^^^'
called upon every shire, city, and borough in England to elect two
representatives who were to join with the barons and bishops in
their deliberations. This action of Montfort's has made the
ParliaTnent of 126S very famous in our history. It has been called
the first Souse of Commons, and Montfort has been named the
creator of the Souse of Com,mons. Neither of these claims can be
justified. It was no new thing to call upon the shires to send their
representatives to treat with the king or his ministers. The policy
of electing representatives of the shires began when Henry 11.
instituted the system of grand juries, and sent his justices to trans-
act business with them. It was only a small step forward when,
instead of the king's representative dealing with each shire in turn,
representatives of all the shires were joined together in a single
assembly, and brought face to face with the king in person. This
was first done, so far as we know, under John iu 1213. Under
Henry m. it became a common custom for the king to call together
such representatives, or, as they were called, Imights of the shire,
and to take their advice or listen to their complaints. Moreover,
when the king wanted to get money from the merchants, or advice
on matters of trade, he had already more than once summoned
representatives of the cities and boroughs. Nevertheless, Mont-
fort's Parliament does mark a real advance. It was a new thing
to join both the shire and borough representatives in a single
gathering. Moreover, Montfort did not summon this parliament
merely to raise taxes, and to discuss matters of little importance.
His object was to take the people into partnership with him, and
find out their real views as to the government of the country.
Thus, while the barons of 1258 acted as if none but the magnates
had any voice in matters of politics, Montfort allowed commons as
well as lords a voice in high matters of state. Since Magna Carta
the king's power had been limited. It was the glory of Montfort
that he was the first man to see that the power of the crown should
1/4 HENRY III. [1265-
be controlled, not only by the barons and bishops, but also by the
lesser land-owners, the men of business, and the smaller people as
weU. Nevertheless, Montfort's Parliament was but the expedient
of the moment. We must wait for a generation before the rival
and disciple of Montfort, Edward, the king's son, established the
popular element on a firm basis.
23. Earl Simon's rule lasted only a few months. His fierce and
overbearing temper, and the deep differences of policy between him
and such of the magnates as still adhered to liim, made
of the permanent co-operation between him and the barons
Marchers, impossible. Gilbert of Clare was now old enough to
shake off the fascination which had bound him to
Simon in earlier years. He quarrelled first with Simon's sons, who
had aU the defects and little of the greatness of their father. Then
he broke violently with Simon himself, and raised the standard of
revolt in liis lordship of Griamorgan. The marchers, whom Simon
had never been able to subdue, rallied round him, and Simon was
forced to proceed to the west to wage war against Grloucester and
his friends. He took with him Henry and Edward, both of whom
were still practically prisoners. One day, however, Edward, who
was allowed the diversion of hunting, escaped from his guards and
joined Grloucester. By this time a strong band of exiles, headed
by William of Valence, had landed in South Wales and added their
forces to those of Edwai'd and Gloucester. Simon strove to create
a diversion by making a close alliance with Llewelyn of Wales, but
the Welsh prince gave him little real help. Llewelyn had already
profited by the civil war to conquer many of the lordships marcher,
and he would not stop adding to his territories to fight Montfort's
battles. Before long Montfort was forced to recross the Severn,
closely followed by Edward and the marchers. On August 4,
126.5, a decisive battle was fought at Evesham in Worcestershire.
24. Evesham, like Lewes, stands on a peninstila, and is almost
encircled by a wide curve of the Avon. Simon and his war-worn
The Battle ''^"^^ were resting in the town when Edward occupied
of Evesham, the narrow neck of land which lies a little to the north
between the two reaches of the stream. This cut
off aU prospect of escape by land, especially as Gloucester with a
strong force occupied the village of Bengeworth on the left bank,
which was connected with Evesham by the only bridge on that
part of the river. Simon saw that Edward had outgeneralled him,
yet could not but admire his adversary's skill in warfare. " By
the arm of St. James," he declared, " they come on cunningly ; yet it
-1267.]
HENRY in.
175
is from me that they have learnt their order of battle. God have
mercy on onr sonls, for our bodies are the lord Edward's." The
battle then began, and Montfort's troops, though fighting bravely,
were overpowered. Montf ort himself perished in the fight, but his
memory lived long in the hearts of Englishmen, who worshipped
him as a saint and martyr, and believed that he had laid down his
ane^y Walker sc
BATTLE OF EVESHAM.
Ufe for the cause of justice and religion. The best of Simon's
work survived the battle of Evesham. His victorious nephew
learnt well the lesson of his career, and the true success of the
martyred earl was the future Edward i.
25. Edward now restored his father to liberty and the throne.
There was a greedy scramble for the spoils of victory, and the
grreatest'of these, the forfeited earldom of Leicester, The Royalist
went to Edmund, the king's younger son, who soon Restoration,
also became earl of Lancaster and Derby. But the 1265-1267.
victors' resolve to deprive their beaten foes of their estates drove
the vanquished into fresh revolts, and for two years there was stiU
much fighting in England. At last the chief rebels were forced to
defend themselves behind the strong walls of Kenilworth Castle.
There were two parties among the royalists ; one, led by the cruel
marchers, thought of nothing but spoils and vengeance, while the
176
HENRY III.
[1267-
other, headed by Grloucester, recommended moderation in victory.
At first Edward favoured the former, but he now adopted
Gloucester's milder policy, and drew up the Dictum, de Kenilworth,
which allowed rebels to redeem their estates by paying a fine
assessed at five years' value of their lands. In 1266 the defenders
of Kenilworth were admitted to these terms, and in 1267 a few
desperate partisans, who stiU held their own amidst the fens of the
Isle of Ely, were also forced into submission.
26. England was thus restored to peace, but Llewelyn ap Griffith
still remained under arms. Even Edward was now tired of fighting.
The Treaty ^"■'^ ^ September, 1267, gave Llewelyn liberal terms
of Shrews- of peace in the treaty of Shrewshui-y. By it Llewelyn
bupy, 1267. ^j^g recognized as prince of Wales, and as overlord of
all the Welsh magnates. Many of his conquests were definitely
sFV
A-<^
^
L— — 1 Llewelyn 's lands at his acoeSsToh 1246. r ^
i i he Fpu
'Paiitrenj
X
1
3 Chester
__ — -| Land held by other Welsh Princes in j-j
1 ,' i 1 1 l2<iB and brought more or /efis under / /"'^'"'^
Llewelyn's control by 1267. ^^'"^ \y
^
Shrewsbury
—,^^,— Marcher lands occupied by Llewelyn, /
Y "- ^\ ""rf assigned to him by the Treaty of \
'"" ' ''^ Shrewsbury 1267, y
1 1 Marcher Lordships remaining outside / : ,
1 1 Llewelyn's power in 1267. /
1
1
^
y<C^i|[H
'/i\ XA"^
, Hereford (
^^^j-u^ ^
\) (BJJEOON )
^ )
<^^PEMBROKE r^^
•f ] fiBoS%)^
Gloucester^
•^^7^
/^ GLAMORGAN
c
^
WALES AND THE MARCH, SHEWING THE GROWTH OF THE POWER OP
LLEWELYN (1246-1267).
ceded to him, including the four cantreds of the vale of Clwyd,
over which Edward himself had claims. Alone of Montfort's
friends, Llewelyn came out of an unsuccessful struggle upon terms
which are seldom obtained even by a victor in the field.
27. The rest of Henry iii.'s reign was as peaceful as the middle
part had been stormy. The old king was practically replaced by
-1272] HENRY III. ly^
liis wise son, and Edward was shrewd enough to rtile the land after
a fashion more in accordance with the ideas of Earl Simon than
with those of his father. Before long things hecame jjjg g^j qj
so quiet that Edward was able to leave England and the reign,
go on a crusade. Ever since the Third Crusade the 1267-1272.
Christiam kingdom in Palestine had been steadily decaying, and it
was clear that unless a new holy war were preached, it would soon
be completely overwhelmed. Louis ix. undertook to lead a crusade
in person, but instead of going to the Holy Land, he turned his
arms against Tunis, where he died in 1270. Soon afterwards
Edward arrived of£ Tunis, only to find that Louis was dead, and his
son, Philip III., had concluded a truce with the Mohammedans.
Disgusted by what he regarded as treason to Christendom, he made
his way to Palestine, where he remained tiU 1272. He was the
last of the great crusaders, and even his fire and courage could do
little to uphold the crusading kingdom, which a few years later was
altogether destroyed. Edward was still away in the East when
Henry iii. died, in November, 1272. The old king was buried in
Westminster Abbey, which he had rebuilt in honour of St. Edward,
his favourite saint. During his lifetime the old Norman despotism
had faded slowly into the national and constitutional monarchy
which Simon had begun, and which Simon's conqueror was soon to
complete.
CHAPTER II
EDWARD I. (1272-1307)
Chief Dates :
1272. Accession of Edward i.
1274. Edward's coronation.
1277. The first Welsh War.
1279. Statute of Mortmain.
1282-1283. Conquest of North Wales.
1285. Statutes De Bonis and of Winchester.
1290. Statute Quia Emptores.
1292. John Balliol, king of Scots.
1295. The Model Parliament.
1296. First conquest of Scotland.
1297. Confirmatio Cartarum.
1298. Battle of Falkirk.
1303-1304. Completion oE seeond conquest of Scotland.
1306. Revolt of Robert Bruce.
1307. Death of Edward i.
1. Edwaed I. was thirty -ttree years old when he became king-, and
the broad lines of his policy had already been formed in the rude
Charaetep school of the Barons' War. He was wise enough to
and policy profit by his experience, and his love of strong rule
or Edward I. g^^^ efficiency, his courage, energy, and honesty stand
in strong' contrast to the weakness and incompetence of his father.
Edward loved power too much to part with it willingly, but he saw
that if he wished to be a successful ruler, he must make his policy
popular. For this reason he strove to carry out the great idea of
Earl Simon of taking' the people into a sort of partnership with
him. The residt was that his people trusted and followed him.
Edward found that he could thus get more of his own way than by
constantly wrangling with his subjects. His remarkable personal
gifts made it easy for Mm to win respect and love. He was of
elegant build and lofty stature, an eloquent speaker, a consummate
swordsman, and a mighty hunter. He was hot-tempered and
passionate, and when moved to wrath was sometimes hard and
almost cruel. He committed many deeds of violence in his youth,
178
1277.] EDWARD I. 1 79
but he learned to oiirb his impetuous temper, was proud of liis
straightforwardness, and boasted that he always kept his word.
Yot Edward had a oiirious narrowness of temper, which made him
sometimes look at the letter rather than the spirit of his promises.
An enemy said of him that he called prudence the treachery
whereby he advanced, and believed that whatever he liked was
lawful. He was hard-working', clear-headed, and practical. His
family life was unstained. He was a loyal friend, and was siucerely
religious. With all his faults he was the greatest of all his house.
2. Edward was proclaimed king during his absence. A regency
was appointed whose chief members were Walter Grey, archbishop
of York, and Kobert Burnell, a Shropshire clerk, who
was already the new king's most intimate confidant, ment during
and was soon made his chancellor and chief minister. Edward's
They kept England in such unbroken peace that there foyl-f 274
was no need for Edward to hasten his return. He
tarried for more than a year in Trance, and paid a prolonged visit
to Gascony. At last, in August, 1274, he crossed over to England,
and was crowned king.
3. Edward's first trouble came from Wales, where the treaty of
Shrewsbury had not brought enduring- peace. The brilliant success
of the Welsh arms and diplomacy seems somewhat to xhe first
have t^^rned Llewelyn's brain. Yisions of a wider Welsh war,
authority constantly floated before the Welsh prince, l^''-
and he dreamed of driving the Saxons out of Wales and making
himself an independent ruler. Accordingly, when the regents of
the new king required him to take an oath of fealty to Edward, he
answered them with all sorts of pretexts and delays. There were
many other subjects of contention, and both English and Welsh
complained that the treaty of Shrewsbury had not been jiroperly
executed. Even after Edward's return Llewelyn continued to
evade the performance of his feudal duty. At last he declared
that he dared not leave Wales to perform homage unless Edward
sent his brother, Earl Bdrnxind of Lancaster, to Wales as a hostage
for his safety. Llewelyn also strove to stir up dissension in
Edward's realm by posing as the disciple of Simon of Montfort,
and in 1275 sought for Montfort's daughter Eleanor as his wife.
However, on her way to Wales Eleanor was captured by Edward's
sailors, and kept in restraint at court. Edward at last lost all
patience, and in 1277 led an army to North Wales, blockaded
Llewelyn in Snowdon, and forced liim to make his submission by
the treaty of Conway. This treaty deprived Llewelyn of all that
l80 EDWARD I. [1277-
he had won at Shrewsbury, and reduced him to the position of a
petty North Welsh chieftain, strictly dependent on his English
overlord. Next year he was allowed to marry Eleanor of Montf ort ;
Edward was not inclined to treat him severely if he accepted his
position of dependence.
4 For the next few years Edward strove with aU his might to
establish English law in the districts ceded to him by Llewelyn.
_ __^. J His own attitude was unsympathetic to the Welsh, and
Welsh his agents were often brutally harsh. A loud outcry
troubles, aa'ainst the king's rule arose from his new subiects, and
1277-1282 00 13 •
especially from those of the four cantreds of the vale of
Clwyd. They called upon Llewelyn to help them, and Llewelyn's
brother David, who in 1277 had been on Edward's side, reconciled
himself with his brother. A revolt of the four cantreds broke out
suddenly in the spring of 1282. Llewelyn and David gave active
assistance to the rebels, and almost simultaneously another rising
took place in South Wales.
GENEALOGY OF THE LAST WELSH PRINCES
Owen,
prince of North Wales under Henry n.
lorwerth.
I
Llewelyn,
d. 1240, m. (2) daughter of John.
I (2 j
Griffith. Da^id,
I d. 1246.
Llewelyn, David, Roderick.
d. 1282. d. 1283. |
Thoinas.
Sir Owen of Wales
(time of Edward iii.).
(The names in italics are not referred to in text ; Welsh princes
in small capitals.)
5. Edward led a second expedition against Llewelyn in the
summer of 1282. Again the rebel prince was shut up in Snowdon,
but he managed to break his way through the English troops and
excite a fresh revolt on the upper Wye, where he was slain on
December 11, at the battle of Orewyn Bridge. David, now prince
of Wales, held his own in the mountains for another year ; but at
-1284.]
EDWARD I.
I8I
last he was tracked and captured. In October, 1283, he was
executed as a traitor at Shrewsbury, This was the
end of the native prinoipaUty of "Wales. It is often quist of the
called the conquest of "Wales, but it was in reality Pplnci-
only the conquest of Llewelyn's principality. The iloirjooo
marches of "Wales remained under their feudal lords
until the sixteenth century.
6. In 1284 Edward drew up the Statute of Wales. He declared
^_^ EmeryWallEeT s
iTIie Ptincipality I I The smaller marcher lordships
'^jlWlTho-Palatme counties vMiFnrjilvh shire grountf
Modern boundary befuieen England & Wales ........
WALES AND THE MARCH BETWEEN THE CONQUEST UNDER EDWARD I.
AND THE UNION UNDER HENRY VIII.
that the principality of "Wales, hitherto feudally subject to him,
was henceforward to be directly ruled by him, and drew up a
scheme for its future government. He divided it into five counties
^Aaglesey, Carnarvon, Merioneth, Cardigan, and Carmarthen
l82 EDWARD I. [1275-
— and added a new county, Flintshire, to the earldom of Chester,
which was now permanently in the king's hands. In each of the
The Settle- ^^^ shires the English system of local government was
mentof the set up, though such Welsh laws as Edward thought
Princl- reasonable were allowed to continue. In all the details
pallty,1284. ^^ ^^^ settlement Edward strove to deal fairly with
the Welsh, though he never understood them well enough to
respect their feelings. To secure his conquest Edward surrounded
Snowdon with a ring of fortresses, which still, in their ruin, bear
witness to the solidity of their work. Round each castle, such as
Carnarvon and Conway, grew up a, little English town whose in-
habitants might help the soldiers of the castle to keep the Welsh in
check. In one of Edward's new strongholds, that of
Carnarvon, Carnarvon, his son, the future Edward II., was bom.
prince of jn 1301 this Edward was made prince of Wales by his
^ ^' ■ father. After this it gradually became the fashion to
create the king's eldest son prince of Wales. That custom has
lasted down to our own day.
7. Though Edward was an able soldier, his greatest strength
was as a lawgiver and administrator. Intent as he was on his
Edward's conc[uest of the Principality, he was even more busily
legislation, engaged, during the first half of his reign, in drawing
1274-1290. ^p ^ remarkable series of new laws and in striving
with all his might to see them carried out in practice. With all
their importance Edward's laws do not contain very much that is
novel or original. They owe their fame to the care with which he
discerned the practical needs of his people and the skill with which
he engrafted into our permanent constitiition the best results of
the age of unrest and revolution in which he had grown up. His
reign has been called a period, of definition, by which it is meant
that he made clear points that were formerly doubtful, and selected
from the rich store of precedents, furnished by the age of the
Barons' War, the institutions which his keen eye saw were of most
value to himseM and his subjects, and the most likely to bring about
the permanent welfare of England. Between 1275 and 1290 a
series of great laws passed in review every branch of both the local
and central administration, and made their permanent mark in
English history. In the later years of his reign we shall see the
same statesmanlike policy of definition applied to the constitution,
which under his guidance took the form which it has retained ever
since.
8. On reaching England Edward made Bishop BurneU his
-1284.] EDWARD I. 183
chancellor, and retained Mm in that office imtil his death in 1292.
Much of the legislation of the period is doubtless due to the -wisdom
of the chancellor, though Edward must not he denied ct t t f
a fuU share of the credit. In 1275 the first of the West-
great laws of the reign was passed in the statute of minster I ,
Westminster the First. It was mainly aimed at strength-
ening the king's government and ensuring peace and strong
rule ; but it re-enacted many of the best provisions of the Great
Charter and provided for the freedom of elections to parliament.
Part of the statute included a permanent grant to Edward and his
successors of a duty on every sack of wool and every bundle of
sheepskins and leather sent out of the country. This
was called the Old and Great Custom. It was hence- The Great
forth an important source of revenue, and it was a proof
of the growing wealth and prosperity of the country that the kings
were able in the future to derive a large portion of their income
from a tax on trade.
9. In 1278 Edward passed the statute of Gloucester, which
ordered an inquiry into all law courts and jurisdictions held by
the feudal barons, and sought to limit their number. Tjjg statute
Commissioners went through the country to every of Glouees-
franchise, and demanded by what warranty the holder ^^^' '^'°'
of it exercised his right. For this reason the letters issued by
Edward's commission were called writs of quo warranto. Edward's
object was to break down the power of the nobles, and make every
court depend on the crown. But his barons bitterly resented his
action as an attack upon their privileges. It was said that when
the commissioners asked Earl Warenne by what right he held
his courts, the earl bared his sword and haughtily declared that
this weapon was his authority. " My ancestors came over with the
Conqueror," said Warenne, " and won their lands with their sword,
and with the same sword will I defend them against all who wish
to take them from me." These fierce words voiced the opinion of
the barons, and Edward was wise enough not to force them to
extremities. He suffered many franchises to remain that he would
gladly have abolished ; but he took care to create no fresh ones, and
saw that all the lords were thoroughly obedient to him.
10. In 1279 Edward passed the statute of Mortmain. Lands
which went to the Church were said to have fallen xhe Statute
into the dead hand, or in Latin, in mortua manu, of Mopt-
and the statute forbade any further grants of lands •"^'"' ^279.
to the Church without the king's leave. Edward's motive
1 84 EDWARD I. [1284-
was partly to prevent an increase of the wealth and power of
the Church, and partly to prevent more lands f aUing' to clerical
owners, who were not so well able to fight his battles as the lay
barons. His action was resented by the stricter churchmen, and
in particular by the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop
at the time was John Peckham, a Franciscan friar, and a very
busy, weU-meaning, and active man, who was so eager for
the rights of the Church that he was constantly causing great
irritation to Edward by his claims. More than once there seemed
to be a good chance of a conflict between Edward and Peckham
breaking out, such as had raged between Henry 11. and Arch-
bishop Thomas. But Edward's prudence and Peokham's fear of
his sovereign continued to keep matters at peace. On the whole, how-
_. ever, the advantage was with the king, who would not
speete give up the statute of Mortmain, and who in 1285
Agatis, passed a law called Circmnspecte Agatis (act cautiously),
by which he forced the Church courts to confine them-
selves to business that was strictly ecclesiastical, and not to en-
croach upon the jurisdiction of the law courts of the crown. Yet,
powerful as he was, Edward could not prevent the popes nomi-
nating whom they would to great places in the English Church.
Peckham himself had been appointed by papal provision, and
Edward could never persuade the pope to allow the Chancellor
Burnell a richer bishopric than his see of Bath and Wells. Edward
was, however, strong enough to put a practical end to the pope's
exercising any rights as overlord of England by virtue of King
John's submission in 1213. He refused to pay the tribute John
had promised, and the popes were wise enough not to press for it.
11. In 1285 Edward passed two famous laws, called the statute
of WestTninster the Second and the statute of Winchester. The
former made important changes in the land laws. One
Statutes of q£ j^g clauses was called De Bonis Conditionalibus^tli&i
minster II. is, " concerning gifts on condition." Its effect was
8^"* to make it easier for a landholder to entail, or settle, his
1285° ^ ^^' ^^^^ npon a particular line of his descendants for ever.
In practice, however, this custom of tying up lands
from generation to generation was found to work badly, and the
judg'es interpreted Edward's law in such a fashion that it lost its
worst sting. It had, however, some effect towards creating the
English custom of settling lands strictly on the eldest son, which
has proved more profitable to a few great houses than to the king
or country. The statute of Winchester aimed at putting down riots
-1290.] EDWARD I. 185
and violence by making each Hundred responsible for aU breaches
of the peace within its limits, and by providing for the proper
arming and calling out of the fyrd, or, as it soon became called, the
militia. It was in a sense a new version of Henry 11. 's Assize of
Arms brought up to date.
12. The last great law of the reign was the statute of West-
tninster the Third, passed in 1290, and often called from its opening
words. Quia Umptores. It allowed any landholder to ctotute of
sell his land if he wished it, but enacted that the West-
buyer shoTild not be the vassal of the man of whom minster III.,
1 290.
he had acciuired the land, but stand in the same
relation to the lord of the seller as the seller had stood himself.
The effect of this was, in the long run, to bring most landholders
under the direct lordship of the crown, and so still further to
weaken the position of the barons.
13. Despite Edward's new laws, the government was only
properly carried on when the king was himseK in England.
Between 1286 and 1289 foreign troubles carried both
Edward and BurneU to Gascony. During their J^'^J^i*^
absence the judges sold verdicts for money, and the i289, and '
ministers were so corrupt and oppressive that Edward, expulsion of
on his return, appointed a special commission to hear jggo ^'
the numerous complaints brought against them by his
subjects. All the judges but four were heavily fined and dismissed
from office. Soon after this stern act, Edward issued orders that
all Jews should be expelled from England. The Jews had come
to England about the time of the Norman conc[uest, and had
shown such skill in business as to make much money for them-
selves. They were unpopular as foreigners and as unbelievers,
and also because they were in the habit of lending money at high
rates of interest. They were, however, favoured by the kiags, and
were glad to pay highly for the royal protection. Grradually, how-
ever, the feeling against them became very bitter. Edward was
brought over by it to withdraw his support from them. In 1290
he drove them from the land altogether.
14 In 1286 Alexander iii. king of Scots died, the last male
representative of the old Une of Scottish monarchs. With him
ended a long and prosperous period for Scotland, c„oti„nj
during which the various nations which were ruled under
by the Soots king were gradually becoming blended Alexander
together into a single people. The elements which
made up the Scottish kingdom were even more various than those
1 86 EDWARD I. [1286-
whioh were brought together in Edward's realm. The original
Scots were the Celtic-speaking Highlanders, who dwelt amongst
the mountains of the north and west. Their territory did not,
however, extend further south than the Clyde and the Forth,
which were the original southern limits of the Scottish kingdom.
But we have seen how by the conc[uest of Stratholyde, or
Cumbria, a Welsh population in the south-west of the modern
realm was brought under the rule of the Scottish king, so that
his rule extended over the Clyde to the Solway and the Esk. We
have also seen how from the cession of the English district of
Lothian, originally the northern part of Northumbria, the
dominions of the Scottish king had been extended towards the
south-east from the Forth to the Tweed. To these new districts
and new peoples brought under his sway must be added the Danes
and Norsemen, who had largely displaced the Celtic inhabitants
in the western and northern islands and in the extreme north,
and the Norman nobles who had become the chief landed
proprietors since the twelfth century. By this time the
Welsh, the Normans, the English, and the Danes were sufficiently
united with the Celts for all to call themselves Soots. The most
important and populous part of the country was in the south or
Lowlands, which spoke a form of the old speech of Northumbria,
which was soon to be called the Scots tongue. The original Scots
were henceforth called Highlanders, and their language more often
called Gaelic than Scots. The Highlanders were very like their
near kinsmen the Irish, and were stiE for many centuries to be
governed after the old Celtic fashion, by which each tribe was
practically ruled by its clan chieftain. On the other hand, English
and Norman influence had made most of the Lowlanders almost
Englishmen. The Welsh of the south-west were rapidly losing
their old nationality and becoming English in speech and
institutions. The Danes of the north, cut off from their kinsfolk
in Scandinavia, since the Norse invasions had come to an end, were
also becoming Anglicized. Up the east coast English influence
gradually penetrated over the Forth and Tay, or to the low and
fertile region between the mountains and the sea, far beyond
Aberdeen, and almost up to Inverness. The result was that
English-speaking Scotland was become very extensive. But all
the various races dwelling in Scotland were ruled by one king, and
were becoming equally proud of the name of Soot. For a century
their rulers had lived on good terms with the English monarchs,
but this happy period now ended.
-1289.]
EDWARD I.
187
GENEALOGY OF THE EARLY SCOTTISH KINGS, SHOWING THE
CHIEF CLAIMANTS IN 1290
Malcolm Canmoee,
d. 1093, m. St. Margaret, sister to Edgar ^theling.
David i.,
1124-1163.
carl of Huntingdon,
Matilda,
m. Henry i.
William the Lion,
1165-1214.
Alexander ii.,
1214-1249.
Alexandek III..
1249-1286.
Margaret,
m. Eric of Norway.
i
Makgarkt,
the Maid of Norwav,
d. 1290.
David,
carl of Huntingdon.
Margaret,
m. Alan of Galloway.
Devorffilla,
m. John Balliol,
John Balliol,
king of Scots,
1292-1296.
1
Edwakd Balliol,
nominal king of
Scots, 1332-1338.
Isabella,
m. Eobert Bruce,
I
Eobert Bruce
the claimant.
I
Robert Bruce,
earl of Carrick.
Robert i. Bkuce,
king of Scots,
1306-1329.
David ii. Bkuce.
1329-1371.
Margaret,
ui. Walter Stewart
of Scotland, from
whom the Stewarts
are descended.
(Scottish kings in small capitals ; names in italics not mentioned in text.)
15. Alexander iii.'s nearest heir was Margaret, his daughter's
daughter, a, young girl, called the Maid of Norway, because her
father was Eric, king of that country. Proclaimed Tj,e uajd
queen of Scots on Alexander's death, she remained of Norway,
in Norway under her father's care, while her realm 1286-1290.
was ruled by a regency, which found it hard to keep the country
in good order. Edward, who watched Scottish affairs carefully,
saw in a female reign the best prospects of extending his power
over the north. He proposed that his eldest surviving son,
Edward of Carnarvon, should marry the little queen, and thus
bring about the union of the two lands. On his pledging liimself
l88 EDWARD I. [1290-
that the two kingdoms should each retain their own laws and
customs even if the marriage resulted in their being joined xinder
a common sovereign, the Scots cheerfully accepted his plan. In
1290 the treaty of Brigham was signed embodying these conditions.
It was the wisest scheme that could he devised for bringing about
the peaceful unity of Britain. Unluckily, the Maid of Norway died
in the course of the same year on her journey from Norway to
Scotland.
16. A swarm of claimants now arose to the Scottish throne.
As none had a clear title, and several had eager supporters, it looked
as if the sword alone wotdd settle the question of the
™°. , succession. The Scots were alarmed at the prospect
to the of a long and bloody civil war, and resolved to get out
Scottish of the difficulty by calling on Edward to decide which of
1290-1292.' ^^^ candidates had the best right. Edward willingly
agreed to undertake this course. He required, how-
ever, that all the Scottish barons and all the claimants should take
an oath of fealty to him as overlord of Scotland before he began
to examine the question. He gladly welcomed so good an oppor-
tunity of settKng the relations of the two kingdoms which had
remained somewhat doubtful since Richard I. remitted to WiUiam
the Lion the hard conditions of the treaty of Palaise. Though
every subsequent Scottish king had done homage to the English
king, yet each of them possessed large estates in England, and it
was not always clear whether their submission was for their English
estates or for the Scottish throne. As Scotland grew stronger her
kings beoame more unwilling to acknowledge their subjection to a
foreign king, and the good understanding that had prevailed for so
long between them and their southern neighbours had made the
English kings see no reason in pressing their claim. However,
circumstances had now changed. If Edward did not arbitrate,
there was the certainty of Scotland falling into terrible confusion.
The claimants, in their anxiety to curry favour with Edward, were
the first to submit. The chief nobles followed, and Edward there-
upon undertook to try the great suit for the succession.
17. The pleas were examined by 104 judges, of whom 24 were
chosen by Edward and 40 by each of the two claimants whose
Accession rights seemed the nearest. These were John BaUiol,
of John lord of Galloway, and Robert Bruce, lord of Annan-
fpn?"'' ^^^^' -^°^^ °^ these were descended on the female side
from David, earl of Huntingdon, BaUiol being the
grandson of his eldest daughter, Margaret, and Bruce the son of
-I293.] EDWARD I. I89
his second daughter, Isabella. BaUiol's claim was based upon his
representing the elder branch, wlule Bruce's title rested on the fact
that he was a generation nearer Earl David. The judges went into
the case with great care and impartiality, and finally adjudged
the crown to BaUiol. The decision was announced on November
30, 1292, at Berwick-on- Tweed, then a Scottish town. BaUiol at
once did homage to Edward, and was crowned king of Scots. The
question seemed peaceably settled, and Edward won great reputa-
tion for justice in his conduct of the case.
18. Eresh trouble at once fell upon Edward ; this time from
France. All through his reign there had been constant bickering
between Edward an.d the French kings. There were England
great difficulties in carrying out the treaty of 1259, and France,
and the irritation caused to the French by Edward's 1259-1293.
position in Grascony was increased when his queen, Eleanor of
Castile, inherited through her mother the county of Ponthieu on
the lower Somme, so that Edward's position in France was thereby
strengthened. All through the reign of Philip iii., who succeeded
his father St. Louis iu 1270, the relations of the two countries were
strained; but in 1279 both kings agreed to make the treaty of
Amiens, by which Edward's position in Grascony was improved and
his wife put in possession of Ponthieu. Philip iv., who became king
of France iu 1285, was a stronger king than his father, and was
eager to undermine Edward's hold over the French fiefs, by pushing
his power as suzerain to the uttermost. Matters were made worse
by quarrels between English and French seamen, which grew so
bitter that the French hanged some EngKsh mariners to the yard-
arms of their ships, with dogs hung up beside them, " as if they made
no difference," said an indignant chronicler, " between a dog and
an Englishman." This so enraged the English shipmen that in
1293 they challenged the French to fight a pitched battle, in which
the latter were defeated with great slaughter. The beaten sailors
besieged Philip it. with their complaints, and Philip summoned
Edward to his court at Paris to answer for the behaviour of his
subjects. Edward sent his brother Edmund, earl of Lancaster, as his
agent, but Edmund was too simple to be a good negotiator. Philip
persuaded him to give up Grascony to him just as a form, and on
condition of its being soon restored. But when the time of restitu-
tion came, Philip's agents kept a tight hold over the whole of the
duchy. Edward, seeing that his brother had been tricked, angrily
broke off negotiations, and went to war with the French.
19. Philip IV. prepared to invade England, and sought to stir
I go
EDWARD I.
[1293-
iip Edward's enemies to make common cause against him. At
French instigation the Welsh rose in revolt, and forced Edward to
divert to their subjection an army collected to recover Gasoony. It
EraeryTallfcr sc.
Boundary of Lands nominally allowed to Henry III. in 1259 — .
lands secured by Edward I. in 1279 - . M£J
Lands surrendered by Edward I. in 1279 ., '^ 1
ENGU3n king's dominions in feance in the thieteenth cuntuey.
was only after hard fighting, in the course of which Edward
himself ran great personal risk, that the Welsh rebellion was put
down. Then Philip stirred up an even more effective enemy to
-1295.] EDWARD I. I9I
Edward in Scotland, whei-e thing's had been going badly since John
Balliol's succession. Now that Edward's authority over Scotland
had been recognized, Scotsmen, beaten in the local ^^^ French
law courts, appealed to Edward's courts and asked and Scottish
him to do them justice. It was a regular thing ^^"^f',,--
for a suzerain to receive appeals from his vassal's
courts, and Edward had suffered much from the way in which
Philip IV. of France had encouraged his vassals in Gasoony to
take their appeals to Paris. He saw no harm, therefore, in allowing
the Scots to come to his court, and was probably surprised when
the Soots nobles grew indignant at the practice. But there had
been no precedents for such appeals from Scotland to England in
the past, and the Scots declared that they would allow Edward no
such power. As John BaUiol seemed weak and hesitating, the
nobles deprived him of nearly aU his authority, and entrusted it to
a committee of twelve, like the council of fifteen of the Provisions
of Oxford. The new government broke off all relations with
Edward, and concluded a close alliance with the French.
20. Edward met this combination of enemies by forming an
alliance with the emperor, the count of Flanders, and other friends
of England abroad. But he chiefly relied upon the j^^^ Model
good will of his own subjects, and the step he now Parliament
took to win his people to his side was ever memorable <>' '295.
in the history of the growth of our constitution. Already on
many occasions he had summoned representative parliaments like
Montfort's famous assembly of 1265 ; but never had there been
assembled so fidl and popular a parliament as that which Edward
gathered together in 1295. Not only did he convoke the earls
and barons, the bishops and abbots. Beside them came two
knights from every shire, and two citizens and burgesses from
every city and borough. A new element was also introduced in
the appearance of representatives of the lower clergy, in the persons
of deans and archdeacons, one proctor, or representative, of every
cathedral chapter, and two proctors for the parish clergy of every
bishopric. Thus each of the three estates, or class divisions, into
which society was then divided — the barons, the clergy, and the
commons — ^had every chance of making their wishes felt. Later
times have called this parliament the Model Parlicmient, because
it, much more than the Parliament of 1265, was the type upon
which all later parliaments of England were based. And its
assembly is the more important since Edward deliberately called
it as a means of taking his people into partnership in a great crisis.
192 EDWARD I. [1295-
" What touches all," said he, in his letters, or writs, of summons,
" should be approved of all. It is also very clear that common
dangers should he met by measures agreed upon in common." It
is from this moment that the parliamentary constitution of England
was completed. "What with Simon of Montf ort was the expedient
of a moment, became henceforth with Edward i. a permanent
principle of policy.
21. Edward's parliament voted large sums of money which
enabled him to crush the Welsh revolt, ward offl any prospect of
_. invasion, and send an army to win back Gascony. But
quest of it was evident that Philip would not be beaten until the
Scotland, Scots had been taught to respect the power of Edward.
Accordingly, in 1296 Edward led an army into Scotland,
and resolved to pxmisli John BaUiol as he had formerly punished
Llewelyn of Wales. BaUiol made a poor resistance, and after a
very little fighting, surrendered his crown to Edward. The sub-
jection of Scotland was thus apparently effected with infinitely
greater ease than the conquest of the Principality. Edward
treated Scotland as he had treated Wales. He declared Scotland
annexed directly to his crown, and appointed English nobles to
rule the realm in his name. He wandered through the land
and received the homage of thousands of Scottish landholders.
He transferred the sacred stone, seated on which the Scottish
kings had been wont to be crowned at Scone, to Westminster
Abbey, where it ultimately became the base of the coronation chair
of the English kings. After this easy conquest of a kingdom he
hoped to devote all his resources to the recovery of Gascony.
22. New troubles arose in his own realm, which once more
forced Edward to postpone his purpose. This time his own clergy
The elerleal ^^^ barons played the game of the enemy. The
opposition trouble with the clergy began when Robert Winchel-
undep gea, who had succeeded Peckham as archbishop of
Canterbury, refused to allow Edward to raise any
more taxes from ecclesiastics, on the ground that the pope, Boni-
face Yiii., had issued a bull, called Clericis laicos, which forbade
the clergy to pay any taxes to secular princes. In great disgust
Edward declared that, if the clergy would not help to support the
state, the state should not protect them. He declared all the
clergy outlaws, and announced that he would punish no man who
did injury to a priest.
23. It was now the turn of the barons to resist. Edward wished
to send many of his chief lords to Gascony, while he himself went
-1297.] EDWARD I. I93
to fight against Philip iv., in Flanders, whose oonnt was his ally.
Headed by. Humphrey Bohim, earl of Hereford, constable of
England, and BiOger Bigod, earl of Norfolk, marshal ^^
of England, a large section of the barons decUned baronial
to go to Gascony unless the king accompanied them, opposition
In 1297 there was a hot dispute between Edward "Jik^and"'
and the earls at the parliament at Salisbury. "Ton Hereford,
shall go to G-ascony," said Edward to Norfolk, the ^^^^'
marshal, " whether I go or not." On the marshal persisting in his
refusal, the king burst into a passion. " By God, Sir Earl," he
cried, " you shall either go or hang." " By the same oath," answered
Norfolk, " I will neither go nor hang." The two earls gathered
an army round them, and made common cause with Winchelsea.
In great disgust Edward went to Flanders to fight against Philip,
leaving his chief nobles behind him. He could send no real help
to Gascony. He only raised money to pay his troops by im-
posing taxes of his own arbitrary will. He seized all the merchants'
wool and forced them to pay a heavy duty, caUed the Maletote, or
evil toll, before he would surrender it. As soon as he was beyond
sea, the two earls marched to London and easily forced the weak
regency, of which the boy, Edward of Carnarvon, was the nominal
head, to submit to their will. It was now agreed that conflrmatio
a fresh confirmation of Magna Carta and the Charter Cartapum,
of the Forest should be issued in Edward's name, to ^^^'^'
which new articles were to be appended by which the king
promised to renounce the Maletote, and never in the future to raise
similar aids or taxes save with the consent of parliament. This
Confirmatio Cartarum was sent over to Edward in Flanders, and
very unwiUingly he gave his consent to it. It was an important
epoch in the growth of our constitution. Though the earls were
greedy and pedantic, and Winchelsea thought more of the privi-
leges of the Church than the Kberties of the realm, Edward in his
need had acted as a mere tyrant, and it was necessary that his
power should be checked.
24 Terrible news from Scotland showed that the king had
yielded none too soon. With all his ambition and violence,
Edward stiU wished to rule Scotland well, but many ^^^^ Scottish
of those who governed that kingdom in his name were rising under
cruel and greedy men, and the Scots hated English ^^l'^^^'
domination even when it was fair and just. Their
subjection had been due to the foUy of their king and the haH-
heartedness of the chief Scottish nobles, most of whom submitted
194 EDWARD I. [1297-
because th.ey possessed estates in England wliioli they did not wish
to lose by oflending' Edward. It was otherwise with the mass of
the Soots people, who were indignant because their national in-
dependence was destroyed and. their country trampled upon by the
foreigner. Within a few months there were popular risings all over
the country, and soon an able leader to the insurgents was found
in Sir William Wallace of Elderslie, not far from Glasgow. In
1297 Wallace gathered a gallant army round him, and offered battle
to Earl Warenne, Edward's aged and easy-going governor of
Scotland. At Stirling Bridge, near the abbey of Cambuskenneth,
Warenne was out-generaUed by Wallace and utterly defeated.
Before the end of the year aU Scotland threw off the English
yoke, and Wallace spread desolation over the English border.
25. Edward hurried back from Flanders, where he had done
very little against Philip. In 1298 he once more led an army into
Battle of Scotland, and engaged Wallace in battle at Falhirh
Falkirk, on July 22. The English army fought on horseback,
after the fashion that had prevailed ever since the
battle of Hastings, though Edward had learnt from his Welsh war
the wisdom of combining archers with the cavalry, so as to wear
down the foe from a distance. Most of the barons and knights of
Scotland were holding aloof from Wallace, or were actually on
Edward's side, so that the Scottish hero had to trust to those
Scots who were not rich enough to fight on horseback. But
Wallace had the eye of a good general, and saw that his only chance
of victory was to keep his troops closely together. He planted his
infantry, whose chief arm was the pike, in dense squares or circles.
For a long time the stubborn pikemen resisted the repeated rushes
of Edward's knights, but the king cleverly broke through their
ranks by constant flights of arrows; and then the cavalry rode
through the gaps and dispersed the Scottish squares with great
slaughter. Wallace fled to France, and once more it seemed as if
Scotland were at Edward's feet.
26. A renewal of Edward's domestic troubles, and the continued
struggle with Philip iv., destroyed the king's hopes of completing
Edward's *^® conquest of the north. He soon saw that he could
reeoneilia- ^"^ fight both France and Scotland at the same time,
tion with and in 1299 made peace with Philip, and, being now a
the Church, widower, married the French king's sister Margaret
as a pledge of better relations for the future. Even
then PhUip retained for several years the greater part of Gascony,
but luckily for Edward, the Frejich king quarrelled with the
-'304-1 EDWARD I.
19s
imperious Pope Bonifaoe vm., and soon found it necessary to buy
Edward's friendship by surrendering him Gascony. By 1303
Philip had ruined Boniface and broken down the overwhelming'
power of the papacy. In 1305 a Gascon subject of Edward's
was chosen pope by Philip iv.'s good wUl, and took the name
of Clement v. This unworthy pontiff deserted Italy and tarried
in France, finally taking up his abode at Avignon, on the Rhone,
and doing complacently the will of the mighty French king. He
was only iess subservient to Edward, and abandoned Archbishop
Winchelsea to the king's anger. Winchelsea was driven into
exile, and with his fall Edward became once more master over the
English Church. Long before that the bxdl Clericis laicos had
been given up, and Edward's persecution of Winchelsea had
a sinister appearance of mere revenge.
27. Prance was thus conciliated and the clerical opposition
crushed. While these processes were going on, Edward was also
breaking down the baronial opposition which had _.
triumphed over him in 1297. Despite his agreement baronial
to confirm the charters, his troubles with the barons opposition
went on for several years, and effectively prevented ""' '* ^ "
the united effort of all England, which alone could complete the
work began at Falkirk. Edward was very sore at being forced to
give up so much power, and behaved almost as badly as his father
had done in regarding the letter rather than the spirit of his con-
cessions. Disgusted at his narrow spirit, the barons refused to
follow him to Scotland until he had really carried out his promises.
In 1300 he was forced to accept another series of additions to the
charters, contained in a document called ArticuU super Cartas,
which ordered a survey of the forests to be made, in order to check
the king's encroachments on freemen's rights by extending the
boundaries of the forests, within which he had more power than
over the rest of his realm. Edward resented the attempt to limit
his authority over the forests with extreme bitterness, and struggled
as long as he could. In 1301 he made a further submission, but
even after that he induced Clement v. to free him from his oath,
though, to his credit be it said, he made no use of the papal dis-
pensation. The long struggle taught him that it was only by
yielding to his barons that he could subdue Scotland.
28. At last, in 1303, Edward was able to throw all his efforts into
this long-delayed work. In 1304 he conquered Stirling, and at
last saw Scotland at his feet. Wallace now came back to the scene
of his former triumphs, but was not able to effect much against
ig6 EDWARD I. [«305-
Edward. He was taken prisoner, and in 1306 beheaded as a traitor
at London. Fierce and cruel though he had been, Ms courage
and daring had made him the idol of his country-
conqueTof men. When the nobles despaired of freedom, Wal-
Scotland, lace organized revolt and kept alive the spirit of
1303-1305. ii](,grty Tjie work that he did survived his apparent
failure.
29. Edward had drawn up a plan for the government of Scotland,
under which the land was to be divided into four parts, each of
The rising which was to be under two justices, one a Soot and
of Robert the other an Englishman; whUe the king's nephew,
Bruce. 1306. j^j^ ^f Brittany, was to be warden of all Scotland.
But the new system had hardly begun when a fresh revolt compelled
Edward to begin the work of conquest all over again. Robert
Bruce, earl of Carrick, grandson of the unsuccessftd. claimant, had
generally been a supporter of Edward, and had taken a prominent
part in establishing the new constitution. He had a great foe
in John Comyn of Badenoch, the hereditary rival of his house. In
1306 the two enemies agreed to make peace and meet at Dumfries
to discuss their future action. There Bruce suddenly fell upon
Comyn and treacherously murdered him. Despairing of Edward's
pardon, he fled to the hUls, and finding the people rallying round
him, he dexterously posed as the champion of Scottish inde-
pendence, and renewed Ms house's claim to the tMone. The Scots
were glad to follow any leader against the hated English, and
Bruce, though treacherous and seK-seeking, soon showed that he
had the ability and courage necessary to rule a people struggling
for freedom. In a few months he was crowned king at Scone, and
for the third time Edward had to face the prospect of conquering
afresh the stubborn nation that had so long defied Ms efforts.
30. Edward was now nearly seventy years of age, and his health
had latterly been broken ; but Ms courage was as Mgh as ever, and
Death of ^^ resolved to conquer Scotland for the tMrd time. In
Edward I., 1307 the old king was once more on the border, but Ms
1307. infirmities made it impossible for Mm to move quickly.
The effort proved too much for Ms declining strength, and on
July 7 he died at Burgh- on- Sands, almost the last village on
the English border. With him perished the last hope of con-
quering Scotland, but though the oMef ambition of Ms life was
thus a failure, he had done a, great work for England. The con-
queror of Wales, the framer of a whole series of great laws, the
maker of our mediaeval constitution, he had turned the French
-I307-] EDWARD I. 1 97
king- from his dearest purpose, cvirbed tie fierce baronage, and even
set some limits to the claims of the Ch\irch. He was the first
real Englishman to reign after the Norman conquest, and the
creator of the modern English nation as well as of the modern
English state, though he could not effect his piirpose of bringing
all our island nnder his own domination. That his own realm
should henceforth be roled after a constitutional fashion, and not by
despotic caprice, seemed assured when even the stubborn will of
Edward was forced to give way to his subjects. The best guarantee
for the permanence of the charters and of the popular parliament
lay in the fact that they were wrested not only from a capricious
despot like John, or a weakling like Henry iii., but also from a
strong and powerful king like Edward i.
CHAPTER HI
EDWARD II. OF CARNARVON (1307-1327)
Chief Dates :
1307. Accession of Edward ii.
1311. The Ordinances drawn up.
1312. Death of Gaveston.
1314. Battle of Cannookburo.
1322. Battle of BoroQghbridge.
1326. Landing of Isabella.
1327. Deposition of Edward ii.
1. Edttard op Carnauvon was twenty-ttree years old wlien he
became king. Tall, graceful, and handsome, he looked almost as
„ . , „ fine a man as his father, but an utter lack of serious
Edward II. .
and purpose blasted his whole career. It was to no purpose
Gaveston, that Edward I. had carefully trained his son both in
1307 . . •
military science and in business ; the youth showed
no taste for anything but his own amusements. The old king was
bitterly disgusted, and attributing his son's levity to the influence
of a Gascon knight, Peter of Gaveston, with whom he had been
educated, he banished the foreign favourite early in 1307. But
as soon as his father was dead, Edward recalled Gaveston, and,
despite his having solemnly promised his dying father to persevere
in it, abandoned the campaign against the Scots. In every way
he reversed the policy of Edward I., and at once embarked upon a
course of action that ultimately involved himself in ruin and
wrought terrible havoc to his kingdom. Though there have been
worse kings than Edward 11., there have been none so negligent
and light-minded.
2. Under Edward i. the barons had been discontented vidth the
growing power of the crown, but had been restrained in their
iJaveston's opposition by the strong will and wise policy of the
exile and king. With the accession of Edward 11. the baronial
recall, opposition at once revived, and soon proved as for-
midable to the monarcny as in the days of Henry iii.
The barons' disgust of Edward's affection for Gaveston gave them
131 2- J EDWARD II. OF CARNARVON 1 99
their first pretext for revolt, and they had the people with them in
their aversion to the favourite. Gaveston was quick-witted and a
good soldier, but his head was turned by his sudden elevation, and
he had an unhappy knack of sharp and bitter speech that mortally
offended the barons. Before long Edward made him earl of
Cornwall and married him to his niece, the sister of the young
Earl Gilbert of Gloucester. In 1308 a parliament of barons met
and forced the king to drive him into exile. Edward strove to
lighten his misfortunes by appointing- him governor of Ireland, and
set to work at once to intrigue for his return. In 1309 the king
shrewdly adopted a long series of reforms, which a parliament of the
three states urged upon him. In return for these concessions, the
parliament allowed Edward to bring his friend back to England.
But the leading barons refused to be bound by the acts of this
parliament.
3. In 1310 another baronial assembly resolved to punish the
king for restoring his favourite by compelling him to appoint a
committee of barons to draft ordinances for the
future government of his realm. In a vain hope of nances and
saving Gaveston, Edward agreed to this proposal, the Lords
Accordingly, a body of twenty-one Lords Ordainers ?rfo'?qi'i'
was appointed from the earls, barons, and bishops.
In 1311 they drew up the Ordinances. By them Gaveston was to
be banished for life, the great offices of state were to be filled up
with the advice of the barons, and the king was not to go to war,
raise an army, or leave the kingdom without their permission. It
was a complete programme of limited monarchy, but no word was
said as to the commons and clergy. To the ordainers parliament
stiU meant a parliament of barons.
4. Gaveston went into exile for the second time, but early in
1312 Edward recalled him. Thereupon the ordainers raised an army
and besieged Gaveston in Scarborough Castle. After ^1,6 murder
a short siege Gaveston surrendered, and the barons of Gaveston,
agreed to spare his Ufe. Not long after he was brutally * 3' 2"
put to death by the earl of Warwick, the most rancorous of his
enemies, who thought himself free to slay the favourite because he
had not been a party to the promise to spare his Ufe. The king
was bitterly incensed at the treachery which had lured his favourite
to death, and feebly strove 'to revenge him. Ultimately he
was forced to give way, and leave power , in the hands of the
ordainers.
5. It was high time that the king and barons made peace, for
200
EDWARD II. OF CARNARVON
[1307-
during their dissensions Robert Bruce tad been establishing his
power over the whole of Scotland. When Edward i. died, Bmce's
position was stiU. doubtful ; but when the new king
gave up fighting the war in person the chances of the
Scots grew brighter. Between 1307 and 1314, Bruce
conquered nearly all Scotland. He won over most of
the Scottish barons to his side, and gradually captured
the strong castles which Edward i. had established
to keep the Scots in subjection. The chief of the few castles
Robert
Bruce
becomes
master of
Scotland,
1307-1314.
A. Brace's Army
b. Pits dug by Bruce...
C. English Caualry —
D. English Infantry. ...
Walker Br Cockerell sc.
BATTLE OP BANNOCKBUKN.
that stUl remained in English hands was Stirling, a place of great
military importance, because it commanded the lowest bridge over
the Forth, by which the easiest road between the Lowlands and
the Highlands passed. At last Bruce besieged Stirling, and pressed
the garrison so hard that they agreed to surrender if they were
not relieved by St. John the Baptist's Day, June 24, 1314.
6. If Stirling feU, the last vestige of English rule in Scotland
Battle of ""'^s destroyed, and even Edward felt that he must
Bannock- make an effort to avoid such a calamity. King and
"™' • barons accordingly joined to raise a great army, and set
off to relieve Stirling before the appointed day. The mighty host
-I3I4-] EDWARD II. OF CARNARVON 20I
was more formidable in appearance than in reality. The presence
of the king- prevented any real general from being- appointed, and
the barons, still sulky and discontented, fought with undisguised
reluctance. The English army moved so slowly that it only reached
the neighbourhood of Stirling on June 23. Next day Bruce
resolved to fight a battle to prevent the sieg-e being raised, and
marshalled his forces at Bannockhwm, a few miles to the south of
Stirling. As at Falkirk, the Scots fought on foot and the English
on horseback. Taught by Wallace's failure, Bruce took every
precaution to protect his soldiers from the English attack. His
spearmen were mustered in dense squares, and pits were dug-
before his lines and covered lightly over with turf. Edward ii.
neglected all the precautions that had won his father victory. No
effort was made to combine the archers with the men-at-arms, and
the English relied entirely upon the shock of a cavalry charge.
But the foremost of the English ranks plunged blindly into the
concealed pits, and those who escaped this snare found themselves
unable to penetrate the squares of Scottish pikemen. Soon the
whole English army was in a state of wild confusion. The few who
fought bravely, conspicuous among whom was the young earl of
Gloucester, perished on the field. The majority fied disgracefully,
and Edward ii. set the example of cowardice to his army. Bruce
won a complete victory. Stirling Castle opened its gates to him,
and Scottish independence was fully vindicated.
7. The disaster of Bannockburn made Edward more dependent
upon his barons than ever. For the next few years power remained
with the ordainers, but the ordainers proved as in-
competent as Edward to govern England. Their Lancaster
wisest councillor. Archbishop Winohelsea, was now
dead, and their leader was Edward's cousin, Thomas, earl of
Lancaster, the son of Earl Edmund, brother of Edward i. Earl
Thomas was by far the most powerful and wealthy of the English
earls. By inheritance and marriage he united under his control
the resources of five earldoms. He had been a capable leader of
opposition, but his ability was small; he was greedy, selfish, and
domineering, and knew better how to humiliate the king than to
rule the country. He made few attempts to save the northern
counties from the frequent forays with which the Scots now
insulted the weakness of England. The country was full of tumult
and private war, and as Lancaster's weakness became known, even
Edward plucked up courage to assert himself.
8. New favourites had caused Edward to forget G-aveston.
202 EDWARD II. OF CARNARVON [1322-
These were the two Hugh Despensers — ^father and son. They
were at least English noMemen, and not foreign upstarts like
The fall of Grareston ; but the barons soon showed that they
Lancaster, could hate a renegade as bitterly as they had ever
^^^^* hated an alien adventurer. They strongly resented the
titles, estates, and favours which Edward conferred on his new
friends. In pai'tioular they took alarm when the younger
Despenser, who, like Graveston, had married a sister of the earl of
Grloucester slain at Bannockburn, strove to obtain for himself the
position of earl of GHoucester, vacant since Ms brother-in-law's
death without male heirs. By 1321 the Despensers were strong
enough to make the barons very anxious to mete out to them the
fate of Gaveston. Headed by Lancaster, parliament sentenced
them to banishment. The loss of his favourites inspired Edward
with an energy rarely to be found in him. In 1322 he took up
arms on their behalf, and recalled them from beyond the sea. The
barons made a poor fight, and before long Lancaster was defeated
and taken prisoner at the haitle of Boroughhridge, in Yorkshire. A
few days later he was tried and executed at his own castle of
Pontefract.
9. From the faU of Lancaster to 1326 the Despensers ruled
England. They were shrewd enough to profit by the errors of
The Parlla- ^^^ ordainers, and professed to be the friends of the
ment of Commons. Immediately after Lancaster's death,
York, 1322. they held a parliament at York, which revoked the
ordinances as infringing the rights of the crown, and because they
were drawn up by a council of barons only. This parliament
laid down the important principle, that matters which are to be
established for the estate of our lord the king and for the estate
of the realm, shall be treated in parliament by a council of the
prelates, earls, and barons, and the commonalty of the realm.
This is the most important constitutional advance made under
Edward 11. Henceforth no law could be regarded as valid unless
it had received the consent of the Commons.
10. Despite this wise beginning, the rule of the Despensers
broke down as signally as that of Lancaster. They were utterly
The rule unable to guard the north of England from the
of the devastating inroads of Eobert Bruce, and in 1322 made
?322-l"326^' ^ ti'^o® ■"^i^li him which practically recognized him
as king of Soots. The favourites thought more of
winning territory and wealth for themselves than of the good
government of the kingdom. The elder Hugh became earl of
-1327-] EDWARD II. OF CARNARVON 203
Winoliester, and his son aoq^uired the power and many of the
estates, though not the title, of earl of Gloucester. Their covetous-
ness and pride made them generally hated, and their foUy prevented
them from taking proper measures to protect themselves. They
soon excited the enmity of all classes against them.
11. Among the many persons whom the Despensers ofEended
was the queen, Isabella of France, a daughter of Philip the Fair.
Seeing that she was not strong enough to induce her
husband to dismiss his favourites, she cleverly dis- MorUiMr
sembled her wrath, and, in 1325, persuaded her husband
to allow her to visit France, then ruled by her brother, King
Charles iv. With her went her eldest son, Edward of Windsor,
who was appointed by his father duke of Aquitaine, and com-
missioned to do homage for that duchy on behalf of the king of
England. At Paris Isabella made friends with some of the exiled
members of Lancaster's party, at whose head was Roger Mortimer
of Wigmore, the most powerful of the barons from the March of
Wales, who was eager to be avenged on the Despensers and obtain
restoration to his estates. At Mortimer's advice, Isabella refused
to return to England as long as the Despensers remained in power.
Soon the scandal caused by the queen's open affection for Mortimer
induced Ejng Charles to send her out of France. Therefore she
went to Hainault, where she betrothed her son to Philippa, daughter
of the count of Hainault, and obtained from him enough soldiers
and money to make it possible for her to invade England and drive
her husband from the throne.
12. In September, 1326, Isabella, Mortimer, and the young
Edward landed at Orwell, in Essex, declaring that they had come
to avenge the murder of Lancaster, and to drive the The fall of
Despensers from power. England was so tired of Edward II.,
Edward and his favourites, that men of all ranks •'•''^°"">'^'-
flocked eagerly to the camp of the queen. The chief barons,
including Henry of Lancaster, the brother and heir of Earl
Thomas, declared in her favour. The Londoners mxirdered
Edward's ministers, and opened their gates to his enemies.
Against these powerful forces Edward n. cotdd do nothing. He
fled to the west, accompanied by the Despensers, and rapidly
followed by Isabella and Mortimer. The elder Despenser was
taken and slain at Bristol, and his son was hanged at Hereford.
The king strove to take refuge in the younger Hugh's G-lamorgan-
shire estates, but he was soon tracked out and brought prisoner
to London. Early in 1327 parliament met at Westminster. It
204 EDWARD II. OF CARNARVON [1327.
recognized Edward of Aquitaine as Edward ill., and forced the
old king- to resign tte crown to Ms son. Next year the deposed
monarch was cruelly murdered at Berkeley Castle, in Grloucester-
shire. He was the most worthless of our kings, and richly
deserved deposition, yet few beneficial changes have been brought
about with more manifest self-seeking than that which hurled him
from power. The angry spite of the adulterous queen, the fierce
rancour and greediness of Roger Mortimer, and the cowardice of
the lesser agents of the revolution can inspire nothing but disgust.
Am^ong Edward's foes, Henry of Lancaster alone behaved as an
honourable gentleman. But though his wrongs were ostentatiously
put forward, he was, Kke the young duke of Aquitaine, a mere tool
in the hands of Isabella and her paramour. Yet the ostentatious
care shown to make parliament responsible for the change of ruler
showed that even the weak reign of Edward 11. had done some-
thing to strengthen the fabric of the English constitution.
CHAPTER IV
EDWARD III. (1327-1377)
Chief dates :
1327. Accession of Edward iii.
1328. Peace of Northampton.
1330. Fall of Mortimer.
1333. Battle of Halidon HiU.
1337- Beginning of Hundred Years' War.
1340. Battle of Sluys.
1346. Battles of Cr6cy and Neville's Cross.
1348. Outbreak of the Black Death.
13SI. Statute of Provisors.
13S3. Statute of Praemunire.
1356. Battle of Poitiers.
1360. Treaties of Bre'tigni and Calais.
1367. Battle of Ndjera.
1369. Renewal of the Hundred Tears' War.
1371. Clerical ministers removed from office.
1376. The Good Parliament.
1377. Death of Edward iii.
1. Edwabd III. was only fifteen years old when lie became king,
and for three years Isabella and Mortimer ruled ia his name.
Nominally power went to the council, of which Henry .p^^ ^.^^j^ ^^
of Lancaster, now restored to his brother's title and Isabella and
estates, was chairman. Troubles at once arose, both Moptlmep,
1327—1330
with Scotland and Prance. Robert Brace's fightingr
days were over, but he took advantage of the revolution in England
to send an army across the border. Though a great force was
gathered together to repel the Soots, the English dared not risk a
battle, and soon began to negotiate for peace. In 1328 this
resulted in the treaty of Northanvpton, by which England with-
drew all claim to feudal superiority over Scotland, recognized
Robert Bruce as king of Scots, and agreed to the marriage of his
son David to Joan, Edward's infant sister. The treaty excited great
indignation, and men called it a shameful peace, but it is difficult
to see on what other terms an agreement could have been made.
205
206 EDWARD III. [1327-
There was not the least chance of driving Robert Bruce from the
throne which he had so laboriously won for himself. To continue
the war was useless, and its only result would have been to expose
the northern counties of England to constant Scottish invasions.
Yet the formal surrender of Edward l.'s claims over Scotland cost
much to a proud and high-spirited nation. The humiliation was the
worse since it was only by concessions almost as hard that Isabella
and Mortimer manag-ed to secure peace with France. During the
troubles that preceded the faU of Edward of Carnarvon, Charles iv.
had taken possession of Gascony, on account of which nominal war
had broken out between the two countries. The English were
as little able to recon(iuer Gascony as to win back Scotland, and
here again Isabella and Mortimer accepted inevitable facts, though
they were more fortunate than in their dealings with the northern
kingdom, since they obtained a partial restoration of Gascony
before they would agree to conclude peace. This was done by the
treaty of Paris of 1327. From this time the English duchy of
Gascony was cut down to narrow limits, centring round the cities
of Bordeaux and Bayonne. Next year, 1328, Charles iv. died, having
been the third son of Philip iv. to reign in succession over France
and die without male heirs. Immediately the French barons
recognized the nearest male heir, Philip, count of Valois, the son of
Charles, count of Valois, a brother of Philip iv., as King Philip vi.
It had already been laid down in France, when Philip the Fair's
eldest son died, leaving a daughter, that women were excluded from
the succession. Accordingly the accession of Philip vi. went
almost as a matter of course. Isabella, however, who was Charles's
sister, protested against the Valois succession. She recog-nized
that France must have a king, and did not claim the throne for
herself. However, she maintained that a woman, though incapable
of reigning, might form the " bridge and plank " through which
her son, Edward iii., might succeed. The French barons rightly
regarded this as a dangerous claim. Its effect would have been,
whenever a king died without a son, to transfer the throne to
some foreign prince, whose descent could be traced to a lady of the
royal house. The French were not willing to hand over their
throne to a foreign sovereign, and Isabella's claim on her son's
behalf was c[uietly pushed aside. She was quite unable to do more
than protest, and in 1329 her son virtua,Uy recognized the lawful-
ness of Philip's position by performing hQmag'e to him for
Aquitaine.
'329-] EDWARD III. 20/
GENEALOGY OF THE FRENCH KINGS OF THE DIEECT CAPETIAN
LINE, SHOWING EDWAED III.'s CLAIMS
Hugh Capet,
987-996.
HOBERT,
996-1031.
I
Henry i.,
1031-1060.
Philip r.,
1060-1108.
I
Louis vi.,
1108-1137
Louis vir.,
1137-1180.
Philip ii., Augustus,
1180-1222.
Louis viii.,
1222-1226.
^ I I
Louis ix., Charles of Anjou,
m. Margaret of Provence, King of Sicily,
1226-1270. m. Beatrice of Provence,
I d. 1286.
Philip hi.,
the Bold,
1270-1285.
I
Philip iv., Charles, Count of Valois.
the Fair, )
1286-1314. Philip vi., of Valois,
I 1328-1360.
i \ i i
Louis x.. Pbilip v., Charles iv., Isabella,
1314-1316. 1316-1322. 1322-1328. m. Edward ii.
of England.
Edward iii.
French kings mentioned in the text in small capitals ; all names not
mentioned in the text in italics,
2. The home government of Isabella and Mortimer was as
unsuccessful as their foreign policy. Mortimer thought of nothing
save of acquiring a great position for himself. His ambition was
208 EDWARD III. [1329-
to unite the whole of the Welsh March tinder his sway, and he
received the title of earl of the March of Wales, or, more shortly.
The fall of 6*^1 °* March. For a time he vigorously stamped out
Moptimer, aU attempts to oppose him. His last triiunph was
1330. j^ 1330, when he put to death Edmund, earl of Kent,
Edward i.'s son by his second wife, who had convinced himseK that
his brother, Edward 11., was stUl aUve, and strove to bring about
his restoration to the throne. Edward iii. was now becoming a
man, and was keenly alive to the humiliation involved in his
dependence on his mother and her paramour. Henry of Lancaster
was equally indignant at his exclusion from all real share of power.
Accordingly, in 1330, a conspiracy was arranged to drive Mortimer
from the position which he had usurped. A band of soldiers was
introduced through a secret passage into Nottingham Castle,
where Mortimer and the queen were staying. The favourite was
arrested and soon afterwards hanged. Isabella was henceforward
excluded from any share iu public afEairs. With their fall the real
reign of Edward iii. begins.
3. Edward iii. was not a great man like Edward i., but he won
a conspicuous place in history by the extraordinary activity of his
Character temperament, and the vigour and energy with which
and policy of he threw himself into whatever work he set himself to
Edward III. ^^ -g-g ,jeijg]i-(;e J jj^ hunting and toxirnaments, was
liberal, easy of access, good tempered, and kindly. He was not
only a consummate knight, but a capable soldier, with the general's
eye that takes in the points of a situation at a glance. His weak
points were his extravagance, his love of frivolous amusement, his
self-indulgence, and his disregard for his plighted word. His main
ambition in life was to win fame and glory abroad, but he ruled
England creditably, and made many concessions to his subjects'
wishes in order to obtain supplies for carrying on his foreign wars.
Like Edward i., he attempted far more than he was able to carry
through ; but it was only at the very end of his reign that his
subjects realized that the popular and glorious king had failed in
his chief ambitions.
4. In the early years of his personal rule, Edward's chief object
was to win back for England something of the greatness it had
David Bruce acquired under Edward i. He was bitterly irritated
and Edward at the establishment of Scottish independence, and
Balllol, before long fortune gave him a chance of upsetting in
-1333. j^jj^ indirect way the treaty of Northampton. Robert
Bruce died in 1329, and was succeeded by his son David, Edward iii.'s
-1333J EDWARD III. 209
brother-in-law, who was a mere boy. Under his weak govern-
ment tronbles soon broke out in Scotland. A large number of
Scottish barons who had opposed Robert Bruce had been driven
into exile when Robert became king. They were called the Dis-
inherited,, and they saw in the minority of King David a chance of
winning back their estates by force. At their head was the son of
the deposed King John, Edward Balliol, who had not forgotten his
father's claim on the Scottish throne. Edward in. gave them no
direct help, as he feared to break wantonly the treaty of Northamp-
ton. However, he made no effort to prevent the Disinherited from
collecting a little army, with which they invaded Scotland in 1332,
under the command of Edward Balliol. The invaders won a
decisive victory over the army of King David at Dupplin Moor
near Perth. A few weeks later Balliol was crowned king of Scots
at Scone. He gained recognition by Edward as king of Soots through
promising to hold Scotland of him, and to cede him. Berwick. The
party of David, however, was not entirely crushed, and before the
end of the year they surprised Balliol at Annan, and drove him
back into England. His reign only lasted four months.
5. Edward in. now openly took up BaDiol's cause, and in 1333
invaded Scotland to restore his vassal to his throne. His first step
was to besiege Berwick, and the Scots forced Edward
to fight a battle before he could secure the town, jjn] J333
This fight was fought at Halidon Sill, a short
distance west of Berwick. The English men-at-arms dismounted
and fought on foot after the Scottish fashion. Their tactics
proved signally successful. The Scots were beaten, and next
day Berwick opened its gates, to be for the rest of its history an
English frontier town. Edward's action now showed that Balliol
was but a tool in his hands. In 1334 he restored his namesake to his
throne, but only on his agreeing to cede to England the whole of
Lothian and the eastern part of Galloway. Any faint chance that
Balliol had of success was completely destroyed by Edward's
greediness. The Scots hated him as the betrayer of his country,
and the English treated him as the puppet of their king. For
many years he strove to make himself I'eal master of that part of
Scotland which Edward permitted him to claim. David was sent
to Prance for safety, but most Scots stiU upheld him against the
two Edwards. At no time did either Edward Balliol David finally
or the King of England efEectively possess the Scottish established
lands they claimed as theirs. But their efPorts to m Scotland,
establish themselves involved the north in many years of bloodshed
P
2IO
EDWARD JII.
[1333-
and misery. At last, after Edward iii.'s breach with France,
David returned to Scotland and made himself king over the whole
country. Thus Edwaid iii. failed as signally as his grandfather
in his efforts to conc[uer Scotland.
6. During the years of Edward's attempt on Scotland the
EmeryWalkcr s
SroP.THEEN ENGLAND AND SOUTHERN SCOTLAND IN THE FOURTEENTH
CENTURY.
relations of England and France became increasingly unfriendly.
Causes of Edward complained that Philip vi. kept David at his
the Hundred court, and openly took the side of the Scots against
Years' War. ^j^g EngHsh. There were other difficulties about
Gascony, where Philip vi., like Philip iv., was doing what he
could to lessen the power of Edward as duke. It was, in fact,
the impossible position of Edward in Grascony which caused the
fundamental difference between the two nations. Edward could
not abandon his ancient patrimony, and Philip could not give
up the policy of every king since St. Louis of gradually absorbing
-I337-] EDWARD III. 211
the great flefs in the royai domain. Besides this, there were
many seoondaxy causes of the war. One of these was Philip's
support of the Scots. Another canse of dispute arose from
the rival interests of England and France in Flanders. This
county, though nominally a fief of France, was largely hostile to
the French king. Flanders in those days was the chief manu-
facturing district in northern Europe, and its chief towns, Ghent,
Bruges, and Ypres, were the best customers that England had.
England in the fourteenth century was a purely agricultural and
pastoral land. Its chief product was wool, which was exported to
Flanders to he woven into cloth in its populous clothing towns.
The great Flemish towns had liberties so extensive that they were
virtually independent, both of their immediate master the count
of Flanders, and of his overlord, the king of France. The count
of Flanders called in the help of Philip vi. to subdue his unruly
townsmen, and these in their turn appealed to Edward for help.
The leader of the Flemish citizens was James van Artevelde of
Ghent. He saw that the best hopes of Flemish municipal inde-
pendence lay in a close alliance with England, and was eager to win
over Edward to his side. Under his guidance the towns of Flanders
drove away their count, and made a treaty with England. Philip
deeply resented Edward's interference with his Flemish vassals.
He was still more angry when Edward added to the Flemish alliance
a close friendship with the Emperor Louis of Bavaria and the chief
imperial vassals of the Netherlands. Louis of Bavaria, who had
married Queen Philippa's sister, was now engaged in a fierce
strugg'le with the Avignon popes, who had excommunicated and
deposed him. Tet, in 1338, Edward visited Louis at Coblenz, on the
Hhine, where he made a close alliance with him, and was appointed
the emperor's vicar in the Netherlands. Thereupon the count of
Hainault and Holland, brother-in-law of king and emperor alike,
the duke of Brabant, and other Netherlandish vassals of Philip,
took Edward's pay and agreed to help him against France. This
aUiance intensely annoyed the pope, who had long been making
strenuous efforts to bring about peace. But the popes were now
Frenchmen, and thought by England to be prejudiced in favour of
France, so that the chief result of their interference was to make
the papacy disliked in England. Besides all these troubles, there
were many commercial disputes, and French and English sailors
were already contending with each other at sea, as they had done
in 1293.
7. Under these circumstances both countries slowly drifted into
212 EDWARD III. [1339"
war, and the first open hostilities took place in. 1337. When war
had already become inevitable, Edward iii. immensely complicated
The chief *^^ situation by reviving the claims on the French
features crown which Isabella had advanced on his behalf at the
ofiB time of the accession of Philip of Valois. At first
these claims were not very seriously meant, and it is
a mistake to suppose that they were the chief cause of the war. It
was not until 1340 that Edward assumed the title of King of
France, and then he did so simply to please the Flemings, who had
scruples in fighting their feudal overlord, which disappeared
when they pursuaded themselves that Edward, and not Philip, was
the real king of France. From that moment, however, Edward's
pretensions became more important. The persistence of Edward
and his successors in maintaining the claim made real peace
impossible for many generations. The result was that the war
which now began is known in history as the Snndred Years' War.
Though fighting did not go on all that time without a break,
England and France were for more than a hundred years generally
unfriendly, and nearly always actually at war with each other.
Even when peace was made, the claim was not dropped, and every
English king down to George iii. called himself king of France,
and quartered on his shield the KLies of France with the Kons of
England. Edward's claim did not seem so unreasonable then as it
seems to modern eyes, but the French rightly resisted it, as his
success would have meant the subjection of their land to the rule
of a foreigner.
8. War on a great scale began in 1339, when Edward led an
English army to the Netherlands, and strove, with the help of his
TheNethep- ^l®™'^^ ^^^ imperial aUies, to invade the northern
landish frontiers of France. Neither Edward nor Philip
Campaigns, ventured to fight a pitched battle, and Edward's
1339-1340. German confederates were more anxious to take his pay
than to do him real service. The only result of Edward's Nether-
landish campaigns was to exhaust his resources and diminish his
reputation.
9. The most decisive fighting during these wars was at sea.
The French had planned a great invasion of England, and though
The Battle this came to nothing, they collected a powerful fleet,
of Sluys, which, in 1340, strove to prevent Edward's returning
to the Netherlands to renew the campaign. The result
of this was a great sea fight off the Flemish port of Sluys, in
which the French navy was absolutely destroyed. This battle put
I346-]
EDWARD III.
213
an end to all schemes of invasion, and gave tke Englisli for many
years the oommand of the Channel. Henceforward Edward boasted
that the king of England was lord of the sea. Yet even the glory
of Sluys did not help Edward in his land campaign. Before the
end of 1340 he made a truce with the French and returned to
England. Though his people had granted him large supplies, he
was almost bankrupt. He unfairly laid the blame of this on his
ministers, the chief of whom was John Stratford, Archbishop of
EmeryValker sc
THE CEiCY CAMPAIGN, 1346.
Canterbury. On his return to England he drove Stratford from
power, and appointed an entirely new body of ministers.
10. Before the truce expired a fresh cause of difference arose
between Edward and Philip. There was a disputed succession to
the Duchy of Brittany, between John of Montf ort and v\rar of
Charles of Blois. As Philip supported the claims of the Breton
Charles of Blois, Edward upheld those of Montfort. succession.
Both kings went to Brittany to uphold their respective champions,
and there fought campaigns that were almost as futile and expen-
sive as the campaigns in the Netherlands. In 1345 direct war was
renewed, and at first the chief fighting was in Gascony. Both
countries frittered away their strength in desultory warfare, and
very little came of it.
11. More serious results followed in 1346. In that year Edward
led a great English army into Normandy, and took with him
214
EDWARD III.
[1346.
Lis eldest son, Edward, Prince of Wales, a youth of sixteen, after-
wards famous as the Black Priuce. In July the English landed
The In- *"* ^^ Hougue in the Cotentin, and marched through
vasion of Normandy, plundering and devastating, and only
Normandy, meeting with serious resistance at Caen, which they
^^*^* captured. Thence they struck the left bank of the
Seine, and advanced up the river almost to the gates of Paris. Philip
gathered together a numerous force for the defence of his capital,
and Edward was forced to retreat northwards, closely followed by
the French king. At last he reached the river Somme, but he
found the bridges guarded by the French, and was unable to get over
the stream. There was grave danger of his being driven into a
comer between the Somme and the sea, when he luckily discovered
a ford, called Blanchetaque, by which the Somme was crossed.
12. The French were so close on Edward's heels that he was
Battle of
CRECY
1346.
English Mile
S '6.
English dismounted men at arms...^m
English archers :•.:•.■.■.:
French cavalry J3
French infantry in rear El]
Genoese crossbowmen g|^^
Emery Walker Bc.
obliged to turn and fight a battle in his own inheritance of Ponthieu.
Tha Battle He took up a strong position on a low hiU, with his
of Crdcy, right resting on the little town of Crecy, and his left
1346. on the viQage of Wadicourt. After the fashion learnt
in the Scottish wars, the English knights and men-at-arms sent
their horses to the rear and fought on foot, standing in close array.
i346.J EDWARD III. 215
and divided into three great divisions. Two of ttese were stationed
on the crest of the hill, while the third was posted in the rear
in reserve, under the king in person. The archers, who since
Halidon HiU. had been regarded as a very important element in
the English army, were posted on the wings of each of the three
divisions. The French took up their position on an opposite hiU,
separated from the English by a shallow waterless depression
called the Valine aiix Clercs. Their mimbers were mnch greater
than those of the English, but they were much worse commanded
and worse discipUned. They still fou.ght in the old feudal fashion,
set little store on their infantry, which they placed in the rear,
and threw their main effort in a cavalry charge. The battle began
in the afternoon of August 26. The French, who had marched
all the way from Abbeville, were already weary, but their leaders
were so confident of victory that they insisted upon attacking the
English at once. The first hostilities proceeded from the advance
of a force of Genoese crossbowmen, who were ordered to shoot their
bolts against the English lines to prepare their way for the cavalry
charge. But the crossbows had an inferior range to the English
long bows, and, to make matters worse, the evening sun was
shining behind the English lines right in the faces of the G-enoese,
many of whose weapons had, moreover, been made useless by a
recent shower, which had wetted their strings. The result was
that few bolts from the crossbowmen reached the English ranks,
whilst the arrows of our archers soon threw the Genoese back in
confusion. By this time the French cavaby had grown impatient
of waiting. At last they rushed fiercely through the ranks of the
xtnluoky crossbowmen and made their way through the valley
towards the EngKsh lines. Again the archers threw the enemy
into confusion, and though they made repeated charges, few of the
French succeeded in crossing lances with the enemy. At one point
only did they get near their goal, and that was on the English right,
where the Prince of Wales was in command. A timely reinforce-
ment saved the position, and the French retreated, protected, as
the English boasted, by the rampart of the dead they left behind
them. It was the greatest victory of the age, and won for the
English a great reputation as warriors. Moreover, it proved
conclusively that disciplined infantry could withstand a cavalry
charge, and so taught all Europe the superiority of the tactics
which the English had adopted.
13. So war-worn were the victors that all the immediate profit
they could win was the power to continue undisturbed their march
2l6 EDWARD III. [1346-
to the sea coast. Instead, however, of retimxiiig to England,
Edward laid siege to Galois, the most northerly town of the French
Calais king's dominions. He persevered in this siege for more
Aubepoehe, than a year, and in 1347 the famine-stricken burgesses
Neville's ^f Calais were compelled to open their gates to him.
La°Ro'ehe'* For more than two hundred years Calais remained an
Derien. English town, and was of great importance, both as a
1346-1347. fortress through which an English army might at any
time be poured into France, and as a warehouse through which the
weavers of Flanders were to draw their supplies of raw wool.
Creoy and Calais were not the only triumphs of this glorious time.
Edward's cousin, Henry, earl of Lancaster, son of the Earl Henry
we have already mentioned, won decisive victories in Gasoony at
Auberoche and Aiguillon. David, king of Scots, who invaded
England when Edward was fighting the Crecy campaign, was
defeated and taken prisoner at the hattle of Neville's Cross,
near Durham. In 1347 Charles of Blois was beaten and captured
in the battle of La Roche Derien, which secured for a time the
establishment of Montfort's cause in Brittany. Tet in the midst
of his career of conquest Edward concluded a new truce in 1347.
His want of money and the need of repose account for this halt in
the midst of victory. Tet the necessity of the truce showed that
Edward had embarked upon a course far beyond his capacity.
However many battles he might win, it was clear that he could
never conquer aU France.
14. Up to this point Edward's reign had been a time of great
prosperity. Edward had, it is true, dissipated his i-esouroes in
The Black fighting the French and the Scots, but the country
Death, 1348- was sufficiently wealthy to bear its burdens with-
out much real suffering. A war waged exclusively
abroad did little direct harm to England, and offered a lucrative,
if demoralizing, career to the soldiers, who received high wages and
good hopes of plunder in the king's foreign service. The war was
popular, and the English supremacy at sea did much to promote
our foreign trade. But in 1848 a pestilence, known as the Black
Death, which had already devastated eastern and southern Europe,
crossed over the Channel and raged with great virulence in Eng--
land until 1349. It is sometimes thought that a third of the
population died of the Black Death, and the results of the visita-
tion changed the whole character of English history.
15. The horrors of the plague could not destroy Edward's
satisfaction in his victories. In the midst of the visitation, he
-I3S6.] EDWARD III. ZIJ
celebrated by magnificent feasts and entertainments tte establish-
ment of the Order of the Ga/rter, the first and most famous
of those orders of knighthood which delighted the ™j^ Black
chivalry of the fourteenth century. Neither the Prince In
plague nor the truce entirely stopped the war, and there Aquitaine,
was much fighting, though most of it was indecisive
and on a small scale. GrraduaUy the main scene of operations
shifted to the south, and in 1S5S Edward sent the Black Prince to
Gascony, which then became the chief theatre of events. In 1355
the Black Prince led a successful raid up the Garonne valley and
penetrated as far as the shores of the Mediterranean. He re-
turned loaded with plunder and glory, and, in 1356, started from
Bordeaux in a similar marauding expedition over central France.
Accompanied by tie best knights of England and Gascony, he
marched as far as the Loire, and then began to make his way back
with his booty. Philip ti. had died in 1350, and his son, John,
now ruled over France. The French king was as gallant a knight
as the Black Prince, and pursued his foe with a great army in the
hope of intercepting his retreat. Just as at Crecy, ten years before,
the prince found himself forced to fight a battle with weary troops
against enormous odds.
16. The scene of the action was a few miles south of Poitiers,
on the banks of the little river Miausson. As at Crecy, Edward
resolved to fight on the defensive; he stationed his Battle of
army on the side of a hill which sloped down on the Poitiers,
left towards the marshes of the Miausson. Some l^""-
distance in front of the English position, a long hedge and ditch
afforded an additional means of protection. It was broken by a gap,
through which a farmer's track connected the fields on either side
of it. The French had now learnt the English fashion of fighting
on foot, but they did not fully understand English tactics, and took
no pains to combine archers and orossbowmen with their men-at-
arms. They mustered in four lines on the northern side of the
hedge, and each line in succession strove to make its way through
to attack the English on the further side. But the hedge
was lined in force by the English archers, who shot down the
enemy as they made their way in close order to the gap in it. How-
ever, the French fought desperately, and for long the fight was
doubtful. A dexterous manoeuvre on the part of Edward at last
secured him the victory. He ordered the Captal de Buoh, the best
of his Gascon leaders, to march, under cover of a hiU, round the
French position, and attack the enemy in the rear. This settled
2l8
EDWARD 111.
U356-
the hard-fougM day. Surroimded on every side, tke French
perished in the ranks or sin-rendered in despair. Among the
prisoners was king John himself. Soon afterwards he was led
Battle of
POITIERS
1356
Engrlish Mile
The Anglo- Gascon army ^M
English archers at the hedge Xxx
Flank march of the Capta! de Buch... -^-
The French army I I
Emery VMlcer sc.
in triumph through the streets of London, and joined the king
of Soots in the Tower.
17. The captivity of the king threw Prance into a "desperate
plight. Charles, duke of Normandy, son of King John, acted as
The treaties J'6g'6"^t, but the nobles and commons did exactly what
of Bpetigni they liked, and soon reduced France to a terrible oon-
and Calais, dition of anarchy. In 1359 John made the treaty of
London with Edward iii., by which he surrendered to
Edward in full sovereignty nearly all the lands which Henry 11. had
ruled in France. But the French would not accept so hximiUating
a treaty, and Edward led a new invasion out of Calais to compel
them to agree to his terms. During the winter and spring of 1360
Edward marched at his will all over northern France, and attempted
-1366.] EDWARD III. 219
tte siege of Paris. His success in maintaiimig himself in their
country showed the French that it was no use resisting any longer,
and his failure to effect permanent conquest taught Edward the
necessity of abating some of his demands. Accordingly negotia-
tions were renewed, and in May, 1360, preliminaries of peace were
arranged at Br^tigni, near Chartres, which took their final form in
the treaty of Calais of October. By this John was released in
return for an enormous ransom. Edward abandoned Ms claim to
the French crown on condition of receiving Calais and Ponthieu
and the whole of Aquitaine, including Poitou and the Limousin.
The EngKsh rejoiced at the conclusion of so brilliant a peace, and
the French were glad to be delivered from the long anarchy.
18. It was easier to make peace than to carry out the treaty.
King John, who had been liberated, found it impossible to raise
his ransom from his impoverished subjects, and was _.
annoyed to find that one of Ms sons, left as hostage for tion of the
Ms return, had broken Ms word and fled to France, treaty of
Thereupon he honourably returned to Ms captivity, ^ ^'^'
and died in England in 1364 Charles of Normandy now became
Charles v. He was less cMvalrous and heroic, but more prudent,
than Ms father. Under Ms rule France recovered from the worst
horrors of the evil days after Poitiers. His cMef trouble was with
the disbanded soldiers, who, losing their occupation with the peace,
had organized themselves into formidable armies under generals of
their own choice, and carried on wax on their own account.
19. A civil war in CastUe gave Charles the opporttmity of
persuading the Free Com/panies, as they were called, to abandon
France for more distant lands. A revolt had broken The civil
out in that country against its king Peter, infamous war in
in Mstory as Peter the Cruel. The rebels had set up Castile.
Ms half-brother, Henry of Trastamara, as their king, and Henry,
despairing of Ms position, appealed to Charles v. for help. Bertrand
du GuescHn, a Breton nobleman who had won a great reputation
during the succession war in Ms native duchy, welded the scattered
companies into an army and led them over the Pyrenees. English
as well as French mercenaries gladly joined under Ms banner, and,
with his help, Henry drove Ms brother Into exile and became, in
1366, Henry 11. of Castile. The deposed tyrant went to Bordeaux,
where, since 1363, the Black Prince had lived as prince of Aquitaine,
for Edward iii. had created Ms new possessions into a principality
and conferred it on his son, in the hope of conciliating the Gascons by
some pretence of restoring their independence. Peter easily
1369.] EDWARD in. 221
persuaded tie prince to restore him to Ms throne by force, and, in the
spring of 1367, Edward made his way with an army through the
pass of Roncesvalles in the hope of reconquering Cas- xhe Battle
tile for his ally. Beyond the Ebro at the village of of Najera,
Ndjera, on AprU 3, he met Henry of Trastamara and ^^®^"
Du Guesclin in battle, and won a complete victory over them.
After this he restored Peter to the Castilian throne and returned
to Aquitaine. But during the campaign the prince contracted the
beginnings of a mortal sickness and lost the greater part of his
army from disease. Henceforth misfortune dogged his whole career.
In 1368 Henry of Trastamara returned to Spain, defeated and
killed Peter, and established himself permanently as king of Castile.
Thus the whole work of the prince in Spain was undone.
20. Up to the time of his Castilian expedition, the Black Prince's
rule in Aquitaine had been fairly successful. It was popular with
the towns, and especially with those like Bordeaux The revolt
and Bayonne, which had been for a long time subject of Aquitaine,
to the English dukes. His court at Bordeaux was one ^369.
of the most brilliant and magnificent in Europe. Yet Edward
could never win over the newly ceded districts, which had abandoned
their French nationality with great reluctance, and were eagerly
awaiting an opportunity for revolt. He looked with suspicion
upon the great lords, and gave them much offence by limiting their
privileges and excluding them from his oonfldence. Things became
worse when the expenses of the Spanish campaign compelled Edward
to impose fresh taxes on the Gascons. In 1368, he obtained from
the estates of Aquitaine a new hearth-tax. The mass of the people
paid this willingly, but the greater feudatories availed themselves of
its imposition as a pretext for revolt. They appealed to Charles v.
against the tax, and Charles accepted their appeal, declaring
that his rights as overlord stiU remained, because all the formalities
which should have followed the treaty of Calais had not been com-
pleted. Cited before the Parliament of Paris ia 1369, the Black
Prince replied that he would answer the summons with hehnet on
his head and sixty thousand men at his back. His father re-
assumed the title of king of Prance, and war broke out again.
21. The new struggle was fought with very different results from
those of the earKer campaigns. Under the guidance of Charles v.
and Bertrand du Guesclin, the French were much more wisely
directed than before. They had learned from their failures how to
defeat the English tactics, and they had the great advantages of
always taking the offensive and having the people of the country
222 EDWARD III. [1369-
actively on their side. Du Guesclin's policy was to avoid pitched
battles and encourage the English to waste their resources in
fruitless forays. The Black Prince's health was now
the English ®° ^^^ ^^^ ^^ could not mount his charger, but directed
power in his army from a horselitter. His last martial exploit
France, ^g^g ^j^g recapture, in 1370, of Limoges, which had
1369-1377 jr ' ' o »
thrown of£ the English yoke. The whole popu-
lation was put to the sword, and a few gentlemen alone were
saved for the sake of their ransoms. Next year he went back to
England for good. His successors were eq[ually unfortunate. In
1373 his brother, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, marched with
an army from Calais to Bordeaux, devastating France from end to
end. John could not force the French to fight a battle, and before he
reached Ms destination half his army had perished of hunger and cold,
and in petty warfare. With the help of their CastiUan allies the
French defeated the English navy, and, by depriving their enemies
of the command of the sea, made it very difficult for theia to keep
up communications between England and the armies in France.
Among the most conspicuous of the French leaders was Sir Owen
of Wales, a grand-nephew of Llewelyn ap Griffith, who posed as
lawful prince of Wales, and sought to stir up revolt against Edward
in his native land. After a few years of fighting, the English
dominions in France were reduced to a few coast towns, and at last,
despairing of success, Edward III. made a truce with the French,
which lasted just long enough to allow him to end his days in
peace. The only towns of importance stUl remaining in English
hands were Calais, Cherbourg, Brest, Bayonne, and Bordeaux. The
wave of French national feeling which had swept the English out
of the acquisitions made in 1360 had almost engulfed Edward's
hereditary possessions in Gasoony. Crecy and Poitiers were com-
pletely avenged.
22. At home, as abroad, there is the same contrast between the
later and the earlier part of Edward iii.'s reign. The days of
prosperity ended, as we have seen, with the Black
h?Eng°and? '^^^^'^ of 134S and 1349 ; and, when the people had
partially recovered from the first visitation of the
plague, others befel them that were scarcely less severe. The years
1362 and 1369 almost rivalled the horrors of the earlier outbreak.
Great changes resulted from these plagues. The population de-
clined so greatly that there were not enough labourers left to till
the fields, or enough priests remaining to administer spiritual con-
solations to the dying. The immediate result of this was that
-1377-] EDWARD III. 223
every sort of wages rose. The increased sums paid to workers had
the effect of raising the prices of most commodities. Yet the
plagne had so much diminished the prosperity of the country that
men found themselves hardly able to pay the prices and wages
which they were accustomed to. In those days, if anything went
wrong it was thought the business of the state to jj^
set it right, and ^parliament, in 1351, passed u law Statute of
called the statute of Labourers, which enacted that Labourers,
. 1351
both prices and wages should remain as they had been
before the pestilence. It was found impossible to carry out this
law. Labourers would not work unless they were paid the wages
they asked for, and employers preferred to break the statute
rather than see their crops perish in their fields for lack of harvest-
men. AH that laoddholders could do was to grow those crops which
needed little labour. Corn-growing was therefore abandoned for
sheep-farming and cattle-raising, and thus the amount of employ-
ment in the country became permanently less. Besides this, much
dissension arose between employers and their workmen. The
labourers complained of the harshness and cruelty of their masters,
and the masters of the idleness and greediness of the workmen.
The struggle of classes which resulted from this culminated, as we
shall see, in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
23. The spirit of unrest was everywhere in the air, and the
same generation that saw the social and economic changes
which resulted from the Black Death, witnessed the
beginning of religious discontent that soon threatened "n^ Avignon
to break up the majestic unity of the Western Church, the Statutes
From 1305 to 1377 the popes lived at Avignon, and of Provisors
were generally French men under the control of the ^ j ^"
French king. The English hated the French so
much that they looked with distrust upon French popes. Even
under Henry lii. there had been a great outcry against papal
exactions, and this outcry became much stronger when there was
a danger lest the money raised by the pope from English benefices
found its way, indirectly, into the pockets of our French enemies.
The system of papal provisions, by which the pope appointed his
nominees to English benefices, had long excited deep discontent.
In 1351 a law was passed called the statute of Provisors, which
attempted to get rid of the abuse. It was followed in 1353 by
another anti-papal measure, the statute of Prxmumire, which
was so called from the first word of the Latin writs issued to
enforce the law. It forbade, under heavy penalties. Englishmen
224 EDWARD III. [134°-
carrying lawsuits out of the ooxuitry, and though the papal court
was not specially mentioned, the measure was clearly aimed against
it. If these laws had been strictly carried out, the papal authority
in England would have been almost destroyed, but parliaments
were content with making their protest, and Edward himself set
the example of disregarding his own laws by asking the pope to
make his friends bishops by the way of papal provision. There
was no real desire to question the papal power as long as the popes
did not go too far. Yet, however obedient most Englishmen still
were to the pope's spiritual authority, they utterly repudiated the
claims to feudal supremacy over England which the popes still made
by virtue of John's submission. Edward ill. absolutely refused
to pay the tribute which John had offered to Innocent III., and in
1366 parliament declared that neither John nor any one else could
put England into subjection without the consent of the people.
The same rising national spirit which resented the interference of
a foreign ecclesiastic with English affairs inspired the statute of
1362, which made English instead of French the language of the
law courts. The tongue which, since the Conquest, had almost
ceased to be the language of courts and nobles, was, as a result of
the hatred of aU things French, brought back into greater favour.
The age of Edward in. was the age of Chaucer and Gower and
WyoUffe.
24 The reign of Edward in. was not marked by any great
changes in the constitution. Parliaments met very often, and the
Edward III. king's need for money to carry out his foreign wars
and his Par- made him willing to abandon many of his powers
liampnts. jjj return for handsome subsidies. Thus, in 1340,
Edward accepted a statute which abolished the royal right of
laying at his discretion taxes called tallages upon the royal domain.
In 1841, as a result of his conflict with Archbishop Stratford,
Edward was forced to recognize the claim of members of the House
of Lords to be tried by their peers. In the same year he allowed
parliament to nominate his ministers and examine the accounts
of the national revenue. On this occasion, however, as soon as
parliament was dissolved, Edward coolly revoked these laws as
trenching upon his prerogative, and succeeded in persuading the
next parliament, which met in 1343, to repeal them. The French
war was so popular that at first parliament had willingly granted
Edward supplies to carry it on, and Edward was shrewd enough to
consult the estates about his foreign policy, because he saw that if
they made themselves responsible for it they could hardly refuse to
-1376.] EDWARD III. 225
pay its cost. In 1348, however, parliament answered his re(iTiest
for advice about the war by declaring they were too ignorant and
simple to be able to coiinsel him in such high matters. Alter the
troubles of the Black Death, the war became less popular, and
parliament joyfully hailed every effort made to procure peace.
25. Edward and Philippa of Hainault were the parents of a
large family, and the king's efforts to provide for his children
without incurring too great expense for himself form Edward's
an important element in his later policy. We have family
seen how the prince of Wales was amply endowed settlement,
with the new principality of Aquitaine. Besides this, the Black
Prince held Wales, Chester, and Cornwall, while his marriage
to his cousin, Joan of Kent, the heiress of Earl Edmund of Kent,
executed in 1330, provided him with an additional English earldom.
Edward introduced a new grade into the English peerage to
increase the dignity of his son, by making the Black Prince
(Zafee of Cornwall. It was by the creation of new duchies and
by rich marriages that Edward iii. provided for his younger
children. His second son, Lionel of Antwerp, married the heiress
of the great Irish family of Burgh, earls of Ulster and Connaught,
and was made duke of Clarence. After his marriage Lionel was
sent to Ireland to represent his father. He found the English
power at a low ebb, since Edward Bruce, brother of Eobert, king
of Scots, had made a valiant attempt to set himself up as king of
Ireland against Edward II. Bruce was soon slain in battle, but
English influence never recovered the blow he had dealt to it. To
revive it now Lionel passed the statute of Kilkenny in 1366, which
strove to prevent the Norman settlers in Ireland from adopting
Irish ways and making alliance with the native Irish chieftains. The
law was a complete failure, and Lionel soon returned to England
in disgust. He died soon after, leaving as his heiress a daughter,
Phillipa, whose marriage with Edmund Mortimer, earl of March,
great grandson of the traitor Roger, made the great west country
house of the Mortimers the representatives of the second line of
the descendants of Edward in. The king's third surviving son,
John of Ghent, or G-aunt, was married to Blanche, heiress of her
father. Earl Henry, the last of the old line of earls of Lancaster,
and John was made duke of Lancaster. The eldest son of John
and Blanche, Henry, earl of Derby, the future Henry iv., married
one of the heiresses of the Bohuns of Hereford, and Henry's uncle,
Thomas of Woodstock, afterwards duke of Gloucester, married
the other Bohun heiress. Edward's family settlement is of great
a
226 EDWARD HI. [i376-
future importance, because it connected the royal family with many
of the chief baronial houses, and apparently immensely increased
its wealth and influence. Its ultimate result, however, was harmful
to the power of the crown, as the descendants of Edward iii. forgot
their kinship with the king, and adopted the policy of opposition
with which the houses into which they intermarried had long been
associated.
26. Pactions among his nobles and dissensions between Ms sons
embittered the last years of Edward's reign. The Black Prince
The court ^^^ John of Gaunt, who had disagreed with each
and eon- other about the conduct of the war in Prance, ttans-
stitutional ferred their rivalries to England, and became the
parties. heads of sharply marked parties in the councU of
the old king. The iU feeling which parliament had shown to the
papacy in its legislation included within its scope the English
church as well. The barons were jealous of the power of the
higher clergy, and denounced their interference in politics. Up
to this time some of the chief offices of state, such as that of
chancellor, had almost invariably been held by a prominent bishop.
However, in 1371, a group of courtiers procured the removal of the
king's clerical ministers, and substituted laymen for them. The
chief of the displaced ministers was William of Wykeham, bishop
of Winchester. It was natural that he and the other bishops
should be henceforward in opposition to the government. Before
long Jolin of Gaunt became the leader of an anti-clerical court
party, and for some years exercised a strong influence over his father,
who was gradually falling into his dotage. John's chief helpers
were Lord Latimer, a London merchant called Eiohard Lyons, and
Alice Perrers, the greedy and unscrupulous mistress of the old
king. Knowing that the higher ecclesiastics were bitterly opposed
to him, John also struck up an alliance with a famous Oxford teacher
named John Wycliffe, who had become conspicuous for his denun-
ciation of the oorrt^tion of the clergy, and for teaching that
priests should live lives of apostolic poverty and have nothing to do
with politics.
27. The rule of John of Gaunt and the courtiers was neither
honest nor successful, and an active opposition was formed of which
The Good the Black Prince and the Earl of March were the
Parliament, leaders. Strong feeling arose in the country against
^^•°- the men who had lost all France and brought Eng-
land to bankruptcy and shame. This indignation found its expres-
sion in a parliament which met in 1376, and became famous 3& the
-1377-] EDWARD III. 227
Oood, Parliament. Inspired by tlie Black Prince, the Earl Edmimd
of March, and the bishops, the House of Commons made a vigorons
attack on the courtiers. It chose as its speaker, or spokesman
before the king. Sir Peter de la Mare, steward of the Earl of
March, a man who had boldness enough to say what was in his
mind regardless of the good-wiU of the great. It accused Latimer
and Lyons of taking bribes, and the House of Lords condemned
them to imprisonment. These are the first examples of the process
called im/peachment, by which political offenders were accused by
the Commons before the Lords. Parliament also removed Alice
Perrers from court.
28. In the midst of these proceedings the Commons lost their
strongest support by the death of the Black Prince. Lancaster
now resumed his influence ; the Good Parliament was
dismissed, and, in 1377, a fresh parliament carefully Gaunt and
packed with John's partisans reversed its acts. Parlia- John
ment was thus silenced. The convocation of Canter- y^^"*?'.
bury remained bitterly hostile to John. Accordingly
the duke met its opposition by calling John WycUfEe to his aid.
WycUfEe's denunciations of the rich land-holding prelates were
answered by an accusation for heresy being brought against him.
Summoned before Bishop Courtenay of London to answer the
charge, WycUffe appeared in St. Paul's, supported by Lancaster
and Henry Percy, one of Lancaster's chief friends. A violent
scene took place in the cathedral between Lancaster and the bishop.
The London mob took the part of Courtenay against the courtiers,
and rose in a riot, pillaged John's palace, and forced Death of
him to flee from London. Soon after this stormy Edward III.,
scene Edward lii. died, on June 21, 1377. As he lay ^^'''•
dying his courtiers deserted him, and Alice Perrers took to flight
after robbing him of the rings on his fingers.
CHAPTER V
RICHARD II. OF BORDEAUX (1377-1399)
Chief Dates :
1377- Accession of Eichard ii.
1378. Tlie Papal schism.
1381. Peasants' Revolt.
1384. JJeath of Wycliffe.
1388. The Merciless Parliament.
1396. The Great Truce with France.
1397. Richard's triumph over the Lords Appellant.
1399. Deposition of Richard ii.
1. As the Black Prince had died before his father, his only son,
Eichard of Bordeaux, a boy ten years of age, succeeded Edward iii.
The Rule 3,s Richard 11. No regent was appointed, but, as in
of John the latter years of Henry iii.'s minority, the council
or Gaunt. ruled in the king's name. This meant in practice
that the preponderating influence was with John of Gaunt. The
result was that the first few years of the new reign witnessed the
continuance of the bad and unpopular government which had dis-
graced the close of the reign of Edward iii. Heavy taxes were
raised, but the people obtained little benefit from pajring them. The
nobles quarrelled fiercely with each other, and, on the expiration of
the truce with France, the French plundered the English coasts and
tlireatened the land with invasion. Luckily, however, for England,
Charles v. died in 1380. His son and successor, Charles vi., was
a boy Kke Richard, and the French soon had reason to say with
the English, " Woe to the land when the king is a child." For
some years the Hundred Years' War was suspended by reason of
the weakness of both England and France.
2. It was a miserable time for Europe generally. In 1378 the
papacy returned from Avignon to Rome, but the pope who had
The Papal the courage to take this step died soon after he reached
Schism and Italy. His successor, Urban VI., was an Italian, and
Wycliire. likely to remain in Rome. Thereupon the French
cardinals, who wished to keep the pope in their own country,
228
1381.] RICHARD II. OF BORDEAUX 229
denied the validity of TJrban's election, and ciose another pope,
named Clement vii. Eviiope divided itself between the two popes,
and as the Trench and Soots favoured Clement, the English
supported Urban. The result of this Great Schism of the Papacy
was to discredit the popes, who had already lost much ground
d\iring the captivity at Avignon. The spirit of religious unrest
that was already in the air spread widely, and led men to look
closely into their beliefs. John WycKfEe had already made himself
conspicuous as the ally of John of Gaunt against the over- wealthy
prelates. Since the scene at St. Paul's in 1377, his views were be-
coming more and more autagonistio to those professed by the Church .
In the year of the schism he began to raise doubts as to the truth of
the doctrine of transubsiantiaiion, or the change of the bread and
wine in the Holy Communion into the Body and Blood of Christ,
which the whole Church had accepted for many centuries. This
open avowal of heresy lost Wycliffe the support of Lancaster and
most of his powerful friends. Henceforth he sought to appeal
to the people as well as to scholars and men of rank. He sent
throughout the country disciples who were called his poor priests,
and by this means his teaching was spread all over the land. Tip
to now he had written in Latin for scholars, but he henceforth set
forth his teaching iu English. He denied the authority of the
papacy and of the clergy, and taught that dominion was founded
on grace, by which he meant that power and property could only be
rightly held by good men. He also encouraged men to seek for
their religion in the Bible only. To make the Bible accessible, he,
with the help of his friends, translated it from Latin into English.
His teaching excited bitter hostility among the clergy, and in
1382 his opinions were condemned by a council of English bishops.
Wyclifle still had many friends, and was very dexterous in explaining
away his opinions. He was therefore set free, and spent the rest
of his life at his country living of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire,
where he died in 1384 His influence continued after his death.
His followers, caRei Lolla/rds, or babblers, spread widely, and, for the
first time since the establishment of Christianity in England, there
were many men who disbelieved in the teaching of the Church.
3. Pour years aft«r Richard's accession discontent came to a
head in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The causes of ^j^^ causes
this rising were numerous. The deepest of them lay of the
in the changes which had effected society since the Peasants'
time of the Black Death. The demand for labour Revolt.
was still great, and the free labourers, who could hire themselves
230 RICHARD II OF BORDEAUX [1381-
out where they would, were bitterly discontented with the laws which
tried to keep down their wages. They had formed associations to
defeat the statute of Labourers, and for a generation there had been
much quarrelling between them and their masters. The grievances
of the free labourers were, however, small as compared with the
troubles of the serfs or villeins. In Norman times the mass of the
people had, as we have seen, become villeins. During the fourteenth
century the number of villeins was steadily decreasing, as many ran
away from their lords, and many were set free, since lords had
found that it paid them better to cultivate their lands withf ree labour,
while the Church taught that it was a meritorious act to enfran-
chise a bondman. However, the strong demand for labour, which
resulted from the decline of population after the pestilence, had
retarded this movement towards freedom. When it became very
difficult to obtain free labour, it was natural that the lords of serfs
should exact to the uttermost the rights they still possessed of com-
pelling their bondmen to work for them without pay. At the same
time the villeins became more unwilling to give up so much of their
time to their lords, when they saw that their free brethren could
earn large wages without difficulty. The result was that the
villeins were even more discontented than the free labourers, and
both classes alike were ripe for revolt. Thus the unrest and dis-
content of Edward iii.'s time stiLL continued. It was increased by the
struggles in the boroughs between the craftsmen of the guilds and
the rich merchants, who kept the government of the towns in their
own hands, and ruled harshly in the interests of their own class.
Old soldiers who had come back from the French wars told the
poor English how the men of Flanders had shaken off the yoke of
their count, and had, by union and detormination, won Kberty for
themselves. The friars still wandered through the land, teaching
that Christ and His apostles had had no property, and denouncing
the oppressions of the rich. Wycliffe's " poor priests " were now
also traversing the country, maintaining their master's doctrine
of dominion founded on grace and declaring that it was the
duty of a Christian to deprive unworthy men of their offices
and lands. John Ball, an Essex priest, made himself the mouth-
piece of this widespread discontent. " We are all come," said he,
" from one father and one mother, Adam and Eve. How can the
gentry show that they are greater lords than we?" On every
side the old social order was breaking up, and men were ripe for
revolution.
4. Disgust at the bad government of John of Gaunt and the
1381.] RICHARD II. OF BORDEAUX 23 1
coimcil added political to social unrest. Heavy taxes were levied,
though the people got nothing in return from them. Finally, in
1381, the imposition of a new poll-tax — that is, a tax ™,^
levied on each individual in the community, brought the Peasants'
discontent to a head. The Kentish men were among Revolt of
the freest and most turbulent of Englishmen. There "^'•
was no villeinage in Kent, but nowhere was the indignation at the
badness of the government so deeply felt. Headed by Wat Tyler,
the Kentish men refused to pay the poU-tax, rose in revolt, and
marched in great numbers to London. At the same moment dis-
turbances broke out all over England, as if in obedience to a common
command. The most formidable were in the eastern counties,
where the numerous serfs of great abbeys, lite Bury St. Edmunds
and St. Albans, rose against th^ir monastic landlords and demanded
their enfranchisement. Like the Kentish freemen, the villeins of
the eastern shires also made their way to London. The rebels soon
took possession of the capital, and wrought many outrages. They
murdered some of the king's ministers, including the chancellor,
Simon of Sudbury, the archbishop of Canterbury. They burned
John of G-aunt's hoTise, the Savoy Palace in the Strand, and de-
clared they would have no king named John.
5. Eichard 11. was only sixteen years old, but he showed a
courage and resolution that put to shame the weakness of his
ministers. One day he met the rebels from the The sup-
eastern counties at Mile End, agreed to give them pression of
charters of freedom, and persuaded the majority to the revolt,
go home. The Kentish men, however, remained in arms, and
constantly perpetrated fresh outrages. Next day Eichard went
with William Walworth, the mayor of London, to treat with
them in Smithlield. Tyler, the rebel leader, behaved with great
familiarity, but Eichard promised to accept most of his demands.
Unluckily, one of the king's followers declared that Tyler was the
greatest thief in Kent, and Tyler sprang upon him with his dagger.
The mayor strove to protect the courtier, and a scuffle ensued
between the two, in which Tyler was slain. The rebels drew their
bows at the king, but Eichard, riding up among them, declared,
" I will be your captain ; come with me into the fields, and you
shall have all you ask." His presence of mind saved the situation,
and gave time for the soldiers to surround the rebels and force
them to lay down their arms. The troubles in London were thus
ended, and all over the country the gentry, plucking up courage,
set to work to put down the revolt systematically. The cruelties
232 RICHARD II. OF BORDEAUX [1381-
worked by tlie peasants in. their brief moment of trinnipli were now
more than revenged on them by their victorious masters. Even
the king took part in punishing the rebels. He put John Bail to
death at St. Albans, and revoked the charters of freedom which
he had issued on the grounds that they had been obtained by
violence, and that he had no power to interfere with the lord's
property over his serfs. When parliament met it approved the
king's action, and declared that it would never agree to the libera-
tion of the viUeins. However, a little later, the marriage of the
king to Anne of Bohemia, daughter of the Emperor Charles rv.,
was made an excuse for extending a, general pardon to all the
rebels. Despite the apparent failure of the peasants, the revolt
was not entirely without fruit. It taught the government and
the gentry that it was dangerous to press the tenants too much,
and, though for a time it probably made the conditions of the
vUleins worse, it led in the long run to the restriction of villeinage.
Many landlords found that it was easier for them to set free their
peasants and to accept money payment in lieu of their accustomed
services. Within a hundred years of the Peasants' Revolt, vil-
leinage had almost disappeared from England. Besides this
something was done to remedy the misrule against which the
Kentish men had so loudly protested. John of Gaunt was so
unpopular that power shpped away quietly from him, and before
long he betook himself to Spain, where he strove, with little result,
to make himself king of Castile by reason of his marriage with
Constance, the daughter of Peter the Cruel. His failure taught
the king's council some measure of wisdom and prudence, and the
country became somewhat better g'overned in the years succeeding
the Peasants' Revolt.
6. The good hopes excited by Richard's courage in 1381 were
not borne out by the events of the next few years. With plenty
Thebaronial °* ability, a strong will, and a high courage, Richard
opposition showed a passionate and hasty temper, and a. greedi-
and Thomas ness for power, which soon brought him into collision
cester" ^*^ ^^ nobles. He was self-wiUed, crafty, and
revengeful, and his love of pomp led him to waste
large sums in keeping up an extravagant court. Distrusting the
nobles, he gave his chief confidence to courtiers and favourites,
who carried on the evil traditions of the court party which had
excited the wrath of the Good Parliament. Prominent among his
favourites was Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford, whose ancestors had
held that dignity since the days of Stephen, and whom Richard
-t388.J RICHARD II. OF BORDEAUX 233
made duke of Ireland. His chief minister was the Chancellor,
Michael de la Pole, earl of SufEolk, whose grandfather had heen a
Hiill merchant, and who had obtained his wealth by trade. Oxford
and Suffolk soon became very unpopular, partly through their own
fault, and partly because they were looked upon as the causes of
the weak government and unconstitutional rule which stUl went
on. The greater part of the nobles disliked them exceedingly, and
joined together to put an end to their power. Thus the party of
constitutional opposition was reformed to meet the encroachments
of the court party. Its leader was Thomas of Woodstock, duke of
Gloucester, the youngest and most capable of the king's uncles.
For the rest of his life Gloucester withstood Biohard 11. as Thomas
of Lancaster had withstood Edward 11.
7. Trouble began in 1386, when parliament demanded the dis-
missal of the chancellor. Richard ordered parliament to mind its
own business, and insolently said that he would not _, ^^ ^
dismiss the meanest scullion from his kitchen to please on the
it. Thereupon the angry Commons impeached courtiers,
Suffolk, and forced Richard to submit. A com- 1386-1387.
mittee of eleven nobles was appointed for a year, with powers so
extensive that they remind us of the lords ordainers of Edward ii.'s
time. Richard was compelled to take an oath to accept any
ordinances that the eleven might devise. For the moment the
triumph of the opposition seemed complete. Their administration
threw new vigour into the government. They revived the French
war, and, in 1387, one of their number, Richard Pitzalan, earl of
Arundel, won a victory over the French fleet, which saved England
from a threatened French invasion.
8. Richard was no weakling like Edward 11,, and soon began to
take steps to win back his power. He released SufEolk, and took
counsel with his judges as to the lawfulness of the _,, defeat
committee of eleven. The judges declared that the of the
commission was illegal because it infringed the royal courtiers,
prerogative. By his orders the duke of Ireland raised 1^°°'
an army, and civil war between the king and the opposition broke
out. However, Richard had acted too hastily in assertion of his
independence. In December, 1387, the barons scattered Yere's
troops at Eadcot Bridge, over the upper Thames in Oxfordshire.
When parliament met in February, 1388, the king was once more
helpless in the hands of the opposition.
9. The victors showed such ruthlessness that this parliament,
which was altogether on their side, became known in history as the
234 RICHARD II. OF BORDEAUX [1388-
Merciless Parliament. In it an accusation of treason was raised by
five baronial leaders against Snffiolk, Ireland, and other chief friends
of the king-. The charge was technically called an
less Pariia- "W^"-^ °f treason, and the five lords on that acoonnt
ment and were called the Lords Appellant. At their head were
the Lords Gloucester and Arundel, the hero of the recent victory
1388 " °^®-'-' ^^ French. The other members were Thomas
Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, Thomas Mowbray, earl
of Nottingham, and Henry, earl of Derby, eldest son of John of
Graunt, who availed himself of his father's absence in Spain to
identify himself with the traditional policy of his mother's family,
the old Une of earls of Lancaster. Parliament gladly accepted the
appeal, and the lords condemned the courtiers as traitors. Suffolk
and Ireland escaped punishment by flight abroad, but many minor
royalist partisans were put to death. Eiohard avoided deposition
by bending before the storm. He was, however, strictly subjected
to a oouncU, and ia this body the Lords Appellant ruled supreme.
10. Eichard never forgot nor forgave the humiliations inflicted
on him by the appeUaaits. Experience had, however, shown him the
uselessness of hasty action, and he quietly waited for
prudence ^^ revenge. After more than a year he began to
reassert himself. On May 3, 1389, he asked Grloncester
in the connoU chamber how old he was, and was told that he was
twenty-two. " Since I am of age," he replied, " I am old enough
to rule my people. Hitherto I have lived under governance, now I
will govern." He then dismissed the appellants from power, but
he prudently called into office WiUiam of Wykeham, the old bishop
of Winchester, and other magnates who sympathized with the con-
stitutional party. With great wisdom he made no attempt to
recall his exiled friends, and before long restored some of the
appellants to their places on the council. John of Gaunt now came
back from Spain. He had learnt discretion by experience, and gave
his nephew good advice. So judicious was the policy of the crown
that the appellants had no chance of withstanding Richard's action.
For the next seven years quiet and good government was main-
tained at home. Old laws, such as the anti-papal statutes of
Provisors and Praemunire were revived, and useful new laws were
passed. A truce was made with the French and Scots, so that
England enjoyed peace, abroad as well as at home.
11. During this period Richard's first wife, Anne of Bohemia,
died without children. So friendly now were Richard's relations
with France that, in 1396, he married Isabella, daughter of
-I397.1 RICHARD JI. OF BORDEAUX 235
Charles vi., the French king, and made a truce for twenty-eight
years. Though the new queen was only a child of seven, French
influence henceforth became strong in Richard's
councils. Always anxious to be a despot, Richard •jpuce'and
became eager to abandon constitutional courses and the French
make himself as thoroughly master of his subjects as marriage,
was his father-in-law, the French king.
12. The party of the Lords Appellant seemed hopelessly broken
up. John of Gaiint's influence had brought Henry of Derby round
to the court party, and Nottingham also had de- jhe royalist
sorted his former friends. Grloucester, Warwick, and reaction,
Arundel still persevered in their ancient policy, and '■^^'•
with them was associated Arundel's younger brother, Thomas
Fitzalan, archbishop of Canterbury, commonly called Archbishop
Arundel. After nine years, Richard's wrath against the appellants
was stiU unsatisfied, and in 1397, he thought he was strong enough
to wreak his long-deferred vengeance. Rumours that Gloucester
was plotting against him gave Richard an excuse for action. He
suddenly arrested Gloucester, Warwick, and Arundel, and a group
of royalist barons, one of whom was Nottingham, appealed the
three prisoners of treason. Their trials took place in the parlia-
ment which met in September. This body was carefully packed
by the king, and overawed by a body of two thousand archers from
Cheshire, wearing the king's cognisance of the white hart. The
three lords were condemned as traitors, and Arundel was beheaded.
His brother the archbishop was banished. Warwick was pardoned
in return for an abject submission, and Gloucester was privately
murdered at Calais, where he had been confined under Nottingham's
charge. The acts of the Merciless Parliament were repealed, and
the estates of the traitors divided among the king's friends. The
turncoats, Derby and Nottingham, were rewarded for their com-
plaisance by being made dukes of Hereford and Norfolk. The
royalist restoration was completed at a second session of the
parliament, held at Shrewsbury, when the king was granted a
revenue for life, and a committee of eighteen persons appointed
to deal, after the dissolution, with petitions which had not been
answered dxiring the session. Richard's enemies saw in this latter
step an effort of the king to carry on indefinitely the powers of
this subservient parliament through the committee of eighteen,
and believed that he was resolved to do without parliaments for the
future.
13. Richard's position was now so menacing that the new duke
236 RICHARD II. OF BORDEAUX [1398-
of Norfolk took the alarm. He told Hereford that Bichard had
not yet forgiven them their share in the work of the appellants, and
• h- "^S^^ him to unite with him against the king. Here-
ment of ford told the whole story to Richard, and Norfolk de-
Norfolk and clared that it was all an invention of Hereford's. A
?398^°''^' deadly quarrel henceforth divided the two old associates,
and they were ordered to prove their truthfulness by
trial by battle. The fight was arranged to take place at Coventry
on September 12, 1398. Just before the duel began, the king stopped
the fight and banished both combatants, Hereford for ten years,
Norfolk for life. But while Norfolk was treated with every severity,
Hereford was still regarded with comparative favour. His term of
exUe was cut down to six years, and he was promised that, in the
event of his father dying, he should forthwith inherit the duchy
of Lancaster. Thus even the appellants who had deserted their old
side came within the scope of the king's vengeance. Richard's
triumph was now complete. He ruled England with the help of
flatterers and favourites, and declared " that the laws were in his
mouth or in his breast, and that he alone could change the statutes
of his realm." His Cheshire archers maltreated his subjects at
their will, and a veritable reig-n of terror proclaimed the reality
of the new despotism. When John of Gaunt died, early in 1399,
Richard and the committee of parliament withdrew the permission
granted to Hereford to receive his father's succession in his
absence.
14. So secure did Richard now feel himself, that in May, 1399,
he crossed over to Ireland, and busied himself with a vigorous
The Lan- attempt to restore the waning power of England in
eastpian that island. In July, Henry of Hereford and Arch-
revolution bishop Arundel landed with a small force at Ravenspur,
on the Humber. Henry declared that he had only
come to claim his duchy and to drive away the favourites who had
taught the king to play the despot. Many of the northern lords
flocked to his standard, among them being Henry Percy, recently
made earl of Northumberland, the old ally of John of Gaunt. Henry
then marched southwards with a constantly increasing army. Before
long he was joined by the regent, his uncle the duke of York. He
captured Richard's chief ministers at Bristol and put them to death.
With his growing power the invader enlarged his ambitions, and
began openly to aim at the crown. Meanwhile Richard returned
from Ireland and marched through North Wales to Conway. These
tidings brought Henry northwards again to Chester. But Richard
-1399.] RICHARD II. OF BORDEAUX 237
had alienated every class of Ms subjects as signally as Edward 11.
had done. Finding that he had no backing, he submitted to his
cousin at Flint, whence he was taken to London as a prisoner.
Parliament then met, and Eiohard was forced to surrender the
throne. Next day his abdication was read in parliament, which
had assembled in a great hall before an empty throne. Henry of
Lancaster sat in his place as duke, but before long he rose and
claimed the throne, as being descended from Henry iii., and
" through the right which God had given him^ by conquest, when
the realm was nearly undone for default of governance." Parlia-
ment rapturously applauded this, and he sat down on the throne as
Henry rv. Next year it was given out that Richard had refused
Ms food, and died of self-inflicted starvation in Ms prison at
Pontefract. There is not much doubt but that Ms end was
hastened by violence, but the circumstances of Ms murder were so
obscure that Ms partisans long believed that he was still alive, and
an impostor who assunaed Ms name was for a time treated as
Eichard by the Scottish enemies of England.
CHAPTER VI
BRITAIN IN THE THIRTEENTH AND
FOURTEENTH CENTURIES
1. In the beginning of the thirteenth century the Angevin
despotism was at the highest point of its power. It was broken
down by the calamities of the reign of John, and re-
civilifaMon plaoed by something quite different during the reigns
of John's son and grandson. The fourteenth century
saw the working out in detail of the principles laid down in the days
of Henry iii. and Edward i. The result of this process was that
England became a national state, governed by a strong monarch,
who was in his turn controlled by a popular and representative
parliament. The period which we now have to study is that of the
formation of the English nation and of the English constitution. It
was in these days when the state of society which we call Tnediseval
reached its culminating point. Not only were the state and the
constitution as vigorous as the times permitted : mediroval religion,
science, Kterature, Ufe, trade, and society alike attained their
highest perfection.
2. In matters of state the king still governed the country, and
was expected to use all the power which the constitution gave him.
. . . The ministers of the crown were chosen by him, and
were responsible to him alone. It was only when a
weak or incompetent monarch was on the throne that the barons
took the executive power out of his hands and transferred it to such
a body as the Fifteen of 1258, the Lords Ordainers, or the Lords
Appellant. Yet even an Edward i. was expected to rule with some
regard to the opinion of his subjects, and in particular the views of
the mighty barons who claimed to be the natural-born counsellors
of the crown, and its partners and fellow-workers in determining
the policy of the nation. After the reforms of Edward i. had de-
stroyed the political power of feudalism, the barons found it in-
creasingly expedient to work through the means of parliament.
238
I2i6,] THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES 239
It is as the leaders of public opinion as expressed by parliament
that the nobles now held the great position whioh they still
retained in the English state.
3. Parlia/ment in the early days of Henry iii. was merely
another name for the Norman Great Council of the tenants-in-
ohief. Since the days of Simon of Montfort it became The Parlla-
usual to strengthen the baronial element by associating ment of
■with it the representations of the shires and boroughs. *^^ Three
After Edward i.'s time the only body to which the
name of parliament rightly belonged was the representative
assembly of the three estates, and after 1322 no law was regarded
as valid unless it had been approved by this body. By the reign of
Edward in. the lower clergy had ceased reg^ularly to send their
representatives to parliament. This made it easy for the higher
clergy, the bishops, and abbots, to take their places along with the
secular magnates. The result was the creation of the modem
House of Lords, which thus represented both the estate of the
nobles and, to some extent, the estate of the clergy. The third
estate now exclusively formed the House of Commons. Cut off
from the assembly of the nation, the lower clergy were content to
meet in their clerical assemblies, which were summoned for each
province by the archbishops of Canterbury and York. These pro-
vincial synods were called the convocations of Canter-
bury and York. The king used them to raise taxes tion.
from the clergy, but properly speaking they were no
part of parliament. So long as the king got enough money from
the olergy, he was indifferent whether it was voted him by an
ecclesiastical or a political assembly.
4. The Souse of Lords of the fourteenth century consisted of
the lords spiritual and temporal. The former included all the
archbishops and bishops, and a considerable number of
abbots and priors, the heads of the more important If f ^ js^^
monasteries. For most of the middle ages the clerical
members formed a majority of the House. The lay peers were, up
to the reign of Edward in., either earls or barons. The earls were
seldom more than a, dozen in number, and were in neai-ly every
case men of vast wealth and territorial influence. They were the
natural leaders of the baronage, and were still looked upon as
officials as well as mere dignitaries. The lay barons of the four-
teenth century were less than a hundred in number, and were
always tending to become less numerous. Both earldoms and
baronies ha4 beppjne by this time strictly hereditary. Under
240 THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES [1216-
Edward iii. new grades of the peerage were added, such, as dmke,
marquis, and viscount. This tended somewhat to depress the
dignity of the earl, as he now ranked after the dnie and the
marq^lis, and the number of earldoms became somewhat greater.
5. The House of Commions consisted of two knights of the
shire, chosen by the county court of each English oonnty, and
of two citizens or iv/rgesses, elected by the courts of
The House ^^^^ respective cities and boroughs. The two great
' palatine counties of Cheshire and Durham sent no
representatives, as they were so fully under the control of their
earl and bishop that they were for most purposes outside England
altogether. Under Edward iii. Lancashire also became a palatine
county, but having already sent knights and burgesses to parlia-
ment, it contiaued to do so as before. Wales, both the Principality
and the March, was also unrepresented in parliament, save on two
occasions under Edward 11. Though ruled by the English crown,
Wales was no part of the English realm. In practice the sheriffs,
who returned both the knights and the burgesses, had a good deal
to do with determining which individuals should be chosen. The
king decided which boroughs should be asked to appoint repre-
sentatives, and as the sending of members was thought a burden
rather than a privilege, towns were often anxious to avoid having to
make an election. The result was that the number of boroughs was
constantly iluctuating. As parliament became stronger, it suited the
king's interest to summon burgesses from small places under his
control, as he had power of influencing members so selected. Thus,
even in early times there were many parliamentary boroughs which
were not places of any importance. Both counties and boroughs
paid wages to support the members they sent to parliament. The
knights of the shire, who in praotice^epresented the country gentle-
men or smaller landholders, were tne more important element of the
House of Commons. They had greater wealth, a higher social
position, and were more interested in public events. The citizens
and burgesses were generally content to follow their lead. But even
the knights were not always capable of independent action. As
a rule, the opposition to the crown was stronger among the Lords
than the Commons, and the Commons were largely in the habit of
looking up to the peers for guidance. This is seen very clearly in
the debates of the Good Parliament of 1376.
6. The powers of parliament were very considerable. It was
on the petition of the estates that the king drew up the statutes
or acts of parliament, so that no new law could be promulgated
-I399-] THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES 24I
except on their initiative. The Commons were especially con-
cerned in the finances of the nation. As most taxes were paid
by them, they were naturally anxious that they should
have control over the king's expenses. By the four- pa^iament
teenth century, it was considered unlawful for the king
to raise general taxes which had not been granted by the Commons,
though the clergy in their convocation also granted money payable
by the clergy only. The Commons also had the right of petitioning
the crown and unfolding all their grievances and complaints against
the king's government. The Lords joined in most of this work, but
they also exercised judicial functions, in which the Commons
refused to take any part. A wise king took care to keep on friendly
terms with his parliament, and even strong rulers were often forced
to give up power that they cherished to please it.
7. The old institutions of the twelfth century stiE went
on, though with diminished vitality. Qreat Councils of the nobles
still sometimes assembled, but as they could not
grant money, they were of little use to the king, counen^^
More important than these occasional assemblies was
the permanent council of the king, called sometimes the Consilium
Ordina/rium, and later the Privy Council. This was a standing
body of the king's ministers, judges, courtiers, and personal
friends, which accompanied him in his constant journeys, and
gave him advice as to the conduct of affairs of state. As many
of its members were great barons and bishops, the king's council
could sometimes take up a fairly independent Hue, though, it was
mainly a consultative rather than a directing body. With the
help of his council the king governed the country. As time went
on the council began to encroach upon the powers of parliament.
In particular, it exercised considerable judicial as well as adminis-
trative authority. Though it was not supposed to legislate, it
published ordinances that every one had to obey, and which were
laws in everything but name. An able king made his council
reflect his own will. Under a weak king or during a imnority,
the council became the battle-ground of contending factions, and
acted very much as it liked.
8. The law courts took their modern shape by the time of
Edward i. There were three common law courts, the King's
Bench, the Court of Cormnon Pleas, and the Court of Exchequer.
The first and third of these were descended from the Curia Kegis
and Exchequer of Norman times, but they had ceased to be chiefly
concerned with politics and finance, and were now mainly busy
R
243 THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES [1216-
with. holding trials and pronouncing judgments. Cases which the
common law could not deal with, or cases where the common law
was too harsh and narrow, were referred to the Gowrt of Chancery
under the Chancellor. This gradually became what was called a
Court of Equity, wherein the rigid doctrines of the common
lawyers were brought into harmony with men's natural sense of
justice. All through this period the lawyers were powerful, rich,
and numerous. In the thirteenth century many lawyers in the
king's courts were clergymen. By the fourteenth the lawyers had
become a lay profession, with a strong corporate spirit and fixed
traditions of their own. G-reat schools of law grew up in London
called the Inns of Court, which took the place of the universities as
places of study for English law. Besides the king's lawyers and
courts there were still the lawyers and 'courts of the Church, which
exercised such extensive powers that the king and his lawyers
looked upon them with the utmost suspicion.
9. The religious and intelleotual movements of the twelfth
century yielded their finest fruits during the period now before
The Church ^^- T^® Church was at the height of its power
and the and influence during the thirteenth century. Though
Papacy. many individual churchmen, Kke Langton or Grosse-
teste, were patriotic Englishmen, the Church as an institution
was not national. It was the chief representative of that cosmo-
politan ideal which still looked upon the nations of the civilized
world as part of a single Christian commonwealth. Of this great
power the pope was the recognized head, and for nations like
England the only head, since the power of the emperor had
never been real outside Germany and Italy, and after the fall of
Frederick 11. had ceased to be effective even in those countries.
The pope was the universal bishop of Christendom, and for
England he was, for most of the thirteenth century, the feudal
overlord as well. Though his unlimited authority, especially in
politics, at last provoked a strong reaction, there was no one at this
period who ventured to question his ecclesiastical omnipotence.
10. A great religious revival in the early years of the thirteenth
century emphasized the strength and authority which the Church
„. „ . stiU exercised over men's minds. Like all mediaeval
and the religious movements, it took the shape of a new develop-
Mendicant ment of monastioism. Vast as had been the influence
Friars. ^j ^^^^ Cistercians and Regular Canons in the monastic
reformation of the twelfth century (see p. 164), the new orders had
not escaped the dangers agaiast which their rules had been a
-I399-] THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES 243
protest, and their very wealth and authority exposed them to all
the temptations of pride and worldliness. Against all the evil
tendencies of the times a vigorous reaction was embodied ia the Ufe
and work of St. Francis of Assisi. A young Italian gentleman,
Francis forsook his father's heritage and devoted his life to the
care of the poor, the sick, and the neglected. He gave out that he
had wedded the lady Poverty as his bride, and taught the followers
who soon gathered round him that they must UteraUy Uve, Kke
Christ and the apostles, lives of absolute self-renunciation. He
thus became the founder of a new order, to which he gave
the name of the Friars, or brothers, or, as he called them in
his humility, the Minorites, or Lesser Brethren. The fame of
their leader also caused the saiut's followers to be called Frcmciscans,
while the rough garb of undyed wool which they wore also led the
people to speak of them as the Orey Friars. Francis' first principle
was that of absolute poverty. The monks had taken the vow of
poverty, but they interpreted it as meaning individual poverty,
and the monastery could hold as much laud as it could get, though
each monk could possess nothing. To Francis this was not enough,
and he ordered his followers so to understand their vow that they
were bound to corporate as well as iudividual poverty. They were
therefore called the Mendicant Friars, because, having no goods of
their own, they gained their bread by beggiag from the faithful.
So beautiful was the character of St. Francis, and so wonderful the
work of his followers, that many other orders of friars were formed
upon the model which he suggested. The chief of these was the
Order of Preachers, called the BlacTc Friars from the black hood
they wore over their white dress, or the Dominicans, from their
founder St. Dominic, a Spanish canon regular, who had devotpd
his life to preaching the doctrines of the Church and winning
back the heretic and the infidel to its fold. Inspired by Francis
and Domioic, the Mendicant orders worked a wondrous change for
the better iu the religious life of Europe.
11. In 1221 the Dominicans first came to England, and in 1224
they were followed by the Franciscans. They established their
first convents at London and Oxford, and rapidly spread ^j^^ ppg^„.
aU over the country. Their piety, devotion, and eiscans and
sincerity soon won for them numerous disciples among Dominicans
all ranks of EngKshmen. They laboured for the '"England,
salvation of souls, the care of sickness, and the relief of distress.
They ingratiated themselves with the rich as well as with the poor.
Henry nr. and Edward i. selected friars as their confessors, and
244 THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES [1216-
Simon of Modtfort and Grosseteste were among tteir chief
supporters. A special field for their labour was the crowded
suburbs of the greater towns, where the people lived in ignorance,
squalor, and vice. They erected in the chief towns their spacious
but plain churches, adapted for preaching to large congregations.
Unlike the monks, who withdrew themselves from the world, they
lived in the world and tried to make it better. They had many
enemies, as for example the lazy parish clergy whose work they
did, and the monks and canons who envied their zeal and popularity.
As time went on they fell away from their early activity, and often
became corrupt. Yet down to the time of the Eeformation the
friars remained the chief teachers of religion to the poor. Hardly
less important was their influence on the thought and learning
of their age. Before long most professors of theology at the
universities were Mendicant Friars.
12. The universities, which began in the twelfth century,
became exceedingly flourishing in the thirteenth. In the reign of
Henry iii., Oxford became one of the chief centres of
vepsities. study in Europe, and a second English university had
arisen at Cambridge, though this was less important
than Oxford for the rest of the Middle Ages. Paris stiU. remained
the greatest university of the "West, and many English scholars
still studied there. All classes of society were represented among
the students. There were rich noblemen living in their own
houses with a band of servants, while many scholars were so poor
that they had to beg for their living. There was plenty of
freedom and activity, but little order and discipline. All the
scholars ranked as clerks, and had the privileges of clergy; but
this did not prevent them rioting, drinking, and fighting with
the townsfolk. All lectures were in Latin, and the teachers were
those students who had completed their courses, and so became
doctors or masters. There were four faculties, or branches of
study — Theology, Law, Medicine, and Arts. Most scholars began
with arts, that is, grammar, philosophy, and mathematics. It
took seven years' study before a student could become a Master
or Doctor of Arts, and then he was compelled to stay for a time
at the university and teach others. Some Masters of Arts also
studied in one of the other or higher faculties.
13. After the coming of the friars, Oxford became much more
important than before. In particular, the friars devoted themselves
to the study of theology, which worldly men neglected in favour of
law and medicine because these opened up better prospects of success
-I399-] THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES 245
in their careers. The chief thinkers in philosophy and theology were
called schoolmen. Among them a large proportion came from
Britain, such as Alexander Hales, Duns Scotus,William
of Ockham, and Robert Kilwardby and John Peckham, schoolmen
the two Mendicant friars who became in succession arch-
bishops of Canterbury under Edward i. The example of Kilwardby
and Peckham shows how the Universities opened up brilliant
positions for poor men of ability. Never were men of learning more
powerful and influential than in the great days of the schoolmen.
14. As time went on, rich men gave lands and money to the
universities to help forward poor students and unpopular studies.
In particular, small societies were set up within the
universities called colleges, where buildings were
erected in which scholars could be supported while devoting them-
selves to study. The first important college was Merton College at
Oxford, set up by Walter of Merton, chancellor of Henry iii. In
the fourteenth century there were many such foundations, both at
Oxford and Cambridge. By this time the universities were losiug
some of their first energy and freedom, but they still played a con-
siderable part in the life of the nation. It was at Oxford that John
Wyclifie first taught those new views about religion which were to
make so great a stir aU over Christendom. But the times were not
ripe for so thorough-going a reformer as Wyclifie, and the end of
the fourteenth century saw the Church restored to much of its
former power.
15. Grothic architecture, Kke the universities, began in the
twelfth century, and attained its full glory in the thirteenth. At
first the English had built much upon the lines of Gothic
those who had first created the Gothic style in Trance, archl-
but under Henry iii. EngKsh Gothic struck out ways tectupe.
of its own. The so-caUed Early English fashion of building,
with its lancet windows, clustered shafts, scjuare east ends, and
delicacy of detail is best exemplified iu Salisbury
Cathedral, which altogether dates from the reign g^L^jj,
of Henry iii. A comparison between it and the
cathedral of Amiens, the chief work of contemporary French art,
will well illustrate the difierenoe of plan and construction between
English and French Gothic of the best period. Yet the French
tastes of Henry in. have given us an opportunity of studying the
French style in our own land. His favourite foundation of West-
minster Abbey reproduced on English soil the towering loftiness,
the vaulted roofs, the short choir, and the ring of absidal chapels
'vIp ipinjiTBWiipip^ilijrT: i' - ' '',
SOME FORMS OF MEDIEVAL AKCHITECT0EE.
a. Anglo-Saxon. b. Norman. c. Early English,
d. Geometrical Decorated. e. Flowing Decorated. f. Perpendicular.
{From Parker's " Glossary of ArcKitecturs," 1850.)
-1399-1 THIRTEENIH AND FOURTEENTIT CENTURIES 247
of the great Frencli minsters. As the century advanced some of
the fashions of the French builders, notably as regards window-
tracery, were taJsen up in England. The early days of
Edward i. mark the beginning of the so-called Decorated "^°°^^'-^^-
style. The earlier form of this, characterized by large windows
adorned with elaborate tracery marked out in geometrical patterns,
is well exemplified in the angel choir of Lincoln, built about 1280
to contain the shrine of St. Hugh, who himself erected the westerly
part of the choir of the same cathedral. Later Decorated is called
flowing, because the patterns of the window-tracery take wavy or
flowing lines, such as can be seen in the nave of York minster.
In Exeter Cathedral, which is almost entirely of the Decorated
period, we can best study the development in succession of both the
geometrical and decorated types of tracery. Side by side with these
changes, the building as a whole became more elaborately decorated,
and the mouldings became enriched with carved flowers and delicate
carved leafwork. As time went on the decoration became exces-
sive, and masked or impaired the solidity of the constructive parts.
When ornament thus became used for its own sake,
Ann P617—
the spirit of Gothic architecture was beginning to pendicular.
decay. By the reign of Edward iii. the last and most
peculiarly EngKsh type began. This is called the Perpendicular
style, and is characterized by the great use made of right angles
and upright lines, and in particular by the rigid and straight Knes
of its window tracery. The arches became gradually flattened
instead of pointed ; the windows and doors became square-headed ;
and walls' were enriched by flat panelling instead of the arcading of
the earlier styles. The earliest examples of Perpendicular are to
be seen in the choir of Gloucester Cathedral and the nave of
Winchester Cathedral, both buUt under Edward in., the latter by
William of Wykeham. It is a noticeable feature of both these
buildings that their architects did not erect them afresh, but recased
and adapted the old Norman buildings, toning down and hiding
the massive romanesque structure by their new work.
16. Castle-building followed similar changes. The stern
simplicity of the Norman castle had already given place to the
newer style which began with Chateau- GaiEard in Normandy, and
which is seen in its perfection in the castles such as •rj,e con-
Carnarvon, Conway, Harlech, and Beaumaris, erected centple
by Edward i. to ensure the subjection of the moun- castle,
taineers of North Wales. The castles of this period were often biiilt
after what is called the concentric fashion, and were characterized by
248 THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENl'H CENTURIES [1216-
auooessive lines of defence, each roughly radiating from a common
centre. The keep, the special feature of Norman strongholds, was
suppressed altogether, and replaced by many lofty towers erected
along the lines of the successive circuits. The most perfect ex-
ample of the type is perhaps found in the castle of CaerphiUy, erected
by Grilbert, earl of Gloucester, Edward l.'s rival and son-in-law, in his
Marcher lordship of Glamorgan. After this period castle-building,
unlike church-building, became much less f req[uent. By the four-
teenth century England had become so peaceable that noblemen
had no longer any need to erect castles to live in, but could look to
comfort and convenience as well as to safety from attack. The
improved condition of society is seen in the greater stateliness and
beauty of domestic and civil architecture, which were now far more
important than in previous ages.
17. Arms and armour became, like buildings, more complicated
and costly. Great pains were taken to perfect the machines by
which castles were assaulted, and ponderous instru-
train and ments, such as the trebuchet, could hurl huge stones a
the be- great distance by means of an elaborate system of
ginnings puUeys and counterpoises. About the middle of the
fourteenth century the use of gunpowder became
known, and the earKest artillery was designed. These cannons were
cumbrous and ineffective weapons, which, if sometimes dragged
about on a campaign, as at Crecy, were more often used for siege
purposes than in the open field. Armour changed greatly in
character during the fourteenth century, as gradually solid plates
of steel supplemented the chain-mail of the thirteenth century.
The knight of the age of Edward in. covered his
armour ""** "'^ ^^'^ with a breastplate of richly embossed and
decorated steel, and wore brassards, cuissards,jamhards,
and other plates of metal to protect his arms and legs. Over his
armour he stUl donned a surcoat, which, having been long and
loose in the thirteenth century, became short and close-fitting
about the time of the advent of plate-armoux. On this and on
his shield was embroidered or painted the knight's arms or device.
Every knightly house possessed by the fourteenth
century its hereditary arms, and a special science
called heraldry grew up, which explained the differences between
the arms of various noble families. The tournaments,
ments. which, though condemned by the Church, remained
very popular, kept the knight in exercise, and gave
him chances of glory even in peace time. After Bannookburn
-I399-] THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES 249
and Creoy had rung the knell of the ancient fashion of fighting
on horseback in the field, the old-fashioned tilting on horse-
back with lances was still practised in the tournament. The
tiltyard did much to spread the chivalry which was rj,jynirv
so marked a feature of the age of Edward iii. This and the
was further kept up by the orders of hnighthood, Orders of
of which Edward's Order of the Garter was the first Knighthood,
example. All knights belonged to an international brotherhood
of arms, and if their pride of caste made them often contemptuous
of the common people, it did good service in promoting kindly
feeling between kings, barons, and simple country gentlemen.
There was no royal caste in the fourteenth century, and the
country squire, who was a knight, had much in common with his
brother knight, the king or the great earl. Yet social distinctions
no longer counted for much in serious warfare. The archer won
battles more than the maU-olad knight and squire.
Unlike the man-at-arms, the bowman went to the fight
unprotected except by his steel cap and leather jerkin, and save for
his long bow of yew and his arrows, a yard long, tipped vnth bright
steel, his only weapons were his sword and buckler. The mobility
thus gained compensated to some extent for the lack of protection
afforded by body-armour.
18. Much that we have described was common to all Western
Christendom. Every country had its representative system of
estates, its king and barons, its lawyers, churchmen,
and friars. The universities knew no distinction of mopolitan
nationality, and Gothic architecture, the baronial and the
castle, the equipment of the warrior, and the brother- national
hood of chivalry were shared equally by every nation
with which Englishmen were brought into contact. Even the
national movement was common to most of the kingdoms of the
West, and the thirteenth century saw the growth of the Trench
and Spanish as well as of the English and Scottish nations. Yet
the result of the national movement was to separate one people
from another, and with the fourteenth century a sharp line of
demarcation began to be drawn between England and her neigh-
botirs. The English and French states, very similar in the days
of Edward I. and Philip the Eair, became quite different tinder
Edward lii. and the early Yalois kings. The common English
of the days of the Hundred Years' War hated the Trench with
a hatred more deadly than was found among the cosmopolitan
knightly class that took the lead in the fighting against the
250 THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CEN7URIES [i2i6-
national enemy. In suet circumstances, though the bilingual
habit long clave to the upper classes in England, the result of the
process was in the long run the restoration of English to its
position before the Conquest as the everyday language of all
classes of Englishmen from king to peasant. Prom this flowed
the marvellous development of English literature, which was one
of the great features of the age of Edward in.
19. The thirteenth century was not a very literary age.
Though many books were written by Englishmen in Latin, French,
and English, few of them had any serious pretensions
lit t e ^° high literary rank. The grave Latin treatises
produced by the scholars of the Universities was almost
entirely destitute of any literary charm. It was a great age for
science and philosophy, and men of learning cared nothing for the
form of the matter that they produced in their books. The finest
Latin literature was that of the chroniclers, and especially of the
series of illustrious historians who made the Benediotine abbey of
St. Albans the most continuous centre of historical composition in
Britain. Of these, the best is Matthew Paris, who
Paris'!^™ wrote the history of England up to 1258. He is,
perhaps, the greatest historian of the Middle Ages,
having a vivid though prolix style, a bold and independent judg-
ment, an insatiable curiosity, and a sturdy English patriotism that
makes him the forerunner of the national movements of the days
of three Edwards. As the schoolmen became more powerful, even
historical literature began to decline, and the chroniclers of the
reign of Edward i. are but sorry successors to those of the days of
Henry ii. and Henry iii. Things became better under Edward in.,
but for the most artistic presentations of that famous reign, we
must go to those who wrote in French rather than in Latin.
20. Never was French more used or better written in England
than in the days of Henry in., in which reign French words first
began to be used freely in the English language, which
literature. since the Norman conquest had stubbornly refused
them admission. Moreover, public proclamations and
official letters, hitherto mainly issued in Latin, are often published
in French, which by the time of the Hundred Tears' War began to
rival Latin as the international tongue of the statesmen, diploma-
tists, and lawyers. It also remained the most usual language in
which men composed the light literature of song, romance, and
chronicle, which was written to amuse the upper classes. The most
vivid description of Edward nj.'s reign was written in French by
-1399.] THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES 2%X
the Hainault clerk, Joka Froissart, who spent many years at the
court of his patroness and compatriot, Queen Philippa. Froissart
had no care for accuracy, and was blind to the deeper john
movements of the time; but in wealth of detail, in Froissart,
literary charm and colour, and in genial appreciation 1 333-? 1404.
of the externals of his age, he was unsurpassed. Nowhere else can
be read so -vivid a picture of the courts, battles, tournaments, and
feasts of the knights and barons of the Hundred Years' War.
21. English literature was mainly represented during the thir-
teenth century by a great mass of translations and adaptations,
which showed that there was a public ready to read
vernacular books, but not at home in the French literature
language. Few continuous works of high merit were in the
as yet written in the native tongue, but much evidence thirteenth
of deep feeling and careful art lay hidden away in
half -forgotten and anonymous lyrics, satires, and romances. The
language in which these works were written was steadily becoming
more like our modem EngKsh. The dialectical differences became
less acute; the inflections began to drop away; the vocabulary
gradually absorbed a large ronnance (French and Latin) element, and
the prosody abandoned the forms of the West Saxon period for
measures that show a close connection with the con-
temporary poetry of France. With the age of literature
Edward ni., the time of triiunphant English nation- in the
ality, a really great literature in English was written, fourteenth
While the Frenchman Froissart was the chief ''^"''"''y-
literary figure of Edward lii.'s court in the middle period of his
reign, his place during the last few years of it was occupied by
Geoffrey Chaucer, the first real poet of the English Geoffrey
literary revival. The son of a substantial London Chaucer,
vintner, Chaucer held minor oifices at court, took part ' 1340-1400.
in the several campaigns of the Hundred Years' War, and served
in diplomatic missions to Italy, Flanders, and elsewhere. His early
poems reflected the modes and metres of the current French tradition
in an English dress. His Italian mission may have first introduced
him to the famous Italian poets — Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio —
whose works he admired and copied. In his Canterbury Tales, he
produced the most consummate work which any Englishman ever
wrote before the Elizabethan age. Though he was a court poet,
writing to amuse lords and ladies, he depicted every phase of English
life with unrivalled insight, knowledge of character, delicacy of
humour, and profound literary art.
252 THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES [1216-
22. Chaucer wrote in the tongiie of the southern Midlands, the
region wherein were situated his native London.the two TJniTersities,
The be- ^^® habitual residences of the court, the chief seats of
ginnings parliaments and councils, and the most frequented
of standard resorts of commerce. The later Middle English which
English. Yig, used prepared the way for the Modern English of
the sixteenth century. For the first time, a standard English
language, the King's English, came into being, which largely dis-
placed for literary purposes the local dialects which had hitherto
been the natural vehicles for writing. The dialect of the south,
the descendant of the tongue of the West Saxon court, became the
language of peasants and artisans. That a greater future remained
to the idiom of the north country was due to its becoming the
speech of a free Scotland, the language in which John Barbour,
archdeacon of Aberdeen, commemorated for the court of David 11.
and Robert 11. the exploits of Robert Bruce and the heroes of
the Scottish war of independence. The unity of England thus
found another notable expression in the oneness of the popular
speech, while the development of the northern dialect into the
Lowland Scottish of a separate kingdom showed that,if England were
united, English-speaking Britain remained divided against itself.
23. Froissart and Chaucer show us the bright sides of the
England of Edward iii. The social and economic troubles of the
William years of strain and stress that succeeded the Black
Langland, Death are shown in the Vision of Piers Plowman, the
1330-1400. -w^ork of WiUiam Langland, a man from the March
of Wales, who spent his Ufe mainly in London, and wrote in the
language of the city of his adoption. His vigorous and purposeful
verses set closely before us the miseries of the poor, the corruptions
of the Church, the greediness of the lords and ladies, the unrest and
discontent of the labouring classes, and the bitter indignation of
the masses against the old social order which found its fullest
expression in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Though written in
archaic diction and in the ancient alliterative metre, Langland,
even more than Chaucer, reflected the modernity of his age. A
John Wy- stiU more modern note was sounded by John WycUfie,
eliSfe, 1384, the first Englishman to lead a revolt against the
beeinnlriK teachings of the mediaeval Church. WycHfEe's early
of modern writings were in Latin, and are altogether technical
English and scholastic in their character. When, after the
ppose. outbreak of the papal schism, he became an avowed
heretic, he saw that it was not enough to have doctors and thiukers
-I399-] THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES 253
oa his side, but that he must make an appeal to the people of Eng-
land. Accordingly he began to employ the English tongue, and,
Torkshireman though he was, he wrote in the southern language of
London and Oxford rather than in the dialect of his native north.
In pithy Tigorous tracts and sermons, he strove to take the English
people into partnership with him in his war against the old Church.
Above aU, he inspired his followers to undertake a translation of
the Bible into English, and probably carried out a part of the work
■ with his own hands. WycUffe's English Bible, extensively cir-
culated by his poor priests and other Lollard teachers, became
widely read and eagerly studied. It stands to English prose as
Chaucer's poetry stands to English verse. With these works the
future of the English tongue was finally fixed, and in them the
national movement of the fourteenth century found its fullest and
completest expression.
Books recommended for the Further Study of the Period
1216-1399.
The first four reigns of this period are covered by Tout's Bistort/ of
England, 1216-1377 (Longmans' ' Political History of England," vol. iii.), and
that of Richard ii.'s, by Oman's History of England, 1377-1485 ("Political
History of England," vol. iv.). Stubbs' Constitutional History, vol. ii.,
exactly includes this portion of our history. Ecclesiastical History may be
studied the later part of W. E. W. Stephens' History already referred to,
and its continuation W. W. Capes' History of the English Church in the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, For particular points the following may
be consulted: G. W. Prothero's, or Charles Be'mont's Simon de Montfort
(the latter in French) ; Little's Mediceval Wales; 0. M. Edwards'' Wales
',(" Story of the Nations") ; Tout's Edward I. (Macmillan'a "Twelve English
Statesmen'); Warburton's Age of Edward III. (Longmans' "Epochs of
Modem History") ; E. L. Poole's Wydiffe (Longmans' " Epochs of Church
History ") ; and G. M. Trevelyan's England in the Age of Wydiffe. The latter
part of Miss Bateson's Mediceval England (" Story of the Nations ") illustrates
the social history, for which also Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales,
and G. C. Macaulay's abridgment of Frolssart'S Chronicle in English (Mac-
millan's " Globe Series "), may most profitably be consulted. Jusserand's
English Wayfaring Life in the Fourteenth Century (translated by Lucy T.
Smith), and the same writer's Piers Plowman, throw light on important aspects
of the time. Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce : Middle
Ages, shows the industrial development of the period.
254 THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES [1399.
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BOOK IV
LANCASTER AND YORK (1399-1485)
CHAPTER I
HENRY IV. (1399-1413)
Chief Dates :
1399. Accession of Henry IV. /
1400. Eevolt of Owen Glendower.
1401. Statute de heretico comburendo,
1403. Battle of Shrewsbury,
1408. Battle of Bramham Moor.
1413. Death of Henry iv.
1. The Lancastrian reyolution of 1399 marks the end of tlie
period which, had opened with the granting of Magna Carta and
the begumings of the parliamentary system. That time had seen
the growth of our system of limited monarchy and parliamentary
control, and strong kings like Edward in. had sought to evade
rather than deny their constitutional restrictions. Alone of the
fourteenth-century kings, Eichard 11. had striven to break down
the constitution and make himseM a despot. On his utter failure,
the throne passed to the man whose previous career and ancestry
alike compelled him to accept the constitution and rule England
as a limited monarch. With Henry iv.'s succession, TheCon-
the constitutional opposition, whose claims had so often stitutional
been upheld by the House of Lancaster, motinted the Revolution
throne. No one could be deceived either by Henry's oil399.
pretence to inherit the throne from Henry in. or by his claim to
possess it by right of conc[uest. The son of John of Gaunt was
not even the nearest heir to Richard by blood, and the deposed
king had acknowledged the earl of March, the grandson of Lionel of
Clarence, as presumptive successor to the crown. But the growth
of the parliamentary system had made the hereditary element less
2SS
256 HENRY IV. [1399-
important than ever. Henry owed his throne to the choice of par-
liament, which sainted in him the avenger of the Lords Appellant,
and expected him. to rule after a constitutional fashion. The first
result of the revolution, then, was to secure the triumph of the
constitutional cause. Henry iv.'s parliaments forced him to redress
their grievances before they would grant him supplies, and under
him the House of Commons secured for all time the exclusive right
of initiating taxation. On more than one occasion the Commons
forced him to nominate his council in parliament. If this custom
had become permanent, his reign would have anticipated the modern
system of cabinet government, by which the ministers, formally
chosen by the king, are really subject to the approval of parliament.
Moreover, not only Henry iv., but his son and grandson also ruled
after this constitutional fashion. Under the Lancastrian kings the
parliament attained the greatest power that it ever secured before
quite modern times.
2. Richard 11. had been careless of the Church as well as
neglectful of the constitution. Under him LoUardy grew, though
Th e le ^® ^^® ^^ LoUard; and he was bitterly opposed
slastleal to the orthodox constitutional prelates, whose in-
reaotion fluence had so long been thrown into the side of the
of 1399. opposition. With Henry of Lancaster archbishop
Arundel came back to England, and was restored to the throne of
Canterbury. He was the strongest of the conservative prelates of
his time, and soon made his influence felt against heretics and
enemies of the Church. Moreover, Henry iv., a crusader in his
youth, was the most devout and orthodox of kings. The result
was that the Lancastrian revolution was as much an orthodox
reaction from the lax and anti-clerical spirit that had prevailed at
Richard's court, as it was a constitutional reaction from the late
king's despotic ways. The change which secured the rights of
parliament brought about the decline and fall of LoUardy. In 1401
Archbishop Arundel carried through parliament a statute for the
burning of heretics ((£e heretieo combwrendo), by which persons con-
demned in the Church courts for false teaching were handed over to
the sheriff of the county to be burnt alive. The first victim of the
new policy was a Lollard priest named Sawtre. Before the king
died, LoUardy had produced many martyrs ; and Wycliffe's teaching-
was not firmly enough rooted to endure the fires of persecution.
3. It was easier for Henry iv. to win the throne than to keep
it. AU through his reign he was beset by troubles on every side.
The enoroaohments of his parliaments and the resistance of the
-I402-] HENRY IV.
257
Lollards were not the worst of his diffiotdties. He had to face
a constant series of conspiracies and revolts at home, the persistent
hostility of the chief foreign powers, and the nnending „
jealousies of rival court factions. Though he had charaetep^
stooped to acts of treachery and violence, he was on and
the whole a high-minded and well-meaning man, and "I'ffleultles.
the death of Richard sat heavily upon his conscience. Though in
the end he overcame his worst troubles, he wore himself out in the
struggle.
4. After the accession of the new king, parliament reversed the
acts of the Parliament of 1397, and Eichard's friends were deprived
of their new titles and estates. In disgust at this, the
partisans of the late king formed a plot against his °?^* °' j
successor. Their plan was to meet at Windsor on
Twelfth Night, 1400, on pretence of holding a tournament. Then
they were to seize the king and put him to death, and restore
Richard to the throne. The design was betrayed, and the chief con-
spirators fled to Cirencester, where the townsfolk forced them to
surrender. The only important result of the conspiracy was that
it taught Henry the danger of allowing Richard to remain alive.
A short tune after its failure it was announced that Richard was
dead at Pontef ract.
5. Serious trouble soon broke out in Wales, where Richard's
party was still strong, and where the tradition of national inde-
pendence stiU Ungered. Difficulties began in a dis-
pute between the Marcher baron. Lord Grey of Ruthin, ?,^®"
- » J » Glendower.
and a neighbouring Welsh landlord, Owen ap Griffith,
lord of Glyndyvrdwy, on the upper Dee, commonly called Owen
of Glendower. Grey had taken possession of certain lands which
Owen claimed, and Owen, being refused all redress by the English
law courts, recovered the districts by force of arms. His private
war against Grey soon grew into a formidable rebellion. Before
long Owen assumed the title of Prince of Wales, and set vigorously
to work to restore the independence of his country. Every part of
Wales rallied round him. Many of the castles of the king and his
Marcher lords fell into his hands, and two expeditions led by
Henry in person against him proved utter failures. At last, in
1402, he occupied Ruthin, and took Grey, his enemy, prisoner into
Snowdon. A few months later he defeated Sir Edmund Mortimer,
a grandson of Lionel of Clarence, and uncle of Edmund, earl of
March, at Pilleth, near Radnor, and also took him prisoner. A
third royal expedition to Wales was as xmsuccessful as the two
s
258 HENRY IV. [1403-
previous ones. On Henry's retirement, Mortimer made peace
with Owen, and married his daughter. It was now given out that
the object of the allies was to restore King Richard if he were
aliye, and, if not, to procure the accession of the earl of March,
under whom Owen was to reign as prince of Wales. This union of
the Welsh and the Mortimers threatened alike the English power
in Wales and Henry's position iu England.
6. Henry iv. was the less able to grapple with the Welsh revolt
siuce foreign powers regarded him. with great hostility. The
Revolt of French long refused to recognize him as king, and
the Pepcles, there were fierce disputes about the return of Queen
1403. Isabella, Kichard's widow, to France. The Scots were
eciually hostile, and in 1402 invaded England, but were defeated by
Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, at Swnibleton, where many
Scottish lords were taken prisoners. Northumberland and the
Percies had materially helped to gain Henry Ms throne, but they
were discontented that the king allowed them less power than
they had hoped, and threw a large share of the trouble and expense
of fighting the Scotch and Welsh on to their hands. Northumber-
land's son, Henry Percy, called Hotspur, by reason of his rash
valour, was the brother-in-law of Edmund Mortimer, and was
induced by him to make common cause with the Welsh. At last,
in 1403, the Percies made peace with the Scots, rose suddenly
against the king, and marched from the north to join the Welsh
and the Mortimers. Henry resolved to crush the rebeUion before
the Welsh and Percies united their forces, and was helped in this
by Grlendower rashly choosing this moment to extend his power
into South Wales. When Hotspur approached Shrewsbury on his
way to join Owen, he found that the Welsh were far away, and
that the border city was occupied by the king with a strong force.
On July 21, the battle of Shrewsbury was fought at Berwick, three
miles to the north of the town, on a site since marked by the
church of Battlefield, erected by Henry in commemoration of the
victory which he won. Hotspur was slain, his uncle, the earl of
Worcester, and his ally, the Scotch earl of Douglas, were taken
prisoners. A few weeks later Northumberland, who had remained
in his Yorkshire estates, made his submission. For the moment
the English rebellion seemed suppressed.
7. Owen Glendower stiU remained in arms. A fourth expedi-
tion of Henry proved as unsuccessful as the rest. Owen now made
an alliance with the French, and a French fleet came to Carmarthen
Bay to help him. He summoned a Welsh parliament, and
-i408.] HENRY IV. 259
transferred his obedience from the Roman pope acknowledged in
England, to the Avignon pope recognized by the French. In
1406 his cause was helped by a second revolt of - „j ,
-XT J.T. 1 1 n mi Gpattual
JN orthTunberland. Thereupon Owen, Mortimer, and collapse
Northumberland made a treaty by which they divided of the
England iato three parts, of which each confederate '''^*°ss.
took one as his share. Meanwhile Henry's troops put down
Northumberland's rising at Shipton Moor, in. Yorkshire. North-
umberland escaped, but Archbishop Sorope of York, who had
joined him, was taken prisoner and executed, with complete dis-
regard to the immunity of the Church from secular jurisdiction.
Northumberland fled to Scotland, but in 1408 he once more
appeared in the north, and again rallied a force round Mm. He
was again defeated, at Bramham, Moor, in Yorkshire, and perished
in the conflict. After his death Henry had no more trouble with
his English enemies. Even Owen Glendower gradually began to
lose ground. The king's son, Henry, prince of Wales, bit by bit
conquered all southern and central Wales. However, Owen held
out manfully in the north, and was still in arms at Henry iv.'s death.
He was no longer a prince, but a fugitive in the mountains. In
the days of his prosperity he had shown wonderful courage and
skiU both in fighting the English and in building up his new
principality. He now showed even more rare gifts in bravely
coping with adversity. It was no wonder that he became the
great hero of his countrymen. Wales was, however, once more in
English hands, and stern laws kept its people in subjection.
8. As Henry's domestic diflculties decreased, he gradually
became able to take up a firmer position abroad. In 1406 a
piece of good luck saved bim from further difficulties
with the Scots. In that year James, the son of and^an'ee
Robert lii., king of Scots, was captured by English
sailors off Plamborough Head, as he was on his way to be edu-
cated at the French court. Within a few months his father's
death made Henry's captive king James I. He remained for
nineteen years a prisoner in England, where his presence was
a guarantee that the Soots could not infiict much harm on
England. Henry was equally lucky in his dealings with France,
when king Charles vi., Richard ll.'s father-in-law, went mad and
was quite unable to restrain the fierce faction fights that now
broke out between the two parties of the Burgv/ndians and the
Armagnacs. The former faction was headed by the king's cousin,
John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy and count of Flanders, who
260 HENRY IV. [1406-
was not only the mightiest noble in France but also aspired to the
position of an independent prince. The rival party of the
Armagnaos was led by the count of Armagnao, one of the greatest
of the feudal lords of the south. The disputes between them soon
reduced France to such a low condition that Henry had nothing
more to fear from her hostility. Towards the end of his reign he
was able to revenge himself for the French help given to Glen-
dower by sending expeditions to France. These forces at one time
helped the Armagnaos, at another the Burgundians, and thus
increased the confusion in that country.
9. Thus, after long struggles, Henry iv. established himself
securely in his throne. But he wore himself out in the conflict.
The Beau- ^^^ after 1406 was a broken-down invalid. His un-
fopts and fitness to govern gave opportunity for court factions
the prince to revive and struggle for power. Archbishop Arundel,
01 Wales. ^jj^Q jj^^^ long been Henry's chief minister, represented
the traditions of the Lords Appellant and the old constitutional
party. He found bitter enemies in the Beauf orts, the half-brothers
of the king. The Beauforts were the sons of John of Gaunt by
Catharine Swynford, who became the duke's third wife after their
birth. This marriage gave an excuse for Richard 11. legitimatizing
Catharine's children, but Henry iv., when he confirmed this act,
provided that they should not be regarded as competent to succeed
to the throne. The eldest of the brothers, John, became earl of
Somerset, while Henry became bishop of Winchester, and Thomas,
the third, succeeded Arundel as chancellor in 1410. The Beauforts
upheld the tradition of the courtiers with whom John of Gaunt
had himself so long been associated. They had a powerful ally in
Henry, prince of Wales, a high-spirited and able young man,
who, when very young, had won much credit by the share he took
in putting down the Welsh rising, but had caused some scandal by
his wild and injudicious pursuit of amusement during his scan<7
leisure. The prince was ambitious, and showed an eager desire to
profit by his father's illness to get power into his own hands.
Against him and the Beauforts Arundel strove to uphold the per-
sonal authority of the sick king. The archbishop's dismissal and his
replacement by Sir Thomas Beaufort was the work of the prince. It
Death of ■"'as believed that the prince wished to procure his
Henry IV., father's abdication, and the king was bitterly wounded
1413. byhis son's conduct. Recovering his health somewhat,
Henry restored Arundel to the chancellorship. Soon afterwards he
grew Fprse again, and died in 1413, when only forty-six years of age.
-I4I3-]
HENRY IV.
261
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CHAPTER
II
HENRY V.
(1413-1422)
Chief Dates :
1413. Accession of Henry v
1414. Oldcastle's Rising.
1415. Battle of Agincourt.
1417. End of the Papal Schism.
1419. Conquest of Rouen.
1420. Treaty of Troyes.
1422. Death of Henry v.
1. Henry v. was crowned king on Palm Sunday, 1413. '• As soon
as he was crowned," wrote a chronicler, "suddenly he was
Early changed into a new man, and all Ms intention was to
measures of live virtuously." He had not shown much good
Henry V. feeKng in his relations to his father, hut he was now
eager to set his past aside, and to rule wisely as the chosen king of
the whole nation. He strove to bury the old feuds by releasing his
rival, the earl of March, from prison, and by erecting a sumptuous
monument over the remains of Richard 11. in Westminster Abbey.
In his anxiety to put a complete end to the Welsh revolt, he ofEered
to pardon all the Welsh in arms against him, including Owen
Glendower himself. This prudent policy proved completely suc-
cessful. Owen scorned to accept pardon from his supplanter, and
remained unconquered among the mountains. His followers,
however, made their submission, and, on the chieftain's death soon
afterwards, the Welsh troubles were completely ended.
2. The only thing which Henry did that showed any spirit of
revenge was his removal of Archbishop Arundel from the chancery.
Henry Beaufort became chancellor in the archbishop's
and the place, and remained the new king's chief adviser.
Lollard Henry, however, continued to work cordially with
1414,^' Arundel, especially when the archbishop attacked the
Lollards. The most powerful supporter of the
Lollards was Sir John Oldcastle, a knight from the Welsh March,
who had become Lord Cobham by his marriage with a Kentish
heiress. He was an old friend of the king, and had fought under
him in several campaigns, but Henry's iierce orthodoxy made him
262
1414] HENRY V. 263
regardless o£ personal ties when he had to deal with heretics.
Oldoastle was arrested, and convicted of heresy before Archbishop
Arundel. Soon after his condemnation Oldcastle escaped from the
Tower, and neither king nor archbishop could find out his hiding-
place. The Lollards had long suffered severely from persecution,
and in the fall of their leader their last hopes seemed to have
vanished. In their despair they formed a plot to capture the king
at Eltham, while a LoUard mob mustered in St. Giles' Tields,
to the west of London, and sought to divert attention from the
attack on Henry by an assault on the city. Henry's pi-omptitude
easily frustrated the conspiracy. He left Eltham for London, and
shut himself with an armed force within the capital. Next morn-
ing, January 12, 1414, he surrounded the LoUard gathering at St.
Giles' Fields, and easily frustrated their designs. Oldcastle fled to
the March of Wales, where he lay hiding till 1417, when he was
captured, taken to London, and hung as a traitor. With his execu-
tion LoUardy almost disappeared from history. Though the LoUard
leaders had shown great constancy in persecution, they were too
few in numbers and held too extreme views to have much influence
over the nation at large. Within a generation the LoUards were
almost extinct. Thus the orthodoxy of the Lancastrian kings
secured a complete triumph.
3. Henry v. was above aU things a soldier, and his chief anxiety
was to revive the foreign poUoy of Edward ill. He had good
reason to resent the hostility of France to the House gengwal of
of Lancaster, and the deplorable state of anarchy into the claim to
which France had now fallen offered him a temptation, the French
which he made no effort to resist, to profit by French '"•'°"®'
misfortunes. His first parliament agreed with him that he
should renew Edward in.'s claim to the French throne, though,
even if Edward lli.'s title to France had been a just one, the heir
of it was not the king, but the earl of March. Parliament made
Henry a Uberal grant of money to enable him to enforce his claim.
Besides this, it passed an act whereby the alien priories — ^that is,
the smaU monasteries of foreign monks estabUshed on the EngUsh
estates of French houses of religion — should be suppressed, lest the
foreign inmates should send English money out of the country to be
employed in making war against England. This law is worth
remembering, because it marks the first occasion on which parlia-
ment ventured to suppress reUgious houses and lay hands upon the
property of the Church. Orthodox as were Henry and his parlia-
ment, they had no great love of extreme ecclesiastical pretensions.
264
HENRY V.
[1415-
4. In tte summer of 1415, Henry went down to Sonthampton
to embark with his army to Prance. His departure was delayed
Thefi t ^y *^® iasm& that his cousin Richard, earl of Cam-
expedition bridge, the son of Edmund, duke of York, had joined
to France, a plot to deprive the king of his throne, in favour of
**^^" Edmund, earl of March, whose sister, Ajone, he had
married. Earl Edmund, however, repaid Henry's generosity by
refusing to join the conspirators, and repeating all that he knew to
the king. Cambridge was arrested, and condemned to immediate
execution, and March himself sat among his brother-in-law's
THE AGINCOUKT CAMPAIGN.
EmerrValfccr :c.
judges. Immediately afterwards the king and his troops crossed
over to France, landing at the mouth of the Seine.
5. In France, Henry's first step was to besiege Harfleiu', a town
which was then the chief port on the north bank of the estuary.
Harfleur made a heroic resistance, and the English
Harfleur* ° suffered greatly from sickness during the long siege.
When, late in September, the place at last surrendered,
Henry's army was so much weakened that all he could do was to
march northwards to Calais, by as direct a road as lay open to him.
He proceeded along the Norman coast as far as the Lower Somme,
where he reached the ford of Blanchetaciue, which Edward in. had
crossed in 1346. There, however, he found that the French held
I4ISJ HENRY V. 265
the bank with such force that it was dangerous to attempt the
passage. Acoordiagly, he marched past AbbeTille and Amiens,
up the left bank of the Somme, which he at last succeeded in
crossing a little higher up than Peronne. Here he again resumed
his northward progress, which was uninterrupted untU he had safely
crossed the Ternoise at Blangy, between Saint-Pol and Hesdin.
Once over the river, he climbed up through narrow and deep-sunk
lanes to the plateau which lies north of the stream, and took up
his quarters at the viLLage of MaisonoeUes. There he perceived
that his further movements was blocked by a great French army,
which held the flat upland immediately to his north, between
the villages of Trameoourt and Agineourt, now called Azincourt,
whose hedges and enclosures formed natural limits to the battle
ground to the oast and west.
6. The war-worn English army had now the alternative of
retreating, or of cutting its way through the superior forces of the
enemy. Henry at once resolved to engage in bdttle, and The battle
his soldier's eye saw at once that the narrow plateau on of Agin-
which the French had elected to fight did not give court,
them room enough to employ their superior numbers to advantage.
By the morning of October 25, his troops were ready to fight a
defensive battle after the accustomed fashion. Archers and men-
at-arms were alike dismounted, and the former, placed on the wings
of each of the three divisions of the army, provided themselves with
stakes to form a palisade to protect them from the French charge.
For some time they waited, hoping that the eneony would attack,
but instead of this the French withdrew somewhat to the north.
Thereupon Henry ordered the English to advance, and take up a new
position between Agineourt and Tramecourt, within bowshot of
the foe. This act of daring stirred up the f'rench to make their
long-deferred attack. The bulk of their army was also dismounted,
but cavalry forces occupied each wing, and these, galled by the
English arrows, advanced, in the hope of riding down the English
archers. Protected by their palisades, the English bowmen made
light of the assault, and soon the French horsemen were retreating
in confusion. By this time the French men-at-arms had drawn near
to the English centre. The soft ground was muddy from recent
rain, and the heavily armoured French, assailed by the archers on
their flanks, found their action much impeded. Seeing that the
enemy's forward movement was checked, the archers, flushed with
victory, abandoned the palisades, and fell on the French with
sword, axe, and mallet in flank and rear. Before long the whole
266
HENRY V.
[141S-
Frenoh army was thrown into hopeless confusion, and the English,
with slight loss, won an OTerwhehning victory. Next day, the
conquerors renewed their march for Calais, and, within a few
weeks, Henry marched in triumph through Londsn.
dotted lines mark the hedges enclosing the villages ■
7. Agiuoourt won for Henry as great a position in Europe as
ever Edward in. had enjoyed. One good result that flowed from
The Council ^'^ 'vrzs,, that Henry was able to use his influence to
put an end to the deplorable schism in the papacy,
which, since 1378, had scandalized aU Europe. The
Emperor Sigismund was very anxious to restore unity
to the Church, but the first efforts to promote it had
had the unfortunate result that a third pope was elected
while the other two popes still remained in office. Sigismund visited
England, where Henry gave him a royal welcome. Thaitks largely
to their efforts, a General Council of the Chxirch met at Constance.
At first, it seemed likely that the enmity of France and England
would make peace hopeless among the assembled coTinciUors ; but
at last the union of the English and Germans resulted in the
deposition of all three popes, and the appointment of Martin v., a
new pope whom aE. Europe recognized. The oouncU also tried to
of Con-
stance, and
the end of
the Schism
in the
Papacy.
■1420.] HENRY V. 267
remedy the abuses of the Church. In this it was not very
successful; but it burnt John Huss, a professor of the univer-
sity of Prague, ia Bohemia, who had studied Wycliffe's writings,
and had striven to establish ia his own land the views that the
LoUards had upheld ia England. Thus the teaching of WyoHfEe
was condemned on the Continent as well as in England. The
Hussites, though they made a brave fight, were put down Uke the
LoUards, and the orthodox party triumphed everywhere.
8. The battle of Agincourt had not restilted in the capture of a
siagle castle, and from 1415 to 1417 all the lands held by the
English in northern France were Calais and Harfleur. ^j^g ^gj,.
Hariieur itself, which Henry wished to make a second quest of
Calais, was ia some danger. However, in 1417, Henry Normandy,
led a second expedition into Prance, with which he set ~ '
to work to effect the conquest of Normandy. He met with fierce
resistance at every step, but persevered with such energy, that, by
1419, nearly the whole of the duchy was in his hands. The last
place of importance that resisted hiTin was Eouen, which surrendered
early in 1419, after a long and famous siege, which tried the skill and
endurance of Henry's soldiers far more than the fight at Agincourt.
9. Burgundians and Armagnaos continued their feuds even
when the enemy was conquering their native country, and it was
not untU all Normandy was in English hands that the i^^q treaty
two factions made an effort to unite against the ofTpoyes,
invader. At last, however, it was arranged that 1*20.
Charles, dauphin of Vienne, the mad king's eldest son, who
now led the Armagnaos, should hold a conference with Duke
John of Burgundy, at Montereau on the Tonne. The meeting took
place on the bridge, and was signalized by the treacherous murder
of the duke by the Armagnaos. A great wave of feeUng now
turned aU northern Prance from the bloodthirsty Armagnaos.
Philip the Good, Duke John's son and successor, at once made a
treaty of alliance with the English. Paris, where Burgundian
feeling was very strong, gladly followed his lead, and in 1420 the
treaty erf Troyes was signed between Henry and his French allies,
by which the foreign invader assumed the new character of the
partisan of the Burgundian faction. By it, Henry was to marry
Catharine, the daughter of the mad King Charles vi., and to govern
Prance, as regent, for the rest of his father-in-law's life. On
Charles's death, Henry and his heirs were to succeed to the
French throne, it being only stipulated that France should stiU be
ruled by French laws and by French councillors. So bitter was
268 HENRY V. [1421-
the feeling' against the dauphin, that a large number of Frenchmen,
and most Parisians, gladly welcomed the victor of Agincourt as
their ruler. English arms had won Henry only one glorious Tictory
and one proTince. The Burgundian alliance now opened up the
prospect of his ruling over aU Prance.
10. The treaty of Troyes was largely accepted in the north.
However, south of the Loire, where Armagnac feeling predomi-
The battle nated, Charles the Dauphin was still recognized, and
of BaugS, Henry's pretensions were rejected. While Henry re-
**^*- turned to England with his new queen, his brother
Thomas, duke of Clarence, strove to extend the sphere of Anglo-
Burgundian influence in Central France. In 1421 Clarence was
defeated and slain, at Bauge, by a force of French and Scots.
11. It was clear that much fighting would take place before
the treaty of Troyes could be carried out. Henry at once led
a third expedition into France, taking with him the
pedition captive king of Scots in the hope that the Scots
and death of would hesitate to fight against their own sovereign.
^loo^ ^" Henry was welcomed by the Parisians as their future
king, and had made some progress with his difficult
task, when he was carried off by disease, at Vincennes, in August,
1422, when only thirty-five years of age, and before disaster had
checked his wonderful career of conquest. He was one of the
greatest of our kings, an admirable soldier, an able general, a
wise and conciliatory statesman, and a highminded, honourable
gentleman. He was strict, austere, grave, and cold. His inten-
tions were good, but he wanted insight, sympathy, and imagination.
He found it easy to persuade himself that whatever he wished to
do was right. Thus he was profoundly convinced that his pursuit
of power and glory flowed altogether from his conviction of the
lawfulness of his claims to the French crown. He was, however,
wonderfully efficient in carrying out anything that he undertook.
Though he could be cruel to those who stood across his path, he
was, for the most part, a lover of justice, a kind master, merciful
to defeated foes, and careful of the comfort and well-being of his
soldiers and subjects. His piety was sincere, but showed an un-
lovely side in his harshness to the Lollards. He was the only strong
and popular king of the house of Lancaster, and Englishmen
trusted him so entirely that he could afford to play the part of
a constitutional ruler, since his parliaments always gave him all
that he asked for. His glory, undimmed during his life, shone
with even brighter lustre through the disasters of the next reign.
-1422.]
HENRY V.
269
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CHAPTER III
HENRY VI. (1422-1461)
Chief Dates:
1422. Accession of Henry vi.
1429. Relief of Orleans.
1431. Death of Joan of Arc.
1435. Congress of Arras.
1444. Truce of Tours.
1447. Deaths of Gloucester and Henry Beaufort.
1450. Revolt of Cade.
1453. Battle of Castillon.
14SS. Battle of St. Albans.
1460. York claims the throne ; battle of Wakefield.
1461. Deposition of Henry vi.
1. On Henry v.'s death, Ms only son, a baby nine montlos old,
succeeded liim as Henry vi. A few weeks later the little king's
grandfather, Charles vi., died also. Henry was thereupon proclaimed
Reeencvof ^^S oi Prance as well as England. It was hard
Bedford enough, under any circumstances, to carry out the
established, conditions of the treaty of Troyes, and this policy had
now to be executed under the special difficulties of a
long minority iu both realms. The English parliament made
Henry's elder uncle, John, duke of Bedford, protector of Eng-
land, and the king's chief councillor; but as John also became
regent of France, it was provided that, in Ms absence, his younger
brother, Humphrey, duke of Grloucester, should hold Ms English
office. In reality, the royal power was put into the hands of the
council," of wMch Grloucester was little more than the president.
2. Bedford was a true brother of Henry v., and showed rare
skill, devotion, and magnanimity in carrying out the hopeless
,. ,, task wMch lay before him. He was wise enough to
work in see that the only chance of making Ms nephew king
France, of France lay in close alliance with Philip the Good
1422-1428. g^jj^ ^jjg Biirgundian party. He showed such loyalty
to Ms allies that, in Paris and aU other districts of northern
270
I426-] HENRY VI. 27 1
France where the Burgundians were influential, his nephew was
accepted as king without difficulty. He further strengthened his
position by an alliance with the duke of Brittany, who, after
Biu'gundy, was the most powerful of the great French feudatories.
All his exertions could not, however, prevent the proclamation of
the dauphin as Charles vil. in central and southern France ; and,
south of the Loire, the only district that acknowledged Henry as
king was the scanty remnant of the English duchy of Aquitaine.
Charles vii. was, however, hated for his share in the tragedy
at Montereau; and his self-indulgent, lazy, and unenterprising
character made him ill-fitted to play the part of a patriot king.
His enemies called him, in derision, the " king of Bourges," and
he seldom went far from the region of the middle Loire, where
his best friends were to be found. Bedford and Burgundy
now sought to extend their power. In 1423 they defeated the
Armagnacs at Cravant, near Auxerre, in Burgundy, and in 1424
won another brilliant victory at Verneuil, in upper Normandy.
As the Scots continued to give much help to the French, Bedford
released the captive James I., married him to Jane Beaufort, the
daughter of the earl of Somerset, and sent him back to Scotland
as the ally of the English. Bedford's prudent policy *as, how-
ever, sorely hampered by the foUy of his brother Gloucester, who
made himself the rival of Burgundy by marrying Jacqueline of
Bavaria, a claimant to the county of Hainault, over which Duke
Philip also had pretensions. The Anglo-Burgundian aUianoe
seemed on the verge of dissolution, when Duke Humphrey invaded
Hainault, and waged open war against Duke PhiUp. However,
in 1426, Bedford managed to patch up peace between them, but
it was long before the old cordiality between England and Bur-
gundy was restored. The natural result of this was that the
cause of King Henry made slow progress in France. Though
Bedford and Burgundy could win battles, they were not strong
enough to govern the country which they conquered. Northern
France fell into a deplorable condition of weakness and confusion.
Things were even worse in the regions which acknowledged
Charles vii. The increasing weakness of the rival factions
threatened all the land with the prospect of long years of anarchy.
3. In England, Duke Humphrey gave almost as much trouble to
Bedford as in the Netherlands. He was a showy, vain-glorious,
seH-seeking man, who made constant efforts to win popularity.
His only good point, however, was his love of letters and patronage
of learned men. He was an incompetent poUtioian, and under
272 HENRY VI. [1422-
his presidency the council was rent asunder by the disputes
of rival factions. Gloucester posed as the leader of the popular
Gloueestep P^J^. while his uncle, Henry Beaufort, bishop of
as Protector Winchester, carried on the traditions of the court
of England, politicians with which the Beauf orts had been identified
1422-1429. gjjjQe -the reign of Henry iv. Beaufort was a wiser
statesman than his nephew, and had more influence in the council ;
while Grloucester was popular with the commons, who called him,
with little reason, the Good, Duke Smivphrey. The disputes between
the two rivals destroyed the effectiveness of the council, and
weakened the government of the country. More than once Bedford
was forced to abandon his work in France, and betake himself to
England to reconcile his brother and his uncle. He never succeeded
in establishing real cordiality between them. When the pope made
Beaufort a cardinal, Gloucester demanded that he should be driven
from the council, siuce, as cardinal, he was the natural counsellor
of the pope, and had, therefore, no place among the advisers of an
English king. So troublesome did Gloucester remain, that, iu
1429, it was thought wise to crown the little king. Henry was only
seven, but, after this ceremony, it was imagined that he was com-
petent th rule on his own account. Gloucester ceased to be pro-
tector, and power fell more and more into the hands of Beaufort.
His rival, however, was still strong enough to put grievous obstacles
in the way of effective government.
4. The restoration of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, and the
diminution of Gloucester's influence in England, enabled Bedford
The siege ^° undertake fresh steps for the extension of his power
of Orleans, in Prance. He now resolved to attempt the conquest
1428. q£ ^jjg jg£^ bank of the Loire, where Charles's power
chiefly centred. As a preliminary to this he began, in 1428, to
besiege Orleans. This town, which is situated on the right bank
of the Loire, commanded one of the few bridges that then spanned
the rapid river. It was the natural gate of the south, and its
reduction would have been a deadly blow to the fortunes of the
king of Bourges. Charles, however, was quite unable to give any
help to the hard-pressed garrison, and it looked as if Orleans would
soon be forced to surrender to the Anglo-Burgundian alliance.
6. At this moment of extreme depression in the fortunes of
France, there occurred one of the most wonderful things in
all history. One day there came to King Charles's court at Chinon
a simple country girl, named Jeanne D'arc, or, as the English
called her, Joan of Arc. She was a native of Pomremi, a
-1429.] HENRY VI. 273
village on the banks of the Mouse, on the borders of Champagne
and Lorraine, and at the eastern extremity of the French king-
dom. While tending her father's sheep in the fields, Tj,e mission
she had long pondered over the evils which the war of Joan
had brought upon Prance. At last, as she firmly of Are.
believed, God revealed Himself to her va. visions, and bade her
undertake the work of saving France from the foreigners, and
restoring the blessings of peace. When first she told of her revela-
tions every one mocked at her, but soon her faith won over many
to believe in her mission. She was despatched right through the
enemy's country, from Domr^mi to the king's court at Chiaon.
" The King of heaven," said she to Charles, " bids me to tell you
that you shall be anointed and crowned in the church of Reims,
and that you shall be the deputy of the King of heaven, who is also
King of France." Charles vii. 'had little belief in her words, but
affairs were now so desperate that he let her do what she would.
She donned armour like a man, and rode on a horse at
the head of the garrison despatched to reKeve the force f Orleans
at Orleans. At the end of AprU, 1429, Joan fought
her way into Orleans, where her presence filled the discouraged
soldiers with renewed hope. On May 7 she led an attack on the
ToureUes — the strongest of the forts which the English had
erected to ^hut in the beleagnered city. The ToureUes were taken,
and, next day, the English abandoned the siege, and withdrew to
the north of the Loire. A few weeks later Joan won
a pitched battle over the English in the open field p^tay.
at Patay. These successes broke the long tide of
disaster, and the courage and faith of Joan again made Frenchmen
have confidence in themselves and their country.
6. Joan now bade the BngKsh quit France and recognize
Charles as king. She fulfilled her promise by conducting Charles
through the heart of the enemy's country to Keims, corona-
where she stood by whUe he was crowned and anointed tion of
king. Charles's position in the north was still so weak Charles vl .
that he was forced to retreat beyond the Loire immediately after
the ceremony. Yet from this moment his position in France was
changed. Tip to now he had been the discredited leader of a
faction ; henceforth he was the divinely appelated monarch, with
an indefeasible claim to the obedience of aU Frenchmen. French
patriotic feeUng, long suspended through the baleful effects of
party strife, once more asserted itself in response to the teaching of
the maid of Orleans.
T
274
HENRY VT.
[1429-
Gmery 10aCker,sc.
Burgundian
I \ English Territory Hi French
\ ■'■:! Territory other than English , French or Buraundian
A Battlefields
FRANCE IN 1429.
-I43I-] HENRY VI.
27s
7. The first stage of Joan's work had now been accomplished ;
but she did not regard her mission as completed until she had
driven the EngHsh out of France. She therefore still Martyrdom
remained with the army, and made desperate efforts to of Joan of
win over the north to the patriotic cause. Victory, *''°' ^*3*-
however, had made her over- confident. Her merit lay in her faith
and inspiration. Now that, owing to her success, soldiers sought
her advice on problems of generalship, she naturally made bad
mistakes. She failed completely in an attack on Paris, and rashly
threw herseK into Compiegne, a place which, stirred up by her
patriotic influence, had thrown off the Bxirgundian yoke and was
now besieged by Duke Philip. On May 23, 1430, she fell into the
hands of the enemy as she was returning from an unsuccessful
saUy on the defenders. After a long imprisonment, Joan was
condemned, by a French ecclesiastical court, as a witch, and in
1431 was burned to death at Rouen. She had done such great
deeds that English and French alike believed that there was some-
thing supernatural about her. But while French patriots were
convinced that she was a maid sent from God, the English and
Burgnndians professed that she was inspired by the devil. She
died so bravely that the more thoughtful of her English foes were
convinced of her nobiUty of purpose. " We are undone," said they,
" for this maid whom we have burned is a saint indeed."
8. The work of the maid of Orleans outlasted her martyrdom.
The whole French people was now on the side of _ ,
Charles, and even the Burgundians who had done Joan of Henry VI.
to death began to feel that their true position was that at Paris,
of traitors in league with the national enemy. In **^1*
the face of ever-increasing difficulties, Bedford struggled nobly
to uphold the English power. As if to answer the hallowing of
Charles at Reims, he brought King Henry to France, and sought
to have him also crowned at the accustomed crowning-place. But
the patriotic party was now so strong in Champagne that access
to Reims was impossible, and, after long delays, Bedford was
forced to be content with his nephew's coronation in the cathedral
of Paris. An English bishop, Henry of Winchester, performed the
ceremony, and even the faithful Parisians grew discontented at the
prominence given to the young king's English councillors.
9. The personal relations between Bedford and Burgundy now
became strained. The death of Bedford's wife, who was Duke
Philip's sister, broke the closest tie between them, and Bedford
soon committed his one imprudence, that of marrying Jacquetta of
2/6 HENRY VI. [I43S-
Luxembtu'g-, a vassal of PMlip, without the duke's knowledge or
permission. From that moment the EngKsh power in France
rapidly declined. The end came the quicker since
Arras, and ^^ intrigues of Duke Humphrey once more forced
death of Bedford to revisit England. When he went back to
^I^k""^' France he found that, outside Normandy and the
neighbourhood of Paris, the English power was
almost at an end. Duke Philip, now anxious to break with his
English allies, summoned, in 1435, a general European Congress
to meet at Arras, in the hope of making peace. There the English
were offered the whole of Normandy and a large extension. of their
Gascon duchy if they wotild conclude peace and renounce their king's
claim to Prance. With great unwisdom, Bedford refused these
terms. He withdrew from the congress, and died soon after.
Burgundy then made peace with Charles, and, in 1436, Paris opened
its gates to the national king.
10. The war still lingered on for many years. Though success
was hopeless, the English stiU struggled bravely, and the French
Theneace ^®^® ^^^ ®° weak that their progress was compara-
and war tively slow. Henry vi. was now reaching man's
parties in estate. He was virtuous, intelligent, religious, and
Englan . humble, but he was not strong enough, either in mind
or body, to rule England effectively. The factious strife in his
council went on as much as ever, and the parties of Gloucester and
Cardinal Beaufort still contended for ascendancy. Beaufort was
statesman enough to see that the wisest course for England was to
conclude an honourable peace with France, which was stiU willing
to make substantial concessions of territory in return for Henry's
renunciation of his claim to the throne. Duke Humphrey bitterly
opposed this pacific policy, and won a cheap popularity by
denouncing all concessions, and clamouring for the continuance
of the war. The young king was sincerely anxious for peace, and,
as he g^ew up, his support gave Beaufort's party the ascendancy in
the council. The indiscretion of Eleanor Cobham, Gloucester's
wife, now brought about a further diminution of the duke's
influence. The duchess of Gloucester, knowing- that her husband
was next in succession to the throne if Henry should die, consulted
witches and astrologers as to thg best way of hastening that event.
By their advice she made an image of the king in wax, and melted
it before a slow fire, believing that, as the wax melted away, so the
king's life would waste away. In 1441 the duchess's childish form
of treason was detected. Her accomplices were put to death, and
-1447- J HENRY VI. 277
Eleanor herself was imprisoned for life in the Isle of Man. Not
daring to intervene, Duke Humphrey " took aU things patiently,
and said little." Henceforth he had little influence, and chiefly
busied himseE with his favourite pursuit of literature.
11. In 1442 Henry came of age, and, guided by Beaufort's
advice, pressed forward the poUcy of peace. William de la Pole,
earl of Suffolk, a soldier who had fought bravely against
the Trench, and a strong supporter of Cardinal Beau- The truce of
fort, became the chief agent of the royal poUoy. In and the '
1444 he negotiated a short truce at Tours, by which a French
marriage was arranged between Henry and Margaret w^prlage,
of Anjou, the daughter of Rene, duke of Anjou,
nominal king of SicUy and Jerusalem, and actual count of Provence
and duke of Lorraine. The house of Anjou was a junior branch
of the French royal house, and Rene's sister was the wife of
Charles vii. In 1445, Margaret, a high-spirited girl of fifteen, was
brought to England by Suffolk, and married to Henry.
12. The marriage was not popular ; Margaret was poor, and did
not even bring assured peace with France as her wedding portion. It
was necessary to renew the truce from time to time, and j, x^ ^
the English were forced to purchase its continuance Gloucester
by the surrender of the few posts they held in Maine and Beau-
and Anjou, nominally to Margaret's father, reaUy to **""*' ***^*
the French. Suffolk was now made a duke, and became the chief
adviser of the king and queen. In 1447 he prociu-ed the arrest of
Gloucester, who had bitterly opposed the French marriage. Soon
after his apprehension Duke Humphrey died. He had long been
in wretched health, and his death was in all probability due to natural
causes. His friends, however, persisted in believing that he was
murdered, and accused Suffolk of the crime. In the same year Ms old
enemy. Cardinal Beaufort, died also. He was the shrewdest statesman
of the age, and his poHoy, though unpopular, was undoubtedly the
right one. His death left the chief burden of responsibility on Suffolk.
His nephew, Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset, now represented
the family tradition, and was Suffolk's most prominent ally.
13. The weak point of Suffolk's position was that, though he
had staked everything upon the French alliance, he had made no
lasting peace. Yet he was so sure that peace would continue, that
he neglected the commonest precautions for securing such pos-
sessions as still remained in English hands. His ally Somerset,
who was governor of Normandy, so grossly neglected his charge,
that it was not unreasonable that- doubts should be oast upon his
278 HENRY VI. [1449-
honoiu-. Knowing ttat the EngKsh were in no position to resist,
the French broke the truce in 1449, and invaded Normandy,
which had been largely in English hands since its
Normandy, conquest by Henry v. thirty years before. Somerset
1449-1450, made a poor resistance, and, by 1450, the whole of
and Gas- Normandy had passed over to the French. Next year
'^° ' Gascony was attacked, and the last remnants of the
A(juitanian inheritance renounced English sway when Bordeaux
and Bayonne opened their gates to the oonq[ueror.
14. There was, however, a great difference between G-ascony and
Normandy. In Normandy the French came as deliverers, while in
The Battle Gascony they came as conquerors. The men of the
of CastiUon, south had no complaint against the rule of their English
and the end J^jjeg^ and the government of Charles Vll. proved so
Hundred harsh and unpopular that, in 1451, they rose in revolt.
Years' War, John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, an aged hero who
1453. iia,(j fought in every war since the rebeUion of Owen
Glendower, was sent, in 1452, at the head of a considerable army
from England, to assist the revolted Gascons. On his arrival nearly
the whole of the district round Bordeaux returned to the English
obedience. On July 17, 1453, Shrewsbury fought the last battle
of the war at Castillon on the Dordogne. The French held a large
entrenched and palisaded camp, defended by three hundred pieces of
cannon. The Anglo-Gascon troops rashly charged these formidable
earthworks, but were decimated by the enemy's fire before they
reached the entrenchments. Shrewsbury himself was among the
slain, and on that day the English dnohy of Gascony finally perished.
This was the last act of the Hundred Years' War. Henceforth
Calais alone represented the English king's dominions in France.
15. The disasters in France created a strong feeling among the
English against the incompetent statesmen who controlled her
Murder of destinies. In the parliament of 1450, Suffolk was im-
SufToIk, peached, anjd a long series of charges brought against
1450. hiva.. He was accused of corruption and maladminis-
tration, of betraying the kings' counsel to the French, and of
conspiring to win the throne for his son. So loud was the outcry
against him, that Henry vi. dared not protect his favourite minister.
He declared the charges against him not proved, but strove to
appease the Commons and keep the duke out of harm's way by
banishing him from England for five years. As Suffolk was sailing
towards Calais, his vessel was intercepted by a royal ship, called the
Nicholas of the Tower, which was lying in wait for him. Carried
-I4SO-] HENRY VI. 2jg
on board the Nicholas he was greeted with the cry of " Welcome,
traitor ! " and bidden to prepare for his end. Next day he was
forced into a little boat, and an Irishman, " one of the lowest men
in the ship," clumsily cut off his head with a rusty sword. The
headless body was thrown upon the English coast, that all might
see that not even the king's favour could save a man from the
judgment of the commons of England.
16. The murder of SufEolk by the king's own seamen showed
that the government was unable to preserve order. A few weeks
later the incapacity of the administration was further Revolt of
proved by a formidable rising of the commons of Kent. Jack Cade,
Led by an Irish adventurer, named Jack Cade, who ^*°"'
gave out that he was an illegitimate son of the last earl of March,
a formidable force of Kentish men marched towards London, and
set up a fortified camp on Blackheath. They defeated the king's
troops, and Henry was forced to flee before them from London to
the midlands. On his retreat, the citizens opened their gates to the
rebels. At first. Cade kept good order, but his followers soon got
out of hand, slew the king's ministers, and began to rob the citizens
of their property. Many of the Londoners now turned against
them, and there was a formidable fight between the citizens and the
rebels on London Bridge. At last, however, the Kentish men were
persuaded to go home under promise of a general pardon. Cade
now endeavoured to excite a fresh revolt in Sussex, but was slain
by a Kentish squire. His death ended the rebellion. At first
sight the revolt reminds us of the rising of 1381, but the only
grievances of the commons of Kent in 1450 were political. Their
rebellion was a protest against the maladministration which still
prevailed at court. Even the fall of Suffolk had taught nothing to
the king and his advisers, and the only way to clear the council of
SufEolk's party seemed to be armed resistance.
17. Cade had made use of the name of Mortimer ; and, soon after
his death, the true heir of the Mortimers, Eichard, duke of York,
came to London from his Irish estates, and assumed _. „nsition
the leadership of the opposition. York was the only of Richard,
son of Eichard, earl of Cambridge, whom Henry v. duke of
had executed in 1415, and his wife, Anne Mortimer, °^ '
sister and heiress of Edmund, the last earl of March of his house.
From his grandfather, Edmund of Langley, third surviving son of
Edward ill., he inherited the duchy of York, but his real importance
was due to his having inherited from his mother the earldoms of
March and Ulster, with vast estates in the west of England and in
28o HENRY VI. [145°-
Ireland. Moreover, Anne Mortimer was the lieiress of Lionel,
duke of Clarence, so that her son represented the elder line of the
descendants of Edward iii. Neither York nor his friends, however,
regarded him as a rival to Henry vi. as king. Duke Richard's
object was rather to renew the poKcy of Thomas of Lancaster or
Humphrey of Gloucester. He aimed at acting as the leader of the
constitutional opposition, and his chief motive was to drive the un-
popular courtiers from the king's council, and help Henry to rule
more firmly. Henry and Margaret were, however, childless, and
York was generally looked upon as the nearest heir to the throne.
18. About the time York came back from Ireland, the French
oonc[uest of Normandy oompaUed its discredited governor, Somerset,
BeeinninK *° return to England. Despite his proved inoom-
of the Wars petenoe and possible treachery, Somerset was cordially
of the Roses, welcomed by king and queen, and forthwith put in the
1450-1455. pi^(5Q which Suffolk had once occupied. York at once
demanded the dismissal of Somerset from the king's counsels.
The outcry against the unpopular duke was soon increased by
the tidings of the loss of Gasoony, and the king, who was weak
and peace-loving, might well have yielded to the storm. Margaret
of Anjou, however, possessed the vigour and manliness which were
so singularly wanting in her husband, though unluckily she never
understood England, and thoug'ht only of protecting her friends
against their enemies. Through her support Somerset's position
remained unassailable. At last, ia 1452, York raised an army.
He was, however, anxious to avoid civil war, and dismissed his
forces on the king's pledging himseH that he should be admitted
to the council, while Somerset should be imprisoned until he cleared
MmseK of the accusations brought against him. Margaret pre-
vented her husband from carrying out his promise, and York soon
found that he had been tricked. In 1463 the king lost his reason.
In the same year the birth of a son to Henry and Margaret —
Edward, prince of Wales — out off York's prospects of a peacefiil
succession to the throne, while the tidings of the battle of Castillon
came to increase the distrust generally felt for the negligent
government. For a time the council carried on the administration
in the king's name, but in 1454 parliament insisted on the appoint-
ment of a regent, and, to Margaret's disgust, the Lords chose
York protector of England. Before the end of the year the king
was restored to health, and York's protectorate was put to an end.
Somerset was restored to power, and York was even excluded from
the royal council. Irritated at this treatment, Duke Richard once
-I45S-] HENRY VI. 281
more appealed to arms. In 1455 lie defeated his enemies at the battle
of St. Albans, where Somerset was slain and the king wounded
and taken prisoner. His agitation once more robbed Henry of his
reason, and for a second time Tork was made protector.
19. The battle of St. Albans is generally described as marking
the beginning of the Wars of the Eoses, so called in later days
because the house of Tork had a white rose as its character -
badge, and the house of Lancaster was thought to istlesofthe
have a red rose. In reality the red rose was not used Wars of
tiU. later, when it became the badge of the Tudors, who ^ °^^^'
were the heirs of the Lancasters. The phrase Wars of the Eoses,
then, is a misnomer ; but it is one so generally used that it may
be allowed to stand. Whatever their name, these wars lasted for
thirty years. It was not, however, a period of continued fighting,
and affairs were not much more disorderly after the battle of
St. Albans than before it. It was rather a period of short wars,
divided by longer periods of weak government. The ultimate
cause of the struggle was the inability of Henry vi. to govern
England. Part of this was due to Henry's personal incompetence,
but the root of the matter lay deeper. The long war with France
had increased the greediness and ferocity of the English nobles,
and now that they could no longer win booty and glory abroad,
they began to fight fiercely with each other. Nothing but a strong
king, able to enforce his wUl, cotild remedy this state of things.
Since 1399, however, parliament had been so powerful that the
crown had not enough power left to do its work. The Commons
were not yet strong and coherent enough to take the lead, and
parliamentary government meant, in practice, the rule of a tur-
bulent nobility, which delighted in anarchy and was too proud to
obey the law. The majority of the nobles were contented with
the weak government of Henry, and even lent a steady support
to Somerset. The Commons, on the other hand, longed for the
restoration of order, and upheld the cause of Eichard of Tork
because they thought him vigorous enough to put an end to the
prevailing misgovernment.
20. Though most of the nobles were Lancastrians, a few great
houses supported the Torkists. Conspicuous among these was the
junior branch of the great Torkshire family of the
NeviUes, earls of Westmorland. The head of this ^notIUo!
was Eiohard Neville, who became by marriage earl of
Salisbury, and whose sister Cicely was the wife of Richard of
Tork. His eldest son, also named Eichard NeviUe, became earl of
282 HENRY VI. [1455-
Warwiok by his marriage with the heiress of the Beauohamps.
Both father and son had taken a prominent share in winidng the
battle of St. Albans, and henceforward they were the chief sup-
porters of the Torkists (see for the Nevilles table on page 294).
21. The second protectorate of Tork was even shorter than the
first. Early in 1456 the king regained his" wits, and York was
forced to resign. The death of Somerset weakened the
tion and the tL^ieen's party, and Henry, always honestly anxious to
renewal of restore peace, allowed York to keep his place on the
the strife, council. Both factions, however, bitterly hated each
other, and every nobleman went about with a band
of armed followers, even when attending royal councils. The
country was hardly governed at all. Private wars became common,
and the French commanded the Chamael and plundered the coasts.
Amidst the general confusion Warwick showed himself the
strongest man in England. In 1458 he gained a naval victory
over the French which saved England from invasion. Soon after-
wards he quarrelled with Margaret and withdrew to Calais, of
which he was governor, leaving the queen supreme. Nest year
(1459) Margaret strove to strengthen her position by an attack
on Salisbury. War was at once renewed. Salisbury defeated
Lord Audley, the queen's commander, at Blore Seath in Stafford-
shire, near Market Drayton. Soon afterwards Warwick returned
from Calais. The two Nevilles joined Richard of York at Ludlow
the centre of the Mortimer estates. Thereupon the king proceeded
to the Welsh March, and showed such activity that he scattered
the Yorkist forces without having to fight a battle. York took
refuge in Ireland, while Warwick and Salisbury fled to Calais.
After this flight a packed paj^liament at Coventry attainted aU
the Yorkist leaders. The triumph of the king seemed complete.
22. Henry's sudden burst of energy did not last long. The
next year, 1460, Warwick and Salisbury came back to Englaoad,
York claims and with them came Edward, earl of March, the
the throne, duke of York's eldest son. On July 10 they fought
and won the battle of Northa/mpion, when Henry was
taken prisoner. York now returned from Ireland, and, when parlia-
ment assembled in October, claimed the throne as the nearest kin of
Edward iii. through Lionel of Clarence. The lords of parliament
courageously rejected this claim, but agreed to a compromise, which
Henry, to spare further bloodshed, also accepted. By this Henry
was to keep the throne tiU his death, but York was declared his
successor, and was to act as protector for the rest of the king's life.
-1461.] HENRY VI. 283
23. After the battle of Northampton, Margaret had fled to
Wales with her son Edward. She was bitterly indignant with her
husband for his weak abandonment of the rights of The fall of
their child, and resolved to carry on the struggle Henry VI.,
against Duke Richard. With that object she made 1460-1461.
her way to Scotland, where she obtained substantial help at the
price of the surrender of Berwick. She was still iu Scotland when
the Lancastrian lords of Yorkshire rose in revolt against the rule
of York. In December, Kiohard hurried to the north to suppress
the rebellion. He kept his Christmas at his castle of Sandal, near
Wakefield, which the enemy threatened to besiege. York scorned
to be " caged like a bird," and on December 30 marched out of
Sandal to ofEer battle to the superior forces of the Lancastrians.
The fight which ensued, called the hattle of Wakefield, Battle of
cost him his army and his Ufe. Salisbury, who was Wakefield,
taken prisoner, was beheaded next day, and York's 1*60.
younger son, the earl of Rutland, was butchered after the fight
by one of the Lancastrian lords. Thereupon Margaret hurried
from Scotland and joined her victorious partisans. At the head of
the fierce warriors of the north, she made her way to London. As
she approached the capital, Warwick went out to intercept her at
St. Albans, taking the king with him. On February sg„_„ j
17, 1461, the second battle of St. Albans was fought, in Battle of
which Warwick was completely defeated and Henry fell St. Albans,
into his wife's hands. The wild north countrymen were,
however, so much out of hand that even the reckless Margaret feared
to lead them on to London lest they should wreak such atrocities as
should permanently alienate the citizens from her cause. While
she hesitated, Edward, earl of March, now duke of York by his
father's death, effectively rallied his party. A fortnight before
Margaret's victory, he had scattered the Lancastrians of the west
at the battle of Mortimer's Cross, near Leominster. Battle of
Thereupon he hastened towards London at the head of Moptimep's
a great army of Welshmen and Marchers from his own Cross, 1461.
estates. He joined Warwick's beaten troops on the way, and nine
days after the battle of St. Albans, took possession of London.
Soon after, Warwick's brother, George Neville, bishop of Worcester,
the Yorkist chancellor, declared to the citizens that Edward might
rightly claim the crown. On March 4, Edward seated himself on
the royal throne in Westminster HaU and asked the people if they
would have him as king. A shout of " Yea, yea ! " rose from the
assembly, and henceforth the pretender ruled as Edward iv.
284
HENRY VI.
[1461.
GENEALOGY OF THE HOUSE OF YOEK, INCLUDING THE MOKTIMEES
AND STAFFOKDS
Eoger Mortimer,
tst earl of March, d. 1330,
great-grandfather of
Edward hi.
(See table on page 254).
(3)
(5)
Edmund Mortimer,
earl of March, d. 1381.
Lionel of Antwerp,
duke of Clarence,
m. Elizabeth de
Burgh.
m. Philippa.
Edmund of
Langley,
duke of York,
d. 1401.
16)
I
I
Eoger Mortimer,
earl of March,
d. 1398.
I
Sir Edmund
Mortimer, m.
daughter of
Owen Glendower.
I
Elizabeth
Mortimer,
m. Henry
Percy,
" Hotspur."
Edmund Mortimer
earl of March,
d. 1424.
Thomas of Woodstock
duke of Gloucester,
m. heireas of
Bohuns.
I
Anne
m. Edmund Stafford^
great-grandparents of
Henry Stafford,
diike of Buckingham,
d. 1483.
I
Edward Stafford,
duke of
Buckingham,
d. 1621.
Anne Mortimer m. Eicbard, earl of
Cambridge,
d. 1415.
Eichard, duke of York, m. Cicely Neville
d. 1460. I (see table on page 294).
Edward, earl
Edmund,
George,
1
Eichard,
Margaret,
of March,
earl of
duke of
duke of
m. Charles,
Edwaed IV.,
Eutland,
Clarence,
Gloucester.
the Eash
1461-1483,
d. 1460.
d. 1478.
Richard hi.,
duke of
m. Elizabeth
m. Isabella
1483-1485.
Burgundv
Woodville
Neville
m. Annp!
(see table
(for her family
(see table
Neville
on page 269)
see table on
on page 294).
(see table
page 299).
on page 294).
Edwaed v.,
1483.
Eichard, duke
of York,
d. 1483.
I
Elizabeth,
. Henry vii.
1485-1509.
I
Henry viii.,
1509-1547
(see table on page 419).
Catharine,
m. Edward
Cowtenaffj
earl of
Devonshire,
Henry Courtenay
marquis of Exeter
d. 1538.
Peisons not mentioned in the text in italics.
CHAPTER IV
EDWARD IV. (1461-1483)
Chief Dates :
1461. Accession of Edward iv. and battle of Towton.
1464. Battles of Hedgeley Moor anid Hexham.
1470. Bestoration of Henry vi.
1471. Battles of Bamet and Tewkesbury.
1475. Treaty of Picqnigni.
1478. Death of Clarence.
1483. Death of Edward iv.
1. Edwabd IV. was only nineteen years old wten he became king,
but had already shown himself to be a born general and leader of
men. He was exceedingly tall and good-looking, and Edward IV
his winning maimers made Mm personally popular. He and the
was inclined to carelessness and seM-indulgence, but Yorkist
whenever he spurred himself to take action, he showed P^^^'
wonderful decision and vigour. Though pleasure-loving, greedy,
and cruel, he was just the strong man needed to save England
from anarchy. He owed his throne to his wisdom in the camp
and in the cabinet, and few Englishmen concerned themselves as
to whether he were the nearest heir of Edward iii. All those
parts of England, and all those classes of society to which peace
and good order mattered most were his partisans. The townsman,
the trader, and the artisan, the whole of the south and east, then
the richest part of the country, were in his favour. The Londoners
strongly supported him. Besides these, Edward owed much of his
triumph to the steady backing of Warwick, who, after his father's
death, united in himself the Beauchamp and Montagu inheritances.
Warwick had enormous estates all over the country, and could raise
an army of his own tenants in the west midlands. Gentlemen of
good estate thought it an honour to wear his livery and display his
badge of the bear and ragged staff. Men called him the King-
maker, because he had done so much to win Edward the crown.
His services to Edward were even more signal than those which the
Percies had rendered to Henry iv. Another great source of
285
286
EDWARD IV.
[146 I -
strength to the new king were his own vast estates, and especially
the enormous territories which he inherited from the Mortimers.
2. Many still regretted the rule of Lancaster. There was
stUl much sympathy for the gentle and unoffending king, and
Battle of every tenant of the broad estates of the house of
Towton, Lancaster felt personal devotion to his cause. Outside
1461. jjjg hereditary lands, Henry's chief supporters were
the fierce barons of the north, who had profited by his weakness
to build up their own power. All the great names of the north
Emery Walker sc
BATTLE OF TOWTON.
country, such as CUflord and Percy, were on his side, including
even the senior branch of the house of Neville, wliich held the
earldom of Westmorland. The natural antagonism of the Princi-
pality and the March made the Welsh good friends of Henry.
Accordingly, when, after Edward's proclamation, Margaret hurried
with her husband to the north, the Lancastrian partisans were
still able to fight desperately. Edward at once followed Mar-
garet to Yorkshire, and, on Palm Sunday, 1461, the decisive battle
of the war was fought between the northern and southern armies
-1464.] EDWARD IV. 287
at Towton, three miles south of Tadcaster, in Yorkshire. The
Lancastrians were stationed on the northern slope of the rising
ground overlooking the depression called Towtondale, between the
villages of Towton and Saiton. Their left extended to the main
road from the south to Tadcaster and York, while their right
stretched towards the Cook beck, a tributary of the Ouse. A
blinding snowstorm blew into their faces, and almost prevented the
armies seeing each other. On such a day there was little opportunity
for manoeuvring, and even archery was ineffective. Nevertheless,
Edward marshalled his inferior forces with such consummate skill
that the Lancastrians lost the chief advantages derived from their
strong position and numerical superiority. The southerners fought
their way bit by bit up the slopes of the hiU, and finally drove the
northerners in panic flight from the field. The slaughter was
terrible. Many fugitives were drowned in the swollen Cock, and
the snow along the York road was stained with their blood. Henry
and Margaret fled to Scotland, and their open alliance with England's
traditional enemies robbed them of their last chance of the throne.
3. For the next niae years Edward iv. was monarch in fact as well
as in name. He returned to London, and was crowned king. His
brothers, G-eorge and Eichard, were made dukes of
Clarence and Grloucester, and parliament attainted Edward IV
Henry and the chief Lancastrian partisans. Even
now Margaret did not lose heart. She sought help from the
French as well as the Scots, and for the next four years her
attempts to stir up risings in the north made Edward's throne
insecure. The last of these efforts was in 1464, and was crushed
by the Yorkist victories of Hedgeley Moor and Sexham. Henry vi.,
who had joined the rebels, narrowly escaped capture in the pursuit
that followed the latter battle. The Scots now abandoned him,
and made a long truce with Edward. For more than a year the
deposed king hid himself away amidst the wild moorland that
separates Lancashire and Yorkshire. At last he was captured near
Clitheroe, in Ribblesdale, and taken to London. Misfortune and
harsh treatment soon robbed him of his small wits ; but, as long as
his son lived and was free, it was the obvious interest of Edward
to keep him alive.
4. No sooner had Henry's captivity secured the throne for
Edward iv. than diflculties arose between the new king and his
own partisans. Warwick expected to keep him in constant con-
trol. The earl secured for his brother George the archbishopric
of York, and placed his other brother, John, in the earldom of
288 EDWARD IV. [1468-
Northmnberlamd, forfeited by the Peroies through their obstinate
adhesion to Lancaster. Now that peace was restored at home,
The Nevilles ^°^^^^ policy again became important, and Warwick,
and the adopting the traditions of the Beauf orts, urged Edward
Woodville to make an alliance with France, which was then ruled
marriage. ^^y. ^j^g crafty and politic Louis xi., who had succeeded
his father, Charles vii., in 1461. Louis was anxious to win Edward's
support, because he was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with
the House of Burgundy, now ruled by Charles the Rash, son of
Philip the Good. The Burgfundian power extended over the whole
of the Netherlands, and its duke rivalled the king of France,
and surpassed the emperor in wealth, power, and importance.
Accordingly, Louis proposed that Edward should wed Bona of
Savoy, the sister of his queen. Warwick eagerly supported this
proposal, and prepared to embark for France to bring about the
match. Before he could start, Edward publicly announced that he
was already married. His wife was Elizabeth Woodville, daughter
of Lord Rivers, and widow of Sir John Grey, who had perished,
fighting for Lancaster, in the second battle of St. Albans. The
lady was poor, and her family was insignificant, but her beauty
attracted the king, who was very glad to inflict a public slight on
the too-presmnptuous Warwick by ostentatiously putting him into
a false position. Edward soon bfoke with the French and made an
alliance with Chaxles of Burgxindy, who, in 1468, married Margaret,
the king's sister. In his anxiety to free himself from the control
of the Nevilles, Edward strove to ra;ise up in the kinsmen of
the new queen a party devoted to himself and bitterly hostile to
Warwick (see table on page 299). Her father became Earl
Rivers, her brothers and sisters made rich marriages, and soon a
family party arose whose wealth, arrogance, and want of ancestral
dignity made them bitterly hated by the old nobles.
5. Warwick lost all his influence at court, and his brother,
the archbishop of Tork, was driven from the chancery. In deep
disgust, the king-maker sought for an ally against the
Welles and ^i^ST) ^nd found one in Edward's vain and worthless
Robin of brother, George, duke of Clarence, who fxilly shared
?Irq^^^'^' Warwick's jealousy against the queen's kinsmen.
Warwick had no son, and his two daughters, Isabella
and Anne, were Hkely to divide his great possessions. In 1470
Warwick married Isabella, his elder daughter, to Clarence, and
lured his son-in-law into treason by holding out hopes of putting
him on his brother's throne. In 1469 Wanviok's kinsfolk and
-1470.] EDWARD IV. 289
dependents stirred up a popular rising against Edward. The
rebels, commanded by a knight who took the false name of Bobin of
Eedesdale, defeated the king's troops at Edgecote, near Banbury,
and beheaded the c^ueen's father, whom they took prisoner. Edward
was reduced to such, distress that he surrendered to Archbishop
Neville, and remained for a time at the mercy of his foes. Next
year (1470) the tide turned. There was another rising of the Neville
partisans, headed by Sir Robert Welles. Edward put this down
with, promptitude at Stamford, where the insurgents threw off their
coats to run away with, such haste that men called the day Lose
Coat Field. Welles, taken prisoner, confessed that there had been
a plot to make Clarence king. Edward then sought to lay hands
upon his enemies, and Warwick and Clarence took ship for Prance.
6. Louis XI. gave the exiles a cordial welcome. The French
king was anxious to weaken Charles of Burgundy by driving
Edward from the throne, and was shrewd enough to Ajiionee of
see that Warwick's best way of winning back his Warwick
position in England was by effecting a reconciliation and Mar-
between him and the Lancastrians. After much ^^^^ '
difficulty, Louis managed to make an alliance between Warwick
and Margaret of Anjou, who, since her husband's captivity, had
lived in France. It was arranged that her son, Edward, priace of
Wales, should marry Anne Neville, Warwick's younger daughter,
and Warwick promised henceforward to be faithful to Henry vi.
Louis then ec[uipped a small expedition, and sent Warwick and
Clarence to England. In September they landed at Plymouth,
and, profiting by Edward's absence in the north, marched to
London, and brought back Henry vi. from the Tower to the
throne. Edward, unable to resist, fled to the Netherlands, where
he took shelter with his brother-in-law, Charles the Rash. Thus
Warwick once more proved his right to his title of king-maker.
He was now monarch in all but name, for misfortunes had reduced
Henry to permanent imbecility. The restored monarch was now,
we are told, " like a sack of wool," and " as mute as a crowned calf."
7. Henry's vi.'s nominal restoration to power lasted from
October, 1470, to May, 1471. In March, 1471, Edward iv. landed
at Ravenspur, on the Humber, where Henry of Therestora-
Lancaster had landed in 1399. Englishmen who tlon of
had been too apathetic to save him from his defeat, f^^^^.J!^'.'
stood aside with equal indifference while he strove
to win back power. At first Edward gave out that he had only
returned to claim his father's duchy of York, but, as followers
u
290
EDWARD IV.
[1470-
gathered round him, he openly announced that he wished to
regain the throne. Before long he was joined hy his hrother
Emery Walker sc
Clarence, who saw that Warwick's aUiance with the Lancas-
trians was fatal to his personal amMtions. The brothers then
-I47I-] £DWARD IV. 29 1
pushed south, for London, which opened its gates to them on
April 11. Thereupon Henry vi. was put back in the Tower, and
Edward was once more recognized as king. Edward then marched
out of London, and on Easter Sunday, April 14, gave battle to
Warwick at Barnet, ten miles to the north of the capital. The
fight took place in a thick mist, so that everything depended
upon hard hand-to-hand fighting. Warwick and his brother John,
marquis of Montagu, were slain on the field, and the death of the
king-maker consummated the triumph of the Yorkists. With aU
his vigour and energy, Warwick had shown no striking capacity
either as a soldier or as a statesman. His chief motive of action
was the acquisition of power for liimself and his family. He is
the last conspicuous embodiment of the great baronial class whose
turbulence had reduced England to anarchy.
8. Margaret, who had hitherto tarried in France, landed in the
west' of England along with her son on the fatal Easter Day
which witnessed the ruin of her cause. Yet even f j,g gattje
now a considerable force from the south-west and ofTewkes-
from Wales rallied round her. Edward hastened to bury, 1471.
check her progress, and on May 4 the Lancastrians stood at bay at
Tewkesbury. Edward easily won the day, and took Margaret and
Edward prisoners. The young prince of Wales was barbarously
butchered, and the same fate befel the duke of Somerset, the third
head of the house of Beaufort who had lost his life in the civil
wars. Margaret was taken by her captors to London, and was
kept in prison for the next five years, after which she was suffered
to go home to France to die. Immediately after Edward's arrival
in London, it was given out that her husband had died in the
Tower, " out of pure displeasure and melancholy." It was generally
believed that he was murdered, and rumour made Edward's brother,
Richard of Gloucester, specially responsible for the crime. In truth,
after his son's death, Henry's life was no longer valuable to Edward,
so he ordered him to be slain without delay. Of all the cruel deeds
of this pitiless time none was more wanton than the death of the
harmless and saintly king.
9. Edward reigned in peace and without a rival for the rest of
his Ufe. His position was much stronger than in the earlier period
of his rule, and he soon felt himself able to revenge himself on
Louis XI. for abetting Warwick. In 1475 he agreed to unite with
his brother-in-law, Charles of Burgundy, in a combined attack on
France. Parliament gladly voted a liberal subsidy, and Edward
marpheS Pnt of Calais at the head of a large and brilliant force.
292 EDWARD IV. [1475-
Much to his disgust, Cliarles joined him, not -with an army, but
almost alone. The duke of Burgundy had unwisely gone to war in
Edward IV. Germany, though his French rival was still unheaten.
Burgundy, ' Edward and Charles disliked each other already, and
and France. Charles's lack of faith gave the English king a good
excuse for deserting so untrustworthy an ally. Louis, eager to win
England to his side, was lavish in promises, and at last the two kings
held a meeting on the bridge of Pioquigni, a village on the Somme,
between Abbeville and Amiens. So distrustful were they of each
other that they kept themselves apart by a wooden partition, and
talked through a grating. In the treaty of Picquigni Louis bought
peace with England by the payment of a large sum of money, and
a promise to marry his son to Edward's daughter. Edward then
returned home, leaving Charles to his fate. Two years later, in
1477, the rash duke of Burgundy was slain at the battle of Nancy,
in the course of an unsuccessful war which he had foolishly pro-
voked with the Swiss. Louis xi. now annexed Burgundy to
France, but could not prevent the Netherlands going to Mary,
Charles's daughter, though not by his English wife, Margaret of
York. Mary married the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, and
we shall soon hear again of her descendants. Even after this
check, Louis xi. was so powerful that he had no longer any need
to humour the king of England. Just before the death of both
kings in 1483, Louis repudiated the marriage arranged at
Picquigni, and ceased paying subsidies to keep England quiet.
Edward was so much mortified that the French believed he died
of grief at the news of this breach with France. But for his death
a renewal of war would have probably ensued.
10. Edward was the strongest ruler of England since Edward iii.
He was popular with the people, and especially with the merchants.
Home policy because he kept the nobles in good order and sternly
of Edward put down private war. He ruled in a very different
fashion from that of the Lancastrians. He looked
on parliaments with suspicion, and summoned them as seldom
as he could. When he wanted money he did not always go to
parliament, but often asked his subjects to give him what was
called a benevolence. This was nominally a free gift offered by
the subject to the king, but in reality those who were asked to
give a benevolence dared not refuse to pay it. Edward did not,
however, risk the popularity which he loved by exacting too large
sums from his subjects.
11. Clarence soon began once more to excite the suspicions of
-1483.] EDWARD IV. 293
the king. He had been fully pardoned for his treachery in 1470.
He was made earl of Warwick and Salisbviry, and hoped to secure
for himself the whole inheritance of his father-ia- - ^^^ «
law, the king-maker. He found, however, a rival for ciarenee,
the Warwick estates in his yoiinger and abler brother, 1478, and
Richard, duke of Gloucester. Anne Neville, War- Edward IV.,
wick's younger daughter, was the widow of the
unfortunate son of Henry vi. In 1472 she was prevailed upon
to marry Richard of Gloucester, the reputed murderer of her first
husband. Henceforward the two brothers were rivals for the
Neville and Beauchamp lands, and Clarence became very dis-
contented when Edward assigned the larger portion of them to
his brother. Things grew worse when Isabella Neville died,
and Clarence sought to upset his brother's good understanding
with France by a proposal, which came to nothing, that he should
marry Mary of Burgundy, the heiress of Charles the Rash.
Clarence now had against him the king, Gloucester, and the
powerful kinsmen of the queen. In 1478 he was accused of
treason, attainted in parliament, and condemned to execution.
Edward was afraid to slay Clarence openly, and put him privately
to death in the Tower. It was believed at the time that he was
drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. Five years later, in April,
1483, Edward iv. died.
394
SDWARD IV.
[I483.
GENEALOGY OF THE NEVILLES
John Lord Neville of Eabv,
d. 1388.
Ralph Neoille, Ist Earl of Westmorland,
A. 1425.
John Neville,
1
Richard Neville,
1
Cicely,
ancestor of the
earl of Salisbury,
m. Richard,
earlB of West-
m
heiress of Montagus,
duke of Tork
morland, elder
d. 1460.
d. 1460 (see
and Lancastrian
table on
branch of the
page 284).
family.
1
Ricbard Neville,
John Neville,
George
earl of Warwick
sometime
Neville,
and Salisbury, the
earl of
bishop of
king-maker, d. 1471
Northumberland
Worcester
m. heiress of
and marquis
and arch-
Beauchamps.
f Montagu.
. d) Edward,
bishop of York.
Isabella,
Anne, m
m. George,
prince of Wales,
duke of Clarence.
d. 1471, (2) Richard,
1
duke of Gloucester,
Richard ni., d. 1485.
1
1
Edward,
Margaret,
earl of
countess of
Warwick,
Salisbury,
d. 1499.
d. 1541.
Eeginald Pole,
cardinal and arch-
bishop of Canterbury,
d. 1558.
Persons not mentioned in the text in italics.
CHAPTER V
EDWARD V. AND RICHARD III. (1483-1485)
Chief Dates :
1483. Eeign of Edward v. Accession of Richard iii.
1485. Battle of Bosworth and death of Richard in.
1. Edwaud IV. left two sons. The elder, wlio was only twelve years
old, now became Edward v., and Ms younger brother, Richard, had
already been made dnie of York. By the late king's
will, the guardianship of the young king went to his ff^^'' "
uncle, Richard, duke of Grlouoester, who was at once
acknowledged as lord protector by the council. Richard had kept
on good terms with the queen's kinsmen, and they doubtless expected
to share power with him. The chief of the queen's family were her
brother Antony WoodviUe, Earl Rivers, and her two sons by her first
marriage, Thomas Grey, marquis of Dorset, and Sir Richard Grey.
At the moment of his accession the young king was at Ludlow, in
the custody of his uncle Rivers and his half-brother, Richard
Grey. Fearful lest Gloucester should put an end to their influence,
they formed a plan with the queen for Edward's immediate corona-
tion, hoping that this would put an end to Gloucester's protectorate,
and make the Woodvilles and Greys masters of the kingdom. The
upstart kinsmen of the queen were, however, very unpopular, and
were particularly disliked by the old nobles, whom they had driven
from the court and council of the late king. The most important
of the old nobles was Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham, a
descendant of Thomas of Woodstock, the son of Edward iii., and
the representative of the great house of the Bohuns. Buckingham,
though married to a sister of the queen, was bitterly opposed to her
poKcy. He made common cause with Gloucester, and the two
allies showed great vigour in striking against their enemies. As
the young king was riding from Ludlow to London, escorted by
Rivers and Richard Grey, Gloucester and Buckingham fell upon
him, took Rivers and Grey prisoners, and secured the personal
29S
296 EDWARD V. AND RICHARD III. [1483-
custody of Edward, wtom tkey brought to Loudon. In great
alarm Queen Elizabeth fled for sanctuary to Westminster Abbey.
2. Gloucester's first move was so successful that it encouraged
him to go further and aim at the crown. He found a fresh
The deposl- difficulty when some of the nobles, who had cordially
tion of supported him against the Woodvilles, refused to join
Edward V. ^i^ j^jj^ j^ ^^^ further step. At the head of this
party was Lord Hastings, a prominent friend of Edward iv., and,
up to now, a conspicuous ally of Gloucester. Gloucester showed
the same vigour against Hastings that he had shown against the
Woodvilles. On June 13 he accused Hastings of treason, during a
meeting of the council. After a stormy scene, Gloucester struck
his fist sharply on the table, whereupon soldiers rushed in, dragged
Hastings out, and at once cut off his head on a log of timber.
Rivers and Grey were now executed, and Dorset only saved his life
by flight beyond sea. The queen was persuaded to surrender the
duke of York to the protector, who forthwith shut him up in the
Tower, where the king was already ia safe custody. The protector's
next step was to win over the Londoners to his side. Next Sunday,
June 22, his partisan, Dr. Shaw, brother of the mayor, delivered a
sermon at St. Paul's on the text, " Bastard slips shaU not take deep
root." The preacher declared that Edward iv. had made a contract
to marry another lady before he had wedded Elizabeth Woodville,
and that therefore his marriage with her was invalid. As a result
of this, the young king and his brother were illegitimate. Doubts
were also cast on the lawful birth of Edward vi. and Clarence, and
the duke of Gloucester was declared to be the rightful heir to the
crown. The Londoners heard this strange tale in silence; but,
two days later, Buckingham repeated Shaw's statements in the
Guildhall to the mayor and chief citizens. The majority of his
audience was stiU unmoved, but a few of the retainers of the two
dukes raised shouts of " King Richard ! " and their cry was sup-
posed to be evidence that the city had declared itself in favour of
the protector. Parliament met next day, and begged Richard to
accept the throne. After a sham pretence of reluctance, Gloucester
fell in with their wishes. On July 6 he was crowned Richard in.
in Westminster Abbey. After this event nothing more is known
as to the fate of the deposed Edward v. and his brother Richard
of York. There is little doubt but that they were murdered in the
Tower by their uncle's orders.
3; In the sordid revolution which made Richard in. king, Buck-
ingham had played the part of a king-maker. Richard now
-1485.] EDWARD V. AND RICHARD III. 297
overwhelmed Mm with favours, and even promised to surrender to
him the half of the Bohun estates which Henry iv., in the right of his
mother, had brought to the crown. Yet Buckingham Riehard III.
soon became discontented, and his inordinate ambition and Buck-
made him look stiU higher. In August he fled from ingham.
court, and raised the standard of revolt at Brecon. At first he thought
of claiming the throne for himself, but in the end he was prudent
enough to xinite with the remnants of the Lancastrian party, which
was still strong in Wales. At the head of a considerable force of
Welshmen, Buckingham marched as far eastwards as the Severn.
But the river was in flood, and he could not effect a passage over it.
This check soon proved fatal to his hopes. His forces melted away,
and he was obliged to flee in disguise. Before long he was tracked
to his hiding-place, and on November 2 was beheaded in the market-
place of Salisbury.
4. Early in 1484 Richard met his parliament. It attainted
Buckingham and the other enemies of the king, and passed many
useful acts, conspicuous among which was a statute Rjehapd
declaring benevolences illegal. Its proceedings show III.'s policy,
that Kiohard was making a bid for popular favour, 1483-1485.
and striving to pose as a constitutional Yorkist king. He was
anxious to remove the bad impression created by the crimes
through which he had won his way to the throne, and he was
so able a man that he might very well have become a good ruler
and a useful king if he had had the chance of developing his polioy.
However, his power rested on too narrow and personal a basis. He
could not conciliate the Lamoastrians, and he had hopelessly set
against himseK most of the supporters of York. He could expect
no faithful service from the selfish nobles who had helped him to
the throne, and constant intrigues and conspiracies made his position
insecure. Moreover, domestic troubles further clouded his prospects.
His only son and his wife died. Thereupon he thought of making
his heir, Edward, earl of Warwick, the son of Clarence. Eichard
also proposed to marry his own nieco Elizabeth, the daughter of
Edward iv. and Elizabeth WoodviUe. Before this scheme could
be carried out, a fresh revolt cost him his crown and his life.
5. After the murder of Henry vi. and his son, the main branch
of the house of Lancaster had become extinct. The only repre-
sentative of the line of John of G-annt had now to be jug Rgau-
sought in the house of Beaufort, whose legitimate forts and
descent was more than doubtful. Even the iouse of theTudops.
Beaufort was extinct in the mate line, when the last of the dukes
298 EDWARD V. AND RICHARD III. [1485.
of Somerset was put to death, on tlie battlefield of Tewkesbtiry. It
was, however, still represented by the Lady Margaret Beaufort,
daughter of John Beaufort, first duke of Somerset, and now the
heiress of all the Beaufort claims. From her cradle the Lady
Margaret had been a great heixess, and she had been married by
Henry vi. to his half-brother, Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond.
Richmond's father, Owen Tudor, was a Welsh gentleman who had
neither high rank nor great possessions. He was good-looking,
plausible, and attractive, and won the heart of Henry vi.'s mother,
Catharine of France. To the great scandal of the court, Catharine,
the widow of a king of England and the daughter of a king of
France, took this Welsh squire for her second husband, and had by
him two sons. The elder of these was the Edmund Tudor, earl of
Richmond, who was married to the Lady Margaret, while the
younger, Jasper, became earl of Pembroke. Edmund Tudor had
long been dead, b\it his son by Margaret, Henry Tudor, inherited
the earldom of Richmond, and was now, for the lack of a better, the
only possible head of the house of Lancaster, to which all the
Tudors were entirely loyal. Both Henry Tudor and his uncle
Jasper had long been living in exile in Brittany. The split in the
house of York, consequent on Richard's usurpation, had revived
the hopes of the Lancastrians, so that Henry Tudor now became
an important personage. Though Margaret was still alive, Henry
was regarded as the only possible Lancastrian monarch. Bucking-
ham, when he revolted from Richard, declared himself in favour
of Richmond's claims to the throne, and, after Buckingham's fall,
all who wished to put an end to Richard's power looked to the exUe
in Brittany as the most likely instrument of their wishes.
Prominent among Richard's supporters were the brothers Thomas
and William Stanley, the heads of a rising house which had already
attained a great position in south-west Lancashire. Like Bucking-
ham, the Stanleys were disloyal to Richard, and Thomas, the elder,
was now the husband of the Lady Margaret, Richmond's mother.
While stUl remaining in Richard's confidence they intrigued with
the Breton exiles.
6. In 14S5, Richmond and Pembroke left Brittany
of Boswopth ■^''■'' ^^iicS' where Charles vill., who had succeeded his
and the father, Louis xi., in 1483, received them with favour,
death of and helped them with men and money. In the sum-
UsT'"'*"'" ^'^^ ^'^^y crossed over from Harfleur to Milford
Haven, where they landed at the head of a small
army. The Welsh flocked in large numbers to their countryman's
I485-]
EDWARD V. AND RICHARD III.
299
standard, so that Henry Tudor was strong enough to march
through Wales into the Midlands and challenge Richard's throne.
On August 22 the decisive battle between Henry and Richard was
fought at Market Bosworth, in Leicestershire. During the struggle
WilUam Stanley deserted Richard for Henry, and this settled the
fortunes of the day. Richard perished, fighting desperately to the
last. When the field was won, Thomas Stanley, who had taken no
part in the action, came up and joined the victor. At the end of
the fight, the crown, discovered on Richard's body, was placed by
Thomas Stanley on his stepson's head. Henceforth the Lancastrian
exile was King Henry vii.
GENEALOGY OF THE GREYS AND WOODVILLES
Bichaid Woodville, eari Rivers, d. 1469,
m. Jacquetta of Luxemburg,
widow oE John, duke of Bedford.
Anthony Woodville,
earl Rivers,
d. 1483.
I
(1)
Thomas Grey,
marquis of
Dorset, d. 1501.
EUzabeth Woodville,
m. (1) Sir John Grej',
d. 1461.
(2) Edward iv.,
d. 1483.
\
I
(1)
Sir Richard
Grey,
d. 1483.
Edward v.,
d. 1483.
Catharine Woodville,
m. Henry Stafford,
duke of Buckingham,
d. 1483 (see table
on page 284).
I
(2)
Richard,
duke of
York,
d. 1483.
(2)
Elizabeth,
m. Henry
Mary m. Charles Brandon,
duke of Suffolk.
Thomas Grey,
marquis of
Dorset, d. 1530
(commander in
Spain, 1612).
Henry Grey, marquis of Dorset and
duke of Suffolk, d. 1654, m. Frances Brandon.
Henky viii.
(see table on
page 419).
I
Lady Jane Grey.
Lady Catharine Grey,
Lord Beauchamp.
CHAPTER VI
BRITAIN IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
1. The fifteenth century in England witnessed no great changes
in the constitution. We have seen how, in the earlier part of it,
The eon- ^^® Lancastrian rulers were so completely controlled
stitution l>y their parliament that in a fashion their government
in the seems to anticipate our modern cabinet system. But
eenth ^-^^^ times were too rough to make such a method of
century. .
government practicable. The supremacy of parliament
meant in effect the increase of the power of the nobility, and the
rule of the nobles meant constant factions and threatened anarchy.
The Lancastrian constitutional experiment perished in the Wars
of the Roses, and the result of the failure was the restoration of
a strong monarchy under Edward iv., who prepared the way for
the stiU stronger rule of the Tudors. With the decay, alike in
numbers and in power, of the baronial aristocracy, one characteristic
feature of mediaeval English society was removed.
2. The Church, like the nobility, had seen its best days. It
had escaped the threatened danger of LoUardy, and seemed out-
_. „, wardly as powerful as ever. Never was it more wealthy
The Church. •/ a j j-j v, i, v. i
or magnincent, and never did churchmen take a more
prominent share in the national Hfe. But it had lost the old
vigour and spiritual force which had marked the Church of the
thirteenth century. Its characteristic leaders were political
ecclesiastics, who spent their days in the service of the State, and
received their reward from the wealth of the Church. In the
days of St. Thomas of Canterbury it had been thought impossible
for the same man to be archbishop of Canterbury and the king's
minister. In the fifteenth century it became a regTilar custom to,
make the southern primate lord chancellor. The State had no
longer anything to fear from the restlessness or the encroachments
of the Church, for the Church in its half-conscious weakness leant
upon the support of the State, and had little wish to assert itself
against the secular power. There was little energy and small wish
for reform, though the abuses of the Church were great, and a few
earnest men were still found who were anxious to make things
300
1485.] BRITAIN IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 30I
better. It was not so much the corruption as the worldliness
of the Church that was so conspicuous. There were few spiritual
leaders of the people, and the most active and public-spirited of the
bishops were those who lavished their wealth on pious foundations,
on erecting magnificent colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, and in
building schodls to supply them with scholars.
3. In the universities also there was the same want of life and
freshness. After the silencing of WyolifEe, Oxford sank back into
orthodoxy, but showed little energy and produced few ,^^ ^^_
noteworthy writers or thinkers. Both Oxford and varsities
Cambridge were adorned with magnificent buildings, and learn-
great and well-endowed colleges, and stately and well- ^^'
stocked libraries. Conspicuous among these new foTindations were
'Hew College, at Oxford, the creation of Bishop William of Wyke-
ham, and King's College, at Cambridge, which was established by
Henry VI. Both the bishop and the king founded great schools in
connection with their colleges, to supply them with students. Wyke-
ham thus set up Winchester school, and Henry vi. Eton. But
though such measures rendered the means of study more accessible,
the spirit that inspired study was seldom very strong. The best
thought and literature were outside the universities, which remained
the homes of the decaying scholasticism of the Middle Ages.
4. Deficient as was the fifteenth century in strenuous purpose and
high ideals, its history is in no wise altogether a history of decline.
Despite the fierce fighting at home and abroad, Eng- ppojpgpjfy
land did not altogether stand still. The quarrels of of the
kings and nobles affected but little the life of the fifteenth
ordinary man. Even during the Wars of the Hoses century,
the simple Englishman managed to till his farm and seU his goods,
with little regard to the clash of party strife. Farmers throve by
reason of good harvests and improvements in cultivation. YiUein-
age steadily died out because it was more profitable to cultivate the
sou by means of free labour. In particular, the constant demand for
English wool from the Netherlands made sheep-farming a profit-
able business for farmer and landlord alike. All classes prospered
through the increase of trade and the beginnings of our foreign
commerce ; when Edward iv. began to bring back order and strong
government, progress became rapid. Population increased greatly,
though it was stiU not very high, and England probably numbered
at the end of our period about four million inhabitants.
5. In the towns trade was brisk and increasing. It was the
time of the greatest influence of the craft-guilds. These were clubs
302 BRITAIN IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY [1399-
or societies formed by meinbers of each of the chief trades practised
within a town. They served as benefit societies to shield their
members from misfortimes, and as social clubs which
and trade' celebrated holidays by feasts, processions, and solemn
services in church. Besides thus encouraging self-
help and good-fellowship, they kept prices steady, watched over the
quality of the articles produced, and protected the guild brethren
from undue competition and the cutting down of profits. Foreign
commerce was on the increase, and at last a fair proportion of it
was faUing into English hands. In earlier days the Easterlings,
or merchants from the Hanse towns of Northern Germany, the
Venetians, and other Italians, had the bulk of English commerce
in their own hands. Since the great naval victories of Edward in.
Englishmen took more readily to the sea. Shipbuilding developed,
and numerous commercial treaties opened up foreign ports to
English enterprise. The English merchants formed societies for
mutual assistance. Of these the most famous was the society of
the Merchant Adventv/rers, which set up its factories in the Scan-
dinavian kingdoms, and began to compete successfully with the
Hanse merchants for the trade of the Baltic and North Sea.
London was crowded with ships, and flourished exceedingly. Bristol,
the chief western port, prospered on account of the Irish trade, and
obtained a large share of the commerce with Iceland, whose stormy
seas were a rare school of seamanship. The export of wool, still
our chief product, was mainly conducted through Calais, the seat
of the staple, and now a thoroughly English town. As the open
door through which English wool was exported to the clothing
towns of the Netherlands, it was as important in commerce as it
was in politics as the gate which opened up Prance to the invasion
of English armies.
6. The increased prosperity of the towns and country alike was
seen in the increasing number and splendour of the churches and
Late Per- piiWic btdldings. A large number of stately and mag-
pendicular nificent parish churches were erected all over the land,
architee- They were built in the Perpendicular style of Gothic
^''®' architecture, which continued to be the one fashion of
building until the middle of the sixteenth century. The later Per-
pendicular buildings were even moi-e costly and spacious than those
of the reign of Edward in., and were infinitely more numerous. One
feature of the style was the erection of beautiful and richly adorned
towers ; others were the magnificent timber roofs, or the fantastic
and elaborate stone vaulting, in which ornament and decoration
-1485.] BRITAIN IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 303
were pursued for their own sake. The culmination of this is to be
found in the fan tracery of the vaults of Henry vi.'s chapel of
King's College, Cambridge, or Henry vii.'s chapel at the east end
of Westminster Abbey, both charaoteristic buildings of the period.
Though this style is less pure than the earlier Grothic, it is stiU
very rich, impressive, and magnificent. Nor were churches, colleges,
and monasteries the only structures which men now set up. Private
houses were now built in a more durable and comfortable fashion,
and even the warlike nobles gave up erecting gloomy
castles for their abodes, preferring in their stead large, hu^lngj
well - lighted, and roomy mansions, which, though
following the liiies of the old castles, and capable of standing a
siege, were built with a primary regard for the comfort of those
living in them rather than with the view of keeping out the enemy.
Magnificent specimens of the castellated mansions of the nobles of
this period are to be seen in the ruined houses of Tattershall, in
Lincolnshire, and Hurstmonceaux, in Sussex, both of which belong
to the reign of Henry vi. They are both remarkable as being
among the earliest brick buildings erected in England since Soman
times. By the end of the century the fashion of building in brick
had become common, and njade it easier to erect substantial houses
in districts where stone was scarce or bad.
7. New styles in dress and customs showed how general was the
change of taste. Armour became more costly and elaborate than
ever, and efforts were made to strengthen it in such
a fashion as would protect the wearer from bullets and A'"'"""'' ^^^
arrows as well as from the thrust or cut of lance or
sword. The use of firearms became more general, and light hand-
guns, the predecessors of the later musket, were beginning to come
into use. Tet the long-bow, now at its prime, was still generally
preferred in England to these clumsy and uncertain weapons. It
was abroad rather than at home that new experiments were now made
in the art of war. The French adopted the use of artillery more
readily than the English, and it was by reason of the excellence
and number of their cannon that they discomfited the long uncon-
querable English archer, notably at the battle of CastiQon, which
closed the Hundred Years' War.
8. The literature of the fifteenth century reflects the general
character of the age. Since the death of Chaucer there was no
more poetry of the highest rank, but the style of
Chaucer was imitated by a whole school of versifiers,
who wrote fluently, freely, and vigorously, though with little
304 BRITAIN IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY [1399-
originality or artistic gift. The best poetry of the time is to be
found in the large number of anonymous ballads, some of which
are of a high order of excellence. Another feature was the growth
of a popular drama, which was chiefly represented by
fh^d'^ ^"'* religious dramas called Mysteries, or Miraele-plays,
wherein enacted stories from Scripture, or sermons
in verse, setting forth the mysteries of the faith. It became the
custom for the townsmen to amuse themselves on holidays by
witnessing miracle-plays of this kind, acted in temporary theatres
erected in the streets and public squares. We have still extant the
cycles of dramas that delighted the citizens of Chester, York, and
Wakefield during this period.
9. Prose was better than poetry. There was a larger reading
public, but it was not very particular as to the quality of what it
read so long as it was amusing or instructive. The
monastic chronicles became few and feeble, as the
vigour of the religious life declined ; but as a compensation great
men began to employ private historiographers, who set down in prose
or verse the deeds of their patrons. These men were sometimes the
heralds or chaplains of their employers, and sometimes foreigners,
especially Italians, who were brought into the country by noblemen
and prelates anxious to show their sympathy for the vrider and
f uUer literary movements of lands beyond the sea. Humphrey, duke
of Gloucester, was the most bountiful and broad-minded of these
noble patrons of letters. He had in his pay an Italian who called
himself Titus Livius, and wrote at his master's bidding a Latin life
of Henry v. The Percies employed an Englishman named John
Harding to compose a metrical history of their house, wherein he
took good care not to minimize the glories of the distiagnished family
to which he owed his bread. It is a sign of the greater extension
of knowledge and the spread of the practice of composition that we
have for the first time collections of private and familiar correspond-
ence, which give us a much more vivid idea of what ordinary men
thought and said than can be gathered from the stifE and formal
official letters of state which alone survive from earlier ages.
Conspicuous among such collections are the Paston Letters, the
correspondence of a pushing and rising family of Norfolk squires,
which give us far the best picture that we have of the state of
society during the Wars of the Roses.
10. The increased demand for books led to the existence of a
large class of scriveners and stationers, whose business was to copy
out and sell volumes for which there was a constant popular
-1485.] BRITAIN IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 305
demand. The skill shown by these men was great, and they mvdti-
plied books with as much faithfulness and quickness as were possible,
so long as every fresh example had to be written out by
hand. But the impossibility of producing books by the ^^^s:^
laborious process of copying them out in manuscript
set men's brains to work to devise means of multiplying them by
mechanical devices. In the course of this century the invention of
'printing was soon to make obsolete the painful art of the scrivener.
11. The first books produced by mechanical means were what
were called hloch-hoolcs. In these the matter which had to be
reproduced was written on flat blocks of wood, and The Inven-
then the rest of the surface of the block was out away tlon of
so that the pattern written stood out in relief, and l'"""°8f-
when smeared over with oily ink, could be pressed or printed upon
pieces of paper, much as wood-cuts were mxiltiplied in later times.
This method was only possible for short works of considerable
circulation, since it was slow and costly, and the blocks were useless
save for the one purpose for which they were designed. For about
a century, however, block-hooles were the only alternatives to manu-
scripts, until about the middle of the fifteenth century, the ingenuity
of John Gutenberg, a citizen of Mainz, in Germany, devised the
method of casting movable types in metal to correspond to the
various letters and characters. These types could then be set up to
represent any combination of letters, and when the copies needed
were printed off, the type could be distributed and rearranged to
make a fresh book. Gutenberg's great invention soon spread aU over
Europe, and that the more rapidly since the first book he printed,
a Latin Bible, issued in 1455, was of such extraordinary beauty as
to rival or surpass the best type of manuscript. The result of the
spread of printing was that books became suddenly cheapened and
multiplied, and that a great impetus was given to reading and study.
12. In Edward iv.'s time printing was brought into England
by a Kentishman named "William Carton, a shrewd and successful
merchant, settled for many years in Elanders, who ^jujg^jjj
learnt in the Netherlands and in Germany the new caxton,
art about which all interested in books were talk- theflpst
ing. He bought types from a Flemish printer, and, p°,*"|p
about 1474, produced with them at Bruges, in
Flanders, the first printed books in English. These were a
romance called a Mecuyell of the Histories of Troy, and a treatise
on The Gamve and Play of Chess. In 1477, Caxton went back to
England, and set up his press under the shadow of Westminster
306 BRITAIN IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY [1399-
Abbey, where he printed and published many books, both in English
and Latin. Caxton was not only a good business man but a com-
petent scholar, who wrote prefaces to his books and translated
many of them into English. Edward iv. and Richard iii. and
the more cultivated nobles were his patrons. After his death
in 1491, his press went to his pupil, Wynkyn de Worde. Other
men followed their example, and before the end of the century, the
art of printing was firmly established in England. So powerful
was the press by this time, that the king and the Church would
allow only those books to be printed which had obtained a licence.
13. One feature of this period is the growth of an independent
English-speaking state in Scotland. So constant was the hostility
of the northern and southern kingdoms that it was
In the ^° Prance rather than to its neighbour that the little
fifteenth Scottish kingdom looked for support and guidance. It
century. ^^g characteristic that, for example, Scottish buildings
which in earlier ages had been erected after the same fashion as
those in England, now followed the French rather than the
English style. Thus there is hardly any Perpendicular Gothic
in Scotland, though builders were as busy beyond the Tweed as
in England during the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The Scottish churches of this time foUow in preference the Flam-
boyant or late Gothic of Prance, which differs in some ways more
widely from contemporary English art than any other mediaeval
style. A comparison of the Flamboyant churches of Melrose or St.
Giles, Edinburgh, with the English churches of the same date, will
show how deeply divided against itself English-speaking Britain
had become. It was the same with domestic architecture, where the
Scottish barons erected for themselves imitations of Prench castles
rather than English manor-houses. When in 1508 the art of
printing was tardily introduced into Scotland, it was in Prance that
the earliest Scottish printers learnt their craft. In law, in the
same way, the Soots looked to Prance and the Roman Civil Law
rather than to the customary law of England, which was originally
common to all parts of the English-speaking race. In literature,
also, the court speech of Edinburgh was, as we have seen, the old
Northumbrian dialect, and not the Midland tongue which Caxton,
like Chaucer, adopted as the most appropriate for English literary
speech. Yet the ties of common langniage still counted for some-
thing. James I., a cultivated and intelligent king, brought back
from his long English captivity a sincere love for Chaucer's poetry,
and wrote his own poem, called the Kingis Quhair, in the style of
-1485.] BRITAIN IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 307
the southern master. From this time the fashion of Chaucer took
a deep hold on Scottish men of letters. All through the fifteenth
century Scots poets, Kke Robert Henryson, set forth in the northern
form of English spirited imitations and adaptations of Chaucer's
themes and metres, which show that there was more true poetic
spirit to the north than to the south of the Tweed. The reigns
of the early Stewart kings witnessed in this, and in many other
ways, a wonderful growth of ciTilization, order, and prosperity.
Historians of the school of Barbour described the stirring deeds of
the heroes of the War of Independence, and a wandering minstrel
called Blind Harry wrote a rude poetic romance on the exploits of
Wallace, the great popular hero of the north. The same period
also witnessed the establishment of three Scottish universities at
St. Andrews, Aberdeen, and Glasgow, so that the northern scholar
had no longer to leave his own land to obtain a learned education.
Save in the wild Highlands beyond the Forth, where the un-
changing Celtic civilization stiU went on without a rival, Scotland,
like England, was becoming awake to the new issues that were
soon to excite the interest of aU Europe.
14. The changes which we have sketched show that fifteenth-
century Britain was by no means standing still, though it was not
now, as it had been, fully abreast of the Continent, jjieend
Everywhere the Middle Ages were slowly dying away, of the
It was an age of discoveries, of new inventions, of Middle
greater love of knowledge, and of a wider interest in ®®^'
man and nature. Before long, Coltimbus was to make his way to the
new world called America. It was already the time of the Revival
of Letters, or the Renascence — that is, the new birth of learning
and thought. None of the new movements had as yet reached
Britain, but elsewhere, and especially in Italy, there had been won-
derful progress made in many directions. Even in ota* island
some men were beginning to be interested in the new tendencies.
Those who read deeply began to think for themselves. When men
began to think for themselves, modern times were already at hand.
Books kecommeuded fob the Further Study of the Period 1399-1485
Oman's History of England, 1377-1485, in Longmans' Political History o£
England, vol. iv. ; Stubbs' Constitutional England, vol. iii., which includes
the best survey of the political history of the period ; James Gairdner's Houses
of Lancaster and York (Longmans' Epochs of Modem History) ; A. G. Bradley's
Owen Glyndwr and C. L. Kingsford's Henry V, (both in Heroes of the Nations) ;
Oman's Warwici; the King Maher, a spirited sketch (Maomillan's Men of
Action). For Caxton and his successors, see E. G. Duff's Early Printed Boohs,
ch. viii.-xi. The Paston letters, edited with valuable introductions by James
Gairdner, throw a flood of light on the political and social history of the period.
BOOK V
THE TUDORS (1485-1603)
CHAPTER I
HENRY VII. (1485-1509;
Chief Dates :
1485. Accession of Henry vii.
1487. Imposture of Lambert Simnel.
1492. Treaty of Staples ; beginning of Warbeck's imposture.
1494. Poynings' Law.
1496. The Magnus Intercursus.
1499. Execution of Warbeck and Warwick.
1503. Marriage of James iv, and Margaret Tudor.
1509. Death of Henry vii.
1. Henry vii. had been schooled by his early trials in prison and
exile to repress his feelings, and to regard his own interests as Ms
primary care. Silent, cold, suspicions, and reserved,
HenrvVlf ^^ ^^^ never able to make himself popular, though he
delighted in fine clothes and the pageantry of his
office. Prudent, careful, and politic, he was remorseless to those who
stood in his way, though never capricious or bloodthirsty. Greedy
as he was of wealth and power, he refused to regard himself as the
mere chief of the Lancastrian faction, and did his best to make
himseK king over the whole nation. One of his first acts was to
marry the Lady EUzabeth of York, the daughter of Edward iv.,
and, by her brothers' disappearance, the nearest representative of
the house of York. He hoped thereby that the friends of Edward
IV., who had hated the usurpation of Richard, would thus become
his supporters. Anyhow it was certaia that the children of Henry-
and Elizabeth would have a clearer title to the throne than any
king after Richard 11.
2. The long faction fight could not be ended in s, day, and the
308
-1487.J HENRY VII. 309
first years of the new reign seemed but a continuation of the old
struggles of the rival houses. Henry had to reward his followers,
and though he deprived few Yorkists of their estates continuance
and titles, the return of the Lancastrian exiles, and of the old
the elevation of his friends and kinsfolk to high Party
rank, natiu'aUy changed the balance of parties. The
Yorkists at once sought to redress their fortunes by rebellion, and
Henry vii. soon found, like Henry iv., that his real difficulty was
not in conquering England, but in holding it.
3. The first Yorkist rising was in 1486, when Lord Level and
the StafEords, the kinsmen of the late duke of Buckingham, broke
into rebellion at once in different parts of the country.
They were easily put down. Without a leader, it was ^j"^** "'"iTrI
hard for the Yorkists to act together. Their natural
head was the wife of the Lancastrian king, while their nearest male
representative, Edward, earl of Warwick, the son of the murdered
Clarence and a daughter of the king-maker, was detained a close
prisoner in the Tower by the suspicious Henry.
4 Outside England, circumstances were more favourable to the
Yorkists. Edward iv.'s sister, Margaret of Burg-undy, the widow
of Charles the Rash, still possessed great iufluence in Lambert
the Netherlands, and encouraged every plot against Simnel,
the hated Tudors. Though Ireland was for all prac- l'*87.
tioal purposes independent of England, and ruled by its own clan
chieftains and feudal lords, yet the house of York, as heir of the
Mortimers, had a strong position among the leading Irish families.
There were many Irish barons eager to make loyalty to York an
excuse for throwing off even nominal obedience to the English
king. Chief among these was the earl of KUdai-e, the head of the
Leinster branch of the great Norman house of Fitzgerald. Kildare
had been made deputy, or governor, of Ireland by Richard iii.,
and was no friend to Henry Tudor. Though the new king had
not ventured to take away from him his office, he had set over him
as lord lieutenant his uncle, Jasper Tudor, now duke of Bedford.
This so much irritated Kjldare that he gladly feU in with the
scheme hatched by Margaret of Burgundy to supply the Yorkists
with a pretext for a fresh rebellion. In 1487 there landed in
Ireland a pretty boy, about twelve years old, accompanied by a
priest, who gave out that the child was Edward, earl of Warwick,
who, he said, had escaped from the Tower. The Fitzgeralds at
once took up the cause of the youth, and had him crowned king in
Dublin. ReaUy, the pretender was one Lambert Simnel, the son of
3IO HENRY VII. [1487-
an Oxford organ-maker. Having no true prince in -whose name
they could fight, the Yorkists set up this impostor as their candidate
for the throne. It was easy for Henry to defeat so transparent a
fraud. He took the real Warwick out of prison, so that the
Londoners could see for themselves that the boy-king in Ireland
was a counterfeit. Before long, Simnel's friends were reinforced
by the exile Lovel and a troop of German mercenaries, under
Martin Sohwarz. They were now emboldened to cross the Channel
and try their fortunes in England. But few English joined the
motley host of Irish, Germans, and Yorkists. The invaders were
easily defeated at the battle of Stoke, near Newark, and the pre-
tended Warwick fell into the king's hands. Henry showed his
contempt for the impostor by giving him a free pardon, and
making him first turnspit in the royal kitchen. Henry was, how-
ever, stiU so weak that he forgave Kildare, the real author of the
revolt.
6. During the first years of his reign, Henry had many troubles
abroad. Besides the old duchess of Burgundy, both Scotland and
France were unfriendly to him. To meet the hostility
sueees?io°" °^ Charles viii. of France, Henry made an alliance
and the with Duke Francis of Brittany, who was at war with
treaty of his overlord. However, in 1488, Francis died, leaving
1492. ^' ^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^ °^y daughter named Anne. The
French now sought to marry the Duchess Anne to
their young king, Charles viii., and so unite Brittany and France.
This alarmed the chief enemies of France, Ferdinand, king of
Spain, and Maximilian of Austria, king of the Romans, who, by
marrying the daughter of Charles the Rash, had established him-
self as lord of the Netherlands. Henry ventured to ally himself
with these pi-inoes against the French, and sent small forces to
Flanders and to Brittany. The French now overran Brittany,
and in 1491 Anne was married to Charles viii. Next year (1492)
Henry levied a large army, and landed in France. Like Edward
IV. in 1475, he showed little eagerness to fight, and wiUingly made
peace with the French in the treaty of Mtaj>les, by which the
French paid him a good round sum of money to ensure the with-
drawal of his army. This inglorious retreat of Henry disgusted
his allies without conciliating his enemies.
6. The friendlessness of Henry outside his kingdom soon bore
fruit in a new imposture, much more formidable than the weak
attempt of Lambert Simnel. A little before the treaty of Etaples
there landed in Ireland a youth of noble presence and attractive
-1496.] HENRY VII. 3II
manners, who declared that he was Bichard, duke of York, the
yomigerof the sons of Edward iv. whom' Richard iii. had immured
in the Tower. He said that he had escaped when his pe^ijin
brother Edward v. was slain, and had now come to Warbeck,
claim his inheritance. In truth, he was Perkin "War- 1492.
beck, a native of Tournai, in the Netherlands, and inspired, like
Simnel, by the bitter malice of Margaret of BurgTindy. Warbeok
played his part so well that many people honestly believed in him,
and for seven years he was a soiirce of constant anxiety to Henry vii.
7. Moved by Henry's clemency on a former occasion, Kildare
and the Fitzgeralds gave a colder welcome to Warbeok than
to Simnel. The new impostor soon left Ireland.
Charles viii. recognized him, and invited him to of If"**""
France, where many of the exiled Yorkists gathered William
round him. Driven from France by the treaty of fllg'®^'
Etaples, he found a refuge with Margaret of Burgundy,
who declared him to be her nephew. Meanwhile, Yorkist con-
spirators were active in England. In 1495 these were joined by
Sir WUliam Stanley, who, with his brother, in 1485 made earl
of Derby, had been chiefly instrumental in gaining Henry the
throne. Like Hotspur under Henry iv., Stanley was discontented
with the rewards given to him by the king, and was now eager to
undo the work of his own hands. His plot was discovered ; he
confessed his guUt, and was put to death.
8. Disappointed at the failure of his friends, Warbeok strove to
take his destinies in his own hands. Little success attended his
gallant attempts. He failed to efEeot a landing in Kent ;
another effort to win over Ireland was attended with exehision ^
indifferent success. Meanwhile, Henry had cultivated from
the friendship of both Charles vni. and Maximilian geoOand"'^
with such success that the Continent was henceforth
ba:^red to the impostor. James iv., king of Scots, was stiU Henry's
enemy. In 1496 he invited Warbeck to Scotland, married him to
his cousin, the Lady Catharine Grordon, and invaded the north of
England, proclaiming that he was come to overthrow the usurper
Henry Tudor, and uphold the just claims of Eichard iv. No
English would join a pretender backed up by the Soots, and James
was forced to retire without daring to fight a battle. Next year a
threat of invasion from England compelled the king of Scot« to
dismiss Warbeok from his country. Once more the impostor took
refuge in Ireland, but soon found that his chance was as hopeless
there as in the north.
312 HENRY VII. [1496-
9. In 1496 Henry vii. made the Scots inroad an excuse for
exacting heavy taxes from his subjects. In 1497 the Cornishmen,
who had no fear of the Scots, rose in revolt, and,
The Cornish headed by a lawyer named Flammook, marched to
""'^rf"^' ^*®^' London, and encamped on Blackheath, where, after
execution hard fighting, they were scattered. Warbeck took the
of Warbeek bold course of laiiding iu Cornwall, hoping that the
Warwick inhabitants of that shire, inspired by the spirit which
1499. had sent them to Blackheath, would welcome him, and
rebel once more in his favour. He soon found enough
followers to march eastward and besiege Exeter. Failing to capture
the capital of the west, he resumed his eastern march as far as
Taunton, where a royal army stopped his fxirther progress. Seeing
that battle was inevitable the next day, Warbeck lost heart.
Leaving his followers to their fate, he took sanctuary with the
Cistercian monks of Beaulieu in Hampshire. The Cornishmen,
abandoned by their leader, went back to their homes, and so the
danger to Henry's throne was over. Before long Warbeck was
persuaded to surrender, on the promise of his life being spared.
He was imprisoned in the Tower, where he made friends with the
captive earl of Warwick. In 1499 both Warbeck and Warwick
were condemned and executed, on a charge of an attempt to seize
the Tower and overthrow the king. Whether guilty or not, their
removal deprived the Yorkist party of its last -sorry leaders, and
firmly established Henry Tudor on the throne. The Wars of the
Eoses were at last over.
10. Henry had perceived that his chief danger from Warbeck
came from the unfriendliness of foreign powers. He therefore
strove to conciliate the chief princes of Europe, and
Tlie Magnus ^g }jj^yg gggjj j^q^ successfvdly he had cut at the roots
1496, and ' of the impostor's strength. The treaty of Etaples had
tiie Maius driven Warbeck from France. It was a harder busi-
1506.^" " ' ''^^^ ^° remove him from Flanders, since Maximilian
declared that the dowager duchess was free to do what
she liked in her own lands. Henry had, however, a useful weapon
against him in the close commercial relations that stiU bound
Flanders to England. By prohibiting all trade between the two
countries, he soon persuaded Maximilian to keep Warbeck out of
his dominions. In 1496 the relations between Maximilian and
Henry were made very cordial by a treaty called the Magnus Inter-
cwrsus, or Great Intercourse, by which trade was resumed, and both
princes promised not to support each other's enemies. Ten years
-ISOI.] HENRY VII. 313
later, in 1506, Maximilian's son, the AroMiike PhUip, the real ruler
of the Netherlands, was driven by bad weather to take refuge in
an English port on his way to claim the throne of Spain. Henry
treated Philip with aU honour, but would not sufEer him to
continue his journey until he had signed a new treaty of commerce.
This favoured English traders so much that the Flemings called
it the M.alns Intercursus — ^that is, the Bad Intercourse.
11. Foreign politics were more important than at an earlier
time, since the leading monarchs of Europe were now so powerful
that they had plenty of time to intervene in each other's
affairs, and their mutual jealousies and aUiances led to J
,, ' . . „ , , -,,,,_ European
the beginning 01 what was called the European political
Political System, in which the chief princes strove to system and
maintain a balance of power between each other, and of power,
prevent any one state from attaining such greatness
as to make it dangerous to its neighbours. After the conquest of
Brittany, Charles viii. of France invaded Italy in 1494, and made
himself for a time king of Naples. This triumph was but short-
lived, for the Italians contrived to drive bim out, and Ms rivals
sided with them through their fear of the French. Conspicuous
among the enemies of France were the Emperor "lvra.YiTini1ia.Ti i.
and Ferdinand, king of Aragon. Maxiniilian was a vain, showy,
and moneyless prince, whose power was not very great. Ferdinand
of Aragon was the wisest and strongest king of his day. He had
married Isabella, queen of Castile, and the union of the two chief
kingdoms of the peninsula under this couple was the beginning of
the great Spanish monarchy.
12. Always suspicious of France, Henry made it the main
object of his policy to win Ferdinand and Isabella to his side. He
servilely followed their lead, and sought to marry his j),g Spanish
eldest son, Arthur, prince of Wales, to their younger alliance,
daughter, the Infanta Catharine of Aragon. After l^"'-
five years' negotiations, the wedding was completed in 1501. Next
year, however, Arthur died. Henry was so anxious to keep up the
Spanish connection and to retain Catharine's liberal wedding
portion in England, that he proposed that the widowed princess
should marry his younger son Henry, who was now made Prince
of Wales. As a marriage of a man to his brother's widow was
prohibited by the Chtirch, Henry obtained from Pope Julius 11. a
ddspensation which suspended the law in this particular case. Thus
Catharine remained in England, though several years elapsed before
she and Henry were actually united. Meanwhile the dependence
314 HENRY VII. [1503-
of Henry on Ferdinand continued. The Archduke Philip, who
had married Catharine's elder sister, Joan, and so became king' of
Castile on Isabella's death, died in 1506. Soon after his visit to
England, Henry, already a widower, proposed to Ferdinand to
marry Joan of Castile, though she was a madwoman.
13. Moreover, in 1503, Henry vii. wedded his elder daughter
Margaret to James iv., king of Soots, who had up to then been
The Scottish generally hostile. Henry hoped to wean him from
marpiage, that close connection with France that every Scottish
1503. monarch had cultivated since the days of Edward i.
Though the first hopes of this were disappointed, this marriage
was so far successful that a hundred years later a descendant of
James and Margaret united the English and Scottish thrones.
14. Despite Henry vii.'s intrigues and alliances, the power of
England abroad was still insignificant. It was something, how-
Henry's ever, that the Tudor king had shown that England
domestic had once more a foreign policy, and was no longer in
policy. |.]j^g state of impotence and isolation which she had
occupied during the Wars of the Hoses. Henry's best work, how-
ever, was not abroad, but at home, where he gradually restored the
royal power and put an end to the weak rule and confusion which
/had culminated in the struggle of Lancaster and York. Though
/he was a Lancastrian, he made no attempt to govern in the con-
stitutional fashion of the three Henries who had preceded him.
He preferred to base his rule on the model of Edward iv. He
summoned parliament as seldom as he could, and did not scruple to
disregard the law of Richard iii. by raising money by benevolences.
He passed several wise laws, one of the most important being an
act of 1495, by which it was declared that no one who obeyed the
king who was reigning for the time being should be punished as a
traitor, whether that king ruled with a good title or not.
15. Henry vii. was fortunate in his ministers. His chief adviser,
Cardinal Morton, who was both archbishop of Canterbury and lord
chancellor, was much more of a statesman than an
mtn^'teps ecclesiastic. Morton served the king too faithfully to
be popular, and was particularly shrewd in filling the
king's coffers by indirect devices that did not openly break the
law. After his death, in 1500, Richard Pox, bishop of Winchester,
was one of Henry's chief advisers, but the most trusted confidants
of the king's latter years were two men of lower rank, Edmund
Dudley and Richard Empson. Denounced by the people as Henry's
"horse-leeches and skin-shearers," they managed to fill both the
-iSog.] HENRY VII. 315
king's pockets and their own by devices mucli more odions than
any that Morton had indtilged in. Through their help, and
through the rigid economy which never deserted him, Henry
acoiuniilated a store of treasure such as no previous English king
had gathered together.
16. Englishnien could afford to submit to Henry's ex&,ctions,
since he kept the land iu better order than it had known for a
century. The chief trouble of fifteenth-century Re^uetion
England had been in the inordinate power of the of the
nobles. Henry was doing a service to the people as P,?™^®''.'?^
well as to the throne when he devoted his best energies
to compeUing the turbulent nobles to obey the law Hke ordinary
citizens. A chief means by which the nobles had defied the law was
through the custom of livery and maintenance, whereby all who wore
the badge or Kvery of a lord were bound to support him in all his
quarrels, while the lord ia return was bound to maintain his livery-
men. This meant that he was to back them up in whatever trouble
beset them, and either to coerce the law-courts not to pass sentences
against them, or, if they were condemned, to see that the sentences
against them were not carried out. Many statutes had been passed
making livery and maintenance unlawful, but none of them had
succeeded, since they were carried out by those very courts which
were so powerless against the great nobles. In 1487 Henry passed
a fresh act against livery and maintenance, by which a new court was
established to carry out the law. This court consisted of ministers
of state of such high rank that they were not amenable to the
pressure which the nobles were so often able to exert against the
judge and jury of an ordinary assize court. This body was one
source of the famous Star Chamber, which was to serve later
monarchs in such good stead. Through this new court, Henry's
statute was carried out so thoroughly that the abuses of livery and
maintenance were speedily ended. The fate of the nobles ruined in
attempts to resist Henry showed that the mightiest barons were no
longer above the law. In thus breaking down the power of the
aristocracy, Henry vii. laid solid foundations for that Tudor
despotism which attained its culminating point under Henry vili.
and Elizabeth.
17. Henry vii. also did a little to extend strong government to
Wales and Ireland. Proud of his Welsh descent, he Henry VII.'s
called his eldest son after the famous British king Welsh and
Arthur, and sent him to rule his principality from ''^^ Policy.
Ludlow, the old home of the Mortimers. The council of advisers to
3l6 HENRY VII. [1509-
the young prince became the nucleus of the body which in the next
reign became the Council of Wales. In Ireland more immediate
steps were necessary, and after Warbeck's first attempted landing,
Henry deprived Kildare of his deputyship, and sent Sir Edward
Poynings to Ireland as his successor. A plain Englishman,
superior to the local feuds of the land he ruled, Poynings passed in
1494 the famous Irish act of parliament, called Poynings' Law, by
which all English laws were declared to be of force in
Law" 1494 Ireland, and the Irish parliament was forbidden to
pass any measure until it had received the approval of
the king's council in England. Thus Ireland was made definitely
dependent on the English government of the day. Henry had not,
however, power to go far in the direction thus defined by Poynings.
Before long he again made Kildare his deputy, thinking that the
cheapest way of keeping some sort of order was to invest one of
the Irish magnates with the exercise of the royal authority. " AU
Ireland," he was told, " could notrtde the earl of Kildare." Henry
is reported to have answered, " Then let the earl of Kildare rule
all Ireland." Thus Ireland still remained practically independent
under its own clan chieftains and feudal barons.
18. In this as in so many other matters, Henry vii. was only
sowing that others might reap. But, when prematurely aged by
the toils of statecraft, the first Tudor king died in
Henry VII. 1509> lie tad established the infant dynasty on such a
solid basis that his son and successor became from the
moment of his accession one of the strongest of English monarohs.
CHAPTER II
HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY (1509-1529)
Chief Dates :
1509. AccesBion of Henry viii.
ISII. The Holy League.
1513. Battles of the Spurs and Flodden.
ISIS- Francis i., king of France ; Utopia published.
1517. Beginning of the Eeformation in Germany.
IS19. Charles v., emperor.
IS21-1S2S. War with France.
1521. Fall of Buckingham.
1S2S. Battle of Paria.
IS27. Henry appliss for a divorce.
1529. Fall of Wolsey.
1. Henky viii. was only eighteen years tdd when he succeeded
his father as king of England. Tall, robust, and weU-built, with
a round and fair-complexioned face, and short-cut,
bright, auburn hair, Henry was the handsomest Henpy'vm°*
sovereign in Christendom. He was a splendid athlete,
an accomplished horseman, an enthusiast for the chase, and an
excellent tennis-player. He looked every inch a king, with his
stately form set off by gorgeous attire, glittering with jewels and
gold. Though tenacious of his dignity, his friendly hearty manner
won him the love of rich and poor aUke. Carefully educated by
his father, he played and sang well, spoke several languages fluently,
and delighted in the society of scholars. Though seemingly ab-
sorbed in a round of pleasure and amusement, he never forgot that
his real work was to rule England. His strength of will and
stubbornness of pxirpose made him one of the very ablest of our
kings. He knew what he wanted, and had few scruples as to how
to get it. A shrewd judge of character, he chose his ministers
well, and used them to the uttermost. He was selfish, greedy,
hard-hearted, without the faintest gleato of pity or of softness.
Ever stem and relentless, he became in later life a cruel and
hateful tyrant; but he never quite lost the love of his subjects,
317
3l8 HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY [1509-
and there always remained, amidst the worst excesses of his later
life, some touch of his lionlike wiU and splendid force of purpose.
2. Henry was the first king since Henry v. whose title no man
seriously disputed. Inheriting the fruits of his father's painful and
laborious poKcy, and the great store of treasure that
of Empson the elder king had hoarded up, Henry aspired to play
and Dudley, a leading part in European politics. He felt that he
could take up a bolder and more popular line than
Henry vii. He strove to win over the people to his side, while he
completed his father's work of crushing the old nobility and the
great churchmen, who had so long stood in the way of the royal
power. His ambition was to rule England as a strong but popular
and national despot, and his people, long accustomed to find in the
king their best protection against aristocratic licence and misrule,
gave him a hearty and ungrudging support. In his eagerness to
win popular favour, he sent to the Tower Empson and Dudley, the
hated agents of his father's grasping extortion. At first they were
charged with tyrannising over the king's subjects in their collection
of the taxes, but this true accusation was dropped for a foolish
charge of treason and conspiracy against the king. Early in 1510
parliament passed an act of attainder against them as traitors. A
few months later both were beheaded on Tower HUl.
3. Though remorselessly sacrificing to popular hatred the moat
notorious of his father's subordinate agents, Henry continued in
office the tried ministers who had really fashioned
nSnistOTs^ Henry vii.'s policy. They were mainly bishops and
nobles of high position, but of no great ability or
energy. The foremost among them were Richard Fox, bishop of
Winchester, and Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey. Fox was a good
and pious man, but anxious to give up politics ; and Surrey, though
a capable soldier, and the only conspicuous representative of the
older nobles who remained unswervingly faithful to the king, was
not clever enough to be able to give efiect to the ambitious schemes
of his young master. To carry out these an abler and more
strenuous helper was necessary, and Henry soon found a minister
after his own heart in Thomas Wolsey. The son of a substantial
Ipswich merchant, Wolsey early distinguished himself at Oxford,
but soon abandoned the student's career to become
Wolsev chaplain to the archbishop of Canterbury. Bishop Fox,
who thought well of him, gave him a footing at court,
and under Henry vii. he had shown his capacity in several embassies.
Under the young king he became dean of Lincoln and alpioner.
-iSii.J HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY 319
Fox's gradual withdrawal from politics gave Wolsey his oppor-
tunity, and the growing complication of foreign politics soon made
him indispensable to Henry. In 1514 he became bishop of Lincoln,
and, before the end of the year, archbishop of York. In 1516 he
was made lord chancellor, and the pope sent him a cardinal's hat.
For sixteen years Wolsey was supreme both in Church and State.
Fresh preferment was heaped upon him, until he enjoyed the
revenues of three or four bishoprics and of one of the richest
abbeys in England. He lived on terms of intimate friendship with
Henry, and though never gainsaying the fierce king's wishes, was
able to control his policy as no other minister of the reign ever
did. He was an indefatigable worker, and kept aU the business
of the state under his own control. Equally competent to organize
an army and to conduct a subtle diplomatic intrigue, he was alike
able to formulate a great policy and to plod patiently through the
dull details of administration. He afEected a pomp and ostentation
such as the proudest nobles did not aspii'e to ; but he posed as the
friend of the poor, listening patiently to their lawsuits, and dealing
out to them even-handed justice. The great nobles both envied
him and hated him, recognizing in him the chief instnunent em-
ployed by the king for their abasement. He had few of the strict
virtues of the churchman, though he was a munificent patron of
learning, and wished to see the clergy better educated and more
energetic. He had something of the pride, the greed, the ostenta-
tion, and love of pleasure of his master ; but he had a clear vision
of the right policy for his country, and without his rare gifts the
young king's reign would have been shorn of much of its glory.
4. The ability and energy of Wolsey were of special service to
his master in the region of foreign politics. Under Henry vii.
England had been of little account in European
afPairs; and the old king's fidelity to the Spanish p^Jtif"
aUiance had met with but scanty recompense from
Ferdinand of Aragon. As in the days of Henry vii., the rivalry
of Louis XII. of France and of Ferdinand of Spain was the
central fact of the European situation, and Italy had become more
than ever the prize of victory. Louis, as duke of Milan, was the
chief power in Northern Italy, and Ferdinand, as king of Naples
and SicUy, dominated the south of the peninsula. Both princes
threw themselves into the complicated intrigues of the Italian
statesmen, and shared their fears of the aggressions of the wise;
strong, and wealthy republic of Venice. So far did this fear lead
them, that ia 1508 Ferdinand and Louis forgot their rivalry for a
320 HENRY Vin. AND WOLSEY [1511-
moment, and united with the Emperor Maximilian i. in the Leagtie
of Cambrai against Venice. This union of all the chief powers
of the Continent had the efBect of isolating' England from aU
opportunity of taking part in Continental politics. Nevertheless,
Henry viii. kept on good terms with Spain, and within a few
weeks of his accession, he carried out his long-deferred marriage
with Catharine of Aragon, Ferdinand's daughter, and his brother
Arthur's widow. For three years the continuance of the League
of Cambrai made Henry powerless to take a line of his own. But
the clever Yenetian statesmen began to play upon the jealousies of
the ill-assorted coalition arrayed against them, and in 1511 they
succeeded in breaking up the alliance altogether. Julius 11., the
fierce and warlike pope, who had taken a prominent part in the
league, became alarmed lest the destruction of Venice should be
followed by the establishment of French rule in Italy. He per-
suaded Ferdinand and Maximilian to break off their connection
The Holv '^ii>- France, and to join in a new combination with the
League, Venetians, whose object was to drive the French out
ISll. of Italy. This league was called the Boily League,
because the pope was at the head of it.
5. Henry viil. was delighted that the break-up of the con-
federates of Cambrai into two factions gave liiTn a chance of taking
Henpyjoins ^P ^ ^^^ °f ^^ own. He joined the Holy Leagne,
the Holy hoping to win glory for himself by gaining victories
League. ^^^^ ^j^g French, and believing that with the help
of Maximilian and Ferdinand he might again bring Normandy
and Gascony under the English king's rule. Wolsey showed won-
derful energy in raising armies to fight his master's battles, and in
levying the sums of money necessary to equip and feed them. It
was the first time that England actively entered into a general
European war waged on the large scale of modem times.
6. In 1512 there was fighting all over Europe. The Holy League
drove the French out of Milan, and Ferdinand of Aragon con-
The war in luered the little kingdom of Navarre, which was closely
1512 and alHed to France. Henry sent his cousin, Thomas
1513. Grey, marquis of Dorset, with a considerable army to
the north of Spain, hoping that the Spaniards would co-operate
with him in his attempt to win back Gascony, the ancient heritage
of the English kings. But Ferdinand was biisy with Navarre, and
left the English to look after themselves. The raw English troops
were kept inactive ; and disgust at the weakness of their generals,
and complaints of the badness of the food and drink supplied to
-I5I3-]
HENRY VIIl. AND WOLSEY
321
them, soon drove them into mutiny. Dorset was forced by his own
soldiers to return to England without accomplishing anything at
all. It was a ludicrous result after all Henry's fine talk of foreign
conquests.
7. In 1513 Henry and Wolsey made fresh efforts to restore the
credit of their arms. The king himself led an army through the
open gate of Calais into the French king's lajids, and Battle of
the needy emperor, who claimed to be Caesar Augustus, the Spurs,
and lord of the world, appeared in the English camp, 1513.
and greedily took English pay. Henry defeated the French at
Gidnegatte with so much ease that the English called their victory
Emery w^lkei sc.
THE FKEUCH AND NETHERLANDISH BORDEKS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTDKY.
the Batile of the Spurs, since the enemy made more use of their
spurs in their flight than of their swords in the struggle. This
victory led to the capture of the towns of Th^rouanne and Tournai.
"Wolsey, who had served aU through the campaign with but little
regard to the peaceful character of a prelate, was now made bishop
of Tournai as the reward of his efforts.
8. After the ancient fashion, the French sought to weaken the
English attack by stirring up their old allies the Scots to cross the
Border. James rv., though Henry vill.'s brother-in- law, eagerly
322
HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY
[1513-
abandoned his new friendship with the English in favour of the
traditional policy of the Scottish kings. About the time of the
Battle of the Spurs he crossed the Tweed at the head
Fie^Tsis. °^ ^ well-eq^uipped and gallant army, and easily
captured many of the border castles. The earl of
Surrey hastened to the north to expel the intruder. On Surrey's
approach, James took up a strong position on Flodden Bdge, one
of the northern offshoots of the Cheviot hills, a few miles south of
EmeryWallteT si
A. First position of the Scottish army.
B. Second position of the Scottish army.
C. Position of the two armies at the beginning of the battle.
1. The Earl of Surrey. a. Borderers.
2. The English left. b. King of Scots.
xxxx Their flank charge c. Highlanders,
during the battle. d. Scottish reserve.
Coldstream. The deep and broad river Till protected his right
flank, and a marsh made his left hard to get at. Surrey, who was
on the opposite or east bank of the Till, was unable to attack with
advantage, but by a clever march northwards he succeeded in
crossing the TUl at Twizel Bridge, and put himself between the
Scots army and Scotland. As Surrey moved northwards, James
-ISH-] HENRY Vin. AND WOLSEY 323
fooKshly abandoned Flodden Edge and stationed his army on
Branxton Hill, a lower elevation, at some distance to the north.
Surrey turned south to meet him, and on his approach, the Scots
came down from the hill, and on September 9 the decisive battle
was fought in the plain at its foot. The Scots king blundered to
the last, and the four divisions into which his army was divided
were stationed so far apart that they could do little to help each
other. The struggle soon resolved itself into a fierce hand-to-hand
fight. Though the borderers on the Scots' left carried aU before
them, the English left easily scattered the Highlanders who fought
on the Scots' right. In the centre there was a prolonged struggle
between Surrey and James, but when the English left turned from
the pursuit of the Highlanders and took James in flank and rear,
all that the Scots could do was to sell their lives as dearly as
possible. The northern army was utterly destroyed, and James,
with the bravest of his nobUity, lay dead on the field. The
victorious Surrey was rewarded by being made duke of Norfolk, a
title which his father had forfeited by Ms support of Richard iii.
9. Plodden Field was the only great exploit in the war. Henry
was bitterly disappointed with the result of his intervention on the
continent. He had got no help from his selfish allies, _
who only looked after their own interests, and he saw France and
that it was hopeless to expect to win by English ^^°*|^"^'
resources alone new victories that could match with
Crecy and Agincourt. Louis xii., who had been finally driven out
of Italy, was old and broken in health, and wishful to end his days
in peace. Julius 11. was dead, and the new pope Leo x. was anxious
not to risk the results of his victories by continuing the war.
Moreover, after James iv.'s death, his widow, Margaret Tudor,
ruled over Scotland in the name of her little son, and won over the
country to the English side. It thus became easy for Henry to
make peace with France and Scotland, and he had little scruple in
throwing over his father-in-law, Ferdinand, who had helped him so
badly. The peace with France was cemented by the marriage of
Henry's younger sister, Mary, to Louis xil. With his two sisters
reigning over the French and Scots, Henry came easily out of a
war that had brought him more expense and worry than glory.
10. For the next seven years England enjoyed unbroken peace.
The special feature of this time was the dying offl
of the older generation of rulers, in whose places ppfne°"_"^
arose young, vigorous, and able princes, of the same age
and with the same ambitions as the king of England. Louis sii.
324
HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY
[I5'5-
died early in 1515, whereupon his widow speedily married her old
lover, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, the personal friend and
boon companion of her brother. Francis i., Louis' cousin, became
king of Prance. He was ambitious and warlike, and at once renewed
the strugg-le for Milan, winning in. 1616 the great battle of
Marignano, which restored him to the possession of that duchy, and
forcing his enemies to make peace on terms that left Milan under
Dominions of Charles V, (Spanish line)..
Dominions of Ferdinand (German line)..
Austrian Dominions of Charles gifien to r „ , ^ ^, _ .
Ferdinand in 1521. f^'^Botindanj of the Empire..
Emery Wallcer sc.
French rule. In 1516 Ferdinand of Aragon died, and was suc-
ceeded by his grandson, Charles of Austria. Charles's mother was
Joan, elder daughter and heiress of Ferdinand and Isabella, and
his father, the Archduke PhOip, was the son and heir of the
Emperor Ma ximili an and of Mary of Burgundy, the only daughter
of Charles the Bold. On Ferdinand's death, Charles, who was
already lord of the Netherlands, also became king of Spain and
Naples and ruler of the great empire which Spanish adventm-ers
were winning by the sword in the newly discovered continent of
-IS"9.]
HENRY Vin. AND WOLSEY
325
America. In 1519 tiie Emperor Maxiinilian died also, wkereupon
Charles succeeded to Austria and the other hereditary domiaions of
the Hapsbnrgs.
THE GENEALOGY OF CHARLES V. AND THE HAPSBUEG
KINGS OF SPAIN
Charles the Eash,
duke of Burgundy,
d. 1477
(see table on page 269).
Ferdinand, king m. Isabella, queen
of Axagon,
d. 1516
(2)
Catharine of Aragon.
m. (1) Arthur, prmce
of Wales.
(2) Henry viii.
of Castile,
d. 1504.
(1)
I
Maximilian i.,
Roman emperor,
d.l519.
m. Mary of
Burgundy.
Joan, queen m. Philip, archduke of Austria,
of Castile.
and Philip i. of Spain,
d. 1506.
(2)
Mary Tudor,
1553-1558,
m. Philip II.,
king of Spain.
I
Charles v., 1519-1556,
Roman emperor and
king of Spain.
d. 1558.
Ferdinand i., Roman
emperor (d. 1564), ancestor
of the later emperors
of the house of Austria.
Philip ii. of Spain,
1556-1598.
I
(illegitimate)
Don John of Austria.
Philip hi. of Spain, 1598-1621.
Philip iv. of Spain, 1621-1665.
Charles ii. of Spain, 1665-1700.
11. The once great title of Roman emperor had now been borne
for several generations by the head of the house of Austria. But
every emperor was chosen by the Seven Electors, and „. ,
some of them were so much afraid of young Charles's Charles V.
power that they hesitated to appoint him to succeed his and
grandfather. Francis offered himseM as a candidate, '"^""'^ •
but after a fierce contest, Charles was preferred. He was henceforth
called the Emperor Charles v., though the title did little to iucrease
his real resources. However, the ancient rivalries of the older
rulers of Prance and Spain were at once renewed between these
two ambitious sovereigns. For the rest of their lives Francis and
Charles contested fiercely for the first place in Europe. All the
lesser states of Europe ranged themselves aside with one or the
326 HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY [1520-
other, though the more prudent began to feel that the right
policy for them was to strive to set up some sort of balance
between the two great powers. It was mainly through the long
rivalry of Charles and Francis that the doctrine of the
of PoweF?°^ Salcmce of Power was accepted as the basis of all
European politics. It was thought to be the interest of
every state to prevent any of its neighbours growing so strong that
it could upset what was called the European Balance. The notion
has prevailed more or less ever since, and most of the wars and
treaties of the last four centuries have been directed to uphold the
political equilibrium between the different states in Europe.
12. Wolsey was strongly influenced by the notion of the
political balance, and persuaded Henry that it was his interest to
Wolsev's prevent either Francis or Charles having a decided
foreign preponderance over the other. Wolsey also strove to
policy. maintain peace between the rivals by threatening to
throw the weight of England on to the side that began hostilities.
For several years this policy succeeded, though it led to endless
hollow and insincere intrigues, and made both parties look upon the
English with suspicion. Moreover, after the contest for the
empire, war became inevitable, so that after all Henry had to take
a side. It speaks well for the way in which the reputation of
England had revived that both Charles and Francis competed
eagerly for her support.
13. In 1520 Henry and Francis held a personal interview on
the border between Calais and the French king's territory. Each
The Field of ^^S showed such magnificence and splendoxir that
the Cloth of men called the place of their meeting the Field of the
Gold, 1520. (jiotji gf Qoi^_ Francis and Henry claimed to be Kke
brothers in their affection, and wasted huge sums in giving
elaborate entertainments to each other. There was, however, little
reality in these solemn declarations, and very soon afterwards Henry
held a leas ostentatious meeting with Charles v. at Gravelines, and
came to an understanding with him. Wolsey stiU professed to
mediate between the rivals, but Henry had deiinitely gone over to
the emperor's side. He stiU hated the French as England's
hereditary enemies, and wished well to Charles v., who ruled over
countries bound to England by many ancient ties of friendship,
and was himself the nephew of Queen Catharine. Despite the talk
about upholding the balance, Henry threw his weight into the scale
which soon proved to be the heavier one.
14. Between 1521 and 1529 Charles and Francis were at war.
-1529-] HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY 327
Henry began as an active ally of Charles, and in 1522 and 1623
EngHsL. armies invaded France from Calais, tke second of
them being commanded by Henry's brother-in-law, wapw'th
Sirffiolk, the husband of the widowed qneen of Prance. France,
But neither expedition inflicted much harm on the 1S21-1525.
French. As duriag the war of the Holy League, Henry had the
mortification of seeing his enemies defeated by Ms ally, without
being able himself to do anything efEeotive against them. Charles
drove Francis out of Italy ; and when in 1525 the gallant chivalry
of France again crossed the Alps and strove to win back Milan,
Charles won a complete victory at Pavia and took his rival captive.
16. The overwhelming defeat of the French made the prospect
of a fresh English attack on France very hopeful, and for a
moment there was talk of invading that country.
However, Wolseyhad at last managed to make Henry of charles^''
believe iu the new theory of the Balance of Power, and the
He urged that Charles's victory was so complete that Frfneh
he seemed likely to be master of all Europe, and that
his preponderance might well become dangerous to England if he
were allowed to crush France altogether. Accordingly, Henry
broke off his friendship with Charles and made peace with France.
Francis, who was released from prison in 1526, again strove to
win back his position in Italy. He would have been very glad
of Henry's direct help, but the English, though professing great
sympathy for him, left him to do all his fightiug for himself.
The little princes of Italy, who Uke Henry were much afraid
of Charles's power, formed a league to help him to drive the
emperor from the peninsula. Clement vii., the pope, a nephew of
Leo X., put himself at the head of this confederation. But the
emperor proved irresistible. In 1527 he brutally sacked Rome and
took the pope prisoner. All Europe was horrified, but the severe
lesson showed the Italians tha.t Charles was their real master.
Francis struggled on tiQ 1529, when he made the ipeace of Camhrai
with Charles on terms that left the emperor supreme in Italy.
Henry and Wolsey had done nothing to prevent Charles's triumph.
With all their fine talk about holding the balajice between the
rivals, they had not ventured to strike a blow to save France from
humiliation. Wolsey s diplomacy was as inefEective as Henry's
armies. It was useless for England to pose as the mediator of
Europe, when it refused to throw its weight on the weaker side.
It seemed almost as if the English were conscious that their power
counted for so little, and believed that even if it had been turned
328 HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY [1521-
against the emperor, it would Lave been imable to redress tte
balance.
16. The old nobles envied Henry and Wolsey even their barren
triiunphs on the contment, and stood aside in sullen isolation,
Fall of Buck- a^igry that low-born men should Lave the king's chief
Ingham, confidence, while they, wLose ancestors Lad ruled all
^^^'" England, were quite witLout real power. TLe leader
of tLe old Louses was Edward Stafford, duke of BuckingLam, son
of tLe BuokingLam wLom BicLard in. put to deatL. He was a
proud, vain, foolisL man, wLo was persuaded by false propLets tLat
Henry would soon die and tLat Le Limself would become king, as
one of tLe descendants of Edward in. He talked rashly about the
king and the cardinal, and perhaps contemplated a real attack
upon them. In 1521 Le was suddenly arrested and accused of
treason. TLe lords condemned him to deatL witLout muoL real
evidence. But tLe king said Le was guilty, and tLey were too
timid or deferential to go against tLe king's wisLes. He was
beLeaded as a traitor, and Lis fate frigLtened tLe proudest of tLe
magnates into absolute subservience to tLe fierce and masterful king.
17. Henry migLt safely humiliate tLe nobles so long as tLe
people were on Lis side. But tLe cost of his expensive foreign
The king policy and wasteful court revels Lad long ago ex-
and the Lausted Lis fatLer's Loards of treasure, and tLe EngHsL
commons. ting's ordinary revenue was so small tLat unusual
expenses could only be met by fresL taxation. TLe House of
Commons was loyal to tLe king, and in 1512 granted Lim all tLe
money Le asked for to carry on tLe FrencL war. But in 1522 and
in 1523 Henry made sucL vast demands upon Lis subjects that
parliament began to grow restive. TLe EnglisL Lated notLiug
so mucL as taxes, and wLile willing enougL tLat tLe king sLould
flgLt tLe FrenoL, sLowed a strong disinclination to pay tLe ex-
penses necessarily involved in sucL a policy. TLe parliament of
1523 made a mucL smaller grant tLan tLe king Lad asked for, and
only gave tLis after Wolsey Lad gone down to tLe Commons and
lectured tLem on tLe necessity of supporting tLe king's government.
So serious did tLeir attitude seem tLat for tLe six years tLat remained
of Wolsey's ministry tLe king never summoned anotLer parliament.
In 1525, wLen Le tLougLt of fitting out anotLer army, Le strove
The to raise tLe money by what was called an Amicable
Amicable Loan, in which every one was called upon to lend to
Loan, 1525. ^-j^q king a sixth part of his income. There was a
storm of resistance everywhere. It was said that Henry was
-IS2S.] HENRY Vni. AND WOLSEY 329
reviving benevolences, which had been abolished under Kichard iii.,
and the only answer Wolsey could give was that Richard was a
usurper and his laws invalid. A popular rebeUion was threatened,
and Henry was forced to cancel the loan and take what money Ms
subjects offered freely. The cardinal was regarded as responsible
for his master's failure. Already bitterly hated by the nobles,
Wolsey was henceforth equally disliked by the common people.
18. New ideas were in the air, and beneath the seeming calm
of the times the seeds of far-reaching changes were being sown.
It was the time of the "Renascence — that is, of the
revival or new birth of learning. Men, who in former „V?„™' „
° ' nascence.
days had been content to take everything on trust,
began to ask questions for themselves, and would believe in nothing
that did not seem to them good and reasonable. The remarkable
revival of arts and letters which had begun in Italy, gradually
spread itself to lands like England, where old-fashioned notions
had hitherto prevailed. Printing had now made books cheap and
accessible, and scholars studied not only the schoolmen of the
Middle Ages, but the classic literature of Greece and Rome.
Indeed, a zeal for the study of Greek, a language little known
in the Middle Ages, was a chief characteristic of what was called
the New Learning. With the revival of antiquity came some
sort of revival of the spirit of the ancient world.
19. The institutions and ideas of the Middle Ages had brought
about much good in their time, but many men had now lost faith lb
them. The Church had been the greatest institution
of the Middle Ages, but the Church had long been in f^e Church
a state of decay. The papacy had ceased to be in any
sense the religious centre of Christendom. The popes were stiU
rich, powerful, and prominent, but it was as politicians or as
patrons of the new learning, rather than as spiritual guides to
the faithful, that they made themselves conspicuous. The chief
popes, of the time were fierce warriors like Julius 11. or clever
statesmen and lovers of art and literature like Leo x. The corrup-
tion of the head was but a sign of the decay of the members.
Gross abuses were common throughout the whole Church, but
more harm perhaps was done by the wide spread of indifference
and worldliness. The great ecclesiastics had but little of the true
spirit of religion. Among the people there was much superstition
and imgodliness, and but little real faith and earnestness. The
clergy were largely indifferent or hostile to the movements for
reform. They thought mainly of preserving their old privileges
330 HENRY Vin. AND WOLSEY [1509-
and their own wealth. They were getting quite out of touch with
their flocks. Tet, despite the growth of the new spirit, the
Church was still outwardly unshaken. It was as rich, as strong,
and as proud as ever, and though earnest men denounced its
corruptions, there were very few who disbelieved in its doctrines
or wanted to change its system.
20. The best minds in all countries were striving to make the
new learning as widely spread as possible, and to get rid of the
ignorance, superstition, and corruption which stood in
reformers'^ the way of all reform. Since the reign of Henry vn.,
a little band of Oxford scholars had been upholding
the new learning in England. Conspicuous among them was
John Colet, who, after doing much for the revival of the study of
Greek in Oxford, was made dean of St. Paul's in London. There
he exercised immense influence by his preaching and life. Early
in Henry viii.'s reign he set up a new school, called Et. Paul's
school, in which boys were to be brought up in the spirit of the
new learning. He was a straightforward, high-minded, and deeply
religious man, who wished to make the clergy more active and
better educated, but who had no desire to alter the doctrines or
constitution of the Church.
21. Among those whom Colet's example deeply influenced were
the famous foreign man of letters, Erasmus of Rotterdam, who spent
many years in England, and the brilliant young English
and^Mope lawyer. Sir Thomas More. Erasmus was an enlightened
but timid scholar, who laughed at bigotry and super-
stition, and did good service for learning by his writings and by
his edition of the Greek Testament. But he had little of the
sturdy directness of spirit of Colet, and his thoughts were always
for the little world of scholars and thinkers rather than for the
people at large. More combined with the delicacy and insight of
Erasmus some of the vigour and straightforwardness of Colet. It
was a great disappointment to his student friends when he gave
up the scholar's life to become a lawyer and a statesman. But his
knowledge of practical afEairs gave him an insight into the roots of
the evil that underlay the prosperity of the times, such as no mere
Mope's scholar could ever possess. In his famous book Utopia,
" Utopia," written in Latin and published in 1515, he described
• with great clearness and spirit the evils of the age,
and by way of contrast drew an imaginary picture of a perfect
commonwealth, called Utopia, where everything was ordered for
the best. In this ideal state there was none of the selfishness and
-lSi8.] HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY 33 1
greed for gain that he saw in the England aroxind him. Every
man had enough and none more than enough. Men could think as
they pleased and worship God as they Uked. They were interested
in reading and improving their minds, and were not allowed to
quarrel with each other. Very different from this, thought More,
was the state of affairs in England. There the rich became richer
and the poor poorer. Men unwilling to work, or for whom no work
could be found, swarmed over the country as vagrants, thieves, and
murderers. The hard laws that sent all felons to the gallows were
useless to remedy this condition of things. The poor had nothing
to do but to beg and rob, for grasping landowners had found out
that it paid them better to turn their corn lands into pasture.
Sheep, More said, were devourers of men, since fewer labourers were
wanted to watch the great flocks of sheep that now pastured on
lands which of old had been tilled to produce crops of corn. But the
Flemish weavers paid a higher price for wool than the farmers
could get for corn, and thinking of nothing but their own private
gain, the landlords were stripping England of its inhabitants and
the poor of their daily bread.
22. Henry viii. and Wolsey never seriously grasped the need of
such reforms as Colet and More described. But they were not
imtouched by the better spirit of the times, and they
sometimes turned half aside from their schemes of ^^ chupeh.
selfish statecraft to strive feebly to make things
better. More entered into Henry's service, and the king listened
to his advice and treated biTn with great respect. Wolsey formed
schemes to reform the Church, and obtained from Leo x., in 1618, a
special appointment as papal legate, so that he could control the
whole English Church by virtue of his representing the pope, and
lord it even over the archbishop of Canterbury. He used his new
power to dissolve several small and corrupt monasteries, and with
their revenues he set up a great college at Oxford, which he called
Cardinal College, and a noble school at Ipswich, his birthplace, to
supply his Oxford coUege with weU-trained students. It was no
new thing for great prelates and nobles to endow richly schools and
colleges. But not even WiUiam of Wykeham and Henry vi. had
designed their foundations on so magnificent a scale as Wolsey.
However, he was so busy in other work that he never had time to
carry out his plans properly. What he desired was wise and noble.
Like Colet and More, he wished to reform the Church from within.
He strove to improve education, to make the clergy work harder
and avoid gross corruption. But he never set his own life in
332 HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY [1517-
order, nor did lie even offer to resigTi tie many bishoprics whose
revenues enabled him to live like a prince, but whose duties
he never troubled himself about discharging. It rec[uired more
unselfishness, more faith, and more hard work than Henry and
Wolsey were able to give, before the abuses of the Church could
really be set aright.
23. On the continent, as in England, attempts were made to
reform the Church from within. Erasmus, the friend of More and
Colet, inspired those who wished to carry out such
nin^-s^f the schemes, but, as in England, there was too much
Reforma- selfishness and too little earnestness for them to
*'°"'^^'^" prosper. At last a more rough and ready method
was tried with greater success. In 1517 Martin
Luther, a friar of Wittenberg, in Saxony, stirred up a great
agitation against the sale of indulgences. These indulgences
were remissions of the penance, which those who confessed and
repented of their sins had imposed upon them by the authority
of the Church. They were openly sold for money, and the sturdy
friar became indignant that men should be encouraged to beHeve
that a mere cash payment would do away with the
f^fh"" ®^ results of sin. He taught that men were not
made righteous by their good works, or formal acts,
but by their faith in God, not by what they did, but by what they
were. Finding that his teaching was condemned by Leo x., he
began to denounce the power of the pope and the authority of the
bishops. This was the beginning of the Reformation. In a. few
years Luther led all North Germany to revolt against the papal
authority and the system of the Mediaeval Church. His coarseness,
his violence, his contempt for the past, his revolutionary ideas,
frightened cautious reformers like Erasmus and More into be-
coming lovers of the old ways. But the sturdy zeal of the Saxon
friar accomplished the work that his more timid predecessors had
failed to carry out, though it was done at the price of breaking
, up the majestic unity of the Mediaeval Church, and with a haste
and violence that destroyed what was good as well as what was
merely corrupt and decayed. But if the work had to be done,
Luther's way was the only practical method of doing it. It was
in vain that the young Emperor Charles strove to silence the
audacious heretic, and patch up peace with his captive Clement vii.
on the basis of an alliance against the reformers. The spirit of
Luther spread everywhere. His followers, called after 1529
Protestants, could not be put down.
-IS2S-] HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY 333
24. Side by side ■with tte Lutheran reformation, Ulrioh Zwingle
had started a similar movement among the Swiss at the foot of the
Alps. And a few years later John Calvin, a French-
man, began to do in Prance and French-speaking and"(Slv'n
countries what Luther and Zwingle had done for the
G-ermans. AH these leaders of the Reformation broke utterly with
the old Church, and set up new Churches of their own, based on
principles which they believed to be more like primitive Christianity
than the Church of the Middle Ages. As they could not agree
with each other, the quarrels between the different schools of
reformers compUoated the strife of the old and the new faiths.
Coming in the wake of many other far-reaching changes, the
religious revolution called the Keformation completed the end of
the Middle Ages, and ushered in the freer, wider life of modern
times. But there was so much unrest, disturbance, and bitterness
caused by the conflict of the old and the new, that men began
sometimes to sigh for the days before the great changes began.
25. Wben Luther first began to denounce the pope and the old
Chxiroh, every one in England was horrifled at his boldness. Henry,
who was proud of his knowledge of theology, wrote a
book in Latin against the reformer, called the Defence jfnd'Luthep
of (he Seven Sacraments, and Leo x. was so pleased with
it that he gave Henry the style of Defender of the Faith, which
curiously enough still remains among the titles of our English
sovereigns. There were few Lollards left to welcome Luther as a
new Wycliffe. Even the Englishmen who were fond of grumbUng
about the wealth, privileges, and corruptions of the clergy, had no
real quarrel with the Church, and Luther's methods had convinced
reformers like More that the old ways were better than his. Gradu-
ally, however, some young scholars went over to Germany and became
ardent followers of Luther. Chief among these was the strenuous
but bitter William Tyndall, who in 1525 published an English New
Testament, that was eagerly circulated among the few English
innovators, though condemned by the Church, which burned all the
copies of it that could be found. But Wolsey found no trouble in
silencing the majority of the English Protestants, and forced many
to give up their new doctrines. For many years they were of no
importance whatever. It was not through following in the foot-
steps of Luther that the English Reformation began, but from the
seE-will and violence of the king himseK.
26. About the time that Henry broke with Charles v., he began
to grow tired of his wife, the emperor's aunt. Catharine of Aragon
334
HENRY Vin. AND WOLSEY
['525-
Catharine
of Aragon
and Anne
Boleyn.
was six years the senior of her husband, and bad health already made
her an old woman. All the children of the marriage were dead
except one girl, the Lady Mary. Henry now per-
suaded himself that the death of Catharine's other
children was a proof that God was displeased at his
breaking the law of the Church by marrying his brother
Arthur's widow. Most Englishmen wished Henry to have a son,
who might succeed peacefully to the throne, for there had been no
instance of a woman ruling England, and it was feared that trouble
might foUow if Henry died without a male heir. But the real
cause of Henry's scruples was the appearance at court of Anne
Boleyn, the Kvely and attractive daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, a
Norfolk gentleman, who was connected with the great house of
Howard by his marriage with Anne's mother, a daughter of the
diike of Norfolk, who had won the battle of Flodden. With her
the selfish king fell violently in love, and her charms made him
eager to divorce Catharine, that he might make her his wife.
THE HOWARDS AND BOLEYNS
John Howard, duke of Norfolk, Sir Geoffrey
killed at Bosworth, 1485. Boleyn, mayor
' I of London.
Thomas, duke
of Norfolk,
d. 1554.
Henry, earl
of Surrey,
beheaded 1547.
Thomas, earl of Surrey,
duke of Norfolk, d. 1514.
I
Sir W. Boleyn.
Sir Edward
Howard.
William, lord Elizabeth, m. Sir Thomas
Howard of
Effingham,
Catharine Howard, Charles, lord
m. Henry viii. Howard of
of Effingham
(Admiral in 1588).
Thomas, duke of Norfolk,
beheaded 1572.
Boleyn,
afterwards
earl of
Wiltshire.
Anne Boleyii,
m. Henry viir.
Queen Elizabeth.
Philip, ancestor
of later dukes.
Lord Thomas Howard,
Admiral in the Azores, 1591.
Names in italics not mentioned in text.
27. In the Middle Ages a marriage sanctioned by the Church
could not be dissolved. What was called a divorce meant declaring
that a marriage had never been a valid one from the beginning.
But the law of marriage was so complicated, and the Church
courts were so corrupt, that it was not as a rule hard for a great
-1528.] HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY 335
prince like Henry to find excuses for such an amniUing of what
seemed a lawful wedlook. Haviag resolved to get rid of his
wife, Henry applied in 1527 to Clement vii. for a declaration that
Ms marriage was invalid. It was a particularly awk- _,, nrlcin
ward time to raise this question. Catharine was the of the
emperor's aunt, and Charles v. had recently sacked divopce
Rome and had taken the pope prisoner. He was
therefore Clement's master, and was not likely to allow him to
gratify the king of England, whose desertion of the imperial cause
Charles had not yet forgiven. Moreover, in raising the question
of a divorce at all, Henry seemed to be following Luther's example
of questioning the power of the pope. The ordinary law of the
Church declared the marriage unlawful. Nevertheless, Julius 11.
had issued a dispensation, which made an exception from that law
ia Henry's favour. In asking Clement to disregard that, Henry
practically raised the question of whether Julius had power to
dispense with the law of the Church in his favour. It is true
that Henry tried to avoid that issue by suggesting that there
were certain irregularities of form in Julius's dispensation which
made it possible for that particular document to be put aside vrithout
the general question of right being discussed. But plain men were
sure to concern themselves with this problem, so that Clement was
not only prevented from falling in with Henry's wish by fear of
the emperor, but also by respect for the power of the office which he
held. Neither party thought much of the wrongs of Catharine.
28. Clement vii. thought that the best way out of his difficulties
was to delay everything as long as he could. He was afraid to
grant a divorce, but he did not want to quarrel with j^^ Decretal
Henry, as he hoped that some day Henry and the king Commission,
of France would release him from his dependence on ^528.
the emperor. As a middle course, he agreed to appoint what was
called a Decretal Commission, that is, he empowered a special court
to find out whether the form of Julius's dispensation was, as Henry
said, an irregular one, it being laid down that, if such were the case,
the marriage was invalid. The court was to consist of two papal
legates, who were to sit in England. One of them was Wolsey
himself, and the other was Cardinal Campeggio, an Italian living at
Rome, who had done so much service to Henry that he was allowed,
after the evU fashion of the time, to hold the bishopric of Salisbury.
29. It seemed a great triumph for Henry that the decision of
his suit should be handed over to two of his dependents. But
Campeggio was faithful to Clement, and took care to delay
336 HENRY Vni. AND WOLSEY [1529-
proceedings as much as lie coiild. He wasted a very long time in
travelling to England, and it was not until the summer of 1529 that
the legatine coiurt was opened in London. But it then
J'gg^"*""^' seemed as if everything was nearly over. Catharine de-
clared before the legates that she regarded herself as
Henry's lawful wife, and refused to hide herself away in a convent,
as had been suggested to her. She appealed to the pope in person,
and the best of Englishmen sympathized strongly with her wrongs.
30. Clement grew anxious after he had appointed the commis-
sion that took the matter out of his own hands ; and the emperor
The fall of ^^^ alarmed lest the legates should give a decision ia
Wolsey, Henry's favour. Before very long the pope annulled
' ^^^- the commission, and ordered the whole business to be
gone over again at Rome. Henry was moved to violent anger, and
made Wolsey the scapegoat of his failure. The cardinal's favour
had long been declining. He had done his best to get Henry his
divorce, but his desire had been that the king should marry a
French princess, who would bind him more closely to the policy of
Francis, and he did not like the notion of Henry wedding the giddy
Anne Boleyn, who would bring biTn no strong continental alliance.
But Henry's self-will had triumphed over his minister's opposition,
though the king now trusted him so little that he kept bim in the
dark as to much that was going on. He knew that Wolsey was
hated by nobles and people alike, and was glad to get a fresh
spell of popularity by throwing him over as he had thrown over
Empson and Dudley. The new duke of Norfolk, Arme's uncle,
hated the cardinal, and Anne herself believed Wolsey was to blame
for the failure of the legatine court. All combined to attack
the unpopular minister. Wolsey was driven from the chancellor-
ship, and his property seized. His great foundations fell into
Henry's hands, and the king made it a merit to refound the Oxford
College on a smaller scale under the name of Christ Chwrch.
Wolsey abjectly yielded to his enemies, and was finally allowed to
retire to the north, where he threw himself with strange energy
into the hitherto neglected duties of his archbishopric. But he
soon began to intrigue for his return to power, whereupon he was
arrested and brought back to London, to answer the charge of
treason that Henry always brought against a fallen minister. But
his health, long weak, broke down under the hardships of a winter
journey, and he died at Leicester Abbey in November, 1630, lament-
ing the instability of the favour of princes. With his fall ends
the first part of his master's reign.
CHAPTER III
HENRY VIII. AND THE BEGINNING OF
THE REFORMATION (1529-1547)
Chief Dates :
1529. Meeting of the Seformation Parliament.
1533. Act of Appeals.
1534. -A^ot of Supremacy.
IS3S- Execution of Fisher and More.
1536. Dissolution of the lesser monasteries ; union of England and
Wales.
IS39- Dissolution of the greater monasteries and Six Articles Statute.
1540. Execution of Cromwell.
IS42. Battle of Solway Moss.
1544- Capture of Boulogne.
IS47- Death of Henry viii.
1. In the years tliat followed the disgrace of Wolsey, Henry viii.
still made it his maia business to get a divorce from Catharine of
Ajragon. Wolsey's faUure had shown that there was ppn^-Bss of
little use in trying to persuade the pope to annul the the divorce
marriage, arid Henry now sought for stronger methods Question,
of enforcing his will on Clement. He hoped great things from the
aJliance with Trance, which remained as the chief legacy of the
fallen cardinal, and imagined that Francis would really give him
help in winning over the pope to his side. But Francis was only
playing his own game. It was not his interest to quarrel with
Home to please so uncertain an ally as Henry, and he saw that it
was useless for him to attempt to drive Charles out of Italy,
though it was only by expelling the emperor from the peninsula
that Clement could be made a free man. Yet Henry persevered
for years in this new policy, while he also strove to appeal from
the pope to learned public opinion, by consulting the universities of
Europe as to the validity of his marriage. However, the universities
gave a divided answer, and in most oases said exactly what the
rulers of the country in which they were situated told them, so
that Henry got no good from this step.
337 z
338 HENKY VIII. AND THE REFORMATION [1529-
2. Henry was gradually forced to see that if lie obtained Ms
divorce, he must mainly rely upon himself and his own subjects.
Henpv VIII ^^® ■'^^^ ^^^ most effective method of bringing' pres-
and his sure on the pope was to show him that England was
subjects. bacldng up his request. It was not hard for Henry to
force the Church and the people of England to profess themselves
in agreement with him. Men were still accustomed to look up to
the king and take what he said as true. Henry had plenty of ways
of dragooning his subjects into obedience, and did not scruple to
use them. Convinced that he had a better chance of obtaining his
own way if he made a show of consulting his people, Henry made
a point for the rest of his reign of getting parliament, and in
Church matters convocation, on his side. But it would be very
wrong to think that this pretence of consulting the people and the
Church meant anything real. Left to themselves. Englishmen
would never have entered upon so bold a policy of change as that
which Henry's self-wiU now induced him to undertake. He was
already contemplating the withdrawal of English obedience from
the papacy if Clement stiE held out.
3. Soon after Wolsey's fall, parliament and convocation were
assembled. Between 1529 and 1536 the same parliament continued
to hold its sessions. Before it separated, it had enabled
mation the king to break iinaUy from the Church of the
Parliament, Middle Ages. Fear and self-interest made aU men
seek to do the king's wUl. The chief danger of
opposition came from the Church, but Henry persuaded parliament
to pass various laws against ecclesiastical abuses in order to
frighten the clergy. Then came a more crushing blow. Henry
told the clergy that they had all broken the Statute of Prsemunire
(see page 223) by acknowledging Wolsey as papal legate. What
he said was quite true, but the statute of PrEemunire had long been
neglected, and Henry himseK had been as guilty as anybody.
However, the clergy were forced humbly to confess their error, and
gladly bought their pardon of the king by paying him an enormous
Henpv ^®" ^^^^ t^s '^^^ ^"^ enough. They were also forced
Supreme to acknowledge that Henry was the Supreme Head of
Read of the if^g Xlnglish Church. It was a vague phrase, which
might mean anything or nothing. But Henry showed
from the beginning that he meant to press the title to the utter-
most. Before long the Royal Supremacy, henceforth the great
doctrine of the English Reformation, was found incompatible with
the papal supremacy, in which all men had hitherto firmly believed.
-1S34-] BENRY VIII. AND THE REFORMATION 339
4. Having shown himself master of his own clergy, Henry
began to pass measures through parliament against the pope's
power, hoping thus to frighten >n"Tn into granting a
divorce. But Clement was as unahle as ever to do separation
what the kiag wanted, and the only result of this policy from Rome,
was that the pope's power in England was gradually ^°^^ °^*-
out away. The &st step towards this was reviving the old laws
against the pope, such as the statute of Prsemunire. New legislation
soon followed. In 1532 Annates, or Mnt Fruits, that is, the pay-
ment of the first year's revenue of a new benefice, which the clergy
had hitherto made to the pope, were transferred to the crown. In
1633 the Act of Appeals was passed, which forbade Englishmen to
carry appeals from the English Chxirch courts to the court of the
pope. Clement answered by affirming the lawfulness of Catharine's
marriage ; and dying soon after, his successor, Paul in., threatened
Henry with excommunication. Henry replied to these menaces by
fresh laws against the papacy. In 1534 the separation from Rome
was completed by the Act of Supremacy, which made it treason to
deny that Henry was supreme head of the English Church.
5. The archbishopric of Canterbury falling vacant, Henry
appointed to that great office a Cambridge scholar named Thomas
Cranmer. Cranmer was a pious, learned, and well- cpanmep
meaning man, but he was weak and undecided, and and the
soon proved himself a mere creature for carrying out olvoree.
the strong king's will. Despairing of getting a divorce from
Rome, Henry now secretly married Anne Boleyn. He forced con-
vocation to declare Catharine's marriage void ; and the new arch-
bishop held a court at Dunstable, in which he also solemnlydeclared
the former marriage to be against God's law. As the Act of
Appeals cut off the Roman jtirisdiction, the archbishop's court was
now the highest Church cotirt for England. There was no longer
any way of taking Catharine's case any further, and thus the great
divorce suit was terminated after six years of delay. But the price
Henry had paid was the breaking of the tie which had so long bound
the English Church to the Churches of Christendom. Nominally,
the breach with Rome left the English Church independent.
Practically, it became absolutely subject to the fierce will of the
king. The separation from Rome brought the Tudor despotism to
its highest point.
6. England was now as completely separated from Rome as
were the Protestant churches of Germany. But Henry still
looked with horror on Protestantism, and professed to make no
340 HENRY Vin. AND THE REFORMATION [1534-
ciianges in the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the English
Church. He was proud of his middle way between the two ex-
Henpy VIII tremes. He strove to prove his love for the old faith
and Pro- by seeking out and hurniag to death all the English
testantlsm. Protestants on whom he could lay his hands. But what-
ever the king might profess, the abolition of the papal supremacy
was a real revolution. It was not simply a political change, as
Henry maintained. It was a religious change as well, when the
English nation repudiated the authority to which it had looked up
ever since it had become a Christian people. Other changes were
sure to foUow, and however much Henry might hate Luther,
common enmity to Home was bound sooner or later to bring all
i-eformers together.
7. The great majority of Englishmen passively accepted the
long's policy ; but there were murmurs against it from the begin-
The resist- ning' from a few high-minded and clear-sighted men,
ance to the who realized more fully than most the true meaning of
supremacy, ^j^g g^p j^j^^ Fisher, bishop of Rochester, an aged
prelate of great learning and piety, protested from the beginning
against the king's action. Sir Thomas More, who had become
chancellor after Wolsey's faE, gave up his office and retired into
private life rather than acknowledge the royal supremacy. They
were not allowed to remain long undisturbed. Before the end of
1633 a daughter, named Elizabeth, was born to Henry and Anne.
As Catharine's child Mary was cut off from the succession when
the marriage of her mother with Henry had been declared invalid,
it was thought necessary to pass in 1534 an Act of Succession,
settling the crown on the Kttle Lady Elizabeth and any other
children there might be of the marriage of Henry and Anne.
Moreover, a new Treasons Act was hurried through parliament,
which made it treason to deny to the king any of his royal titles.
It was not easy for those who gainsaid the king's policy to escape
the consecLuences of these laws.
8. More and Fisher were called before Archbishop Cranmer
and asked to take the oath of succession, drawn up under the recent
More and ^°*- '^^^J said that they would willingly accept Anne
Fisher oppose Boleyn's children as future rulers of England, since an
Henry. act of parliament was competent to alter the succession
to the throne. But more than this was demanded of them. They
were required to declare Anne Boleyn Henry's lawful wife, and to
renounce the authority of the pope. These two things they declared
they could not do with a good conscience.
-1535-] HENRY VlII. AND THE REFORMATION 34I
9. Other men of less position followed or anticipated their
example. Conspiouons among these latter were many of the monks
of the London Charterhouse, one of the best ordered
of all the Eng-lish monasteries. Among other oppo- house '^'""
nents of the supremacy was Reginald Pole, a young monks and
churchman, then studying in Italy, who, as the grand- Reginald
son of George, duke of Clarence, brother of Edward iv.,
stood near to the throne (see table on page 294). Pole gave up
his prospects of high preferment in England rather than renounce
his faith. Appointed cardinal in 1536, he remained in esdle,
constantly protesting against Henry's doings.
10. Henry shut up in prison all opponents of the supremacy
within his reach, and had no difficulty in procuring their con-
demnation as traitors. In 1535 the victims of his „
policy suffered on the scaffold. The obscure monks of Fishep
the Charterhouse were among the first to die. Fisher's executed,
fate was soon settled by the rash kindness of the new
pope, Paul III., who made him a cardinal. After this, Henry at
once ordered him to be put to death. A few days later Sir
Thomas More was also executed. The sacrifice of men so famous
brought home to every one the relentless policy of Henry. The
king had trampled on all opposition, and was more master of Eng-
land than ever.
11. Henry now resolved to work out to the uttermost the
doctrine of the royal supremacy. He created a new minister, called
the king's moar-general in matters ecclesiastical, and cromwell
appointed to it one of Wolsey's former servants. This vieap-
was Thomas Cromwell, the son of a fuller at Putney, s^"®''^'-
In early life Cromwell had been driven from England for his bad
conduct, and had wandered about Italy and the Netherlands, at one
time serving as a soldier, but iinaUy taking to trade, and thriving
so wen in it, that he came back home a wealthy and prosperous
man. Wolsey took him into his service, and he was employed in
suppressing the monasteries, from whose funds the cardinal hoped
to endow his colleges at Oxford and Ipswich. After Wolsey's fall,
Cromwell behaved with such discretion that he was regarded by the
cardinal's friends as showing remarkable fidelity to his disgraced
master, while he was at the same time craftily winning the king's
favour. Yery soon Henry took him into his service, and at once
f oimd in him just the man that he wanted. Cromwell was a strong-,
able, and far-seeing- man, who had neither doubts or scruples, but
devoted all his cunning and resource to carrying out the caprices
342 HENRY Vin. AND THM REFORMATION. tiS35-
of the despot. He was just the clever tool who eoiild strike the
bold strokes that Henry was now meditating. Between 1535 and
1539 he carried out such a revolutionary change, that the abolition
of the papal power seemed but a small matter beside it.
GmciyWallcct s(^
12. The monasteries had long fallen iato evil days. In the
early Middle Ages they had done a great work in spreading religion
and civilization (see pages 66, 164, and 243), but they
monaster?^, ^"^ ^^^ *^^®^ °^* °* ^"^"^ ■^*^ ^'^^ ^Ams&. It had
long been a rare thing to set up new religious houses.
-1536.] HENRY VIII. AND THE REFORMATION 343
All through, the fifteeath century there had been plenty of liberal
foundations, but the new establishments were colleges, schools, and
houses of " secular " priests. Sometimes, as Wolsey's case showed,
it was thought a wise thing to abolish monasteries in order to
procure the money to build such new colleges. The old fervour of
devotion that had ennobled the ancient abbeys had become so rare
a thing, that the heroic self-sacrifice which had led the monks of the
Lon'don Charterhouse to become willing martyrs for their faith,
stood in marked contrast to the timidity and selfishness of the
majority of the monasteries. The greater houses were often the
abodes of formalism and dull respectabUity. In some houses there
was gross corruption ; and this seems especially to have been the case
in the smaller houses, which often were so poor that they could neither
pay their way nor live according to their rule. Most men looked
upon the monks with indifference. Pew were anxious to enter the
monastic life. Though the orders were too timid to oppose actively
the royal supremacy, they were the least national part of the Church,
being bound closely to their foreign brethren, and being at all times
good friends of the papacy. Thus their principles excited suspicion,
while their helplessness made them easy victims, and their wealth
excited the greed of the rapacious king and his minister.
13. In 1535 Cromwell sent royal commissioners throughout the
country to inquire into the state of the monasteries. The com-
missioners worked actively and unscrupulously to get
up a case against the monks, and reported to their s|j,n I'f'the^^
master that corruption and immorality were very wide- smaller
spread among them. In 1536 parliament was induced monasteries,
by their evidence to pass an Act abolishing all
monasteries that had a revenue of less than £200 a year. Their
goods were seized by the king ; and the ordinary Englishman found
out for the first time that the old religion of the country was being
undermined, when hundreds of ancient houses of religion were
ruthlessly broken up, their inmates scattered, their churches pro-
faned, and their lands squandered among greedy courtiers.
14. The north of England was the part of the country least
affected by the new ways. There the monks were stOl doing
good service, and were still beloved and popular. The _,,
sturdy north-country men broke into open revolt, to piigpimage
show their detestation of the policy that led to the sup- of Grace,
pression of the smaller monasteries. The first riots were
in Lincolnshire, but the most formidable was in Yorkshire, where a
great body of rebels gathered together at Doncaster under Robert
344 HENRY VIII. AND THE REFORMATION [1536-
Aske. The revolt was called the Pilgrimage of Grace, because the
rebels resolved to march to London on pilgrunage to the king,
hoping to persuade him to set back the Church in its old glory,
to drive away upstarts Hke Cromwell from his councils, and
to put the old nobles back in their natural places as Ms advisers.
The duke of Norfolk, sent by the king to put down the revolt,
persuaded the pilgrims to go home peaceably, and announced that
the king would redress their grievances. This broke the back
of the rebellion, but next year Henry made new riots a pretext for
violating his promise, and for hunting down and putting to death
the leaders of the rising. To prevent such revolts in the future, he
set up at York a new court, called the Council of ihe North, which
soon made the wild regions beyond the Humber as peaceable and as
dependent on his will as the richer and tamer south country.
16. The monasteries spared in 1536 soon met their fate. Crom-
well's commissioners strove hard to persuade the different abbeys
to surrender their property to the king ; when bribes
sionofthe ^^^ entreaties were of no use, threats and violence
gpeatep were unscrupulously employed. Some of the houses
ISSfi^l'sag^^' ^^^^ °^* heroically, but Henry found it easy to trump
up some charge against their inmates. Tor example,
he accused the abbot of Glastonbury of stealing the plate of the
abbey, and hanged him on a high hiU overlooking the whole
countryside, as a warning of the fate of those who resisted the king.
In three years nearly every abbey had submitted to the royal will,
and in 1639 a new act was passed which finally gave the king all
the abbey lands. There was much talk of employing the vast sums
thus confiscated to the king for public purposes, such as for
founding new bishoprics, reorganizing the navy, and defending
our coasts against invasion. But about half of the abbey estates
were squandered by the king on his friends and courtiers, or sold
to speculators at low prices. Thus the fall of the monasteries had
a great effect on the lives of the people. They not only lost their
old houses of prayer, and were shocked by the king's carelessness
of their most sacred beliefs ; they saw their easy-going old land-
lords replaced by new men who, having paid for their lands, strove
to get as high a rent as they could; and knowing and caring
nothing for their tenants, took little interest in their welfare.
The doles which the monks had scattered among the poor ceased,
as did the kindly spirit they had often shown to their dependents.
But the king gained what the people lost. The spoils of the
monasteries enabled his courtiers to become the f oxmders of a new
-IS39-] HENRY VIII. AND THE REFORMATION 345
nobility devoted to the king, from whom their prosperity csune,
and eager to help him ia his schemes. The House of Lords
became, by the fall of the mitred abbots, an assembly with a strong
lay majority, and more dependent on the king's wiU and less repre-
sentative of the Chnroh. A mere trifle was kept for the Church,
out of which six new bishoprics were set up at Chester, Gloucester,
Bristol, Peterborough, Westminster, and Oxford (see map on page
342). A few abbey churches were kept as the cathedrals of these
new sees or to replace the chapters of the old sees that had hitherto
been served by monks. A larger proportion of the spoil was spent
on other public purposes, and in particular in building ships of
war, erecting fortifications on the coast, and casting strong cannon
to equip them.
16. Other religious changes attended the suppression of the
greater monasteries : images and relics were destroyed, the shrines
of English saiuts broken up, and some of the old
Church holidays were abolished. Cranmer and Crom- gibie and*
well began to look upon the German Protestants as the growth
their allies, and persuaded the kiug to give bishoprics of ^forming
to lovers of new ways. The best of these Hugh Lati-
mer, who was m.ade bishop of Worcester, had been the friend
of some of the Protestant martyrs burned a few years earlier.
It was another great change when Henry allowed English
Bibles to be printed and circulated, and before long ordered that
every parish church should possess a copy of an edition called the
Great Bible which was issued by Cranmer himself. These versions
all showed the influence of TyndaU's earlier work. Yet at the
same time that Henry allowed them to circulate, he encouraged
Charles v. to seek out TyndaU iu the Netherlands and execute him
for heresy. Though the king was drifting towards Protestantism,
Protestants were stiU hunted down and punished. While they were
burned to death as heretics, the king still laid violent hands
on aU friends of the pope who denied the Koyal Supremacy, and
ruthlessly butchered them as traitors.
17. The king's rule was becoming a bloody tyranny. Nothing
stood in the way of his reckless will and his fierce desires. He
soon grew tired of the giddy and foolish Anne Boleyn. ™. j^,
He was disappointed that no son had been bom to and his
them, and was irritated by her unseemly dealiugs with wives.
the courtiers. Moreover, he fell iu love with a pretty lady about
the court named Jane Seymour, and Anne now stood across his
path much as the unhappy Cathariue of Aragon had once been ia
346 HENRY VIII. AND THE REFORMATION [1536-
the way of Anne herself. In 1536 Anne was accused of adultery,
tried before a court presided over by her own uncle, and, though
protesting her innocence, hurried to the scaffold. The very next
day Henry married Jane Seymour. In 1537 Queen Jane gave
him the long-hoped-for male heir, but she herself died soon after.
Queen Catharine had died before Queen Anne, so that the little
Edward, prince of Wales, was the undoubted heir of his father.
The Lady Elizabeth, Queen Anne's daughter, was now pushed
aside like the' Lady Mary. Before her mother's death, Cranmer
had pronounced the marriage invalid, so that Elizabeth and Mary
aKke were regarded as illegitimate. Queen Jane's brothers, the
Seymours, remained high in Henry's favour, and generally sup-
ported Cromwell and Cranmer in their forward reKgious policy.
18. The reckless changes brought about in religion excited
wide and increasing discontent. None now ventured on open
Con- rebellion, for even signs of disagreement with the
splraeies, king's policy invariably led to condemnation as a
traitor. In 1638 Henry Courtenay, marq^uis of Exeter,
a grandson of Edward iv. and the king's first cousin (see table on
page 284), was executed on a charge of conspiracy which was in
no way legally proved. At the same time, the brother and some
of the kinsfolk of Cardinal Pole suffered a like fate. In 1541,
Pole's mother, Margaret, countess of Salisbury, also perished on
the scaffold. There was no evidence .that the aged lady had com-
mitted treason. But it was enough that she was a daughter of the
duke of Clarence and the mother of Cardinal Pole, who had long
been doing his best to excite the Continent against Henry.
19. The Tudor despotism was now at its height. The parlia-
ment of 1539, which abolished the greater monasteries, passed a
The Six statute that gave the king's proclamations the force
Articles, of law, and thus practically surrendered to Henry the
^^^^" parliamentary right of making new laws. But Henry,
with all his self-will, was quick to perceive the signs of the times,
and perhaps he had now grown tired of change, or was fearful of
the consequences of further innovations. He induced the same
parliament to pass the Bix Articles Statute, which showed very
clearly that England had still no sympathy with the doctrines of
the German Protestants. This law affirmed strongly the chief
doctrines of the Medieeval Church. By its first clause, all who
disbelieved in the doctrine of Transuhstantiation, or the change of
the bread and wine of the Eucharist into the substance of Christ's
natural Body and Blood, were liable to be burned as heretics. In
-1540.] HENRY Vni. AND TffE REFORMATION 347
the other articles, the celibacy of the clergy, the need of auricular
(or private) confession to the priest, and the sufficiency for the
laity of receiving the bread without the wine in the Holy Com-
munion, were strongly affirmed. The Protestants, who had hoped
for everything, gave way to despair when Henry had knotted this
"whip with six strings," as they called it. The prisons were
fflled with them. Latimer gave up his bishopric ; Cranmer, who
had secretly married, sent his wife home to Germany. The
reforming period of the reign was at an end.
20. Cromwell saw that his influence was on the wane, and
made a desperate effort to win back the' favour of his master.
Henry had had little to do with foreign politics for
many years. Charles and Francis aHke stood aloof cievesand
from him, and more than once talked of ending their the fall of
jealousies by joining together to bring back England jg^™^^"'
to the old faith. Henry had therefore reason to fear .
invasion, and had little hope of support from his old allies. Crom-
well proposed that he should set off against the anger of Charles
the friendship of the North German princes, who were mostly
Protestants and all jealous of the emperor. Since Jane Seymour's
death, Henry had remained a widower. Cromwell now proposed
that he should marry Anne, sister of the duke of Cleves, a mighty
priace on the Lower Rhine, who, though not a professed Lutheran,
was inclined to favour the Protestants. This marriage, Cromwell
believed, would bind Henry closely to the German princes, and
give biTn powerful helpers against the emperor. The king rose
eagerly to the proposal, and the marriage was agreed upon. But
when Anne of Cleves came to England, the king found her duU,
plain, and ignorant of any language that he knew. He accord-
ingly turned against her from the first, and easily persuaded
Cranmer to declare the marriage void on some frivolous pretext.
At the same time, the North German princes would have nothing
to say to his proposals of an alliance* The wrath of Henry, mad-
dened by this double failure, fell on Cromwell with more crushing
force than ever on Wolsey. Norfolk, as before, eagerly took
advantage of the chance of ruining the upstart. Cromwell was
arrested on a charge of treason and heresy. Parliament passed,
without a murmur, an act of attainder. In 1540 the last strong
minister of the reign lost his head on Tower HiU. On the very
day of Cromwell's execution, Henry married for the fifth time.
His new wife was Catharine Howard, Norfolk's niece.
2L The fall of Cromwell stopped almost entirely the progress
348 HENRY VIII. AND THE REFORMATION [1540-
of the Reformation. Historians tave called the years between 1540
and 1547 the reactionary period of Henry's reign, because the
king, tired of the colossal changes which Cromwell
tlonapy 3,nd Cranmer had brought about, went back to his
pepiod, former love of ancient ways, and broke decisively with
the new opinions toward which he had long been
drifting. Norfolk, the queen's uncle, was now the chief lay noble
in. the king's council. Along with Stephen Gardiner, bishop of
Winchester, and Edmund Bonner, bishop of London, Norfolk headed
the 'men of the old learning, who, though accepting the royal
supremacy and the abolition of the monasteries, steadily set their
faces against aU further change. The men of the new learning, best
represented by the timid Cranmer and by the king's brothers-in
law, the Seymours, were allowed to remain in the council, but were
watched and suspected and excluded from aU real power. One of
the signs of the times was the passing of a curious law, forbidding
any but gentlemen to read the Bible in English. Another was the
increased number of Protestants who were burned at the stake as
heretics.
22. Foreign policy, like ecclesiastical policy, went back on its
old lines. Scotland had long given Henry a great deal of trouble.
War with -^^^ sister Margaret, who ruled for a time after
Scocland. Plodden, soon fell from power, and her son, James v., as
1542-1545. j^g grew up to manhood, was gradually brought round
to the French alliance that was ever popular beyond the Border.
James also became as great a friend of the pope as he was of King
Francis, and in both capacities gave his uncle much trouble. But
James, though a brilliant and popular king, lost the love of his
own nobles, who refused to fight for him. Accordingly, in 1642,
the English gained an easy victory at Solway Moss. James, who
was already broken in health, died soon after the battle, leaving the
throne to his baby daughter Mary, henceforth known as Mary
Queen of Scots. But the weak government of an infant queen
gave Henry his opportunity. His brother-in-law, Edward Seymour,
earl of Hertford, won a cheap reputation as a soldier by plundering
and devastating the Lowlands. Henry professed now to wish for
peace, and proposed to marry his son Edward to the little queen.
But he took a strange way of winning his object, and Hertford's
cruelties made the Scots look to France more than ever.
23. Henry was soon involved in war with France as well as
Scotland. This led him to patch up his old quarrel with Charles v.,
and, in 1541, Henry and Charles agreed upon a joint invasion of
-IS45-] HENRY VIII. AND THE REFORMATION 349
France. But Charles threw Henry over, and made a separate
peace, leaving' Henry to fight single-handed against both the
French and the Scots. In the course of the struggle ^^^j, ^j^j^
Henry captured Boulogne. This so annoyed the France,
French that they prepared a great fleet and army to l^**-
invade England. However, this proved a failure, and after fruit-
less attempts to effect a landing for their army, the French were
forced to retreat to their own harbours. Before the end of the
reign? they were glad to make a peace which left Boulogne to Henry.
24. The foreign war exhausted Henry's treasury. He had long
ago squandered the lands of the monks, and was now so poor that
he tried to set his finances straight by mixing copper _,
with the silver which was coined into money at the wave of
royal mint. But this debasing of the coinage did him reformation,
little good, as every one began to demand higher prices
for their goods, now that the shilling contained less than half
silver and the rest base metal. In his need for money, Henry
again turned greedy eyes on ecclesiastical property, and strove to
make his policy of robbery more respectable by professing once
more a great desire to purify and reform the Church. In 1545
parliament gave him power to dissolve the chantries, foundations
where priests offered masses for the repose of the souls of the dead,
and those colleges, or corporations of clergy, which, not being
monasteries, had escaped the clutches of Cromwell.
25. Norfolk and his friends now steadily lost influence. In
1542 Norfolk's niece. Queen Catharine, was executed, like her
cousin Anne, on a charge of adultery, that was proved
more clearly than most of the crimes which Henry Ho^ara"^
attributed to those who stood in. his way. Henry now and
married his sixth and last wife, Catharine Parr, a Catharine
bright young widow, who stood aside from politics,
and showed such prudence that she managed to outlive her husband.
Her brother was strongly on the reforming side, and joined with
the Seymours and Cranmer in fresh efforts to oust the Howards
and their friends from power.
26. Henry's health was now breaking up, and it was clear that
he would not live much longer. The two parties into which the
council was divided contended fiercely for supremacy, _. . ..
and the suspicious old tyrant inoHned more and more of the
to the reformers. The imprudence of the Howards Howards,
hastened on their downfall. Norfolk himself was bad-
tempered, haughty, and incompetent. His eldest son, the earl of
350 HENRY VIII. AND THE REFORMATION [ijog-
Surrey, was a gallant young nobleman of great aooomplislmients,
and famous as a versifier and tie reformer of English, poetry.
But he was as overbearing as his father, and rashly provoked the
old king's anger by assuming arms that had once belonged to the
crown. He was accused of aiming at the throne, thrown into
prison, condemned as a traitor, and beheaded early in 1547. His
father was included in the same accusation, and was also sentenced
to death. He was only saved by Henry's dying before the time
fixed for his execution. *
27. The reign of Henry viii. saw important changes in the
relations of England with the other parts of the British Islands.
Like Edward I., Henry wished to be lord of the whole
''^"^yy • of Britain and Ireland. His greediness and im-
patience prevented him from doiag anything to end
the hostility between England and Scotland. But both in Ireland
and Wales he was able to accomplish something considerable
towards efflecting his purpose. When he came to the throne, he
found Ireland was practically independent and ruled by the Norman
feudal lords of the centre and south, and by the native clan
chieftains of the wilder north and west. The Fitzgeralds, earls
of Kildare, were the most powerful of the Nonnan families, and
it was only by making them viceroys that Henry was able to keep
even a semblance of authority in the English pale. But at last the
Fitzgeralds grew too insolent for the king to be able to endure
them. In 1635 they rose in revolt, and Henry managed to break
down their power. In the years that followed, he bribed the Irish
lords by English titles and by dividing among them the lands of
the Irish monasteries. This led them to accept, at least in name,
the extension to Ireland of the doctriue of the Hoyal Supremacy.
In recognition of his increased authority, Henry gave up the
simple title of Lord of Ireland, borne by aU kings since Henry ii.
Instead of this he called himself King of Ireland, a name that
indicated a more direct and complete sway. But his policy only
started that new conquest of Ireland which his great daughter
completed.
28. Henry's efforts had more complete success in Wales. He
set up a Cowncil of Wales at Ludlow, which secured good peace in
„ the Principality and in the March aKke. There was
England no longer any need to keep up this twofold distinction,
and Wales, since the king had now become direct ruler of most of
the Marcher, lordships through the dying out of the
old feudal houses that once bore sway over them. A king, sprung
-IS47-] HENRY VIII. AND THE REFORMATION 35I
from Welsh ancestors, saw it was both a good and a popular thingf
to put an end to the humiliating dependence of Wales on England,
that had lasted siaoe the conquest of Edward 1^ Accordingly, in
1536, Henry divided all Wales into thirteen counties and incor-
porated the whole with England. The Welsh shires now sent
members to the English parliament, and had the same system of
laws as England. The county palatine of Chester was also in-
cluded in this legislation, and for the first time now became
represented at Westminster.
CHAPTER IV
EDWARD VI. (1547-1553)
Chief Dates :
1547. Accession of Edward vi. ; Battle of Pinkie.
1549. The first Prayer-book ; and the Devonshire and Norfolk revolts.
1552. Second Prayer-book ; Execution of Somerset.
1553. Death of Edward vi.
1. Heney viii.'s only son, who now became Edward vi., was a
sickly boy of ten, and much, too yotmg to rule on his own behalf.
The old king, foreseeing a long minority, had drawn
becomes ^P ^ scheme for a carefully balanced council of
Ppoteetop, regency, in which the old and the new learning should
be so eciually represented that things would not be
likely to be altered until his son became a man and could
decide for himself. The triumph of the new learning over the old
learning just before Henry's death had, however, given such a
strong position to the reformers that they were no longer content
to bide their time. Anxious for the immediate possession of office,
the reformers upset all Henry's plans, and made their leader Hert-
ford, diike of Somerset and Lord Protector, with almost royal power,
and with a council on which the reformers had the complete mastery.
2. As the little king's nearest kinsman, Somerset seemed the
most natural guardian of his nephew's throne. He had won
jjjg popularity by reason of his gracious manners, sympathy
chapactep for the poor, and skill as a soldier. Though he did
and policy, not scruple to enrich himseK with Church property,
he was more kindly and honest than most of the statesmen of his
day. His chief objects as a ruler were to carry to completion the
reforming movement that had already begun in the last years
of Henry viii.'s reign, and to continue as well as he could the old
king's foreign policy. But Somerset was not strong enough to
accomplish this double task. Weak, obstinate, and unpractical, he
never realized the necessity of doing one thing at the time. Within
three years he had failed so utterly that he was driven from power
in disgrace.
352
-I347-]
EDWARD VI.
353
3. Henry viii. had made peace with the French «iid Scots
before his death, and conunon prudence should have induced
Somerset to keep on good terms with both countries.
Two circumstances, however, strongly impelled the vasionof
Protector to take up a strong Kne as regards Scotland. Scotland,
One was that the regency, which ruled Scotland in the *®*^'
name of the little queen Mary, had persecuted the Scottish Pro-
testants with such vigour that they had risen in revolt against the
government, and, being overpowered, had appealed to England for
A . First position of Englisb army.
B. First position of Scottisli army.
— Forward march of the Scots.
D. Scottish position before the battle.
Emery 7altcer sc.
C. English position before tlie battle.
1. Grey.
2. Warwick.
3. Somerset.
assistance. The other was that Somerset was anxious to carry out
Henry vill.'s policy of uniting the two realms by the marriage
of Edward with the queen of Soots. Somerset was so eager in
helping the Scottish Protestants that he did not see that he could
not combine this course of action with the peaceful negotiations
with the regency for the marriage of Edward and Mary. Before
long his w^Jjt of tact again involved the two countries in a war,
2a
354 EDWARD VI. [1547-
■wMoh long- postponed both, the Scottish Reformation and the
reconciliation of the two British kingdoms. In September, 1547,
Somerset invaded the Lothians, and on September 10 fought
a battle against the Soots who had assembled an army to defend
Ediabnrgh. Somerset held the high land on the
Phikie° right bank of the Esk, while the Scots, posted on
rising ground on the left bank, waited for his attack.
After two days' inaction the Soots grew weary, and, crossing the
Esk, advanced against the English position. The battle was
fought near the village of Pinkie. At first the Scottish pikemen
withstood and broke the shock of Lord Grey's cavalry, who
rode down the hiU to meet them. But the presence of mind of
John Dudley, earl of Warwick, saved the situation. He charged
the victorious Scots with fresh troops, and soon put them into
confusion. Complete victory attended the English arms, but the
first use Somerset made of it was to desolate all south-eastern
Scotland with fire and sword. His military triumph counted
PostDone- ^°^ little as compared with the complete political
mentor the failure which attended it. The Soots, angry at the
Scottish invasion, saved their queen from the danger of be-
,. coming the bride of the English king, by despatching
her to France, where she was educated to be a French-
woman, a Catholic, and a bitter enemy of England. For another
ten years Scotland remained Catholic because the Reformation was
identified with England.
4. France, as usual, took up the Scottish cause, and continental
war soon followed war within Britain. The French now attacked
Botdogne, Henry viii.'s conquest, and, after a long siege,
B 1 e captured it in 1648. Desultory war continued until
after Somerset's fall, when peace was made both with
France and Scotland on terms that undid the work of Henry viii.
By it Boulogne remained in French hands.
5. At home Somerset threw his chief energy into bringing about
a further reformation of the Church. Cranmer, his chief adviser.
Progress of ^^ ^^ *^^ *™® drifted far away from Henry viii.'s
theEefopma- via media, and had become a disciple of the German
tion. Lutherans. Royal visitors of the Church were sent
throughout the land and instructed to break down images of
saints, stone altars, and emblems that savoured of the ancient
faith. Bishops of the old learning, like Bonner and Gardiner,
struggled in vain against the visitors, and, before long, were im-
prisoned and deprived of all power. A new standard of doctrine
-1549-] EDWARD VI. 355
was set forth in a Book of Somilies, written in English, which the
more ignorant clergy, who could not preach sermons of their own,
were instructed to read to their flocks as the official teaching of
the Church. Soon parliament met, and by repealing the Six
Articles statute and other laws of Henry viii., made further
changes easier. Priests were allowed to marry, and fresh confisca-
tions of Church property were ordered. Such colleges and chantries
as Henry viii. had not time to suppress were aboKshed, and most
of the money thus procured from the Church was squandered
among Somerset's friends and councillors. The protector himself
did not scruple to appropriate a good share of the spoU. A few
hospitals and schools in connection with suppressed churches were
suffered to remain, and Edward vi. has won the reputation, which
is very little deserved, of beiag a liberal founder of hospitals and
schools. He deserves little more credit for giving his name to
such old schools as he allowed to survive the general ruin, than
Henry viii. merited by continuing Wolsey's college at Oxford as
a foundation of his own.
6. The most important of the religious changes now brought
about was the abolition of the Latin services of the Church and
the setting up of an English Prayer-book. Under
Henry viii. some progress had been made in that ppa«sr-^*
direction, and Cranmer had been engaged since 1543 book of
in drafting a form of common prayer in English. Edward VI.,
His labours culminated in the Act of Uniformity of
1549, which enjoined that all churches should henceforward use the
English services contained in the First Prayer-hooJc of Udw<wd VI.
This was a very careful and reverent translation of the mediaeval
Latin services into the vulgar tongue, with certain omissions and
alterations and the combination of the numerous short forms
of the older worship into the order for Morning and Evening
Prayer. Cranmer, at his worst when his weakness made him the
puppet of contending politicians, was at his best when engaged
in this work. Though he had lost his faith in much of the ancient
creed, his timid, scholarly, and sensitive mind clung to the old
forms even when they had ceased to have their old meaning to him,
while his exquisite literary sense made the new prayers models of
pure and dignified English. In the Communion Service which
was to replace the Latin mass, great care was taken to maintain
ancient ceremonies and deal tenderly with conservative sentiment.
7. Englishmen were no lovers of novelties, and the pains
bestowed on making the new service seem like the old were
3S6 EDWARD VI. [1549-
thrown away on those who still oterished the ancient rites. When
the Prayer-book was first read in a Devonshire village church,
the congregation forced the priest to go back to his
Devonshire Latin mass, declaring that the new service was like
rebellion of a Christmas game. Then they rose in revolt after
^^*^' the fashion of the Pilgrims of Grace. They demanded
the restoration of the mass and the Six Articles, and found the
south-west overwhelmingly on their side.
8. The Devonshire revolt against the Prayer-book was only one
of Somerset's difficulties. He was much troubled by opposition
within the council, where he was soon found out to be
of Thomas ^°° weak to play the part which Henry viii. himself
Seymour, had found was all that he could do to fulfil. His own
brother, Thomas Seymour, now Lord Seymour of
Sudeley, an ambitious, rash, and foolish person, had intrigued
against him, and early in 1549 the protector found it necessary
to put him to death by an act of attainder. But the discontent
among the people was even more formidable to him than the cabals
of his rivals. While the conservative south-west was in arms against
novelties, the reformers in the eastern counties, who had no com-
The Norfolk plaints against Somerset's religious policy, set up
rebellion of another rebeUion which had its centre round Norwich.
1549. rjij^Q enclosure of commons, the turning of plough-land
into pasture, and the greediness of the new landlords who had taken
the place of the easy-going monastic proprietors, had borne hardly
upon the Norfolk peasantry. Things were worse now than they
had been thirty-five years before when More wrote his Utopia, and
the new gospel had done nothing to better the position of the poor
man. A quarrel between Robert Ket, lord of the manor of
Wymondham, and a neighbouring landlord now set the whole
countryside in a blaze. Before long Ket put himself at the head
of a mob which pulled down fences round enclosures, and demanded
that all villeins should be set free. An army soon collected under
the popular leader, who held a sort of court under an oak tree called
by him the Tree of Reformation on Mousehold Heath, near Norwich.
He kept wonderful order among his followers, and sent up moderate
demands to the council. Getting no answer, he took possession of
Norwich, and defeated the king's troops.
9. Somerset was eager to put down the Devonshire rebels, but
he sympathized with the Norfolk men, though he was too weak to
remedy their wrongs. Both revolts soon rose to a great head,
ajid the protector was helpless to put them down. Public order
-IS50-J EDWARD VI. 357
had to be restored, and stronger men now pushed him aside. John
Eussell, afterwards earl of Bedford, crushed the Devonshire revolt,
while Warwick put down the eastern rebellion with pg^jj qj.
fierce ruthlessness. A little later the council deprived Somerset,
Somerset of the protectorate, and imprisoned him '
ia the Tower. So impotent did the fallen ruler seem that his
enemies, with unusual leniency, soon released him from prison,
and restored him to the council.
10. Henceforth the council resolved to keep authority in its
own hands. But if it were hard for Somerset to wield the power
of a Henry, it was quite impossible for the greedy and
self-seeking councillors to maintaia that strong rule ascendency
which alone could save the state from confusion, of Warwick,
GraduaEy John Dudley, the earl of Warwick, son of 15*9-1553.
the minister of Henry vii., executed in 1510, worked his way into
the first place. A successful soldier of overweening ambition, he
professed a great zeal for reforming-the Church, and made himself
the head of the resolute little party which looked upon the changes
effected by Somerset as only small instalments of that com-
plete reformation which they now desired to bring about. The
misfortunes of continental Protestantism now played
into their hands. Luther and Francis i. were both influence
dead, and Charles v., who was trying hard to put down of the
the German Keformation, seemed on the very point of foreign
success. A swarm of exiles fled from hi? tyranny to
England, whose leaders, Martin Buoer of Strassburg and Peter
Martyr an Italian, were made professors of theology at Oxford
and Cambridge. They became the chief teachers of the forward
school in England, and soon had plenty of disciples. Cranmer
himseK was now drifting away from Luther, and was inclining
towards the more revolutionary teaching of the Swiss reformer
Zwingle, who denied the Eeal Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
His chaplain, the learned Nicholas Ridley, an avowed ZwingUan,
was made bishop of London in succession to Bonner, who was at
last deprived of his see for resisting the Prayer-book, and kept,
like Gardiner, in prison for the rest of the reign. Another new
bishop was John Hooper of Gloucester, the first English Puritan,
who long refused to wear the old episcopal vestments, regarding
them as rags of popery. All these men looked up to Warwick
to bring about innovations in the Church, and Warwick gladly
furthered their wishes, since each fresh change meant new distribu-
tions of Church property among h im self and his aUies.
358 EDWARD VI. li5S2-
THE DUDLEYS
Edmund Dudley,
extortioner,
executed 1510.
John Dudley,
earl of Warwick, 1547,
duke of Northumberland, 1651,
executed 1553.
I I I
Ambrose Dudley, Robert Dudley, Guildford Dudlej',
earl of Warwick. earl of Leicester, m. Lady Jane Grey,
d. 1588. executed 1654.
11. The scramble for Church property soon grew worse and
worse. Many bishoprics were suppressed, including Henry tiii.'s
new see of Westminster, and the revenues of those
scramble suffered to remain were cut down. Laymen appointed
for the themselves to ecclesiastical offices, and pocketed the
the'church revenues without performing the duties. The colleges
at Oxford and Cambridge were threatened, and it
looked as if aU the lands of the Church would be filched from her.
12. There was much discontent, but few ventured to speak. The
best and bravest of the Protestants, Hugh Latimer, said that
Execution things were worse than in the old days of popery,
of Somerset, Deprived of his bishopric of Worcester in 1539, he
1552. refused to accept another see, and devoted himself to
preaching the new gospel with absolute honesty and rare freedom
of speech. The young king gladly listened to his sermons, but he
told the truth so fully that the coundl bade hiTn preach no more
before the court. In their despair the people turned to the fallen
Somerset as a deliverer. But he was far too deeply discredited to be
able to stem the tide. His feeble efforts to win back power only led
to the completion of his ruin. Early in 1652 he was beheaded as a
felon, and Warwick, now duke of Northumberland, secured com-
plete ascendency. He alone had the ear of the young king, and
could carry everything as he would.
13. Sweeping religious changes were now brought about. The
Prayer-book of 1549 seemed to be too old-fashioned; it was re-
vised in a more Protestant sense, and in 1552 a new
Prayer- ^"^ "/ TJniformity required the use in churches of this
book of Second Prayer-hook of Edward VI. The changes in
l's52*'"^ ^'" ^^® Communion Office showed the great advance of
Zwiiiglian doctrine, and tended to set aside the dogma
of the Keal Presence which had been fully recognized in the earlier
-I5S3-] EDWARD VI. 359
book. But Crannier was still able to keep up no small meas\ire of
the spirit of the earlier office, and of all the reforms of Edward's
reign, his Prayer-book is among the most enduring and valuable.
In most essentials the book of 1552 is the same as the present
seryice-book of the English Church.
14. Other great changes followed. The most important of these
was the new Protestant form of doctrine embodied in the 'Forty-two
Articles of Religion of 1553. Derived largely from the
Lutheran confession of faith, these articles show much Forty-two
more than the Prayer-book how the English Church Aptieles,
had fallen in with the views of the continental re- ^^^^•
formers. They are the basis of the Thirty-nine Articles, which
under Elizabeth became the permanent standards of dogma in the
English Church.
15. AU seemed going well with Northumberland and the
reformers. Edward, now sixteen years of age, was strongly on
their side, and, young as he was, had already made it The failure
clear that he had inherited some of the strong will and of Edward
royal imperiousness of his father. A grave, precocious, ^"'^ health,
and solitary boy, he had been overworked from his tenderest years,
and had worried himself over problems of Church and State when
other children were at their play. His delicate frame was unable to
bear the strain put upon it, and he soon lay dying with consumption.
He was much troubled by the dangers that he foresaw would assail
Protestantism after his death. By law the next heir was his half-
sister, the Lady Mary, the daughter of Catharine of Aragon.
Though Mary had been, Kke her sister Elizabeth, declared illegiti-
mate after her mother's divorce, she had been restored to her place
in the succession. Parliament, foreseeing disaster if the succession
were disputed, had passed an act empowering Henry The testa-
VIII. to settle the future devolution of the crown by his ment of
testament. Henry had drawn up such a will whereby '*^"''y ^ "'•
he had arranged that his two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, might
both succeed in order of birth if Edward, the undoubted heir, died
without children. Moreover, he provided that if these also died
without heirs, the throne should next be settled upon the descendants
of his younger sister Mary, duchess of Suffolk, passing thus over
his elder sister Margaret, queen of Scots, whose representatives,
being rulers of Scotland, Henry regarded as disq[ualifled from being
kings of England. But these problems were as yet far in the
future.
16. Edward vi.'s zealotis Protestantism was very uneasy at the
360 EDWARD VI. [1553-
prospect of being succeeded by his sister. Mary was a bitter enemy
of tte Eeformation, and had oluag to the mass despite Acts of
„, ,, Uniformity and English Prayer-books. Under her the
device light of the Gospel would be extiaguished, and Edward
for the -^jras accordingly well pleased when Northumberland
suggested an illegal plan for changing the succes-
sion in the interests of Protestantism. Northumberland easily
persuaded the masterful young king that, like his father, he also
could assign the throne by testament. He induced him to set
aside not only Mary, but Elizabeth, who had not shown hostility to
the new system. In their stead, Edward beo[ueathed the throne
to the Lady Jane Grey, the eldest child of Prances, duchess of
Suffolk, the daughter of his aunt, Mary Tudor, and Charles Bran-
don, her second husband. Lady Jane was a girl of about Edward's
age, with something of her cousin's seriousness, and all his zeal for
the Eeformation. But the chief reason for her advancement was
that she had been married to Lord Guildford Dudley, one of
Northumberland's sons. It is clear that the real motive of the
duke was to reign through his daughter-in-law.
17. Edward had hardly drawn up his will before he became
worse, and died on July 6, 1553. For two days his death was kept
Queen Jane secret, while Northumberland won over the councillors
and Queen to give their support to the scheme. Then Lady
Mary, 1553. ~ j^ne was proclaimed queen of England. But no one,
save the zealous Protestants and Northumberland's greedy council,
wished to have her as queen. All felt that Mary had the better
title, and no one wished to continue the selfish Northumberland in
power. Mary fled to the eastern counties, where the people,
Protestants though they were, warmly supported her cause.
Northumberland started from London to oppose her, but when he
reached Cambridge his troops mutinied, and he was forced to give
up the attempt. After a ten days' nominal reign, the unfortunate
Lady Jane gave place to King Henry's daughter, amidst universal
rejoicings.
CHAPTER V
MARY (1553-1558)
Chief Dates :
ISS3- Accession of Mary.
ISS4' Restoration of papal supremacj'.
1555- Execution of Ridley and Latimer.
1556- Execution of Cranmer.
1558. Loss of Calais ; death of Mary.
1. Maet, tie first queen regnant in England, was thirty-seven
years old when slie ascended the throne. She was brave, honourable,
and religious, but her health was broken and her Accession
temper soured by the miserable life of self-suppression of Mary,
which she had led. She had her full share of the fierce l^^^.
Tudor will and character, and had ever remained true to her
mother's memory and to the ancient faith. She had consilstently
opposed the acts of her brother's ministers, and her accession
was the more welcome since it involved the reversal of their
policy.
2. Mary's first business was to undo the religious changes of her
brother's reign. Norfolk, Gardiner, Bonner, and the other victims
of Edward's ministers, were released from prison, and
became her chief advisers. She showed no great Edward's
vindictiveness against the friends of Lady Jane, and reign
only Northumberland, with two of his subordinate """°°^-
agents, atoned for their treason on the scaffold. Lady Jane and her
husband were condemned to death, but were suffered to remain in
prison. The Protestant bishops were driven from their sees, and
foreign Protestants were ordered out of the realm. As Cranmer
and the leading Protestants had become accomplices of Northumber-
land, it was easy to attack them as traitors as weU as heretics.
When parliament met, it declared Mary to be Henry's legitimate
daughter, repealed Edward vi.'s acts concerning- religion, and
restored the Six Articles, the mass, and the celibacy of the clergy.
361
362 MASV [1554-
The effect of this was to bring back the Church to the state ia
which it had been at the death of Henry vill. So completely did
the queen restore her father's legislation that she even assumed the
title of Supreme Head of the Church. For more than, a year no
further religious changes were effected. Yet the daughter of
Catharine of Aragon had not much more love for the system of her
father than for that of her brother. Her real wish was to make
England as it had been before Henry questioned her mother's
marriage. Politically, she wished to restore the imperial alliance ;
ecclesiastically, she was eager to bring back the pope and the monks.
But Gardiner and her ministers had been so long identified with
Henry vni.'s policy that they thought the reaction had gone far
enough. It required all the fierce persistency of the new queen to
realize these objects.
3. Parliament wished the queen to marry an English nobleman.
But Charles v., who had always been her good friend, proposed
The Spanish *° ^^^ ^^ ^ husband his eldest son, Philip, prince of
marriage, Spain. Maryeagerlyfell in with the suggestion, though
Philip was eleven years her junior, and there was a
grave danger to English independence in the queen becoming the
wife of the heir of Charles v. But Philip represented her.mother's
family, and was already famous for his uncompromising zeal for the
Roman Catholic Church. Thinking that her marriage with Tiinn
would realize all her ambitions by one stroke, she disregarded the
advice of council and parliament, and signed the marriage-treaty
in January, 1554. The people's dislike of the Spanish marriage
took shape in a series of revolts such as always attended an un-
popular step on the part of a Tudor monarch. The most formidable
of these was that led by Sir Thomas Wyatt, the gallant young son
of Wyatt the poet, who raised Kent and Sussex against the Spanish
match. At the head of a great following of disorderly Kentishmen,
he marched to London, and occupied Southwark. There was a
panic in the city, which was only appeased when the queen went
down to the Guildhall and inspired the Londoners with some of her
own courage. Before long, Wyatt was overpowered and captured.
This second rising was dealt with more sternly than the attempt of
Northumberland. Wyatt and other leading rebels were executed,
and Lady Jane and Lord Guildford Dudley were put to death under
their former sentence. The Lady Elizabeth, whose claims the
rebels had upheld, was for a time imprisoned in the Tower. But
Wyatt on the scaffold declared that she had no knowledge of the
conspiracy, and Elizabeth was soon set free. Henceforward the
-iSSS-l MARY 363
daugtter of A Tine Boleyn scrupulously kept on good terms with
her sister, and attended mass with a great show of devotion. Now
that the revolt was suppressed, Philip came to England, and was
married to Mary by Gardiner in Winchester Cathedral.
4. Mary strove her utmost to bring about a reconciliation
between England and the papacy. Though Gardiner had jBrst
made his name by defending the royal supremacy
under Henry viii., his experience under Edward vi. tionofthe
seems to have convinced him that his old master's papal
"middle way" led in practice to the Protestantism V^^^^^^'
which he had always opposed. He was, therefore,
willing to fail in with Ms mistress' plans. The chief opposition to
Mary came from the lay nobles who had been enriched with the
spoils of the monasteries. Knowing that the queen wished to bring
back the monks as well as the pope, they trembled for their new
estates, and refused to accept a papal restoration until they were
assured that the abbey-lands would not be given back to the Church.
When the pope had promised not to insist upon the restoration of
the monasteries, all difficulties were removed. A new parliament,
which met in November, 1554, repealed Henry viil.'s laws against
Bome, declared unlawful the title of Supreme Head of the Church
which Mary had borne since her accession, and restored the old laws
against heresy. One of the acts of this parliament was the reversal
of the attainder which in Henry viii.'s time had been passed against
Cardinal Pole. Pole, now one of the leading advisers of the pope,
had some time before been appointed papal legate, but had long
been impatiently waiting beyond the Channel untU matters were
ripe for his return. He was at last suffered to land in England,
where Mary gave him the warmest of welcomes. A few days later,
he solemnly pronounced the restoration of England to com-
munion with the Eioman Church. Thus the resolute purpose of
the queen destroyed the work of her father as well as that of her
brother. It is significant that there was no such popular revolt
against the restoration of the papacy as there had been against the
Spanish marriage.
5. There remained the punishment of those who refused to
change their religion to please the queen. Many of the Protestant
leaders under Edward vi. had escaped to the Con- -fjjg marian
tinent. But the most prominent of the Edwardian persecution,
bishops were awaiting in prison the moment of the lS°"-i558.
queen's vengeance. The revival of the heresy laws by the last
parliament enabled them to be dealt with. Early in 1555 Pole as
364 MAJ?y [1555-
legate set up a commission to try heretics, and on February 2,
John Rogers, a prebendary of St. Paul's, who had taken a promi-
nent part in translating the Bible iato English, was the first
to lay down his life for his faith. His martyrdom was rapidly
followed by that of the Puritan Bishop Hooper of Gloucester.
Alone among the Protestant leaders, Hooper had refused to take
part in Northumberland's effort to deprive Mary of her throne,
but his loyalty availed bim nothing. He was condemned as a
heretic, deprived of his bishopric, and burnt at Gloucester under
the shadow of his own cathedral. A little later Bishop Terrar
of St. David's was burnt at Carmarthen, the chief town of his
diocese. He was one of the most obscure and harmless of the
bishops, but this did not prevent his being singled out as an
example.
6. More prominent Protestant martyrs followed iu Latimer,
Ridley and Cranmer. Like Hooper, Latimer had had no share iu
Martyrdom Northumberland's treason, and was so generally re-
ef Latimer speoted that he was long allowed to remain at large, and
and Ridley, every chance was given him to escape to the continent.
But he scorned to flee, and cheerfully journeyed to London to answer
a charge of heresy. Ridley and Cranmer had been deeply implicated
in Northumberland's conspiracy, but the queen preferred to keep
them in prison until they might be punished as heretics rather
than execute them earlier as traitors. In March, 1555, all three
were sent to Oxford to dispute with Catholic divines on the doctrine
of the mass. After many disputations and delays, a commission of
bishops on October 1 sentenced Ridley and Latimer. A fortnight
later they met their end with splendid courage.
7. Cranmer still lingered for five months in his Oxford prison.
He had been consecrated before the breach with Rome, and had
The fate of duly received his pallium from the pope. He could not,
Cranraep, therefore, be condemned so swiftly as the schismatic
1556. bishops whose power the Church had never recognized.
An archbishop could only be tried and deprived by the pope himself,
and the papal court moved slowly. At last his condemnation and
degradation were efieoted, whereupon the pope appointed Pole his
successor as archbishop. In February, 1556, Cranmer's priestly
gown was torn from him, and, clad as a layman, he was handed over
to the sheriff for execution. He was an old man, and his character
had always been feeble. At the last moment he was persuaded to
recant, and his cruel enemies forced him to sign no less than seven
forms of abjuration. But there was no mercy for the man who
-i5S8.] MAJiy 365
had divorced Catharine of Aragon, and, despite his submission, he
was ordered to execution. On March 21, before the sentence was
effected, he was taken to the uniTersity church to hear a sermon
on the enormity of his offences. At its end he was called upon to
read his recantation to the people. The timid scholar foirad his
courage in the presence of death. " I renounce," he said, " and
refuse aU such papers as I have written and signed with my
hand since my degradation, wherein I have written many
things untrue, and as my hand offended, my hand therefore shall
be first burnt." He was at once hurried from the church
to the stake. When the fire was lighted, he plunged his right
hand into the flame, exclaiming, " This hand has offended."
The courage of his end did something to redeem the weakness of
his life.
8. The five episcopal victims were the most conspicuous of the
Marian martyrs. Though nearly three hundred other persons
perished for their religion between 16S6 and 15S8, the ^j,g jgjggp
great majority of them were obscure clergymen, victims of
tradesmen, and workmen. Nearly aU the martyrs Pei'seeution.
came from London and its neighbourhood. This was partly
because Bonner, who was again bishop of London, and Pole,
whose diocese included most of Kent, were the most active of the
persecuting prelates. But the truth was that outside the home
counties there were few Protestants to burn. The only other
dioceses where victims were numerous were those of Norwich and
Chichester (see map on page 342). Thus the limitation of the perse-
cution to so short a time and so small an area made it the more
severe. Sympathy vrith the brave deaths of the sufferers did more
to set up a Protestant party in England than all the laws of King
Edward or all the preaching of his divines.
9. The fierce persecution of the Protestants has given Mary and
her advisers an evil reputation in history which they do not alto-
gether deserve. In the sixteenth century, as in the
Middle Ages, it was stiU thought the business of the ^ep^tton"^
state to uphold religious truth and to put down false in the
teaching by the severest means. To tolerate ej-ror sixteentli
was regarded as a sin, and it was looked upon as some-
thing like rebellion for a subject to reject the religion of his
sovereign. Protestant and CathoUo kings aKke had sent those
who disagreed with their doctrines to the scaffold. "We have seen
how many were the victims of Henry viii.'s ecclesiastical policy.
Edward vi. had burnt the extreme Protestants called Anabaptists,
366 M^J?Y [IS53-
and Calvin himself had condemned to death the Unitarian Ser-
vetus. The faults of Mary and Pole were those of fanatics and
enthusiasts, and not those of cruel or unscrupulous persons. Even
Bonner was coarse and callous rather than vindictive or ill-natured.
The real punishment of Mary and her friends was in their com-
plete failure to stamp out their enemies by force. Fortunately for
his reputation, Gardiner died in 1555, at the very heginning of the
persecution.
10. It was not only by repression that Mary strove to secure
the triumph of her Church. She forced her parliament to restore
firstfruits to the pope, and spent what money she
of B^rv" could in reviving a few of the monasteries, including
Westminster Abbey. Grave troubles at home and
abroad soon distracted her energies into other channels. She had
disputes with her House of Commons, which, for the first time
under the Tudors, showed a disposition to oppose the government.
There were several popular revolts, and some of the bolder Protestant
refugees procured ships from France with which they practised
piracy on the English coasts. The q[ueen's health became wretched,
and her domestic Hfe was most unhappy. Pole was her only
real friend, and Philip of Spain neglected her utterly until he
wished to secure her help in the war which he was waging against
France.
11. Between 1552 and 1559 the last of the great struggles
between France and the Empire was being fought. Henry ii., king
of France since his father Francis's death in 1547,
be^wee'' proved himseK as formidable to Charles and Philip as
France and ever his father had been. After successfully saving
the Empire, ^i^ German Protestants from Charles's designs against
them, Henry allied himself with Pope Paul rv. to
upset imperial domination in Italy. He succeeded so far that
Charles v., crippled with gout and weary with his misfortunes,
abdicated his dominions in 1556. His German possessions and the
name of emperor went to his brother Ferdinand, king of Hungary
and Bohemia, who became the founder of the junior or Austrian
branch of the house of Hapsburg. Spain and the Indies, Italy,
the Netherlands, and the county of Burgundy went to Mary's
husband.
12. Philip II. of Spain" made a great effort to secure victory
over France. In 1557 he persuaded Mary to take part in the
struggle, and broke the back of the French resistance by his famous
victory of St. Quentin. He restored the Hapsburg power in
-ISS8-] MARY 367
Italy by crushing Paul iv. as completely as his father had defeated
Clement vii. Henceforth the papacy was reduced, like the other
Italian states, to obey the ■wiU of Philip, who completely Eneland at
dominated Italy. Deprived of temporal power, the war with
popes were thrown back upon their ecclesiastical posi- fccJffccn
tion, in the strengthening of which they could count
on Philip's support. It was, however, a strange irony that Mary
was forced by her Catholic husband to be a party to war against the
pope, whom she had restored to the headship of the English Church.
Beaten on the battlefield, Paul iv. revenged his defeat by accusing
Cardiaal Pole of heresy and depriving him of his position as papal
legate. The French also revenged themselves for Philip's triumphs
at St. Quentin at the expense of Ms weak ally. In January, 1658,
they stormed Calais, the last remnant of the triumphs
of the Hundred Tears' War. The loss of Calais was °^^* j|gg
the final blow to the unhappy Mary. She died
November 17, 1658, and next day Cardinal Pole followed her to
the tomb. Both died conscious of failure. The work to which
they had devoted their lives was forthwith to be undone after their
decease.
CHAPTER VI
ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS
(1558-1587)
Chief Dates :
1558. Accession of Elizabeth.
1559. Acts ol Supremacy and Uniformity.
1561. Mary Stewart returns to Scotland.
1565. Parker's Advertisements.
1568. Mary Stewart escapes lo England.
1569. Revolt of the Northern Catholics.
1570. The pope excommunicates Elizabeth.
1572. The revolt of the Dutch from Spain.
1576. Grindal, archbishop of Canterbury.
1577-1580. Drake's voyage round the world.
1579. The Union of Utrecht and the Desmond rebellion.
1583. Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury.
1584. The Bond of Association and the breach with Spain.
1586. Babington's plot and the battle of Zutphen.
1587. Execution of Mary Stewart.
1. Elizabeth was just five Emd twenty when she became queen.
Ste was tall and good-looking', with, strong features, a gi-eat hooked
Character nose, fair complexion, and Ught auburn hair. Pos-
and policy of sessed of a magnificent constitution, she worked as
Elizabeth. liard at amusing herseH as on business of state. She
inherited many of her father's kingly qualities, and made herself
popular by her hearty friendly ways and by going on progress
throughout the country and receiving the hospitality of the
gentry. With Henry's love of power and instinct for command,
she also inherited some of her father's coarseness and insensibility.
She was unscrupulous, regardless of the truth, and even in small
matters there was little that was womanly or sensitive about her.
Selfish as she was, she had a fuU share of that fine Tudor instinct
which identified itself with the country which she ruled, and she
watched over the interests of England as she looked after her own
personal afPairs. Though carefully educated, like all Henry's
children, she was little influenced by the literary movements of
her age, and, though forced as Anne Boleyn's daughter to take
368
1558.] ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 369
up the reforming side in religion, she was to a very smaE
extent affected by religions feeling. Clear-headed, far-seeing, and
competent, strong, conrageons, and persistent, her great delight
was in exercising power, and she loved to rule so well that she
would not share her authority even with a husband. To her
father's strength and statecraft Elizabeth also added a large share
of her mother's light and frivolous character. She was extremely
vain, and enjoyed the grossest flattery. She loved gorgeous
dresses, and as she grew old delighted to hide the ravages of time
by false hair, paint, monstrous ruffs, and stiff farthingales. She
found it hard to make up her mind in little matters, and found it
politic seldom to show her full purpose in great ones. But she
showed a rare consistency of purpose in carrying out for the forty-
flve years of her reign the same general poUoy which she had
marked out for herseK at the moment of her accession. Amidst
the many trials of a period of revolution, she safely steered the
ship of state through the breakers, and was able to enjoy during
her declining years the calms that succeeded the storms of her
middle life. Never a very attractive or amiable woman, she was
one of the greatest of our rvilers, and in the worst trials of her
reign she did not lose faith either in England or in herself.
2. Like Henry viil., Elizabeth was her own chief minister, but
few rulers have had more able statesmen to assist her in carry-
ing out her ideas. To these she clave with such per-
sistence that her servants grew old in her service, minister^? ^
and were unswervingly loyal to her, though she
was niggardly in rewarding them, and callous in the extreme
when policy made it expedient for her to shift the blame of an
unpopular or risky act from herself to her helpers. The chief of
her advisers was Sir William CecU, who, first as r^^ Cecils
secretary of state and then as treasurer, served and the
her with unostentatious fidelity from her accession "*cons.
to his death in 1598, though his efforts to make her policy more
Protestant and more uncompromising were constantly discouraged
by her, and he received no higher reward than the barony of
Burghley, which made him, as he said, "the poorest lord in
England." With >n'm worked Ms brother-in-law. Sir Nicholas
Bacon, the keeper of the Great Seal, whose long service was
not even rewarded by the title of chancellor. OfBoe was almost
hereditary, and Sir Kobert Cecil, Burghley's second son, was as
prominent as the secretary of the queen's declining years as his
father had been in the earKer part of her reign, while the lord
2b
370 ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS [1558-
keeper's brilliant amd ambitious son, Sir Francis Bacon, was
bitterly disappointed that his cousin's jealousy excluded him from
following' in the same way in his father's footsteps.
Wising- Perhaps the ablest of Elizabeth's advisers was Sir
Francis Walsingham, secretary of state from 1573
to 1590, whose sincere but unscrupulous devotion to his mistress's
interests enabled him to worm out the secrets of her enemies and
conf o\md the plotters who were constantly striving to deprive her
of her life and throne.
3. Beside the plain and hard-working statesmen was the crowd
of worthless courtiers, who amused the queen's leisure and glorified
Leicester ^^^ beauty and wisdom. It was only in favour of
and the these giddy pleasure-seekers that she broke through
eouptisps. j^gj, ggjigral rule of parsimony, by lavishing grants and
tities upon them. The chief among them was her old playfellow,
Lord Robert Dudley, the younger son of the duke of Northumber-
land, whom she loved for old association's sake as well as for his
good looks, fine dress, and skill as a courtier. She made him eaxl
of Leicester, and would have married him but for her resolve to
live and rule alone. Down to his death in 1588 she never lost her
devotion to him, and spoilt some of her boldest enterprises by
entrusting them to his incompetent direction.
4. The first task that lay before the queen was the settlement of
the Church. She had seen how both Edward vi. and Mary had
failed in their ecclesiastical policy because each had,
Elizabethan though in different ways, taken up too extreme a line,
settlement She had unbounded faith in her father, and experience
rvi'^'^h clearly brought home to her the exceUence of the
middle way that Henry viii. had pursued. Great
difficulties, however, beset her on both sides. The Protestant
exiles hurried back to England and clamoured for a reformation
even more thorough-goiug than that of Edward vi. But the
ministers and bishops of Mary were still in power, and the Catholic
party was strongly backed up from abroad. Moreover, since
Grardiner and Bonner abandoned the system of Henry viii., there
were few prominent men left who believed in his particular policy.
Elizabeth was forced, therefore, to ally herself with the Protestants
in order to defeat the Catholios, and their support could only be
gained by reverting mainly to the system of Edward vi. Finding
convocation opposed to all change, she fell back on parliament,
where, in January, 1669, she carried through new Acts of Supremacy
and Uniformity, despite the opposition of the bishops.
-1563-] ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 37 1
5. The Aot of Siyaremacy of 1559 followed the general Hnea
of Henry viii.'s Aot of 1534, and completely renounced aU papal
jurisdiction over England. Bnt Elizabeth cantiously
dropped tie title of Supreme Head of the Church, and ^pr*macy
was content to he described as "the only svpreme and
Governor of this realm, as well in all spiritual or Unifopmtty,
ecclesiastical things or causes, as temporal." After
this fashion the queen sought to prevent men thinking that she,
like her father, claimed to exercise spiritual iurisdiction over the
Church, as though she were its chief bishop. The new Act of
Uniformity showed the same spirit of compromise. Koughly
speaking, it restored the Second Prayer-book of Edward vi. as the
future service-book of the English Church. Several significant
changes were, however, made in it. The Comtmunion Office was so
drawn up that both the Zwinglian doctrine of the Eucharist and
the opposing doctrine of the Keal Presence might seem to be
allowed, while the famous Ornaments Rubric was added, ordering
that all ornaments of the Church should be retained as they were
in the second year of Edward vi.
6. So careful was Elizabeth to avoid committiag herself that it
was not until 1563 that she allowed a new statement of doctrine to
be drawn up. This was contained in the Thirty-nine
Articles, based on the Forty-two Articles of 1553, but Thirty-nine
these articles had been carefully revised with the view Articles,
of making them less offensive to the friends of the old l^^^-
faith. Such were the main outlines of the EUzabethan settlement
of the Church. Though clothed for the most part in the forms
of Edward vi., it was inspired by the spirit of Henry viii. rather
than that of Somerset or Northumberland. Its defects were
that it was a settlement of a politician rather than that of an eccle-
siastic, and, that while hated by the Roman Catholics, it was only
accepted as a first instalment pf change by the thorough-going
Protestants.
7. Elizabeth had made up her mind that no further alterations
should be made, and having fixed the form of her Church, she now
strove to enforce obedience to it. Only one of the Arehbishop
Marian bishops would accept her policy, and all the Parlter,
rest were deprived of their sees. The majority, in- '5S9-157S.
eluding Bishop Bonner, spent the rest of their lives in prison. In
their place, Elizabeth appointed as many bishops of her own way of
thinking as she could find. She was especially lucky in procuring
a man after her own heart as Pole's successor at Canterbxiry. This
372 ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS [1559-
was Matthew Parker, a wise and learned man, who, when deprived
of his deanery of Lincoln under Mary, had preferred to live quietly
in England rather than escape to the continent with the advanced
reformers. Like Elizabeth, he looked on things from a purely
English standpoint, and, after the queen, was the only prominent
upholder of her middle way. In 1559 Elizabeth set up a permanent
Court of Ecclesiastical Commission, called also the High Com-
inission Court, of which Parker was the chief commissioner. Its
object was to exercise the royal supremacy over the Church, and
enforce the Elizabethan settlement on aU the clergy.
8. EHzabeth insisted that aU her subjects should accept her
creed and attend her Church, and gradually imposed fines and
Elizabeth otlie^^ penalties on those who refused to do so. The
and the friends of the pope who could not in conscience he
Roman present at Protestant services, were branded as Popish
Recusants, and their lot constantly became harder.
At first, however, Elizabeth and Parker did not experience much
trouble from the Eoman Catholics. Most of the parish clergy
accepted the new settlement, though many were so disloyal to it
that it was gradually found necessary to deprive a large number
of their benefices. The majority of the friends of old ways were,
however, too sluggish and inert to oppose the government
effectively. The real trouble was not with the passive resistance
of the old-fashioned clergy as much as with the unwillingness of
the more ardent Protestants to accept the Elizabethan compromise.
9. The leaders of the disaffected Protestants were the returned
Marian exiles. Many of these had, during their banishment,
Geneva become the disciples of the great French Protestant
and the John Calvin, who, up to his death in 1564, reigned
Calvlnlsts. ^^^ ^ despot over Church and state in the free city
of Geneva, the chief stronghold of advanced Protestantism on
the continent. There they had become enthusiasts for the rigid
dogmatic system called Calvinism, which taught that God was
a stem taskmaster, dealing out salvation and reprobation in
accordance with His predestined decrees. The Church of Geneva
had, moreover, abandoned the rule of bishops, and was governed by
little councils of ministers, aU equal in rank, and named presbyters,
so that this system was called Presbyterianism. Moreover, it
rejected fixed forms of prayer like those of the English service-
books, and worshipped God with the utmost simplicity of ritual,
■while enforcing a rigid system of moral discipline over the whole
congregation. From their profession of purity in doctrine,
-1565-] ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 373
worship, and life, the English followers of Calvin were generally
described as Puritans.
10. To Calvin's followers ia England, Elizabeth's Church
seemed far removed from the apostolic purity of the Church of
Geneva. If at first they supported it, in the hope that
Elizabeth, Kke Edward vi., would soon bring about puritans
more changes, they became very discontented when and the
they fotind that the queen had set her face against Elizabethan
further innovations. They had no love of bishops,
disliked set forms of prayer and elaborate ceremonies, and thought
the special dress worn by the English clergy a relic of Roman
CathoUe times. Many of the Puritan clergy obstinately refused
to wear surplices when conducting divine worship, and neglected
such forms as the use of the sign of the cross in baptism and
kneeling to receive the communion. Their opposition was the
more important since they included the majority of the active and
high-minded Protestants, and it was only with their help that
Elizabeth could fight the battle against Home. For this reason
the queen was forced for the first few years of her reign to let
them have their own way. As she grew stronger, she resolved to
enforce the law. The repression of Puritanism began in 1566,
when the archbishop issued a series of directions to the clergy,
called Pa/rker's Advertisements, which ordered that the minister in
aU churches should wear a surplice, and conform to the jj,g A^ver-
other directions of the Prayer-book. Though the tisements,
advertisements rather relaxed than changed the law, ^°°°-
a storm of protest from the Puritans burst out against them.
Nevertheless, Elizabeth and Parker persevered, and in 1566 about
thirty clergymen, mainly in London, were deprived of their benefices
for their obstinate refusal to wear the vestments enjoined by law.
Embittered by the queen's action, the Puritans soon broadened the
ground of their attack on the Church. Not content with simply
rejecting ceremonies, they denounced the government of the
Church by bishops, and demanded that the English Church should
be made Presbyterian like the Church of G-eneva. The leader of
this party was Thomas Cartwright, a professor of divinity at
Cambridge, and a book called An Admonition to Parliament,
written by two of his friends, explained his objections to the
Prayer-book and episcopacy.
11. Some of the clergy ejected for refusing to wear surplices
were not content to abandon their teaching, and formed separate
congregations of their own. These were called Seeta/ries, because
374 ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS [1558-
they formed new sects, or Sepa/ratists, because they separated from
the Church altogether. One of their leaders was Robert Brown,
who taught that there should be no national organ iza-
Separatists. ^°^ °^ religion, but that each congregation was a
self-governing Christian Church. From him the
Separatists were caRed Brownists, and from his teaching they got
the name of Independents. They were the first Protestant Dis-
senters in England, though for a long time they were few in
number and bitterly persecuted. The mass of Puritans had, how-
ever, no sympathy with the Separatists. They remained in the
Church, and many of them held livings in it. Though always
liable to be deprived of their benefices, many contrived to evade
compliance with the hated ceremonies. For this reason they were
called Nonconformists. But these early Nonconformists were dis-
contented and disobedient Churchmen, not Dissenters. Separatists
denounced them as " hypocrites, who strain at a gnat and swallow
a camel."
12. Parker died in 1575, and the new archbishop, Edmund
Grindal, was much more friendly to the Puritans. After a few
years he provoked the queen's wrath by refusing to
Grfndal P^* down meetings of the Puritan clergy called
1576, and Prophesyings, which Elizabeth disKked, because they
Whltgift, encouraged the Zealots to resist her authority. In
great anger, she suspended Grindal from his office, and
soon afterwards he died in disgrace. In 1583 Elizabeth put into
Grindal's post John Whitgift, an old enemy of Cartwright at
Cambridge and a bitter enemy of the Puritans, though, like most
of the Elizabethan bishops, he was a Calvinist in theology. Whit-
gift's strenuous enforcement of conformity infuriated the Puritans,
and increased the number of Separatists, who revenged themselves
for their persecution by attacking the bishops in scurrilous
pamphlets, called the Martin Marprelate Tracts. Though the
attitude of Puritans and Separatists showed that Elizabeth's ideal
„ , , of a united and submissive Protestant Church was but
nookeF s
" Eeelesiasti- ^ dream, the latter years of her reign saw a distinct
cal Polity," strengthening of the Church and a weakening of ex-
treme Puritanism. The close of the century was marked
by the rise of a school of divines, whose teaching tended to draw a
deeper Ene between the Church and the Puritans. The greatest
of these was Richard Hooker, whose famous book on the Laws of
JEcclesiastical Polity, published in 1593, showed that beautiful and
seemly practices sanctioned by tradition were not to be rejected
-r6o3.] ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 375
because not enjoined in tlie Soriptirres. Before long otiers went
fnrtier tlian Hooker, and taught that a Church without bishops,
such as the Puritans preferred, was no Church at all. Thus the
system, which had begun as a politic compromise began to have
defenders on grounds higher than expediency. Yet the Puritans
remained a strong party in the Church, though it became increas-
ingly difficult for them and their rivals to live side by side within
the same communion.
13. The period which saw Calvinism checked and limited in
England witnessed the establishment of its absolute ascendancy in
Scotland. For ten years after her daughter had been
sent to Prance, Mary of G-uise had upheld a Prench
and Catholic polioy in Scotland as successfully as Mary Tudor had
upheld the Spanish and Catholic policy in England. The few
pioneers of Scottish Protestantism were driven into exile. Among
these was a priest named John Knox, whose fiery eloquence had
made him a popular preacher of extreme Protestantism in England
under Edward vi., though his stern Puritan principles led him to
refuse the bishopric which was ofEered to him. On Edward vi.'s
death he fled to Geneva, and strengthened his Puritanism at the
feet of Calvin. When Elizabeth became q[ueen he wished to return
to England, but she would not admit him because he had
written a wild book called The Blast of the Trumpet against the
Monstrous Regiment of Women, in which he denounced the rule
of queens as contrary to the Scriptures. Thereupon Knox boldly
returned to Scotland, where, despite Mary of Guise's efforts.
Protestantism was beginning to make some headway. A league of
Scots nobles, called the Lords of the Congregation, had been recently
formed against the regent and the bishops. Knox now threw all
his masterful energy and unconquerable will on the reforming side.
A fierce fight between Mary of Guise and the lords of the congre-
gation ensued. Though the people were strongly Protestant, the
regent obtained troops from Prance, and pressed the rebels so hard
that they were forced to appeal to Elizabeth for help.
14. Elizabeth hated rebels and John Knox, but she saw the
obvious advantange in winning over the Scots from Prance and the
papacy, and, while professing not to approve of the jj,q
Scottish revolt, she sent, in 1560, sufficient forces to Reformation
Scotland to besiege the French in Leith. Mary of 'In Scotland.
Guise now died, and before long the defenders of Leith signed the
treaty of Edinburgh, by which both the English and French
troops were to quit Scotland. As soon as foreign influence was
376 ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS [1558-
removed, tte Soottisli Parliament abolished the power of the pope
and accepted Eaiox's scheme for making the Church of Scotland
correspond in all important points with the Church of Geneva.
Popular tumults completed the destruction of the old Scottish
Church. Churches and monasteries were burnt and pillaged, the
mass violently suppressed, and the lands of the Church were seized
by the victorious nobles. The only thing that Knox could not do was
to persuade the Protestant lords to set aside a large share of Church
property for the relief of the poor and the setting up of a school in
every parish. The barons even grudged the scanty endowments left
to the Protestant ministers. But however poor they were, Knox
and his brother clergy henceforth exercised wonderful power over
Scotland. The chief council of the Presbyterian Church, called
the General Assembly, had more influence and better expressed the
wishes of the people than the Scottish parliament. From the
adoption of Presbyterianism the modern history of Scotland begins,
for in welcoming the new faith the Soots nation first began to grow
conscious of itself. Never were movements more strongly con-
trasted than the short, swift, logical, destructive Reformation in
Scotland and the political, compromising, half-hearted English
Eef ormation, im.posed on a doubtful and hesitating people by the
authority of the crown. But the movements had this in common,
that in making Rome the common danger to both countries, it
brought England and Scotland together in a fashion that had
never been possible since Edward i.'s attacks on Scottish inde-
pendence. Soon the old hostility began to abate between English
and Scots, so that what had seemed to Henry viii. a qmie im-
possible thing — the acceptance by England of the king of Scots
as their ruler — was peacefully accomplished after Elizabeth's
death.
15. While Scotland thus became Presbyterian, her (jueen was
growing up to womanhood as a Catholic and a Frenchwoman.
Beautiful, accomplished, tactful, and fascinating, she
of^Seots!^^" had rare capacity for commanding the sympathy and
afEection of those who were brought into close relations
with her. Different as she was from Elizabeth, there were yet as
many points of comparison as of contrast between them. More
straightforward and simple than her English rival, loving boldness,
directness, and plain speaking, she rose superior to the petty
vanities of Elizabeth, though she could not compete with her in
persistency, hard work, and statecraft. Ambition and love of
power were the guiding motives of both queens, though Mary was
-1S59-] ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 377
liable to be turned from Ler pxirpose by g^usts of passion to which
the colder nature of Elizabeth was almost a stranger. Both were
born to be leaders of religious parties, and Mary, though almost
as destitute of deep religious feeling as her rival, had the
loyalty to the old Church which a good soldier has to his general,
and strove with aU her might to uphold its interests. It was her
misfortune always to be the champion of the losing side, and thus
to sacrifice her life in fighting impossible battles. In the cause of
her Church and people she struggled with extraordinary courage
and resource, and often with but little regard to honour or
priuciple. She was no national queen Kke Elizabeth. When she
came to Scotland her people were already hopelessly alienated from
her creed and her French friends, and she was perforce compelled
to play a more personal game than that of her rival. Tet the long
struggle between them was not only the contest of rival queens ; it
involved the last great struggle between the old and the new faiths
of which circumstances had made them the champions.
16. Even more than the preceding generation the age of
Elizabeth is pre-eminently a period of religious conflict. Though
Lutheranism had lost its early energy, Calvinism m^e
was still in its full career of conquest. It had over- Counter-
whelmed Scotland and threatened England. It was Keforma-
making great strides in France, and becoming in-
creasingly powerful in the Netherlands. But side by side with the
growth of Calvinism the forces of Catholicism had revived. The
laxity and corruption of the old Church, which had made easy
the preaching of Luther, were swept aside by a great religious
revival in Catholic lands, called the Counter-Reformation, or
the Catholic Reaction. The papacy had reformed itself, and the
popes were no longer politicians or patrons of art, but zealots and
religious leaders. New religious orders had been set up to teach
the old faith to the heathen, the heretic, or the indifPerent. Con-
spicuous among these was the Order of Jesvs, set up in 1540 by the
Spaniard, Ignatius Loyola, and already conspicuous all over Europe
for its zeal, tact, and devotion, its iron discipline, its influence on
the education of the youth, and its willingness to sacrifice everything
to further the service of the Church. Jesidt missionaries soon
became the most ardent and successful champions of the Counter-
Reformation, while for those whom no argument would reach there
was still the Inquisition, revived and reorganized, a Church court
which sought out and tried heretics and handed them over to the
state to burn them. The worst abuses of the Church had been
378 ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS I15S9-
removed, its f aitt defined, and its discipline improved by the Cowncil
of Trent, which held its final sessions in 1563. Thus the reform of
Catholicism and the counter growth of Calvinism had the result of
dividing Europe into two religious camps, bitterly opposed to each
other, and ready to plunge into mortal conflict. The consequence was
that the next forty years saw religious strife taking the place of the
old struggle of the nations for supremacy. National hatreds were
almost forgotten in the fierce sectarian animosities that divided
every nation in middle Europe into two factions, and soon was to
bring about warfare in nearly every land. We shall never rightly
understand the policy of Elizabeth if we do not realize that all
her action, at home and abroad, was determined by her relation
to the great struggle which was convulsing Europe.
17. The point of European history in which the Counter-Refor-
mation began to complicate the general course of poKtics coincided
ThBtpeatv roughly with Elizabeth's accession. The war which
of Le Cateau- Philip II. had waged with English help against
Cambpssls. Prance stiU lingered on, but Philip had so fully
secured victory that, in April, 1559. Prance was compelled to
make peace. This was done in the treaty of Le Cateau-Cambresis,
by which Spain finally obtained the chief control of Italy, but
allowed the French to keep Calais, so that England had to pay the
price of her ally's success. This peace marks the end of the long
struggle for supremacy in Europe which had begun with the war
of Louiis XII. against Maximilian and Perdinand, and had culminated
in the rivalry of Francis i. and Charles v. Though the dominions
of Charles v. were divided, Ms son, Philip of Spain, the lord of
the most important of his possessions, was inoontestably the first
power in Europe. The death of Henry 11. of France soon alter
the conclusion of the treaty added still further to Philip's pre-
dominance. There were no more strong kings of Prance for more
than thirty years, during which period the three worthless sons of
Henry 11. successively ruled.
18. Among the motives for the conclusion of the treaty of Le
Cateau was the recognition by both the French and Spanish kings
that it was inexpedient for the two chief Catholic
and the " monarohs to continue fighting when neither of them
Counter- was able to stop the growth of Protestantism in his
Uon ™* own dominions. Philip now set himself to work with
a win to stamp out Calvinism in his Netherlandish
possessions, while Francis 11. of France was, through his wife Mary
Stewart, induced by her mother's kinsfolk, the house of Gruise,
-1563.] ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 3^9
tte most strenuous upholders of Catkolioism in Franco, to take
vigorous measures to suppress the Calvinists of France, who were
more generally called Suguenots. National animosities, however,
could not die down in a day, and Spain and Prance long pp^neis II
remained so exceedingly jealous of each other that and his
they found it impossible to work together for a common Queen.
purpose. This was particularly fortunate for England since French
illwill had by no meais ceased at the peace. Not content with
her position as queen of France and Scotland, Mary Stewart
assumed the title of queen of England, and strict Catholics were
reminded that the pope had never sanctioned the marriage of
Anne Boleyn to Henry viii., and that their daughter could never
be therefore the legitimate queen of England. In Rivalry of
the face of such a, challenge Elizabeth can hardly be Mary and
blamed for helping the Scottish Protestants to establish ^^'^^°^''"-
their supremacy. The result of the triumph of the Scottish
Reformation was the practical destruction of Mary Stewart's
power in her native land, since the Scots had eflected their
revolution without seeking for or obtaining her good will, and
the effect of their action was to set up a Calvinistic republic in
Scotland.
19. Before many months, however, the sickly Francis 11. died,
and his brother and successor Charles ix. was controlled by their
mother, Catharine de' Medici, a cunning Italian, who
feared the Guises, and sought to maintain the royal f,rLe
power by balancing the Protestants against the Havre,
CathoUos. Religious war broke out as the result of *^^^'
this in France, and the Huguenots, who were but a minority of
Frenchmen, were so soon beaten that they called upon Elizabeth
for help. Elizabeth, though professing a great reluctance to help
rebels, soon succumbed, as in Scotland, to the temptation of making
her profit out of the divisions of her enemies. She sent some help
to the Protestants, who in return put her in possession of Le
Havre, which she hoped to hold as an equivalent for Calais. Un-
luckily for her the French factions made peace, and in 1563 united
to expel the English from their new foothold beyond the Channel.
But the weak rule of Charles ix. and the continuance of religious
struggles prevented France from inflicting harm on England.
Moreover, French hostility to England made Philip 11. anxious to
keep up his alliance with her, despite his disgust at the religious
chano-es brought about after Elizabeth's succession. Thus Elizabeth
was able to steer between the rivalries of the chief continental
380 ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS [1561-
poTvers. The contiauaitioii of the old national animosities saved
England from the greatest danger that she could enootmter — ^the
danger, namely, of a combination of Catholic powers against her.
With great s kill and cmming Elizabeth kept England as free as
she coiild from the intrigues of the continent, and sought to work
out her country's destinies after her own fashion.
20. In 1561 Mary Stewart returned to Scotland. She had no
prospects of power in France after her husband's death, and her
bold spirit preferred to abandon the comfort and repose
rfsTotl"^^" that the land of her adoption still offered the queen
pestoped to dowager for the risks and excitement of attempting
Scotland, to play the royal part in the co\mtry that hated her
religion and rejected her authority. She was coldly re-
ceived in Scotland, but she showed marvellous tact and self-restraint,
and gradually won over many of the nobles to her side. She was
content to let the couatry be ruled in her name by her brother,
James Stewart, earl of Moray, an illegitimate son of James v. She
accepted the establishment of Calvinism, and only required liberty
to hear mass. The only person unmoved by her blandishments
was Knox. He bitterly denovmced the services of the queen's
private chapel. " One mass," he declared, " is more fearful to me
than ten thousand armed enemies."
21. Four years of inaction taught Mary that she had not much
to hope for in Scotland. She was too ambitious to endure for
TheDarnlev ®^®^ ^^® position of a nominal queen, and as she
marriage, could not get real power in Scotland, she once
1565. more began to make England the chief centre of her
efforts. The English Roman Catholics were getting more and more
disgusted with the rule of Elizabeth, and were hoping that Mary
would some day become their queen and restore their faith.
Mary was delighted to become their champion, and preferred to
see Elizabeth driven from the throne by force to the remote chance
of waiting for her death. In 1565 she declared to the world her
interest in English affairs by choosing as her second husband
her cousin, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, the son of the earl of
Lennox, and near to the succession of the EngUsh throne, since
his mother was the daughter of Margaret Tudor, the widow of
James iv., by her second husband the earl of Angus. Darnley,
who had been brought up in England, was a sort of leader of
the English Catholics, and Elizabeth was so disgusted with the
marriage, that she incited Moray and the Scots nobles to rise in
revolt against it. Mary now felt strong enough to act for herself.
-1567.] ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 381
She completed her marriage with Darnley, defeated Moray, and
drove Iii'tti out of Scotland.
22. Mary soon found that her husband was so foolish and
treacherous that he was useless to help her to carry out her plans.
She gradually gave her chief confidence to an Italian
najned David Kiccio, whom she raised from the Rieeio 1566.
position of one of the singing-men of her chapel to
be her secretary. Darnley grew furiously jealous of the Italian
upstart, and joined with some of the Scottish nobles in an intrigue
against him. On March 9, 1566, while Riccio was supping with
the queen at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, the conspirators
suddenly burst into the room, dragged the shrieking secretary
from her presence, and stabbed him to death in an ante-chamber.
Stung to profound indignation by her favourite's miu-der, Mary
kept her presence of mind with remarkable fortitude. She soon
persuaded her weak husband to give up his associates and return to
her side. Then she fell upon the murderers and drove them out of
the country. Like Moray, they fled to England, where Elizabeth
readily sheltered them. Three months after Kiccio's murder,
Mary's only child was born, the future James vi. of Scotland and
I. of England.
23. Mary and Darnley soon began to quarrel again. The
queen now found a stronger and more capable instrument of
her ambition in James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell, a Mupjop nf
ruffianly border noble of rare courage, energy, and Darnley,
cleverness. Mary became his absolute slave, and 1567.
scandal became busy with their names. Bothwell made it his
object to get Darnley out of the way so that Mary might be
free to marry him. Accordingly he met some of the discontented
nobles at Craigmillar Castle, near Edinburgh, where they signed
what was called the Bond of Craigmillar, by which the con-
spirators pledged themselves to Darnley's death. Darnley, who
was just recovering from a dangerous illness, now took up his
quarters at a lonely house called the Kirh o' Field, a little to
the south of Edinb^Irgh. On the night of February 9, 1567,
the Kirk o' Field was blown up by gunpowder, and Darnley's
body was found not far from the ruined house. There can be
no doubt that Bothwell had accomplished the murder. What
share Mary had in it is not easy to determine ; but it is probable
that she both knew and approved of what Bothwell was doing,
and it is certain that he in no wise forfeited her favour.
24. Lennox, Darnley's father, accused BothweU of his son's
382 ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS [1567-
mirrder, and Mary, ■who was forced to seem anxioas to avenge
her husband's death, fixed a day for his trial. But good care was
taken to make the proceedings a mere farce. Lennox himself was
Emery Walker sc.
-1568.] ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 383
afraid to appear, and no man ventured to give evidence against
the queen's favourite. The court therefore acqxiitted Bothwell,
and Mary made its action the excuse for once more Deposition
giving him her open support. Even now she was oftlie
afraid to wed herself to the man whom all suspected as ween of
her husband's assassin. It was accordingly arranged '
that Bothwell should f aU upon her as she was riding from Stirling
to Edinburgh and make a show of forcing her to become his wife.
But the pretence was too transparent to deceive any one. All Scot-
land rose in revolt against the queen and her ruffianly husband.
Even the nobles who had helped Bothwell were delighted to have
an excuse in his crime for attacking the royal power. It was to no
purpose that Mary, for the first and last time in her life, showed
a disposition to abandon her religion rather than give up the fierce
noble who had won her heart. She attended Protestant sermons,
and sought to put herseK at the head of the Protestant party.
But the very soldiers she called upon to protect her from the rebels
refused to strike a blow in her favour. At Carberry Sill, outside
Edinburgh, her partisans deserted her, and she was taken prisoner
by the rebel lords. BothweU fled from Scotland, and died a few
years later. Mary was deprived of her throne, and her infant
son proclaimed James vi. Moray and the Protestant exiles
returned and assumed the government in his name.
25. For nearly a year the deposed queen was kept a captive in
the island-castle of Lochleven in Kinross-shire. But the victorious
nobles soon began to quarrel among themselves, and ]|i__„.„
in 1568 the great Clydesdale house of Hamilton raised flight to
a revolt in her favour. Mary escaped from Lochleven, England,
and was once more at the head of an army. On May 13,
however, she was defeated by Moray at Langside, near Glasgow.
Unable to bear up any longer against her enemies in Scotland,
Mary took the bold step of throwing herself upon the mercy
of Elizabeth. She rode from the field of Langside to the Solway,
crossed its waters in a fishing-boat, and landed in England, im-
ploring her cousin's protection. From this moment a new stage in
their rivalry began. The fugitive was henceforth to be a greater
source of trouble to Elizabeth than ever she had been when
mounted on the thrones of France and Scotland.
26. Elizabeth was immensely embarrassed by Mary's appeal.
She dared not ofEend her allies, the Scottish Protestants, by
restoring the exiled queen, and she was equally afraid to let her
escape to France, where her claims on England might once more
384 ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS [1568-
be taken up. Yet slie was almost equaUy alarmed at the pros-
pect of keeping Mary in England, where she would be at hand
to be the centre of every CathoUc conspiracy, and
Mary's Im- jjjjgjj^-t ^t any moment be raised from her prison to
the throne. TJnder such circumstances Elizabeth found
it easy to adopt the policy of hesitation and delay on which she
was always w illin g to fall back. Her strongest reason for not
helping Mary was the fatal business of the murder of Darnley.
Accordingly, she announced that before taking any decided steps
in the matter she must investigate the charges brought agaiast
the q[ueen of Scots, and for that purpose she appointed a com-
mission, at the head of which was the duke of Norfolk. Moray
and the Protestant lords laid before this body all the evidence
they could find as to Mary's guilt. Chief amongst it was a series
of letters and love-poems, called the Casket Letters, because it was
said that they had been found in a, casket at Carberry Hill, at the
time immediately before Mary's deposition. If genuine, the casket
letters were convincing proofs of Mary's guilt, but her friends
have always declared them to have been forged by Moray and his
friends. Anyhow, the commissioners never came to any decision
in the matter. Elizabeth preferred that Mary should be neither
condemned nor acquitted, but rather remain in captivity under
a cloud, so that she might be used or condemned accordingly as
future events might determine. Mary was therefore retained in
honourable imprisonment in England, while Moray and the Scots
lords went back home, secure of Elizabeth's support.
27. Eighteen years of plots and rebeUions were Elizabeth's
punishment for lacking courage to take a decided course. The
The evolt H6xt year (1569) the Catholics of the north rose in
of the revolt under the leadership of the two chief repre-
northern ^ sentatives of the ancient noble houses that had so
' ' long been their natural leaders. These were Thomas
Percy, earl of Northximberland, and Charles Neville, earl of
Westmorland. It was another Pilgrimage of Grace, and showed
that the north country was still strongly in favour of the old
religion. An unsuccessful effort was made to free the queen of
Scots, which was defeated by Mary being moved to the midlands
far beyond the northerners' reach. Then the earl of Sussex put
down the insurrection, and soon drove the two earls to find a refuge
in exile. The collapse of the rebellion immensely strengthened
Elizabeth's position. For the rest of her reign none of her enemies
succeeded in exciting an open rising.
-I57I] ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 385
28. Other resources were still, toweTer, open to the foes of
Elizabeth. In 1570 the regent Moray was assassinated in Scotland,
and three years of civil war and confusion ensued. _, •, ,, ^
These did nothing, however, to help Mary's cause, and exeom-
in 1573 another strong regent was found in the earl of municatlon,
Morton, who successfully upheld Protestant ascendancy
and good order in the name of the little James vi. Of more value
to Mary than her brother's death was the intervention of the pope
in her favour. The pope was now Pius v., an old Inquisitor, and
a bitter, if high-minded, zealot for the Counter-Reformation. In
February, 1570, Pius issued a bull excommunicating Elizabeth
and deposing her from the throne. Parliament answered him by
passing acts that made it treason to introduce papal bulls into the
country or to become a convert to the Boman Catholic faith.
Henceforward there was, as long as Elizabeth lived, war to the
knife between England and Home. It was almost impossible for
an Englishman to remain a good CathoUo and a faithful subject
of Queen Elizabeth, and a series of Catholic plots to depose Eliza-
beth and put Mary in her place, showed the result of the pope's
action on the minds of the more zealous of his disciples.
29. In 1571 a Florentine banker named RidoM, who had long
resided in England, and was a secret agent of the pope and Philip
of Spain, persuaded the duke of Norfolk to put himself
at the head of a rebellion to release Mary Stewart and ,)i,S 1571
restore Catholicism. Norfolk, a son of the poet earl
of Surrey, was the only duke left in England, and, though he had
always conformed to Elizabeth's Church, he was very lukewarm
in his support of the Reformation, and was indignant that a man
of his high rank should have so little power at court. He was
tempted by the proposal that he should he married to Mary, who
might then be restored to the Scottish throne and recognized as
Elizabeth's successor. After trying for a time to reconcile loyalty
to Elizabeth with the acceptance of this glittering prospect, the
duke was talked over by RidoM into overt treason. But Cecil and
his spies had discovered all about the plot, and iu 1572 Norfolk
was convicted of treason and executed. For the next few years
England enjoyed comparative peace. Despite the papal excom-
munication, Elizabeth seemed stronger than ever.
30. France, distracted by civil war, had. now dropped into a
secondary position in politics. In 1572 Protestant Europe was
horrified by the cold-blooded massacre of the French Protestants
on St. Bartholomew's day, at the instigation of Charles ix. This
2c
386 ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS [1572.
was but an isolated act of cruel policy, and the French, monarchy,
floating- helplessly between the CathoUo aud Protestant parties,
was powerless to hurt England. Philip of Spain, as
and «ie ' ^'^ avowed leader of Catholicism, was gradually be-
revoltof coming the supporter of the English Catholics and
t^^ Nethep- .(.jjg pj^g£ jjgpg j,f ^^ captive queen of Scots. But
Philip's attention was much taken up with other
matters, and he was stiU so jealous of Prance that he tried to
keep on good terms with England. Philip had had to contend
since 1572 with a formidable revolt in the Netherlands, where
his attempts to make himself a despot and to crush out Pro-
testantism had completely failed. For five years his ruthless
general Alva had ruled the seventeen provinces of the Spanish
Netherlands with an iron hand. But it was impossible by persecu-
tion to change the faith of a whole nation, and the only result
of Alva's repression was that Holland and Zealand, the most
Protestant and energetic of the provinces, rose in revolt, and
heroically defied the whole resources of the Spanish monarchy.
Not only did Philip fail to put down the Hollanders; in 1576
all the other provinces followed their example, and united in the
Pacification of Ghent, by which the Catholic and Protestant dis-
tricts alike agreed to protect their ancient political liberties from
Philip. This comprehensive union did not last long, and Philip's
illegitimate brother, Don John of Austria, who was now governor
of the Netherlands, soon persuaded some of the southern provinces,
which were mostly Catholic, to recognize Philip's rule on condition
that he gave up his attacks on their political liberties. Thereupon
the seven northern provinces, headed by Holland, formed in 1S79
the union of Utrecht, by which they became a federal Calvinistio
commonwealth under William, prince of Orange, as their siadt-
holder, or governor. Such was the origin of the Dutch JRepuhlic
of the Seven Provinces of the United Netherlands. As England
sympathized strongly with the rebels, there was fresh reason for
iU-will between EHzabeth and Philip. But neither dared attack
the other yet.
31. Elizabeth found compensation for these troubles in the
increasing loyalty of her subjects, and their increasing willingness
mug to accept her ecclesiastical policy. So feeble was the
seminary position of Catholicism in England that the leaders
priests. of -tjig Church took the alarm, and made a determined
effort to rekindle the zeal of the English Romanists. A
Lancashire priest named WiUiam Allen, who had forsaken his
IS72.] ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 387
coxuitry ratier than reoognizo the royal supremacy, set up at
Douai, within Philip's Netherlandish dominions, a college or
seminary, to train young Englishmen for the priesthood, that they
might return to their homes as missionaries of the old faith. The
THE NETHERLANDS
in the beginning of the 17th. Century
(a) The Seuen United Prouinces
(b) The Ten Southern Prouinces ,
(c) Land of the Generality, i.e.
belonging to (b> but conqueretl
by(3.)
Bmery Walker sc.
college at Douai, soon transferred to Beims, in French territory,
became very flourishing, and sent forth a stream of missionary
clergy to England, where their energy gave new life to the
Catholic cause. Up to this time many Soman Catholios had
been content to attend the services of their parish churches, and
388 ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS [1577-
to take little part in politics. The seminwry priests, as the
pupils of the college were called, soon put an end to such laxity,
and excited the alarm of the government. The severe laws passed
in a panic in 1571 were employed against them, and in 1577
Cuthbert Mayne, executed at Launceston for denying the royal
supremacy and having a papal buU in his possession, was the
first Catholic martyr which Douai sent forth.
32. Three years later even greater fear was excited among
the Protestants by the first appearance of the Jesuits in England
..... T .* (1580). Their leaders were Robert Parsons, a subtle
The Jesuit ^ ' ... ^T^^ 3 n
invasion, and dexterous intriguer, and Hidmund Oampion, a
1 580. high-souled enthusiast, who was careless about politics,
and thought only of winning souls over to Ms Church. In great
alarm fresh laws were passed against popish recusants, and a keen
search made for the Jesuits, who wandered in disguise throughout
the land, stirring up the zeal of their partisans. Parsons escaped
to the continent in safety, but Campion was captujed. He could
not be proved to be disloyal to Elizabeth, and was cruelly tortured
in the hope of extracting some sort of confession from him. In
due course he was convicted and hung as a traitor at Tyburn. He
was as much a martyr as any of the Protestants who suffered under
Mary. During the rest of Elizabeth's reign scores of Catholic
priests and laymen incurred the fate of Mayne and Campion.
33. The sanguinary persecution of the missionaries had a sort
of justification in the fact that many of them, like Parsons, were
The Bond of steeped to the lips in treason. Plot after plot was
Association, framed to compass Elizabeth's death and bring Mary
1584. -to t]ie throne. Philip of Spain gave help to the
conspirators, and in 1584, on the failure of a scheme to murder
Elizabeth, the Spanish ambassador was ordered to quit London.
Burghley and Walsingham drew up a document called the Bond of
Association, which all classes of Englishmen eagerly signed. The
members of the bond pledged themselves to defend Elizabeth
against her enemies, and bound themselves, in the event of her
murder, to put to death any person on whose behalf the deed was
committed. This meant that if Elizabeth were slain, the queen
of Scots would be at once executed. In 1585 parliament legalised
the association and passed fresh laws against the Catholics. It
banished all Jesuits and seminary priests, and made the return of
any one of them an act of treason.
34. In 1586 a new plot was formed to murder Elizabeth. Its
instigator was the seminary priest, John Ballard, and its instrument
-IS87-] ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 389
a foolish and vain young Catholic gentleman, named Anthony
Babington. Bahington was so proud of his boldness that he
rashly boasted of what he was going to do, and soon
enabled Walsingham's spies to find out aU about the Babington
conspiracy. At last Walsingham got into his hands conspiracy,
letters of Mary written to Babington, in which she ^^^^•
expressed her approval of the attempt to murder Elizabeth. Then
he fell on Babington, and put him and his accomplices to death.
35. The chief importance of the Babingrton conspiracy is that it
supplied Walsingham with evidence of Mary's complicity in an
assassination plot, and frightened Elizabeth, who had p. . *■
hitherto been afraid to proceed to extremities against of Mary
Mary, into allowing the queen of Scots to be tried for Queen of
treason. A court for the trial of Mary was held at '
Foiheringhay Castle, near Peterborough. Mary refused to answer
before the court on the ground that as a crowned queen she was no
subject of Elizabeth, and could not, therefore, commit treason
against her. Nevertheless, she was, in October, 1S86, sentenced to
the block as a traitor, though Elizabeth long delayed the execution
of the sentence. ParKament urged her in strong terms to put Mary
to death at once, but Elizabeth delayed until February, 1587, before
she would allow anything to be done. Even after signing the order
for her rival's death, she would not allow it to be sent down to
Potheringhay, till at last the council, which fully shared the
opinions of parliament, ordered Davison, the secretary of state, to
despatch the warrant. On February 8, 1587, Mary was beheaded in
the great hall of Potheringhay Castle, meeting her end with rare
courage and dignity. Elizabeth loudly protested that the deed was
not of her ordering, and ruined the unlucky Davison for breaking
her commands. This she did partly to evade responsibility, and
partly so as to give some specious excuse to her ally, James vi., for
his mother's execution. But Elizabeth was the chief gainer by her
rival's death. There was no longer any use in murdering the queen
of England when her successor woxdd be the Protestant king of Scots.
The worst of Elizabeth's troubles was over after the tragic fate
of Mary Queen of Scots.
CHAPTER VII
THE LATTER YEARS OF THE REIGN OF
ELIZABETH (1587-1603)
Chief Dates :
1588. Defeat of the Spanish Armada.
1591. The fight of the Revenge.
1596. The capture of Cadiz.
1597' First Monopolies contest.
1598. The Irish rebellion.
1601. Second Monopolies contest.
1603. Death of Elizabeth.
1. DuaiNG the years of Mary's imprisonment England and Spain
were slowly drifting into war. Philip was the instigator of
every plot for the release of the captive queen, and
relations England retaliated by giving as much help to the
between Netherlandish rebels as Elizabeth would allow. More-
f 5 ■ over, Philip sent, as we shall see, troops and priests to
Ireland to stir up the Irish against England and Pro-
testantism, while he kept up active intrigues in Scotland, and strove,
though but to little purpose, to persuade James yi., who was now
growing up to manhood, to take up the Catholic cause, and make
efforts on behalf of his mother. There was even more friction
between England and Spain by sea than by land, and each power had
done so much harm to the other that in any ordinary times open
war would certainly have ensued between them. Yet after nearly
twenty years of ceaseless friction nominal peace still prevailed.
This was partly due to the fact that both Elizabeth and PhUip were
somewhat irresolute in temperament and too timid to run the
risks which war involved. But the chief reason of the hesitation
of Philip was the general political condition of Europe. Though
nearly thirty years had elapsed since the outbreak of a national
war like those which had been waged before 1559, yet the
old jealousy between France and Spain was by no means dead.
Philip was still afraid that if he attacked England, France would
take advantage of his plight and f aU upon him with all her mig'ht.
390
1581.] LATTER YEARS OE REIGN' OP ELIZABETH 39!
Thus it was that, though as the champion of Catholicism he would
have dearly loved to conquer England, as the chief monarch of
Europe he was so conscious of the risk to his authority that a flght
with Elizabeth implied, that he stUl preferred to let things drift,
and stiU professed to value English friendship after the feeling
between the two countries had become very bitter.
2. Philip had a special motive for hesitation in the revolt of the
Netherlands. Thanks to Don John of Austria, he was making slow
but steady progress in winning back his position over
the southern and central provinces, though the north pp^°j,
still defied his efiorts. Don John of Austria soon died, interven-
but a worthy successor to hiTn was found in Alexander tion In the
Parnese, duke of Parma, one of the best generals of i^nds.
that age. His advance soon frightened both EKz^abeth
and Henry in. of Prance, and dread of the imminent triumph of
Spain brought about for the moment that alliance between England
and France which Philip dreaded more than anything else. It was
proposed in 1681 to cement this friendship by a marriage between
Elizabeth and Francis, duke of Anjou, the younger brother of
Henry in., who in 1574 had succeeded his brother Charles ix. as
king of Prance. The scheme was the more formidable to Philip
since it was hoped that Anjou would be accepted by both the
Protestant and CathoHo Netherlanders as their ruler. Thus the
result of the Anglo-French alliance was to be the estabKshment of
a French prince on the ruins of the Spanish power in the Low
Countries. It was as severe a blow as could be directed against
Philip II.
3. There had been constant talk of the marriage of Elizabeth
ever since her accession. Her people, anxious that she should have
a direct heir, had long urged her to choose a husband, r^^ Anjou
and Elizabeth had so far gratified them that she marriage
entered into numerous negotiations with a view to her f^g^™^'
marriage, ifiough she had made up her mind never to
share her throne with a husband. Now, when the queen was nearly
fifty years of age, the most serious of her marriage projects was
started. Anjou, an ugly, contemptible fellow, more than twenty
years her junior, came to England, and Elizabeth received him as
her future husband. Before long, however, realizing the folly of
her position, she was glad to send off Anjou to the Netherlands,
and showed an unwonted liberality in supplying him with men and
money for carrying out his projects. Anjou's incompetence, how-
ever, soon wrecked all the fine schemes formed by England and
392 LATTER YEARS OF REIGN OF ELIZABETH [1584-
France to lay low the power of Philip. In a short time he was
cLriven away by the Netherlanders themselves, and went back to
France, where he soon died. Long before this, the fantastic notion
of wedding him to Elizabeth had been quite forgotten.
4 The chief importance of the Anjou marriage scheme was
that it induced Elizabeth to take an actire part in supporting the
Lei e te ' revolted Netherlanders against the king of Spain,
the Nether- After Anjou's failure, Parma renewed his advance,
lands, \ 586. and soon the provinces were reduced to the greatest
straits. In 1584 their heroic leader, "William of Orange, was
murdered by a Catholic fanatic. It was the same year in which
Elizabeth expelled the Spanish ambassador for complicity in an
assassination plot. In 1585 Parma captured Antwerp, and thus
broke the back of the resistance of the southern provinces. In
their despair the Netherlanders offered to make Elizabeth their
ruler if she would protect them from Philip's assaults. Too
prudent to accept this sovereignty, Elizabeth sent an army to help
them, at the head of which she placed her favourite, the earl of
Leicestei'. But Leicester was almost as incompetent as Anjou, and
his arrival brought little relief. The most famous episode in his
campaign was a fight against the Spaniards near Zutphen, in
which his accomplished nephew, Sir Philip Sidney, the pattern
Elizabethan gentleman, poet, romance-writer, courtier, and soldier,
received his death-wound. Before the end of 1586 Leicester
quarrelled with the Dutch and went back to England. Then
came the Babington conspiracy and the execution of Mary Queen
of Soots. At last even the sluggish Philip felt that the cup of
English oifences was full to the brim, and prepared to wreak a
signal vengeance upon the English heretics.
5. A generation of conflict between Englishmen and Spaniards
on the ocean made the long-delayed rupture more complete and
more bitter. The discovery of America by Columbus
th^i^H-"^ had opened up for Spain a mighty empire in Southern
and Central America, and had forced a nation of
soldiers and priests to produce, almost in its own despite, navi-
gators, colonisers, and traders. The commercial position of Spaia
was made much stronger when, in 1580, Philip conquered Portugal
and its colonies, and so extended his power to Brazil and over the
remnants of the great Eastern Empire which the Portuguese had
set up, following on the tracks of Vasco da Gama, who had first dis-
covered the sea-road to India and the East. At first the Spaniards
and Portuguese had no rivals in their quest of wealth, conquest,
-1586.] LATTER YEARS OF REIGN OF ELIZABETH 393
and adventnie in strange lands. Least of all was competition to be
expected from Eng-land, whose people, up to the middle of the
sixteenth century, were distinguished neither for their seamanship,
commerce, nor love of adventure. Englishmen remained what they
had been in the Middle Ages, an easy-going, stay-at-home people,
loving hard fig-hting and good living, but so indifferent to trade
and money-making, that they were still content that the larger
share of the external trade of their island should remain in the
hands of foreigners.
6. Signs of a new spirit of activity were dimly discernible
in early Tudor times. The marvellous discoveries of Columbus
and Yasco da Gama stirred the sluggish fancy of
Henry vii., who» sent John Cabot, a Yenetian settled ginnings
in Bristol, on a voyage to America, which resulted of English
in the discovery of the coast of Labrador. Nothing maritime
practical came of this, however, until the private
enterprise of the merchants of Bristol, the adopted home of Cabot,
sent out expeditions of discovery that won for England a small
share in the Newfoundland fisheries and the trade with West
Africa. Plymouth adventurers, conspicuous among whom was
William Hawkins, opened out commerce between England and
South America. In London, the Compcmy of Merchant Adven-
turers, which, as the chief society of English traders, had long
competed for the Baltic and Scandinavian markets with the
German merchants of the Steelyard, showed, under the gtiidance of
Sebastian Cabot, the son of the discoverer of Labrador, an enterprise
foreign to earlier generations. In 1553, at Cabot's chancellor's
suggestion, the first native English voyage of dis- voyage,
covery was undertaken by Sir Hugh WiUoughby and 1553.
his pilot, E/jchard Chancellor, who strove to open up new trading
centres in northern and eastern lands, and to discover, if possible,
a north-east passage to China throug-h the Arctic seas. lU luck
attended this pioneer expedition, and only Chancellor with a few
of the ships made any discovery of importance. He found his way
into the White Sea, and opened up trading relations with Kussia
of such importance that a Muscovy or Russia Company was started
to work it.
7. Though Chancellor's voyage was undei-taken under Mary,
the new impulse which drove Englishmen to adventure and dis-
covery was the direct result of the great stirring of men's minds
that followed the Reformation. Though no theologians, and
greedy, cruel, and reckless in their Uves, most of the English
394 LATTER YEARS OF REIGN OP ELIZABETH [1562-
seamen were sound Protestants and great haters of the pope.
Already in Mary's reign some of tie Protestant refugees took to
Protes- *^® ®®^ ^^^ robbed their Catbolic feUow-coiuitrymen
tantlsm and with special zest. A few years later the struggHng
maritime Protestants of France and the Netherlands followed
their example, and the water-beggars, as the Calvinist
shipmen of Holland and Zealand were called, found an easy
prey in the richly freighted galleons of Spain. Thus the Pro-
testant sailors of England and HoUand aKke found that to plunder
Spaniards was a shorter way to get rich than to trade honestly
on their own account. Religious zeal made it a pious work to
despoil the papist subjects of Philip 11. Moreover, the Spaniards
kept their American colonies under strict control, and claimed
an absolute monopoly of trade with them. The dearness which
followed monopoly made the Spanish colonists themselves welcome
any merchants daring enough to disregard the navigation laws
and sell them the goods of which they had tirgent need. Hence
smuggling commodities iuto Spanish colonies became another way
of making money easily. The impulse to adventure had begun.
8. The special want of the Spaniards iu America was that of
labourers to work their mines and till their plantations. They
Hawkins were too few and too proud to work themselves iu a
and the tropical cUmate, and the native Americans of the
slave-trade, "VVest India islands died ofB like flies when forced to
labour for their new masters. John Hawkins, son of
the William Hawkins of the reign of Henry viii., made voyages
in his father's track, and soon learnt that an easy way to win riches
was to kidnap or buy shiploads of strong and hardy negroes in
West Africa, and sell them to the Spaniards in America and the
West Indies. In 1562 and in 1564 Hawkins made two slaving
voyages to the Guinea coast, and sold his human cargo to such
profit in Hispaniola and Mexico that he came home a wealthy and
a famous man. Philip 11. was much incensed at the daring heretic.
When, in 1567, Hawkins attempted a third voyage on a larger
scale, the Spanish officials would not allow him to transact business.
Hawkins tried to force his wares upon the colonists, but was en-
trapped into the narrow harbour of Vera Cruz in Mexico, and
overborne by numbers. He lost most of his ships and profits, but
returned safely to England, and showed the way to other adven-
turers. He was the founder of the negro slave-trade which made
possible the colonization of tropical America by a planter aristo-
cracy cultivating its lands by black labour, and which for more
-1567.] LATTER YEARS OF REIGN OF ELIZABETH 395
396 LATTER YEARS OF REIGN OF ELIZABETH [1577-
tlian two hundred years was to be a source of immense gain to
English merchants. Neither EngKsh nor Spaniards had the least
care of the cruelty and wickedness of this traffic in human flesh.
9. Hawkins was a mere man of business, though terribly
efficient at his work. His example was soon followed by others,
in some of whom his greedy commercial spirit was in
voyage somewise ennobled by romantic love of adventure and
round the a sort of crusading enthusiasm against the Spanish
1577-1580 papists. Conspicuous among the higher sort of ex-
plorers was Martin Probisher, a Yorkshireman who
made three voyages to the frozen coasts of Labrador in the hope
of finding a north-west passage to China, and Francis Drake, a
Devonshire man and a kinsman of Hawkins, who, after having on
a voyage to Panama climbed a hiQ from which he could look down
on the Pacific, formed a resolution to sail an English ship upon
that strange ocean which had hitherto been navigated by the
Spaniards alone. With this object Drake set forth in 16V7 with
a fleet of five small vessels, hoping to redeem his vow. He was
away from England for three years, and met with countless perils
from storms, mutinies, and the hostility of the Spaniards. He lost
all his ships save his own vessel, the Pelican, which he rechristened
the Oolden Kind. He crossed the South Atlantic, sailed through
the dangerous straits of Magellan to the open Pacific, where he
plundered the Spaniards at his will, and at last, loaded with
precious booty, sailed westwards over the Indian Ocean, and safely
got home in 1580 by way of the Cape of Good Hope, being the first
captain who had sailed round the world and returned aUve to port.
His success made him the hero of the moment, and Elizabeth,
visiting the Golden Hind as it lay in the Thames at Deptford,
dubbed him a knight on his own quarter-deck.
10. The Spaniards rightly denounced Drake as a pirate, and
demanded his surrender and the restitution of the property he had
stolen. It was the time of the Jesuit invasion and
between ''^ the Anjou marriage scheme, and Elizabeth was of no
England mind to give up the adventurer to his enemies. She
^"^ Spain, put off the Spaniards with fair words, and encouraged
Drake as much as she could. New sources of offence
now arose daily between the two countries. After the expulsion of
the Spanish ambassador in 1584, Philip retaliated by confiscating
all English ships and property fotind in his dominions. Drake
and Frobisher were for the first time commissioned in the queen's
service to make reprisals on Spanish ports. In 1585 they plundered
-1588.] LATTER YEARS OF REIGN OF ELIZABETH 397
Yigo, and led a fresh expedition to the West Indies. In 1587
the execution of Mary Queen of Soots at leng^;h goaded Spain
into open war, and in great indignation Philip prepared a fleet
that would ayenge English insults to his coasts and his religion
by pouring an army into their island. When his plans were still
but half ready, Drake sailed into Cadiz harbour and sank or burnt
his ships. Philip was more than CTer bent upon revenge, and
fitted out another fleet which was to invade England in 1588.
11. Philip's plan was to send his fleet to Flanders, whence it
was to carry the duke of Parma's army over the narrow seas to
England. It was hoped that on the landing of the ,
Spaniards the English Catholics would gladly join plans for
with them in throwing off the yoke of the heretic invading
queen, and William Allen, now made a cardinal, wrote ^"Sland.
an exhortation to the English to accept Philip as the executor of
Pius v.'s sentence of deposition. Philip's hands were set free by
the death of Mary, whom he had always suspected by reason of her
French connections. He claimed the English throne himself, as a
nearer descendant of John of Gaunt than the Tudors.
12. England had no regular troops to oppose the Spanish
veterans, and her best chance was to meet her enemies at sea, where
the English had so often beat-en the Spaniards in recent fjjg Spanish
years that they had no great reason to fear them now. Armada,
Since Henry vni.'s time the royal navy of England 1588.
had been an efficient and growing force, and Hawkins, of late
years Treasurer to the Navy, had built a large number of new
ships, on better lines than any of the Spanish vessels. Lying
lower in the water than the Spaniards, and with fewer " castles," or
decks, piled up high fore and aft, the English vessels looked smaller
than the Spanish, even when they were much of the same size. But
they were easier to manage, more seaworthy, quicker, and better
equipped than those of the enemy. Moreover, they were buUt to
flght, and were not, like many of the Spaniards, mere transports
crowded with soldiers, and ill found for a long voyage. Even the
armed merchantmen which swelled the scanty numbers of the royal
vessels were trained by a long career of privateering or piracy, and
the crews, accustomed to the boisterous seas of the Atlantic fishing-
grrounds, were much better sailors than their opponents. Both
fleets alike were commanded by great noblemen, the Spaniards by
the duke of Medina Sidonia, a young grandee vrith no great know-
ledge of the sea, and the English by Lord Howard of Effingham,
a cousin of the Norfolk beheaded in 1572. However, while the
398 LATTER YEARS OF REIGN OF ELIZABETH [1588-
subordinate commanders on the Spamsh side were also noble-
men wtose experience was on land and wiose skill that of the
soldier, Lord Howard's immediate subordinates were practical
seamen, who had already had long acquaintance with Spanish war-
fare. Sir Francis Drake was second and John Hawkins third in
command, while the largest ship in the fleet had as its captaia
Martin Probisher, who, with Hawkins, was knighted during the
struggle. A land army was hastily levied, the command over
which Elizabeth insisted on giving to Leicester, whose last months
of life were devoted to
this supreme service to his
mistress. Despite the
efforts of Allen, Catholics
joined with Protestants in
resisting the invaders. It
was no longer a war of
religions, but a struggle
between two nations.
13. The Spaniards were
impressed by the magni-
tude of Philip's prepara-
tions, and proudly styled
their fleet the InmncihleAr-
mada. Misfortune dogged
its path from the begin-
ning. Starting in May
from Lisbon, it was driven
back by rough weather and
insufficient equipment into
the ports of northern
Spain, whence it did not
finally sail until July. On
July 19 the Armada en-
tered the Channel, and
was rapidly blown by a favourable south-wester towards the straits
The Armada °^ Dover. The English admiral, who had waited for
it in Plymouth Sound, allowed the enemy to pass
his anchorage, whereupon he sailed out and closely
hung upon the Spaniards' rear. A running fight ensued for
the best part of a week. The EngUsh had the advantage
of attacking on the windward side, and their greater power of
sailing close to the wind enabled them to escape action at near
Emery Walker sc.
THE COUBSE OF THE SPANISH ARMADA.
in the
Channel.
-1589.] LATTER YEARS OF REIGN OF ELIZABETH 399
quarters, which, was what the Spaniards wanted. Ship after
ship of the Armada was out off and captured by the English.
The long- artillery fight used up the ammunition of both fleets.
The English, however, could get fresh supplies from the shore,
while the Spaniards had no such resource open to them. From
the very beginning the Spaniards had the worst of the encounter,
and at last oast anchor in Calais roads, fully conscious of failure.
14. Lord Howard now began to adopt bolder tactics. He drove
the enemy from their anchorage by sending fireships among them,
which forced them to cut their cables to avoid being ,^^
burnt to pieces. Then, on July 29, the English bore battle off
down on the Spaniards off Ch'avelines, where the Gravelines.
decisive battle was waged for nine hours without intermission.
The Spaniards were likely to do better in a regular engagement
than in the preliminary skirmishing. They now fought with
great courage, and though beaten in the end, were able to retreat in
good order. But as the wind still blew from the south, Sidonia's
only way of retreat was to sail northwards, and finally make his
way home by doubling the north of Scotland. High gales proved
fatal to many of the war-worn and storm-tried ships, and many
wrecks strewed the western coasts of Scotland and Ireland. It
showed rare tenacity among the Spaniards that Sidonia was able to
bring back nearly half his fleet to Spain.
15. Thus the attack on England utterly failed. The defeat
of the Armada left England free to settle her own destinies for
herself, and saved English Protestantism. By making
England a great naval power, it prepared the way for of the
our commerce and colonies. It made easy the union Protestant
with Scotland and the conquest of Ireland, which "'^'■'"'y-
were soon to come. Nor were its effects limited to England. It
inflicted the greatest check ever encountered on the triumphant
forces of the Catholic reaction. It secured the freedom of the
Seven United Provinces, which, like the fate of England, had
hitherto been trembling in the balance. It thus limited the
Spanish Netherlands to the Catholic provinces of the south.
16. Even in Prance the results of the Protestant victory were
strongly felt. There the strife between Calvinists and Catholics
had just reached its crisis. The weak Henry in. had „ .„
been repudiated by the extreme Catholics, who looked king of
upon Philip of Spain as their leader, and hoped with France,
his help to make Prance as strenuous in its devotion
to the old faith as Was Spain itself. Henry was therefore forced
400 LATTER YEARS OF REIGN OF ELIZABETH [1589-
to go over to the Protestants, and was soon afterwards murdered
by a Catholic zealot. His death made his distant cousin, Henry,
duke of Bourhon and king of Navarre, Henry iv. of France. Thus
the house of Valois, which had reigned in Trance since 1328, gave
place to the \ouie of Bov/rhon, which was henceforth to rule
France as long as France was to be governed by kings. Henry iv.,
though the Protestant leader, was no bigot, but a clear-headed,
selfish, and capable politician, who looked on religion much in the
same way as Elizabeth did. He saw that as a Protestant he
had no chance of ruling France, so he turned Catholic, and soon
the French, weary of religious warfare, rallied round him. His
conversion meant that France remained a Catholic country, but it
was a liberal, tolerant Catholioism, very different from the bigoted
faith of Spain. Henry gave the Protestants toleration by the
edict of Nantes, showed that, like Elizabeth, he wished to be king
over all his people, restored the declining fortunes of France,
and gradually won back for it the first place in Europe. "With
this object he formed a close alliance with the English queen
against Spain, and for ten more years both powers were at war
against Philip. In 1598 Philip made peace with France, and died
shortly afterwards. With him ended the greatness of Spain.
17. England and Spain continued fighting until after the
death of Elizabeth. The main struggle was still at sea, where the
The war efforts of England were not so successful as they had
with Spain, been earlier. Thus, in 1589, Drake failed in an attack
1589-1603. pjj Lisbon; and in 1591 an expedition sent to the
Azores under Lord Thomas Howard was compelled to retreat
before a stronger Spanish fleet. One of Howard's ships, the
Th fl ht Revenge, commanded by Sir Richard Grrenville, was
of the so slow in withdrawing that it was cut off from its
"Revenge," fellows by the Spanish fleet. Thereupon GrenviUe
formed the rash resolve to out his way iirough the
whole of the enemies' squadron. He was soon assailed on every side,
and, mortally wounded after a long resistance, was forced to sur-
render. He showed such heroism that the fight of the Revenge was
long remembered among the most brUliant deeds of English seamen.
18. In 1595 Drake and Hawkins led a last expedition to the
West Indies. The Spaniards were now used to the English way
The capture "^ Ag'hting, and better prepared to meet it. Accord-
of Cadiz, ingly the fleet captured no treasure and won few
successes. Both Drake and Hawkins died at sea, and
altogether the voyage was a failure. Next year Philip fitted out
-IS98,] LATTER YEARS OF REIGN OF ELIZABETH 40I
a new Ai-mada at Cadiz, whereupon Lord Howard of EfiBnghani
and Robert Deverenx, earl of Essex, sailed to the Spanish port,
destroyed the ships in harbour after a fierce fight, and took Cadiz
itself by storm. This rude lesson kept the Spaniards quiet for some
years, and, after Philip ll.'s death in 1598, the war languished for
the rest of the reign.
19. The last years of Elizabeth's reign saw the first attempts
to found English colonies ia America. As early as 1583, Sir
Humphrey Gilbert strove to plant an English
settlement on the dreary coast of Newfoundland, but attempts
failed utterly, and perished at sea on his way home, at English
His half-brother. Sir Walter Ealeigh, the most colonies.
briUiant and many-sided of the DeTonshire heroes of the reign,
took up Gilbert's ideas, and between 1585 and 1590 made three
attempts to set up an EngKsh colony in a part of the mainland
of North America, which he called Virginia, in honour of the
virgin queen. But Ealeigh was too busy pushing his fortunes
at court to go himself to Virginia, and, without his guidance, the
efEort came to nothing. When the queen died there was not a
single EngKsh settlement on the American continent.
20. Englishmen who wished to find a new home beyond sea
obtained what they sought in Ireland rather than over the Atlantic.
We have seen how, under Henry viil., the first ipeland
English king of Ireland, vigorous efforts had been under
made to make the rule of the English monarchs a Mary Tudor,
reality, and the limited amount of success that had attended
them. They were continued under his two daughters, and the
first great extension of the Eng-lish power occurred under Mary,
when the districts called Leix and Offaly, hitherto governed by
Irish clan chieftains, were conquered by the queen's deputy, or
governoi', the earl of Sussex, and were made, as the phrase went,
shire-ground. By that it was meant that, as in Wales, the setting
up of English law followed the establishment of new counties.
The newly conquered Irish districts were called King's County and
Queen's County, and their county towns Philipstown and Ma/ry-
borough, in honour of Philip and Mary. This was the last advance
of the English power in Ireland during the days when EngKsh
and Irish, though divided by race and language, still agreed about
religion.
21. Elizabeth extended to Ireland her EngKsh ecclesiastical
poKcy, though there were few Protestants there, either among the
native Irish or the Norman lords. She was so thrifty, and had so
2d
402 LATTER YEARS OP REIGN OF ELIZABETH [1558-
muoh to do at liome, tliat she was very anxious not to incur
expense by pursuing^ an energetic policy in Ireland, and was wiUingf
. to rule the island through the local chieftains, as her
O'Neill and father had done. Quarrels among the O'Neills, the
Elizabeth, chief native Irish sept, or family, in Ulster, soon made
1558-1567. this idea impraotioable. The head of the O'Neills had
been made earl of Tyrone by Henry viii. in the hope of winning
him over to the English side. Shane O'Neill, the ablest andfiercest
of his sons, was disgusted to find his father obtain from the English
permission to make another of his children his successor as earl.
He therefore rose in revolt, murdered liis brother, and drove his
father out of the country. The O'Neills elected the victorious
Shane as chief of the sept, or, as he was called, The O'Neill, and the
successful rebel made himself absolute master of Ulster. Elizabeth
strove in vain to treat with him, but Shane was so strong that he
openly defied her ; and in 1667, the deputy. Sir Hemy Sidney,
the father of Sir Philip, was compelled to wage war against
him. Before long Shane was murdered by a rival clan which
envied the power of the O'Neills.
22. Sidney made Ulster shire-ground, and Walter Devereux,
first earl of Essex, tried to establish a settlement of Protestant
Ii-eland and "olo^^ts ™ Antrim, which was soon an utter failure,
the Counter- Before long Ulster fell back into its old lawless freedom,
Reforma- ^^^ Sidney's work seemed to be altogether in vain.
A great change was now beginning to bring Irish
politics into closer relations with the great world. Up to now
Ireland had been qiute separated from aU European movements.
But the constant trouble which Ireland gave Elizabeth tempted the
queen's Catholic enemies to avail themselves of the Irish hatred of
England and the English religion, and make their land a centre
of the Counter-Eef ormation. The pope sent priests and the king of
Spain sent soldiers to Ireland, and these kindled a new rebellion in
1579. This was not, like the revolt of Shane O'Neill,
The the work of a native clan. Its centre was the Muhster
reb™Iion branch of the great Norman house of Fitzgerald,
1579, and whose head was the earl of Desmond. Elizabeth put
the Planta- down the revolt with great cruelty, and reduced the
Munster. Desmond country to a desert. The rebels' lands were
forfeited to the crown, and in 1584 a systematic
attempt was made to establish English colonists in Munster. This
was called the Plantation of Mxmster. The forfeited estates were
divided among gentlemen adventurers, who were to let out their
-1584.] LATTER YEARS OF REIGN OF ELIZABETH 403
lands to English farmers. But most of the grantees remained in
England, aiid sought to make profit out of their estates by hiring
them out for as much rent as they could get. Few Englishmen
would pay high rents for land in Ireland, where they stood a good
chance of being murdered by the natives, and were certain to live
rough and uncomfortable lives. * The result was that the Plantation
of Munster proved a failure. A few poor gentlemen, one of whom
was the poet Edmund Spenser, settled down in the old homes of
IRELAND UNDER THE TL'DORS.
the Desmonds, but the mass of the forfeited lands were g'ranted to
Irishmen, who alone would offer the impossible terms demanded
by their landlords. Before long rebellion made short work of the
scattered English settlers, and the only real result of the move-
ment was the establishment of some great English landlords in the
estates once held by the Desmond family.
23. The suppression of the Desmond revolt left Ireland in com-
parative peace for twenty years. During this period bitter hatred of
404 LATTER YEARS OF REIGN OF ELIZABETH [1598-
the Eng'lisli and the new zeal of the Irish for Catholicism were rapidly-
breaking down the harriers which separated clan from clan and the
The Irish ^^ Irish from the descendants of the Normans. When
revolt of revolt again hroke out in 1598, it was not confined to
a single family, race, or district. When the head of
the O'Neills, Shane's nephew Huglf, earl of Tyrone, raised Ulster,
he had among his supporters the rival clan of the O'DonneUs,
because he was not like Shane fighting simply for his own clan,
but for the pope and aU Ireland. Moreover, the rising spread to
Muustsr, where the return of the exiled earl of Desmond gave the
signal for a general revolt, which soon swept away the English
colonists. Soon all Ireland was ablaze with rebellion. It was the
first combined national and Catholic movement against English
supremacy.
24. Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, the son of the would-be
colonizer of Antrim, and the hero of the Cadiz expedition of 1596,
Essex In ^^^ ^ gallant and showy young nobleman, and the
Ireland, chief favourite of the old queen. Though his wayward-
1599. jjggg jjj^^ already irritated his sovereign, she entrusted
him, in 1599, with the difficult task of suppressing the Irish
rising. Essex, however, managed matters very incompetently, and
soon gave up the task in disgust. In 1600 a stronger
suppresf '^^^'^ ^^ fouud in Charles Blount, lord Mount joy,
the rebel- under whom the Irish resistance was gradually broken
I'finn 1 Rnq down. Though a large Spanish force come to their help,
Mountjoy's energy and ruthlessness finally prevailed
over all opposition. The O'Neills held out longest, but about the time
of Elizabeth's death, Mountjoy pressed them so hard that Tyrone was
forced to make his submission. Thus Ireland was at last conquered ;
but the cruelty of the process, largely the residt of the queen's
over-thriftiness, left the bitterest memories beliind it. The Irish
loathed the foreign yoke, and were only kept down by sheer force.
25. While Ireland was thus conquered by Elizabeth, important
steps were being taken to bring about the union of Britain. Wales,
Stens united to England on equal terms by Henry vill., was
towards under Elizabeth for the first time won over to Pro-
British testantism by native bishops, of whom the most im-
portant was WiUiam Morgan, bishop of St. Asaph,
whose single-minded zeal procured the publication of a translation
of the whole Bible into Welsh, so that it became easy to preach
Protestantism with ofiect to the Welsh people in their own tongue.
Moreover, the new friendship which common Protestantism had
-i6o3.] LATTER YEARS OF REIGN OE ELIZABETH 405
brougtt about between England and Scotland was working out its
natural results. Though the will of Henry viii. had provided that
the succession to the English throne should go to the descendants
of his younger sister, Mary, duchess of SufEolk, no one paid any
serious regard to the children of Lady Catharine Grey, Lady Jane's
sister. It was generally agreed that when the old queen died, the
next monarch would be the kiug of Scots, though Elizabeth herself
was so jealous of power that she could never bear to have mentioned
the question of the succession.
26. The last years of the reign of Elizabeth were a period of
wonderful prosperity. Britain was at peace; Ireland was being
conquered ; the Spaniards were beaten, and the pope Tj,e Cecils
and the Jesuits were no longer dangerous. The newly Essex, and
found restlessness and energy which had disputed with Kaleigh.
Spain the sovereignty of the seas, and won for England the
beginnings of her commerce and maritime greatness, found other
outlets in the most wondrous outburst of literature that Eng-
land was ever to witness. Hardly moved by these new glories,
Elizabeth grew old in increasing loneliness as her old favourites
and ministers were taken away by death. Burghley, the last of
the band, died in 1598, and was lucky in handing on his power to
his son, Sir Robert Cecil. While Robert Cecil upheld the cautious
views of his father, Essex and Raleigh represented the party that
wished to prosecute the war with Spain with more activity than
the prudent Cecils would aJlow. Essex, the favourite of the queen's
old age, finally lost her favour by his incompetence in Ireland. On
his return without leave from his Irish government, Elizabeth put
him into prison. He was soon released, but ordered not to show
himself at court. Like a spoilt child he fretted under his sovereign's
displeasure. As he could not persuade Elizabeth to receive him
again, he strove, in 1601, to excite a revolt among the Londoners,
hoping thereby to drive the Cecils from power and compel the old
queen to readmit him to his former position. Essex's attempt
utterly failed, and he was convicted and executed as a traitor.
The result of his foUy was to establish Robert Cecil more firmly
than ever as chief minister until the old queen's death.
27. As troubles from abroad lessened, Elizabeth had increased
difficulties with her own subjects. Some of this was perhaps due
to that arbitrary temper which resented all opposition as disloyalty,
and continued measures barely justifiable in a time of great crisis
when the crisis was almost over. Thus Whitgift continued to
harry the Puritans as if their excesses were stiU a danger to
4o6 LATTER VM-ARS OP REIGN OP EL12.ASETH tiSSS"
Protestantism. Long after England had ceased to have any real
need to fear the pope, the Roman Catholics were still persecuted
almost as cruelly as in the days of the Hfe-and-death
persecution struggle of the two faiths in the years immediately
of Puritans succeeding the huU of Pius y. The prisons remained
and crowded with popish recusants, and the ghastly execu-
CathoUes. ^^^^ ^^ Catholic priests as traitors were still numerous.
But, in addition to her old troubles, Elizabeth now had to face
difficulties in dealiag with her parliaments.
28. Like Henry viii., Elizabeth had striven to base her govern-
ment on the support of parliament. Even under Mary the House
.. , . of Commons had begun to show signs of restiveness,
and hep and Elizabeth was soon to discover that the days of
PapUa- her father were over, and that neither Lords nor
ments. Commons would submissively ratify aU her commands.
Her early parliaments gave her general support, and were liberal
in making grants, but they irritated her by urging her to marry,
to conciliate the Puritans, and take up a more Protestant foreign
policy. She therefore resolved to have as little to do with parlia-
ments as she could, and practised great parsimony so as to avoid
frequent occasion for calling them together, so that there were
only thirteen sessions of parliament during the forty-five years
of her reign. Moreovei", she showed much skill in keeping the
House of Commons in g'ood humour whenever she had occasion to
assemble it. She increased her influence over it by creating a large
number of new boroughs, mostly small places, which were sure to
return any members that she selected. Sir Robert Cecil also, though
her chief minister, remained a commoner, and sat in every parlia-
ment, being perhaps the first English statesman who took great
pains to manage the House of Commons and persuade it to uphold
his policy. If parliament got out of hand, Elizabeth did not
scruple to rebuke it, to silence it, or to send the leading commoners
to the Tower. Such arbitrary action only increased the Commons'
irritation, and made them excessively jealous of their rights.
29. Elizabeth's tact and insight, and the Commons' confidence
in her general policy, postponed serious conflict untU the concluding
The MonoDo- "S^^'^^ °^ ^^^ reign. At last, in 1597, the Commons
lies contest, se^it iip a grave remonstrance against the queen's over-
1597 and lavish graoats of monopolies. A monopoly was the
exclusive right to sell a certain article, so that the
holder of the privilege could enrich himself by raising its price
without fear of competition. Such an exclusive right given to an
-i6o3.] LATTER YEARS OF REIGN OF ELIZABETH 407
inventor or discoverer is common enough nowadays, and does
more good than harm. But Elizabeth found that the grant of a
monopoly was the cheapest way in which she could reward her
favourites and courtiers, and she soon created so many monopolies
in common articles of necessity that they became a serious burden
to her people. Even the remonstrances of the parliament of 1597
bore little fruit, and in 1601 a new parliament met and renewed
the complaints of its predecessor. When the list of monopolies
was read before the Commons, a member exclaimed, " Is not bread
among the number ? Nay, but it will be if no remedy be found
before the next parliament." So loud was the outcry that
Elizabeth gave way. She promised to revoke aU monopolies that
weighed heavily upon her people, and graciously thanked the
Commons for caUing her attention to grievances of which other-
wise she would have had no knowledge. Thiis her tact triumphed
over the arbitrary temper of her family, and though England had
outgrown the Tudor despotism, men bore wiUingly the rule of so
popular a queen and so good an Englishwoman.
30. Elizabeth's health was now breaking up, but she still
refused to nominate her successor, though all her ministers
wished to have the king of Scots. As she lay dying, ug^th of
they urged her to declare her wishes. When her Elizabeth,
statesmen spoke of the king of Soots, she gave no sign ; 1 603.
but when they mentioned Lord Beauchamp, the son of Catharine
Q-rey, she fired up, and cried, " I wiU have no rascal's son in my
seat ! " At last she died on March 24, 1603, when nearly seventy
years old.
THE CECIL AND BACON FAMILIES
Sir Anthony Coohe
Mary m. (1) William Cecil, (2) m. Mildred Cooke
Cheke Lord Burghley,
d. 1598.
( 1) I (.2)
I
Anne m. Sir Nicholas
Cooke
Bacon, Lord
Keeper
Thomas Cecil,
first Lord Exeter.
Richard Cecil,
ancestor of present
Marquis of Exeter.
Edward Cecil,
Viscount Wimbledon,
d. 1638.
Robert Cecil, first
earl of Salisbury,
d. 1612,
ancestor of the
Marquis of Salisbury,
prime minister of
Queen Victoria.
Erancis Bacon,
Viscount St. Albans
and Lord Chancellor,
d. 1626.
CHAPTER VIII
ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS
1. The Tudor period saw tie end of the Middle Ages, and tlie
beginnings of modern times. It was a season, of great revolutionary
Th b i - changes. It was the age of the Renascence, or the new
nlngs of birth of thought, and learning, and of the Reformation
modern which saw the break up of the unity of the Church of
times. ^-^^ Middle Ages. Though the Counter-Reformation
threatened both Renascence and Reformation, it was, so far as
England went, powerless to change the direction of our national
life. Elizabeth saved the Reformation which Henry viii. had
begun, and restored the greatness of the English state. Under her
the Renascence first took a firm hold of her people, and manifested
itself in the great outburst of many-sided energy that marked the
last five and twenty years of her reign.
2. Such a time of revolutionary storms needed strong pilots to
steer the ship of state, and the veiled despotism of the Tudors gave
England a form of government which carried it success-
itwmapehv ^^J through the age of crisis. Yet the vigorous
power exercised by these sovereigns was not due to any
formal change in the constitution so much as to the confidence of
the people, the ability of the monarchs, the needs of the times, and
the decay of the two great checks that had curbed the power of
mediaeval monarchs. The Church had fallen, and the nobility had
lost its old independence. Prelate and noble, the rivals of earlier
kings, were now the chief supports of the throne. The independent
Commons had not yet arisen.
3. Parliament continued to hold its ancient position, and it was
a part of Tudor statecraft to obtain parliamentary sanction for
Parliament ^^ most arbitrary acts. Up to the end of Elizabeth's
under the reign the Commons could always be trusted to endorse
Tudors. j.-j^^ royal policy. Changes in the constitution of parlia-
ment tended to increase its subservience on the crown. Thus the
House of Lords became q^uite different from the House of Lords of
i6o3.] ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS 4O9
the Middle Ages. It had been an independent body, mainly ecclesi-
astical in character. It became a preponderatingly lay assembly,
and strictly submissive to the crown. Even before the mitred
abbots were removed by Henry vill. there was a small lay majority.
After 1539 the ecclesiastical element, only represented by the
bishops, became insignificant. Even a more important change was
brought about by the dying away of the ancient baronial houses,
and the rise in their place of new families, enriched by the spoils of
the monasteries, and owing their importance to the service of the
crown. Eew old families like the Howards, Nevilles, and Percies
still stood out among the Eussells, Cavendishes, Cecils, and other
ministerial houses of recent date. Thoug-h the number of lay peers
was still very small, the majority was well under the control of the
crown. Not many Tudor bishops were bold enough to disobey the
orders of their supreme governor. While the Lords on the whole
declined in number, the number of the Commons was added to by
Henry viii.'s new members from Wales and Cheshire, and by
frequent creations of boroughs. Many of these latter were places
of no importance, and were only called upon to return members in
order to increase the influence of the crown.
4. There was little friction between crown and parliament,
since the province of the two authorities were recognized as
distinct. Parliament raised taxes, passed laws, and Harmonv
sent up complaints if anything went amiss. The between
spending of money, and the execution of the laws were Crown and
entirely in the hands of the crown. The great feature Parliament,
of the constitutional history of the time is the strengthening of the
executive power of the monarchy, both in its central and local organs.
5. The king was his own chief minister, and held in his own
hands all the strings of policy. But the task of ruling a great
cotmtry was so laborious that he was forced to share xhe king
the burden with his ministers. These ministers were and his
partly great noblemen, who held as of prescriptive """'sters.
right the ancient high offices of state, such as those of treasurer,
admiral, or chancellor. But a great noble was not always clever
or hard-working, and could not always be trusted to play the king's
game. The result was that important and confidential business
was increasingly left to the king's two secretaries, who were called
under Elizabeth the secretaries of state. The Tudor secretaries
were men of humbler rank but greater abiKty than the high
ofiS.cial3. They were professional statesmen, and quite devoted to
their master. From their staff of clerks and subordinates we have
410 ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS [1485-
the beginning of the elaborate civil service and the complicated
machinery of government of the modern state.
6. When the king wanted advice he went to his council, now
sometimes called the privy council. This was a smaller and more
confidential body than the Ooncilivm, ordinariwm of
earlier times, which was now practically extinct. The
Tudor councU was a small board of less than twenty members, and
including as a rule men of different ways of thinking, so that the
king could hear all sorts of opinions in it. It was so active and
powerful that the Tudor period has well been described as the age of
government by council. Yet it was the king or queen that acted :
the council only advised. When the crown had decided, it was the
business of the councU to carry out the royal wUl. Besides its
main consultative and administrative function, the council issued
ordinances or proclamations, which were not very different from
new laws, and which encroached on the powers of Parliament. In
the same way council encroached upon the law courts by its ever-
increasing judicial activity.
7. The jurisdiction of the council was an inheritance from the
Middle Ages, but was largely added to in Tudor times. Its
judicial functions were largely handed over to a com-
Cham^p inittee, which soon became identified with the special
and the tribunal set up for the trial of great offenders by Henry
local vii.'s statute against livery and maintenance. This
body, which acquired the name of the Star Chamber
from holding its sessions in a room whose ceiUng was painted with
stars, became in substance the councU in its judicial aspect, includ-
ing all the councillors and some of the chief judges. It did good
work aU through Tudor times, partly by making great offenders
obey the law, and partly by taking a quicker, wider, and more equit-
able view of cases than was possible for the common law courts with
their stiff traditions of what the law should be. A feature of Tudor
times was the establishment of local courts of the same type as the
Star Chamber, such as the Council of the North at York, and the
Council of Wales at Ludlow. The Cou/rt of Sigh Commission, set
up at Elizabeth's accession, did for the Church what the other pre-
rogative courts did for the state. This last body always provoked
much opposition, but it was hardly until Stewart times that the lay
courts became oppressive. All, however, owed their authority
to the crown, and worked without a jury and without the traditional
regard to fixed legal principles which were both the glory and the
limitation of the common law cotirts.
-i6o3.] ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS 41 1
8. Local administration was in the hands of the country gentry.
The shire moot was now obsolete except for parliamentary elections,
having been superseded by the jiistices of the peace, i n»oi
who acted under royal commissions, yet were not state govern-
offlcials, but the independent and unpaid gentry of the ment.
district. The justices as iudividuals tried petty offenders, and all the
justices of the county met from time to time in quarter sessions,
which discharged the whole functions of local government. It
is characteristic of the popular character of the Tudor monarchy
that it felt itself strong enough to hand over such important work
to the local gentry. The schooling in law and administration which
his work as justice gave every coimtr'y squire was of immense
importance in preparing the way for the time when a new genera-
tion of the landed gentry led in the House of Commons the revolt
agaiust the Stewarts.
9. Another aspect of the popular Tudor despotism was its power
to govern without the aid of a strong military force. There were
no regular soldiers in Tudor England, save a corps Y/imtB.pv
of yeomen to guard the king's person, and the weakness
permanent garrisons of Calais, Berwick, and a few °^ the
fortresses. Henry viii. hired foreign mercenaries in
the latter years of his reign, but they soon disappeared after his
death. The main defence of the country still fell upon the local
militia, to serve in which was one of the duties of a citizen. It
was commanded by a lord lieutenant, appointed for every county
since the days of Edward vi. and Mary. Under him were deputy-
lieutenants, who belonged, Kke the justices of the peace, to the
local gentry. Thus even military commands were entrusted by the
Tudors to the country squires. More was done by the state for
the navy than the army, but even in a crisis like the Armada, the
forces of the crown had to be supplemented by armed merchant-
men.
10. Competition became fiercer, and careers were more readily
opened to talent as the modern spirit became stronger. The sup-
pression of the monasteries did much to uproot the old „ . , j
social and economic order, and the annals of Henry viii. economic
and Edward vi. show how the spirit of unrest was changes,
abroad, and how much sufiering was involved in the displacement
of the ancient landmarks. Yet class distinctions remained strong,
even when it was easier to rise from one class to another. The
gentry were stiU a class apart from the rest of the community ; but
the professional and merchant classes wei-e attaining increased
412 ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS [1485-
importance. The one great mediaeval profession, that of the clergy,
lost power, wealth, and social estimation. A married clergy found
it hard to live on the scanty remnants of the old endowments, and
a large proportion of the parish priests were iU educated as well as
poor. But lawyers made great fortunes, and the medical profession
begins to have a status when Henry viii. set up the Colleges
of Physicians and Surgeons. Trade grew, and with it the wealth
and importance of the merchants, until the highest classes in
the land became infected with the commercial spirit. Elizabeth
herself took shares, and made her profit out of Drake's piratical
attacks on Spain. Landholders regarded their estates as a com-
mercial investment which must return them a high rate of interest
for their outlay. The permanent result of this spirit was by no
means all evil. As the century grew old, new ways of employ-
ment were opened np, which got rid of the sturdy beggar more
effectively than the cruel laws of an earlier time. Corn-growing
again became profitable as population increased and markets
were developed. Fresh crops, such as hops and many new fruits and
vegetables, were introduced from the continent, and before the
great c[ueen's death the cultivation of the potato was brought in
from America. There were more manufaotuies, and emigration,
especially to Ireland, afEorded careers for those without occupation
at home. Thus both the yeomen and the craftsmen flourished.
Many yeomen were able to buy np the lands of the unthrifty
gentry, and the successful trader from the towns was constantly
becoming absorbed in the landed classes. Anxiety to keep up the
supply of skilled workmen took the shape of Elizabeth's famous
Act of Apprentices of 1663, which declared that no one should
exercise a trade untU. he had served a seven years' apprenticeship in
it. The same year saw the fltrst attempt of the state
Laws ^° ®®^ ^P ^ systematic and compulsory system of poor
relief. This culminated in the most famous of the
Elizabethan poor laws, passed in 1601. By it the justices were
empowered to nominate overseers in every parish, and these had
authority to tax every inhabitant, so as to provide the sums neces-
sary to support the poor of the parish. Thus grew up our system
of poor relief, which remained much the same until the new poor
law of 1834.
11. One sign of the growth of English resources was the
wonderful raising of the material standards of comfort and civiliza-
tion. The gross abundance of earlier times had given Englishmen
plenty to eat and drink, and the upper classes lived with great
-1603.] ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS 413
outward state and mag-nificence. Now the ordinary man's house
was built more solidly and comfortably, and lovers of old ways
denounced the effeminate luxury that rejected round j .
logs for piUows and bolsters, clean straw or rushes for refinement
carpets and tapestry, and a hole in the roof to let out ^.nd luxury,
the smoke for a chimney. Forks came into general use instead of
fingers. Food also became more varied and wholesome. The intro-
duction of hops improved the ctuality of beer, and towards the end of
the period American explorers introduced a new luxury in tobacco.
Men ate so much flesh meat that the state, not so much for
religious reasons as for the sake of encouraging the fisheries, strove
to keep up the old habit of fasting on Fridays. Dress became
exceedingly rich and gorgeous, and the clothes both for men and
women became less tasteful and more barbaric in Elizabeth's days.
Conspicuous articles of ladies' attire were the ruff, an exaggerated
collar, towering high above the neck, and \}asi fartMngale, or hoop,
which assumed a ridiculous stifEness and enormous dimensions.
12. Education became wider, and affected larger classes of
society. Though the changes in religion resulted in much un-
necessary havoc among the schools and colleges that
had come down from the Middle Ages, some effort was f "^^ t^oy"i
made to set up new ones in their place, and education
was no longer regarded as simply a training for scholars and pro-
fessional men. A certain amount of culture was demanded from
every gentleman and lady. A gentleman was expected to be well
read, fond of poetry and music, an expert in fencing and horse-
manship, polished in his manner, and elegant in his garb. For
an education so comprehensive as this, travel was one of the best
schools, and the educated scholar and gentleman made a point of
going abroad, particularly to Italy, which was still the traditional
centre of European intellectual Hfe. Lovers of old ways com-
plained that many English men got more harm than g'ood from
their foreign experience, and denounced the profligacy and irre-
ligion that too often made the " Italianate Englishman a devil
incarnate." Travel was facilitated by the better police of the seas
that kept down piracy, and within England by the introduction of
coaches, which, however heavy and cumbrous they seem to us, were
denounced as dangerous luxuries, only permissible to the aged and
infirm. Men still mainly made their journeys on horseback, and
gentlemen carried arms, partly as a sign of their gentility, but
partly as a means of protection against the robbers that infested
every highway.
414 ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS [1485-
13. Another sign of modern times was the dying out of Gothic
architecture, though this took place very slowly. Under Henry viii.
Renascence ^"^ ®^*®ly * Grothic building as Bath Abbey could stiU
apchltec- be erected, while the methods of medissval construction
ture. lingered on, notably at Oxford and Cambridge, until
the middle of the seventeenth century. The age of the Reforma-
tion did not build churches, but pulled them down, so that it is to
domestic and civil rather than to ecclesiastical architecture that we
must look if we would study the change of fashion that now came
in. Italian influence made itself felt about the middle of the century,
though few great houses were erected in the pure Renascence or
Italian style. The gorgeous palaces of Elizabethan nobles were still
Gothic in their general outline, but the details and the ornamen-
tation were those which the classic revival had borrowed from Italy.
As good examples of this mixed Elizabethan or Jacobean style, as
it is called, we may mention the two great houses of Burghley, near
Stamford, and Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, which were erected by
William and Robert Cecil. Though the style may easily be criti-
cized as a confused medley of different types, it is picturesque,
appropriate, and dignified. The mansions erected in it were much
more comfortable to live in than the castles of the Middle Ages.
14. Other arts were less flourishing than architecture. There
was a real English school of Church musicians, and the Elizabethan
composers could set appropriate music to the delicate
Other arts. . ."^ » ,1. i. i. j> -n t t, -j.-
lyncs 01 the best age 01 Enghsh song-writing.
English painting and sculpture were, however, at a low ebb,
as many a bad picture in old houses, and still more numerous
stifE and clumsy sculptured tombs of Elizabethan worthies show.
Henry viii., who loved art and splendoxir, gave pensions to foreign
artists, though many of them were not much more skilled in their
craft than their English rivals. Some of Henry's foreign artists,
however, were men of real distinction. The Italian sculptor,
Torrigiano, wrought for him the beautiful effigies of Henry vil. and
the Lady Margaret Beaufort, his mother, in the new Henry vii.'s
chapel of Westminster Abbey, which is itself one of the glories
of sixteenth- century Gothic architecture. The German Hans
Holbein spent neai-ly twenty years in England in the latter part
of the reign of Henry viii., and has painted and drawn the men
of that age with uncompromising truthfulness and consummate
technical skiU. Very inferior to this great artist were the common-
place painters who came from Italy and Flanders to portray the
worthies of the age of Elizabeth.
-i6o3.] ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS 415
15. For the first three-quarters of the sixteenth century the
output of good literature in England was not great. But the
activity of the numerous printing-presses showed how
love of learning and a taste for reading had spread, merature''
Poeta still followed the. fashion set by Chaucer, but
it was in Scotland rather than in England that the Chaucerian
tradition was most fruitful of good work. The real Hierary
importance of the early part of Henry viii.'s reig'n is not so much
the actual literature produced as the impulse which men like Colet
and More set towards the humanism of the Renascence. The
most notable book produced by this circle of reformers was More's
Utopia. Though written in Latin, it was, as we have seen, very
definitely English in its unsparing analysis of the evils from which
our country was then suffering. The next g-eneration saw the
effects of the Reformation in such work as Latimer's homely and
outspoken Sermons, while the habitual use of the various English
translations of the Bible and of the Edwardian BooTc of Common
Prayer did much to set up a high standard of dignified English
prose. The fashion of writing became less cumbrous and more
direct in the straightforward English, written much after the
fashion of homely speech, which came from the pen of the school-
master and reformer, Roger Ascham, whose works mark the
beginnings of a more modern style of English prose.
16. Towards the end of Henry viil.'s reign a new school of poets
arose, which derived its chief imptilse from Italy. At its head
were Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, the headstrong ~j^ .^ ^
lord beheaded by Henry viii. in 1547, and Sir Thomas nings of
Wyatt, the father of the rebel against Queen Mary. Elizabethan
This school brought in Italian metres such as the '"^rature.
sonnet and hlanle verse, and their occasional poems became widely
read in manuscript in courtly circles, though they were first printed
in Tottel's Miscellany, a collection of verses published by a book-
seller named Tottel in the reign of Queen Mary. Prom the issue of
this epoch-making collection the new inspiration to poetry began.
It was, however, but very slowly that the new spirit made itself
generally felt. The first twenty years of the reign of Elizabeth
were not much more productive than the generation that preceded
them. Then the true Elizabethan literature burst forth with
strange suddenness and overwhelming glory, in those days of fierce
struggle when England was fighting for her existence against the
Jesuits and the Spaniards, when Drake was saihng round the
world, and when Gilbert and Raleigh were first dreaming of
4l6 ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS [1485-
an English colonial empire. A wonderftil output of tlie noMest
works illustrated the last five and twenty years of the queen's reign,
and continued well into the next century. Much of what is most
distinctly regarded as Elizabethan was written under James i.
17. The publication of Edmund Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar
in 1579 begins the flowering time of Elizabethan poetry, and
S Dense revealed to the world the greatest poet of the new era.
and the Spenser was soon called away from literary work to
poets. take part in the plantation of Munster, whence, after
twenty years of prosperity, he was driven out by the last Desmond
rebeUion, to die ere long in London, poor and disappointed, but
never neglected. His great unfinished epic, the Faerie Qaeen,
written in Ireland, and published in 1589 and 1598, sets forth ia
the richest and most musical of verse all that was best in the
spirit of the English Erenascence — imagination, chivalry, love of
beauty, enthusiasm for knowledge, delight in allegory, mystery,
adventure, and fairy tales, burning devotion to England and her
queen, earnest moral purpose, and fierce hatred of the pope and
Spain. Spenser's work stands alone, but some share of his poetic
spirit was reflected in a. crowd of lesser writers. His love-sonnets
increased the fashion for long sonnet cycles, which had already
obtained much vogue through the following of foreign examples,
and through the sonnets wherein Spenser's friend and patron, Sir
Philip Sidney, described Ms unhappy love for Stella. This tendency
i-eached its supreme height in the wonderful sonnets of Shakespeare.
Nothing, however, better shows how the spirit of poetry was in
the air than the grace and spontaneity of many a nameless lyric
that can be found in the song-books and plays of this great age.
18. Most of all is the spirit of the Elizabethan period reflected in
the development of the dramatic literature, which is its special glory.
The mediiBval taste for mysteries and moralities had
The first spread among the people a great taste for shows and
theatres theatrical entertainments, which, inspired by the classic
and their spirit of the Renascence, found a new outlet in repre-
perform- sentations of Latin plays by scholars at the universities
and Inns of Court, and finally led to their imitation in
English. At last the rude beginnings of a more national English
drama began to appear, and as the taste for their representation
grew, regular theatres were opened in which plays could be acted.
In 1576, James Burbage, the first famous Elizabethan actor, opened
the first building set apart for dramatic performances at Shore-
ditch, just outside the city of London. It soon had many rivals
-i603.] ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS 417
and successors, of which the best known was the Globe theatre
in Sonthwark. These Elizabethan playhouses were but rude
straotures, buUt of wood and roofed with thatch at the sides.
They were exposed in the centre to the weather, except on the side
of the stage, where the wealthy patrons of the drama sat on stools
among- the actors, while the ordinary spectators stood in the exposed
pit, and the few ladies who ventured to be present, hid themselves
away masked, in boxes ranged round the covered sides of the house.
Performances took place in the afternoon, and Sunday was the
favourite day for them, though the Puritans looked askance on
this violation of the sabbath as well as at the reckless profligacy
of many of the actors, and the lax morality of many of the pieces.
There was hardly amy scenery and properties, though the actors
often wore rich dresses. Boys acted women's parts, which were,
however, but few as compared with the number of male characters.
Though there was little money to be got by writing plays, success-
ful managers and actors were able, with prudence, to make a fortune.
19. The opening of public theatres soon brought about a
wonderful change in the quality of the pieces performed in them.
A grroup of young men who had acquired a taste for Marlowe and
the drama at the universities, settled down in London, the early
where they lived riotous lives and wrote plays which, ''*™^ ^ ^•
with much bombast and crudity, revealed real fire and action and
a vein of true poetry. The great age of the drama began when
Christopher Marlowe, the most gifted of the band, produced his
^ Tamhurlaine the Great in 1687. In Marlowe's short, riotous, and
tragic career the first stage of Elizabethan tragedy reached its
height. Cut off in a tavern brawl before he was thirty, he had left
,work behind bi-m whose force and passion gave him a permanent
rank among the great poets of the world.
20. About the time that Marlowe wrote Tamhurlaine, WiUiam
Shakespeare, a youth of two or three and twenty, left his home and
family at Stratford-on-Avon and went to London to shake-
push his fortunes. He soon found profitable employ- ^peare and
ment in working up old plays for representation, and
before long, inspired largely by Marlowe's genius, began to attempt
original flights of his own. After essays at fantastic and boisterous
comedy, his fervid love tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, and his
stirring patriotic dramas from EngUsh history, secured for him a
foremost position in his craft, while the Merchant of Venice, pro-
duced in 1594, a few months after Marlowe's success, first demon-
strated the fuU extent of his powers. Shrewd, businesslike, and
2b
41 8 ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS [1485-
thrif ty, he had attained before Elizaheth's death a competent fortune,
a high social position, and a reputation quite unique among his
contemporaries. His profound knowledge of the human heart, his
breadth, naturalness, and self-restraint, his deep passion, abundant
humour, ripeness of judgment, and wonderful command of the
mother tongue, stand by themselves in all literature. Round him
gathered a great school of dramatists, whose work, attaining its
climax under James i., slowly decayed londer Ms successor, xmtil the
great ci-vil war brought it to an end.
21. Elizabethan prose did not attain the level of Elizabethan
poetry or the drama. There were few received standards of prose
composition, and the force and spirit of the age were
ppo^'!^*''^" half hidden away by the quaint conceits and tangled
and inartistic periods of many able writers. Richard
Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, which raised ecclesiastical pamph-
leteering into sound and dignified literature, and Sir Francis
Bacon's famous Essays, first published iu 1697, were the greatest
masterpieces of Elizabethan prose. The patriotic impulse of the
age was reflected in the large output of historical work, of which
Holinshead's Chronicles, from which Shakespeare derived so much
of his history, are a conspicuous example. A feature of the time
was the extensive literature of travel and adventure, foremost
among which was Hakluyt's Principal Navigations of the English
Nation (1587), wherein the simple narration of the great deeds of
the Elizabethan seamen brings home vividly to us the close connec-
tion between the Uf e and the literature of the time. It was the
richest, fullest, and most heroic period of English history.
Books kecommended fob the Fukthee Study of the Period
1486-1603
Gairdner'8 Henry VII. ; Creighton's Wolaey (both in Macmillan's Twdve
English Statesmen) ; Brewer's Reign of Henry VIII. (to the fall of Wolsey) ;
Pollard's Henry VIII. and, the Pr 
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