It is really amusing to remark the strange business in which the king sometimes interfered, and never without a present. The wife of Hugh de Neville gave the king two hundred hens, that she might lie with her husband one night [t]; and she brought with her two sureties, who answered each for a hundred hens. It is probable that her husband was a prisoner, which debarred her from having access to him. The Abbot of Rucford paid ten marks for leave to erect houses and place men upon his land near Welhang, in order to secure his wood there from being stolen [u]. Hugh, Archdeacon of Wells, gave one tun of wine for leave to carry six hundred sums of corn whither he would [w]; Peter de Peraris gave twenty marks for leave to salt fishes, as Peter Chevalier used to do [x].
[FN [t] Id. p. 320. [u] Id. p. 326. [w] Id. p. 320. [x] Id. p.
326.]
It was usual to pay high fines, in order to gain the king"s good-will, or mitigate his anger. In the reign of Henry II., Gilbert, the son of Fergus, fines in nine hundred and nineteen pounds, nine shillings, to obtain that prince"s favour; William de Chataignes, a thousand marks, that he would remit his displeasure. In the reign of Henry III., the city of London fines in no less a sum than twenty thousand pounds on the same account [y].
[FN [y] Id. p. 327, 329.]
The king"s protection and good offices of every kind were bought and sold. Robert Grislet paid twenty marks of silver, that the king would help him against the Earl of Mortaigne, in a certain plea [z]: Robert de Cundet gave thirty marks of silver, that the king would bring him to an accord with the Bishop of Lincoln [a]: Ralph de Breckham gave a hawk, that the king would protect him [b]; and this is a very frequent reason for payments: John, son of Ordgar, gave a Norway hawk, to have the king"s request to the king of Norway to let him have his brother G.o.dard"s chattels [c]: Richard de Neville gave twenty palfreys to obtain the king"s request to Isolda Bisset, that she should take him for a husband [d]: Roger Fitz-Walter gave three good palfreys to have the king"s letter to Roger Bertram"s mother, that she should marry him [e]: Eling, the dean, paid one hundred marks, that his wh.o.r.e and his children might be let out upon bail [f]: the Bishop of Winchester gave one tun of good wine for his not putting the king in mind to give a girdle to the Countess of Albemarle [g]: Robert de Veaux gave five of the best palfreys, that the king would hold his tongue about Henry Pinel"s wife [h]. There are in the records of exchequer, many other singular instances of a like nature [i]. It will, however, be just to remark, that the same ridiculous practices and dangerous abuses prevailed in Normandy, and probably in all the other states of Europe [k]: England was not, in this respect, more barbarous than its neighbours.
[FN [z] Madox"s Hist. of the Exch. p. 329. [a] Id. p. 330. [b] Id.
p. 332. [c] Id. ibid. [d] Id. p. 333. [e] Id. ibid. [f] Id. p.
342. PRO HABENDA AMICA SUA ET FILIIS, &c. [g] Id. p. 352. [h] Id.
ibid. UT REX TACERET DE UXORE HENRICI PINEL. [i] WE SHALL GRATIFY THE READER"S CURIOSITY BY SUBJOINING A FEW MORE INSTANCES FROM MADOX, p. 332. Hugh Oisel was to give the king two robes of a good green colour, to have the king"s letters patent to the merchants of Flanders, with a request to render him one thousand marks, which he lost in Flanders. The Abbot of Hyde paid thirty marks, to have the king"s letters of request to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to remove certain monks that were against the abbot. Roger de Trihanton paid twenty marks and a palfrey, to have the king"s request to Richard de Umfreville to give him his sister to wife, and to the sister, that she would accept him for a husband. William de Cheveringworth paid five marks, to have the king"s letter to the Abbot of Perfore, to let him enjoy peaceably his t.i.thes as formerly. Matthew de Hereford, clerk, paid ten marks for a letter of request to the Bishop of Llandaff, to let him enjoy peaceably his church of Schenfrith. Andrew Neulun gave three Flemish caps for the king"s request to the Prior of Chikesand, for performance of an agreement made between them. Henry de Fontibus gave a Lombardy horse of value, to have the king"s request to Henry Fitz-Hervey, that he would grant him his daughter to wife. Roger, son of Nicholas, promised all the lampreys he could get, to have the king"s request to Earl William Marshall, that he would grant him the manor of Langeford at Firm. The burgesses of Gloucester promised three hundred lampreys, that they might not be distrained to find the prisoners of Poictou with necessaries, unless they pleased. Id. p.
352. Jordan, son of Reginald, paid twenty marks, to have the king"s request to William Paniel, that he would grant him the land of Mill Nieresult, and the custody of his heirs: and if Jordan obtained the same, he was pay the twenty marks, otherwise not. Id. p. 333. [k]
Madox"s Hist. of the Exch. p. 359.]
These iniquitous practices of the Norman kings were so well known, that on the death of Hugh BiG.o.d, in the reign of Henry II., the best and most just of these princes, the eldest son and the widow of this n.o.bleman came to court, and strove, by offering large presents to the king, each of them to acquire possession of that rich inheritance.
The king was so equitable as to order the cause to be tried by the great council! But, in the mean time, he seized all the money and treasure of the deceased [l]. Peter of Blois, a judicious, and even an elegant writer for that age, gives a pathetic description of the venality of justice, and the oppressions of the poor, under the reign of Henry; and he scruples not to complain to the king himself of these abuses [m]. We may judge what the case would be under the government of worst princes. The articles of inquiry concerning the conduct of sheriffs, which Henry promulgated in 1170, show the great power, as well as the licentiousness of these officers [n].
[FN [l] Bened. Abb. p. 180, 181. [m] Petri Bles. Epist. 95. apud Bibl. Patrum, tom. p. xxiv. 2014. [n] Hoveden, Chron. Gerv. p. 1410.]
Amerciaments, or fines for crimes and trespa.s.ses, were another considerable branch of the royal revenue [o]. Most crimes were atoned for by money; the fines imposed were not limited by any rule or statute; and frequently occasioned the total ruin of the person, even for the slightest trespa.s.ses. The forest-laws, particularly, were a great source of oppression. The king possessed sixty-eight forests, thirteen chases, and seven hundred and eighty-one parks, in different parts of England [p]; and considering the extreme pa.s.sion of the English and Normans for hunting, these were so many snares laid for the people, by which they were allured into trespa.s.ses, and brought within the reach of arbitrary and rigorous laws, which the king had thought proper to enact by his own authority.
[FN [o] Madox, chap. 14. [p] Spellm. Gloss. in verbo FORESTA.]
But the most barefaced acts of tyranny and oppression were practised against the Jews, who were entirely out of the protection of law, were extremely odious from the bigotry of the people, and were abandoned to the immeasurable rapacity of the king and his ministers. Besides many other indignities to which they were continually exposed, it appears that they were once all thrown into prison, and the sum of sixty-six thousand marks exacted for their liberty [q]: at another time, Isaac the Jew paid alone five thousand one hundred marks [r]; Brun, three thousand marks [s]; Jurnet, two thousand; Bennet, five hundred: at another, Licorica, widow of David, the Jew of Oxford, was required to pay six thousand marks; and she was delivered over to six of the richest and discreetest Jews in England, who were to answer for the sum [t]. Henry III. borrowed five thousand marks from the Earl of Cornwall; and for his repayment, consigned over to him all the Jews in England [u]. The revenue arising from exactions upon this nation was so considerable, that there was a particular court of exchequer set apart for managing it [w].
[FN [q] Madox"s Hist. of the Exch. p. 151. This happened in the reign of King John. [r] Id. p. 151. [s] Id. p. 153. [t] Id. p. 168. [u]
Id. p. 156. [w] Id. chap. 7.]
[MN Commerce.]
We may judge concerning the low state of commerce among the English, when the Jews, notwithstanding these oppressions, could still find their account in trading among them, and lending them money. And as the improvements of agriculture were also much checked by the immense possessions of the n.o.bility, by the disorders of the times, and by the precarious state of feudal property, it appears that industry of no kind could then have place in the kingdom [x].
[FN [x] We learn from the extracts given us of Doomsday by Brady, in his Treatise of Boroughs, that almost all the boroughs of England had suffered in the shock of the Conquest, and had extremely decayed between the death of the Confessor, and the time when Doomsday was framed.]
It is a.s.serted by Sir Henry Spellman [y], as an undoubted truth, that, during the reigns of the first Norman princes, every edict of the king, issued with the consent of his privy council, had the full force of law. But the barons, surely, were not so pa.s.sive as to intrust a power, entirely arbitrary and despotic, into the hands of the sovereign. It only appears, that the const.i.tution had not fixed any precise boundaries to the royal power; that the right of issuing proclamations on any emergence, and of exacting obedience to them, a right which was always supposed inherent in the crown, is very difficult to be distinguished from a legislative authority; that the extreme imperfection of the ancient laws, and the sudden exigencies which often occurred in such turbulent governments, obliged the prince to exert frequently the latent powers of his prerogative; that he naturally proceeded, from the acquiescence of the people, to a.s.sume, in many particulars of moment, an authority from which he had excluded himself by express statutes, charters, or concessions, and which was, in the main, repugnant to the general genius of the const.i.tution; and that the lives, the personal liberty, and the properties of all his subjects, were less secured by law against the exertion of his arbitrary authority, than by the independent power and private connexions of each individual. It appears from the great charter itself, that not only John, a tyrannical prince, and Richard, a violent one, but their father, Henry, under whose reign the prevalence of gross abuses is the least to be suspected, were accustomed, from their sole authority, without process of law, to imprison, banish, and attaint the freemen of their kingdom.
[FN [y] Gloss. in verb. JUDICIUM DEI. The author of the MIROIR DES JUSTICES complains, that ordinances are only made by the king and his clerks, and by aliens and others, who dare not contradict the king, but study to please him. Whence, he concludes, laws are oftener dictated by will, than founded on right.]
A great baron, in ancient times, considered himself as a kind of sovereign within his territory; and was attended by courtiers and dependents more zealously attached to him than the ministers of state and the great officers were commonly to THEIR sovereign. He often maintained in his court the parade of royalty, by establishing a justiciary, constable, mareschal, chamberlain, seneschal, and chancellor, and a.s.signing to each of these officers a separate province and command. He was usually very a.s.siduous in exercising his jurisdiction; and took such delight in that image of sovereignty, that it was found necessary to restrain his activity, and prohibit him by law from holding courts too frequently [z]. It is not to be doubted, but the example, set him by the prince of a mercenary and sordid extortion, would be faithfully copied, and that all his good and bad offices, his justice and injustice, were equally put to sale. He had the power, with the king"s consent, to exact talliages even from the free citizens who lived within his barony; and as his necessities made him rapacious, his authority was usually found to be more oppressive and tyrannical than that of the sovereign [a]. He was ever engaged in hereditary or personal animosities or confederacies with his neighbours, and often gave protection to all desperate adventurers and criminals, who could be useful in serving his violent purposes. He was able alone, in times of tranquillity, to obstruct the execution of justice within his territories; and by combining with a few malecontent barons of high rank and power, he could throw the state into convulsions. And, on the whole, though the royal authority was confined within bounds, and often within very narrow ones, yet the check was irregular, and frequently the source of great disorders; nor was it derived from the liberty of the people, but from the military power of many petty tyrants, who were equally dangerous to the prince and oppressive to the subject.
[FN [z] Dugd. Jurid. Orig. p. 26. [a] Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p.
520.]
[MN The Church.]
The power of the church was another rampart against royal authority; but this defence was also the cause of many mischiefs and inconveniences. The dignified clergy, perhaps, were not so p.r.o.ne to immediate violence as the barons; but as they pretended to a total independence on the state, and could always cover themselves with the appearances of religion, they proved, in one respect, an obstruction to the settlement of the kingdom, and to the regular execution of the laws. The policy of the Conqueror was in this particular liable to some exception. He augmented the superst.i.tious veneration for Rome, to which that age was so much inclined; and he broke those bands of connexion, which, in the Saxon times, had preserved an union between the lay and the clerical orders. He prohibited the bishops from sitting in the county courts; he allowed ecclesiastical causes to be tried in spiritual courts only [b]; and he so much exalted the power of the clergy, that of sixty thousand two hundred and fifteen knights"
fees, into which he divided England, he placed no less than twenty- eight thousand and fifteen under the church [c].
[FN [b] Char. Will. apud Wilkins, p. 230. Spellm. Conc. vol. ii. p.
14. [c] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. Ma.n.u.s MORTUA. We are not to imagine, as some have done, that the church possessed lands in this proportion, but only that they and their va.s.sals enjoyed such a proportionable part of the landed property.]
[MN Civil laws.]
The right of primogeniture was introduced with the feudal law: an inst.i.tution which is hurtful, by producing and maintaining an unequal division of private property; but is advantageous, in another respect, by accustoming the people to a preference in favour of the eldest son, and thereby preventing a part.i.tion or disputed succession in the monarchy. The Normans introduced the use of surnames, which tend to preserve the knowledge of families and pedigrees. They abolished none of the old absurd methods of trial by the cross or ordeal; and they added a new absurdity, the trial by single combat [d], which became a regular part of jurisprudence, and was conducted with all the order, method, devotion, and solemnity imaginable [e]. The ideas of chivalry also seem to have been imported by the Normans: no traces of those fantastic notions are to be found among the plain and rustic Saxons.
[FN [d] LL. Will. cap. 68. [e] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. CAMPUS. The last instance of these duels was in the 15th of Eliz. So long did that absurdity remain.]
[MN Manners.]
The feudal inst.i.tutions, by raising the military tenants to a kind of sovereign dignity, by rendering personal strength and valour requisite, and by making every knight and baron his own protector and avenger, begat that martial pride and sense of honour, which, being cultivated and embellished by the poets and romance-writers of the age, ended in chivalry. The virtuous knight fought not only in his own quarrel, but in that of the innocent, of the helpless, and, above all, of the fair, whom he supposed to be for ever under the guardianship of his valiant arm. The uncourteous knight who, from his castle, exercised robbery on travellers, and committed violence on virgins, was the object of his perpetual indignation; and he put him to death, without scruple, or trial, or appeal, whenever he met with him. The great independence of men made personal honour and fidelity the chief tie among them; and rendered it the capital virtue of every true knight, or genuine professor of chivalry. The solemnities of single combat, as established by law, banished the notion of every thing unfair or unequal in rencounters; and maintained an appearance of courtesy between the combatants till the moment of their engagement. The credulity of the age grafted on this stock the notion of giants, enchanters, dragons, spells [f], and a thousand wonders, which still multiplied during the time of the crusades; when men, returning from so great a distance, used the liberty of imposing every fiction on their believing audience. These ideas of chivalry infected the writings, conversation, and behaviour of men, during some ages; and even after they were, in a great measure, banished by the revival of learning, they left modern GALLANTRY and the POINT OF HONOUR, which still maintain their influence, and are the genuine offspring of those ancient affectations.
[FN [f] In all legal single combats, it was part of the champion"s oath, that he carried not about him any herb, spell, or enchantment, by which he might procure victory. Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 82.]
The concession of the great charter, or rather its full establishment, (for there was a considerable interval of time between the one and the other,) gave rise, by degrees, to a new species of government, and introduced some order and justice into the administration. The ensuing scenes of our history are therefore somewhat different from the preceding. Yet the great charter contained no establishment of new courts, magistrates, or senates, nor abolition of the old. It introduced no new distribution of the powers of the commonwealth, and no innovation in the political or public law of the kingdom. It only guarded, and that merely by verbal clauses, against such tyrannical practices as are incompatible with civilized government, and, if they become very frequent, are incompatible with all government. The barbarous license of the kings, and perhaps of the n.o.bles, was thenceforth somewhat more restrained: men acquired some more security for their properties and their liberties: and government approached a little nearer to that end for which it was originally inst.i.tuted, the distribution of justice, and the equal protection of the citizens.
Acts of violence and iniquity in the crown, which before were only deemed injurious to individuals, and were hazardous chiefly in proportion to the number, power, and dignity of the persons affected by them, were now regarded, in some degree, as public injuries, and as infringements of a charter calculated for general security. And thus the establishment of the great charter, without seeming anywise to innovate in the distribution of political power, became a kind of epoch in the const.i.tution.
CHAPTER XII.
HENRY III.
SETTLEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT.--GENERAL PACIFICATION.--DEATH OF THE PROTECTOR.--SOME COMMOTIONS.--HUBERT DE BURGH DISPLACED.--THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER MINISTER.--KING?S PARTIALITY TO FOREIGNERS.-- GRIEVANCES.--ECCLESIASTICAL GRIEVANCES.--EARL OF CORNWALL ELECTED KING OF THE ROMANS.--DISCONTENT OF THE BARONS.--SIMON DE MOUNTFORT, EARL OF LEICESTER.--PROVISIONS OF OXFORD.?USURPATION OF THE BARONS.--PRINCE EDWARD.--CIVIL WARS OF THE BARONS.--REFERENCE TO THE KING OF FRANCE.-- RENEWAL OF THE CIVIL WARS.--BATTLE OF LEWES.--HOUSE OF COMMONS.-- BATTLE OF EVESHAM AND DEATH OF LEICESTER.--SETTLEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT.--DEATH--AND CHARACTER OF THE KING.--MISCELLANEOUS TRANSACTIONS OF THIS REIGN.
[MN 1216.] Most sciences, in proportion as they increase and improve, invent methods by which they facilitate their reasonings; and, employing general theorems, are enabled to comprehend, in a few propositions, a great number of inferences and conclusions. History also, being a collection of facts which are multiplying without end, is obliged to adopt such arts of abridgment, to retain the more material events, and to drop all the minute circ.u.mstances, which are only interesting during the time, or to the persons engaged in the transactions. This truth is no where more evident than with regard to the reign upon which we are going to enter. What mortal could have the patience to write or read a long detail of such frivolous events as those with which it is filled, or attend to a tedious narrative which would follow, through a series of fifty-six years, the caprices and weaknesses of so mean a prince as Henry? The chief reason why Protestant writers have been so anxious to spread out the incidents of this reign is, in order to expose the rapacity, ambition, and artifices of the court of Rome; and to prove that the great dignitaries of the Catholic church, while they pretended to have nothing in view but the salvation of souls, had bent all their attention to the acquisition of riches, and were restrained by no sense of justice or of honour in the pursuit of that great object [a].
But this conclusion would readily be allowed them, though it were not ill.u.s.trated by such a detail of uninteresting incidents; and follows, indeed, by an evident necessity, from the very situation in which that church was placed with regard to the rest of Europe. For, besides that ecclesiastical power, as it can always cover its operations under a cloak of sanct.i.ty, and attacks men on the side where they dare not employ their reason, lies less under control than civil government; besides this general cause, I say, the pope and his courtiers were foreigners to most of the churches which they governed; they could not possibly have any other object than to pillage the provinces for present gain; and as they lived at a distance, they would be little awed by shame or remorse, in employing every lucrative expedient which was suggested to them. England being one of the most remote provinces attached to the Romish hierarchy, as well as the most p.r.o.ne to superst.i.tion, felt severely during this reign, while its patience was not yet fully exhausted, the influence of these causes; and we shall often have occasion to touch cursorily upon such incidents. But we shall not attempt to comprehend every transaction transmitted to us; and, till the end of the reign, when the events become more memorable, we shall not always observe an exact chronological order in our narration.
[FN [a] M. Paris, p. 623.]
[MN Settlement of the government.]
The Earl of Pembroke, who, at the time of John"s death, was Mareschal of England, was, by his office, at the head of the armies, and consequently, during a state of civil wars and convulsions, at the head of the government; and it happened fortunately for the young monarch and for the nation, that the power could not have been intrusted into more able and more faithful hands. This n.o.bleman, who had maintained his loyalty unshaken to John, during the lowest fortune of that monarch, determined to support the authority of the infant prince; nor was he dismayed at the number and violence of his enemies.
Sensible that Henry, agreeably to the prejudices of the times, would not be deemed a sovereign till crowned and anointed by a churchman, he immediately carried the young prince to Gloucester, [MN 1216. 28th Oct.] where the ceremony of coronation was performed, in the presence of Gualo, the legate, and of a few n.o.blemen, by the Bishops of Winchester and Bath [b]. As the concurrence of the papal authority was requisite to support the tottering throne, Henry was obliged to swear fealty to the pope, and renew that homage to which his father had already subjected the kingdom [c]; and in order to enlarge the authority of Pembroke, and to give him a more regular and legal t.i.tle to it, a general council of the barons was soon after summoned at Bristol, [MN 11th Nov.] where that n.o.bleman was chosen protector of the realm.
[FN [b] M. Paris, p. 200. Hist. Croyl. cont. p. 474. W. Heming. p.
562 Trivet, p. 168. [c] M. Paris, p. 200.]
Pembroke, that he might reconcile all men to the government of his pupil, made him grant a new charter of liberties, which, though mostly copied from the former concessions extorted from John, contains some alterations which may be deemed remarkable [d]. The full privilege of elections in the clergy, granted by the late king, was not confirmed, nor the liberty of going out of the kingdom, without the royal consent: whence we may conclude, that Pembroke and the barons, jealous of the ecclesiastical power, both were desirous of renewing the king"s claim to issue a conge d"elire to the monks and chapters, and thought it requisite to put some check to the frequent appeals to Rome. But what may chiefly surprise us, is, that the obligation to which John had subjected himself, of obtaining the consent of the great council before he levied any aids or scutages upon the nation, was omitted; and this article was even declared hard and severe, and was expressly left to future deliberation. But we must consider, that, though this limitation may perhaps appear to us the most momentous in the whole charter of John, it was not regarded in that light by the ancient barons, who were more jealous in guarding against particular acts of violence in the crown, than against such general impositions, which, unless they were evidently reasonable and necessary, could scarcely, without general consent, be levied upon men who had arms in their hands, and who could repel any act of oppression by which they were all immediately affected. We accordingly find, that Henry, in the course of his reign, while he gave frequent occasions for complaint, with regard to his violations of the great charter, never attempted, by his mere will, to levy any aids or scutages; though he was often reduced to great necessities, and was refused supply by his people.
So much easier was it for him to transgress the law, when individuals alone were affected, than even to exert his acknowledged prerogatives, where the interest of the whole body was concerned.
[FN [d] Rymer, vol. i. p. 215.]
This charter was again confirmed by the king in the ensuing year, with the addition of some articles, to prevent the oppressions by sheriffs; and also with an additional charter of forests, a circ.u.mstance of great moment in those ages, when hunting was so much the occupation of the n.o.bility, and when the king comprehended so considerable a part of the kingdom within his forests, which he governed by peculiar and arbitrary laws. All the forests which had been enclosed since the reign of Henry II. were disafforested; and new perambulations were appointed for that purpose: offences in the forests were declared to be no longer capital; but punishable by fine, imprisonment, and more gentle penalties: and all the proprietors of land recovered the power of cutting and using their own wood at their pleasure.
Thus these famous charters were brought nearly to the shape in which they have ever since stood; and they were, during many generations, the peculiar favourites of the English nation, and esteemed the most sacred rampart to national liberty and independence. As they secured the rights of all orders of men, they were anxiously defended by all, and became the basis, in a manner, of the English monarchy, and a kind of original contract, which both limited the authority of the king, and ensured the conditional allegiance of his subjects. Though often violated, they were still claimed by the n.o.bility and people; and as no precedents were supposed valid that infringed them, they rather acquired than lost authority, from the frequent attempts made against them, in several ages, by regal and arbitrary power.
While Pembroke, by renewing and confirming the great charter, gave so much satisfaction and security to the nation in general, he also applied himself successfully to individuals. He wrote letters, in the king"s name, to all the malecontent barons; in which he represented to them, that, whatever jealousy and animosity they might have entertained against the late king, a young prince, the lineal heir of their ancient monarchs, had now succeeded to the throne, without succeeding either to the resentments or principles of his predecessor: that the desperate expedient, which they had employed of calling in a foreign potentate, had, happily for them, as well as for the nation, failed of entire success; and it was still in their power, by a speedy return to their duty, to restore the independence of the kingdom, and to secure that liberty for which they so zealously contended: that as all past offences of the barons were now buried in oblivion, they ought, on their part, to forget their complaints against their late sovereign, who, if he had been anywise blameable in his conduct, had left to his son the salutary warning, to avoid the paths which had led to such fatal extremities; and that, having now obtained a charter for their liberties, it was their interest to show, by their conduct, that this acquisition was not incompatible with their allegiance, and that the rights of king and people, so far from being hostile and opposite, might mutually support and sustain each other [e].
[FN [e] Rymer, vol i. p. 25. Brady"s App. No. 143.]
These considerations, enforced by the character of honour and constancy which Pembroke had ever maintained, had a mighty influence on the barons; and most of them began secretly to negotiate with him, and many of them openly returned to their duty. The diffidence which Lewis discovered of their fidelity forwarded this general propension towards the king; and when the French prince refused the government of the castle of Hertford to Robert Fitz-Walter, who had been so active against the late king, and who claimed that fortress as his property, they plainly saw that the English were excluded from every trust, and that foreigners had engrossed all the confidence and affection of their new sovereign [f]. The excommunication, too, denounced by the legate against all the adherents of Lewis, failed not, in the turn which men"s dispositions had taken, to produce a mighty effect upon them; and they were easily persuaded to consider a cause as impious, for which they had already entertained an unsurmountable aversion [g].
Though Lewis made a journey to France, and brought over succours from that kingdom [h], he found, on his return, that his party was still more weakened by the desertion of his English confederates, and that the death of John had, contrary to his expectations, given an incurable wound to his cause. The Earls of Salisbury, Arundel, and Warrenne, together with William Mareschal, eldest son of the protector, had embraced Henry"s party, and every English n.o.bleman was plainly watching for an opportunity of returning to his allegiance.
Pembroke was so much strengthened by these accessions that he ventured to invest Mountsorel; though, upon the approach of the Count de Perche with the French army, he desisted from his enterprise, and raised the siege [i]. The count, elated with this success, marched to Lincoln; and being admitted into the town, he began to attack the castle, which he soon reduced to extremity. The protector summoned all his forces from every quarter, in order to relieve a place of such importance; and he appeared so much superior to the French, that they shut themselves up within the city, and resolved to act upon the defensive [k]. But the garrison of the castle having received a strong reinforcement, made a vigorous sally upon the besiegers; while the English army, by concert, a.s.saulted them in the same instant from without, mounted the walls by scalade, and bearing down all resistance, entered the city sword in hand. Lincoln was delivered over to be pillaged; the French army was totally routed; the Count de Perche, with only two persons more, was killed; but many of the chief commanders, and about four hundred knights, were made prisoners by the English [l]. So little blood was shed in this important action, which decided the fate of one of the most powerful kingdoms in Europe; and such wretched soldiers were those ancient barons, who yet were unacquainted with every thing but arms!
[FN [f] M. Paris, p. 200, 202. [g] Ibid. p. 200. M. West. p. 277.
[h] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 79. M. West. p. 277. [i] M. Paris, p.
203. [k] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 81. [l] M. Paris, p.204, 205.
Chron. de Mailr. p. 195.]
Prince Lewis was informed of this fatal event while employed in the siege of Dover, which was still valiantly defended against him by Hubert de Burgh. He immediately retreated to London, the centre and life of his party; and he there received intelligence of a new disaster, which put an end to all his hopes. A French fleet, bringing over a strong reinforcement, had appeared on the coast of Kent, where they were attacked by the English, under the command of Philip d"Albiney, and were routed with considerable loss. D"Albiney employed a stratagem against them, which is said to have contributed to the victory. Having gained the wind of the French, he came down upon them with violence; and throwing in their faces a great quant.i.ty of quicklime, which he purposely carried on board, he so blinded them, that they were disabled from defending themselves [m].
[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 206. Ann. Waverl. p. 183. W. Heming. p. 563.
Trivet, p. 169. M. West. p. 277. Knyghton, p. 2428.]
After this second misfortune of the French, the English barons hastened every where to make peace with the protector, and, by an easy submission, to prevent those attainders to which they were exposed on account of their rebellion. Lewis, whose cause was now totally desperate, began to be anxious for the safety of his person, and was glad, on any honourable conditions, to make his escape from a country where he found every thing was now become hostile to him. He concluded a peace with Pembroke, promised to evacuate the kingdom, and only stipulated, in return, an indemnity to his adherents, and a rest.i.tution of their honours and fortunes, together with the free and equal enjoyment of those liberties which had been granted to the rest of the nation [n]. Thus was happily ended a civil war, which seemed to be founded on the most incurable hatred and jealousy, and had threatened the kingdom with the most fatal consequences.