Читать книгу Public School History of England and Canada - Graeme Mercer Adam - Страница 14

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[The leading facts of this chapter are the conquest of Wales and Scotland by Edward I.; the growth of the power of Parliament under the same king; the War of Scottish Independence in the reign of Edward II.; the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War, and the Black Death in the reign of Edward III. But, in addition to these, the teacher should relate some of the interesting tales and incidents connected with the lives of Wallace and Bruce, and with the battle of Bannockburn. The Expulsion of the Jews in the reign of Edward I., and its cause, ought to be taken up. The battles of Crecy and Poitiers are deserving of more minute description, as they are among the first battles that illustrate the superiority of English yeomanry over French chivalry, and of foot soldiers or infantry over mail-clad cavalry. The story of the capture of Calais should be told. Let the pupils read the poem, “Bruce and the Spider” (3rd Reader), Bruce’s Address, and Scott’s account of the battle of Bannockburn; also Stanley’s “The Black Prince at Cressy” (4th Reader). The Black Death, and the change it produced in the relations between labourers and employers, together with the cruel and unjust provisions of the Statute of Labourers, should be noted; also Wyclif and his work. The teacher should explain what is meant by an impeachment.

References:—Green, Bright, Edith Thompson, Pearson’s “English History of the XIVth Century,” Warburton’s “Edward III.,” and Rowley’s “Rise of the People.”]

1. Character of Edward I.—Edward I. had learned the lesson of the struggle between king and people, for the confirmation of the rights embodied in the Great Charter; and these rights he did much to make secure. Edward was a thorough Englishman, true to his word, loving fair dealing (especially in the early part of his reign), with an open, manly character, a soldier’s courage, and a statesman’s wisdom. Having travelled much in the East, he had a wide knowledge of foreign lands, men, and institutions; and under him England prospered as it had never done before. He has been called the “greatest of the Plantagenets,” for in his reign he endeavoured to make the whole of Britain one united kingdom, and to give the people representative government.

2. Conquest of Wales.—England at this time had only nominal sovereignty over Scotland and Wales. Edward wished to make this sovereignty real; and when he was crowned he called upon Llewellyn, one of the most powerful of the Welsh princes, to do him homage. Llewellyn refused; but Edward made war upon him and forced him to submit. Five years later (A.D. 1282), having been stirred up to rebellion by his brother David, Llewellyn was killed while opposing the passage of the English forces over the Wye. David, after a time, was captured, tried as a traitor, and hanged. Wales was now annexed to the English Crown, though it was not until Henry the Eighth’s reign that it formally became a part of the kingdom. During the campaign Edward had a son born to him at Caernarvon, in Wales; and to please the Welsh the infant was made Prince of Wales, a title which has ever since been borne by the eldest son of the English sovereign.

3. Conquest of Scotland.—Edward’s attention was now turned to Scotland, which was at the time disturbed by contests among the Scottish nobles for the Crown, the king, Alexander III., having just died. Alexander’s grand-daughter, Margaret of Norway, was next heir to the throne. Edward wished his son, the Prince of Wales, to marry this princess, and so unite the English and Scottish Crowns. Unfortunately, Margaret died on her way from Norway to Scotland; and the Scottish people, fearing civil war, called on Edward to decide which should be king among the many rivals for the throne. The two nobles whose claims by birth were the strongest were John Balliol and Robert Bruce. After weighing the matter, Edward gave his decision in favour of Balliol, though he first demanded of the Scots the acknowledgment of his right to settle the dispute, not as an arbitrator, but as sovereign lord of Scotland. This right of the English kings was with ill grace acknowledged, and Balliol obtained the Scottish Crown by becoming the vassal of Edward. This vassalage soon grew irksome to Balliol, for some of his people appealed to Edward against decisions in the Scottish law courts, and Edward summoned him to answer these appeals at Westminster. Taking advantage, however, of Edward’s war at the time with France, Balliol refused to War of Scottish Independence, A.D. 1295. obey, formed an alliance with the king of France, and began the War of Scottish Independence. Edward at once marched into Scotland, routed Balliol’s forces, and placed his kingdom under a Regent. To humiliate the country still more, the Scottish crown and coronation-stone were carried off to London. Next year the Scots again rose, this time under Sir William Wallace, who, after defeating the English army near Stirling, became the idol of his countrymen. But Edward himself routed Wallace’s forces at Falkirk (A.D. 1298); the patriot chief was driven a fugitive from the field; and being betrayed into the hands of the English met a cruel death on the gibbet in London. The conquest of Scotland was now supposed to be complete. But Scottish love of freedom again asserted itself; for, in 1306, there was another rising, under Robert Bruce, the grandson of Balliol’s rival. When Bruce was crowned, Edward once more marched northward to subdue the intractable Scots. Taking ill, however, by the way, he died July 7th, 1307, and was succeeded by his son, Edward II.

4. Confirmation of the Charters.—At intervals in the war with Scotland Edward I. had to engage in contests with France. The expenses of these wars led him at times to resort to arbitrary measures to raise money. But he did not wish to obtain money wrongfully. Much, however, was needed for the country’s wars; and he thought that the people should trust him fully, and give him the sums necessary to conduct them. Heretofore money had been obtained by levies on the barons, by demands on the clergy, and by taxes on the towns and on merchandise. Edward, who had begun to recognize the right of the representatives of the people to share in legislation, took a step further, and concluded that he could get the money he wanted with the consent of Edward’s Model Parliament, A.D. 1295. all classes in parliament. He, therefore, called what is known as the Model Parliament, for in it, besides the bishops and barons, sat representatives of the citizens and burghers, together with the lesser knights and inferior clergy. This Parliament voted the king’s needed supplies, on the principle he had himself laid down, that “common dangers must be met by measures concerted in common.” But though calling on Parliament to grant the money he needed, Edward had not as yet agreed to refrain from raising money without its consent. Being in want of more money, he set aside the rights of clergy, barons, and people, and demanded large grants for his wars on the continent. These demands were refused. A Parliament was called (A.D. 1297), at which, in the king’s absence in Flanders, the Prince of Wales and his Council presided. By this assembly the old Charters were confirmed, with this important addition, THAT THE KING SHOULD TAKE NO MONEY FROM HIS SUBJECTS EXCEPT BY THE COMMON CONSENT OF THE REALM AND FOR THE COMMON PROFIT OF ALL. This new and important clause in the Charter was subscribed to by the Prince of Wales, and later in the year was ratified by the king at Ghent. Thus Parliament obtained full control over taxation, and the long struggle for the charters came to an end.

5. Edward II. and the Ordainers.—Edward II., unhappily, was a different man from his father. He was utterly unfitted to rule, for he spent his days in foolish pleasures, in company with wild and reckless companions. Of the latter Piers Gaveston, a Gascon knight, was the king’s favourite. The late king had banished Gaveston as no companion for his son; but Edward, when he came to the throne, recalled him, and gave him his niece in marriage. When, too, Edward went to France to marry Isabella, daughter of Philip the Fair, he made Gaveston Regent. All this annoyed the barons, who were angry at the king’s neglect of his duties, and did not like these honours being paid to a foreigner. When remonstrated with on his conduct, Edward yielded so much to the barons as to send Gaveston to Ireland as governor. But before a year passed he recalled him and reinstated him in power. Parliament Appointment of the Lords’ Ordainers. now took the matter up, decreed the banishment of Gaveston, and made Edward consent to the appointment of a council of peers, called Ordainers, who were to govern the kingdom. Gaveston was accordingly banished; but, being recalled by the king, he was seized by the barons and beheaded.

6. Bannockburn.—Edward I., on his way northward to chastise the Scots for electing Robert Bruce their king, had charged his son to carry on the Scottish war. But Edward II. allowed seven years to pass before fulfilling his father’s dying commands. Meanwhile Bruce had won back all the Scottish strongholds except Stirling, and it was now in peril. To save this, his last garrison in the country, Edward was compelled to go north at the head of a large Battle of Bannockburn, June 24, 1314. army. Arriving at Stirling, in June, 1314, he gave the Scots battle at Bannockburn. But Bruce had chosen his ground carefully and well, and the result was that the English were routed with terrible loss. This victory won for Scotland her independence.

7. Deposition and Death of Edward II.—England was now in a miserable plight, for, in addition to national defeat, famine had broken out in the land, and terrible diseases followed in its train. To add to the troubles, Edward again took up with unworthy advisers, the Despensers, father and son. After a fruitless struggle of some years against the king and his favourites, the barons found an ally in Queen Isabella, who had formed an intrigue with a noble, named Roger Mortimer; and together they led a successful revolt against the king, and overthrew the Despensers. The king was deposed by Parliament, imprisoned, and after a time cruelly murdered. His son, Edward, a youth of fifteen, succeeded him (A.D. 1327). During the minority of Edward III. the kingdom was for a while under a nominal Regency, composed of bishops, earls, and barons. The real power, however, was in the hands of Queen Isabella and her favourite, Mortimer. But the young king, in 1330, became his own master, and, resenting the conduct of his mother and her paramour, had the latter seized and brought to trial before Parliament. Parliament, on the ground of treason, decreed the death of Mortimer, and he was executed at Tyburn.

8. War with France.—We now reach the time when what is termed the “Hundred Years’ War” begins. The general cause of the war was, on the one hand, the desire on the part of France to wrest from England her French possessions; and, on the other, the equally strong desire of English kings to recover Normandy and other provinces which had been lost to the English crown. The immediate cause of hostilities was the aid Philip VI. of France had given to the Scots in their struggle against England, and his desire to seize the English possessions in the duchy of Guienne. These possessions the English kings had hitherto held as vassals of France; but Edward, when he decided to go to war with Philip, set up the claim not only of a right to Guienne, but of a right to the throne of France itself. This claim he based on the fact that his mother was the sister of the late king of France, whilst Philip VI., who now reigned, was only the late king’s cousin. But the French denied the claim, maintaining that a woman could not rule in France, and that no man had a right to rule there through his mother. In the war thus provoked, English arms had for a time its triumphs. In 1340, Edward won a naval victory off Sluys, on the coast of Flanders. After this success, there was a pause in the struggle until 1346. In that year Edward and the English Parliament resolved to conquer or to cripple France. The king with an army of 30,000 men, and some pieces of artillery, which appear to have been now first used by the English, landed in Normandy, destroyed the chief commercial towns, and took up a position at Battle of Cressy, Aug. 26th, A.D. 1346. Crecy or Cressy, a village near the Somme. Hither came Philip with his host of 120,000 men, including the best chivalry of France, and a large force of Genoese crossbowmen. Edward’s army, though much smaller was more efficient and better handled, its strength lying in its compact bodies of foot soldiery and skilled English bowmen. The battle was begun by the troops under the king’s young son, Edward, the Black Prince, who won his spurs by conspicuous daring. Then on came unwieldy masses of mail-clad French cavalry, which the sturdy English and Welsh bowmen quickly put to rout; while the Genoese bowmen met a more signal defeat at the hands of the English archers and spearmen. The French nobles courageously continued the fight; but nothing could withstand the shower of well-aimed arrows that was rained upon them; so, baffled and broken, Philip’s army turned and fled. After the slaughter that ensued, the heralds appointed to go over the field reported the death “of eleven French princes, 1,200 knights, and 30,000 of inferior rank.” On winning this victory, Edward marched Siege and surrender of Calais, A.D. 1347. to Calais, which he besieged by sea and land; though the place did not surrender for nearly a year afterwards, when starvation compelled the brave citizens to open its gates. Having turned the French inhabitants out of Calais, Edward filled it with his countrymen; and the town remained under English rule for more than two centuries.

9. Peace of Bretigny.—After the fall of Calais, the scourge of war gave place for a time to the scourge of pestilence. A fearful The Black Death, A.D. 1349. plague, called the Black Death, visited Europe, and carried off, it is calculated, one half of the population. In England its ravages were frightful, particularly in the large and crowded cities: in London alone nearly 60,000 were swept away. In 1355 the French war was renewed. Philip VI. was dead, and his son, John, sat on the throne. The Black Prince was now ruling Guienne and Gascony for Edward, his father. In 1356, he led an expedition through the South of France, which he ravaged with fire and sword. Turning northward, with a small force of 12,000 men, he met, at Poitiers, the French army of Battle of Poitiers, Sept. 17th, A.D. 1356. King John, nearly five times as strong. Though far outnumbered, the Black Prince did not decline a battle; and its result was a victory as great as the one at Cressy. The French king and his son, with many of the nobles, were taken prisoners; and the former accompanied the Black Prince on his triumphal return to England. But Treaty of Bretigny, A.D. 1360. this victory was of little good to England, for after much negotiation only a temporary peace was concluded, and its terms were evaded by the succeeding French king. By the Treaty of Bretigny Edward renounced his claim to the French Crown; while John gave up to England Guienne, Gascony, Poitou, and the important town of Calais. France also agreed to pay a large ransom for the release of John; but the French failing to keep this promise, the king honourably surrendered himself and died in London.

10. The Good Parliament.—The latter years of Edward III. were full of sadness and gloom. The old king partially lost his senses, and became the tool of low and vicious favourites. During the Black Prince’s absence in France, John of Gaunt, or Ghent, the king’s fourth son, took the leading part in the management of public affairs. His government was so bad that a few years after the return of the Black Prince it was decided to summon a Parliament to remedy the prevailing abuses of corruption and extravagance. This Parliament, known as the Good Parliament, had the support and active assistance of the Black Prince, who though broken in health, and actually dying, was anxious to restore good government to England. When the Commons met they proceeded to impeach, or accuse before the Lords, several of the king’s officials, and banished from the country the king’s favourites. This is the first instance we have of an impeachment, and it shows the power the House of Commons had now acquired. Unfortunately, the death of the brave and good Black Prince brought John of Gaunt again to power, and with him returned all the old evils that Parliament had sought to remedy. In the following year (1377) Edward III. died—neglected and deserted in his last moments. He was succeeded by his grandson, Richard II., the son of the Black Prince.

11. John Wyclif (1324-1384).—In this reign and the beginning of the next, lived John Wyclif, a famous Oxford priest, who preached against the abuses that had crept into the Church; the extravagance and idleness of the higher clergy; the corrupt lives many of them led; and the interference of the Pope in the affairs of the English Church. In his later years he opposed many of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, and in consequence was accused of heresy; but the influence of powerful nobles, like John of Gaunt, shielded him from harm. He translated the Bible into English, and sent forth “poor priests” to teach the people to read it. His followers were afterwards known as Lollards.

[1. Show how Edward I. was fitted to make a good king.

2. Why did Edward I. invade Scotland? Tell the story of the War of Scottish Independence.

3. Show that Parliament in the reigns of Edward I., II., and III. became very powerful.

4. What was the cause of the “Hundred Years’ War”? What great victories were won, and how, by the English, in the reign of Edward III.? What treaty for a while closed this war?

5. Point out any important results produced by the Black Death.

6. Who was John Wyclif? Why is he mentioned in history? Why are his followers called “Lollards”?]