Читать книгу The Three Edwards: The Pageant of England - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 20

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The barons of England, who had forced King John to his knees and had been at odds, and sometimes at war, with Henry III all through the long reign of that exasperating monarch, were not entirely in accord with the forward-looking policies of Edward. They were inclined to hang back, to mutter their disagreement, even to adopt open measures of opposition. They were intensely jealous of their rights, and some of Edward’s wise lawmaking seemed to them to tread too heavily on the iron-shod toes of feudal privilege. Nor did they favor the bringing of the bran-dealers and soap-boilers into the halls where the laws were made.

They said so openly at a meeting of Parliament which Edward called for February 25, 1297. He was at Salisbury at the time and accordingly the session was held in that ancient town. War with France had blazed up, owing in part to some hostilities between the sailors of the Cinque Ports (Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover, Sandwich, Winchelsea, and Rye) and the fishermen from Normandy. There was a wily and ambitious king on the French throne, Philip IV (all through this phase of history French kings were believed in England to be wily and ambitious), and he made this a pretext to seize Gascony, which was about all that was left to England of the immense possessions Eleanor of Aquitaine had brought with her when she became the wife of Henry II. Negotiations between the two monarchs came to naught and so Edward, needing money badly, took emergency measures to raise it. There were glum and hostile faces when Parliament opened. The two glummest and most hostile were those of the fifth Earl of Norfolk, who was hereditary marshal of England, and the Earl of Hereford, who held the post of constable. When Edward announced that he planned to lead an army into Flanders to fight things out with the French king and would send another army to recover Gascony, the meeting flared into opposition.

It was the marshal, Roger Bigod, who was most outspoken. When all the sons of the great William the Marshal died without issue in the middle years of the century, the post had gone to the son of Matilda, the oldest daughter, who married Hugh Bigod. The son of this marriage died in 1270 and his nephew, Roger, succeeded to the earldom and the baton of marshal. This was the member of the nobility who now took it on himself to oppose his will to that of the king.

He seems to have been lacking in the qualities of the fourth earl, who, although devoid of subtlety and the qualities of leadership, was brave and open in all his dealings. The nephew, who now faced Edward, had a degree of pride which verged on truculence. When Edward told his marshal that he was to go with the army to Gascony, Bigod flatly refused.

“With you, O King,” he declared, “I will gladly go. As belongs to me by my hereditary right, I will go in the front of the host before your face.”

Edward regarded the set expression of the marshal and the stiffness of his back and no doubt said to himself: “So! Now what have we here?”

Restraining himself from the peremptory response he would ordinarily have made, the king said, “But without me, you will of course go with the rest.”

“I am not bound to go,” asserted Bigod. “And go, I will not!”

This was too much for the hot Plantagenet temper which Edward had been holding in check. From his great height he looked down on the somewhat squatty figure of the marshal and his eyes began to blaze.

“By God, Sir Earl!” he cried. “You shall go or hang!”

“By God, Sir King!” declared the marshal. “I will neither go nor hang!”

This story is told because of the light it throws on certain phases of the character of the king. With any other of the Plantagenets, this episode would have exploded into violence at this point. Edward was in a white-hot rage but he was able, nonetheless, to handle the situation in a reasonable way. In the first place, he knew he was in no position to quarrel with the baronage, having the French war on his hands and rebellion flaring around his home frontiers. In addition, he knew himself on dangerous ground, having adopted means of raising money which broke the stipulations of the Great Charter.

The result was that Roger Bigod neither went to Gascony nor hanged. In concert with the constable and a number of other prominent barons he got together a party of fifteen hundred men who stood under arms until the issue was settled. This was close to open rebellion. Edward, however, did not fly into the rage which was so common to his grandfather, John of infamous memory, or John’s father, Henry II. Instead he excused the two hereditary officers from performing the duties of their respective posts and appointed temporary substitutes.

At this point Edward made it clear that he had an appreciation of the need to retain the affection of his subjects. He went about it, moreover, with what would be called today a high degree of showmanship. On a platform in front of Westminster Hall he made a public appearance with his son and heir on one side of him and the Archbishop of Canterbury on the other. He proceeded to make an address aimed directly at the hearts of the people.

He had made mistakes, he acknowledged, and he begged his people to forgive him for whatever had been amiss. With tears in his eyes he went on to speak of the belligerence of the French king and what it meant. “I am going to meet danger on your behalf,” he declared, “and I pray you, should I return, receive me as you do now, and I will give you back all that has been taken from you.” He paused dramatically. “And if I do not return, crown my son as your king.”

Archbishop Winchelsey, who had been bitterly debating with the king on what the clergy should pay toward the war, broke into tears at this stage. The young prince wept also, and this mood communicated itself to the great mass of people who had assembled to listen. With one accord the listeners raised their hands high in the air as proof of their complete loyalty.

The barons were not as easily convinced. As soon as Edward had crossed the Channel they drew up a list of grievances and under the leadership of Bigod and Bohun presented it to Prince Edward (then thirteen years of age), who had been appointed regent in his father’s absence. It was demanded of the prince that he agree on behalf of his father to rescind every financial exaction to which they objected, including the imposition of forty shillings on wool, and to confirm the terms of the Great Charter and the Forest Charter. The prince, faced with a baronage in arms, agreed to the stipulations and signed in his father’s name.

The document was then sent to Edward at Ghent, where his army was stationed. Instead of flying into a fury as his high-tempered forebears would have done, he gave the matter due consideration. It was clear to him, of course, that to assent to these demands would be to establish a new conception of taxation; that never again would a king of England be able legally to impose a tax without the consent of Parliament. Without undue delay he signed the document and returned it to England.

The personal pique of Roger Bigod had been the starting point of all of this, but back of his open disobedience had been the determination of the baronage to prevent kings from taxing them at will. A conclusion of the utmost importance had been reached.

But the king did not forget. When the French war was over, having proven as inconclusive as most wars, the king dealt with his difficult marshal. Bigod was deeply in debt and, as he had no children, he was persuaded to execute a will making the king his heir, in return for a settlement of the debts. That done, he found himself relieved of his post of marshal of England. He died, peacefully and in his own bed, a few years later. His landholdings were distributed among the king’s children. The name of Bigod ceased to be included among the great families of England.