Читать книгу The Three Edwards: The Pageant of England - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 27

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King John of Scotland soon found that he had paid too high a price for his crown.

Six months after his coronation, a citizen of Berwick, Roger Bartholomew by name, appealed to the English courts in a civil action having to do with shipping losses. Berwick was on the Scottish side of the border, but the plaintiff’s determination to carry the case to Westminster was allowed. King John was summoned to appear in a case involving a wine bill of the late king and to serve in a Yorkshire court. Soon afterward one of the Scottish earls, Macduff of Fife, whose brother had been killed by Lord Abernethy, felt that the hearing of the case in the Scottish courts showed an edge of favoritism on the king’s part for the defendant. Macduff took his case to Westminster, and King John was summoned to appear there. When he refused, he was judged guilty of contumacy and an order was issued for the seizure of three of his castles. Lacking the courage and will to stand his ground, John gave in and agreed to appear in person at the next meeting of the English Parliament. When he arrived in London, however, he found that his presence there was likely to have consequences of a much more serious nature. Edward was preparing for war with France, and it was made clear to the Scottish monarch that he would be expected, as a vassal king, to take troops to the continent in aid of the English.

The two kings quarreled bitterly. It was pointed out to Edward that the triple agreement reached at Salisbury before the death of the Maid of Norway had specifically denied the right to try Scottish actions at law in English courts. Edward brushed this aside and stood on the decision at Norham, where his suzerainty had been acknowledged without reservations. John complained that he was being forced to come into English courts with his hat in his hands, figuratively speaking, and that his demand to have a prosecutor appear for him had been denied, so that he had found it necessary to rise and take his place before the bar like any mercer or vintner. The result was that the empty-jacketed lord of the north, wrapping himself in such poor shreds of dignity as were left him, made a secret exit from London and rode hurriedly north to his own land.

The summoning of kings to appear before courts in other lands was not a new departure. The English kings, from the time they acquired possessions in France through marriage, had sworn fealty to the rulers of France, but only in respect to these holdings. A particular case was the summoning of John of England to answer for the murder of his nephew, Arthur, before the peers of France; a demand which that belligerent monarch ignored. The treatment of the new Scottish king was on an entirely different basis. Never before had a sovereign ruler been expected to plead before a foreign court in such purely internal matters as the Macduff case. Two explanations only could be seen for the course Edward was following. He may have been so deep in his preparations for the invasion of France that he left such matters in the hands of his high officials, who proceeded according to the letter of the law, or he may have been deliberately goading the new Scottish ruler into a refusal that would provide a pretext for an armed invasion of the northern country. The second explanation seems the likelier of the two. Certainly it was the view that the people of Scotland held.

While the question of the English king’s right to try cases from Scotland in his courts was thus disturbing the relations between the two countries, there was continual trouble on the high seas. Scottish ships plying between Berwick and the continent were seized and their crews were imprisoned. No redress could be obtained, although the losses to the owners were ruinous.

When John returned from his humiliating experience at Westminster he found his country in an uproar. His compliance had been resented and the leaders were no longer prepared to leave matters of policy in his feeble hands. A board of twelve men was appointed to act as his advisers or, if need be, to control the policy of the state. It consisted of four earls, four barons, and four bishops.

The members of this board, with the Scottish Parliament to back them up and the sentiment of the nation strongly with them, began to take vigorous action. A meeting of the Parliament was held at Scone, where a formal demand from Edward for troops to be sent to France was rejected. The Scottish leaders knew they were inviting armed retaliation, but the national ire had been raised to the point where the people were prepared to fight for their liberty. All English officeholders, including those appointed by Edward, were summarily dismissed and all lands held in fief by English subjects were declared confiscated.

The next step taken by the Scottish leaders was a bold one. They decided to seek an offensive and defensive alliance with France. The King of France at this time was a remarkable individual about whom much will be written later, Philip IV, known as Philip the Fair because he was acknowledged to be the handsomest man in Europe. There was something sphinx-like about this imposing monarch who sat silently on his throne and allowed his ministers, mostly lawyers of comparatively low degree, to make all announcements of policy. It was generally believed that he was slow of wit and lethargic of person (he became immensely corpulent in his middle years), but all the time he was king remarkable things were happening in France. It was to this impassive but inflexible king that the Scottish Parliament, realizing they had a death struggle on their hands, sent emissaries to propose an alliance against the extremely able and violently active English king. Philip the Fair listened and, according to custom, had almost nothing to say. He was shrewd enough to see, however, that he had little to lose and much to gain in the proposed alliance, and undoubtedly it was on his instructions that his legal advisers decided to take advantage of the chance to place a check on Edward. An agreement was reached between the two nations by which each promised aid to the other in case of English invasion. It was further arranged that a bride for King John’s son and heir, Edward, would be found among the beautiful daughters and pulchritudinous nieces who surrounded the handsome monarch. A niece, Isabel de Valence, the daughter of the Count of Anjou, was the one selected.

The alliance with France proved fatal to the Scottish cause. As soon as he learned what had been done, Edward demanded that all the fortresses along the border be placed in his hands until the finish of the war with France. When this was refused, he decided to postpone action against the French until he had dealt with what he termed the insurrection of the Scottish people. This decision was partly the result of a rash and unsuccessful invasion of the northern shires of England undertaken by the Scots in fulfillment of their promises to Philip the Fair. They sent an army down into Cumberland led by the seven Scottish earls. The system of divided command which the Scots found necessary because of the pride of the clan heads and their unwillingness to accept orders from one supreme commander, and which was destined to lose them many battles, made this attack an abortive one. They ravaged the countryside until they reached the fortified city of Carlisle. Here they suffered a sharp reverse and found it necessary to retreat to their own territory.

The only assistance lent them by France was a reopening of an attack on English-held Gascony.