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( rhis item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est filmi au taux de reduction indiquA ci-dessous 10X 14X 18X 22X 26X 30X 1 y 12X 16X 20X 24X 28X 32X 1 The copy filmed hare hat been reproduced thanks to the generosity of: L'exempiaire film* fut reproduit grAce it la gAniroait* da: Scott Library. Yoric Uniwraity The imegea appearing here are the beat quality poaaible conaidering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract spacificatioita. Original copiaa in printed paper covera are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illuatrated impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a p-'':',.^- .ft;r- •^S-^- -"*,--. >•;■'' ■ !,./'.;• ?,. ■j. ■ 'f * I' ^ A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE ■ x - 'I Lmad End I tari^crd'f ueofirazfhicatSjtablLthnmt. London MicmLUaji St Tc. SHORT HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE I W JOHN RICHARD GREEN HONOK.HV ,H..0W OK JESUS COLLEGE. OXPOKO WITH MAPS AND TABLES ^^PT EDITJON^ THOROUGHLY REVISED TORONTO; THE COPP, CLARK COMPANY. L.M.XKa Kawrwl M ieawllim; l3 Aa* of th« Pftriiainent of OmuuU, In th* jrwu ^m tbeoMUid titrht handrtd •utX *ttflil^'«iKhi. by MACMILLAM * \JM., Id Um uAm of th« Minister of Afrktulturo. i>i/ m; II I M( 'i !\ I I ./■ ).', ( \ INTRODUCTION. lUltUf*- The story of how the Short History of the EngHsh People came to be written would be the story of Mr. Green's life, from the time when his boyish interest was first awakened by the world beyond himself until his work was done. So closely are the work and the worker bound together that unless the biography be fully written no real account of the growth of the book can indeed be given. But in issuing a Revised Edition of the History, a slight sketch of the historical progress of the writer's mind, and of the gradual way in which the plan of his work grew up, may not seem out of place. John Richard Green, who was born at Oxford in December 1837, was sent at eight years old to Magdalen Grammar School, then held in a small room within the precincts of the College. The Oxford world about him was full of suggestions of a past which very early startled his curiosity and fired his imagination. The gossiping tales of an old dame who had seen George the Third drive through the town in a coach and six were his first lessons in history. Year after year he took part with excited fancy in the procession of the Magdalen choir boys to the College tower on May Day, to sing at the sunrising a Hymn to the Trinity which had replaced the Mass chanted in pre-Reformation days, and to "jangle" the bells in recognition of an immemorial festival. St. Giles* fair, the " beating of the bounds," even the name of " Pennyfarthing Street," were no less records of a mysterious past than Chapel or College or the very trees of Magdalen Walk ; and he once received, breathless and awe-struck, a pri.^2 from thz Y:z.r.dz of the centenarian President of the College, Dr. Routh, the last man wha ever wore a wig in Oxford, a man who had himself seen Dr. Johnson. INTRODUCTION. .( ■ i stand in the High Street with one foot on either side of the kennel that ran down the middle of the way, the street boys standing round, "none daring to interrupt the meditations of the great lexicographer." "You are a clever boy," said the old man as he gave the prize and shook him by the hand. His curiosity soon carried him beyond Oxford ; and in very early days he learned to wander on Saints' days and holidays to the churches of neighbouring villages, and there shut himself in to rub brasses and study architectural mouldings. Other interests followed on his ecclesiastical training. He remembered i' j excitement which was produced in Oxford by Layard's discovery of the Nestorians in the Euphrates valley. One dny Mr. Ramsay g-^thered round him the boys who were at play in Magdalen Walk ar 1 told them of his journey to see these people ; and one at least of his hearers plunged eagerly into problems then much discussed of the relations of orthodox believers to Monophysites, and the distinctions between heresy and schism, questions which occupied him many years. Knowledge of this kind, he said long afterwards, had been a real gain to him. " The study of what the Monophysites did in Syria, and the Monothelites in Egypt, has taught me what few historians know — the intimate part religion plays in a nation's history, and how closely it joins itself to a people's life." Living ir a strictly Conservative atmosphere, he had been very diligently brought up as a Tory and a High Churchman. But when he was about fourteen, orthodox Conservatism and school life came to a close which then seemed to him very tragic. A school essay was set on Charles the First ; and as the boy read earnestly every book he could find on the subject, it suddenly burst on him that Charles was wrong. The essay, written with a great deal of feeling under this new and strong conviction, gained the prize over the heads of boys older and till then reputed abler ; but it drew down on him unmeasured disapproval. Canon Mozley, who examined, remonstrated in his grave way : "Your essay is very good, but remember I do not agree with your conclusions, and you will in all probability see reason to change them as you grow older." The head-master took a yet more severe view of such a change of political creed. But the impulse le kennel standing ;he great an as he k'ery early rs to the in to rub s followed lent which storians in id him the em of his rs plunged jlations of IS between any years, a real gain Syria, and •ians know and how [been very But when life came lool essay ^stly every him that of feeling 1 the heads ^n on him lonstrated |r I do not pee reason yet more impulse INTRODUCTION. to Liberalism had been definitely given ; and had indeed brought with it many other grave questionings. When at the next examina- tion he shot up to the head of the school, his master advised that he should be withdrawn from Magdalen, to the dismay both of himself and of the uncle with whom he lived. The uncle indeed had his own grounds of alarm. John had one day stood at a tailor's window in Oxford where Lord John Russell's Durham Letter was spread out to view, and, as he read it, had come to his own conclusions as to its wisdom. He even declared the Ecclesiastical Titles Act to be absurd. His uncle, horrified at so extreme a heresy, with angry decision ordered him to find at once another home ; and when after a time the agitation had died away and he was allowed to come back, it was on the condition of never again alluding to so painful a subject. The new found errors clung to him, however, when he went shortly afterwards to live in the country wit' n tutor. " I wandered about the fields thinking," he said, " but x never went back from the opinions I had begim to form." It was when he was about sixteen that Gibbon fell into his hands ; and from that moment the enthusiasm of history took hold of him. " Man and man's history " became henceforth the dominant interest of his life. When he returned to Oxford with a scholarship to Jesus College, an instinct of chivalrous devotion inspired his resolve that the study of history should never become with him " a matter of classes or fellowships," nor should be touched by the rivalries, the conventional methods, the artificial limitations, and the utilitarian aims of the Schools. College work and history work went on apart, with much mental friction and diflSculty of adjust ment and sorrow of heart. Without any advisers, almost witho'T friends, he groped his way, seeking in very solitary fashion after his own particular vocation. His first historical eflTorts were spent on that which lay immediately about him ; and the series of papers which he sent at this time to the Oxford Chronicle on " Oxford in the last Century " are instinct with all the vivid imagination of his later work, and tell their tale after a method and in a style which was already perfectly natural to him. He read enormously, but history was never to him wholly a matter of books. The Town was still his Yiii INTRODUCTION. teacher. There was then little help to be had for the history of Oxford or any other town. " So wholly had the story of the towns," he wrote later, " passed out of the minds of men that there is still not a history of our country which devotes a single page to it, and there is hardly an antiquary who has cared to disentomb the tragic records of fights fought for freedom in this narrow theatre from the archives which still contain them. The treatise of Brady written from a political, that of Madox from a narrow antiquarian, point of view ; the summaries of charters given by the Commissioners under the Municipal Reform Act ; the volumes of Stephens and Mere- wether ; and here and there a little treatise on isolated towns are the only printed materials for th., study of the subject." Other materials were abundant. St. Giles' Fair was full of lessons for him. He has left an amusing account of how, on a solemn day which came about once in eight years, he marched with Mayor and Corporation round the city boundaries. He lingered over the memory of St. Martin's Church, the centre of the town life, the folk-mote within its walls, the low shed outside where mayor and bailiff administered justice, the bell above which rang out its answer to the tocsin of the gownsmen in St. Mary's, the butchery and spicery and vintnery which clustered round in the narrow streets. " In a walk through Oxford one may find illustrations of every period of our annals. The cathedral still preserves the memory of the Mercian St. Frides- wide ; the tower of the Norman Earls frowns down on the w ters of the Mill ; around Merton hang the memories of the birth <^f oui Constitution ; the New Learning and the Reformation mingle in Christ Church ; a ' grind ' along the Marston Road follows the trad of the army of Fairfax ; the groves of Magdalen preserve the living, traditions of the last of the Stewarts." Two years, however, of solitary effort to work out problems o education, of life, of history, bft him somewhat disheartened an< bankrupt in energy. A mere accident at last brought the first counse and encouragement he had ever known. Some chance led him om day to the lecture-room where Stanley, then Canon of Christ Church, was speaking on the history of Dissent. Startled out of the in- difference with which he had entered the room, he suddenly found II INTRODUCTION. is listory of e towns," ere is still to it, and the tragic atre from dy written , point of lers under md Mere- ^ns are the r materials him. He hich came !orporation lory of St. lOte within ministered tocsin of id vintnery ilk through iur annals. 1st. Frides- he w'ters rth ^f oui ingle in the trad the living. |)blems o lened an< 3t counse him one Church, \f the in- ily found himself listening with an interest and wonder which nothing in Oxford hir.d awakened, till the lecturer closed with the words, *' ' Magna est Veritas et pravaiebit,' words so great that I could almost prefer them to the motto of our own University, ' Dominus illuminatio mea' " In his excitement he exclaimed, as Stanley, on leaving the hall, passed close by him, " Do you know, sir, that the words you quoted, ''Magna est Veritas et prcevalebit^ are the motto of the Town ? " " Is it possible ? How interesting ! When will you come and see me and talk about it ? " cri.,d Stanley ; and from that moment a warm friendship sprang up. " Then and after," Mr. Green wrote, "I heard you speak of work, not as a thing of classes and fellowships, but as something worthy for its own sake, worthy because it made us like the great Worker. ' If you cannot or will not work at the work which Oxford gives you, at any rate work at Sf^mething.' I took up my old boy-dreams of history again. I think I have been a steady worker ever since." It was during these years at Oxford that his first large 'historical schemes were laid. His plan took the shape of a History of the Arch- bishops of Canterbury ; and seeking in Augustine and his followers a clue through the m^ze of fifteen centuries, he proposed under this title to write in fact the whole story of Christian civilization in England. " No existing historians help me," he declared in his early days of planning ; " rather I have been struck by the utter blindness of one and all to the subject which they profess to treat — the national growth and developement of our country." When in i86o he left Oxford for the work he had chosen as curate in one of the poorest parishes of East London, he carried with him thoughts of history. Letters, full of ardent discussion of the theological and social problems about him still tell of hours saved here and there for the British Museum, of work done on Cuthbert, on Columba, on Irish Church History — of a scheme for a history of Somerset, which bid fair to extend far, and which led direct to Glastonbury, Dunstan, and Early English matters. Out of his poverty, too, he had gathered books about him, books won at a cost which made them the objects of a singular affection •,. and he never opened a volume of his " Acta Sanctorum " without a lingering memory of the painful efforts by which he had brought ; INTRODUCTION. together the volumes one by one, and how many days he had gone without dinner when there was no other way of buying them. But books were not his only sources of knowledge. To the last he looked on his London life as hr,vi ig given him his be: t lessons in history. It was with his churchwardens, his schoolmasters, in vestry meetings, in police courts, at boards of guardians, in rervice in chapel or church, in the daily life of the dock-labourer, t" - tradesman, the costermonger, in the cummer visitation of cholera, in ' e winter misery thr.t followed economic changes, that he learnt v.hr.t the life of the people meant as perhaps no historian had ever learnt it before. Con- stantly struck down as he was by illness, even the days of sickness were turned Jo use. Every drive, every railway journey, every town he passec'. through in brief excursions for health's sake, added something to his knowledge ; if he was driven to recover strength to a seaside lodging he could still note a description of Ebbsfleet or Richbc rough or Minster, so that there is scarcely a picture of scenery or of geo- ^aphicaJ conditions in his book which is not the record of a victory over the overwhelming languor of disease. After two years of observation, of reading, and of thought, the Archbishops no longer seemed very certain guides through the <:enturies of England's growth. They filled the place, it would appear, no better than the Kings. If some of them were great leaders among the people, others were of little account ; and after the sixteenth century the upgrowth of the Nonconformists broke the history of the people, taken from the merely ecclesiastical point of view, into two irreconcilable fractions, and utterly destroyed any possibility of artistic treatment of the story as a whole. In a new plan he looked far behind Augustine and Canterbury, and threw himself into geology, the physical geography of our island in pre- historic times, and the study of the cave-men and the successive races that peopled Britain, as introductory to the later history of England. ,But his first and dominating idea quickly thrust all others aside. It ivas of the English People itself that he must write if he would write -after his own heart. The nine years spent in the monotonous reaches of dreary streets that make up Hoxton and Stepney, the clcse con- tact with sides of life little known to students, had only deepened the I INTRODUCTION. xi ; had gone n. ro the last lessons in s, in vestry e in chapel iesman, the nter misery life of the ifore. Con- ckness were ry town he i something to a seaside lichbc rough •y or of geo- of a victory impressions with which the idea of a people's life had in Oxford struck on his imagination. " A State," he would say, " is accidental ; it can be made or unmade, and is no real thing to me. But a nation is very real to me. That you can neither make nor destroy." All his writings, the historical articles which he sent to the Saturday Reineiv and letters to his much-honoured friend, Mr. Freeman, alike tended in the same direction, and show how persistently he was working out his philosophy of history. The lessons which years before he had found written in the streets and lanes of his native town were not forgotten. " History," he wrote in 1869, "we are told by publishers, is the most unpopular of all branches of literature at the present day, but it is only unpopular because it seems more and more to sever itself from, all that can touch the heart of a people. In mediaeval history, above all, the narrow ecclesiastical character of the annals which serve as its base, instead of being corrected by a wider research into the i.icmorials which sur- round us, has been actually intensified by the partial method of their study, till the story of a great people seems likely to be lost in the mere squabbles of priests. Now there is hardly a better corrective for all this to be found than to set a man frankly in the streets of a simple English town, and to bid him work out the history of the men who had lived and died there. The mill by the stream, the tolls in the market place, the brasses of its burghers in the church, the names of its streets, the lingering memory of its guilds, the mace of its mayor, tell us more of the past of England than the spire of Sarum or the martyrdom of Canterbury. We say designedly of the past of England, rather than of the past of English towns. ... In England the history of the town and of the country are one. The privilege of the burgher has speedily widened into the liberty of the people at large. The municipal charter has merged into the great charter of the realm. All the little struggles over toll and tax, all the little claims of * custom ' and franchise, have told on the general advance of liberty and law. The townmotes of the Norman reigns tided free discussion and self-government over from the Witanagemot of the old England to the Parliament of the new. The busting court, with its resolute assertion of justice by one's peers, gave us the whole fabric cf our judicial legislation. The Continental town lost its individuality xii INTRODUCTION. I by sinking to the servile level of the land from which it had isolated itself. The EnglPsh town lost its individuality by lifting the country at large to its own level of freedom and law." The earnestness, however, with which he had thrown himself into his parish work left no time for any thought of working out his cherished plans. His own needs were few, and during nearly three years he spent on the necessities of schools and of the poor more than the whole of the income he drew from the Church, while he provided for his own support by writing at night, after his day's work was done, articles for the Saturday Revieiv. At last, in 1869, the disease which had again and again attacked him fell with renewed violence on a frame exhausted with labours and anxieties. All active work was for ever at an end — the doctors told him there was little hope of prolonging his life six months. It was at this moment, the first moment of leisure he had ever known, that he proposed "to set down a few notions which I have conceived concerning history," which " might serve as an introduction to better things if I lived, and iixight stand for some work done if I did not." The "Short History" was thus begun. When the six months had passed he had resisted the first severity of the attack, but he remained with scarcely a hold on life ; and incessantly vexed by the suffering and exhaustion of constant ill- ness, perplexed by questions as to the mere means of livelihood, thwarted and hindered by difficulties about books in. the long winters abroad, he still toiled on at his task. " I wonder," he said once in answer to some critic, " how in those years of physical pain and despondency I could ever have written the book at all." Nearly five years were given to the work. The sheets were written and re-written, corrected and cancelled and begun again till it seemed as though revision would never have an end. "The book is full of faults," he declared sorrowfully, "which make me almost hopeless of ever learning to write well." As the work went on his friends often remonstrated with much energy. Dean Stanley could not forgive its missing so dramatic an opening as Caesar's landing would have afforded. Others judged severely his style, his method, his view of history, his selection and rejection of facts. : ad isolated he country limself into ng out his nearly three poor more :h, while he ;r his day's At last, in td him fell labours and -the doctors six months, le had ever )tions which serve as an ^nd for some thus begun, first severity m life ; and iconstant ill- jf livelihood, long winters ;aid once in ;al pain and [ll." Nearly ere written till it "The igam Ind. ^hich make Is the work INTRODUCTION. xiii rgy- Dean as Cae^ s lis style, his in of facts. Their judgement left him " lonely," he said ; and with the sensitive- ness of the artistic nature, its quick apprehension of unseen danger, its craving for sympathy, he saw with perhaps needless clearness of vision the perils to his chance of winning a hearing which were pro- phesied. He agreed that the " faults " with which he was charged might cause the ruin of his hopes of being accepted either by historians or by the public ; and yet these very " faults," he insisted, were bound up with his faith. The book was in fact, if not in name, the same as that which he had planned at Oxford ; to correct its " faults " he must change his whole conception of history ; he must renounce his belief that it was the great impulses of national feeling, and not the policy of statesmen, that formed the ground-work and basis of the history of nations, and his certainty that political history could only be made intelligible and just by basing it on social history in its largest sense. " I may be wrong in my theories," he wrote, " but it is better for me to hold to what I think true, and to work it out as I best can, even if I work it out badly, than to win the good word of some people I respect and others I love " by giving up a real conviction. Amid all his fears as to the failings of his work he still clung to the belief that it went on the old traditional lines of English historians. However Gibbon might err in massing together his social facts in chapters apart, however inadequate Hume's attempts at social history might be, however Macaulay might look at social facts merely as bits of external ornament, they all, he maintained, professed the faith he held. He used to protest that even those English historians who desired to be merely "external and pragmatic " could not altogether reach their aim as though they had been " High Dutchmen," The free current of national life in England was too strong to allow them to become ever wholly lost in State-papers ; and because he believed that Englishmen could therefore best combine the love of accuracy and the appreciation of the outer aspects of national or political life with a perception of the spiritual forces from which these mere outer phenomena proceed, he never doubted that " the English ideal of history would in the long run be what Gibbon made it in his day — the first in the world." When at last, by a miracle of resolution and endurance, the -3rr ' I \^y INTRODUCTION. " Short History " was finished, discouraging reports reached him from critics whose judgement he respected ; and his despondency increased. " Never mind, you mayn't succeed this time," said one of his best friends, " but you are sure to succeed some day." He never forgot that in this time of depression there were two friends, Mr. Stopford Brooke and his publisher, who were unwavering in their belief in his work and in hopefulness of the result. The book was published in 1874, when he was little more than 36 years of age. Before a month was over, in the generous welcome given it by scholars and by the English people, he found the reward of his long endurance. Mr. Green in fact was the first English historian who had either conceived or written of English history from the side of the principles which his book asserted ; and in so doing he had given to his fellow-citizens such a story of their Commonwealth as has in fact no parallel in any other country. The opposition and criticism which he met with were in part a measure of the originality of his conception. Success, however, and criticism alike came to him as they come to the true scholar. " I know," he said in this first moment of unexpected recognition, " what men will say of me, * He died learning.' > » I know of no excuse which I could give for attempting any revision of the " Short History," save that this was my husband's last charge to me. Nor can I give any other safeguard for the way in which I have performed the work than the sincere and laborious effort I have made to carry out that charge faithfully. I have been very careful not to interfere in any way with the plan or structure of the book, and save in a few exceptional cases, in which I knew Mr. Green's wishes, or where a change of chronology made some slight change in arrangement necessary, I have not altered its order. My work has been rather that of correcting mistakes of detail which must of a certainty occur in a story which covers so vast a field ; and in this I have been mainly guided throughout by the work of revision done by Mr. Green himself in his larger " History." In this History he had at first proposed merely to prepare a library edition of the " Short History " revised and corrected. In his hands, however, it became a wholly different book, the chief p?rt of it having reached him despondency e," said one s day." He two friends^ iwavering in jlt. lore than 3d )us welcome he reward of ish historian •om the side oing he had onwealth as )osition and - originality ke came to said in this say of me, npting any sband's last the way in I laborious have been r structure ch I knew lade some 1 its order. Jtail which St a field ; le work of tory." In a library his handSy f it having y SUCH books as the ]^«f f ^^^ ^^^^^ of detiil / were not the mistakpc >i,„* 1 errors m the " Shr^r*. 'he like dJv^h •^''"a«eristics, and thai s! ^'^"^ « 'he ^^tt s finance. « Tf ^« ^ turned away to cnttr^r^ • It was in fK.-o * D"ght, but I think T ri;^ • , ^ ^^^^ *vds in jjjjg temper thaf nii u- ^ ^^^ "ghtlv " h I 3M INTRODUCTION. measure all the gifts that contribute to the making of a great his- torian. He combined, so far as the history of England is concerned, a complete and firm grasp of the subject in its unity and integrity with a wonderful command of details, and a thorough sense of per- spective and proportion. All his work was real and original work ; iew people besides those who knew him well would see under the charming ease and vivacity of his style the deep research and sus- tained industry of the laborious student. But it was so ; there was no department of our national records that he had not studied and, I think I may say, mastered. Hence I think the unity of his •dramatic scenes and the cogency of his historical arguments. Like other people he made mistakes sometimes ; but scarcely ever does the correction of his mistakes affect either the essence of the picture or the force of the argument. And in him the desire of stating and pointing the truth of history was as strong as the wish to make both his pictures and his arguments telling and forcible. He never treated An opposing view with intolerance or contumely; his handling of ■controversial matter was exemplary. And then, to add still more to the debt we owe him, there is the wonderful simplicity and beauty of the way in which he tells his tale, which more than anything else "has served to make English history a popular, and as it ought to be, if not the first, at least the second study of all Englishmen." I have to thank those friends of Mr. Green, the Bishop of Chester, Canon Creighton, Professor Bryce, and Mr. Lecky, who, out of their regard for his memory, have made it a pleasure to me to ask their aid and counsel. I owe a special gratitude to Professor Gardiner for a ready help which spared no trouble and counted no cost, and for the rare generosity which placed at my disposal the results of his own latest and unpublished researches into such matters as the pressing of recruits for the New Model, and the origin of the term Ironside as a personal epithet of Cromwell. Mr. Osmund Airy has very kindly given me valuable suggestions for the Restora- tion period; and throughout the whole work Miss Norgate has rendered services which the most faithful and affectionate loyalty could alone have prompted. . . . Alice S. Green. I PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. The aim of the following work is defined by its title ; it is a history, not of English Kings or English Conquests, but of the English People. At the risk of sacrificing much that was interesting and attractive in itself, and which the constant usage of our historians has made familiar to English readers, I have preferred to pass lightly and briefly over the details of foreign wars and diplomacies, the personal adventures of kings and nobles, the pomp of courts, or the intiigues of favourites, and to dwell at length on the incidents of that constitutional, intellectual, and social advance in which we read the history of the nation itself. It is with this purpose that I have devoted more space to Chaucer than to Cressy, to Caxton than to the petty strife of I'orkist and Lancastrian, to the Poor Law of Elizabeth than to her victory at Cadiz, to the Methodist revival than to the escape of the Young Pretender. Whatever the worth of the present work may be, I have striven throughout that it should never sink into a "drum and trumpet history." It is the reproach of historians that they have too often turned history into a mere record of the butchery of men by their fellow-men. But war plays a small part in the real story of European nations, and in that of England its part is smaller than in any. The only war which has profoundly affected English society and English government is the Hundred Years' War with France, and of that xvm* PREFACE. ;i war the results were simply evil. If I have said little of the glories of Cressy, it is because I have dwelt much on the wrong and misery which prompted the verse of Longland and the preaching of Ball. But on the other hand, I have never shrunk from telling at lengtn the triumphs of peace. I have restored to their place among the achievements of Englishmen the *' Faerie Queen" and the "Novum Organ um." I have set Shakspere among the heroes of the Eliza- bethan age, and placed the scientific inquiries of the Royal Society side by side with the victories of the New Model. If some of the conventional figures of military and political history occupy in my pages less than the space usually given them, it is because I have had to find a place for figures little heeded in common history — the figures of the missionary, the poet, the printer, tae merchant, or the philosopher. In England, more than elsewhere, constitutional progress has been the result of social development In a brief summary of our history such as the present, il was impossible to dwell as I could have wished to dwell on every phase of this development; but I have endeavoured to point out at great crises, such as those of the Peasant Revolt or the Rise of the New Monarchy, how much of our political history is the outcome of social changes; and throughout I have drawn greater attention to the religious, intel- lectual, and industrial progress of the nation itself than has, so far as I remember, ever been done in any previous history of the same extent. The scale of the present work has hindered me from giving in detail the authorities for every statement. But I have prefixed to each section a short critical account of the chief contemporary autho- rities for the period it represents as well as of the most useful modem works in which it can be studied. As I am writing for English readers of a general class, I have thought it better to restrict myself in the latter case to English books, or to English translations of foreign works where they exist. This is a rule which I have only broken in the occasional mention of French books, such as those of Guizot or Mignet, well known ar within reach of ordinary students. I greatly regret that the publication of the first volume of the invaluable Constitutional History of Professor Stubbs came jf the glories 5 and misery liing of Ball. ng at lengtn ^ among the lie "Novum ( the Eliza- Dyal Society- some of the occupy in ; because I tnon history J merchant^ rogress has nary of our as I could ment ; but is those of how much nges; and ious, intel- has, so far ry of the PKEFACE. ^oo late for me iT^Z^T;; — -^ "*''' 'S ;trr "^:^''^''^ °" -^^^^^^^^ n,T,:r ^'- ^ ^- "• 1 nanks for like fr enrllv h^i , "" counsel anH and Professor Bryce. and in lite'arv ' ? '"' '" ^^'"'"-rS ubS Bn^oke, whose ,vide knowledge aTd„7 7' '° "'^ ^'^- Stopford Sparest service to «e. I fnT^dlfC'" '"^'^ '«ve been of thf giving in >refixed to •ary autho- ul modem >r English ict myself ilations of liave only as those ordinary It volume bbs came CONTENTS PAOB CHRONOLOGICAL ANNALS Xxi— XXxii GENEALOGICAL TAULES XXXUi— xlvii Sect. I* If M CHAPTER I. THK ENGLISH KINGDOMS, 607— IOI3. I. — Britain and the English i 2.— The English Conquest, 449—577 7 3. —The Northumbrian Kingdom, 588 — 68$ 16 4.— The Three Kingdoms, 685—828 36 5. — Wessex and the Danes, 802—880 44 6.— The West-Saxon Realm, 893—1013 53 Sect, CHAPTER n. ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS, IOI3— 1204. I. — The Danish Kings, 1013— 1042 63 2. — The English Restoration, 1042 — 1066 67 3. — Normandy and the Normans, 912 — 1066 Ji 4. — The Conqueror, 1042 — 1066 74 5. — The Norman Conquest, 1068 — 1071 81 6.— The Enp'ish Revival, 1071— 1127 87 7. — England and Anjou, 870 — 1154 98 8. — Henry the Second, 1154 — 1189 . .' 104 9. — The fall of the Angevins, 1189— 12'-4 112 xviii CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. THE GREAT CHARTER, 1204 — 1265. PAGE Sect. I. — English Literature under the Norman and Angevin Kings .... 117 2.— John, 1204 — 1215 122 3.— The Great Charter, 1 21 5— 12 1 7 128 4. — The Universities 132 5.— Henry the Third, 1216— 1257 141 6.— The Friars 147 7.— The Barons' War, 1258—1265 152 CHAPTER IV. THE THREE EDWARDS, I265 — 1360. 7, / 1 Sect. I.— The Conquest of Wales, 1265— 1284 161 ,, 2.— The English Parliament, 1283— 1295 169 ,, 3.— The Conquest of Scotland, 1290— 1305 181 „ 4.— The English Towns 193 „ 5.— The King and the Baronage, 1290— 1327 201 „ 6.— The Scotch War of Independence, 1306— 1342 211 CHAPTER V. • . THE HUNDRED VEARs' WAR, I336— I43I. ^ i Sect. I.— Edward the Third, 1336— 1360 217 „ 2.— The Good Parliament, 1360— 1377 231 „ 3.— John Wyclif , 235 ,, 4 —The Peasant Revolt, 1377— 1381 244 ,, 5.— Richard the Second, 1381— 1399 255 „ 6.— The House of Lancaster, 1399— 1422 264 CONTENTS. XIX »■ PAGE 117 122 128 CHAPTER VI. .' THE NEW MONARCHY, I422— I54O. FACE Sect. I. — Joan of Arc, 1422 — 1451 271 ,, 2. — The Wars of the Roses, 1450 — 1471 281 ,, 3.— The New Monarchy, 147 1 — 1509 288 ,, 4. — The Ntv/ Learning, 1509 — 1520 303 „ 5.— Wolsey, 1515—1531 320 ,, 6. — Thomas Cromwell, 1530 — 1540 331 CHAPTER Vn. ^ ' 161 169 181 193 201 • 211 217 231 235 244 255 264 THE REFORMATION. Sect. I.— The Protestants, 1540—1553 349 2.— The Martyrs, I5S3— ISS^ 361 3. —Elizabeth, 1558—1560 , 369 4. — England and Mary Stuart, 1560 — 1572 382 5. — The England of Elizabeth 392 6. — The Armada, 1572—1588 405 7. — The Elizabethan Poets 420 8.— The Conquest of Ireland, 1588 — 1610 442 » CHAPTER VIII. PURITAN ENGLAND. Sect. 1.— The Puritans, 1583— 1603 460 ,, 2. — The First of the Stuarts, 1604 — 1623 474 „ 3. — The King and the Parliament, 1623 — 1629 493 „ 4. — New England 505 ,, S.—lne Personal Government, 1629 — 1640 514 ,, 6. — The Long Parliament, 1640 — 1644 534 ,, 7.— The Civil War, July 1642— August 1646 . • 547 ,, 8. — The Army and the Parliament, 1646— 1649 559 „ 9.— The Commonwealth, 1649— 1653 572 „ 10.— The Fall of Puritanism, 1653—1660 583 XX CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. Sect >> »» M »» tt H ft THE REVOLUTION. FAGB , I . — England and the Revolution 605 2.— The Restoration, 1660— 1667 616 3. — Charles the Second, 1667 — 1673 629 4.— Danby, 1673— 1678 ... • 642 5.— Shaftesbury, 1679— 1682 652 6.— The Second Stuart Tyranny, 1682— 1688 661 7. — William of Orange 672 8.— The Grand Alliance, 1689— 1697 684 9. — Marlborough, 1698 — 1712 701 lo. — Walpole, 1712— 1742 720 ) CHAPTER X. MODERN ENGLAND. , Sect. I.— William Pitt, 1742— 1762 735 „ 2. — The Independence of America, 1 76 1 — 1782 757 ,, 3.— The Second Pitt, 1783— 1793 786 „ 4. — The War with France, 1793 — 1815 806 Epilogue, 1815— 1873 837 LIST OF MAPS. 1. England Fronf. 2. Britain in the midst of the English Conquest 12 3. England in the Ninth Century 44 4. Empire of the Angevins 104 5. France at the Treaty of Bretigny , 217 6. The American Colonies in 1640 507 CHRONOLOGICA L ANNALS Off ENGLISH HISTO RY 449 457 477 491 495 519 520 547 1552 [560 568 1 571 1 577 584 588 1593 West B26 En«rii.h land m Britain. Kent conquered by English. Landing of South Saxons, siege of Anderida. Landing of West Saxons. Cerdic and Cynric «:.„„ r Saxons. ' ^'"«' °^ British vjtory at Mount Badon. Wa founds k.ngdo.n of Bernicia. «thelberht. King of Kent, died 6x6 — dnven back by West Saxons. '■ VVest Saxons march into Mid-Britain -conquer at Deorham. — defeated at Faddiley. 'u^^: -'-''- ^-^^- or North. *l'd?r' ^^"^ o' Northumbria. "^^Sustine converfs Kent Battle of Dae^castan. ' . Battle of Chester. ' E»dwta.. King of NoHhumbH., dUd —- overlord of Brittin. -— slain at Hatfield. ^^J^- ^fttUs at Holy Island Conversion of Wessex. THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. •449^1016. 64j» 651 655 658 659 661 664 668 670 675 681 68a 685 688 715 716 733 735 753 754 756 758 775 779 786 787 Os,vaId slain at Maserfeld. ^nci?:;^^',^-— rTha.es. Ciedmon at Whitby C™.«neofw.,s„co„,„e."'^i,.So„„. EciOjeh defeased a,.d.W„„N^^.. ^''^^'^f Boniface. Wes^x recovers freedom in battle of Bur. !^3:^M-:t--yd. _: 7J^"«, Kentish men at Otford J i 796 8oa 803 808 815 821 885 827 828 837 839 849 851 853 855 857 860 866 867 868 870 871 874 876 877 878 883 CHRONOLOGICAL ANNALS. Cenwulf, King of Mercia, died 821. ECgberllt becomes King in Wessex, died 839. Cenwulf suppresses Archbishopric of Lich- field. Charles the Great restores Eardwulf in Northumbria. Ecgberht subdues the West Welsh to the Tamar. Civil war in Mercia. Ecgberht defeats Mercians at EUandun. overlord of England south of Thames. Revolt of East Anglia against Mercia. Defeat of Mercians by East Anglians. Mercia and Northumbria submit to Ecg- berht. Ecgberht overlord of all English kingdoms. — - invades Wales. ■ defeats Danes at Hengestesdun. JBthellxrulf, King of Wessex, died 858. iElfred born. Danes defeated at Aclea. yElfred sent to Rome. i'Ethelwulf goes to Rome. JEthelbald, King of Wessex, died 860. JEthelberhti King of Wessex, died 866. JEthelred, King of Wessex, died 871. Danes conquer rJorthumbria. Peace of Nottingham with Danes. Danes conquer and settle in East Anglia. Danes invade Wessex. JElfred, King of Wessex, died 901. Danes conquer Mercia. Danes settle in Northumbria. vElfred defeats Danes at Exeter, Danes overrun Wessex. iElfred victor at Edington. Peace of Wed more. vElfred sends envoys to Rome and India. 886 893 894 895 896 897 901 9ia 913 \ 918) 921 924 925 936 934 937 940 943 945 946 954 955 956 957 958 959 975 978 987 1040 994 1002 1003 1012 1013 1016 i'Elfred takes and refortifies London. Danes reappear in Thames and Kent. M\{red drives Hasting from Wessex. Hasting invades Mercia. y'Elfred drives Danes from Essex. Hasting quits England, i^^lfred creates a fleet. EadTirard the Elder, died 925. Northmen settle in Normandy. i'F^thelflxd conquers Danish Mercia. Eadward subdues East Anglia and Essex. owned as overlord by Nortlmmbria, Scots, and Stratliclyde. JEthelstan, died 940. drives Welsh from Exeter. invades Scotland. Victory of Brunauburh. Eadmund, died 946. Dunstan made Abbot of Glastonbury. Cumberland granted to Malcolm, King of Scots. Eadred, died 955. makes Northumbria an Earldom. Ead^rlg, died 959. Banishment of Dunstan. Revolt of Mercia under Eadgar. "^ ^'** Eadgrar, died 975. Dunstan A rchbishop of Canterbury. Eadinrard the Martyr, d^ed 978. JEthelred the Unready, died 1016. I Fulk the Black, Count of Anjou. Invasion of Swein. Massacre of Danes. Swein harries Wessex. Murder of Archbishop iClf heah. All England submits to Swein. Flight of ^thelred to Normandy. Eadmund Ironside, King, and dies. ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 1016-1204. 1016 1020 1027 1035 1037 1040 1040 1060 1042 1045 } Csiut, King, died 1035. Godw-.ne made Earl of Wessex. Cniit goes to Rome. Birth of William of Normandy. Harald and Harthacnut divide England. Harald, King, died 1040. Harthacnut, King, died 1042. Geoffry Martel, Count of Anjou. Eadvt-ard the Confessor, died 1066. Lanfra nc at Bee. 1047 Victory of William at Val-es-dunes. 1051 Banishment of God wine. William of Normandy visits England. 1052 Return of Godwine. 1053 Death of Godwine. Harold made Earl of West Saxons. 1054 William's victory at Mortemer. 1055 Harold s first campaign in Wales. 1060 I Norman conquest of Southern Italy. 1058 William's victory at the Dive. 113 113 113 laoj 120( jiaoc laio CHRONOLOGICAL ANNALS. XXIU •tifies Loudon. ames and Kent. ; from Wessex. :ia. from Essex. id. Ider, died 925. Normandy. Danish Mercia. ast Anglia and Essex. lord by Northambria, Lratliclyde. i940- rom Exeter. ad. urh. 946. ,ot of Glastonbury. A to Malcolm, King of jmbria an Earldom. 59- instan. under Eadgar. [hop of Canterbury. Martyr, d'ed 978. Unready, died 1016. lount of Anjou. Issex. ■'-■*^ lishop iElf heah. [lits to Swein. Ld to Normandy. [n«lde, King, and dies, 1060 1063 1066 1068 \ 1071 i 1070 1075 1081 1085 1086 1087 1093 1094 1095 1096 1097 1098 1100 1101 1106 1109\ 1129/ 1110 1111 1113 1114. 1120 1121 1123 1124. 1128 1134 11135 1138 Normans invade Sicily. • , . Harold conquers Wales. ^ Harold, King. conquers at Stamford Bridge. — — defeated at Senlac or Hastings. William of Normandy, King, died 1087. Norman Conquest of England. Reorganization of the Church. Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury. Rising of Roger Fitz-Osbern. William invades Wales. Failure of Danish invasion. Completion of Domesday Book. William the Red, died noo. Anselm, Archbishop. Revolt of Wales against the Norman Marchers. Revolt of Robert de Mowbray. Normandy left in pledge to William. William invades Wales. Anselm leaves England. War with France. Henry the First, died 1135. Henry's Charter. Robert of Normandy invades England. Settlement of question of investitures. English Conquest of Normandy. Fulk of Jerusalem, Count of Anjou. War with France. War with Anjou. Peace of Gisors. Marriage of Matilda with Henry V. Wreck of White Ship. Henry's campaign in Wales. Revolt of Norman baronage. France and Anjou support William Clito. Matilda married to Geoffry of Anjou. Death of the Clito in Flanders. Revolt of Wales. Stephen of Blois, died 1 1 54. Normandy repulses the Angevins. 1138 1139 1141 1147 1148 1149 1151 1152 1153 1154 1159 1162 1164 1166 1170 1172 1173 \ 1174; 1176 1178 1181 1189 1190\ 1194/ 1194\ 1196/ 1194 \ 1246/ 1197 1199 1200 1&03 1204 Revolt of Earl Robert. Battle of the Standard. Seizure of the Bishops. Landing of Matilda. Battle of Lincoln. . , , Birth of Gerald of Wales. Matilda withdraws to Normandy. Archbishop Thi;obald driven into exile. Henry of Anjou in England. Henry becomes Duke of Normandy. Henry marries Eleanor of Guienne. Henry in England. Treaty of Wallingford. Henry the Second, died 1189. Expedition against Toulouse. The Great Scutag . Thomas made Archbishop of Canfrbury. Consti'utlons of Clarendon. Council of Northampton. Flight of Archbishop Thomas. Af '^ of Clarendon. St v-.igbow's .'.ivasion of Ireland. Inquest of Sheriffs, Death of Archbishop Thomas. ' Henry's Conquest of Ireland. Rebellion of Henry's sons. Assize of Northampton. Reorganization of Curia Regis. Assize of Arms. Revolt of Richard. Richard the First, died 1199. Richard's Crusade. War with Philip Augustus. Llewelyn ap-Jorwerth in North Wales. Ric'.ard builds Chateau Gaillard. •Tohn, dies 1216. recovers Anjou and Maine. Layamon writes the Bnit. Murder of Arthur. French conquest of Anjou and Normandy at Val-es-dunes. bdwine. mdy visits England. [le. of West Saxons, jt Mortemer. iaign in Wales. jf Southern Italy. It the Dive. THE GREAT CHARTER. 1204-1295. 11205 Barons refuse to fight for recovery of Normandy. 11206 Stephen Langton Archbishop of Canter- bury. 11208 Innocent III. puts England under Inter- dict. 1210 John divides Irish Pale S^'io counties. 1211 John reduces Llewelyn • ap - Jorwerth to submission. 1213 John becomes the Popt's vassal. 1214 Battle of Bouvines. Birth of Roger Bacon. 1215 The Great Charter. 1216 Lewis of France called in by the Barons. I! XXIV laie iai7 laai laaa iaa4 laas ilias laao laao laai laaa ia37 laas ia4a ia4e\ lasa/ ia48 lasa lass ia«4 CHRONOLOGICAL ANNALS. Henry tlie Third, died 1372. iae4 Battle of Lewes. Confirmation of the Charter. laes Commons summoned to Parliament. Lewis returns to France. Battle of Evesham. Charter again confirmed. iae7 Roger Bacon writes his " Opus Maj'us." Hubert de Burgh, Justiciar. Llewelyn-ap-GrufTydd owned as Prince of Friars land in England. Wales. Charter again confirmed at London. ia7o Edward goes on Crusade. Revolt of Faukes de Breaut<. ia7a Edward the Flrat, died 1307. Fresh confirmation of Charter. ia77 Edward reduces L,lewelyn-ap-GruiTydd to Stephen Langton's death. submission. Papal exactions. ia79 Statute of Mortmain. Failure of Henry's campaign in Poitou. lasa Conquest of Wales. Conspiracy against the Italian clergy. laaa Statute of Merchants. Fall of Hubert de Burgh. lass Statute of Winchester. Charter again confirmed. laao Statute "Quia Emptores." Earl Simon of Leicester marries Henry's Expulsion of the Jews. sister. Marriage Treaty of Brigham. Defeat of Henry at Taillebourg. laoi Parliament at Norham concerning Scotch Barons refuse subsidies. succession. Llewelyn-ap-Gruffydd, Prince in North laaa Edward claims appeals from Scotland. Wrles. Death of Roger Bacon. Irish refusal of subsidies. ia94 Seizure of Guienne by Philip of France. Earl Simon in Gascony. ia95 French fleet attacks Dover. Earl Simon returns to England. Final organization of the English Parlia- Provisions of Oxford. ment. Mise of Amiens. ' ^ THE WAR WITH SCOTLAND AND FRANCE. ia96-1485. f 1 ia96 Edward conquers Scotland. 1997 Victory of Wallace at Stirling. Outlawry of the Clergy. Barons refuse to serve in Guienne. 1998 Edward conquers Scots at Falkirk. Truce with France. 1301 Barons demand nomination of Ministers by Parliament. Barons exact fresh Confirmation of the Charters. 1304 Submission of Scotland. 1305 Parliament of Perth. laOO Rising of Robert Bruce. 1307 Parliament of Carlisle. Edivard the Second, died 1327. 1308 Gaveston exiled. 1310 The Lords Ordainers draw up Articles of Reform. 1319 Death of Gaveston. 1314 Battle of Bannockbum. 1316 Battle of Athenree. 1318 Edward accepts the Ordinances. 13aa Death of Earl of Lancaster. Ordinances annulled. ^, 1393 Truce with the Scots 1334 13a5 13a6 1337 1338 1339 1330 1333 1333 1335 \ 1336/ 1336 1337 \ 1338/ 1339 1340 1341 \ 1343/ 1346 French attack Aquitaine. The Queen and Prince Edward in France. Queen lands in England. Deposition of Edward II. Edward the Third, died 1377. Treaty of Northampton recognizes inde- pendence of Scotland. Death of Robert Bruce. Death of Roger Mortimer. Edward Balliol invades Scotland. Battle of Halidon Hill. Balliol does homage to Edward. Edward invades Scotland. France again declares war. War with France and Scotland. Edward claims crown of France. Balliol driven from Scotland. Edward attacks France from Brabant. Battle of Sluys. War in Britanny and Guienne. Battles of Crecy and Neville's Cross. CHRONOLOGICAL ANNALS. XXV il Parliament. I J '* opus Maj'us." owned as Prince of .de. it I died i307« ilyn-ap-Gruflfydd to jres." , s. Irigham. n concerning Scotch lis from Scotland. on, y Philip of France. Dover. f the English Parlia- 1347 1348 1349 \ 1351 ; 1351 1353 1355 1356 1366 1367 1368 1370 1379 1374 1376 1377 1378 1380 1381 1389 ■^.■•'. 1 1384 1 1386 •«. 1 1389 1 1394 , I 1396 ine. Prince Edward in 1 1397 ■ 1398 ind. ■ 1399 dll. H ird, died 1377- I 1400 (ton recognizes inde ■ 1401 land. ■ 1402 ce. ■ 1403 timer. ■ 1403\ ■ 1405. les Scotland. 111. ■ 1405 lo Edward. ■ 1407 land. 1 Iwar. H 1 Scotland. I lof France. Hotland. He from Brabant. ■ 1485 ■ 1487 ■ 1490 H ■ 1492 ^■}uienne. ■ 1497 H^eville's Cross. H Capture of Calais. ■ : < Truce with France. First api)earancc of the Plack Death. Statutes of Labourers. First Statute of Provisors. First Statute of Pra;munire. Renewal of French War. Battle of Poitiers. Statute of Kilkenny. The Black Prince victorious at Navarete. Wyclif's treatise ^' De Dominio." Storm of Limoges. ^ Victory of Spanish fleet ofT Rochelle. Revolt of Aquitaine. The Good Parliament. Its work undone by the Duke of Lancaster Wyclif before the Bishop of London. Richard the Second, died 1399. Gregory XL denounces Wyclif's heresy. Longiand's "Piers the Ploughman." Wyclif's declaration against Transubstan- tiation. The Peasant Revolt. Condemnation of Wyclif at Blackfriars. Suppression of the Poor Preachers. Death of Wyclif. Barons force Richard to dismiss the Earl of Suffolk. Truce with France. Richard in Ireland. Richard marries Isabella of France. Truce with France prolonged. Murder of the Duke of Gloucester. Richard's plans of tyranny. Deposition of Richard. Henry the Fourth, died 1413. Revolt of Owen Glyndwr in Wales. Statute of Heresy. Battle of Homildon Hill. Revolt of the Percies. French descents on England. Revolt of Archbishop Scrope. French attack Gascony. 1411 English force 5ent to aid Duke of Bur- gundy ill France. 1413 Henry the Fifth, died 1433. 1414 Lollard Conspiracy. 1415 Battle of Agir court. 1417 Henry invade > Normandy. 1419 Alliance with Duke of Burgundy. 1420 Treaty of Trjyes. 1422 Henry tbe Sixth, died 1471. 1424 Battle of Verneuil. 1429 } S'^Se of Orleans. 1430 County Suffrage restricted. 1431 Deathof Joanof Arc. 1435 Congress of Arras. 1445 Marriage of Margaret of Anjou. 1447 Death of Duke of Gloucester. 1450 Impeach; aent and death of Duke of SufTo'k. Cade's Insurrection. Loss of Normandy. 1451 Loss of Guienne. 1454 Duke of York named Protector. 1455 First Battle of St. Albans. 1456 End of York's Protectorate. 1459 Failure of Yorkist revolt. 1460 Battle of Northampton. York acknowledged as successor. Battle of Wakefield. 1461 Secoid Battle of St. Albans. Battle of Mortimer's Cross. Edward the Fourth, died 1483. Battle of Towton. J^S| j Warwick the King-maker. 1464 1470 1471 1475 1476 1483 1485 Edward marries Lady Grey. Wzirwick driven to France. Flight of Edward to Flanders. Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury. Edward invades France. Caxton settles in England. Murder of Ed^eard the Fifth. Richard the Third, died 1485. Buckingham's Insurrection. Battle cf Bosworth. THE TUDORS. 1485-1603. Henry the Seventh, died 1509. Conspiracy of Lambert Simnel. Treaty with Ferdinand and Isabella. Henry invades France. Cornish rebellion. Perkin Warbeck captured. 1497 Sebastian Cabot lands in America. 1499 Colet and Erasmus at Oxford. 1501 ArthurTudor marries Catharine of Aragon. 1 502 Margaret Tudor marries James the Fourth. 1 505 Colet Dean of S. Paul's. 1509 Henry the Eighth, died 1547. XXVI CHRONOLOGICAL ANNALS. 1509 Erasmus writes tht '* Praise of Folly." 1562 i5ia War with France. 1513 Battles of the Spurs and of Flodden. 1563 Wolsey becomes chief Minister. 1515 More's " Utopia." 1517 Luther denounces Indulgences. 1565 15flO Field of Cloth of Gold. Luther burns the Pope's Bull. 1566 15fll Quarrel of Luther with Henry the Eighth. 1567 15flfl Renewal of French war. 15fl3 Wolsey quarrels with the Commons. 1568 1525 Exaction of Benevolences defeated. 1569 Peace with France. 1570 Tyndale translates the Ne^v Testament. 1571 1526 Henry resolves on a Divorce. Persecution of Protestants. 1572 1529 Fall of Wolsey. Ministry of Norfolk and More. 1575 1531 King acknowledged as " Supreme Head of the Church of England." 1576 1532 Statute of Appeals. 1577 1534 Acts of Supremacy and Succession. 1579 1535 Cromwell Vicar-General. Death of More. Overthrow of the Geraldines in Ireland. 1580 1536 Dissolution of lesser Monasteries. 1537 Pilgrimage of Grace. 1583 1538 English Bible issued. 1539 Execution of Lord Exeter. Law of Six Articles. 1584 Suppression of greater Abbeys. 1542 Completion of the Tudor Conquest of Ireland. 1585 1544 War with France. 1547 Execution of Earl of Surrey. Edward the Sixth, died i553- 1586 Battle of Pinkie Cleugh. 1587 Suppression of Chantries. 1548 English Book of Common Prayer. 1549 Western Rebellion. End of Somerset's Protectorate. 1588 1551 Death of Somerset. 1553 Mary, died 1558. 1589 Chancellor (^ scovers Archangel. 1590 1554 Mary marrLcs Philip of Spain. 1593 England absolved by Cardinal Pole. 1594 1555 Persecution of Protestants begins. 1596 1556 Burning of Archbishop Cranmer. 1557 War with France. 1597 1558 Loss of Calais. Elizabeth, died 1603. 1598 1559 — — restores Royal Supremacy and 1599 English Prayer Book. 1601 1560 War in Scotland. 1603 1561 Mary Stuart lands in Scotland. 1562 Rebellion of Shane O'Neill in Ulster. Elizabeth supports French Huguenots. Hawkins begins Slave Trade with Africa. First penal statute against Catholics. English driven out of Havre. Thirty-nine Articles imposed on cler^. Mary marries Darnley. Darnley murders Rizzio. Royal Exchange built. . ^ < i ' Murder of Darnley. . . • ■ Defeat and death of Shane O'Nfiill. Mary flies to England. Revolt of the northern Earls. Bull of Deposition published. Conspiracy and death of Norfolk. Rising of the Low Countries against Alva. Cartwright's •• Admonition to the Parlin ment." Queen refuses Netherlands. First public Theatre in Blackfriars. Landing of the Seminary Priests. Drake sets sail for the Pacific. Lyly's "Euphues." Spenser publishes''*ShepheritsCalenilar." Campian and Parsons in England. Revolt of the Desmonds. Massacre of Smerwick. Plots to assassinate Elizabeth. New powers given to Ecclesiastical Com- mission. Murder of Piince of Orange. Armada gathers in the Tagus. Colonization of Virginia. English Army sent to Netherlands. Drake on the Spanish Coast. Battle of Zutphen. Babington's Plot. . t'l Shakspere in London. Death of Mary Stuart. Drake burns Spanish fleet at Cadiz. Marlowe* s " Tamburlaine." Defeat of the Armada. Martin Marprelate ^racts. Drake plunders Corunna. Publication of the * ' Faerie Queen." Shakspere' s " Venus and Adonis'* Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity." Jonson's *' Every Man in his Humour.' Descent upon Cadiz. Ruin of the Second Armada. Bacon's "Essays." Revolt of Hugh O'Neill. Expedition of Earl of Essex in Ireland. Execution of Essex. Mountjoy completes the conquest of Ire | land. Death of Elizabeth. CHRONOLOGICAL ANNALS. XXVll ich Huguenots. Trade with Africa. inst Catholics. Havre. iponed on clergy. io. . ihane O'Neill. n Earls, iblished. 1 of Norfolk, untries against Alva, jnition to the Parlin rlands. ? in Black friars. inary Priests, le Pacific. THE STUARTS. ieo3-ie88. 1603 1604 1605 1610 1613 1614 1616 1617 1617 1618 ^hephenVs Calendar." 1618 ns in England. ^ 1620 ?monds. vick. Elizabeth. j 1621 to Ecclesiastical Com- ■ »f Orange. the Tagus. ; 1623 Iginia. 1624 [to Netherlands. 1625 ish Coast. ' 1 1 1626 mOft. ftart. 1627 Ih fleet at Cadiz. Winrlaine." 1628 Iida. B« ^Tracts. Hninna. 1629 M" Faerie Queen." l;/f and Adonis." Bastical Polity." 1630 Ka» in his Humour:' 1633 H Armada. ,, iNeill. 1634 H of Essex in Ireland. 1636 , the conquest of Irer James the Flrat| died 1635. Millenary Petition. Parliament claims to deal with both Church and State. Hampton Court Conference. Gunpowder Plot. Bacon s ^'Advancement of Learning." Parliament's Petition of Grievances. Plantation of Ulster. Marriage of the Elector Palatine. First quarrels with the Parliament. Trial of the Earl and Countess of Somerset. Dismissal of Chief Justice Coke. Death of Shakspere. - ' Bacon Lord Keeper. Proposals for the Spanish Marriage. The Declaration of Sports. [ Expedition and death of Ralegh. ' ' Beginning of Thirty Years' War. Invasion of the Palatinate. Landing of the Pilgrim- Fathers in New England. Bacon's ^' Noimtn Organum," Impeachment of Bacon. James tears out the Protestation of the Commons. Journey of Prince Charles to Madrid. Resolve of War against Spain. Charles the First, died 1649. First Parliament dissolved. Failure of expedition against Cadiz. Buckingham impeached. Second Parliament dissolved. Levy of Benevolence and Forced Loan. Failure of expedition to kochelle. The Petition of Right. Murder of Buckingham. Laud Bishop of London. Dissolution of Third Parliament. Charter granted to Massachusetts. Wentworth Lord President of the North. Puritan Emigration to New England. Wentworth Lord Deputy in Ireland. Laud A rchbishop of Canterbury. Milton's "Allegro" and " Penseroso." Prynne's " Histrio-mastix." Milton's "Comus." Juxon Lord Treasurer. Book of Canons and Common Prayer issued for Scotland. Hampden refuses to pay Ship-money. 1637 1638 1639 1640 1641 1642 1643 1644 1645 1646 1647 Revolt of Edinburgh. Trial of Hampden. Milton's "Lycidas." The Scotch Covenant. Leslie at Dunse Law. Pacification of Berwick. The Short Parliament. The Bishops' War. Great Council of Peers at York. Long Parliament meets, Noi\ Pym leader of the Commons. Execution of Strafford, May. Charles visits Scotland. Hyde organizes royalist party. The Irish Massacre, Oct. The Grand Remonstrance, l^ov. Impeachment of Five Members, /««. Charles before Hull, April. Royalists withdraw from Parliament. Charles raises Standara at Nottingham, August 22. Battle of Edgehill, Oct. 23. Hobbes writes the " De Cive." Assembly of Divines at Westminster. Rising of the Cornishmen, May. Death of Hampden, fune. Battle of Roundway Down, fuly. Siege of Gloucester, A ug. Death of 'Falkland, Sept. Charles negotiates with Irish Catholics. Taking of the Covenant, Sept. 25. Fight at Cropredy Bridge, fune. Battle of Marston Moor, fuly 2. Surrender of Parliamentary Army in Corn- wall, Sept. 2. Battle of Tippermuir, Sept. 2. Battle of Ntwbury, Oct. Milton's * ' A reopagitica. ' ' Self-denying Ordinance, April, New Model raised. Battle of Naseby, fune 14. Battle of Philiphaugh, Sept. Charles surrenders to the Scots, May. Scots surrender Charles to the Houses, fan. 30. Army elects Agitators, April. The King seized at Holmby House, fune. "Humble Representation" of the Army, fune. Expulsion of the Eleven Members. Army occupies London, Aug. Flight of the King, Nov. XXVlll CHRONOLOGICAL ANNALS. 1647 Secret Treaty of Charles with the Soots, Dec. 1048 Outbreak of the Royalist Revolt, Ftb. Revolt of the Fleet, and of Kent, Afay. Fairfax and Cromwell in Essex and Wales, June— July. Battle of Preston, ^wiT. 17. Surrender of Colchester, A ug. 37 Pride's Purge, Dec. Royal Society begins at Oxfoni. 1040 Execution of Charles I., /aM. 30. Scotland proclaims Charles II. King. England proclaims itself a Commonwealth. Ci-omwell storms Drogheda, Sept. 1 1. lOAO Cromwell enters Scotland. Battle of Dunbar, Sept. 3. 1651 Battle of Worcester, Sept. 3. Ifobbes's " Leviathan." 1058 Union with Scotland. Outbreak of Dutch War, May. Victory of Tromp, Nov, 1653 Victory of Blake, Feb. Cromwell drives out the Parliament, April 20. Constituent Convention (Barebones Par- liament), July. Convention dissolves, Dec. The Instrument of Government. Oliver Cromwell, Lord Pro- tector, died 1658. 1054 Peace concluded with Holland. First Protectorate Parliament, Sefit. 1055 Dissolution of the Pkirliament, /aw. The Major-Generals. Settlement of Scotland and Ireland. Settlement of the Church. , . Blake in the Mediterranean. War with Spain and Conquest of Jamaica. Second Protectorate Parliament, Sept. Blake's victory at Santa Cruz. Cromwell refuses title of King. Act of Government. Parliament dissolved, Feb. Battle of the Dunes. Capture of Dunkirk. Death of Cromwell, Sept. 3. Richard Cromwell, Iiord Pro- tector, died 1712. 1059 Third Protectorate Parliament. Parliament dissolved. Long Parliament recalled. Long Parliament again driven out. 1000 Monk enters London. The "Convention" Pariiament. Charles the Second,Iandsat Dover, May, died 1685. 1050 1057 1058 1000 1001 100a 1003 1004 1005 1000 1007 1008 107O 1071 107A 1073 1074 1075 1077 1078 1079 1680 Union of Scotland and Ireland undone. Cavalier Parliament begins. Act of Uniformity re-enacted. Puritan clergy driven out. Royal Society at Lomiott, Dispensing Bill fails. Conventicle Act. Dutch War begins. Five Mile Act. Plague of London. Newton's Theory of Fluxions, Fire of London. The Dutch in the Medway. Dismissal of Clarendon, Peace of Breda. Lewis attacks Flanders. 1 Milton's '• Paradise Lost." The Triple Alliance. Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Ashley shrinks back from toleration to Catholics. Treaty of Dover. Bunyan's '^Pilgrim's Progress " written' Milton's "Paradise Regained" and *' Samson Agonistes." Nejvton's Theory of Light. Closing of the Exchequer. Declaration of Indulgence. War begins with Holland. Ashley made Chancellor. Declaration of Indulgence withdrawn. The Test Act. Shaftesbury dismissed. Shaftesbury takes the lead of the Country Party. Bill of Protestant Securities fails. Charles makes Peace with Holland. Danby Lord Treasurer. Treaty of mutual aid between Charles and Lewis. Shaftesbury sent to the Tower. Bill for Security of the Church fails. Address of the Houses for War with France. Prince of Orange marries Mary. Peace of Nimeguen. Oates invents the Popish Plot. New Parliament meets. Fall of Danby. 1 ■ iw Ministry with Shaftesbury at its head. | Temple's plan for a new Council. Habeas Corpus Act passed. Exclusion Bill introduced. Parliament dissolved. Shaftesbury dismissed. Conunittee for agitation formed. CHKONOLOGICAL ANNALS. XXIX I leso 1681 ■ 1682 Fluxions. 1 1683 dway. 1 on. ■ ♦ ■ 1684 ers. ■ - Lost," ■ 168A pelle. ;k from toleration to 1 Monmouth pretends to th<5 throne. Petitioners and Abljorrcrs. Exclusion Bill thrown out by the Lords. Trial of Ix)rd SLifford. Parliament at Oxford. Treaty with France. Limitation Hill rejected. Shaftesbury and Monmouth arrested. Conspiracy and flight of Si.ifte.sbury. Penn founds Pennsylvani.i. Death of Shaftesbury. Rye-house Plot. Kxecution of If>tnr in London, War declared with Spain. War of the Austrian Succession. Resignation of Walpole. Hattle of Dettingen, June aj. Ministry of Henry Pelham. Battle of Fontenoy, Afay 31. Charles Edward lands in Scotland. Battle of Prestonpans, Se/t. ai. Charles Edward reaches Derby, Dec. 4. Battle of Falkirk, Jan. 23. Battle of Culloden, A/rtU 16. Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Clivc's surprise of Arcot. Death of Henry Pelham. Ministry of Duke of Newcastle. The Seven Years' War. Defeat of General Braddock. Loss of Port Mahon. Retreat of Admiral Byng. Convention of Closter-Seven. Ministry of William Pitt. Battle of Plassey, June 23. Capture of Louisburg and Cape Breton. Capture of Fort Duquesne. Battle of Minden, August i. Capture of Fort Niagara and Ticonderoga. Wolfe's victory on H VKts of Abraham. Battle of Quiberon Bay, Nov. ao. Oeorgre the Third died tSao. Battle of Wandewash. Pitt resigns office. Ministry of Lord Bute. BrindUys Canal over the Irwell. Peace of Paris. Ministry of George Grenville. Wedgwood establishes potteries. First expulsion of Wilkes from House of Commons. Hargreaves invents Spinning Jenny. Stamp Act passed. Ministry of Lord Rockingham. Meeting and Protest of American Con- gress. Watt invents Steam Engine, Repeal of the Stamp Act. ^ Ministry of Lord Chatham. Ministry of the Duke of Grafton. Second expulsion of Wilkes. Arkwright invents Spinning Machine. 1769 Wilkcit three times elected for Middle sex. House of Commons seats Col. Luttrell. Oc< 'ipation of Boston by British trofjps. Let ten 0/ Junius. 1770 Chatham's proposal of Parliamentary Re form. Ministry of Lord North. 1771 Last attempt to prevent Parliamentary reporting. Beginning 0/ the great English Journals, 1773 Hastings appointed GovernorGenci'al. Bostoii t«:>v riots. 1774 Mili ary occupation of Boston. Its port closed. Massachusetts Charter altered. Congress assembles at Philadelphia. 1 775 Rejection of Chatham's plan of conciliation. Skirmish at I^exington. Americans, under Washington, besiege Boston. Batile of Bunker's Hill. Southern Colonies expel their Governors. 1776 Crowpton invents the Mule. Arnold invades Canada. Evacuation of Boston. Declaration of Independence, July 4. Battles of Brooklyn and Trenton. Adam Smith's " Wealth of Nations." 1777 Battle of Brandywine. Surrender of Saratoga, Oct. 17. Chatham proposes Federal Union. Washington at Valley Forge. 1778 Alliance of France and Spain with United States. Death of Chatham. 1779 Siege of Gibraltar. Armed Neutrality of Northern Powers. The Irish Volunteers. 1780 Capture of Charlestown. Descent of Hyder AH on the Camatic. 1781 Defeat of Hyder at Porto Novo. Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. 178& Ministry of Lord Rockingham. Victories of Rodney. Repeal of Poynings' Act. Pitt's Bill for Parliamentary Reform. Burke's Bill of Economical Reform. Shelbume Ministry. Repulse of Allies from Gibraltar. 1783 Treaties of Paris and Versailles. Coalition Ministry of Fox and North. Fox's India Bill. ^Ministry of Pitt. 1784 Pitt's India Bill. Financial Reforms. CHRONOLOGICAL ANNALS. XXXI ecled for Middle I'arliamentary Re vent Parliamentary \t English Jourtials. ;ovcrnor-Gencia'. 1785 1786 1787 1788 1789 170O 1701 1792 Washington, besiege If Northern Powers. lown. ill on the Camatic. I Porto Novo. lUis at Yorktown. ackingham. 1793 1794 1796 1797 11798 L799 1800 1801 1802 L803 i804 805 1806 807 Parliamentary Reform Hill. Free Trade Kill between KngLnd and Ireland. Trial of Warren tlastingn. Troaty of Coii\nierco with France. The Regency liill. Meeting of States-General at Versailles. New French Coiislitutiun. Triple Alliance for defence of Turkey. (Quarrel over Nootka Sound. Pitt defends Poland. Burke's ^^Reflections on the French RevolntioH." Representative Government set up in Canada. Fox's Libel Act. Burke's '' Appeal from the Ne^v to the Old IVhigs." Pitt hinders Holland from joining the Coalition. France opens the Scheldt. Pitt's efforts for peace. The United Irishmen. France declares War on England. Part of Whigs join Pitt. English army lands in Flanders. English driven from Toulon. English driven from Holland. Suspension of Habeas Corpus Act. Victory of Lord Howe, June i. Burke's *' Letters on a Regicide Peace." England alone in the War with France. Battle of Camperdown. Battle of Cape St. Vincent. Irish revolt crushed at Vinegar Hill. Battle of the Nile. Pitt revives the Coalition against France. Conquest of Mysore. Surrender of Malta to English Fleet. Armed Neutrality of Northern Powers. Act of Union with Ireland. George the Third rejects Pitt's Plan of Catholic Emancipation. Administration of Mr. Addington. Surrender of French army in Egypt. Battle of Copenhagen. Peace of Amiens. Publication of ^^-Edinburgh Review." War declared against Laon*) parte. Battle of Assaye. Second Ministry of Pitt. Battle of Trafalgar, Oct. 21. Death of Pitt, Jan. 23. Ministry of Lord Grenville. Death of Fox. Orders in Council. 1807 1808 1808 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814. 1815 1810 1820 1822 1823 1826 1827 1828 1829 1830 1831 1832 Abolition of Slave Trade. Ministry of Duke of Portland. Seizure of Danish Fleet. Battle of Vimicra, and Convention ul Cintra. America passes Non- Intercourse Act. Battle of Corunna, Jan. 16. Wellesley drives Soult from Oporto. Battle of Talavera, July a8. Expedition against Walchcren. Ministry of Spencer Percev.!!. Revival of Pari*' imentary Reform. Battle of Busaco. Lines of Torres Vodras. Prince of Wales b«:comes Regent. Battle of Fuentes d'Onore, May 5. Luddite Riots. Assassination of Spencer Perceval. Ministry of Lord Liverpool. Storm of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajo/. America declares War against England. Battle of Salamanca, July 23. Wellington retreats from Burgos. Victories of American Frigates. Battle of Vitoria, June ai. Battles of the Pyrenees. Wellington enters France, Oct, Americans attack Canada. Battle of Orthes. Battle of Toulouse, April 10. Battle of Chippewa, July. Raid upon Washington. British repulses at Plattsburg and New Orleans. Battle of Quatre Bras, June 16. Battle of Waterloo, June 18. Treaty of Vienna. Manchester Massacre. Cato Street Conspiracy. Georce the Fourth, died 1830. Bill for the Queen's Divorce. Canning Foreign Minister. Mr. Huskisson joins the Ministry. Expedition to Portugal. Recognition of South American States. Ministry of Mr. Canning. Ministry of Lord Goderich. Battle of Navarino. Ministry of Duke of Wellington. Catholic Emancipation Bill. VTiUiam the Fourth, died 183;. M iiistry of Lord Grey. Opening of Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Reform Agitation. Parliament.-vry Reform Bill passed,/««* 7. XXXII CHRONOLOGICAL ANNALS. mv ! 1833 Suppression of Colonial Slavery. 1848 Suppn sion of the Chartists and Irish East Indian trade thrown open. rebels. 1834. Ministry of Lord Melbourne. 1849 Victory of Goojerat. New Poor Law. Annexation of the Punjaub. System of National Education begun. 1852 Ministry of Lord Derby. Ministry of Sir Robert Peel. Ministry of Lord Aberdeen. 1835 Ministry of Lord Melbourne replaced. 1854 Alliance with France againsi Russia. Municipal Corporation Act. Siege of Sebastopol. 1836 General Registration Act. Battle of Inkermann, Nov. 5. Civil Marriages Act. 1855 Ministry of Lord Palmerston. 1837 Victoria. Capture of Sebastopol. 1838 Formation of Anti-Com-Law League. 1856 Peace of Paris with Russia. 1838 Committee of Privy Council for Education 1857 Sepoy Mutiny in Bengal. instituted. 1858 Sovereignty of India transferred to the Demands for a People's Charter. Crown. Revolt in Canada. Volunteer movement. War with China. Second Ministry of Lord Derby. Occupation of Cabul. 1859 Second Ministry of Lord Palmerston. 1840 Quadruple Alliance with France, Portugal 1865 Ministry of Lord Russell. and Spain. 1866 Third Ministry of Lord Derby. Bombardment of Acre. 1867 Parliamentary Reform Bill. 1841 Ministry of Sir Robert Peel. 1868 Ministry of Mr. Disraeli. 1848 Income Tax revived. Ministry 0/ Mr. Gladstone. Peace with China. 1869 Disestablishment of Episcopal Church in Massacre of English Army in AfTghanistan. Ireland. Victories of Pollock in AfTghanistan. 1870 Irish T^nd Bill. Annexation of Scinde. Education Bill. 1845 Battles of Moodkee and Ferozeshah. IB7\ Abolition of religious tests in Universities. 1846 Battle of Sobraon. Army Bill. Repeal of the Corn Laws. 1878 Ballot Bill. Ministry of Lord John Russell. 1874 Second Ministry of Mr. Disraeli. he Chartists and Irish at. ! Punjaub. Derby. Aberdeeii. nee against Russia. ol. ,nn, Nov. 5. Palmerston. opol. th Russia. Bengal. idia transferred to the nt. f Lord Derby. f Lord Palmerston. Russell. Lord Derby. brm Bill. 'Israeli. ladstone. >f Episcopal Church in us tests in Universities. Mr. Disraeli. GENEALOGICAL TABLES. II! Ill XXXIV GENEALOGICAL TABLES. KINGS OP THE HOUSE OF CERDIC, FROM ECGBERHT. ECGBERHT, r. 802-839. iETHELWULF, r. 839-857. I I I ^ iETHELBALD, ^THELBERHT, iETHELRED I. ^LFRED=-£"a/AKf/M. r. 857-860. r. 860-866. r. 866-871. r. 871-90X. | EADWARD THE ELDEK, r. 901-925. iETHELSTAN, EADMUND = y^lfgifu. EADRED, r. 925-940. r. 940-946. I r. 946-955. I 1 EADWIG, I. /Ethelflced = EADGAR =2. JElfthr^'ili. r. 955-959- r. 959-975. ( EADWARD THE MARTYR, r. 975-978. 1. Name = .ETHELRED II. =2. Evnna of uncertain r. 978-1016. {' Normandy = 2. Cnut, i. 1016-1035. EADMUND IRONSIDE, r. Ap. 23-Nov. 30, 1016, in. Ealdgyth. 1 I , iElfred, EADWARD Harthacnut, killed 1036. THE r. 1040-1042. CONFESSOR, r. 1042-1066. Eadmund. Eadward, d. 1057, m. Agatha. Eadgar, elected King in io56. Margaret, d. 1093. ;«. Malcolm III. King of Scots. Matilda, d. 1118, ni. Henry I. King of England. Christina, a nun. ;CGBERHT. DANISH KINGS. XXXV 'K'ET>=Ealhsvjitk. [-901. j i ^HE DANISH KINGS. '.a of xndy = 2. Cnut, ». 1016 -1035. R, 56. I Harthacnut, r. 1040-1042. SWEIN FORKBEARD 1014. CNUT z? Swegen. -'• / 'f^-lnrSi&l^ HARALD, flJf35-i04o. red II, HARTHACNUT r. li '40-t042. m XXXVl GENEALOGICAL TABLES. DUKES OF THE NORMANS. HROLF, ist Duke of the Normans, r. 911-927. WILLIAM LONGSWORD, X. 927-943- RICHARD THE FEARLESS. r. 943-996. RICHARD THE GOOD, r. 996-1026. Emma, f/i. 1. ^thelred II. of England. VI. 2. Cnut of England and Denmark, ~\ RICHARD in. r. 1026-1028. ROBERT THE MAGNIFICENT, r. 1028-1035. WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, r. 1035-1087. r ROBERT IL r. 1087-1096 (from 1096 to 1100 the Duchy was held by his brother Williaia), and I 100-1106 (when he was over- thrown at Tinche- brai by his brother Henry). I WILLIAM RUFUS, r. 1096-1100. HENRY L r. 1106-11 35. Matilda, nt. GEOFFREY, COUNT OK ANJOU AND MAINE (who won the Duchy from Stephen). ^ HENRY IL invested with the Duchy 1151, d. 1 189. I 1 Adela, m. Stephen, Count of Blois. STEPHEN OF BLOIS, s. 1135. RICHARD THE LION HEART, r. 1 189-1199. ) JOHN, r. 1199-1204 (when Normandy was conquered by France). !' I: I- _EDWARDm. HENRV IV. xxxvii Claim of EDWARD m ,„ ,^ '"• *° ^'^e French Crown. LEWIS X. •■• '314-1316. 15 N0V.-19 Nov. 1316. PHlLlP IV THE FAIR, PHILIP III. THE BOLD, r. 1270-1285. PHILIP V THE LONG, * r- 1316-1322. J~ CHARLES IV THE FAIR, •■• 1322-1328. Isabel, w. Edrvard // of England. Edward III of England.' of Valois, d. 1325. PHILIP VI O"" VALOIS, ' r. 1328-X3S0. JOHN IL THE GOOD, *■• 1350-1364. 1 Adela, vt. Stephen, 'omit of Blois. STEPHEN OF BLOIS, s. 1135. 1 )HN, 9-1204 ly was conquered ranee). ED Ward i, Descent of henry HENRV in. IV, Earl of Lancaster. . Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, beheaded 1322. ' John of Gaunt - r,. I>"ke of Lancaster. T of^^^'^he 01 J-ancaster. EarlofS'aster. ^"I^eofScaster. 'R^^K'i IV. xxxvm GENEALOGICAL TABLES. I i I i! |l il III (filly I / « HOUSE OF EDWARD 1 ■ Lionel, Duke of Clarence. 1 Philippa, m. Edmund Mortimer, Earl 0/ March, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March. 1 •\ Edmund Anne Morti- Mortimer, Earl of March, d. 1424. Richard Duke of . slain at EDWj \ \RD IV. Edmund, Farl of Rutland slain at Wake- field, 1460. George, Duke of Clarence, m. Isabel Neville. 1 EDWARD V. Richard, Elizabeth. Duke of m. HENRY York. VIL ■ • - / 1 ' " Katl m. Wil Court He Court Man of Ex behea "r Edw Courte Earl of d. 15 1 . tarine, Sir Ham 'enay. iry enay, ijuis eter, ided 9- ard nay, Devon, 56. r 1 Edward, Margaret, Earl of Countess of Warwick, Salisbury, beheaded beheaded 1499- ^.^541- , ;«. Str Richard Pole. 1 .•; '■' I Henry Pole, Lord Moptacute, beheaded 1539. Hi! HOUSE OF YORK. xxxix HOUSE OF YORK. EDWARD J II. Lionel, Duke of Clarence. .( Philippa, m. Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. ^oger Mortimer, EaH of March. ch, Anne MortJ- Richard Duke of slain at George, Duke of •larence, mbel Neville. _J Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, beheaded m. Sir Richard Pole. nry Pole, Lord iptacute, headed 1539. Edmund of DukeSf'a^^.^ r^i-f Richard. Earl of Cam. bridge, 'beheaded 141- fJantagenet, * ^• Vork, Wakefield, 1460. RICHARD III '"' ^""f Seville. Elizabeth -=/,,« ^;;;-^ . Edward. r , { ^— Margdret "'' C^^rles, Duke of ^»^gnndy. Richard de Ja Pole «'amat;hebat5r of Pavia, 1525. Reginald Pole Archbishop of' Canterbury and Cardinal, •^-•558. ill; xl GENEALOGICAL TABLES. VIII' inij I O a m D O X P O u-3 I t:2 —Mr 1^ _Mc^ a V ^^C M s V e o « I"* ? 9 o II — eq « >• (1 ^0 « a o *j H 3 X t Wis i nt m "2 ^ 4< rtu- !* > o V •o V h i 4^ c « u^^ xlii GENEALOGICAL TABLES. THE SOVEREIGNS Since the Robert, Duke of Normandy, b. about 1056, d. 1134- William. Count of Flanders, b. iioi, d. 1 128. I WILLIAM II. b. about 1060, d. 1 100. WILLIAM I. /;/. Matilda r~"' Henry, b. 1155, d. 1183. RICHARD I. b. 1 157, d. 1199. •^OVEREICNS OF ekgland. xliii FHE SOVEREIGNS MoF ENGLAND. Sime the mNoman Conquest, WILLIAM I. «/. Matilda \y^^LTj^ ^' -87. : n. 60, > I. 199. HENRY I b. ro68. '"• »• ^T^tilda of 'Scotland. Matilda, d- 1 167. HENRv II ''• "33. d. 1189. ^"'Eleanor 0/ ■^ynitaine. Geoffrey, ^- "S8, d. 1 186. ^'*- LoHstance, neiress of ^^itanny. Arthur, Duke of Bntanny, b. 1 1 87. Euseace, Count of iipulogne, d- 1153. . JOHN. ''• "66, d. 12x6. "'•^' Isabel 0/ -^ttgoulSpne. heWy in. b. 1206, d. 127. '"■Eleanor If EDwArd J '^- J 239. d. I "''J.Eleanor "J Castile. KDWARD II b. 1284, * •mirdered 1327 'n. Isabel of ' Erance. EDWARD III b- 1312, d. i„.* ■"ainault. ^^eenc.vtpage.1 Ade/a, ''• "37. »>i. Stephen, (-ount of Blois. step'hen. '"'Matilda phrases set his ed man," whose a lord. He was ord, for he alone formed the main rar. Among the :e had originally lad been a time en in the earliest his right of self- ig sense of public [ney for personal > regulate private had each on this customary code, iee a further step individual man, Idate. The price iian he wronged, family or house est in each little knit its families by all who were ave been done from it. From s of restraining j did not as yet'i Each kinsman I wrong, to hinder I r him, if wrong | were done. So fully was this principle recognized that, even if any man was charged before his fellow-tribesmen with crime, his kinsfolk still remained in fact his sole judges ; for it was by their solemn oath of his innocence or his guilt that lie had to stand or fall. The blood-bond gave both its military and social form to Old English society. Kinsmen fought side by side in the hour of battle, and the feelings of honour and discipline which held the host together were drawn from the common duty of evvjiy man in each little group of warriors to his house. And as they fought side by side on the field, so they dwelled side by side on the soil. Harling abode by Harling. and Billing by Billing ; and each "wick" or "ham" or "stead" or " tun " took its name from the kinsmen who dwelt together in it. The home or "ham" of the Billings would be Billingham, and the "tun" or township of the Harlings would be Harlington. But in such settlements, the tie of blood was widened into the larger tie of land. Land with the German race seems at a very early time to have become the accompaniment of full freedom. The freeman was strictly the freeholder, and the exercise of his full rights as a free member of the community to which he belonged was inseparable from the possession of his " holding." The landless man ceased for all practical purposes to be free, though he was no man's slave. In the very earliest 'glimpse we get of the German race we see them a race of land-holders and land-tillers. Tacitus, the first Roman who sought to know these destined conquerors of Rome, describes them as pasturing on jthe forest glades around their villages, and ploughing their village [fields. A feature which at once struck him as parting them from the civilized world to which he himself belonged, was their hatred of cities, and their love even within their little settlements of a jealous indepen- dence. "They live apart," he says, "each by himself, as woodside, plain, or fresh spring attracts him," And as each dweller within the Isettlement was jealous of his own isolation and independence among Ibis fellow settlers, so each settlement was jealous of its independence jamong its fellow settlements. Ot the character of their life in this [early world, however, we know little save what may be gathered from Ithe indications of a later time. Each little farmer commonwealth was jirt in by its own borc'er or " mark," a belt of forest or waste or fen I'hich parted it from its fellow villages, a ring of common ground /hich none of its settlers might tak2 for his own, but which sometimes served as a death-ground where cr'minals met their doom, and was leld to be the special dwelling-place of the nixie and the will-o'-the- [vvisp. If a stranger came through this wood, or over this waste. :ustom bade him blow his horn as he came, for if he stole through secretly he was taken for a foe, and any man might lawfully slay him. Inside this boundary the " township," as the village was then called (rom the " tun " or rough fence and trench that served as its simple B 2 Sec. I. Britain ANU THK English The English Society HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. F-sc. I. i Britain ;| AND THE 1 English ii i ' ■ ' 1 iiiipire to recall its legions and leave the province to itself. Ever since the birth of Christ the countries which lay round the Mediterranean Sea, and which then comprehended the whole of the civilized world, had rested in peace beneath the rule of Rome. During four hundred years its frontier had held at bay the barbarian world without — the Parthian of the Euphrates, the Numidian of the African desert, the German of the Danube or the Rhine. It was this mass of savage barbarism that at last broke in on the Empire as it sank into decay. In the western dominions of Rome the triumph of the invaders was complete. The Franks conquered and colonized Gaui. The West-Goths conquered and colonized Spain. The Vandals founded a kingdom in Africa. The Burgundians encamped in the border-land between Italy and the Rhone. The East-Goths ruled at last in Italy itself. And now that tVe fated hour was come, the Saxon and the Engle loo ti^sed upon tb'ur pre) 1 1 was to defend Ital) against the Goths that Rome in 410 recalled I her legions from Ikitain. The province, thus left unaided, seems to | have fought bravely against its pssailants, and once at least to have driven back tha Picts to thei' Uijuntains in a rising of despair. But the threat of fresh inroads found Britain torn with civil quarrels which made a united resistance impossible, while its Pictish enemies strengthei.ed themselves by a league with marauders from Ireland, (Scots as they were ihen called), whose pirate-boats were harrying the western coast of the island, and with a yet more formidable race of I pirates who had long been pillaging along the British Channel. These - fV- friiAP. 1.1 THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. naniz^d. Over have remained ional allegiance laws. The use :he progress of superseded the ts use seems to :l the wealthier ing from such a must have been Britain from the iian conquest by urn to attack by er. Their inva- ) extensive could n, and the dim rease of disunion n of Britain, but nsfolk, the Picts. dangers nearer ive the province 3 which lay round ied the whole of e rule of Rome. ay the barbarian |n umidian of the line. It was this ;he Empire as it the triumph of ;d and colonized n. The Vandals |ncamped in the ,t-Goths ruled at ome, the Saxon . in 410 recalled liaided, seems to lat least to have if despair. But ll quarrels which ^ictish enemies from Ireland, lere harrying the Imidable race of fhannel. These were the English. We do not know whether it was the pressure of other tribes or the example of their German brethren who were now moving in a general attack on the Empire from their forest homes, or simply the barrenness of their coast, which drov? the hunters, farmers, fishermen, of the English tribes to sea. Hut the daring spirit of their race already broke out in the secresy and suddenness of their swoop, in the fierceness of their onset, in the careless glee with which they seized either sword or oar. " Foes are they," sang a Roman poet of the time, "fierce beyond other foes, and cunning as they are fierce ; the sea is their school of war, and the storm their friend ; they are sea- wolves that live on the pillage of the world." To meet the league of Plot, Scot, and Saxon by the forces of the province itself became im- possible ; and the one course left was to imitate the fatal policy by which the Empire had invited its own doom while striving to avert it, the policy of matching barbarian against barbarian. The rulers of Britain resolved to break the league by detachir., from it the free- I hooters who were harrying her eastern coast, and to use their new allies against the Pict. By the usual promises of land and pay, a band of I warriors from Jutland were drawn for this purpose in 449 to the shores t of Britain, with their chiefs, Hengest and Horsa, at their head. Section II.— The English Conquest. 449—577. [Authorities for the Conquest of Britain. — The only extanf. British account is I that of the monk Gildas, diffuse and inflated, but valuable as the one authority jfor the state of the island at the time, and as giving, in the conclusion of his Iwork, the native story of the conquest of Kent. I have examined his [general character, and the objections to his authenticity, &c., in two papers lin the Saturday Review for April 24 and May 8, 1 869. The conquest of Kent lis the only one of which we have any record from the side of the conquered. JThe English conquerors have left brief jottings of the conquest of Kent, jSussex, and Wessex, in the curious annals which form the opening of the Icompilation now known as the *' English Chronicle." They are undoubtedly listoric, though with a slight mythical intermixture. We possess no materials for the history of the English in their invasion of Mid-Britain or Mercia, and a fragment of the annals of Northumbria embodied in the later compilation k-hidi bears the name of Nennius alone throws light upon their actions in the North. Dr. Guest's papers in the "Origines Celticae " are the best modern narratives of the conquest. The story has since been told by Mr. "ireen in "The Making of England.] It is with the landing of Hengest and his war-band at Ebbsfleet )n the shores of the Isle of Thanet that English history begins. No 5pot in Britain can be so sacred to Englishmen as that which first felt ^he tread of English feet. There is little indeed to catch the eye in ^bbsfleet itself, a mere lift of higher ground, with a few grey cottages lotted over it, cut off nowadays from the sea by a reclaimed meadow 9ec. I. Britain AND THE English The EnsUsh Thanet 8 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. II. The English Conquest 440 TO 577 I'll <\ III . I The Enarlish Attack and a sea-wall. But taken as a whole, the scene has a wild beauty of its own. To the right the white curve of Ramsgate cliffs looks down on the crescent of Pegwell Bay ; far away to the left, across grey marsh-levels, where smoke-wreaths mark the sites of Kichborough and Sandwich, the coast-line bends dimly to the fresh rise of clifis beyond Deal. Everything in the character of the ground confirms the national tradition which fixed here the first landing-place of our English fathers, for great as the physical changes of the country have been since the fifth century, they have told little on its main features. It is easy to discover in the misty level of the present Minster marsh what was once a broad inlet of sea parting Thanct from the mainland of Britain, through which the pirate-boats of the first Englishmen came sailing with a fair wind to the little gravel-spit of Ebbsfleet ; and Richborough, a fortress whose broken ramparts still rise above the grey flats which have taken the place of this older sea-channel, was the common landing-place of travellers from Gaul. If the war-ships of the pirates therefore were cruising off the coast at the moment when the bargain with the Britons was concluded, their disembarka- tion at Ebbsfleet almost beneath the walls of Richborough would be natural enough. But the after-current of events serves to show that the choice of this landing-place was the result of a settled design. Between the Briton and his hireling soldiers there could be little trust. Quarters in Thanet would satisfy the followers of Hengest, who still lay in sight of their fellow-pirates in the Channel, and who felt them- selves secured against the treachery which had so often proved fatal to the barbarian by the broad inlet which parted their camp from the mainland. Nor was the choice less satisfactory to the provincial, trembling — and, az the event proved, justly trembling — lest in his zeal against the Pict he had introduced an even fiercer foe into Britain. His dangerous allies were cooped up in a corner of the land, and parted from it by a sea-channel which was guarded by the strongest fortresses of the coast. The need of such precautions was seen in the disputes which arose as soon as the work for which the mercenaries had been hired was done. The Picts were hardly scattered to the winds in a great battle when danger came from the Jutes themselves. Their numbers probably grew fast as the news of the settlement spread among the pirates in the Channel, and with the increase of their number must have grown the difficulty of supplying rations and pay. The dispute which rose over these questions was at last closed by Hengest's men with a threat of war. The threat, however, as we have seen, was no easy one to carry out. Right across their path in any attack upon Britain stretched the inlet of sea that parted Thanet from the mainland, a strait which was then traversable only at low water by a long and dangerous ford, and guarded at either mouth by the fortresses of Richborough and 1.] THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. a wild beauty of cliffs looks down left, across grey of Kichborough esh rise of clifis und confirms the CO of our English 3untry have been n features. It is ister marsh what the mainland of Englishmen came ■ Ebbsfleet ; and ill rise above the sea-channel, was If the war-ships t at the moment their disembarka- Dorough would be :rves to show that a settled design. Duld be little trust, iengest, who still nd who felt them- [en proved fatal to r camp from the o the provincial, ; — lest in his zeal foe into Britain, of the land, and by the strongest Reculver. The channel of the Mcdway, with the forest of the Weald bending round it from the south, furnished another line of defence in the rear, while strongholds on the sites of our Canterbury and Rochester guarded the road to London ; and all around lay the soldiers placed at the command of the Count of the Saxon .Shore, to hold the coast against the barbarian, (ireat however as these difficulties were, they failed to check the sudden onset of the Jutes. The inlet seems to have been crossed, the coast-road to London seized, before any force could be collected to oppose the English advance ; and it was only when they passed the Swale and looked to their right over the potteries whose refuse still strews the mudbanks of Upchurch, that their march seems to have swerved abruptly to the south. The guarded walls of Rochester probably forced them to turn southwards along the ridge of low hills which forms the eastern boundary of the Medway valley. Their way led them through a district full of memories of a past which had even then faded from the minds of men ; for the hill- slopes which they traversed were the grave-ground of a vanished race, and scattered among tne boulders that strewed the ground rose the cromlechs and huge barrows of the dead. One mighty relic survives in the monument now called Kit's Coty House, which had been linked in old days by an avenue of huge stones to a burial-ground near Addington. It was from a steep knoll on which the grey weather- beaten stones of this monument are reared that the view of their first battle-field would break on the English warriors ; and a lane which still leads down from it through peaceful homesteads would guide them across the ford Mhich has left its name in the little village of Aylesford. The Chronicle of the conquering people tells nothing of the rush that may have carried the ford, or of the fight that went struggling up through the village. It only tells that Horsa fell in the moment of victory ; and the flint-heap of Horsted, which has long preserved his name, and was held in after-time to mark his grave, is thus the earliest of those monuments of English valour of which Westminster is the last and noblest shrine. The victory of Aylesford did more than give East Kent to the English ; it struck the key-note of the whole English conquest of Britain. The massacre which followed the battle indicated at once the merciless nature of the struggle which had begun. While the wealthier Kentish landowners fled in panic over sea, the poorer Britons took refuge in hill and forest till hunger drove them from their lurking-places to be cut down or enslaved by their conquerors. It was in vain that some sought shelter within the walls of their churches ; for the rage of the English seems to have burned fiercest against the clergy. The priests were slain at the altar, the churches fired, the peasants driven by the flames to fling themselves on a ring of pitiless steel. It is a picture such as this which distinguishes the conquest of Britain from that of Sec. II. The r'NCiLISII CoNyUEST 440 TO 577 455 Exter- mination of the Britons lO HISTORY OV THK ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. II. Thr F.N(;i.isii TO 577 I Conquest of the Saxon Shore .457 473 M the other provinces of Rome. The conquest of Ciaul by the Frank, or of Italy by the Lombard, proved httle more than a forcible settlement of the one or the other amonj,^ tributary subjects who were destined in a long course of ajjes to absorb their conquerors. French is the tongue, not of the Frank, but of the (Jaul whom he overcame ; and the fair hair of the Lombard is now all but unknown in Lombardy. But the Fnglish conquest for a hundred and fifty years was a sheer disposses- sion and driving back of the people whom the English conquered. In the world-wide struggle between Rome and the German invaders no land was so stubbornly fought for or so hardly won. The conquest of Britain was indeed only partly wrought out after two centuries of bitter warfare. But it was just through the long and merciless nature of the struggle that of all the German conquests this proved the most thorough and complete. So far as the English sword in these earlier days reached, Britain became England, a land, that is, not of Britons, but of Englishmen. It is possible that a few of the vanquished people may have lingered as slaves round the homesteads of their English conquerors, and a few of their household words (if these were not brought in at a later time) mingled oddly with the English tongue. But doubtful exceptions such as these leave the main facts untouched. When the steady progress of English conquest was stayed for a while by civil wars a century and a half after Aylesford, the Briton had dis- appeared from half of the land which had been his own, and the tongue, the religion, the laws of his English conqueror reigned without a rival from Essex to the Peak of Derbyshire and the mouth of the Severn, and from the British Channel to the Firth of Forth. Aylesford, however, was but the first step in this career of conquest. How stubborn the contest was may be seen from the fact that it took sixty years to complete the conquest of Southern Britain alone. It was twenty years before Kent itself was won. After a second defeat at the passage of the Cray, the Britons " forsook Kent-land and fled with much fear to London ; " but the ground was soon won back again, and it was not until 465 that a series of petty conflicts made way for a decisive struggle at Wippedsfleet. Here however the overthrow was so terrible that all hope of saving the bulk of Kent seems to have been abandoned, and it was only on its southern shore that the Britons held their ground. Eight years later the long contest was over, and with the fall of Lymne, whose broken walls look from the slope to which they cling over the great flat of Romney Marsh, the work of the first conqueror was done. But the greed of plunder drew fresh war-bands from the German coast. New invaders, drawn from among .he Saxon tribes that lay between the Elbe and the Rhine, were seen in 477, only four years later, pushing slowly along the strip of land which lay westward *" Kent between the Weald and the sea. Nowhere has the physical a.3pect of the country been more utterly changed. The vast [chap. y the Frank, or :ible settlement ^cre destined in :h is the tongue, I ; and the fair )ardy. But the sheer disposses- conquered. In I an invaders no The conquest of :nturies of bitter :ss nature of the ic most thorough ese earher days t of Britons, but iiquished people of their EngUsh f these were not English tongue, facts untouched, tayed for a while ; Briton had dis- ^, and the tongue, d without a rival h of the Severn, reer of conquest, ifact that it took lin alone. It was iecond defeat at ind and fled with back again, and made way for a overthrow was [ms to have been the Britons held ls over, and with slope to which Iwork of the first J fresh war-bands Imong .he Saxon ^re seen in 477, land which lay I o where has the liged. The vast i.l TFIK ENCiLISIl KINODOMS. II sheet of scrub, woodland, and waste whicii then bore the name of the Aiulrcdswcald stretched for more than a hundred miles from the borders of Kent to the Ham))shirc Downs, extending norliiward almost to the Thames, and leaving only a thin strip of coast along its scnithcrn edge. This coast was guarded by a great fortress which occupied the spot now called I'evensey, the future landing-jjlacc of the Norman Conqueror. The fall of this fortress of Andericla in 491 established the kingdom of the South-Saxons ; "/EUc and Cissa," ran the pitiless record of the conquerors, " beset Anderida, and slew all that were therein, nor was there afterwards one Briton left." Another tribe of Saxons was at the same time conquering on the other side of Kent, to the north of the estuary of the Thames, and had founded the settlement of the East-Saxons, as these warriors came to be called, in the valleys of the Colne and the Stour. To the north- ward of the Stour, the work of conquest was taken up by the third of the tribes whom we have seen dwelling in their German homeland, whose name was destined to absorb that of Saxon or Jute, and to stamp itself on the land they won. These were the f^ngle, or English- men. Their first descents seem to have fallen on the great district which was cut off from the rest of Britain by the Wash and the Fens and long reaches of forest, the later East Anglia, where the conquerors settled as the North-folk and the South-folk, names still preserved to us in the modern counties. With this settlement the first stage in the conquest was complete. By the close of the fifth centui y the whole coast of Britain, from the Wash to Southampton Water, was in the hands of the invaders. As yet, however, the enemy had Vouched little more than the coast ; great masses of woodland or of fen still prisoned the Engle, the Saxon, and the Jute alike within P'^rrow limits. But the sixth century can hardly have been long begun when each of the two peoples who had done the main work of conquest opened a fresh attack on the flanks of the tract they had won. On its northern flank the Engle appeared in the estuaries of the Forth and of the Humber. On its western flank, the Saxons appeared in the Southampton Water. The true conquest of Southern Britain was reserved for a fresh band of Saxons, a tribe whose older name was that of the Gewissas, but who were to be more widely known as the West-Saxons. Landing westward of the strip of coast which had been won by the war-bands I of /Elle, they struggled under Cerdic and Cynric up from Southampton Water in 495 to the great iowns where Winchester offered so rich a prize. Five thousand Britons fell in a fight which opened the country jto these invaders, and a fresh victory at Charford in 519 set the crown |of the Wcst-Saxons on the head of Cerdic. We know little of the [incidents of these conquests; nor do we know why at this juncture they seem to have been suddenly interrupted. But it is certain that a .Src. II. Thk F,N(;i.isH ("UNQUKST 440 TO 577 Conquest of Southern Britain 508 12 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. fcIIAP. Sec. II. I The i| English ji; Conquest I ; TO 1; 577 552 568 583 Conquert of Mid. Britain and the North victory of the Britons at Mount Badon in the year 520 checked the progress of the West- Saxons, and was followed by a long pause in their advance ; foi thirty years the great belt of woodland which then curved round from Dorset to the valley of the Thames seems to have barred the way of the assailants. What finally broke their inaction we cannot tell. We only know that Cynric, whom Cerdic's death left king of the West-Saxons, again took up the work of invasion by a new advance in 552. The capture of the hill-fort of Old Sarum threw open the reaches of the Wiltshire Downs ; and pushing northward to a new battle at Barbury Hill, they completed the conquest of the Maryborough Downs. From the bare uplands the invaders turned eastward to the richer valleys of our Berkshire, and after a battle with the Kentish men at Wimbledon, the land south of the Thames which now forqis our Surrey was added to their dominions. The road along the Thames was however barred to them, for the district round London seems to have been already won and colonized by the East-Saxons. But a march of their King Cuthwulf made them masters in 571 of the districts which now form Oxfordshire and Ikickinghamshire ; and a few years later thej- swooped from the Wiltshire uplands on the rich prey that lay along the Severn. Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath, cities which had leagued under their British kings to resist this onset, became the spoil of a Saxon victory at Deorham in 577, and the line of the great western river lay open to the arms of the conquerors. Under a new king, Ceawlin, the West-Saxons penetrated to the borders of Chester, and Uriconium, a tovvi beside the Wrekin,- recently again brought to light, went up in flames. A British poet sings piteously the death-song of Uriconium, " the white town in the valley," the town of white stone gleaming among the green woodland, the hall of its chieftain left " without fire, without light, without songs," the silence broken only by the eagle's scream, " the eagle who has swallowed fresh drink, heart's blood of Kyndylan the fair." The raid, however, was repulsed, and the blow proved fatal to the power of Wessex. Though the West-Saxons were destined in the end to win the overlordship over every English people, their time had not come yet, and the leadership of the English race was to fall, for nearly a century to come, to the tribe of invaders whose fortunes we have now to follow. Rive's were the natural inlets by which the northern pirates every- where made thei/ way into the heart of Europe. In iJritain the fortress of London barred their way along the Thames from its mouth, and drove them, as we have seen, to an advance along the southern coast and over the downs of Wiltshire, before reaching its upper waters. But the rivers which united in the estuary of the H umber led like open highways into the heart of Britain, and it was by this inlet that the great mass of the invaders penetrated into the interior of the island. Like the invaders of East Anglia, they were LE. :ar 520 checked the >y a long pause in )odIancl which then imes seems to have ce their inaction we :'s death left king of n by a new advance :w open the reaches to a new battle at ariborough Downs, mrd to the richer he Kentish men at h now forins our along the Thames I London seems to ^cons. But a march I of the districts ; and a few years the rich prey that Bath, cities which onset, became the ; line of the great rs. Under a new Drders of Chester, ' again brought to sly the death-song wn of white stone its chieftain left ence broken only wed fresh drink, ver, was repulsed, ex. Though the averlordship over tid the leadership r to come, to the ►w. Jrn pirates every- In Britain the rhames from its vance along the jfore reaching its e estuary of the ritain, and it was netrated into the ^nglia, they were 12 Sec. II. 552 568 5«3 ';:' I Conques' f of Mld- ;! Britain u|| and the :,:; I !;" North M N- - U1 !« ru> each other. Freed to a great extent from the common pressuie ^* the war against the Britons, their energies turned to combats with one another, to a long struggle for overlordship which was U H n bringing about a real national unity. The West-Saxons, beaten back from their advance along the Severn valley, and overthrown in a terrible defeat at Faddiley, were torn by internal dissensions, even while they were battling for life against the Britons. Strife between the two rival kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira in the north absorbed the power of the Engle in that quarter, till in 588 the strength of Deira suddenly broke down, and the Bernician king, iEthelric, gathered the two peoples into a realm which was to form the later kingdom of Northumbria. Amid the confusion of north and south, the primacy among the conquerors was seized by Kent, where the kingdom of the Jutes rose suddenly into greatness under a king called .^tthelberht, who before 597 es 'ished his supremacy over the Saxons of Middlesex and Essex, as well as over the English of East Anglia and of Mercia as far north as the Humber and the Trent. The overlordship of ^Ethelberht was marked by a renewal of that intercourse of Britain with the Continent which had been broken off by the conquests of the English. His marriage with Bertha, the daughter of the Prankish King Charibert of Paris, created a fresh tie between Kent and Gaul. But the union had far more important results than those of which -^thelberht may have dreamed. Bertha, like her Prankish kinsfolk, was a Christian. A Christian bishop accompanied her from Gaul to Canterbury, the royal city of the kingdom of Kent ; and a ruined Christian church, the church of St. Martin, was given them for their worship. The marriage of Bertha was an opportunity which was at once seized by the bishop who at this time occupied the Roman See, and who is justly known as Gregory the Great. A memorable story tells us how, when but a young Roman deacon, C Sec. III. Thb North- umbrian Kingdom 588 TO 685 JEthel- berht 584 Landing ofAufua- tine c. 589 : ; .^ i8 I I HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. III. Thb North- umbrian KlNCUCM 588 TO 685 I Reunion of Hixg- land and the Western World Gregory had noted the white bodies, the fair faces, the golden hair of some youths who stood bound in the market-place of Rome. " From what country do these slaves come .'' " he a'-'vcd the traders who brought them. " They are English, Angles ! " the slave- dealers answered. The deacon's pity veiled itself in poetic humour. " Not Angles but Angels," he said, " with faces so angel-like ! From what country come they ?" " They come," said the merchants, " from Deira." " De ira ! " was the untranslateable reply ; " aye, plucked from God's ire, and called to Christ's mercy ! And what is the name of their king ? '•' " i^lla," they told him ; and Gregory seized on the words as of good omen. "Alle- luia shall be sung in y^lla's lai.d !" he cried, and passed on, musing how the angel-faces should be brought to sing it. Only three or four years had gone by, when the deacon had become Bishop of Rome, and Bertha's marriage gave him the opening he sought. After cautious negotiations with the rulers of Gaul, he sent a Roman abbot, Augustine, at the head of a band of monks, to preach the gospel to the English people. The missionaries landed in 597 on the very spot where Hengest had landed more than a century before in the Isle of Thanet ; and the king received them sittmg in the open air on the chalk-down above Minster, where the eye nowadays catches miles away over the marshes the dim tower of Canterbury. He listened to the long sermon as the interpreters whom Augustine had brought with him from Gaul translated it. " Your words are fair," i^thelberht replied at last with English good sense, " but they are new and of doubtful meaning ; " for himself, he said, he refused to forsake the gods of his fathers, but he promised shelter and protection to the strangers. The band of monks entered Canterbury bearing before them a silver cross with a picture of Christ, and singing in concert the strains of the litany of their church. " Turn from this city, Lord," they sang, " Thine anger and wrath, and turn it from Thy holy house, for we have sinned." And then in strange contrast came the jubib.nt cry of the older Hebrew worship, the cry which Gregory had wrested in prophetic earnestness from the name of the Yorkshire king in the Roman market-place, " Alleluia ! " It is strange that the spot which witnessed the landing of Hengest should be yet better known as the landing-place of Augustine. But the second landing at Ebbsfleet was in no small measure the reversal and undoing of the first. " Strangers from Rome " was the title with which the missionaries first fronted the English king. The march of the monks as they chanted their solemn litany was, in one sense, the return of the Roman legions who had retired at the trumpet-call of Alanc. It was to the tongue and the thought not of Gregory only but of such men as his own Jutish fathers had slaughtered and driven over, sea that /Ethelberht listened in the preaching of Augustine Canterbury, the earliest royal city of the new England, became the [chap. )lden hair of mc. " From who brought swered. The but Angels,"^ come they ? " ira ! " was the ind called to " M\W they men. "Alle- :d on, musing r three or four of Rome, and \fter cautious )ot . Augustine, to the English ry spot where sle of Thanet ; he chalk-down away over the he long sermon him from Gaul ied at last with meaning ; " for fathers, but he band of monks with a picture litany of their line anger and sinned." And older Hebrew :ic earnestness market-place, ig of Hengest jgustine. But Ire the reversal the title with The march of lone sense, the [rumpet-call of egory only but bd and driven [of Augustine became the T.l THE ENCiLISH KINGDOM.S. 19 centre of Latin influence. The Roman tongue became again one of the tongues of Britain, thelanguapfc of its worship, its correspondence, its literature. But more than the tongue of Rome returned with Augus ine. Practically his landing renewed the union with the western world which the landing of Hengest had all but destroyed. The new England was admitted into the older commonwealth of nations. The civilization, arts, letters, which had fled before the sword of the English conquest, returned with the Christian faith. The fabric of the Roman law indeed never took root in England, but it is im- possible not to recognize the result of the influence of the Roman missionaries in the fact that the codes of customary English law began to be put into writing soon after their arrival. As yet these great results were still distant ; a year passed before yEthelberht yielded, and though after his conversion thousands of the Kentish men crowded to baptism, it was years before he ventured to urge the under-kings of Essex and East Anglia to receive the creed of their overlord. This effort of i^thelberht however only h raided a revolution which broke the power of Kent for ever. The tribes of Mid-Britain revolted against his supremacy, and gathered under the overlordship of Ra::dvvald of East Anglia. The revolution clearly marked the change which had passed over Britain. Instead of a chaos of isolated peoples, the conquerors were now in fact gathered into three great groups. The Englc kingdom of the north reached from the Humber to the Forth. The southern kingdom of the West-Saxons stretched fri)m Watling Street to the Channel. And between these was roughly sketched out the great kingdom of Mid-Britain, which, however i;s limits might vary, retained a substantial identity f»-om the time of -(^thelberht till the final fall of the Mercian kings. For the next two hundred years the history of England lies in the struggle of Northumbrian, Mercian, and West-Saxon kin^^s to establish their supremacy over the general mass of Englishmci.^ and unite them in a single England. In this struggle the lead was at once taken by Northumbria, which was rising into a power that set all rivalry at defiance. Under ^^thel- frith, who had followed v^thelric in 593, the work of conquest went on rapidly. In (^v ^ forces of the northern Britons were annihilated in a great battle at Daegsastan, and the rule of Northumbria was estab- lished from the Humber to the Forth. Along the west of Britiiin there stretched the unconquered kingdoms of Strathclyde and Cumbria, which extended from the river Clyde to the Dee, and ine smaller British states which occupied what we now call Wales. Chester formed the link between these two bodies ; and it was Chester that yEthelfrith chose in 613 for his next point of attack. Some miles from the city two tl ousand monks were gathered in the monastery of Bangor, and after imploring in a three days' fast the help of Heaven for their C 2 Sec. III. Thr NORTII- iimurian Kingdom 588 TO 685 Fall of Kent 604 607 JEthel- fritb 593-6x7 613 20 IITSTORV OF THE ENGUSTI PF,0?T-F. [chap. Skc. III. The North- iimhrian Kingdom 588 TO 685 EadT^ine 617-633 626 country, a crowd of these ascetics followed the British army to the field. /Rthelfrith watched the wild gestures and outstretched arms of the stran{:(e company as it stood apart, intent upon prayer, and took the monks for enchanters. " Rear they arms or no," said the kinj::^, "thry war against us when they cry against us to their God," and in the surprise and rout which followed the monks were the first to fall. The British kingdoms were now utterly parted from one another. By their victory at Deorham the West-Saxons had cut off the Britons of Devon and Cornwall from the general body of their race. By his victory at Chester yFthclfrith broke this body again into two several parts, by parting the Britons of Wales from those of Cumbria and Strathclyde. From this time the warfare of Briton and Englishman died down into a warfare of separate English kingdoms against separate British kingdoms, of Northumbria against Cumbria and Strathclyde, of Mercia against modern Wales, of Wessex against the tract of British country from Mendip to the Land's End. Nor was the victory of Chester of less importance to England itself. With it y^thelfrith was at once drawn to new dreams of ambition as he looked across his southern border, where Ra?d wald of East Anglia was drawing the peoples of Mid-Britain under liis overlordship. The inevitable struggle between East Anglia and Northumbria seemed for a time averted by the sudden death of y^thclfrith. March- ing in 617 against Raedwald, who had sheltered Eadwine, an exile from the Northumbrian kingdom, he perished in a defeat at the river Idle. Eadwine mounted the Northumbrian throne on the fall of his enemy, and carried on the work of government with an energy as ceaseless as that of ^^thelfrith himself. His victories over Pict and Briton were folK wed by the winning of lordship over the English of Mid-Britain ; Kent was bound to him in close political alliance ; and the English conquerors of the south, the people of the West-Saxons, alone remained independent. But revolt and slaughter had fatally broken the power of the West-Saxons when the Northumbria is attacked them. A story preserved by Baeda tells something of the fierceness of the struggle which ended in the subjection of the south to the overlordship of Northumbria. Eadwine gave audience in an Easter court which he held in a king's town near the river Derwent to Eumer, an envoy of Wessex, who brought a message from its king. In the midst of the conference the envoy started to his feet, drew a dagger from his robe, and rushed madly on the Northumbrian sovereign. Lilla, one of the king's war-band, threw himself between Eadwine and his assassin ; but so furious was the stroke that even through Lilla' s body the dagger still reached its aim. The king however recovered from his wound to march on the West-Saxons ; he slew and subdued all who had conspired against him, and returned victorious to his [chap. army to the :hcd arms of prayer, and r no," said : us to their monks were one another, f the Britons ace. By his ) two several Cumbria and i Englishman ainst separate I Strathclyde, ract of British ory of Chester 1 was at once I his southern he peoples of Northumbria rith. March- ine, an exile t at the river he fall of his |an energy as ver Pict and e English of .lliance ; and est-Saxons, |r had fatally rthumbria \s ithing of the of the south Idience in an ver Derwent [rom its king, feet, drew a |an sovereign, adwine and ough Lilla's |er recovered ,nd subdued rious to his I.) TIIK ENGLISH XINGDOMS. own country. The greatness of Northumbria now reached its height. Within his own dominions Eadwine displayed a genius for civil government which shows how completely the mere ago of conquest had passed away. With him began the Knj^lish proverb so often applied to after kings, " A woman with her babe might walk scathe- less from sea to sea in Kadwine's day." Peaceful communication revived along the deserted highways ; the springs by the roadside were marked with stakes, and a cup of brass set beside each for the traveller's refreshment. Some faint traditions of the Roman past may have flung their glory round this new " Empire of the English ;" some of its majesty had at any rate come back with its long-lost peace. A royal standard of purple and gold floated before Eadwine as he rode through the villages ; a feather-tuft attached to a spear, the Roman tufa, preceded him as he walked through the streets. The Northum- brian king was in fact supreme over Britain as no king of English blood had been before. Northward his frontier reached the Forth, and was guarded by a city which bore his name, Edinburgh, Eadwine's burgh, the city of Eadwine. Westward, he was master of Chester, and the fleet he equipped there subdued the isles of Anglesey and Man. South of the H umber he was owned as overlord by the whole English race, save Kent ; and even Kent was bound to him by his marriage with its king's sister. With the Kentish queen came Paulinus, one of Augustine's followers, whose tall stooping form, slender aquiline nose, and black hair falling round a thin worn face, were long remembered in the north ; and the Wise Men of Northumbria gathered to deliberate on the new faith to which Paulinus and his queen soon converted Eadwine. To finer minds its charm lay in the light it threw on the darkness which encompassed men's lives, the darkness of the future as of the past. " So seems the life of man, O king," burst forth an aged Ealdorman, " as a sparrow's flight through the hall when you are sitting at meat in winter-tide, with the warm fire lighted on the hearth, but the icy rain-storm without. The sparrow flies in at one door and tarries for a moment in the light and heat of the hearth-fire, and then flying forth from the other vanishes into the wintry darkness whence it came. So tarries for a moment the life of man in our sight, but what is before it, what after it, we know not. Jf this new te.u:hing tells us aught certainly of these, let us follow it;" Coarser a- ^.ument told on the crowd. " None of your people, E.idv/ine, have , worshipped the gods more busily than I," said Coifi the priest, " yet there are many more favoured and more fortunate. Were these gods good for anything they would help their worshippers." Then leaping on horseback, he hurled his spear into the sacred temple at Godmanham, and with the rest of the Witan embraced the religion of the king. But the faith of Woden and Thunder was not to fall without a 21 Skc. III. Tmk North- HMnKIAN Kingdom 68a TO 085 Conver- sion of North, umbrla 627 22 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. III. The North- umbrian Kingdom 588 TO 685 The Heathen Strugrele 633 635 struggle. Even in Kent a reaction against the new creed began with the death of .^thelberht. Rasdwald of East Anglia lesolved to serve Christ and the older gods together ; and a pagan and Christian altar fronted one another in the same royal temple. The young kings of the East-Saxons burst into the church where Mellitus, the Bishop of London, was administering the Eucharist to the people, crying, " Give us that white bread you gave to our father Saba," and on the bishop's refusal drove him from their realm. The tide of reaction was checked for a time by Eadwine's conversion, until Mercia sprang into a sudden greatness as the champion of the heathen gods. Under Eadwine Mercia had submitted to the lordship of Northumbria ; but its king, Penda, saw in the rally of the old religion a chance of winning back its independence. Penda had not only united under his own rule the I Mercians of the Upper Trent, the Middle-English of Leicester, the Southumbrians, and the Lindiswaras, but he had even been strong enough to tear from the West-Saxons their pos; isions along the Severn. So thoroughly indeed was the union of these provinces effected, that though some were detached for a time after Penda's death, the name of Mercia from this moment must be generally taken as covering the whole of them. Alone, however, he was as yet no match for Northumbria. But the old severance between the English people and the Britons was fast dying down, and Penda boldly broke through the barrier which parted the two races, and aUied himself with the Welsh king, Cadwalbn, in an attack on Eadwine The armies met in 633 at Hatfield, and in the fight which followed Eadwine was defeated and slain. The victory was turned to profit by the ambition of Penda, while Northumbria was torn with he strife which followed Eadwine' s fall. To complete his dominion over Mid-Britain, Penda marched against East Anglia. The East Engle had returned to heathendom from the oddly mingled religion of their first Christian king, Raedvvald ; but the new faith was brought back by the present king, Sigeberht. Before the threat of Penda's attack Sigeberht left his throne for a monastery, but his people dra^Tged him again from his cell on the news of Penda's invasion in 634, ii faith that his presence would bring them the favour of Heaven. The monk-king was set in the forefront of the battle, but he would bear no weapon save a wand, and his fall was follower' by the rout of his army and the submission of his kingdom. Mean .vhile Cadwallon remained harrying in the heart of Deira, and made himself master even of York. But the triumph of the Britons was as brief as it was strange. Oswald, a second son of /Ethelfnth, pi.xced himself at the head of his race, and a small North- umbrian force gathered in 635 under their new king near the Roman Wall. Oswald set up a cross of wood as his standard, holding it with his own hands till the hollow in which it was fixed was filled in by his soldiers ; then throwing himself on his knees, he cried to his host to [chap. began with ^ed to serve ristiaii altar kings of the ; Bishop of ying, " Give the bishop's ,vas checked ito a sudden er Eadwine but its king, inning back own rule the eicester, the been strong is along the se provinces fter Penda's lerally taken IS as yet no the English boldly broke himself with The armies adwine was the ambition ich followed •itain, Penda returned to St Christian the present ligeberht left ain from his his presence was set in ave a wand, submission in the heart triumph of ond son of Imall North- the Roman ding it with d in by his his host to I.] THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. as pray to the living God. Cadwallon, the last great hero of the British race, fell fighting on the " Heaven's Field," as after times called the field of battle, and for seven years the power of Oswald equalled that of iCthelfrith and Eadwine. It was not the Church of Paulinus which nerved Oswald to this struggle for the Cross. Paulinus had fled from Northumbria at Eadwine's fall ; and the Roman Church in Kent shrank into inactivity before the heathen reartion. Its place in the conversion of England was taken by misbionaries from Ireland. To understand, however, the true meaning of the change, we must remember that before the landing of the English in Britain, the Christian Church comprised every country, save Germany, in Western Europe, as far as Ireland itself. The con- quest of Britain by the pagan English thrust a wedge of heathendom into the heart of this great communion and broke it into two unequal parts. On the one side lay Italy, Spain, and Gaul, whose Churches owned obedience to the S'^e of Rome, on the other the Church of Ireland. But the condition of the two portions of Western Christen- dom was very different. While the vigour of Christianity in Italy and Gaul and Spain was exhausted in a bare struggle for life, Ireland, which remained unscourged by invaders, drew from its conversion an energy such as it has never known since. Christianity had been received there with a burst of popular enthusiasm, and letters and arts sprang up rapidly in its train. The science and Biblical knowledge which fled from the Continent took refuge in famous schools which made Uurrow and Armagh the universities of the West. The ntw Christian life soon beat too strongly to brook confinement within the bounds of Ireland itself. Patrick, the first missionary of the island, had not been half a century dead when Irish Christianity flung itself with a fiery zeal into battle with the mass of heathenism which was rolling in upon the Christian world. Irish missionaries laboured among the Picts of the Highlands and among the Frisians of the northern seas. An Irish missionary, Columban, founded monasteries in Bur- gundy and the Apennines. The canton of St. Gall still commemorates in its name another Irish missionary before whom the spirits of flood and fell fled wailing over the waters of the Lake of Constance. For a time it seemed as if the course of the world' s history was to be changed, as if the older Celtic race that Roman and German had swept before them had turned to the moral conquest of their conquerors, as if Celtic and not Latm Christianity was to mould the destinies of i.ie Churches of the West. On a low island of barren gneiss-rock oiTtlie west coast of Scotland an Irish refugee, Columba, had raised the famous monastery of lona. Oswald in youth found refuge within its walls, and on his accession to the throne of Northumbria he called for missionaries from among its monks. The first despatched in answer to his call obtained little Sec. III. The North- umbrian Kingdom 588 TO 685 The Irish Church Osivald 634-642 24 HISTORY OK THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CHAr, Sec. hi. The North- umbrian Kingdom 588 TO 685 Penda 626-655 success. He declared on his return that among a people so stubborn and barbarous success was impossible. " Was it their stubbornness or your severity ? " asked Aidan, a brother sitting by ; " did you forget God's word to give them the milk first and then the meat ?'' All eyes turned on the speaker as fittest to undertake the abandoned mission, and Aidan sailing at ♦^heir bidding fixed his bishop's stool or see in tlr^; island-peninsula of Lindisfarne. Thence, from a monastery which gave to the spot its after name of Holy Island, preachers poured forth over the heathen realms. Boisil guided a little troop of missionaries to the valley of the Tweed. Aidan himself wandered on foot preaching among the peasants of Bernicia. The new religion served as a prelude to the Northumbrian advance. If Oswald was a saint, he was none the less resolved to build up again the realm of Eadwine. Having extended his supremacy over the IJritons of Strath- clyde and won the submission of the Lindiswaras, he turned to reassert his supremacy over Wessex. The reception of the new faith became the mark of submission to his overlordship. A preacher, Birinus, had already penetrated from Gaul into Wessex ; in Oswal'"s presence its king received baptism, and established with his assent a see for his people in the royal city of Dorchester on the Thames. Oswald ruled as wide a realm as hib predecessor ; but for after times the memory of his greatness was lost in the legends of hie piety. A new conception of kingship began to blend itself with that of the warlike glory of i4i!thel- frith or the wise administration of Eadwine. The moral power which was to reach its height in vElfred first dawns in the story of Oswald. In his own court the king acted as interpreter to the Irish missionaries in their efforts to convert his thegns. *' By reason of his constant habit of praying or giving thanks to the Lord he was wont wherever he sat to hold his hands upturned on his knees." As he feasted with Bishop Aidan by his side, the thegn, or noble of his war-band, whom he had set to give alms to the poor at his gate, told him of a multitude that still waited fasting without. The king at once bade the untasted meat before him be carried to the poor and his silver dish be divided piecemeal among them. Aidan seized the royal hand and blessed it. " May this hand," he cried, "never grow old." Prisoned, however, as it was by the conversion of Wessex to the central districts of England, heathendom fought desperately for life. Pcnda was still its rallying-point ; but if his long reign was one continuous battle with the new religion, it was in fact rather a struggle against the supremacy of Northumbria than against the supremacy of the Cross. East Anglia became at last the field of contest between the two powers. In 642 Oswald marched to deliver it from Penda ; but in a battle called the battle of the Maserfeld he v/as overthrown and slain. His body was mutilated and his limbs set on stakes by the brutal con- queror ; but legend told that when all else of Oswald had perished, the [CHAr. 5 so stubborn stubbornness id you forget ;?" All eyes )ned mission, ool or see in a monastery id, preachers a little troop f wandered on new religion Oswald was a the realm of tons of Strath- led to reassert r faith became r, Birinus, had 's presence its t a see for his Oswald ruled the memory of ,v conception of rlory of ^Ethel- il power which )ry of Oswald, ih missionaries f his constant ,vont wherever le feasted with r-band, whom of a multitude e the untasted jish be divided nd blessed it. /^essex to the ^ately for life, lign was one lier a struggle I supremacy of k between the Inda ; but in a Iwn and slain, le brutal con- I perished, the I.] TIIK ENGLISH KINGDOMS. "white hand" that Aidan had blessed still remained white and un- corrupted. Tor a few years after his victory at the Maserfeld Pcnda stood supreme in Britain. Wcssex owned his ovcrlordship as it had owned that of Oswald, and its king threw off the Christian faith and married Penda's sister. Even L^eira seems to have bowed to him, and Bernicia alone refused to yield. V^ar by year Pcnda carried his ravages over the north ; once he reached even the royal city, the im- pregnable rock-fortress of Bamborough. Dcspaiiingof success in an assault, he pulled down the cottages around, and, piling their wood against its walls, fired the mass in a fiir wind that drove the flames on the town. " See, Lord, what ill Penda is doing," cried Aidan from his hermit cell in the islet of Fame, as he saw the smoke drifting over the city ; and a change of wind — so rnn the legend of Norlhumbria's agony — drove back at the words the flames on those who kindled them. But in spite of Penda's victories, the faith which he had so often struck down revived everywhere around him. Burnt and harried as it was, Bernicia still cl.mg to the Cross. The East-Saxons again became Christian. Penda's own son, whom he had set over the Middle-Eng- lish, received brptism and teachers from Lindisfarne. The mission- aries of the new faith appeared fearlessly among the Mercians them- selves, and Penda gave no hindrance. Heathen to the last, he stood by unheeding if any were willing to hear ; hating rmd scorning with a certain grand sincerity of nature " those whom he saw not doing the works of the faith they had received," But the track of Northumbrian missionaries along the eastern coast marked the growth of Northum- brian overlordship, and the old man roused himself for a last stroke at his foes. On the death of Oswald Oswiu had been called to fill his throne, and in 655 he met the pagan host near the river Winwaed. It was in vain that the Northumbrians had sought to avert Penda's attack by offers of ornaments and costly gifts. " Since the pagans will not take our gifts," Oswiu cried at last, " let us offer them to One that will ; " and he vowed that if successful he would dedicate his daughter to God and endow twelve monasteries in his realm. Victory at last declared for the faith of Christ. The river over which the Mercians fled was swollen with a great rain ; it swept away the frag- ments of the heathen host, Penda himself was slain, and the cause of the older gods v/as lost for ever. The terrible struggle was followed by a season of peace. For four years after the battle of Winwa.^d Mercia was subject to Oswiu's overlordship. But in 659 a general rising of the people threw off the Northumbrian yoke. The heathendom of Mercia however was dead with Penda. " Being thus freed," Ba?da tells us, " the Mercians with their king rejoiced to serve the true King, Christ." Its three provinces, the earlier Mercia, the Middle-English, and the Lindiswaras, were united in the bishopric of Ceadda, the St. Chad to whom the Mercian 25 Sec. III. The North- umbrian Kingdom 588 TO 685 652 655 Os^riu 642-670 26 m% k ! V, « '• il f ■i ,1 kJ ! " Sec. III. The NOI-TH- t'MDKIAN Kingdom 588 TO 685 651 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. see of Lichfield still looks as its founder. Ceadda was a monk of Lindisfarne, so simple and lowly in temper that he travelled on foot on his long mission journeys, till Archbishop Theodore in later days with his own hands lifted him on horseback. The poetry of Christian enthusiasm breaks out in his death- legend, as it tells us how voices of singers singing sweetly descended f'om Heaven to the little cell beside St. Mary's church where the bishop iay dying. Then "the same song ascended from the roof again, and returned heavenward by the way that it came." It was the soul of his brother, the missionary Cedd, come with a choir of angels to solace the last hours of Ceadda. In Northumbria the work of his fellow missionaries has almost been lost in the glory of Cuthbert. No story better lights up for us the new religious life of the time than the story of this apostle of the Lowlands. It carries us at its outset into the northernmost part of Northumbria, the country of the Teviot and the Tweed. Born on the southern edge of the Lammermoor, Cuthbert found shelter at eight years old in a widow's house in the little village of Wrangholm. Already in youth there was a poetic sensibility beneath the robust fiame of the boy which caught even in the chance word of a game a call to higher things. Later on, a traveller coming in his white mantle over the hill- side and stopping his horse to tend Cuthbert's in'ured knee seemed to him an angel. The boy's shepherd life carried him to the bleak upland, still famous as a sheep-walk, though the scant herbage scarce veils the whinstone rock, and there meteors plunging into the night became to him a company of angelic spirits, carrying the soul of Bishop Aidan heavenward. Slowly Cuthbert's longings settled into a resolute will towards a religious life, and he made his way at last to a group of log-shanties in the midst of an untilled solitude where a few Irish monks from Lindisfarne had settled in the mission-station of Melrose. To-day the land is a land of poetry and romance. Cheviot and Lammermoor, Ettrick and Teviotdale, Yarrow and .Annan-water, are musical with old ballads and border minstrelsy. Agriculture has chosen its valleys for her favourite seat, and drainage and steam-power have turned sedgy marshes into farm and meadow. But to see the Lowlands as they were in Cuthbert's day we must sweep meadow and farm away again, and replace them by vast solitudes, dotted here and there with clusters of woe Jen hovels, and crossed by boggy tracks over whiv':h travellers rode spear in hand and eye kept cautiously about them. The Northumbrian peasantry among whom he journeyed were for ';he most part Christians only in nanie. With Teutonic indiffer- ence they had yielded to their thegns in nominally accepting the new Christianity, as these had yielded to the king. But they retained their old superstitions side by side with the new worship ; plague or mishap drove them back to a reliance on their heathen charms and amulets ; and if trouble befell the Christian preachers who came settling among I [chap. 1.] THE ENGLISH KIHGDOMS. ^ ,vas a monk of ravelled on foot e in later days try of Christian IS how voices of little cell beside " the same song /ard by the way lissionary Cedd, of Ceadda. In almost been lost for us the new of the Lowlands. 3f Northumbria, tie southern edge t years old in a \lready in youth ame of the boy a call to higher itle over the hill- l knee seemed to lim to the bleak It herbage scarce g into the night (Ting the soul of :igs settled into a 5 way at last to a ude where a few ission-station of nance. Cheviot d Annan-water, Agriculture has ,nd steam-power But to see the ;ep meadow and dotted here and igojy tracks over autiously about journeyed were utonic indiffer- .cepting the new ;y retained their .ague or mishap s and amulets ; settling among them they took i*^ as proof of the wrath of the older gods. When some log-rafts which were floating down the Tyne for the construction of an abbey at its mouth drifted with the monks who were at work on them out to sea, the rustic bystanders shouted, " Let nobody pray for them ; let noboJy pity these men, who have taken away from us our old worship ; and how their new-fangled customs are to be kept nobody knows." On foot, on horseback, Cuthbert wandered among listeners such as these, choosing above all the remoter mountain villages from whose roughness and poverty other teachers turned aside. Unlike his Irish comrades, he needed no interpreter as he passed from village to village; the frugal, long-headed Northumbrians listened willingly to one who was himself a peasani^ of the Lowlands, and who had caught the rough Norfnumbrian burr along the banks of the Tweed. His patience, h's humorous good sense, the sweetness of his look, told for him, and not less the stout vigorous frame which fitted the peasant- preachei' for tu'i hard life he had chosen. " Never did man die of hunger who served God faithfully," he would say, when nightfall found them supperless in ihe waste. " Look at the eagle overhead ! God can feed us through him 'f He will" — and once at least he owed his meal to a fish that the icared oird lei; fall. A snow-storm drove his boat on the coast of Fife. "The snow closes the road along the shore," mourned his comrades ; "the storm bars our way over sea." "There is still the way of He^-'-en that Mes open," said Cuthbert. While missiouaiies were thus labouring among its peasantry, Northumbria saw the rise of a number of monasteries, not bound indeed by the strict ties of th Benedictine rule, but gathered on the loose^eltic model of the fan or the clan round some noble and wealthy person who sought d. ttional retirement. The most notable and wealthy of these houses \\as that of Streoneshealh, where Hild, a woman of royal race, reared ^' r abbey on the summit of the dark cliffs of WhitbV; looking out over ttit Northern Sea. Her counsel was sought even by nobles and kings : \vA the double monastery over which she ruled became a seminary o jishops and priests. The sainted John of Beverley was among her srhoiars. But the name which really throws glory over Whitby is the nann of a lay-brother from whose lips flowed the first great English song, ."hough well advanced in years, Caedmon had learnt nothing of the art of verse, the alliterative jingle so common among his fellows, "wherefore being sometimes at feasts, when all agreed for glee's sake to sing i turn, he no sooner saw the harp come towards him than he rose from the board and turned homewards. C nee when he had done thus, and gone from the feast to the stable where he had that night charge of the cattle, there appeared to him in his sleep One who said, greeting him by name, ' Sing, Caedmon, some .song to Me.' ' I cannot sing,' he answered ; 'for this cause left I the feast and came hither,' He who talked with him answered, ' However Sec. III. The NORTH- IMBRIAN Kingdom 588 TO 685 Ceedmon Before 68o 28 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap Sec. III. The North- umbrian Kingdom 588 TO 685 English Songr that be, you shall sing to Me.' ' What shall I sing ? ' rejoined C?^dmon. 'The beginning of created things/ replied He. In the morning the cowherd stood before Ilild and told his dream. Abbess and brethren alike concluded ' that heavenly grace had been conferred on him by the Lord.' They translated for Caedmon a passage in Holy Writ, * bidding him, if he could, put the same into verse.' The next morning he gave it them composed in excellent verse, whereon the abbess, understanding the divine grace in the man, bade him quit the secular habit and take on him the monastic life." Piece by piece the sacred story was thus thrown into Caedmon's poem. " He sang of the creation of the world, of the origin of man, and of all the history of Israel ; of their departure from Egypt and entering into the Promised Land ; of the incarnation, passion, and resurrection of Christ, and of his ascen- sion ; of the terror of future judgment, the horror of hell-pangs, and the joys of heaven." To men of that day this sudden burst of song seemed a thing necessarily divine. " Others after him strove to compose religious poems, but none could vie with him, for he learned the art of poetry not from men nor of men, but from God." It was not indeed that any change had been wrought by Caedmon in the outer form of English song. The collection of poems which is connected with his name has come down to us in a later West-Saxon version, and though modern criticism is still in doubt as to their autl'orship, they are certainly the work of various hands. The verse, wbethe; of Caedmon or of other singers, is accented and alliterative, without conscious art or develop- ment or the delight that springs from reflection, a verse swift and direct, but leaving behind it a sense of strength rather than of beauty, obscured too by harsh metaphors and involved construc- tion. But it is eminently the verse of warriors, the brief passionate expression of brief passionate emotions. Image after image, phrase after phrase, in these early poems, start out vivid, harsh aiid em- phatic. The very metre is rough with a sort of self-violence and repression ; the verses fall like sword-strokes in the thick of battle. The love of natural description, the background of melancholy which gives its pathos to English verse, the poet only shared with earlier singers. But the faith of Christ brought in, as we have seen, new realms of fancy. The legends of the heavenly light, Baeda's story of "The Sparrow," show the side of English temperament to which Christianity appealed — its sense of the vague, vast mystery of the world and of man, its dreamy revolt against the narrow bounds of experience and life. It was this new poetic world which combined with the old in the so-called epic of Csedmon. In its various poems the vagueness and daring of the Teutonic imagination pass beyond the limits of the Hebrew story to a " swart hell without light and full of flame," swept only at dawn by the icy east wind, on whose floor lie [CHAr. led Cc^dmon. morning the and brethren ;d on him by 'c I Holy Writ, next morning | 1 the abbess, ' it the secular , ce the sacred Df the creation of Israel; of sed Land ; of 1 of his ascen- lell-pangs, and ;emed a thing ipose religious rt of poetry not deed that any rm of English h his name has ;hough modern :e certainly the on or of other art or develop- erse swift and ather than of [ived construc- ief passionate image, phrase arsh aiid em- [f-violence and ick of battle, .ncholy which with earlier ,ve seen, new aeda's story of lent to which .ystery of the low bounds of ch combined prions poems pass beyond light and full hose tloor lie M THE ENGLISH KINODOMS. 29 bound the apostate angels. The human energy of the German race, its sense of the might of individual manhood, transformed in English verse the Hebrew Tempter into a rebel Satan, disdainful of vassalage to God. " I may be a God as He," Satan cries amidst his torments. "Evil it seems to me to cringe to Him for any good." Even in this terrible outburst of the fallen spirit, we catch the new pathetic note which the Northern melancholy was to give to our poetry. "This is to me the chief of sorrow, that Adam, wrought of efirth, should hold my strong seat — should dwell in joy while we endure this torment. Oh, that for one winter hour I had power with my hands, then with this host would I — but around me lie the iron bonds, and this chain galls me." On the other hand the enthusiasm for the Christian God, faith in whom had been bought so dearly by years of desperate struggle, breaks out in long rolls of sonorous epithets of praise and adoration. The temper of the poets brings them near to the earlier fire and passion of the Hebrew, as the events of their time brough'. them near to the old Bible history with its fights and wanderings. " The wolves sing thrJr Hread evensong ; the fowls of war, greedy of battle, dewy-featherc i, ;< :eam around the host of Pharaoh," as wolf howled and eagle screamed round the host of Penda. Everywhere we mark the new grandeur, depth, and fervour of tone which the German race was to give to the religion of the East. But even before Caedmon had begun to sing, the Christian Church of Northumbria was torn in two by a strife whose issue was decided in the same abbey of Whitby where Caedmon dwelt. The labours of Aidan, the victories of Oswald and Oswiu, seemed to have annexec England to the Irish Church. The monks of Lindisfarne, or of the new religious houses whose foundation followed that of Lindisfarne, looked for their ecclesiastical tradition, not to Rome but to Ireland ; and quoted for their guidance the instructions, not of Gregory, but of Columba. Whatever claims of supremacy over the whole English Church might be pressed by the see of Canterbury, the real metropo- litan of the Church as it existed in the north of England was the Abbot of lona. But Oswiu's queen brought with her from Kent the loyalty of the Kentish church to the Roman see, and a Roman party at once formed about her. Her efforts were seconded by those of two young thegns whose love of Rome mounted to a passionate fanaticism. The life of Wilfrid of York was a series of flights to Rome and returns to England, of wonderful successes in pleading the right of Rome to the obedience of the Church of Northumbria, and of as wonderful defeats. Benedict Biscop worked towards the same end in a quieter fashion, coming backwards and forwards across the sea with books and relics and cunning masons and painters to rear a great church and monastery at Wearmouth, whose brethren -iwned obedience to the Roman See. In 652 they first set out for a visit to the imperial city ; and the elder, Sec. III. The North- umbrian Kingdom 588 TO 685 Synod of Wbltby 3° tnSTORV OF THE ENCILISH PEOPLE. [CHAI* .< Sec. III. The NORTH- I'MURIAN Kingdom 588 TO 685 ■ 'hi hi If Theodore 669-690 Benedict liiscop, soon rciurncd to preach ceaselessly against the Irish usages. Me was followed by Wilfrid, whose energy soon brought the quarrel to a head. The strife between the two parties rose so high at last that Oswiu was prevailed upon to summon in 664 a great council at Whitby, where the future ecclesiastical allegiance of England should be decided. The points actually contested were trivial enough. Colman, Aidan's successor at Holy Island, pleaded for the Irish fashion of the tonsure, and for the Irish time of keeping Easter ; Wilfrid pleaded for the Roman. The one disputant appealed to the authority of Columba, the other to that of St. Peter. "You own," cried the king at last to Colman, " that Christ gave to Peter the keys of the king lorn o." heaven — has He given such power to Columba ?" The bishop could but answer " No." "Then will I rather obey the porter of Heaven," said Oswiu, " lest when I reach its gates he who has the keys in his keeping turn his back on me, and there be none to open.'' The importance of Oswiu's judgment was never doubted at Lindisfarne, where Colman, followed by the whole of the Irish-born brethren and thirty of their English fellows, forsook the see of Aidan and sailed away to lona. Trivial in fact as were the actual points of difference which severed the Roman Church from the Irish, the question to which communion Northumbria should belong was of immense moment to the after fortunes of England. Had the Church of Aidan finally won, the later ecclesiastical history of England would probably have resembled that of Ireland. Devoid of that power of organization which was the strength of the Roman Church, the Celtic Church in its own Irish home took the clan system of the country as the basis of Church government. Tribal quarrels and ecclesiastical controversies became inextricably confounded ; and the clergy, robbed of all really spiritual influence, contributed no element save that of disorder to the state. Hundreds of wandering bishops, a vast religious authority wielded by hereditary chieftains, the dissociation of piety from morality, the absence of those larger and more humanizing influences which contact with a wider world alone can gives this is the picture which the Irish Church of later times presents to us. It was from such a chaos as this that England was saved by Uie victory of Rome in the Synod of Whitby. The Church of England, as we know it to-day, is the work, so far as its outer form is concerned, of a (jreek monk, I heodore of Tarsus, whom Rome, after her victory at Whitby, despatched in 669 as Arch- bishop of Canterbury, to secure England to her sway. Theodore's work was determined in its main outlines by the previous history of the English people. The conquest of the Continent had been wrought either by races such as the Goths, who were already Christian, or by heathens like the Franks, who bowed to the Christian faith of the nations they conquered. To this oneness of religion between the i [CHAr. : the Irish •ought the ligh at hist council at md should i\ enough, the Irish [g Easter ; lied to the You own," or the keys Jolumba ? " ii obey the itcs he who be none to doubted at 2 Irish-born e of Aidan lal points of the question of immense ch of Aidan lid probably organization lurch in its le basis of ontroversies of all really order to the IS authority )m morality, nces which ture which rom such a ^ v J '/ Photographic Sdoices Corporation 33 WeST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. MSSO (716) •72-4503 34 Sfc. III. Thk North- umbrian Kingdom 388 TO 685 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. fCHAP. 655 670-675 a supremacy rver the states of southern Britain. His ambition turned rather to conquests over the Briton than to victories over his fellow Englishmen. The war between Briton and Englishman, which had languished since the battle of Chester, had been revived some twenty years before by an advance of the West-Saxons to the south-west. Unable to save the possessions of Wessex in the Severn valley and on the Cotswolds from the grasp of Penda, the West-Saxon king, Cenwealh, seized the moment when Mercia was absorbed in the last struggle of Penda against Northumbria to seek for compensation in an attack on his Welsh neighbours. A victory at Bradford on the Avon enabled him to overrun the country north of Mendip which had till then been held by the Britons ; and a second campaign in 658, which ended in a victory on the skirts of the great forest that covered Somerset to the east, settled the West-Saxons as conquerors round the sources of the Parret. It may have been the example of the West- Saxons which spurred Ecgfrith to enlarge the bounds of his kingdom by a series of attacks upon his British neighbours in the west. His armies chased the Britons from southern Cumbria and made the districts of Carlisle, the Lake country, and our Lancashire English ground. His success in this quarter was quickly followed by fresh gain in the north, where he pushed his conquests over the Scots beyond Clydesdale, and subdued the Picts over the Firth of Forth, so that their territory on the northern bank of the Forth was from this time reckoned as Northumbrian ground. The monastery of Abercorn on the shore of the Firth of Forth, in which a few years later a Northumbrian bishop, Trumwine, fixed the seat of a new bishopric, was a sign of the subjection of the Picts to the Northumbrian over- lordship. Even when recalled from the wars to his southern border by an attack of Wulfhere's in 675, the vigorous and warlike Ecgfrith proved a different foe from the West-Saxon or the Jute, and the defeat of the king of Mercia was so complete that he was glad to purchase peace by giving up to his conqueror the province of the Lindiswaras or Lincolnshire. A large part of the conquered country of the Lake district was bestowed upon the see of Lindisfarne, which was at this time filled by one whom we have seen before labouring as the Apostle of the Lowlands. After years of mission labour at Melrose, Cuthbert had quitted it for Holy Island, and preached among the moors of Northumberland as he had preached beside the banks of the Tweed. He remained there through the great secession which followed on the Synod of Whitby, and became prior of the dwindled company of brethren, now torn with endless disputes, against which his patience and good humour struggled in vain. Worn out at last he fled to a little island of basaltic rock, one of a group not far from Ida's fortress of Bamborough, strewn for the most part with kelp and seaweed, the home of the gull and the seal. In the midst of it rose his hut of rough stor straj tI filltj had was Brit( fatalll whici Mercl and tl peacel of Mil frontii Firth of con by a n of Ire the ne which and Co stood u though "Pcrha the figh questioi more a had tun that Ecj on the {. To Ci soon laic the old peace, who stoc light mif tower of of sea, a brethren Psalmist also been hast give of Cuthb< the gloon Columba I.l THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS, 35 stones and turf, dug deep into the rock and roofed with logr and straw. The reverence for his sanctity dragged Cuthbert back in old age to fill the vacant see of Lindisfarne. He entered Carlisle, which the king had bestowed upon the bishopric, at a moment when all Northumbria was waiting for news of a fresh campaign of Ecgfrith's against the Britons in the north. The power of Northumbria was already however fatally shaken. In the south, Mercia had in 679 renewed the attempt which had been checked by Wulf here's defeat. His successor, the Mercian king JEihelred, again seized the province of the Lindiswaras, and the war he thus began with Northumbria was only ended by a peace negotiated *hrough Archbishop Theodore, which left him master of Middle England. Old troubles too revived on Ecgfrith's northern frontier, where a rising of the Picts forced him once more to cross the Firth of Forth, and march in the year 685 into their land. A sense of coming ill weighed on Northumbria, and its dread was quickened by a memory of the curses which had been pronounced by the bishops of Ireland on the king, when his navy, setting oir. a year before from the newly-conquered western coast, swept the Irish shores in a raid which seemed like sacrilege to those who loved the home of Aidan and Columba. As Cuthbert bent over a Roman fountain which still stood unharmed amongst the ruins of Carlisle, the anxious bystanders thought they caught words of ill-omen falling from the old man's lips. " Perhaps," he seemed to murmur, " at this very hour the peril of the fight is over and done." " Watch and pray," he said, when they questioned him on the morrow ; " watch and pray." In a few days more a solitary fugitive escaped from the slaughter told that the Picts had turned desperately to bay as the English army entered Fife ; and that Ecgfrith and the flower of his nobles lay, a ghastly ring of corpses, on the far-ofif moorland of Nectansmere. To Cuthbert the tidings were tidings of death. His bishopric was soon laid Jiside,and two months after his return to his island-hermitage the old man lay dying, murmuring to the last words of concord and peace. A signal of his death had been agreed upon, and one of those who stood by ran with a candle in each hand to a place whence the light might be seen by a monk who was looking out from the watch- tower of Lindisfarne. As the tiny gleam flashed over the dark reach of sea, and the watchman hurried with his news into the church, the brethren of Holy Island were singing, as it chanced, the words of the Psalmist : " Thou hast cast us out and scattered us abroad ; Thou hast also been displeased ; Thou hast shown thy people heavy things ; Thou hast given us a drink of deadly wine." The chant was the dirge, not of Cuthbert only, but of his Church and his people. Over both hung the gloom of a seeming failure. Strangers who knew not lona and Columba entered into the heritage of Aidan and Cuthbert. As the D 2 Sec. III. m The Hiiiifl North- '* nPH I'MBKtAN i^kl^H Kingdom i^^BwI^H 588 TO .iHiKi?M 685 ^»t hW ^Bm ~^'\' 684 685 Deatb of Cuthbert 36 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. IV. The Three Kingdoms 685 TO aas Xne of Wessex 6S&-726 Roman communion folded England again beneath her wing, men forgot that a Church which passed utterly away had battled with Rome for the spiritual headship of Western Christendom, and that through- out the great struggle with the heathen reaction of Mid-Britain the new religion had its centre not at Canterbury, but at Lindisfame. Nor were men long to remember that from the days of ^Ethelfrith to the days of Ecgfrith English politics had found their centre at York. But forgotten or no, Northumbria had done its work. By its mission- aries and by its sword it had won England from heathendom to the Christian Church. It had given her a new poetic literature. Its monasteries were already the seat of whatever intellectual life the country possessed. Above all it had first gathered together into a loose political unity the various tribes of the English people, and by standing at their head for half a century had accustomed them to a national life, out of which England, as we have it now, was to spring. Section IV.— The Three Kingdoms, 635— 8fl8. [Authorities. — A few incidents of Mercian history are preserved among the meagre annals of Wessex, which form, daring this period, '* The English Chronicle." But for the most part we are thrown upon later writers, especi- ally Henry of Huntingdon and William of Malmesbury, both authors of the twelfth century, but having access to older materials now lost. The letters of Boniface and those of Alcuin, which form the most valuable contem- porary materials for this period, are given by Dr. Giles in his '* Patres Ecclesise Anglicanae." They have also been carefully edited by Jaffe in his series of "Monumenta Germanica."] The supremacy of Northumbria over the English people had fallen for ever with the death of Oswiu, and its power over the tribes of the north was as completely broken by the death of Ecgfrith and the defeat of Nectansmere. To the north, the flight of Bishop Trumwine from Abercorn announced the revolt of the Picts from her rule. In the south, Mercia proved a formidable rival under .^^thelred, who had succeeded Wulfhere in 675. Already his kingdom reached from the Humber to the Channel ; and iEthelred in the first years of his reign had finally reduced Kent beneath his overlordship. All hope of national union seemed indeed at an end, for the revival of the West-Saxon power at this moment completed the parting of theland into three states of nearly equal power out of which it seemed impossible that unity could come. Since their overthrow At Faddiley, a hundred years before, the West- Saxons had been weakened by anarchy and civil war, and had been at the mercyjilike of the rival English states and of the Britons. We have seen however th^t in 652 a revival of power had enabled them to drive back the Britons to the Parret. A second interval of order I.] in 682 Briton of the their I early 1 carriec he fon pushec fertile fortresi Tauntc trict wl saetas, ^ fen tha Ine est monast its Eng chose t] of the I thither Ine's al of man his owr he com his day which t Frome, code, th shows a siasticai repulse how we) years w showed graduall became lordship Wessex Able ho hush the tells the had feasi as he ro( returned with refu I.] THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 37 alien the the liwine In had the reign ional lower early ome. ■Vest- en at We them rder in 682 strengthened King Centwine again to take up war with the Britons, and push his frontier as far as the Quantocks. A third rally of the West-Saxons in 685 under Ceadwalla enabled them to turn on their English enemies and conquer Sussex. Ine, the greatest of their early kings, whose reign covered the long period from 688 to 726, carried on during the whole of it the war for supremacy. Eastward, he forced Kent, Essex and London to own his rule. On the west, he pushed his way southward round the marshes of the Parret to a more fertile territory, and guarded the frontier of his new conquests by a fortress on the banks of the Tone, which has grown into the present Taunton. The West- Saxons thus became master^ of the whole dis- trict which now bears the name of Somerset, the land of the Somer- saetas, where the Tor rose like an island out of a waste of flood-drowned fen that stretched westward to the Channel. At the base of this hill Ine established on the site jf an older British foundation his famous monastery of Glastonbury. The little hamlet in which it stood took its English name from one of the English families, the Glaestings, who chose the spot for their settlement ; but it had long been a religious shrine of the Britons, and the tradition that a second Patrick rested there drew thither the wandering scholars of Ireland. The first inhabitants of Ine's abbey found, as they alleged, " an ancient church, built by no art of man ; " and beside this relic of its older Welsh owners, Ine founded his own abbey-church of stone. The spiritual charge of his conquests he committed to his kinsman Ealdhelm, the mosi: famous scholar of his day, who became the first bishop of the new see of Sherborne, which the king formed out of the districts west of Selwood and the Frome, to meet the needs of the new parts of his kingdom. Ine's code, the earliest collection of West-Saxon laws which remains to us, shows a wise solicitude to provide for the civil as well as the eccle- siastical needs of the mixed population over which he now ruled. His repulse of the Mercians, when they at last attacked Wessex, proved how well he could provide for its defence. ^Ethelred's reign of thirty years was one of almost unbroken peace, and his activity mainly showed itself in the planting and endowment of monasteries, which gradually changed the face of the realm. Ceolred however, who in 709 became king of Mercia, took up the strife with Wessex for the over- lordship of the south, and in 715 he marched into the very heart of Wessex ; but he was repulsed in a bloody encounter at Wanborough. Able however as Ine was to hold Mercia at bay, he was unable to hush the civil strife that was the curse of Wessex, and a wild legend tells the story of the disgust which drove him from the world. He had feasted royally at one of his country houses, and on the morrow, as he rode from it, his queen bade him turn back thither. The king returned to find his house stripped of curtains and vessels, and foul with refuse and the dung of cattle^ while in the royal bed where he had Sec. IV. The Three Kingdoms 685 TO 838 694 710 (i 715 38 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. IV. II'he Three Kingdoms 685 TO 898 JBthel- bald of Mercia 716-757 i Beeda 673-735 slept with iCthelburh rested a so^* with her farrow of pigs. The scene had no need of the queen's comment : " See, my lord, how the fashion of this world passeth away ! " In 726 Ine laid down his crown, and sought peace and death in a pilgrimage to Rome. The anarchy that had driven Ine from the throne broke out on his departure in civil strife which left Wessex an easy prey to the suc- cessor of Ceolred. Amon^ those who sought Guthlac's retirement at Crowland came -^thelbald, a son of Penda's brother, flying from Ceolred's hate. Driven off again and again by the kinj^'s pursuit, /Ethelbald still returned to the little hut he had built beside the hermitage, and comforted himself in hours of despair with his com- panion's words. " Know how to wait," said Guthlac, " and tht kingdom will come to thee ; not by violence or rapine, but by the hand of God." In 716 Ceolred fell frenzy-smitten at his board, and Mercia chose ^thelbald for its king. For the first ten years of his reign he shrank fromaconflict with the victor of Wanborough; but with Ine's withdrc*wal he took up again the fierce struggle with Wessex for the complete supremacy of the south. He penetrated into the very heart of the West-Saxon kingdom, and his siege and capture of the royal town of Somerton in 733 ended the war. For twenty years the overlordship of Mercia was recognized by all Britain south of the Humber. It was at the head of the forces, not of Mercia only, but of East Anglia and Kent, as well as of the West-Saxons, that y^thelbald marched against the Welsh ; and he styled himself '* King not of the Mercians only, but of all the neighbouring peoples who are called by the common name of Southern English." But the aim of -<^thelbald was destined to the same failure as that of his predecessors. For twenty years indeed he met the constant outbreaks of his new subjects with success ; and it was not till 754 that a general rising forced him to call his whole strength to the field.. At the head of his own Mercians and of the subject hosts of Kent, Essex and East Anglia, ^thelbald marched to the field of Burford, where the West-Saxons were again marshalled under the golden dragon of their race : but after hours of desperate fighting in the forefront of the battle, a sudden panic seized the Mercian king, and the supremacy of Mid- Britain passed away for ever as he fled first of his army from the field. Three years later he was surprised and slain in a night attack by his ealdormen ; and in the anarchy that followed, Kent, Essex, and East Anglia threw off the yoke of Mercia. While the two southern kingdoms were wasting their energies in this desperate struggle, Northumbria had set aside its efforts at conquest for the pursuits of peace. Under the reigns of Ecgfrith's successors, Aldfrith the Learned and the four kings who followed him, the kingdom became in the middle of the eighth century the literary centre of Western Europe. No schools were more famous than those of Jarrow and York. The whole learning of the age seemed to be summed up in a Northumbrian 1] schola born i; passec which and hil house from J he say of the writing in its The qi pleasur Englisl] teacher for inst how am Bseda o works tl study h Wilfrid Wearmc lingered pretatior plishmei Archbisl skill in whom F little the of the s( "thefatl culture w Aristotle^ over him -^neid b on the tn approach " I am m niy own 1 attest his temporari and homi the writir theology, threw tos: I] THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 39 It tess ; Hiole the ;dto tiled srate tcian Is he rised I that rcia. J this it for frith iame lope. iThe Irian scholar. Bseda — the Venerable Bede, as later times styled him — was born in 673, nine years after the Synod of Whitby, on ground which passed a year later to Benedict Biscop as the site of the great abbey which he reared by the mouth of the Wear. His youth was trained and his long tranquil life was wholly spent in an off-shoot of Benedict's house which was founded by his friend Ceolfrid. Bseda never stirred from Jarrow. " I have spent my whole life in the same monastery," he says, " and while attentive to the rule of my order and the service of the Church my constant pleasure lay in learning, or teaching, or writing." The words sketch for us a scholar's life, the more touching in its simplicity that it is the life of the first great English scholar. The quiet grandeur of a life consecrated to knowledge, the tranquil pleasure that lies in learning and teaching and writing, dawned for Englishmen in the story of Baeda. While still youn^;, he became teacher ; and six hundred monks, besides strangers that Hocked thither for instruction, formed his school of Jarrow. It is hard to imagine how among the toils of the schoolmaster and the duties of the monk Baeda could have found time for the composition of the numerous works that made his name famous in the west. But materials for study had accumulated in Northumbria through the journeys of Wilfrid and Benedict Biscop and the libraries which were forming at Wearmouth and York. The tradition of the older Irish teachers still lingered to direct the young scholar into that path of Scriptural inter- pretation to which he chiefly owed his fame. Greek, a rare accom- plishment in the west, came to him from .the school which the Greek Archbishop Theodore founded beneath the walls of Canterbury. His skill in the ecclesiastical chant was derived from a Roman cantor whom Pope Vita Han sent in the train of Benedict Biscop. Little by little the young scholar thus made himself master of the whole range of the science of his time ; he became, as Burke rightly styled him, " the father of English learning." The tradition of the older classic culture was first revived for England in his quotations of Plato and Aristotle, of Seneca and Cicero, of Lucretius and Ovid. Virgil cast over him the same spell that he cast over Dante ; verses from the iEneid break his narratives of martyrdoms, and the disciple ventures on the track of the great master in a little eclogue descriptive of the approach of spring. His work was done with small aid from others. " I am my own secretary," he writes ; " I make my own notes. I am my own librarian." But forty-hve works remained after his death to attest his prodigious industry. In his own eyes and those of his con- temporaries the most important among these were the commentaries and homilies upon various books of the Bible which he had drawn from the writings of the Fathers. But he was far from confining himself to theology. In treatises compiled as text-books for his scholars Bseda threw together all that the world had then accumulated in astronomy Skc. IV. TiiK Thrkb Kingdoms 685 TO 40 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sbc. IV. The Three Kingdoms 685 TO Death of Baeda and meteorology, in physics and music, in philosophy, grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic, medicine. But the encyclopaedic character ot his researches left him in heart a simple Englishman. He loved his own English tongue ; he was skilled in English song ; his last work was a translation into English of the Gospel of St. John, and almost the last words that broke from his lips were some English rimes upon death. But the noblest proof of his love of England lies in the work whicn immortalizes his name. In his " Ecclesiastical Histoiy of the Eng.' a Nation " Baeda became the first English historian. All that we really know of the century and a half that follows the landing of Augustine we know from him. Wherever his own personal observation extended the story is told with admirable detail and force. He is hardly less full or accurate in the portions which he owed to his Kentish friends, Albinus and Nothelm. What he owed to no informant was his own exquisite faculty of story-telling, and yet no story of his own telling is so touching as the story of his death. Two weeks before the Easter of 735 the old man was seized with an extreme weakness and loss of breath. He still preserved, however, his usual pleasantness and good humour, and in spite of prolonged sleeplessness continued his lectures to the pupils about him. Verses of his own English tongue broke from time to time from the master's lips — rude rimes that told how before the " need-fare," Death's stern " must-go," none can enough bethink ^'»^ wha<- is to be his doom for good or ill. The tears of Baeda's scholais mingled with his song. "We never read without weeping," writes one of them. So the days rolled on to Ascension- tide, and still master and pupils toiled at their work, for Baeda longed to bring to an end his version of St. John's Gospel inl o the English tongue, and his extracts from Bishop Isidore. " I don't want my boys to read a lie," he answered those who would have had him rest, " or to work to no purpose after I am gone." A few days before Ascension- tide his sickness grew upon him, but he spent the whole day in teaching, only saying cheerfully to his scholars, "Learn with what speed you may ; I know not how long I may last." The dawn broke on another sleepless night, and again the old man cLl^^d his scholars round him and bade them write. " There is still a chapter wanting," said the scribe, as the morning drew on, " and it is hard for thee to question thyself any longer." " It is easily done," said Baeda ; " take thy pen and write quickly." Amid tears and farewells the day wore away to eventide. " There is yet one sentence unwritten, dear master," said the boy. "Wri^e it quickly," bade the dying man. **It is finished now," said the little scribe at last. " You speak truth," said the master ; " all is finished now." Placed upon the pavement, his head supported in his scholars' arms, his face turned to the spot where he was wont to pray, Baeda chanted the solemn " Glory to I.) God." away. Firs amon^ literat round In his back, in the how vi Northi like £a might pelled time he he pen Picts, v\ capital seemed wards, i only flin bishop t is only : was swe; of its tu; scourged during fi part of t] The V seemed settled tl now as fi the Hum Mercian with thai to a heig had to p£ and it w; Otford gj less reco and four quest of Buckingh ventured neighbou] M THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 41 )oys )rto >ion- in ^hat roke )Iars ing," \e to take ^ore , it God." As his voice reached the close of his song he passed quietly away. First among English scholars, first among English theologians, first among English historians, it is in the monk of Jarrow that English literature strikes its roots. In the six hundred scholars who gathered round him for instruction he is the father of our national education. In his physical treatises he is the first figure to which our science looks back. Bseda was a statesman as well as a scholar, and the letter which in the last year of his life he addressed to Ecgberht of York shows how vigorously he proposed to battle against the growing anarchy of Northumbria. But his plans of reform came too late, though a king like Eadberht, with his brother Ecgberht, the first Archbishop of York, might for a time revive the fading glories of his kingdom. Eadberht re- pelled an attack of ^thelbald on his southern border ; while at the same time he carried on a successful war against the Picts. Ten years later he penetrated into Ayrshire, and finally made an alliance with the Picts, which enabled him in 756 to conquer Strathclyde and take its capital Alcluyd, or Dumbarton. But at the moment when his triumph seemed complete, his army was utterly destroyed as it withdrew home- wards, and so crushing was the calamity that even Eadberht could only fling down his sceptre and withdraw with his brother the Arch- bishop to a monastery. From this time the history of Northumbria is only a wild story of lawlessness and bloodshed. King after king was swept away by treason and revolt, the country fell into the hands of its turbulent nobles, the very fields lay waste, and the land wua scourged by famine and plague. Isolated from the rest of the country during fifty years of anarchy, the northern realm hardly seemed to form part of the English people. The work in fact of national consolidation among the English seemed to be fatally arrested. The battle of Burford had finally settled the division of Britain into three equal powers. Wessex was now as firmly planted south of the Thames as Northumbria north of the Humber. But this crushing defeat was far from having broken the Mercian power; and under Offa, whose reign from 758 to 796 covers with that of iCthelbald nearly the whole of the eighth century, it rose to a height unknown since the days of Wulfhere. Years however had to pass before the new king could set about the recovery of Kent ; and it was only after a war of three years that in 775 a victory at Otford gave it back to the Mercian realm. With Kent Offa doubt- less recovered Sussex and Surrey, as well as Essex and London ; and four years later a victory at Bensington completed the con- quest of the district that now forms the shires of Oxford and Buckingham. For the nine years that followed however Mercia ventured on no further attempt to extend her power over her English neighbours. Like her rivals, she turned on the Welsh. Pushing Sbc. IV. The Thrbb aincooms ess TO aas AnareliT of Nortfi- umbrla 738 Offa of Mercia 758-796 hl'i 4* HISTORY OF THE ENGLISF PEOPLE. [chap. I] Skc. IV. Thk Thkkk Kingdoms 68A TO Ensland id ana the Franks after 779 over the Severn, whose upper course had served till now as the frontier between Briton and Englishman, Offa drove the King of Powys from his capital, which changed its old name of Pengwyrn for the significant English title of the Town in the Scrub or bush, Scrobsbyryg, or Shrewsbury. The border-line he drew after his inroad is marked by a huge earthwork which runs from the mouth of Wye to that of Dee, and is otill called Ofifa's Dyke. A settlement of Englishmen on the land between this dyke and the Severn served as a military frontier for the Mercian realm. Here, as in the later conquests of the Northumbriars and the West-Saxons, the older plan of driving off the conquered from the soil was definitely abandoned. The Welsh who chose to remain dwelt undisturbed among their English conquerors ; and it was probably to regulate the mutual rela- tions of the two races that Offa drew up the code of laws which bore his name. In Mercia as in Northumbria attacks on the Britons marked the close of all dreams of supremacy over the English them- selves. Under Offa Mercia sank into virtual isolation. The anarchy into which Northumbria sank after Eadberht's death never tempted him to cross the Humber ; nor was he shaken from his inaction by as tempting an opportunity which presented itself across the Thames. It must have been in tho years that followed the battle of Burford that the West-Saxons made themselves masters of the shrunken realm of Dyvnaint, which still retains its old name in the form of Devon, and pushed their frontier westward to the Tamar. But in 786 their progress was stayed by a fresh outbreak of anarchy. The strife between the rivals that disputed the throne was ended by the defeat of Ecgberht, the heir of Ceawlin's line, and his flight to Ofifa's court. The Mercian king however used his presence not so much for schemes of aggrandizement as '.o bring about a peaceful alliance ; and in 789 Ecgberht was driven from Mercia, while Offa wedded his daughter to the West- Saxon king Beorhtric. The true aim of Offa indeed was to unite firmly the whole of Mid-Britain, with Kent as its outlet towards Europe, under the Mercian crown, and to mark its ecclesiastical as well as its political independence by the formation in 787 of an archbishopric of Lichfield, as a check to the see of Canterbury in the south, and a rival to the see of York in the north. But while Offa was hampered in his projects by the dread of the West-Saxons at home, he was forced to watch jealously a power which had risen to dangerous greatness over sea, the power of the Franks. Till now, the interests of the English people had lain wholly within the bounds of the Britain they had won. But at this moment our national horizon suddenly widened, and the fortunes of England became linked to the general fortunes of Western Christendom. It was by the work of English missionaries that Britain was first drawn [chap. now as ling of igwyrn r bush, ter his outh of ment of rved as le later ler plan idoned. g their lal rela- ch bore Britons 1 them- inarchy lempted >n by as rhames. brd that realm of Devon, 86 their e strife by the ight to not so eaceful le Ofifa Ihe true in, with and to I by the to the in the of the power of the wholly loment [ngland It drawn '1 TJfE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 41 into political relations with the Prankish court. The Northumbrian Willibrord, and the more famous West-Saxon Boniface or Winfrith, followed in the track of earlier preachers, both Irish and English, who had been labouring among the heathens of Germany, and especially among those who had now become subject to the Franks. The Frank king Pippin's connexion with the English preachers led to constant intercourse with England ; a Northumbrian scholar, Alcuin, was the centre of the literary revival at his court. Pippin's son Charles, known in after days as Charles the Great, maintained the same interest in English affairs. His friendship with Alcuin drew him into close relations with Northern Britain. Ecgberht, the claimant of the West- Saxon throne, had found a refuge with him since Offa's league with Beorhtric in 787. With Ofifa too his relations seem to have been generally friendly. But the Mercian king shrank cautiously from any connexion which might imply a recognition of Frankish supremacy. He had indeed good grounds for caution. The costly gifts sent by Charles to the monasteries of England as of Ireland showed his will to obtain an influence in both countries ; he maintained relations with Northumbria, with Kent, with the whole English Church. Above all, he harboured at his court exiles from every English realm, exiled kings from Northumbria, East-Anglian thegns, fugitives from Mercia itself ; and Ecgberht probably marched in his train when the shouts of the people and priesthood of Rome hailed him as Roman Emperor. ^Vhen the deatn of Beorhtric in 802 opened a way for the exile's return to Wesscx, the relations of Charles with the English were still guided by the dream that Britain, lost to the Empire at the hour > hen the rest of the western provinces were lost, should return to the Empire now that Rome had risen again to more than its old greatness in the west ; and the revolutions which were distracting the English kingdoms told steadily in his favour. The years since Ecgberht's flight had made little change in the state of Britain. Ofifa's completion of his kingdom by thf: seizure of East Anglia had been followed by his death in 796 ; and under his suc- cessor Cenwulf the Mercian archbishopric was suppressed, and there was no attempt to carry further the supremacy of the Midland king- dom. Cenwulf stood silently by when Ecgberht mounted the West- Saxon throne, and maintained peace with the new ruler of Wessex throughout his reign. The first enterprise of Ecgberht indeed was not directed against his English but his Welsh neighbours. In 815 he marched into the heart of Cornwall, and after eight years of fighting, the last fragment of British dominion in the west came to an end. As a nation Britain had passed away with the victories of Deorham and Chester ; of the separate British peoples who had still carried on the struggle with the three English kingdoms, the Britons of Cumbria and of Strathclyde had already bowed to Northumbrian rule ; the Skc. IV. Tiiic Thkimc '■ Kingdoms «8S TO aas «^ *4 |y 800 The Fall of Mercia 802 44 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sbc. IV. Thk Thrh KlNCI}OMI 6«a TO The North men Britons of Wales had owned by tribute to Offa the supremacy of Mercia ; the last unconquered British state of West Wales as far as the Land's End now passed under the mastery of Wessex. While Wessex was regaining the strength it had so long lost, its rival in Mid-Britain was sinking into helpless anarchy. Within, Mercia was torn by a civil war which broke out on Cenwulfs death in 821 ; and the weakness which this left behind was seen when the old strife with Wessex was renewed by his successor Beornwulf, who in 825 penetrated into Wiltshire, and was defeated in a bloody battle at EUandun. All England south of the Thames at once submitted to Ecgberht of Wessex, and East Anglia rose in a desperate revolt which proved fatal to its Mercian rulers. Two of its kings in succession fell fighting on East-Anglian soil ; and a third, Wiglaf, had hardly mounted the Mercian throne when his exhausted kingdom was called on again to encounter the West-Saxon. Ecgberht saw that the hour had come for a decisive onset. In 828 his army marched northward without a struggle ; Wiglaf fled helplessly before it ; and Mercia bowed to the West-Saxon overlordship. From Mercia Ecgberht marched on North- umbria ; but half a century of anarchy had robbed that kingdom of all vigour, and pirates were already harrying its coast ; its nobles met him at Dore in Derbyshire, and owned him as their overlord. The work that Oswiu and /Ethelbald had failed to do was done, and the whole English race in Britain was for the first time knit together under a single ruler. Long and bitter as the struggle for independence was still to be in Mercia and in the north, yet from the moment that Northumbria bowed to its West- Saxon overlord, England was made in fact if not as yet in name. Section v.- Weasex and the Danesj 80fl— 880. [Authorities. — Our history here rests mainly on the English (or Anglo-Saxon) Chronicle. The earlier part of this is a compilation, and consists of (l) Annals of the conquest of South Britain, (2) Short notices of the kings and bishops of Wessex, expanded into larger form by copious insertions from Baeda, and after his death by briefer additions from some northern sources. (3) It is probable that these materials were thrown together, and perhaps translated from Latin into English, in illfred's time, as a preface to the far fuller annals which begin with the reign of i^thelwulf, and widen into a great contemporary history when they reach that of i9£lfred himself. Of their character and import as a part of English literature, I have spoken in the text. The • ' Life of i^lfred " which bears the name of Asser is probably contemporary, or at any rate founded on contemporary authority. There is an admirable modern life of the king by Dr. Pauli. For the Danish wars, see "The Conquest of England" by J R. Green.] The effort after a national sovereignty had hardly been begun, when the Dane struck down the short-lived greatness of Wessex. While Britain was passing through her ages of conquest and settlement, the I ^hile the \ led on Ingby J R- i rhen 44 Sec. IV. The Three Kingdoms 685 TO .f K The North men iti Briti Meij the> M riv^ wa: an wit] pen EUi Eq pro figl; the to« for stri W< un: vij at thj Ei sii sti N in a ol hi tl in VI E b c I ! S CM « P ^ r L J6S 41 S •SI J g1 8" .1 I "** 'St S ^1! it I £ri O >0 \ 1 t) \L ^, 4 = In r-^^rWk DJ ( r vr. o Xlv 'WO i>' 1 4 ^W dwellers lain hiddl stem clii over seal closed, tl Ecgberhtl kings or *| ing off tl they crep| is as if tl years, pirate fle^ Cerdic. invaders river islets of men, w or sold in Britain, of Wodei these nort burst of tl unchanged quietly int without a s two invasic ent races, between Ei was in the their religi kinsmen b the barbari was the fi{ men of on( of the nor complete. Britain 1 northmen Orkneys, a kinsmen wl of Frisia a Britain lay close of E( attacks wei After havir Thames tc I.] THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 45 dwellers in the Scandinavian peninsula and the isles of the Baltic had lain hidden from Christendom, waging their battle for existence with a stem climate, a barren soil, and stormy seas. Forays and plunder-raids over sea eked out their scanty livelihood, and as the eighth century closed, these raids found a wider sphere than the waters of the north. Ecgberht had not yet brought all Britain under his sway when the Wi- kings or " creek-men," as the adventurers were called, were seen hover- ing ofif the English coast, and growing in numbers and hardihood as they crept southward to the Thames. The first sight of the northmen is as if the hand on the dial of history had gone back three hundred years. The Norwegian fiords, the Frisian sandbzmks, poured forth pirate fleets such as had swept the seas in the days of Hengest and Cerdic. There was the same wild panic as the black boats of the invaders struck inland along the river-reaches, or moored around the river islets, the same sights of horror, firing of homesteads, slaughter of men, women driven off to slavery or shame, children tossed on pikes or sold in the market-place, as when the English invaders attacked Britain. Christian priests were again slain at the altar by worshippers of Woden ; letters, arts, religion, government disappeared before these northmen as before the northmen of old. But when the wild burst of the storm was over, land, people, government reappeared unchanged. England still remained England ; the conquerors sank quietly into the mass of those around them ; and Woden yielded without a struggle to Christ. The secret of this difference between the two invasions was that the battle was no longer between men of differ- ent races. It was no longer a fight between Briton and German, between Englishman and Welshman. The life of these northern folk was in the main the life of the earlier Englishmen. Their customs, their religion, their social order were the same ; they were in fact kinsmen bringing back to an England that had forgotten its origins the barbaric England of its pirate forefathers. Nowhere over Europe was the fight so fierce, because nowhere else were the combatants men of one blood and one speech. But just for this reason the fusion of the northmen with their foes was nowhere so peaceful and so complete. Britain had to meet a double attack from its new assailants. The northmen of Norway had struck westward to the Shetlands and Orkneys, and passed thence by the Hebrides to Ireland ; while their kinsmen who now dwelt in the old Engle-land steered along the coasts of Frisia and Gaul. Shut in between the two lines of their advance, Britain lay in the very centre of their field of operations ; and at the close of Ecgberht's reign, when the decisive struggle first began, their attacks were directed to the two extremities of the West- Saxon realm. After having harried East Anglia and slain in Kent, they swept up the Thames to the plunder of London ; while the pirates in the Irish Sec. v. Wessbx AND THK Danes 8oa TO 880 V. iBX THE ES 787 es I The Danlsli Con- qaests 834-837 If 46 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CTTAP. Sec. V. Wbssex AND THK Danks 8oa TO 880 851 853 866 870 Channel roused all Cornwall to revolt. It was in the alliance of the northmen with the Britons that the danger of these earlier inroads lay. Ecgberht indeed defeated the united forces of these two enemies in a victory at Hengest-dun, but an unequal struggle was carried on for years to come in the Wessex west of Selwood. King iEthelwulf, who followed Ecgberht in 839, fought strenuously in the defence of his realm ; in the defeat of Charmouth, as in the victory at Aclea, he led his troops in person against the sea-robbers ; and he drove back the Welsh of North Wales, who were encouraged by the invaders to rise in arms. Northmen and Welshmen were beaten again and again, and yet the peril grew greater year by year. The dangers to the Christian faith from these heathen assailants roused the clergy to his aid. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, became /Ethelwulf s minister ; Ealhstan, Bishop of Sherborne, was among the soldiers of the Cross, and with the ealdormen led the fyrds of Somerset and Dorset to drive the invaders from the mouth of the Parret. At last hard fighting gained the realm a little respite ; in 858 ^Ethelwulf died in peace, and for eight years the Northmen left the land in quiet. But these earlier forays had been mere preludes to the real burst of the storm. When it broke in its full force upon the island, it was no longer a series of plunder-raids, but the invasion of Britain by a host of conquerors who settled as they conquered. The work was now taken up by another people of Scan- dinavian blood, the Danes. At the accession of iEthelred,the third of i^thelwulf s sons, who had mounted the throne after the short reigns of his brothers, these new assailants fell on Britain. As they came to the front, the character of the attack wholly changed. The petty squadrons which had till now harassed the coast of Britain made way for larger hosts than had as yet fallen on any country in the west ; while raid and foray were replaced by the regular campaign of armies who marched to conquer, and whose aim was to settle on the land they won. In 866 the Danes landed in East Anglia, and marched in the next spring across the H umber upon York. Civil strife as usual distracted the energies of Northumbria. Its subject-crown was disputed by two claimants, and when they united to meet this common danger both fell in the same defeat before the walls of their capital. Northumbria at once submitted to the Danes, and Mercia was only saved by a hasty march of King vEthelred to its aid. But the Peace of Nottingham, by which iCthelred rescued Mercia in 868, left the Danes free to turn to the rich spoil of the great abbeys of the Fen. Peterborough, Crow- land, Ely, went up in flames, and their monks fled or were slain among the ruins. From thence they struck suddenly for East Anglia itself, whose king, Eadmund, brought prisoner before the Danish leaders, was bound to a tree and shot to death with arrows. His martyrdom by the heathen made him the St. Sebastian of English legend ; in later days his figure gleamed from the pictured windows of church after [chap. e of the >ads lay. (lies in a i on for 'ulf, who IS realm ; is troops Velsh of in arms, yet the [an faith Swithun, 1, Bishop with the invaders ined the for eight trays had broke in ler-raids, d as they of Scan- 2 third of reigns of e to the uadrons •r larger aid and iiarched on. In It spring ted the by two lothfell bria at a hasty lam, by turn to Crow- I among itself, brs, was [om by later after I.] THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 47 church along the eastern coast, and the stately abbey of St. Edmunds- bury rose over his rehcs. With Eadmund ended the line of East Anglian under-kings, for his kingdom was not only conquered, but ten years later it was divided among the soldiers of a Danish host, whose leader, Guthrum, assumed its crown. How great was the terror stirred by these successive victories was shown in the action of Mercia, which, though it was as yet still spared from actual conquest, crouched in terror before the Danes, acknowledged them in 870 as its overlords, and paid them tribute. In four years the work of Ecgberht had been undone, and England north of the Thames had been torn from the overlordship of Wessex. So rapid a conquest as the Danish conquests of Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia, had only been made possible by the temper of these kingdoms themselves. To them the conquest was simply their transfer from one overlord to another, and it would seem as if they preferred the lordship of the Dane to the overlordship of the West-Saxon. It was another sign of the enormous difficulty of welding these kingdoms together into a single people. The time had now come for Wessex to fight, not for supremacy, but for life. As yet it seemed paralyzed by terror. With the exception of his one march on Nottingham, King i^thelred had done nothing to save his under-kingdoms from the wreck. But the Danes no sooner pushed up Thames to Reading than the West-Saxons, attacked on their own soil, turned fiercely at bay. The enemy penetrated indeed into the heart of Wessex as far as the heights that overlook the Vale of White Horse. A desperate battle drove them back from Ashdown ; but their camp in the tongue of land between the Kennet and Thames proved impregnable, and fresh forces pushed up the Thames to join their fellows. In the midst of the struggle iEthelred died, and left his youngest brother ^Elfred to meet a fresh advance of the foe. They had already encamped at Wilton before the young king could meet them, and a series of defeats forced him to buy the withdrawal of the pirates and win a few years' breathing-space for his realm. It was easy for the quick eye of ^Elfred to see that the Danes had withdrawn simply with the view of gaining firmer footing for a new attack ; indeed, three years had hardly passed before Mercia was invaded, and its under-king driven over sea to make place for a tributary of the Danes. From Repton half their host marched northwards to the Tyne, dividing a land where there was little left to plunder, colonizing and tilling it, while Guthrum led the rest into East Anglia to prepare for their next year's attack on Wessex. The greatness of the contest had now drawn to Britain the whole strength of the northmen ; and it was with a host swollen by reinforcements from every quarter that Guthrum at last set sail for the south. In 876 the Danish fleet appeared before Wareham, and when a treaty with ./Alfred won their withdrawal, they threw themselves Sfc. v. Wessbx AND THK Danes SOS TO 8SO Danes and Weaaeac 871 875 > v.. w li U'l 48 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. !•] Sec. V. Wbssbx AND THE Danes 8oa TO 880 Pfeace of Wedmore AJtred 871-901 into Exeter and allied themselves with the Welsh. Through the winter yElfred girded himself for this new peril. At break of spring his army closed round the town, while a hired fleet cruised off the coast to guard against rescue. The peril of their brethren in Exeter forced a part of the Danish host which had remained at Wareham to put to sea with the view of aiding them, but they were driven by a storm on the rocks of Swanage, and Exeter was at last starved into surrender, while the Danes again swore to leave Wessex. They withdrew in fact to Gloucester, but iElfred had hardly dis- banded his troops when his enemies, roused by the arrival of fresh hordes eager for plunder, reappeared at Chippenham, and at the opening of 878 marched ravaging over the land. The surprise was complete, and for a month or two the general panic left no hope of resistance. JEKred, with his small band of followers, could only throw himself into a fort raised hastily in the isle of Athelney, among the marshes of the Farret. It was a position from which he could watch closely the movements of his foes, and with the first burst of spring he called the thegns of Somerset to his standard, .^nd still gathering his troops as he moved, marched through Wiltshire on the Danes. He found their host at Edington, defeated it in a great battle, and after a siege of fourteen days forced them to surrender. Their leader, Guthrum, was baptized as a Christian and bound by a solemn peace or " frith " at Wedmore in Somerset. In form the Peace of Wedmore seemed indeed a surrender of the bulk of Britain to its invaders. All North- umbria, all East Anglia, the half of Central England was left subject to the northmen. Throughout this Dane-law, as it was called, the con- querors settled down among the conquered population as lords of the soil, thickly in the north and east, more thinly in the central districts> but everywhere guarding jealously their old isolation, and gathering in separate " heres " or armies round towns which were only linked in loose confederacies. The peace had in fact saved little more than Wessex itself. But in saving Wessex it saved England. The spell of terror was broken. The tide of invasion was turned. Only one short struggle broke a peace of fifteen years. With the Peace of Wedmore in 878 began a work even more noble than this deliverance of Wessex from the Dane. " So long as I have lived,' ' wrote yElfred in later days, " I have striven to live worthily." He longed when death overtook him " to leave to the men that come after a remembrance of him in good works." The aim has been more than fulfilled. The memory of the life and doings of the noblest of English rulers has come down to us living and distinct through the mist of exaggeration and legend that gathered round it. Politically or intellectually, the sphere of iElfred's action may seem too small to justify a comparison of him with the few whom the world claims as its greatest men. What really lifts him to uheir level is the moral graiideur of his instai persoi those of jus markc with dream but of goverr Heab lordshi which East-A that he of the the Me name ( kingdoi set the ruler w< inroads by the a fleet. hides S€ him wit] remaine halves, < other ha a hardei but to c force, ar held the Thed its good struggle, weakene alike to In politi was clos public ji of hundi constant that han been jud I.] THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 49 I noble have thily." Icome more lest of Ihthe [lly or ill to las its \deur of his life. He lived solely for the good of his people. He is the first instance in the history of Christendom of u ruler who put aside every personal aim or ambition to devote himself wholly to the welfare of those whom he ruled. In his mouth "to live worthily" meant a life of justice, temperance, self-sacrifice. The Peace of Wedmore at once marked the temper of the man. Warrior and conqueror as he was, with a disorganized England before him, he set aside at thirty the dream of conquest to leave behind him the memory not of victories but of **good works," of daily toils by which he secured peace, good government, education for his people. His policy was one of peace. He abandoned all thought of the recovery of the West-Saxon over- lordship. With England across the Watling Street, a Roman road which ran from Chester to London, in other words with Northumbria, East-Anglia, and the half of Mercia, /Elfred had nothing to do. All that he retained was his own Wessex, with the upper part of the valley of the Thames, the whole valley of the Severn, and the rich plains of the Mersey and the Dee. Over these latter districts, to which the name of Mercia was now confined, while the rest of the Mercian kingdom became known as the Five Boroughs of the Danes, ^^.tfred set the ealdorman ^Ethelred, the husband of his daughter ^thelflaed, a ruler well fitted by his courage and activity to guard Wessex against inroads from the north. Against invasion from the sea, he provided by the better organization of military service, and by the creation of a fleet. The country was divided into military districts, each five hides sending an armed man at the king's summons and providing him with food and pay. The duty of every freeman to join the host remained binding as before ; bu: the host orfyrd was divided into two halves, each of which took by turns its service in the field, while the other half guarded its own burhs and townships. To win the sea was a harder task than to win the land, and -Alfred had not to organize, but to create a fleet. He steadily developed however his new naval force, and in the reign of his son a fleet of a hundred English ships held the mastery of the Channel. The defence of his realm thus provided for, he devoted himself to its good government. In Wessex itself, spent by years of deadly stmggle, with law, order, the machinery of justice and government weakened by the pirate storm, material and moral civilization had alike to be revived. His work was of a simple and practical order. In politics as in war, or in his after dealings with letters, he took what was closest at hand and made the best of it. In the reorganization of public justice his main work was to enforce submission to the justice of hundred-moot and shire-moot alike on noble and ceorl, " who were constantly at obstinate variance with one another in the folk-moots, so that hardly any one of them would grant that to be true doom that had been judged for doom by the ealdorman and reeves." " All the law E Sec. v. Wessex AND THE Danes 8oa TO 880 mitred'u Rule M so HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. I.] Sec. V. Wbssex AND THE Danes 8oa TO 880 iBlfred's eliaractttr i. dooms of his land that were given in his absence he used to keenly question, of what sort they were, just or unjust ; and if he found any wrongdoing in them he would call the judges themselves before him." " Day and night," says his biographer, he was busied in the correction of local injustice ; " for in that whole kingdom the poor had no helpers, or few, save the king himself" Of a new legislation the king had no thought. " Those things which I met with," he tells us, " either of the days of Ine, my kinsman, or of Offa, king of the Mercians, or of yEthelberht, who first among the English race received baptism, those which seemed to me rightest, those I have gathered, and rejected the others." But unpretending as the work might seem, its importance was great. With it began the conception of a national law. The notion of separate systems of tribal customs for the separate peoples passed away ; and the codes of Wessex, Mercia, and Kent blended in the doom-book of a common England. The new strength which had been won for -(Alfred's kingdom in six years of peace was shown when the next pirate onset fell on the land. A host from Gaul pushed up the Thames and thence to Rochester, while the Danes of Guthrum's kingdom set aside the Peace of Wedmo'e and gave help to their brethren. The war how- ever was short, ana ended in victory so complete on -Alfred's side that in 886 a new peace was made which pushed the West-Saxon frontier forward into the realm of Guthrum, and tore from the Danish hold London and half of the old East-Saxon kingdom. From this moment the Danes were thrown on an attitude of defence, and the change made itself at once felt among the English. The foundation of a new national monarchy was laid. " All the Angel-cyn turned to vElfred," says the chronicle, " save those that were under bondage to Danish men." Hardly had this second breathing-space been won than the king turned again to his work of restoration. The spirit of adventure that made him. to the last a mighty hunter, the reckless daring of his early man- hood, took graver form in an activity that found time amidst the cares of state for the daily duties of religion, for converse with strangers, for study and translation, for learning poems by heart, for planning build- ings and instructing craftsmen in gold-work, for teaching even falconers and dog-keepers their business. But his mind was far from being prisoned within his own island. He listened with keen attention to tales of far-off lands, to the Norwegian Othere's account of his journey round the North Cape to explore the White Sea, and Wulf- stan's cruise along the coast of Esthonia ; envoys bore his presents to the churches of India and Jerusalem, and an annual mission carried Peter's-pence to Rome. Restless as he was, his activity was the activity of a mind strictly practical. JElfred was pre-eminently a man of business, careful of detail, laborious and methodical. He carried in his bosom a little hand-book in which he jotted down things as they ij: 1.1 THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 51 man- cares trs, for Ibuild- :oners 1 being lion to J)f his jWulf- Ints to irried 5 the man ied in they struck him, now a bit of family genealogy, now a prayer, now a story such as that of Bishop Ealdhelm singing sacred songs on the bridge. Each hour of the king's day had its peculiar task ; there was the same order in the division of his revenue and in the arrangement of his court. But active and busy as he was, his temper remained simple and kindly. We have few stories of his life that are more than mere legends, but even legend itself never ventured to depart from the outlines of a character which men knew so well. During his months of waiting at Athelney, while the country was overrun by the Danes, he was said to have entered a peasant's hut, and to have been bidden by the house- wife, who did not recognize him, to turn the cakes which were baking on the hearth. The young King did as he was bidden, but in the sad thoughts which came over him he forgot his task, and bore in amused silence the scolding of the good wife, who found her cakes spoilt on her return. This tale, if nothing more than a tale, could never have been told of a man without humour. Tradition told of his genial good-nature, of his chattiness over the adventures of his life, and above all of his love for song. In his busiest days ^Elfred found time to learn the old songs of his race by heart, and bade them be taught in the palace-school. As he translated the tales of the heathen mytho- logy he lingered fondly over and expanded them, and in moments of gloom he found comfort in the music of the Psalms. Neither the wars nor the legislation of ^^Ifred were destined to leave such lasting traces upon England as the impulse he gave to its litera- ture. His end indeed even in this was practical rather than literary. What he aimed at was simply the education of his people. Letters and civilization had almost vanished in Great Britain. In Wessex itself learning had disappeared. " When I began to reign," said MKredf " I cannot remember one south of Thames who could explain his service-book in English." The ruin the Danes had wrought had been no mere material ruin. In Northumbria the Danish sword had left but few survivors of the school of Ecgberht or Baeda. To remedy this ignorance -Alfred desired that at least every free-bom youth who possessed the means should " abide at his book till he can well under- stand English writing." He himself superintended a school which he had established for the young nobles of his court. At home he found none to help him in his educational efforts but a few prelates and priests who remained in the fragment of Mercia which had been saved from the invaders, and a Welsh bishop, Asser. " Formerly," the king writes bitterly, " men came hither from foreign lands to seek for instruction, and now when we desire it we can only obtain it from abroad." He sought it among the West-Franks and the East-Franks. A scholar named Grimbald came from St. Omer to preside over the abbey he founded at Winchester; and John' the Old-Saxon was fetched, it may be from the Westphalian abbey of Corbey, to rule a E 2 Sec. V. Wessex AND THU Danes 8oa TO sao JBlfred and Lltera. tiu-e » M ^vM Sa HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. '1 Skc. V. Wksskx AND TIIK Danrs aofl TO 880 JBltrtA'u Transla- tions monastery that >Elfred's gratitude for his deliverance from the Danes raised in the marshes of Athelney. The work, however, which most told on Mnglish culture was done not by these scholars but by the king himself, il^lfred resolved to throw open to his people in their own tongue the knowledge which had till then been limited to the clergy. He took his books as he found them ; they were the popular manuals of his age ; the compila- tion of Orosius, then the one accessible book of universal history, the history of his own people by Baeda, the Consolation of Boethius, the Pastoral of Pope Gregory. He translated these works into English, but he was far more than a translator, he was an editor for the peonle. Here he omitted, there he expanded. He enriched Orosius by a sketch of the new geographical discoveries in the north. He gave a Wesl- Saxon form to his selections from Bseda. In one place he stops to explain his theory of government, his wish for a thicker population, his conception of national welfare as consisting in a due balance of the priest, the soldier, and the churl. The mention of Nero spurs him to an outbreak on the abuses of power. The cold Providence of Boethius gives way to an enthusiastic acknowledgement of the goodness of God. As Alfred writes, his large-hearted nature flings off its royal mantle, and he talks as a man to men. " Do not blame me," he prays with a charming simplicity, " if any know Latin better '^han I, for every man must say what he says and do what he does according to his ability." But simple as was his aim, AiUred created English literature. Before him, England possessed noble poems in the work of Caedmon, and his fellow-singers, and a train of ballads and battle-songs. Prose she had none. The mighty roll of the books that fill her libraries begins with the translations of ^^Ifred, and above all with the chronicle of his reign. It seems likely that the king's rendering of Baeda's his- tory gave the first impulse towards the compilation of what is known as the English or Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was certainly thrown into its present form during his reign. The meagre lists of the kings of Wessex and of the bishops of Winchester, which had been preserved from older times, were roughly expanded into a national history by insertions from Baeda ; but it is when it reaches the reign of i^lfred that the Chronicle suddenly widens into the vigorous narrative, full of life and originality, that marks the gift of a new power to the English tongue. Varying as it does from age to age in historic value, it re- mains the first vernacular history of any Teutonic people, the earliest and most venerable monument of Teutonic prose. The writer of English history may be pardoned if he lingers too fondly over the figure of the king in whose court, at whose impulse, it maybe in whose very words, English history begins. I [Au period IS eml) Mnglis of Wo The •♦ fall in are, li aniondr bear th( A)', an Saxons S9~74) "Code> belongii in one •*Conqi yElfre new inv Englan( in whicl in the A Danela\ by the I man M\ as it rod the Seve old quai from a ] once mc ^thelrei camp on capture barred tl from W Franklai Channel. The la a new de whom a < years hac left the k and activ 910 that ; Il TIIK ENGLISH KINGDOMS. \ s^ \ •eotion VI.-The West-Saxon Realm, 893-10^. {Authorities. — Mainly l!ic English Chronicle, which varies nuicli during this period. Through the reign of Eadward it is copious, and a Mercian chronicle IS embedded in it ; its entries then become scanty, and are broken\with grand Mnglish songs till the reign of iTllthelred, when its fulness returns. '* Florence of Worcester " is probably a translation of a copy of the Chronicl^ now lost. The '* Laws " form the basis of our constitutional knowledge of the time, and fall into two classes. Those of Eadward, ^Uhelstan, Eadmund, and Eadgar are, like the earlier laws of ilLthelberht and Ine, "mainly of the nature of amendments of custom." Those of ^Elfred, A^thelred, Cnut, with those that bear the name of Eadward the Confessor, "aspire to the character of codes." All are printed in Mr. Thorpe's ** Ancient Laws and Institutes of the Anglo- Saxons;" but the extracts given by Dr. Stubbs (".Select Charters," pp. 59 — 74) contain all that directly bears on our constitution. Mr. Kemble's "Codex Diplomaticus ^Evi Saxonici " contains a vast mass of charters, &c., l)elonging to this period. The lives of Dunstan are collected by Dr. Stubbs in one of the Rolls volumes. For this period see .ilso Mr. firecn's "Conquest of England,"] yElfred's work of peace was however to be once more interrupted by a new invasion which in 893 broke under the Danish leader Hasting upon England. After a year's fruitless struggle to force the strong position in which y^illfred covered Wessex, the Danish forces left their fastnesses in the Andredsweald and crossed the Thames, while a rising of the Danelaw in their aid revealed the secret of this movement. Followed by the Londoners, the king's son Eadward and the Mercian Ealdor- man yEthelred stormed the Danish camp in Essex, followed the host as it rode along Thames to rouse new revolts in Wales, caught it on the Severn, and defeating it with a great slaughter, drove it back to its old quarters in Essex. iClfred himself held Exeter against attack from a pirate fleet and their West- Welsh allies ; and when Hasting once more repeated his dash upon the west and occupied Chester, yEthelred drove him from his hold and forced him to fall back to his camp on the Lea. Here yElfred came to his lieutenant's aid, and the capture of the Danish ships by the two forts with which the king barred the river virtually ended the war. The Danes streamed back from Wales, whither they had retreated, to their old quarters in Frankland, and the new English fleet drove the freebooters from the Channel. The last years of iElfred's life seem to have been busied in providing a new defence for his realm by the formation of alliances with states whom a common interest drew together against the pirates. But four years had hardly passed since the victory over Hasting when his death left the kingdom to his son Eadward. Eadward, though a vigorous and active ruler, clung to his father's policy of rest. It was not till 910 that a rising of the Danes on his northern frontier, and an attack Skc. VI. Tmk Wkst. Saxon Rrai.m 899 ro 1019 Merela and the Danes m 897 .Alfred's ^ Dtaili **« 901 I fe'Vi* 54 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. fCHAP. Sue. VI. Thk West- Saxon KRAt.4 893 T<» 1013 the lady of Mentans 913-918 r andth* law Eadtvard the Elder 901-925 922 924 ^^1 of a pirate fleet on the southern coast, forced him to re-open the war. With his sister yl^.thelflacd, who was in 912 left sole ruler of Mercia by the death of the Ealdorman yT'!thelrcd, he undertook the systematic reduction of the Danelaw. While he bridled East Anglia by the seizure of southern Ksscx, and the erection of the forts of Hertford and Witham, the fame of Mercia was safe in the hands of its " Lady." ^Ethelflxd girded her strength for the conquest of the " Five Boroughs," the rude Danish confederacy which had taken the place of the eastern half of the older Mercian kmgdom. Derby represented the original Mercia on the upper Trent, Lincoln the Lindiswaras, Leicester the Middle-English, Stamford the province of the Gyrwas — the marshmen of the Fens — Nottingham probably that of the Southumbrians. Each of the " Five Boroughs " seems to have been ruled by its earl with his separate " host ; " within each twelve " lawmen " administered Danish law, while a common justice-court existed for the whole confederacy. In her attack upon this powerful league y^thelflaed abandoned the older strategy of battle and raid for that of siege and fortress-building. Advancing along the line of Trent, she fortified Tamworth and Stafford on its head-waters, then turning southward secured the valley of the Avon by a fort at Warwick. With the lines of the great rivers alike secure, and the approaches to Wales on either side of Arden in her hands, she in 917 closed on Derby. The raids of the Danes of Middle-England failed to draw the Lady of Mercia from her prey ; and Derby was hardly her own when, turning southward, she forced the surrender of Leicester. yEthelflaed died in the midst of her triumphs, and Eadward at once annexed Mercia to Wessex. The brilliancy of her exploits had already been matched by his own successes as he closed in on the district of the Five Boroughs from the south. South of the Middle- English and the Fens lay a tract watered by the Ouse and the Nen — originally the district of a tribe known as the South-English, and now, like the Five Boroughs of the north, grouped round the towns of Bed- ford, Huntingdon, and Northampton. The reduction of these was followed by that of East Anglia ; "he Danes of the Fens submitted with Stamford, the Southumbrians with Nottingham. Lincoln, the last of the Five Boroughs as yet unconquered, no doubt submitted at the same time. From Mid-Britain the king advanced cautiously to an attack on Northumbria. He had already seized Manchester, and was preparing to complete his conquests, when the whole of the North sud- denly laid itself at his feet. Not merely Northumbria but the Scots and the Britons of Strathclyde " chose him to father and lord." The submission had probably been brought about, like that of the North- Welsh to iElfred, by the pressure of mutual feuds, and it was as value- less as theirs. Within a year after Eadward's de^th the north was again on fire. iSthelstan, iElfred's golden-haired grandson whom the M Kin{ agci then the frifAF. ie war. rcia by cmatic seizure rd and Lady." oughs," eastern original iter the rshmen . Each with his Danish ideracy. ned the milding. Stafford y of the ers alike n in her )anes of er prey ; forced at once )its had on the Middle- Nen — nd now, of Bed- ;se was bmitted oln, the d at the to an ind was th sud- Scots The 1 North- ; value ' th was Lorn the i.l THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 55 King had girded as a child with a ^wurH set in a golden scabbard and a gem-studded belt, incorporated Northumbria with his dominions ; then turning westward broke a league which had been formed between the North-Welsh and the Scots, forced them to pay annual tribute, to march in his armies, and to attend his councils. The West -Welsh of Co»'nwaIl were reduced to a like vassalage, and the Britons driven from Exeter, which they had shared till then with its English in- habitants. A league of the Scot King, Constantine with the Irish Ostmen was punished by an army which wasted his kingdom, while a fleet ravaged its coasts. But the revolt only heralded the formidable confederacy in which Scotland, Cumberland, and theBr'tish and Danish chiefs of the west and east rose at the appearance of the fleet of Olaf in the Humber. The king's victory at Brunanburh, sung in noblest war- song, seemed the wreck of Danish hopes, but the work of conquest was still to be done. On yEthelstan's death and the accession of his young brother Eadmund, the Danelaw rose again in revolt ; the men of the Five boroughs joined their kinsmen in Northumbria, and a peace which was negotiated by the two archbishops, Odo and Wulfstan, practically restored the old balance of yElfred's day, and re-established Watling Street as the boundary between Wessex and the Danes. Eadmund however possessed the political and military ability of his house. The Danelaw was once more reduced to submission ; he seized on an alliance with the Scots as a balance to the Danes, and secured the aid of their king by investing him with the fief of Cumberland. But his triumphs were suddenly cut short by his death. As the king feasted at Pucklechurch a robber, Leofa, whom he had banished, seated him- self at the royal board, and drew his sword on the cupbearer who bade him retire. Eadmund, springing to his thegn's aid, seized the robber by his hair and flung him to the ground, but Leofa had stabbed the king ere rescue could arrive. The completion of the West-Saxon realm was in fact reserved for the hands, not of a king or warrior, but of a priest. With the death of Eadmund a new figure comes to the front in English affairs. Dunstan stands first in the line of ecclesiastical statesmen who counted among them Lanfranc and Wolsey, and ended in Laud. He is still more re- markable in himself, in his own vivid personality after nine centuries of revolution and change. He was born in the little hamlet of Glaston- bury, beside Ine's church ; his father, Heorstan, was a man of wealth and kinsman of three bishops of the time and of many thegns of the court. It must have been in his father's hall that the fair diminutive boy, with his scant but beautiAii hair, caught his love for " the vain songs of ancient heathendom, the trifling legends, the funeral chants," which afterwards roused against him the charge of sorcery. Thence too he may have derived his passionate love of music, and his custom of carrying his harp in hand on journey or visit. The UKt. VI. P riiR west- Saxon Kkai.m y TO 1013 i .•Kthelstan a ;, 925 940 1^ burh 937 Eaiimund 940-946 '!i V'M '■■"' ' -T 1 p'H^f Dunstan l^i*v pi \ :f>;A|' \ - '^0^ ' '"-^ ;lfffl 5^' HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. fCHAP. -^- Sec. VI. The West- Saxon Realm 893 TO 1016 c. 940 Dunatan's adminis- tration wandering scholars of Ireland left their books in the monastery of Glastonbury, as they left them along the Rhine and the Danube ; and Dunstan plunged into the study of sacred and profane letters till his brain broke down in delirium. His knowledge became famous in the neighbourhood and reached the court of ^thelstan, but his appear- ance there was the signal for a burst of ill-will among the courtiers, though many of them were kinsmen of his own, and he was forced to withdraw. Even when Eadmund recalled him to the court, his rivals drove him from the king's train, threw him from his horse as he passed through the marshes, and with the wild passion of their age trampled him underfoot in the mire. The outrage ended in fever, and in the bitterness of his disappointment and shame Dunstan rose from his sick bed a monk. But in England at this time the monastic profes- sion seems to have been little more than a vow of celibacy, and his devotion took no ascetic turn. His nature was sunny, versatile, artistic, full of strong affections and capable of inspiring others with affections as strong. Quick-witted, of tenacious memory, a ready and fluent speaker, gay and genial in address, an artist, a musician, he was at the same time an indefatigable worker, busy at books, at building, at handicraft. Throughout his life he won the love of women ; he now became the spiritual guide of a woman of high rank, who lived only for charity and the entertainment of pilgrims. " He ever clave to her, and loved her in wondrous fashion." His sphere of activity widened as the wealth of his devotee was placed unreservedly at his command ; we see him followed by a train of pupils, busy with literature, writing, harping, painting, designing. One morning a lady summons him to her house to design a robe which she is embroidering. As he bends with her maidens over their toil, his harp hung upon the wall sounds without mortal touch tones which the startled ears around frame into a joyous antiphon. The tie which bound him to this scholar-life was broken by the death of his patroness ; and towards the close of Eadmund's reign Dunstan was again called to the court. But the old jealousies revived, and counting the game lost he prepared again to withdraw. The King had spent the day in the chase ; the red deer which he was pursuing dashed over Cheddar cliffs, and his horse only checked itself on the brink of the ravine while Eadmund in the bitter- ness of death was repenting of his injustice to Dunstan. He was at once summoned on the King's return. " Saddle your horse," §aid Eadmund, " and ride with me ! " The royal train swept over the marshes to Dunstan's home ; and greeting him with the kibs of peace, the king seated him in the priestly chair as i'^bbot of Glastonbury. From that moment Dunstan may have exercised influence on public affairs ; but 't was not till the accession of Eadred, Eadmund's brother, that his influence became supreme as leading counsellor of the crown, trace his hand in the solemn proclamation of the " may ing': I] fCHAP. stery of )e ; and till his IS in the appear- ourtiers, )rced to is rivals e passed rampled i in the "rem his : profes- and his 'ersatile, ers with ady and I, he was )uilding, i he now /ed only B to her, kvidened nmand ; writing, him to e bends sounds ne into ife was ose of the old igain to ed deer se only bitter- was at said ^er the peace, ury. public >rother, crown, king's i-l THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 57 * crowning. Eadred's election was the first national election where Briton, Dane, and Englishman were alike represented ; his coronation was the first national coronation, the first union of the primate of the north and the primate of the south in setting the crown on the head of one who was to rule from the Forth to the Channel. A revolt of the north two years later was subdued ; at the outbreak of a fresh rising the Archbishop of York, Wulfstan, was thrown into prison ; and with the submission of the Danelaw in 954 the long work of /Elfred's house was done. Dogged as his fight had been, the Dane at last owned himself beaten. From the moment of Eadred's final triumph all resistance came to an end. The north was finally brought into the general organization of the English realm, and the Northumbrian under-kingdom sank into an earldom under Oswulf. The new might of the royal power was expressed in the lofty titles assumed by Eadred ; he was not only " King of the Anglo-Saxons," but " Caesar of the whole of Britain." The death of Eadred however was a signal for the outbreak of political strife. The boy-king Eadwig was swayed by a woman of high lineage, ^thelgifu ; and the quarrel between her and the older counsellors of Eadred broke into open strife at the coronation feast. On the young king's insolent withdrawal to her chamber Dunstan, at the bidding of the Witan, drew him roughly back to the hall. But before the year was over the wrath of the boy-king drove the abbot over sea, and his whole system went with him. The triumph of iCthelgifu was crowned in 957 by the marriage of her daughter to the king. The marriage was uncanonical, and at the opening of 958 Archbishop Odo parted the kin£ from his wife by solemn sentence ; while the Mercians and Northumbrians rose in revolt, proclaimed Eadwig's brother Eadgar their king, and recalled Dunstan, who received successively the sees of Worcester and of London. The death of Eadwig restored the unity of the realm. Wessex submitted to the king who had been already accepted by the north, and Dunstan, now raised to the see of Canterbury, wielded for sixteen years as the minister of Eadgar the secular and ecclesiastical powers of the realm. Never had England seemed so strong or so peaceful. Without, a fleet cruising round the coast swept the sea of pirates ; the Danes of Ireland had turned from foes to friends ; eight vassal kings rowed Eadgar (so ran the legend) in his boat on the Dee. The settlement of the north indicated the large and statesmanhke course which Dunstan was to pursue in the general administration of the realm. He seems to have adopted from the beginning a national rather than a West- Saxon policy. The later charge against his rule, that he gave too much power to the Dane and too much love to strangers^ is the best proof of the unprovincial temper of his administration. He employed Danes in the royal service and promoted them to high posts in Church Sec. VI. The West 'j Saxon Realm ti 893 TO 1013 Eadred 946 955 Dunstan the Primate Eadwig 956 959 Eadgar 959-975 !t ' I' .» M ( S8 T- Sec. VI. The West- Saxon Realm 803 TO 1013 ' Decline of Slavery HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. and State. In the code which he promulgated he expressly reserved to the north its old Danish rights, " with as good laws as they best might choose." His stern hand restored justice and order, while his care for commerce was shown in the laws which regulated the coinage and the enactments of common weights and measures for the realm. Thanet was ravaged when the wreckers of its coast plundered a trading ship from York. Commerce sprang into a wider life. " Men of the Empire," traders of Lower Lorraine and the Rhine-land, "men of Rouen," were seen in the streets of London, and it was by the foreign trade which sprang up in Dunstan's time that London rose to the commercial greatness it has held ever since. But the aims of the primate-minister reached beyond this outer revival of prosperity and good government. The Danish wars had dealt rudely with ^Elfred's hopes ; his educational movement had ceased with his death the clergy had sunk back into worldliness and ignorance, not a single book or translation had been added to those which the king had left. Dunstan resumed the task, if not in the larger spirit of ^Elfred, at least in the spirit of a great administrator. The reform of monasticism which had begun in the abbey of Cluny was stirring the zeal of English churchmen, and Eadgar showed himsell zealous in the cause of introducing it into England. With his support, ^Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, carried the new Benedictinism into his diocese, and a few years later Oswald, Bishop of Worcester, brought monks into his own cathedral city. Tradition ascribed to Eadgar the formation of forty monasteries, and it was to his time that English monasticism looked back in later days as the beginning of its continuous life. But after all his efforts, monasteries were in fact only firmly planted in Wessex and East Anglia, and the system took no hold in North- umbria or in the bulk of Mercia. Dunstan himself took little part in it, though his influence was strongly felt in the literary revival which accompanied the revival of religious activity. He himself while abbot was famous as a teacher. His great assistant -^thelwold raised Abingdon into a school second only to Glastonbury. His other great helper, Oswald, laid the first foundations of the historic school of Worcester. Abbo, the most notable scholar in Gaul, came from Fleury at the primate's invitation. After times looked back fondly to " Eadgar's Law," as it was called, in other words to the English Constitution as it shaped itself in the hands of Eadgar's minister. A number of influences had great'y modified the older order which had followed on the English con- quest. Slavery was gradually disappearing before the efforts of the Church. Theodore had denied Christian burial to the kidnapper, and prohibited the sale of children by their parents, after the age of seven. Ecgberht of York punished any sale of child or kinsfolk with excom- munication. The murder of a slave by lord or mistress, though no crime! to the! holyd^ only suffer^ a newj mutuj thefrt elevati two h| Selsej that SI Chelse on thei Usuall and th I.l THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 59 called, in the jreat'y con- lof the ^r, and [seven. Ixcom- Igh no crime in the eye of the State, became a sin for which penance was due to the Church. The slave was exempted from toil on Sundays and holydays ; here and there he became attached to the soil and could only be sold with it ; sometimes he acquired a plot of ground, and was suffered to purchase his own release. ^Cthelstan gave the slave-class a new rank in the realm • by extending to it the same principles of mutual responsibility for crime which were the basis of order among the free. The Church was far from contenting herself with this gradual elevation ; Wilfrid led the way in the work of emancipation by freeing two hundred and fifty serfs whom he found attached to his estate at Selsey. Manumission became frequent in wills, as the clergy taught that such a gift was a boon to the soul of the dead. At the Synod of Chelsea the bishops bound themselves to free at their decease all serfs on their estates who had been reduced to serfdom by want or crime. Usually the slave was set free before the altar or in the church-porch, and the Gospel-book bore written on its margins the record of his emancipation. Sometimes his lord placed him at the spot where four I roads met, and bade him go whither he would. In the more solemn form of the law his master took him by the hand in full shire-meeting, showed him open road and door, and gave him the lance and sword of the freeman. The slave-trade from English ports was prohibited by law, but the prohibition long remained ineffective. A hundred years later than Dunstan the wealth of English nobles was said sometimes to spring from breeding slaves for the market. It was not till the reign of the first Norman king that the preaching of Wulfstan and the in- fluence of Lanfranc suppressed the trade in its last stronghold, the port of Bristol. But the decrease of slavery went on side by side with an increasing degradation of the bulk of the people. Political and social changes had long been modifying the whole structure of society ; and the very foundations of the old order were broken up in the degradation of the freeman, and the upgrowth of the lord with his dependent villeins., The political changes which were annihilating the older English liberty were in great measure due to a change in the character of English kingship. As the lesser English kingdcins had drawn together, the wider dominion of the Kir.g had removed him further and further from his people, and clothed him with a mysterious dignity. Every reign raised him higher in the social scale. The bishop, once ranked his equal in value of life, sank to the level of the ealdorman. The ealdor- man himself, once the hereditary ruler of a smaller state, became a mere delegate of the king, with an aiuthority curtailed in every shire by that of the royal reeves — officers despatched to levy the royal revenues and administer the royal justice. Religion deepened the sense of awe. The king, if he was no longer sacred as the son of Woden, was yet more sacred as " the Lord's Anointed " ; and treason Sec. VI. The West- i] Saxon Realm 893 TO 1013 The later English Kingdom {ii 6o HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CHAr. I.] -V- Sec. VI. The West- Saxon Realm 893 TO 1013 '!,lf Decline of the Enslish Freeman ■ against him became the worst of crimes. The older nobility of blood died out before the new nobility of the court. From the oldest times of Germanic history each chief or king had his war-band, his comrades, warriors bound personally to him by their free choice, sworn to fight for him to the death, and avenge his cause as their own. When Cynewulf of Wessex was foully slain at Merton his comrades " ran at once to the spot, each as he was ready and as fast as he could," and despising all offers of life, fell fighting over the corpse of their lord. The fidelity of the war-band was rewarded with grants from the royal domain ; the king became their lord or hlaford, " the dispenser of gifts ;" the comrade became his " servant " or thegn. Personal service at his court was held not to degrade but to ennoble. " Cup-thegn," and " horse-thegn," and " hordere," or treasurer, became great officers of state. The thegn advanced with the advance of the king. He absorbed every post of honour ; he became ealdorman, reeve, bishop, judge ; while his wealth increased as the common folkland passed into the hands of the king, and was carved out by him into estates for his dependents. The principle of personal allegiance embodied in the new nobility tended to widen into a theory of general dependence. From y^Clfred's day it was assumed that no man could exist without a lord. The ravages and the long insecurity of the Danish wars aided to drive the free farmer to seek protection from the thegn. His freehold was sur- rendered to be received back as a fief, laden with service to its lord. Gradually the " lordless man " became a sort of outlaw in the realm. The free churl sank into the villein, and changed from the freeholder who knew no superior but God and the law, to the tenant bound to do service to his lord, to follow him to the field, to look to his court for justice, and render days of service in his demesne. While he lost his older freedom he gradually lost, too, his share in the government of the state. The life of the earlier English state was gathered up in its folk-moot. There, through its representatives chosen in every hundred- moot, the folk had exercised its own sovereignty in matters of justice as of peace and war ; while beside the folk-moot, and acting with it, had stood the Witenagemot, the group of " wise men " gathered to give rede to the king and through him to propose a course of action to the folk. The preliminary discussion rested with the nobler sort, the final decision with all. The clash of arms, the " Yea " or " Nay " of the crowd, were its vote. But when by the union of the lesser realms the folk sank into a portion of a wider state, the folk-moot sank with it ; political supremacy passed to the court of the far-off lord, and the influence of the people on government came to an end. Nobles indeed could still gather round the king ; and while the folk-moot passes out of political notice, the Witenagemot is heard of more and more as a royal council. It shared in the higher justice, the imposition of taxes, the making of laws, the conclusion of treaties, the control of war, the dispol There But>v to do.l their dwin( a gatl thegn^ the ck goveri VVinclj or " N| Itisl we mu West- and th< for bitt took th only av the qu( Eadwar the Wis accordii mained the tide of Duns tion of governn who upfc where Ik Durin reached New dai ing itsel; drawn to and it w were ab throngec on the E a body c East An forced to the land Norman A fresh [chap. I.] THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 6t blood oldest nd, his , sworn r own. Tirades as he rpse of ts from ipenser service n," and cers of )Sorbed ; ; while ands of lents. nobility Alfred's ravages ;he free 'as sur- ts lord, realm, holder Id to do lurt for ost his ent of in its ndred- tice as it, had ;o give to the e final of the s the ith it ; d the ndeed les out le as a taxes, the disposal of public lands, the appointment of great officers of state. There were times when it even claimed to elect or depose the king. But with these powers the bulk of the nobles had really less and less to do. The larger the kingdom the greater grew the distance from their homes ; and their share in the general deliberations of the realm dwindled to nothing. Practically the national council shrank into a gathering of the great officers of Church and State with the royal thegns, and the old English democracy passed into an oligarchy of the closest kind. The only relic of the popular character of English government lay at last in the ring of citizens who at London or Winchester gathered round the wise men and shouted their "Ay" or " Nay" at the election of a king. It is in the degradation of the class in which its true strength lay that we must look for the cause of the ruin which already hung over the West-Saxon realm. Eadgar was but thirty-two when he died in 975 ; and the children he left were mere boys. His death opened the way for bitter political strife among the nobles of his court, whose quarrel took the form of a dispute over the succession. Civil war was, in fact, only averted by the energy of the primate ; seizing his cross, he settled the question of Eadgar's successor by the coronation of his son Eadvvard, and confronted his enemies successfully in two assemblies of the Wise Men. In that of Calne the floor of the room gave way, and according to monkish tradition Dunstan and his friends alone re- mained unhart. But not even the fame of a miracle sufficed to turn the tide. The assassination of Eadward was followed by the triumph of Dunstan's opponents, who broke out in " great joy " at the corona- tion of Eadward's brother ^thelred, a child of ten years old. The government of the realm passed into the hands of the great nobles who upheld ^thelred, and Dunstan withdrew powerless to Canterbury, where he died nine years later. During the eleven years from 979 to 990, when the young king reached manhood, there is scarcely any internal history to record. New danger however threatened from abroad. The North was gird- ing itself for a fresh onset on England. The Scandinavian peoples had drawn together into their kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway ; and it was no longer in isolated bands but in national hosts that they were about to seek conquests in the South. The seas were again thronged with northern freebooters, and pirate fleets, as of old, appeared on the English coast. In 991 came the first burst of the storm, when a body of Norwegian Wikings landed, and utterly defeated the host of East Anglia on the field of Maldon. In the next year /Ethelred was forced to buy a truce from the invaders and to suffer them to settle in the land ; while he strengthened himself by a treaty of alliance with Normandy, which was now growing into a great power over sea. A fresh attempt to expel the invaders only proved the signal for the Sec. VI Thk West '; Saxon Realm 893 TO 1013 Fall of theWest- Sr :on Kingdom Kadwarci tlie Martyr 975-978 .Ethelred the Unready 979-1016 \ hi t- b \i i n t' ht' 62 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. n.] I Sec. VI. The West- Saxom Realm 893 TO 1013 Massacre of Danes % ICX)2 \ I ! IO03-IO07 gathering of pirate-hosts such as England had never seen before, under Swein and Olaf, claimants to the Danish and Norwegian thrones. Their withdrawal in 995 was followed by fresh attacks in 997 ; danger threatened from Normans and from Ost-men, with wikings from Man, and northmen from Cumberland ; while the utter weakness of the realm was shown by ^thelred's taking into his service Danish mercenaries, who seem to have been quartered through Wessex as a defence against their brethren. Threatened with a new attack by Swein, who was now king, not only of Denmark, but by the defeat and death of Olaf, of Norway itself, vEthelred bound Normandy to his side by a marriage with its duke's sister Emma. But a sudden panic betrayed him into an act of basest treachery which ruined his plans of defence at home. Urged by secret orders from the king, the West- Saxons rose on St. Brice's day and pitilessly massacred the Danes scattered among them. Gunhild, the sister of their king Swein, a Christian convert, and one of the hostages for the peace, saw husband and child butchered before her eyes ere she fell threatening vengeance on her murderers. Swein swore at the news to wrest England from ^Ethelred. For four years he marched through the length and breadth of southern and eastern England, " lighting his war-beacons as he went " in blazing homestead and town. Then for a heavy bribe he withdrew, to prepare for a later and more terrible onset. But there was no rest for the realm. The fiercest of the Norwegian jarls took his place, and from Wessex the war extended over East Anglia and Mercia. Canterbury was taken and sacked, iElfheah the Archbishop dragged to Greenwich, and there in default of ransom brutally slain. The Danes set him in the midst of their busting, pelting him with stones and ox-horns, till one more pitiful than the rest clave his skull with an axe. But a yet more terrible attack was preparing under Swein in the North, and in 1013 his fleet entered the Humber, and called on the Danelaw to rise in his aid. Northumbria, East Anglia, the Five Boroughs, all England north of Watling Street, submitted to him at Gainsborough. -^Ethelred shrank into a King of Wessex, and of a Wessex helpless before the foe. Resistance was impossible. The war was terrible but short. Everywhere the country was pitilessly harried, churches plundered, men slaughtered. But with the one ex- ception of London, there was no attempt at defence. Oxford and Winchester flung open their gates. The thegns of Wessex submitted to the northmen at Bath. Even London was forced at last to give way, and ^Ethelred fled over sea to a refuge in Normandy. With the flight of the king ended the long struggle of Wessex for supremacy over Britain. The task which had baffled the energies of Eadwine and Offa, and had proved too hard for the valour of Eadward and the statesmanship of Dunstan, the task of uniting England finally into a single nation, was now to pass to other hands. \^Authi ters. Tl differ mu garded of a valu Cnut see rary biog publishec all matte He is, h( a laureati elaborate Danish ki by Mr. G ?R1TA the landi of its cor national order, 1 the varic effort of foiled by Wessex. statesme local ind suprema< lordship But whai rule mig Dane fn country ] Throui /Ethelre( mandy t( Denmarl kings fn n.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 63 give hthe CHAPTER II. ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 1013-ia04. Section I.— The Danish Kings. [Authorities. — We are still aided by the collections of royal laws and char- ters. The English Chronicle is here of great importance ; its various copies differ much in tone, &c., from one another, and may to some extent be re- garded as distinct works. Florence of Worcester is probably the translator of a valuable copy of the Chronicle which has disappeared. For the reign of Cnut see Green's "Conquest of England." The authority of the contempo- rary biographer of Eadward (in Luard's " Lives of Eadward the Confessor," published by the Master of the Rolls) is "primary," says Mr. Freeman, "for all matters strictly personal to the King and the whole family of Godwine. He is, however, very distinctly not an historian, but a biographer, sometimes a laureate." All modern accounts of this reign have been superseded by the elaborate history of Mr. Freeman ("Norman Conquest," vol. ii.) For the Danish kings and the House of Godwine, see the " Conquest of England," by Mr. Green.] Britain had become England in the five hundred years that followed the landing of Hengest, and its conquest had ended in the settlement of its conquerors, in their conversion to Christianity, in the birth of a national literature, of an imperfect civilization, of a rough political order. But through the whole of this earlier age every attempt to fuse the various tribes of conquerors into a single nation had failed. The effort of Northumbria to extend her rule over all England had been foiled by the resistance of Mercia ; that of Mercia by the resistance of Wessex. Wessex herself, even under the guidance of great kings and statesmen, had no sooner reduced the country to a seeming unity than local independence rose again at the call of the Danes. The tide of supremacy rolled in fact backwards and forwards ; now the South won lordship over the North, now the North won lordship over the South. But whatever titles kings might assume, or however imposing their rule might appear, Northumbrian remained apart from West-Saxon, Dane from Englishman. A common national sympathy held the country roughly together, but a real national union had yet to come. Through the two hundred years that lie between the flight of i^Lthelred from England to Normandy and that of John from Nor- mandy to England our story is a story of foreign rule. Kings from Denmark were succeeded by kings from Normandy, and these by kings from Anjou. Under Dane, Norman, or Angevin, Englishmen The foreign rule m 64 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. I. The Danish Kings 1013 TO 1042 »'f Our Danish were a subject race, .onquered and ruled by foreign masters ; and yet it was in these > ears of subjection that England first became really England. Provincial differences were crushed into national unity by the pressure of the stranger. The same pressure redressed the wrong which had been done to the fabric of national society by the degrada- tion of the free landowner at the close of the preceding age into a feudal dependent on his lord. The English lords themselves sank into a middle class as they were pushed from their place by the foreign baronage who settled on English soil ; and this change was accom- panied by a gradual elevation of the class of servile and semi-servile cultivators which gradually lifted them into almost complete freedom. The middle-class which was thus created was reinforced by the up- growth of a corresponding class in our towns. Commerce and trade were promoted by the justice and policy of the foreign kings ; and with their advance rose the political importance of the trader. The boroughs of England, which at the opening of this period were for the most part mere villages, were rich enough at its close to buy liberty frrm the Crown. Rights of self-government, of free speech, of common deliberation, which had passed from the people at large into the hands of its nobles, revived in the charters and councils of the towns. A moral revival followed hard on this political developement. The occu- pation of every see and abbacy by strangers who could only speak to their flocks in an unknown tongue had severed the higher clergy from the lower priesthood and the people ; but religion became a living thing as it passed to the people themselves, and hermit and friar carried spiritual life home to the heart of the nation at large. At the same time the close connexion with the Continent which foreign con- quest brought about secured for England a new communion with the artistic and intellectual life of the world without her. The old mental stagnation was broken up, and art and literature covered England with great buildings and busy schools. Time for this varied progress was gained by the long peace which England owed to the firm government of her Kings, while their political ability gave her adminis- trative order, and their judicial reforms built up the fabric of her law. In a word, it is to the stern discipline of these two hundred years that we owe not merely English wealth and ^ nglish freedom, but England itself. The first of our foreign masters was the Dane. The countries of Scandinavia which had so long been the mere starting-points of the pirate-bands who had ravaged England and Ireland had now settled down into comparative order. It was the aim of Swein to unite them in a great Scandinavian Empire, of which England should be the head ; and this project, interrupted for a time by his death, was resumed with yet greater vigour by his son Cnut. Fear of the Dane was still great in the land, and Cnut had no sooner appeared off the English coast than Wessex, Mercia, and Northumberland joined in owning him for their II.] lord, on th^ son Ei to struj victor realm. that tl little fil tenure but as necessc the arr Denmaj Danish or hus-< support secured oblitera blood sh( startling England the guil< govermr had give signal ; j side, whi by his r suddenly fell back owned n( and Engl Northum independ the rulers fied him£ The Chui but Cnut cause for bishop's costly gifi against tl in the sor " Merrily the vast near the 1 n.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 65 friar it the con- Ih the lental fland [gress firm linis- law. It we Itself, is of the kttled them lead ; Iwith lat in Ithan their lord, and in discarding again the rule of yEthelred, who had returned on the death of Swein. When yEthelred's death in 1016 raised his son Eadmund Ironside to the throne, th t loyalty of London enabled him to struggle bravely for a few months against the Danes ; but a decisive victory at Assandun and the death of his rival left Cnut master of the realm. Conqueror as he was, the Dane was no foreigner in the sense that the N6rman was a foreigner after him. His language differed little from the English tongue. He brought in no new system of tenure or government. Cnut ruled, in fact, not as a foreign conqueror but as a native king. The goodwill and tranquillity of England were necessary for the success of his larger schemes in the north, where the arms of his English subjects aided him in later years in uniting Denmark and Norway beneath his sway. Dismissing therefore his Danish " host,^' and retaining only a trained body of household troops or hus-carls to serve in sudden emergencies, Cnut boldly relied for support within his realm on the justice and good government he secured it. His aim during twenty years seems to have been to obliterate from men's minds the foreign character of his rule, and the bloodshed in which it had begun. The change in himself was as startling as the change in his policy. When he first appears in England, it is as the mere northman, passionate, revengeful, uniting the guile of the savage with his thirst for blood. His first acts of government were a series of murders. Eadric of Mercia, whose aid had given him the crown, was felled by an axe-blow at the King's signal ; a murder removed Eadwig, the brother of Eadmund Iron- side, while the children of Eadmund were hunted even into Hungary by his ruthless hate. But from a savage such as this Cnut rose suddenly into a wise and temperate king. Stranger as he was, he fell back on " Eadgar's law," on the old constitution of the realm, and owned no difference between conqueror and conquered, between Dane and Englishman. By the creation of four earldoms, those of Mercia, Northumberland, Wessex, and East Anglia, he recognized provincial independence, but he drew closer than of old the ties which bound the rulers of these great dependencies to the Crown. He even identi- fied himself with the patriotism which had withstood the stranger. The Church had been the centre of national resistance to the Dane, but Cnut sought above all its friendship. He paid homage to the cause for which iElfheah had died, by his translation of the Arch- bishop's body to Canterbury. He atoned for his father's ravages by costly gifts to the religious houses. He protected English pilgrims against the robber-lords of the Alps. His love for monks broke out in the song which he composed as he listened to their chant at Ely : " Merrily sang the monks in Ely when Cnut King rowed by " across the vast fen-waters that surrounded their abbey. " Row, boatmen, near the land, and hear we these monks sing." f Sec. I. The Danish Kings 1013 TO 1042 Cnut IO16-IO35 1' i nl i: '"'. , 66 HISTORY OF TIIK RNGUSH PEOPLE. [chap. n.l Six. I. Thk Danish Kings loia TO 104a Enfland at peace III Ciiut's letter from Rome to his English subjects marks the grandeur of his character and the noble conception he had formed of kingship. " I have vowed to God to lead a right life in all things," wrote the King, "to rule justly and piously my realms and subjects, and to administer just judgement to .ill. If heretofore I have done aught beyond what was just, through headiness or negligence of youth, I am ready with God's help to amend it utterly." No royal officer, either for fear of the King or for favour of any, is to consent to injustice, none is to do wrong to rich or poor " as they would value my friendship and their own well-being." He especially denounces unfair exactions : " I have no need that money be heaped together for me by unjust demarvds." " I have sent this letter before me," Cnut ends, " that all the people of my realm may rejoice in my well-doing ; for as you your- selves know, never have I spared nor will I spare to spend myself and my toil in what is needful and good for my people." Cnut's greatest gift to his people was that of peace. With him began the long internal tranquillity which was from this time to be the special note of our national history. During two hundred years, with the one terrible interval of the Norman Conquest, and the disturbance under Stephen, England alone among the kingdoms of Europe enjoyed unbroken repose. The wars of her Kings lay far from her shores, in France or Normandy, or, as with Cnut, in the more distant lands of the North. The stern justice of their government secured order within. The absence of internal discontent under Cnut, perhai>j too the exhaustion of the kingdom after the terrible Danish inroads, is proved by its quiet during his periods of absence. Every- thing witnesses to the growing wealth and prosperity of the country. A great part of English soil was indeed still utterly uncultivated. Wide reaches of land were covered with wood, thicket, and scrub ; or consisted of heaths and moor. In both the ea€t and the west there were vast tracts of marsh land ; fens nearly one hundred miles long severed East Anglia from the midland counties ; sites like that of Glastonbury or Athelney were almost inaccessible. The beaver still haunted marshy hollows such as those which lay about Beverley, the London craftsmen chased the wild boar and the wild ox in the woods of Hampstead, while wolves prowled round the homesteads of the North. But peace and the industry it encouraged were telling on this waste ; stag and wolf were retreating before the face of man, the farmer's axe was ringing in the forest, and villages were springing up in the clearings. The growth of commerce was seen in the rich trading-ports of the eastern coast. The main trade lay probably in skins and ropes and ship masts ; and above all in the iron and steel that the Scandinavian lands so long supplied to Britain. But Dane and Norwegian were traders over a yet wider field than the northern seas ; their barks entered the Mediterranean, while the overland rout^ throi "Wli dialo "bes and Rhin Than [chap. grandeur kingship, vrote the s, and to ne aught uth, I am er, either tice, none riendship xactions : by unjust " that all you your- [ly self and With him ime to be red years, i, and the igdoms of gs lay far mt, in the wernment ider Cnut, e Danish Every- country, ultivated. scrub ; or /est there liles long that of aver still erley, the he woods is of the g on this man, the ging up the rich ►bably in ,nd steel ut Dane orthern 4 rPUtQ "•1 ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. •r I through Russia brought the wares of Constantinople and the East. "What do you bring to us ?" the merchant is asked in an old English dialogue. " I bring skins, silks, costly gems, and gold," he answers, "besides various garments, pigment, wine, oil, and ivory, with brass, and copper, and tin, silver and gold, and such like." Men from the Rhineland and from Normandy, too, moored their vessels along the Thames, on whose rude wharves were piled a strange medley of goods : pepper and spices from the far East, crates of gloves and gray cloths, it may be from the Lombard looms, sacks of wool, iron-work from Lidge, butts of French wine and vinegar, and with them the rural products of the country itself— cheese, butter, lard, and eggs, with live swine and fowls. Cnut's one aim was to win the love of his people, and all tradition shows how v/onderful was his success. But the greatness of his rule hung solely on the greatness of his temper, and at his death the empire he had built up at once fell to pieces. Denmark and England, parted for a few years by the accession of his son Harald to the throne of the last, were re-united under a second son, Harthacnut ; but the love which Cnut's justice had won turned to hatred before the law- lessness of his successors. The long peace sickened men of this fresh outburst of bloodshed and violence. " Never was a bloodier deed done in the land since the Danes came," ran the popular song, when Harald's men seized ^Elfred, a brother of Eadmund Ironside, who had returned to England from Normandy. Every tenth man was killed, the rest sold for slaves, and -/Elfred himself blinded and left to die at Ely. Harthacnut, more savage even than his predecessor, dug up his brother's body and flung it into a marsh ; while a rising at Wor- cester against his hus-carls was punished by the burning of the town and the pillage of the shire. His death was no less brutal than his life ; " he died as he stood at his drink in the house of Osgod Clapa ai Lambeth." England wearied of kings like these : but their crimes helped her to free herself from the impossible dream of Cnut. The North, still more barbarous than herself, could give her no new element of progress or civilization. It was the consciousness of this and the hatred of such rulers as Harald and Harthacnut which co-operated with the old feeling of reverence for the past in calling back the line of /£lfred to the throne. Section II.— The BnffUsh Restoration, 104>fl— 1066. It is in such transitional moments of a nation's history that it needs the cool prudence, the sensitive selfishness, the quick perception of what is possible, which distinguished the adroit politician whom the death of Cnut left supreme in England. Godwine is memorable in our F 2 Skc. I. The Danish KlNUS 1013 TO 104a Fall of the Danish rule Harald 1035-1039 Harthacnut IO4O-IO42 GodwSne '.i| J i 68 TITSTORY OF THE ENGUSTI PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. II. Thk En<;i.ish Kr.STllKA- TION 104fl TO loee Badward the Con- fessor 1042- 1066 Fall of Oodwlne history as the first English statesman who was neither king nor priest. Originally of obscure origin, his ability had raised him high in the royal favour ; he was allied to Cnut by marriage, entrusted by him with the earlJom of Wcssex, and at last made Viceroy or justiciar iti the government of the realm. In the wars of Scandinavia he had shown courage and skill at the head of a body of English troops who supported Cnut, but his true field of action lay at home. Shrewd, eloquent, an active administrator, Godwine united vigilance, industry, and caution with a singular dexterity in the management of men. During the troubled years that followed the death of Cnut he had done his best to continue his master's policy in securing the internal union of England under a Danish sovereign and in preserving her con- nexion with the North. But at the death of Harthacnut Cnut's policy had become impossible, and abandoning the Danish cause Godwine drifted with the tide of popular feeling which called Eadward, the son of ^.thelred, to the throne. Eadward had lived from his youth in exile at the court of Normandy. A halo of tenderness spread in after-time round this last King of the old English stock ; legends told of his pious simplicity, his blitheness and gentleness of mood, the holiness that gained him his name of "Confessor" and enshrined him as a saint in his abbey-church at Westminster. Gleemen sang in manlier tones of the long peace and glories of his reign, how warriors and wise counsellors stood round his throne, and Welsh and Scot and Briton obeyed him. His was the one figure that stood out bright against the darkness when England lay trodden under foot by Norman conquerors ; and so dear became his memory that liberty and independence itself seemed incarnate in his name. Instead of freedom, the subjects f William or Henry called for the " good laws of Eadward the Confossor." But it was as a mere shadow of the past that the exile really returned to the throne of Alfred ; there was something shadow-like in the thin form, the delicate complexion, the transparent womanly hands that contrasted with the blue eyes and golden hair of his race ; and it is almost as a shadow that he glides over the political stage. The work of government was done by sterner hands. The King's weakness left Godwine master of the realm, and he ruled firmly and wisely. Abandoning with reluctance all interference in Scandinavian politics, he guarded England with a fleet which cruised along the coast. Within, though the earldoms still remained jealously independent, there were signs that a real political unity was being slowly brought about. It was rather within than without that Godwine's work had to be done, and that it was well done was proved by the peace of the land. Throughout Eadward's earlier reign England lay in the hands of its three earls, Siward of Northumbria, Leofric of Mercia, and Godwine of Wessex, and it seemed as if the old tendency to provincial separa- I tion wa severant or the a the king Thames secured lished ir came fr Leomins of her hi the realn return to the recor indignati branded father wr earldom. alone in King wa with the Norman He set N Strangers against C they vent But the Eadward tunity. I Boulogne train in ] foreigners when the the affron men. Ea widened i marched favourites support. forces to t London I with his Flanders. But the were God^ England s [CHAF. priest, in the )y him ciar iii \e had ps who hrewd, dustry, f men. id done i union ;r COP' 5 policy odwine rd, the mandy. f of the theness lame of urch at ice and und his the one and lay ime his e in his lied for a mere one of lelicate ith the shadow ;nt was aster of ictance with a ms still olitical n than as well n.] KNGLAND UNDER FOREIC.N KINGS. ^ tion was to triumph with the death of Cnut. What hindered this severance was the ambition of Godwinc. His whole mind seemed set or the aggrandizement of his family. He had given his daughter to the king as wife. His own earldom embraced all England south of Thames. His son Harold was Earl of East Anglia ; his son Swein secured an earldom in the west ; and his nephew Beorn was estab- lished in central England. But the first blow to Godwine's power came from the lawlessness of Swein. He seduced the abbess of Leominster, sent her home again with a yet more outrageous demand of her hand in marriage, and on the King's refusal to grant it fled from the realm. Godwine's influence secured his pardon, but on his very return to seek it Swein murdered his cousin Beorn, who had opposed the reconciliation. He again fled to Flanders, and a storm of national indignation followed him over sea. The meeting of the Wise Men branded him as "nithing," the " utterly worthless," yet in a year his father wrested a new pardon from the King and restored him to his earldom. The scandalous inlawing of such a criminal left Godwine alone in a struggle which soon arose with Eadward himself. The King was a stranger in his realm, and his sympathies lay naturally with the home and friends of his youth and exile. He spoke the Norman tongue. He used in Norman fashion a seal for his charters. He set Norman favourites in the highest posts of Church and State. Strangers such as these, though hostile to the minister, were powerless against Godwine's influence and ability, and when at a later time they ventured to stand alone against him they fell without a blow. But the general ill-will at Swein's inlawing enabled them to stir Eadward to attack the Earl. A trivial quarrel brought the oppor- tunity. On his return from a visit to the court Eustace Count of Boulogne, the husband of the King's sister, demanded quarters for his train in Dover. Strife arose, and many both of the burghers and foreigners were slain. All Godwine's better nature withstood Eadward when the King angrily bade him exact vengeance from the town for the affront to his kinsman ; and he claimed a fair trial for the towns- men. Eadward looked on his refusal as an outrage, and the quarrel widened into open strife. Godwine at once gathered his forces and marched upon Gloucester, demanding the expulsion of the foreign favourites ; but even in a just quarrel the country was cold in his support. The Earls of Mercia and Northumberland united their forces to those of Eadward ; and in a gathering of the Wise Men at London Swein's outlawry was renewed, while Ciodwine, declining with his usual prudence a useless struggle, withdrew over-sea to Flanders. But the wrath of the- nation was appeased by his fall. Great as were Godwine's faults, he was the one man who now stood between England and the rule of the strangers who flocked to ^ the Court ; and Sec. II. The 1''. stW.ISH Kl'.STOHA TION 104fl TO 1006 £xi7e of Godwine 105 1 I i'«i ii^ni m it v'.m 70 Sec. II. The English Restora- tion 1042 TO 1066 1052 Earl Harold 1053-1065 ii!| J' Death of EadTeard fen, 1066 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. a year had hardly passed when at the appearance of his fleet in the Thames Eadward was once more forced to yield. The foreign prelates and bishops fled over-sea, outlawed by the same meeting of the Wise Men which restored Godwine to his home. He returned only to die, and the direction of affairs passed quietly to his son. Harold came to power unfettered by the obstacles which had beset his father, and for twelve years he was the actual governor of the realm. The courage, the ability, the genius for administration, the ambition and subtlety of Godwine were found again in his son. In the internal government of England he followed out his father's policy while avoiding its excesses. Peace was preserved, justice adminis- tered, and the realm increased in wealth and prosperity. Its gold work and embroidery became famous in the markets of Flanders and France. Disturbances from without were crushed sternly and rapidly ; Harold's military talents displayed themselves in a campaign against Wales, and in the boldness and rapidity with which, arming his troops with weapons adapted for mountain conflict, he penetrated to the heart of its fastnesses and reduced the country to complete submission. But it was a prosperity poor in the nobler elements of national activity, and dead to the more vivid influences of spiritual life. Literature, which on the Continent was kindling into a new activity, died down in England into a few psalters and homilies. The few minsters raised by king or earls contrasted strangely with the religious en- thusiasm which was covering Normandy and the Rhineland with stately buildings. The Church sank into lethargy. Stigand, the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, was the adherent of an antipope, and the highest dignity of the English Church was kept in a state of suspension. No important ecclesiastical synod, no Church reform, broke the slumbers of its clergy. Abroad Europe was waking to a new revival of litera- ture, of art, of religion, but England was all but severed from the Con- tinent. Like Godwine, Harold's energy seemed to devote itself wholly to self-aggrandizement. With the gift of the Northumbrian earldom on Siward's death to Harold's brother Tostig,all England, save a small part of the older Mercia, lay in the hands of the house of (iodwine. As the childless Eadward drew to the grave his minister drew closer and closer to the throne. One obstacle after another was swept from his path. A rev olt of the Northumbrians drove Tostig, hi-s most dangerous opponent, to Flanders, and the Earl was able to win over the Mercian house of Leofric to his cause by owning Morkere, the brother of ths Mercian Earl Eadwine, as Tostig's successor. His aim was in fact attained without a struggle, and the nobles and bishops who were g.athered round the death-bed of the Confessor passed- quietly at once from it to the election and coronation of Harold. ii.J [chap. »et in the I prelates the Wise ily to die, had beset or of the ation, the >n. In the r's policy adminis- Its gold nders and i rapidly ; jn against his troops » the heart ibmission. al activity, Literature, died down r minsters igious en- land with the Arch- ,e highest ion. No slumbers of litera- the Con- elf wholly earldom e a small wine. As loser and from his langerous Mercian ler of ths its in fact ^ho were ly at once n.J ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 71 Section III.— Normandy and the Normans, 912—1066. [Authorities. — Dudo of S. Quentin, a verbose and confused writer, has pre- served the earliest Norman traditions. His work is abridged an ^ continued by William of Jumieges, a contemporary of the Conqueror, whose work forms the base of the " Roman de Rou, composed by Wace in the time of Henry the Second. The religious movement is best told by Ordericus Vitalis, a Norman writer of the twelfth century, gossiping and confused, but full of v.iluable uifor- mation. For Lanfranc see "Lanfranci Opera, ed. Giles," and the life in Hook's "Archbishops of Canterbury." For Anselm see the admirable biogra- phy by Dean Church. The general history of Normandy is told diffusely but picturesquely by Sir F. Palgrave, "Normandy and England," more accurately and succinctly by Mr. Freeman, " History of Norman Conquest," vols. i. and ii.] The quiet of Harold's accession was at once broken by news of danger from a land which, strange as it seemed then, was soon to become almost a part of England itself. A walk through Normandy teaches one more of the age of our history which we are about to traverse than all the books in the world. The story of the Conquest stands written in the stately vault of the minster at Caen which still covers the tomb of the Conqueror. The name of each hamlet by the roadside has its memories for English ears ; a fragment of castle wall marks the home of the Bruce, a tiny little village preserves the name of the Percy. The very look of the country and its people seem familiar to us ; the peasant in his cap and blouse recalls the build and features of the small English farmer ; the fields about Caen, with their dense hedgerows, their elms, their apple-orchards, are the very picture of an English country-side. On the windy heights around rise the square grey keeps which Normandy handed on to the cliffs of Richmond or the banks of Thames, while huge cathedrals lift themselves over the red-tiled roofs of little market towns, the models of the stately fabrics which superseded the lowlier churches of ^Elfred or Dunstan. Hrolf the Ganger, or Walker, a Norwegian and a pirate leader like Guthrum or Hasting, had wrested the land on either side the mouth of Seine from the French king, Charles the Simple, at the moment when Alfred's children were beginning their conquest of the English Danelaw. The treaty in which France purchased peace by this cession of the coast was a close imitation of the peace of Wed- more. Hrolf, like Guthrum, was baptized, received the king's daughter in marriage, and became his vassal for the territory which now took the name of " the Northman's land " or Normandy. But vassalage and the new faith sat alike lightly on the pirate. No such ties of blood and speech tended to unite the northman with the French among whom he settled along the Seine as united him to the Englishmen among Sec. III. Normandy AND THE Normans 912 TO 1066 Nor. mandy The Norman settle- ment Peace of Clairsur- F.pte 912 < I 11 ^ \ \ i t i'".! 72 \r HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. III. Normandy AND THE Normans 9ia TO 1066 i CWUisa. tion of ii Nor. I maady 945-996 Herlouiu Bee I Lanfranc at I i 'bcc \ 1045-1066 whom he settled along the Humber. William Longsword, the son of Hrolf, though waver^g towards France and Christianity, remained a northman in heart ; he called in a Danish colony to occupy his conquest of the Cotentin, the peninsula which runs out from St. Michael's Mount to the cliffs of Cherbourg, and reared his boy among the northmen of Bayeux, where the Danish tongue and fashions most stubbornly held their own. A heathen reaction followed his death, and the bulk of the Normans, with the child Duke Richard, fell away for the time from Christianity, while new pirate-fleets came swarm- ing up the Seine. To the close of the century the whole people are still " Pirates " to the French around them, their land the " Pirates' land," their Duke the " Pirates' Duke." Yet in the end the same forces which merged the Dane in the Englishman told even more powerfully on the Dane in France. No race has ever shown a greater power of absorbing all the nobler characteristics of the peoples with whom they came in contact, or of infusing their own energy into them. During the long reign of Duke Richard the Fearless, the son of William Longsword, heathen Nor- man pirates became French Christians, and feudal at heart. The old Norse language lived only at Bayeux, and in a few local iLimes. As the old northern freedom died silently away, the descendants of the pirates became feudal nobles, and the " Pirates' land " sank into the most loyal of the fiefs of France. The change of manners was accom- panied by a change of faith, a change which bound the land where heathendom had fought stubbornly for life to the cause of Christianity and the Church. The Dukes were the first to be touched by the new faith, but as the religious movement spread to the people it was wel- comed with an almost passionate fanaticism. Every road was crowded with pilgrims. Monasteries rose in every forest glade. Herlouin, a knight of Brionne, sought shelter from the world in a little valley edged in with woods of ash and elm, through which a beck or rivulet (to which his house owed its after-name) runs down to the Risle. He was one day busy building ;in oven with his own hands when a stranger greeted him with " God save you ! " ** Are yoii a Lombard ? " asked the knight- abbot, struck with the foreign look of the man. " I am," he replied : and praying to be made a monk, the stranger fell down at the mouth of the oven and kissed Herlouin's feet. The Lombard was Lanfranc of Pavia, a scholar especially skilled in the traditions of the Roman law, who had wandered across the Alps to found a school at Avra nches, and was now drawn to a religious life by the fame of Herlouin's sanctity. The religious impulse was a real one, but Lanfranc was destined to be known rather as a great administrator and statesman than as a saint. His teaching raised Bee in a few years into the most famous school of Christendom : it was in fact the first wave of the intel- lectual movement which was spreading from Italy to the ruder [chap. the son smained :upy his from St. f among ns most s death, ell away ! swarm- ople are 'Pirates' le in the ;e. No e nobler LCt, or of of Duke len Nor- •t. The il names. Its of the into the s accom- id where ristianity the new vas wel- crowded rlouin, a ;y edged o which Iwas one [ greeted knight- |:eplied : louth of Ifranc of ^an law, les, and lanctity. Id to be saint. Ifamous intel- ruder II.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 73 I countries of the West. The whole mental activity of the time seemed concentrated in the group of scholars who gathered round him ; the fabric of the canon law and of mediaeval scholasticism, with the philo- sophical scepticism which first awoke under its influence, all trace their origin to Bee. The most famous of these scholars was Anselm of Aosta, an Italian like Lanfranc himself, and who was soon to succeed him as Prior and teacher at Bee. Friends as they were, no two men could be more strangely unlike. Anselm had grown to manhood in the quiet solitude of his mountain-valley, a tender-ncarted poet-dreamer, with a soul pure as the Alpine snows -^bove him, and an intelligence keen and clear as the mountain air. The whole temper of the man was painted in a dream of his youth. It seemed to him as though heaven lay, a stately palace, amid the gleaming hill-peaks, while the women reaping in the corn-fields of the valley became harvest-maidens of its heavenly King. They reaped idly, and Anselm, grieved at their sloth, hastily climbed the mountain-side to accuse them to their lord. As he reached the palace the King's voice called him to his feet, and he poured forth his tale ; then at the royal bidding bread of an unearthly whiteness was set before him, and he ate and was refreshed. The dream passed with the morning ; but the sense of heaven's nearness to earth, the fervid loyalty to the service of his Lord, the tender restfulness and peace in the Divine presence which it reflected became the life of Anselm. Wandering like other Italian scholars to Normandy, he became a monk under Lanfranc, and op his teacher's removal to higher duties succeeded him in the direction of the Abbey of Bee. No teacher has ever thrown a greater spirit of love into his toil. " Force your scholars to improve ! " he burst out to another teacher who relied on blows and compulsion " Did you ever see a craftsman fashion a fair image out of a golden plate by blows alone ? Does he not now gently press it and strike it with his tools, now with wise art yet more gently raise and shape it ? What do your scholars turn into under this ceaseless beating?" "They turn only brutal," was the reply. " You have bad luck," was the keen answer, " in a training that only turns men into beasts." The worst natures softened before this ten- derness and patience. Even the Conqueror, so harsh and terrible to others, became another man, gracious and easy of speech, with Anselm. But amidst his absorbing cares as a teacher, the Prior of Bee found time for philosophical speculations, to which we owe the great scientific inquiries which built up the theology of the middle ages. His famous works were the first attempts of any Christian thinker to elicit the idea of God from the very nature of the human reason. His passion for abstruse thought robbed him of food and sleep. Sometimes he could hardly pray. Often the night was a long watch till he could seizo his Sec. III. Normandy AND THE Normans TO 1066 Anselm I i! 1060 i ^ A Im { n v>? L-W -t' 74 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. I , Sec. IV. i The i Conqueror io4a !; TO 1066 ijii The Con- •i qaestB of ji the Nor- mans William of Nor- mandy conception and write it on the wax tablets which lay beside him. But not even a fever of intense thought such as this could draw Anselm's heart from its passionate tenderness and love. Sick monks in the infirmary could relish no drink save the juice which his hand had squeezed for them from the grape-bunch. In the later days of his archbishoprick a hare chased by the hounds took refuge under his horse, and his voice grew loud as he forbade a huntsman to stir in the chase while the creature darted off again to the woods. Even the greed of lands for the Church to which so many religious men yielded found its characteristic rebuke, as the battling lawyers saw Anselm quietly close his eyes in court and go peacefully to sleep. Section IV.— The Conqueror, 104fl— 1066. [Authorities. — Primarily the **Gesta Willelmi" of his chaplain, William of Poitiers, a violent partizan of the Duke. William of Jumi^ges is here a contem- porary, and of great value. Orderic and Wace, with the other riming chronicle of Benoit de Sainte-More, come in the second place. For the invasion and Senlac we have, in addition, the contemporary '* Carmen de Bello Hastingensi," by Guy, Bishop of Amiens, and the invaluable pictures of the Bayeux Tapestry. The English accounts are most meagre. The invasion and battle of Senlac are the subject of Mr. Freeman's third volume {'* Hist, of Norman Conquest ").] It was not this new fervour of faith only which drove Norman pilgrims in flocks to the shrines of Italy and the Holy Land. The old northern spirit of adventure turned the pilgrims into Crusaders, and the flower of N orman knighthood, impatient of the stern rule of their Dukes, followed Roger de Toesny against the Moslem of Spain, or enlisted under the banner of the Greeks in their war with the Arabs who had conquered Sicily. The Normans became conquerors under Robert Guiscard, a knight who had left his home in the Cotentin with a single follower, but whose valour and wisdom soon placed him at the head of his fellow-soldiers in Italy. Attacking the Greeks, whom they had hitherto served, the Norman knights wrested Apulia from them in an overthrow at Cannae, Guiscard himself led them to the conquest of Calabria and the great trading cities of the coast, while thirty years ot warfare gave Sicily to the followers of his brother Roger. The two conquests were united under a line of princes to whose munificence art owes the splendour of Palermo and Monreale, and literature the first outburst of Italian song. Normandy, still seething with vigorous life, was stirred to greed and enterprize by this plunder of the South, and the rumour of Guiscard's exploits roused into more ardent life the daring ambition of its Duke. William the Great, as men of his own day styled him, William the Conqueror, as by one event he stamped himself on our history was now Duke of Normandy. The full grandeur of his indomitable will. hisl out! Buf [chap. n. But inselm's 5 in the ind had s of his ider his Ir in the ven the yielded Anselm /illiam of I contem- chronicle asion and tingensi," Tapestry, of Senlac quest").] [Norman The old ers, and of their pain, or e Arabs s under tin with n at the )m they them in ^uest of rears ol 'he two jnce art :he first )us life, th, and ife the im the ry was |le will, n.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 75 his large and patient statesmanship, the loftiness of aim which lifts him out of the petty incidents of his age, were as yet only partly disclosed. But there never was a moment from his boyhood when he was not among the greatest of men. His life was one long mastering of diffi- culty after difficulty. The shame of his birth remained in his name of "the Bastard." His father, Duke Robert, had seen Arlotta, the daughter of a tanner of the town, washing her linen in the little brook by Falaise, and loving her had made her the mother of his boy. Robert's departure on a pilgrimage from which he never returned left William a child-ruler among the most turbulent baronage in Christen- dom, and treason and anarchy surrounded him as he grew to manhood. Disorder broke at last into open revolt. Surprised in his hunting-seat at Valognes by the rising of the Bessin and Cotentin districts, in which the pirate temper and lawlessness lingered longest, William had only time to dash through the fords of Vire with the rebels on his track. A fierce combat of horse on the slopes of Val-fes-dunes, to the south-east- ward of Caen, left him master of the duchy, and the old Scandinavian Normandy yielded for ever to the new civilization which streamed in with French alliances and the French tongue. William was himself a type of the transition. In the young duke's character the old world mingled strangely with the new, the pirate jostled roughly with the statesman. William was the most terrible, as he was the last outcome of the northern race. The very spirit of the " sea-wolves " who had so long "lived on the pillage of the world" seemed embodied in his gigantic form, his enormous strength, his savage countenance, his desperate bravery, the fury of his wrath, the ruthlessness of his revenge. " No knight under heaven," his enemies confessed, " was William's peer." Boy as he was, horse and man went down before his lance at Val-es- dunes. All the fierce gaiety of his nature broke out in the chivalrous adventures of his youth, in his rout of fifteen Angevins with but five soldiers at his back, in his defiant ride over the ground which Geoffry Martel claimed from him, a ride with hawk on fist as though war and the chase were one. No man could bend his bow. His mace crashed its way through a ring of English warriors to the foot of the Standard. He rose to his greatest heights in moments when other men despaired. His voice rang out like a trumpet to rally his soldiers as they fled before the English charge at Senlac. In his winter march on Chester he strode afoot at the head of his fainting troops, and helped with his own hands to clear a road through the snowdrifts. With the north- man's daring broke out the northman's pitilessness. When the towns- men of Alen^on hung raw hides along their walls in scorn of the baseness of his birth, with cries of " Work for the Tanner ! " William tore out his prisoners' eyes, cut off their hands and feet, and flung them into the town. At the close of his greatest victory he refused Harold's body a grave. Hundreds of Hampshire men were driven from their Sec. IV. The Conqueror 1049 TO 1066 1027 103s 1047 A I'i*. ' 11 M 76 Sec. IV. I The Conqueror io4>a TO loee IWilliam I and I France 1054 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. ii.l homes to make him a hunting-ground, and his harrying of Northunv bria left the north of England a desolate waste. Tliere is a grim, ruth- less ring about his very jests. In his old age Philip of France mocked at the Conqueror's unwieldy bulk and at the sickness which confined him to his bed at Rouen. " King William has as long a lying-in," laughed his enemy, " cs a woman behind her curtains ! " " When I get up," swore William, " I will go to mass in Philip's land, and bring a rich offering for my churching. I will offer a thousand candles for my fee. Flaming brands shall they be, and steel shall glitter over the fire they make." At harvest-tide town and hamlet flaring into ashes along the French border fulfilled the Conqueror's vow. There is the same savage temper in the loneliness of his life. He recked little of men's love or hate. His grim look, his pride, his silence, his wild out- bursts of passion, spread terror through his court. " So stark and fierce was he," says the English Chronicler, " that none dared resist his will." His graciousness to Anselm only brought out into stronger relief the general harshness of his tone. His very wrath was solitary. " To no man spake he, and no man dared speak to him," when the news reached him of Harold's accession to the throne. It was only when he passed from the palace to the loneliness of the woods that the King's temper unbent. " He loved the wild deer as though he had been their father. Whosoever should slay hart or hind man should blind him." Death itself took its colour from the savage soli- tude of his life. Priests and nobles fled as the last breath left him, and the Conqueror's body Uy naked and lonely on the floor. It was the genius of William which lifted him out of this mere north- man into a great general and a great statesman. The growth of the Norman power was jealously watched by Geoffry Martel, the Count of Anjou, and his influence succeeded in converting France from friend to foe. The danger changed William at once from the chivalrous knight- errant of Val-es-dunes into a wary strategist. As the French army crossed the border he hung cautiously on its flanks, till a division which had encamped in the little town of Mortemer had been surprised and cut to pieces by his soldiers. A second division was still held at bay by the duke himself, when Ralph de Toesny, climbing up into a tree, shouted to them the news of their comrades' fall. " Up, up, Frenchmen ! you sleep too long : go bury your friends that lie slain at Mortemer." A second and more formidable invasion four years later was met with the same cautious strategy. William hung on the '' renchmen's flank, looking coolly on while town and abbey were plundered, the Bessin ravaged, Caen sacked, and *lie invaders pre- pared to cross the Dive at Varaville and carry fire and sword into the rich land of Lisieux. But only half the army was over the river when the Duke fell suddenly upon its rear. The fight raged till the rising of the tide cut the French forces, as William had foreseen, hopelessly in n.l ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 77 n up, >lain two. Huddled together on a narrow causeway, swept by the Norman arrows, knights, footmen, and baggage train were involved in the same ruin. Not a man escaped, and the French king, who had been forced to look on helplessly from the opposite bank, fled home to die. The death of Geoffry Martel left William without a rival among the princes of France. Maine, the border land between Norman and Angevin, and which had for the last ten years been held by Anjou, submitted without a struggle to his rule. Britanny, which had joined the league of his foes, was reduced to submission by a single march. All this activity abroad was far from distracting the Duke's attention from Normandv itself. It was hard to secure peace and order in a land filled with turbulent robber-lords. "The Normans must be trodden down and kept under foot," said one of their poets, " for he only who bridles them may use them at his need." William " could never love a robber." His stern protection of trader and peasant roused the baronage through his first ten years to incessant revolt. His very kinsfolk headed the discontent, and summoned the French king to their aid. But the victories of Mortemer and Varaville left the rebels at his mercy. Some rotted in his dungeons, some were driven into exile, and joined the conquerors of Apulia and Sicily. The land settled down into peace and order, and William turned to the reform of the Church. Malger, the Archbishop of Rouen, a mere hunting and feasting prelate, was summarily deposed, and his place filled by Maurilius, a French ecclesiastic of piety and learning. Frequent councils under the Duke's guidance amended the morals of the clergy. The school of Bee, as we have seen, had become a centre of educa- tion ; and William, with the keen insight into men which formed so marked a feature in his genius, selected its prior as his chief adviser. In a strife with the Papacy which the Duke had provoked by his marriage with Matilda of Flanders, Lanfranc took the side of Rome, and his opposition had been punished by a sentence of banishment. The Prior set out on a lame horse, the only one his house could afford, and was overtaken by the Duke, impatient that he should quit Nor- mandy. " Give me a better horse and I shall go the quicker," replied the imperturbable Lombard, and the Duke's wrath passed into laughter and good-will. From that hour Lanfranc became his minister and counsellor, whether for affairs in the duchy itself or for the more daring schemes of ambition which were opened up to him by the position of England. For half a century the two countries had been drawing nearer together. At the close of the reign of Richard the Fearless the Danish descents upon the English coast had found support in Nor- mandy, and their fleet had wintered in her ports. It was to revenge these attacks that iEthelred had despatched a fleet across the Channel Sec. IV. The conqueroi • 1042 TO loae 1060 t :v1 WiUiMD and Nof^ muidj t v^, ■Mr> J \M I Bnffluul and the Nor- mals •I -'i Hi fl /.' ! 1 1. ' t- i< !4 ■1 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. 105 1 1066 Th« ere of the ■trovvle to ravage the Cotentin, but the fleet was repulsed, and the strife appeased by iEthelred's marriage with Emma, a sister of Richard the Good, ^thelred with his children found shelter in Normandy from the Danish kings, and, if Norman accounts are to be trusted, contrary winds alone prevented a Norman fleet from undertaking their restora- tion. The peaceful recall of Eadward to the throne seemed to open England to Norman ambition, and Godwine was no sooner banished than Duke William appeared at the English court, and received, as he afterwards asserted, a promise of succession to its throne from the King. Such a promise, unconfirmed by the national assembly of the Wise Men, was utterly valueless, and for the moment Godwine's recall put an end to William's hopes. They are said to have been revived by a storm which threw Harold, while cruising in the Channel, on the French coast, and William forced him to swear on the relics of saints to support the Duke's claim as the price of his own return to England : but the news of the King's death was at once followed by that of Harold's accession, and after a burst of furious passion the Duke prepared to enforce his claim by arms. Wi!liaiu did not claim the Crown. He claimed simply the right which he afterwards used when his sword had won it, of presenting himself for election by the nation, and he believed himself entitled so to present himself by the direct commendation of the Confessor. The actual election of Harold which stood in his v/ay, hurried as it was, he did not recognize as valid. But with this constitutional claim was inextricably mingled his resentment at the private wrong which Harold had done him, and a resolve to exact vengeance on the man whom he regarded as untrue to his oath. The difiiculties in the way of his enterprise were indeed enormous. He could reckon on no support within England itself. At home he had to extort the consent of his own reluctant baronage ; to gather a motley host from every quarter of France, and to keep it together for months ; to create a fleet, to cut down the very trees, to build, to launch, to man the vessels ; and to find time amidst all this for the common business of government, for negotiations with Denmark and the Empire, with France, Britanny, and Anjou, with Flanders and with Rome. His rival's difficulties were hardly less than his own. Harold was threatened with invasion not only by William but by his brother Tostig, who had taken refuge in Norway and secured the aid of its king, Harald Hardrada. The fleet and army he had gathered lay watching for months along the coast. His one standing force was his body of hus-carls, but their numbers only enabled them to act as the nucleus of an army. On the other hand the Land-fyrd, or general levy of fighting-men, was a b^dy easy to raise for any single encounter, but hard to keep together. To assemble such a force was to bring labour to a standstill. The men gathered under the King's standard were the 11.] farmei vessel becam the tw the re Willia flung Kingh invade bourhc host hi off"Pev ment. drawin to atta( he was himself Willian as that His pos forces. starve or ruin. Along men in I It was fi gathered of Senla exposed men in : Golden '. the grou flocked J against 1 Norman France i charge Taillefer chaunte< a blow, i stout sto with fier was folk the Duk %ht tha II.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 79 \ous. le he farmers and ploughmen of their fields. The ships were the fishing- vessels of the coast. In September the task of holding them together became impossible, but their dispersion had hardly taken place when the two clouds which had so long been gathering burst at once upon the realm. A change of wind released the landlocked armament of William ; but before changing, the wind which prisoned the Duke had flung the host of Harald Hardrada on the coast of Yorkshire. The King hastened with his household troops to the north, and repulsed the invaders in a decisive overthrow at Stamford Bridge, in the neigh- bourhood of York ; but ere he could hurry back to London the Norman host had crossed the sea, and William, who had anchored on the 28th off Pevensey, was ravaging the coast to bring his rival to an engage- ment. His merciless ravages succeeded, as they were intended, in drawing Harold from London to the south ; but the King wisely refused to attack with the forces he had hastily summoned to his banner. If he was forced to give battle, he resolved to give it on ground he had himself chosen, and advancing near enough to the coast to check William's ravages, he entrenched himself on a hill known afterwards as that of Senlac, a low spur of the Sussex Downs near Hastings. His position covered London, and drove William to concentrate his forces. With a host subsisting by pillage, to concentrate is to starve ; and no alternative was left to William but a decisive victory or ruin. Along tue higher ground that leads from Hastings the Duke led his men in the dim dawn of an October morning to the mound of Telham. It was from this point that the Normans saw the host of the English gathered thickly behind a rough trench and a stockade on the height of Senlac. Marshy ground covered their right ; on the left, the most exposed part of the position, the hus-carls or body-guard of Harold, men in full armour and wielding huge axes, were grouped round the Golden Dragon of Wessex and the Standard of the King. The rest of the ground was covered by thick masses of half-armed rustics who had flocked at Harold's summons to the fight with the stranger. It was against the centre of this formidable position that William arrayed his Norman knighthood, while the mercenary forces he had gathered in France and Britanny were ordered to attack its flanks. A general charge of the Norman foot opened the battle ; in front rode the minstrel Taillefer, tossing his sword in the air and catching it again while he chaunted the song of Roland. He was the first of the host who struck a blow, and he was the first to fall. The charge broke vainly on the stout stockade behind which the English warriors plied axe and javelin with fierce cries of " Out, out," and the repulse of the Norman footmen was followed by a repulse of the Norman horse. Again and again the Duke rallied and led them to the fatal stockade. All t! e fury of fight that glowed in his Norseman's blood, all the headlong valour . ' Sec. IV. The Conqueror ) 104fl f TO i loee f 1066 i Sep. 28 1066 ii BatU* of I ••nlao Oct. 14 \''. t'lH > So HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. n.l Sec. IV. The Conqueror 104a TO loee William becomes King that had spurred him over the slopes of Val-ds-dunes, mingled that day with the coolness of head, the dogged perseverance, the inex- haustible faculty of resource which had shone at Mortemer and Vara- ville. His Breton troops, entangled in the marshy ground on his left, broke in disorder, and as panic spread through the army a cry arose that the Duke was slain. " I live," shouted William, as he tore off his helmet, " and by God's help will conquer yet." Maddened by repulse, the Duke spurred right at the Standard ; unhorsed, his terrible mace struck down Gyrth, the King's brother; again dismounted, a blow from his hand hurled to the ground an unmannerly rider who would not lend him his steed. Amidst the roar and tumult of the battle he turned the flight he had arrested into the means of victory. Broken as the stockade was by his desperate onset, the shield-wall of the warriors behind it still held the Normans at bay till William by a feint of flight drew a part of the English force from their post of vantage. Turning on his disorderly pursuers, the Duke cut them to pieces, broke through the abandoned line, and made himself master of the central ground. Meanwhile the French and Bretons made good their ascent on either flank. At three the hill seemed won, at six the fight still raged around the Standard, where Harold's hus-carls stood stubbornly at bay on a spot marked afterwards by the high altar of Battle Abbey. An order from the Duke at last brought his archers to the front, and their arrow-flight told heavily on the dense masses crowded around the King. As the sun went down a shaft pierced Harold's right eye ; he fell between the royal ensigns, and the battle closed with a desperate melly over his corpse. While night covered the flight of the English, the Conqueror pitched his tent on the very spot where his rival had fallen, and " sate down to eat and drink among the dead." Securing Romney and Dover, the Duke marched by Canterbury upon London. Faction and intrigue were doing his work for him as he advanced. Harold's brothers had fallen with the King on the field of Senlac, and there was none of the house of Godwine to contest the crown ; while of the old royal line there remained but a single boy, Eadgar the y^theling, son of the eldest of Eadmund Ironside's children, who had fled before Cnut's persecution as far as Hungary for shelter. Boy as he was, he was chosen king ; but the choice gave little strength to the national cause. The widow of the Confessor surrendered Winchester to the Duke. T he bishops gathered at London inclined to submission. The citizens themselves faltered as William, passing by their walls, gave Southwark to the flames. The throne of the boy-king really rested for support on the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, Eadwine and Morkere ; and William, crossing the Thames at Walling- ford and marching into Hertfordshire, threatened to cut them off from their earldoms. The masterly movement brought about an instant submi] Londc head Duke. " for nl Dane, I indeedl into thl a lawfil of Arc] Englislj resistai tion e> ruling greater hardly or the stretch* and ov were ke The pri remains archives though i adminis tranquil when W of Bayei to Norn valuable mary Enj of the 141 settlemen its chief i northern combinat described and Sel( gives son Mr. Free It is r his retui queror." n.] ENGLAND UNDKR lOkKKlX KINGS. submission. Eadwine and Morkere retreated hastily i.Duie from London, and the city gave way at once. Eadgar himself was at the head of the deputation who came to offer the crown to the Norman Duke. "They bowed to him," says the English annalist pathetically, " for need." They bowed to the Norman as they had bowed to the Dane, and William accepted the crown in the spirit of Cnut. London indeed was secured by the erection of a fortress which afterwards grew into the Tower, but William desired to reign not as a conqueror but as ' a lawful king. He received the crown at Westminster from the hands of Archbishop Ealdred, amidst shouts of " Yea, Yea," from his new English subjects. Fines from the greater landowners atoned for a resistance which was now counted as rebellion ; but with this excep- tion every measure of the new sovereign indicated his desire of ruling as a successor of Eadward or i^ilfred. As yet indeed the greater part of England remained quietly aloof from him, and he can hardly be said to have been recognized as king by Northumberland or the greater part of Mercia. But to the east of a line which stretched from Norwich to Dorsetshire his rule was unquestioned, and over this portion he ruled as an English king. His soldiers were kept in strict order. No change was made in law or custom. The privileges of London were recognized by a royal writ which still remains, the most venerable of its muniments, among the city's archives. Peace and order were restored. William even attempted, though in vain, to learn the English tongue that he might personally administer justice to the suitors in his court. The kingdom seemed so tranquil that only a few months had passed after the battle of Senlac when William, leaving England in charge of his brother, Odo Bishop of Bayeux, and his minister, William Fitz-Osbern, returned for a while to Normandy. , Section v.— The Norman Conquest, 1068— 1071. [Authorities. — The Norman writers as before, Orderic being particularly valuable and detailed. The Chronicle md Florence of Worcester are the pri- mary English authorities (for the so-caued " Ingulf of Croyland" is a forgery of the 14th century). Domesday Book is of course indispensable for the Norman settlement ; the introduction to it by Sir Henry Ellis gives a brief account of its chief results. Among secondary authorities Simeon of Durham is useful for northern matters, and William of Malmesbury valuable from his remarkable combination of Norman and English feeling. The Norman Constitution is described at length by Lingard, but best studied in the Constitutional History and Select Charters of Dr. Stubbs. The "Anglia Judaica" of Toovey gives some account of the Jewish colonies. Foi the history as a whole, see Mr. Freeman's "Norma* Conquest," vol. iv.] It is not to his victory at Senlac, but to the struggle which followed his return from Normandy, that William owes his tit^e of the " Con- queror." During his absence Bishop Odo's tyranny had forced the c; 8r Sel. IV. The j CuNQLEROK ^ 104fl I TO T loee 4 C/in's/f/fiit 1066 r I f I The national revolt 82 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. II.] Sec. V. The Norman Conquest loea TO 1071 1068 Kentishmen to seek aid from Count Eustace of Boulogne ; while the Welsh princes supported a similar rising against Norman oppression in the west. Hut as yet the bulk of the land held fairly to the new king. Dover was saved from Eustace ; and the discontented fled over sea to seek refuge in lands as far off as Constantinople, where English- men from this time formed great part of the body-guard or Varangians of the Eastern Emperors. William returned to take his place again as an English King. It was with an English force that he subdued a rising in the nouth-west led by Exeter, and it was at the head of an English army that he completed his work by marching to the North. His march brought Eadwine and Morkere again to submission ; a fresh rising ended in the occupation of York, and England as far as the Tees lay quietly at William's feet. It was in fact only the national revolt of 1068 that transformed the King into a Conqueror. The signal for this revolt came from without. Swein, the king of Denmark, had for two years been preparing to dispute England with the Norman, and on the appearance of his fleet in the Humber all northern, all western and south-western England rose as one man. Eadgar the iEtheling with a band of exiles who had taken refuge in Scotland took the head of the Northumbrian revolt ; in the south-west the men of Devon, Somerset, and Dorset gathered to the sieges of Exeter and Montacute ; while a new Norman castle at Shrewsbury alone bridled a rising in the west. So ably had the revolt been planned that even William was taken by surprise. The news of the loss of York and of the slaughter of three thousand Normans who formed its garrison reached him as he was hunting in the Forest of Dean ; and in a wild outburst of wrath the king swore " by the splendour of God " to avenge himself on the North. But wrath went hand in hand with the coolest statesmanship. WilHam saw clearly that the cenlie of resistance lay in the Danish fleet, and pushing rapidly to the Hximber with a handful of horsemen, he purchased by a heavy bribe its inactivity and withdrawal. Then leaving York to the last, William turned rapidly westward with the troops which gathered round him, and swept the Welsh border as far as Shrewsbury, while William Fitz-Osbern broke the rising round Exeter. His success set the king free to fulfil his oath of vengeance on the North. After a long delay before the flooded waters of the Aire he entered York, and ravaged the whole country as far as the Tees with fire and sword. Town and village were harried and burnt, their inhabitants slain or driven over the Scotch border. The coast was especially wasted that no hold might remain for any future invasion of the Danes. Harvest, cattle, the very implements of husbandry were so mercilessly destroyed that the famine which followed is said to have swept off" more than a hundred thousand victims, and half a century later the land still lay bare of cultire and. deserted of men for sixty miles northward of York. The crown. [chap. lile the ression le new ed over Inglish- ingians i again ubdued e head to the lission ; ,s far as ned the without, eparing z of his England lies who ambrian Dorset Norman ibly had surprise, lousand inting in [g swore Lit wrath clearly pushing ed by a to the athered y, while Icess set r a long |rk, and sword, ilain or ed that arvest, stroyed than a |still lay if York. II.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 83 The work of vengeance was no sooner over than William led his army back from the Tees to York, and thence lo Chester and the West. Never had he shown the grandeur of his character so memor- ably as in this terrible march. The winter was severe, the roads choked with snowdrifts or broken by torrents ; provisions failed, and the army, drenched with rain and forced to consume its horses for food, broke out into open mutiny at the order to advance across the bleak moorlands that part Yorkshire from the West. The merce naries from Anjou and Britanny demanded their release from service, and William granted their prayer with scorn. On foot, at the head of the troops which remained faithful, the King forced his way by paths inaccessible to horses, often aiding his men with his own hands to clear the road. The last hopes of the Eiiglish ceased on his arrival at Chester ; the King remained undisputed master of the conquered country, and busied himself in the erection of numerous castles which were henceforth to hold it in subjection. Two years passed quietly ere the last act of the conquest was reached. By the withdrawal of the Dane the hopes of England rested wholly on the aid it looked for from Scotland, where 1 adgar the iCtheling had taken refuge, and where his sister Margaret had become the wife of King Malcolm. It was probably some assurance of Malcolm's aid which roused Eadwine and Morkere to a new revolt, which was at once foiled by the vigilance of the Conqueror. Eadwine fell in an obscure skirmish, while Morkere found refuge for a time in the marshes of the eastern counties, where a desperate band of patriots gathered round an outlawed leader, Hereward. Nowhere had William found so stubborn a resistance ; but a causeway two miles long was at last driven across the fens, and the last hopes of English freedom died in the surrender of Ely. Malcolm alone held out till the Conqueror summoned the whole host of the crown, and crossing the Lowlands and the Forth penetrated into the heart of Scotland. He had reached the Tay when the king's resistance gave way, and Malcolm appeared in the English camp and swore fealty at William' s feet. The struggle which ended in the fens of Ely had wholly changed William's position. He no longer held the land merely as elected king, he added to his elective right the right of conquest. The system of government which he originated was, in fact, the result of the double character of his power. It represented neither the purely feudal system of the Continent nor the system of the older English royalty. More truly perhaps it may be said to have represented both. As the successor of Eadward, William retained the judicial and administrative organization of the older English realm. As the conqueror of England he introduced the military organization of feudalism so far as was necessary for the secure possession of his conquests. The ground was already prepared for such an organization ; we lujve seen the G 2 Sec. V. Thk Norman CONyUKST loea TO 1071 Last struggle of the English 107 1 WilUam and Feudal- ism \ V iir 84 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. II.] Sec. V. The Norman Conquest 1068 TO 1071 I beginnings of English feudalism in the warriors, the " connpanions " or " thegns " who were personally attached to the king's war-band, and received estates from the folk-land in reward for their personal services. In later times this feudal distribution of estates had greatly increased, as the bulk of the nobles followed the king's example and bound their tenants to themselves by a similar process of subin- feudation- On the other hand, the pure freeholders, the class which formed the basis of the original English society, had been gradually reduced in number, partly through imitation of the class above them, but still more through the incessant wars and invasions which drove them to seek protectors among the thegns at the cost of their indepen- dence. Feudalism, in fact, was superseding the older freedom in England even before the reign of William, as it had already superseded it in Germany or France. But the tendency was quickened and inten- sified by the Conquest ; the desperate and universal resistance of his English subjects forced William to hold by the swoj d what the sword had won, and an army strong enough to crush at any moment a national revolt was necessary for the preservation of his throne. Such an army could only be maintained by a vast confiscation of the soil. The failure of the English risings cleared the way rbr its establish- ment ; the greater part of the higher nobility fell in battle or fled into exile, while the lower thegnhood either forfeited the whole of their lands or redeemed a portion of them by the surrendei- of the rest. W^e see the completeness of the confiscation in the vast estates which William was enabled to grant to his more powerful followers. Two hundred manors in Kent, with an equal number elsewhere, rewarded the services of his brother Cdo. and grants almost as large fell to William's counsellors, Fitz-Osbern and Montgomery, or to barons like the Mc'vbrays and the Clares. But the poorest soldier of fortune found his part in the spoil. The meanest Norman rose to wealth and power in the new dominion of his lord. Great or small, however, each estate thus granted was granted on condition of its holder's service at the king's call ; and when the larger holdings were divided by their owners into smaller sub-tenancies, the under-tenants were bound by the same conditions of service to their lord. " Hear, my lord," swore the feudal dependant, ; s kneeling without arms and bare- headed he placed his hands within those of his superior : " I become liege man of yours for life and limb and earthly regard, and I will keep faith and loyalty to you for life and death, God help me." The kiss of his lord invested him with land or "fief" to descend to him and his heirs for ever. A whole army was by this means encamped upon the soil, and William's summons could at any moment gather an over- whelming force around his standard. Such a force however, effective as it was against the conquered, was hardly less formidable to the Crown itself. William u)und himself i [chap. ns " or d, and jrsonal greatly )le and subin- which adually 2 them, 1 drove idepen- iom in erseded d inten- ; of his » sword )ment a ;. Such the soil, jtablisli- fled into of their ;st. We s which Two warded fell to Ions like fortune ,1th and |owever, lolder's [divided its were |ear, my id bare- Ibecome ^ill keep : kiss of land his )on the k,n over- Iquered, 1 himself II.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 85 i fronted in his new realm by the feudal baron \ge whom he had so hardly subdued to his will in Normandy, nobles impatient of law, as jealous of the royal power, and as eager for unbridled military and judicial independence within their own manors here as there. The genius of the Conqueror was shown in his quick discernmenf of this danger, and in the skill with which he met it. li^ availed himself of the old legal constitution of the country to hold justice firmly in his own hands. He retained the local courts of the hundred and the shire, where every freeman had a place, while he subjected all to the juris- diction of the King's Court, whic'- towards the close of the earlier English monarchy had assuned the right of hearing appeals and of calling up cases from any quarter to its bar. The authority of the crown was maintained by the abolition of the great earldoms which had overshadowed it, those of Wessex, Mercia, and Northumberland, and by the royal nomination of sheriffs for the government of the shires. Large as the estates he granted were, they were scattered over the country in a way which made union between the landowners, or the hereditary attachment of great masses of vassals to a separate lord, equally impossible. In other countries a vassal owed fealty to his lord against all foes, be they king or no. By a usage however which William enacted, and which was peculiar to England, each sub-tenant, in addition to his oath of fealty to his lord, swore fealty directly to the Crown, and loyalty to the King was thus established as the supreme and universal duty of all Englishmen. The feudal obligations, too, the rights and dues owing from each esiate to the King, were enforced with remarkable strictness. Each tenant was bound to appear if needful thrice a year at the royal court, to pay a heavy fine or rent on succession to his estate, to contribute an " aid " in money in case of the King's capture in war, or the knighthood of the King's eid'jst son, or the marriage of his eldest daughter. An heir who was still a minor passed into the crown's wardship, and all profit from his estate went for the time to the King. If the estate devolved upon an heiress, her hand was at the King's disposal, and was generally sold to the highest bidder. Over the whole face of the land most manors were burthened with their own " customs," or special dues to the Crown : and it was for the purpose of ascertaining and recording these that William sent into each county the commissioners whose inquiries are preserved in Domesday Book. A jury empanelled in each hundred declared on oi»,th the extent and nature of each estate, the names, number, con- dition of its inhabitants, its value before and after the Conquest, and the sums due from it to the Crown. William found another check on the aggressive spirit of the feudal baronage in his organisation of the Church. One of his earliest acts was to summon Lanfranc from Normandy to aid him in its reform; and the deposition of Stigand, which raised Lanfranc to the see of Canter- Sec. V. The Norman Conquest 1068 TO 1071 The English baronaire M 'j' The Church of the Norman.'* :, 86 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CHAP. 11.] Sec. V. The Norman Conquest 1068 TO 1071 Settle- ment of the Jews bury, was followed by the removal of most of the English prelates and abbots, and by the appointment jf Norman ecclesiastics in their place* The new archbishop did much to restore discipline, and William's own efforts were no doubt partly directed by a real desire for the rehgious improvement of his realm. '*!n choosing abbots and bishops," says a contemporary, " he considered not so much men's riches or power as their holiness and wisdom. He called together bishops and abbots and other wise counsellors in any vacancy, and by their advice inquired very carefully who was the best and wisest man, as well in divine things as in worldly, to rule the Church of God." But honest as they were, the King's reforms tended directly to the increase of the royal power. The new bishops and abbots were cut off by their foreign origin from the flocks they ruled, while their popular influence was lessened by the removal of ecclesiastical cases from shire or hun- dred-court, where the bishop had sat side by side with the civil magistrate, to the ^^eparate court of the bishop himself. The change was pregnant with future trouble to the Crown ; but for the moment it told mainly in removing the bishop from his traditional contact with the popular assembly, and in effacing the memory of the original equrxlity of the religious with the civil power. The dependence of tlui Church on the royal power was strictly enforced. Homage was exacted from bishop as from baron. No royal tenant could be excom- municated without the King's leave. No synod could legislate without his previous assent and subsequent confirmation of its decrees. No papal letters could be received within the realm save by his permis- sion. William firmly repudiated the claims which were now beginning to be put forward by the court of Rome. When Gregory VII. called on him to do fealty for his realm, the King sternly refused to admit the claim. " Fealty I have nevir willed to do, nor do I will to do it now. I have never promised it, nor do I find that my predecessors did it to yours." But the greatest safeguard of the crown lay in the wealth and personal power of the kings. Extensive as had been his grants to noble and soldier, William remained the greatest landowner in his realm. His rigid exaction of feudal dues added wealth to the great Hoard at Winchester, which had been begun by the spoil of the con- quered. But William found a more ready source of revenue in the settlement of the Jewish traders, who followed him from Normandy, and who were enabled by the royal protection to establish themselves in. separate quarters or " Jewries " of the chief towns of England. The Jew had no right or citizenship in the land ; the Jewry in which he lived was, like the King's forest, exempt from the common law. He was simply the King's chattel, and his life and goods were absolutely at the King's mercy. But he was too valuable a possession to be lightly thrown away. A royal justiciary secured law to the Jewish [CHAP. tes and r place* n's own eligious 5," says lower as I abbots nquired i divine as they tie royal foreign ice was or hun- he civil I change oment it act with original ience of lage was excom- i without es. No permis- iginning I. called o admit to do it ecessors II.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 87 merchant, who had no standing-ground in the local courts ; his bonds were deposited for safety in a chamber of the royal palace at West- minster ; he wa*? protected against the popular hatred in the free exercise of his religion, and allowed to build synagogues and to direct his own ecclesiastical affairs by means of a chief Rabbi. That the presence of the Jew was, at least in the earlier years of his settlement, beneficial to the kingdom at large there can be little doubt. His arrival was the arrival of a capitalist ; and heavy as was the usury he necessarily exacted in the general insecurity of the time, his loans gave an impulse to industry such as England had never felt before. The century which followed the Conquest witnessed an outburst of archi- tectural energy which covered the land with castles and cathedrals ; but castle and cathedral alike owed their existence to the loans of the Jew. His own example gave a new direction to domestic architecture. The buildings which, as at Lincoln and S. Edmundsbury, still retain their title of "Jews' Houses" A^rere almost the first houses of stone which superseded the mere hovels of the English burghers. Nor was the influence of the Jews simply industrial. Through their connection with the Jewish schools in Spain and the East they opened a way for the revival of physical science. A Jewish medical school seems to have existed at Oxford ; Roger Bacon himself studied under English Rabbis. But to the kings the Jew was simply an engine of finance. The wealth which his industry accumulated was wrung from him when- ever the Crown had need, and tortui-e and imprisonment were resorted to if milder entreaties failed. It was the gold of the Jew that filled the royal exchequer at the outbreak of war or of revolt. It was in the Hebrew coffers that the Norman kings found strength to hold their baronage at bay. Section VI.-The EnKlish Revival, 1071-1127. [Authorities. — Orderic and the English chroniclers, as before. Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury, in his " Historia Novorum " and his ** Life of Anselm," is the chief source of information for the reign of William the Second. William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon "are both contemporary authorities during that of Henry the First : the latter remains a brief but accurate annalist ; the former is the leader of a new historic school, who treat English events as part of the history of the world, and emulate classic models by a more philo- sophical arrangement of their materials. See for then? the opening section of the next chapter. On the early histoiy of our towns the reader may gain some- thing from Mr. Thompson's "English Municipal History " (London, 1857); more from the " Charter Rolls " (published by the Record Commissioners) ; for S. Edmundsbury see " Chronicle of Jocelyn de Brakelond " (Camden Society). The records of the Cistercian Abbeys of Yorkshire in " Dugdale's Monasticon," illustrate the religious revival. Henry's administration is admirably explained for the first time by Dr. Stubbs in his ** Constitutional History."] The Conquest was hardly over when the struggle between the baronage and the Crown began. The wisdom of William's policy in Sbc. v. Thb NORMAM Conquest 1068 TO 1071 % II . : .i W'i'. '■■ '! WiUiun and tbe Barons Sec. VI. The English Revival 1071 TO 1127 1075 The English and their Kinffs >o85 the destruction of the great earldoms which had overshadowed the throne was shown in an attempt at their restoration made by Roger, the son of his minister Wilham Fitz-Osbern, and by the Breton, Ralf de Guader, whom the King had rewarded for his services at Senlac with the earldom of Norfolk. The risiiig was quickly suppressed, Roger thrown into prison, and Ralf driven over sea ; but the intrigues of the baronage soon found another leader in William's half-brother, the Bishop of Bayeux. Under pretence of aspiring by arms to the papacy, Bishop Odo collected money and men, but the treasure was at once seized by the royal officers, and the Bishop arrested in the midst of the court. Even at the King's bidding no officer would venture to seize on a prelate of the Church ; it was with his own hands that William was forced to effect his arrest. " I arrest not the Bishop, but the Earl of Kent," laughed the Conqueror, and Odo remained a prisoner till W^illiam's death. It was in fact this vigorous personality of William which proved the chief safeguard of his throne. " Stark he was," says the English chronicler, " to men that withstood him. Earls that did aught against his bidding he cast into bonds ; bishops he stripped of their bishopricks, abbots of their abbacies. He spared not his own brother : first he was in the land, but the King cast him into bondage. If a man would live and hold his lands, need it were that he followed the King's will." But stern as his rule was, it gave peace to the land. Even amidst the sufferings which necessp "ily sprang from the circumstances of the Conquest itself, from the erection of castles, or the enclosure of forests, or the exactions which built up the great hoard at Winchester, Englishmen were unable to forget "the good peace he made in the land, so that a man might fare over his realm with a bosom full of gold." Strange touches of a humanity far in advance of his age contrasted with the general temper of his government. One of the strongest traits in his character was his aver- sion to shed blood by process of law ; he formally abolished the punish- ment of death, and only a single execution stains the annals of his reign. An edict yet more honourable to him put an end to the slave-trade which had till then been carried on at the port of Bristol. The pitiless warrior, the stern and aweful king was a tender and faithful husband, an affectionate father. The lonely silence of his bearing broke into gracious converse with pure and sacred souls like Anselm. If William was " stark " to rebel and baron, men noted that he was " mild to those that loved God." In power as in renown the Conqueror towered high above his pre- decessors on the throne. The fear of the Danes, which had so long hung like a thunder-cloud over England, passed away before the host which William gathered to meet a great armament assembled by King Cnut. A mutiny dispersed the Danish fleet, and the murder of its King removed all peril from the North. Scotland, already humbled by [chap. wed the Roger, 3n, Ralf : Senlac pressed, rigues of her, the papacy, at once midst of iture to ids that Bishop, lained a rsonality " Stark >od him. bishops e spared cast him d it were , it gave ly sprang »ction of t up the jet "the over his umanity ;r of his lis aver- punish- is reign. Ive-trade pitiless usband, ike into Im. If he was [his pre- so long the host )y King ir of its Ibled by H.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. William's invasion, was bridled by the erection of a strong fortress at Newcastle-upon-Tyne ; and after penetrating with his army to the heart of Wales, the King commenced its systematic reduction by settling barons along its frontier. It was not till his closing years that his unvarying success was disturbed by a rebellion of his son Robert and a quarrel with France ; as he rode down the steep street of Mantes, which he had given to the flames, his horse stumbled among the embers, and William, flung heavily against his saddle, was borne home to Rouen to die. The sound of the minster bell woke him at dawn as he lay in the convent of St. Gervais, overlooking the city — it was the hour of prime— and stretching out his hands in prayer the Conqueror passed quietly away. With him passed the terror which had held the ba^-onage in awe, while the severance of his dominions roused their hopes of successful resistance to the stern rule beneath which they had bowed. William bequeathed Normandy to his eldest son Robert ; William, his second son, hastened with his father's ring to England, where the influence of Lanfranc at once secured him the c-own. The baronage seized the opportunity to rise in arms under pretext of supporting the claims of Robert, whose weakness of character gave full scope for the growth of feudal ind'^pendence, and Bishop Odo placed himself at the head of the revolt. The new King was thrown almost wholly on the loyalty of his English subjects. But the national stamp which William had given to his kingship told at once. Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester, the one surviving bishop of English blood, defeated the insurgents in the West ; while the king, summoning the freemen of country and town to his host under pain of being branded as "nithing" or worthless, advanced with a large force against Rochester, where the barons were concentrated. A plague which broke out among the garrison forced them to capitulate, and as the prisoners passed through the royal army, cries of " gallows and cord " burst from the English ranks. At a later period of his reign a con- spiracy was organized to place Stephen of Albemarle, a near cousin of the royal house, upon the throne ; but the capture of Robert Mowbray, the Earl of Northumberland, who had placed himself at its head, and the imprisonment and exile of his fellow-conspirators, again crushed the hopes of the baronage. While the spirit of national patriotism rose to life again in this struggle of the crown against the baronage, the boldness of a single ecclesiastic revived a national opposition to the mere administrative despotism which now pressed heavily on the land. If William the Red inherited much of his father's energy as well as his policy towards the conquered English, he inherited none of his moral grandeur. His profligacy and extravagance soon exhausted the royal hoard, and the death of Lanfranc left him free to fill it at the expense of the Church. During the vacancy of a see or abbey its revenues went to the royal 89 Sec. VI. The 1; English • Revival ' 1071 TO 1127 DeatJt of the Conqueror 1087 i:.r i- V\-'m The Bed , I Kins and ! the Church ' ^ i)] 90 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Swc. VI. The English Revival 1071 TO 1187 Anseim Archbishop 1093 England ' and Henry the First Death of the Red King kftiiiii: 1 100 treasury, and so steadily did William refuse to appoint successors to the prelates whom death removed, that at the close of his reign one archbishoprick, four bishopricks, and eleven abbeys were found to be without pastors. The see of Canterbury itself remained vacant cill a dangerous illness frightened the king into the promotion of Anselm, who happened at the time to be in England on the business of his house. The Abbot of Bee was dragged to the royal couch and the cross ibrced into his hands, but William had no sooner recovered from his sickness than he found himself face to face with an opponent whose meek and loving temper rose into firmness and grandeur when it fronted the tyranny of the King- The Conquest, as we have seen, had robbed the Church of all rxioral power as the representative of the higher national interests against a brutal despotism by placing it in a position of mere dependence on the crown ; and though the struggle between William and the archbishop turned for the most part on points which have no direct bearing on our history, the boldness of Anselm's attitude not only broke the tradition of ecclesiastical servi- tude, but infused through the nation at large a new spirit of indepen- dence. The real character of the contest appears in the Primate's answer, when his remonstrances against the lawless exactions from the Church were met by a demand for a present on his own promotion, and his first offer of five hundred pounds was contemptuously refused. " Treat me as a free man," Anselm replied, " and I devote myself and all that I have to your service, but if you treat me as a slave you shall have neither me nor mine." A burst of the Red King's fury drove the Archbishop from court, and he finally decided to quit the country, but his example had not been lost, and the close of William's reign found a new spirit of freedom in England with which the greatest of the Conqueror's sons was glad to make terms. As a soldier the Red King was little inferior to his father. Normandy had been pledged to him by his brother Robert in exchange for a sum which enabled the Duke to march in the first Crusade for the delivery of the Holy Land, and a rebellion at Le Mans was subdued by the fierce energy with which William flung himself at the news of it into the first boat he found, and crossed the Channel in face of a storm. " Kings never drown," he replied contemptuously to the remonstrances of his followers. Homage was again wrested from Malcolm by a march to the Firth of Forth, and the subsequent death of that king threw Scotland into a disorder which enabled an army under Eadgar iEtheling to establish Eadgar, the son of Margaret, as an English feudatory on the throne. In Wales William was less triumphant, and the terrible losses inflicted on the heavy Norman cavalry in ihe fastnesses of Snowdon forced him to fai] back on the slower but wiser policy of the Conqueror. Triumph and def'^at alike ended in a strange and tragical close ; the Red King was found dead by peasants in a glade [chap. 3ors to gn one ito be it till a Lnselm, of his ind the id from t whose ivhen it en, had ; of the it in a struggle part on Iness of al servi- ndepen- rimate's rom the ion, and refused, [self and ou shall rove the itry, but n found of the »rnriandy >r a sum delivery I by the it into storm, strances m by a lat king Eadgar English ant, and in ihe ut wiser strange a glade n.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 91 I of the New Forest, with the arrow either of a hunter or an assu.3:'i in his breast. Robert was still on his return from the Holy Land, where his bravery had rede*imed much of his earlier ill-fame, and the English crown was at oice seized by his younger brother Henry, in spite of the opposition of the baronage, who clung to the Duke of Normandy and the union of their estates on both sides the Channel under a single ruler. 1 heir attitude threw Henry, as it had thrown Rufus, on the support of the English, and the two great measures which followed his coronation, his grant of a charter, and his marriage with Matilda, mark the new relation which was thus brought about between the people and their King. Henry's Charter is important, not merely as a direct precedent for the Great Charter of John, but as the first limitation which had been imposed on the despotism esta- blished by the Conquest. The " evil customs " by which the Red King had enslaved and plundered the Church were explicitly renounced in it, the unlimited demands made by both the Conqueror and his son on the baronage exchanged for customary fees, while the rights of the people itself, though recognized more vaguely, were not forgotten. The barons were held to do justice to their under-tenants and to renounce tyrannical exactions from them, the King promising to restore order and the " law of Eadward," the old constitution of the realm, with the changes which his father had introduced. His marriage gave a significance to these promises which the meanest English peasant could understand. Edith, or Matilda, was the daughter of King Malcolm of Scotland and of Margaret, the sister of Eadgar -^^theling. She had been brought up in the nunnery of Romsey by its abbess, her aunt Christina, and the veil which she had taken there formed an obstacle to her union with the King which was only removed by the wisdom of Anselm. The Archbishop's recall had been one of Henry's first acts after his accession, and Matilda appeared before his court to tell her tale in words of passionate earnestness. She had been veiled in her childhood, she asserted, only to save her from the insults of the rude soldiery who infested the land, had flung the veil from her again and again, and had yielded at last to the unwomanly taunts, the actual blows of her aunt. "As often as I stood in her presence,^' the girl pleaded, " I wore the veil, trembling as I wore it with indignation and grief. But as soon as I could get out of her sight I used to snatch it from my head, fling it on the ground, and trample it under foot. That was the way, and none other, in which I was veiled. ' Anselm at once declared her free from conventual bonds, and the shout of the English multitude when he set the crown on Matilda's brow drowned the mur- mur of Churchman or of baron. The taunts of the Norman nobles, who nicknamed the King and his spouse " Godric and Godgifu," were lost in the joy of the people at large. For the first time since the Conquest ^n Engli'-h sovereign sat on the English throne. The blood of Cerdic Sec. VI. The English Revival 1071 TO iia7 Henry's Charter Henry's murriaze !l.iw oil! \:V'M'i I'r, 'It I * 'i llf 4 92 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE, [chap. Sbc. VI. The I Encljsh Revival 1071 TO 1127 The EnrliBh towns and i^lfred was to blend itself with that of Hrolf and the Conqueror. Henceforth it was impossible that the two peoples should remain parted from each other ; so quick indeed was their union that the very name of Norman had passed away in half a century, and at the accession of Henry's grandson it was impossible to distinguish between the descendants of the conquerors and those of the con- quered at Senlac. We can dimly trace the progress of this blending of the two races together in the case of the burgher population in the towns. One immediate result of the Conquest had been a great immigration into England from the Continent. A peaceful invasion of the indus- trial and trading classes of Normandy folio vved quick on the conquest of the Norman soldiery Every Norman noble as he quartered himself upon English lands, every Norman ajbot as he entered his English cloister, ^fathered French artists or French domestics around his new castle or his new church. Around the Abbey of Battle, for instance, which William had founded on the s't*^ of his great victory, " Gilbert the Foreigner, Gilbert the Weaver, Benet the Steward, Hugh the Secretary, Baldwin the Tailor," niixed with the English tenantry. More especially was this the case with the c.tpital. Long before the landing of William, the Normans had had mercantile establishments in London. Such settlements however naturally formed nothing more than a trading colony ; but London had no sooner submitted to the Conqueror than " many of the citizens of Rouen and Caen passed over thither, preferring to be dwellers in this city, inasmuch as it was fitter for their trading and better stored with the merchandize in which they were wont to traffic." In some cases, as at Norwich, the French colony isolated itself in a separate French town, side by side with the English borough. But in London it seems to have taken at once the position of a governing class. Gilbert Beket, the father of the famous arch- bishop, was believed in later days to have been one of the portreeves of London, the predecessors of its mayors ; he held in Stephen's time a large property in houses within the walls, and a proof of his civic importance was preserved in the annual visi^ of each ne'vly-eUi.ted chief magistrate to his tomb in the little chapel which he had founded in the churchyard of S. Paul's. Yet Gilbert was one of the Norman strangers who followed in the wake of the Conqueror ; he was by birth a burgher of Rouen, as his wife was of a burgher fami'y uom Caen. It was partly to this infusion of foreign blood, partly no doubt to the long internal peace r»nd order secured by the Norman rule, that the English towns owed the wealth and importance to which they attained during the reign of Henry the First. In the silent growth and eleva- tion of the English people the boroughs led the way : unnoticed and despised by prelate and noble they had alone preserved or won back again the full tradition of Teutonic liberty. The rights of self-govern- ii.j were shop in to^ in th( [chap. iqueror. remain that the , and at tinguish the con- ,vo races ligration le indus- :onquest I himself English his new instance, " Gilbert [ugh the tenantry, efore the ishments ing more }d to the sed over vas fitter lich they colony English Dosition us arch- )rtreeves in's time lis civic eltited founded Norman by birth Caen. )t to the that the attained d eleva- ced and Ion back ^govern- ii.j ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. ment, of free speech in free meeting, of equal justice by one's equals, were brought safely across the ages of tyranny by the burghers and shopkeepers of the towns. In the quiet, quaintly -named streets, in town-mead and market-place, in the lord's mill beside the stream, in the bell that swung out its summons to the crowded borough-mote, in merchant-gild and church-gild and craft-gild, lay the life of English- men who were doing more than knight and baron to make England what she is, the life of their home and their trade, of their sturdy battle with oppression, their steady, ceaseless struggle for right and freedom. It is difficult to trace the steps by which borough after borough won its freedom. The bulk of them were situated in the royal demesne, and, like other tenants, their customary rents were collected and justice administered by a royal officer. Amongst our towns London stood chief, and the charter which Henry granted it became the model for the rest. The King yielded the citizens the right of justice : every townsman could claim to be tried by his fellow- townsmen in the town-court or hustings, whose sessions took place every week. They were subject only to the old English trial by oath, and exempt from the trial by battle which the Normans had intro- duced. Their trade was protected from toll or exaction over the length and breadth of the land. The King however still nominated in London as elsewhere the portreeve, or magistrate of the town, nor were the citizens as yet united together in a commune or corporation ; but an imperfect civic organization existed in the " wards" or quarters of the town, each governed by its own alderman, and in the "gikJs" or voluntary associations of merchants or traders which ensured order and mutual protection for their members. Loose too as these bonds may seem, they were drawn firmly together by the older English tradi- tions of freedom which the towns preserved. In London, for instance, the burgesses gathered in town-mote when the bell swung out from S. Paul's to deliberate freely on their own affairs under the presidency of their aldermen. Here too they mustered in arms if danger threatened the city, and delivered the city-banner to their captain, the Norman baron Fitz-Walter, to lead them against the enemy. Few boroughs had as yet attained to power such as this, but charter after charter during Henry's reign raised the townsmen of boroughs from mere traders, wholly at the mercy of their lord, into customary tenants, who had purchased their freedom by a fixed rent, regulated their own trade, and enjoyed exemption from all but their own justice. The advance of towns which had grown up not on the royal domain but around abbey or castle was slower and more difficult. The story of S. Edmundsbury shows how gradual was the transition from pure serfage to an imperfect freedom. Much that had been plough-land in the time of the Confessor was covered with houses under the Norman rule. The building of the great abbey-church drew its craftsmen and S. Ed. munds- bury f h m 94 Sac. VI. The £nc;lish Revival 1071 TO 1187 mi I HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. masons to mingle with the ploughmen and reapers of the Abbot's domain. The troubles of the time helped here as elsewhere the progress of the town ; serfs, fugitives from justice or their lord, the trader, the Jew, naturally sought shelter under the strong hand of S. Edmund. But the settlers were wholly at the Abbot's mercy. Not a settler but was bound to pay his pence to the Abbot's treasury, to plough a rood of his land, to reap in his harvest-field, to fold his sheep in the Abbey folds, to help bring the annual catch of eels from the Abbey waters. Within the four crosses that bounded the Abbot's domain land and water were his ; the cattle of the townsmen paid for their pasture on the common ; if the fullers refused the loan of their cloth, the cellarer would refuse the use of the stream, and seize their cloths wherever he found them. No toll might be levied from tenants of the Abbey farms, and customers had to wait before shop and stall till the buyers of the Abbot had had the pick of the market. There was little chance of redress, for if burghers complained in folk- mote, it was before the Abbot's officers that its meeting was held ; if they appealed to the alderman, he was the Abbot's nominee, and received the horn, the symbol of his office, at the Abbot's hands. Like all the greater revolutions of society, the advance from this mere serfage was a silent one ; indeed its more galling instances of oppres- sion seem to have slipped unconsciously away. Some, like the eel- fishing, were commuted for an easy rent ; others, like the slavery of the fullers and the toll of flax, simply disappeared. By usage, by omission, by downright forgetfulness, here by a little struggle, there by a present to a needy abbot, the town won freedom. But progress was not always unconscious, and one incident in the hislory of S. Edmundsbury is remarkable, not merely as indicating the advance of law, but yet more a^ narking the part which a new moral sense of man's right to equal justice was to play in the general advance of the realm. Rude as the borough was, it had preserved its right of meeting in full assembly of the townsmen for government and law. Justice was administered in presence of the burgesses, and the accused acquitted or condemned by the oath of his neighbours. Without the borough bounds however the system of the Norman judicature prevailed ; and the rural tenants who did suit and service at the Cellerar's court were subject to the decision of the trial by battle. The execution of a farmer named Ketel, who was subject to this feudal jurisdiction, brought the two systems into vivid contrast. He seems to have been guiltless of the crime laid to his charge, but the duel went against him, and he was hanged just without the gates. The taunts of the townsmen woke his fellow-farmers to a sense of wrong. " Had Ketel been a dweller within the borough," said the burgesses, " he would have got his acquittal from the oaths of his neighbours, as our liberty is ; " and even the monks were moved to a decision that their tenants should enjoy equal 11.] [ciiAr. Abbot's here the lord, the hand of :y. Not isury, to lis sheep from the Abbot's paid for of their lize their 1 tenants hop and I market, i in folk- held; if nee, and ids. this mere f oppres- the eel- »ry of the )mission, present ot always sbury is but yet n's right realm. eting in tice was cquitted borough ed ; and urt were a farmer ught the iltless of d he was I'ok.e his IT within icquittal !ven the )y equal II.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 95 e liberty and justice with the townsmen. The franchise of the town was extended to the rural possessions of the Abbey without it ; the farmers " came to the toll-house, were written in the alderman's roll, and paid the town-penny." The moral revolution which events like this indicate was backed by a religious revival which forms a marked feature in the reign of Henry the First. Pious, learned, and energetic as the bishops of William's appointment had been, they were not Englishmen. Till the reign of Henry the First no Englishman occupied an English see. In language, in manner, in sympathy, the higher clergy were completely severed from the lower priesthood and the people, and the severance went far to paralyze the constitutional influence of the Church. Anselm stood alone against Rufus, and when Anselm was gone no voice of eccle- siastical freedom broke the silence of the reign of Henry the First. But at the close of Henry's reign and throughout that of Stephen, England was stirred by the first of those great religious movements which it was afterv^rds to experience in the preaching of the Friars, the Lollardism of Wyclif, the Reformation, the Puritan enthusiasm, and the mission work of the Wesleys. Everywhere in town and country men banded themselves together for prayer ; hermits flocked to the woods ; noble and churl welcomed the austere Cistercians, a reformed outshoot of the Benedictine order, as they spread over the moors and forests of the North. A new spirit of devotion woke the slumber of the religious houses, and penetrated alike to the home of the noble Walter de I'Espec at Rievaulx, or of the trader Gilbert Beket in Cheapside. London took its full share in the revival. The city was proud of its religion, its thirteen conventual and more than a hundred parochial churches. The new impulse changed its very aspect. In the midst of the city Bishop Richard busied himself with the vast cathedral church of S. Paul which Bishop Maurice had begun ; barges came up the river with stone from Caen for the great arches that moved the popular wonder, while street and lane were being levelled to make space for its famous churchyard. Rahere, the King's minstrel, raised the Priory of S. Bartholomew beside Smithfield. Alfune built S. Giles's at Cripplegate. The old English Cnichtenagild surrendered their soke of Aldgate as a site for the new priory of Holy Trinity. The tale of this house paints admirably the temper of the citizens at the time. Its founder, Prior Norman, had built church and cloister and bought books and vestments in so liberal a fashion that at last no money remained to buy bread. The canons were at their last gasp when many of the city folk, looking into the refectory as they paced round the cloister in their usual Sunday procession, saw the tables laid but not a single loaf on them. " Here is a fine set-out,'' cried the citizens, "but where is the bread to come from?" The women present vowed to bring a loaf every Sunday, and there was Sec. VI. English 4tJ 1^.1 96 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. Sbc. VI. The Engliah Revival 1071 TO llfl7 Henry's adminis- tration 'I 1105 i II' [CIIAP. II.J soon bread enough and to spare for the priory and its priests. We see the strength of the new movement in the new class of ecclesiastics that it forced on the stage ; men like Anselm or John of Salisbury, or the two great ^irelates who followed one another after Henry's death in the see of Canterbury, Theobald and Thomas, drew what- ever influence they wielded from a belief in their holiness of life and unselfishness of aim. The paralysis of the Church ceased as the new impulse bound the prelacy and people together, and its action, when at the end of Henry's reign it started into a power strong enough to save England from anarchy, has been felt in our history ever since. From this revival of English feeling Henry himself stood jealously aloof; but the enthusiasm which his marriage had excited enabled him to defy the claims of his brother and the disaffection of his nobles. Robert landed at Portsmouth to find himself face to face with an English army which Anselm's summons had gathered round the King ; and his retreat left Henry free to deal sternly with the rebel barons. Robert of Belesme, the son of Roger of Montgomery, was now their chief -, but 60,000 English footmen followed the king through the rough passes which led to Shrewsbury, and an early surrender alone saved Robert's life. Master of his own realm and en- riched by the confiscated lands of the revolted baronage, Henry crossed into Normandy, where the misgovernment of Robert had alienated the clergy and trades, and where the outrages of the Norman nobles forced the more peaceful classes to call the King to their aid. On the field of Tenchebray his forces met those of the Duke, and a decisive English victory on Norman soil avenged the shame of Hastings. The conquered duchy became a dependency of the English crown, and Henry's energies were frittered away through a quarter of a century in crushing its revolts, the hostility of the French, and the efforts of his nephew, William the son of Robert, to regain the crown which his father had lost at Tenchebray. In England, however, all was peace. The vigorous administration of Henry the First completed in fullest detail the system of government which the Conqueror had sketched. The vast estates which had fallen to the crown through revolt and forfeiture were granted out to new men dependent on royal favour. On the ruins of the great feudatories whom he had crushed the King built up a class of lesser nobles, whom the older barons of the Con- quest looked down on in scorn, but who formed a counterbalancing force and furnished a class of useful administrators whom Henry employed as his sheriffs and judges. A new organization of justice and finance bound the kingdom together under the royal administra- tion. The clerks of the Royal Ch ^el were formed into a body of secretaries or royal ministers, whose nead bore the title of Chancellor. Above them stood the Justiciar, or lieutenant-general of the king- <( [CHAP. I. We siastics isbury, lenry's r what- ife and as the action, strong history ialously enabled of his to face i round he rebel sry, was le king n early and en- crossed lienated 1 nobles On the decisive s. The wn, and atury in s of his ich his peace, fullest j:etched. (olt and favour, le King jie Con- (lancing Henry justice linistra- )ody of icellor. king- II. J KNdl.ANP UNDKR FORKKJN KIN(;S. dom, who in the frequent absence of the King acted as Regent, and whose staff, selected from the barons connected with the royal household, were formed into a Supreme Court of the realm. The King's Court, as this was called, permanently represented the whole court of royal vassals, which had hitherto been summoned thrice in the year. As the royal council, it revised and registered laws, and its "counsel and consent," though merely formal, preserved the principle of the older popular legislation. As a court of justice it formed the highest court of appeal : it could call up any suit from a lower tribunal on the application of a suitor, while the union of several sheriffdoms under some of its members connected it closely with the local courts. As a financial body, its chief work lay in the assessment and collection of the revenue. In this capacity it too'.c the name of the Court of ICxcheciuer from the chequered table, much like a chess-board, at which it sat, and on which accounts were rendered. In their financial capacity its justices became " barons of the Exchequer." Twice every year the sheriff of each county appeared before these barons and ren- dered the sum of the fixed rent from royal domains, the Danegeld or land tax, the fines of the local courts, the feudal aids from the baronial estates, which formed the chief part of the royal revenue. Local disputes respecting these payments or the assessment of the town-rents were settled by a detachment of barons from the court who made the circuit of the shires, and whose fiscal visitations led to the judicial visitations, the "judges' circuits," which still form so marked a feature in our legal system. From this work of internal reform Henry's attention was called sud- denly by one terrible loss to the question of the succession to the throne. His son William " the y^itheling," as the English fondly styled the child of their own Matilda, had with a crowd of nobles accom- panied the King on his return from Normandy ; but the White Ship in which he had embarked lingered behind the rest of the royal fleet while the young nobles, excited with wine, hung over the ship's side and chased away with taunts the priest who came to give the customary benediction. At last the guards of the King's treasure pressed the vessel's departure, and, driven by the arms of fifty rowers, it swept swiftly out to sea. All at once the ship's side struck on a rock at the mouth of the harbour, and in an instant it sank beneath the waves. One terrible cry, ringing through the stillness of the night, was heard by the royal fleet ; but it was not till the morning that the fatal news '-'inched the King. He fell unconscious to the ground, and rose never to smile again. Henry had no other son, and the whole circle of his foreign foes closed round him the more fiercely that the son of Robert was now his natural heir. The king hated William, while he loved Matilda, the daughter who still remained to him, who had been married to the Emperor Henry the Fifth, and whose husband's death H 97 Sec. VI. Tmk I'.Nlil.lHII Rkvivai, 1071 Tit 1127 , .\ The White Ship I; f. l^reck of the IVhite Shi/> U20 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. VII. AND Anjou 870 TO 1154 The yreat- I&0BB of Aujou 595 ioi6 1044-1060 The Anfrevln marriage 1109-1129 Heaven nor the cuvses of men broke with a single mishap the fifty years of his success. At his accession Anjou was the least important of the greatei pro- vinces of France. At his death in 1040 it stood, if not in extent, at least in real power, first among them a}\. Cool-headed, clear-sighted, quick to resolve, quicker to strike, Fulk's career was one long series of victories over all his rivals. He was a consummate general, and he had th' gift of personal bravery, which was denied to some of his greatest descendants. There was a moment in the first of his battles when the day seemed lost for Anjou ; a feigned retreat of the Bretons had drawn the Angevin horsemen into a line of hidden pitfalls, and the Count himself was flung heavily to the ground. Dragged from the mevlley of men and horses, he swept down almost singly on the foe " as a storm-wind " (so rang the pasan of the Angevins) " sweeps down on the thick corn-rows," and the field was won. To these qualities of the warrior he added a power of political organization, a capacity for far-reaching combinations, a faculty of statesmanship, which became the heritage of the Angevins, and lifted them as high above the intel- lectual level of the rulers of their time as their shameless wickedness degraded them below the level of man. His overthrow of Britanny on the field of Conquereux was followed by the gradual absorption of Southern Touraine, while his restless activity covered the land with castles and abbeys. The very spirit of the Black Count seems still to frown from the dark tower of Durtal on the sunny valley of the Loire. A victory at Pontlevoi crushed the rival house of Blois ; the seizure of Saumur completed his conquests in the south, while Northern Touraine was won bit by bit till only Tours resisted the Angevin. The treacherous seizure of its count, Herbert Wake-dog, left Maine at his mercy ere the old man bequeathed his unfinished work to his son. As a warrior Geoffry Martel was hardly inferior to his father. A decisive victory left Poitou at his mercy, a second wrested Tours from the Count of Blois ; and the seizure of Le Mans brought him to the Norman border. Here however his advance was checked by the genius of William the Conqueror, and with his death the greatness of Anjou seemed for the time to have come to an end. Stripped of Maine by the Normans and weakened by internal dis- sensions, the weak administrcttion of the next count, Fulk Rechin, left Anjou powerless against its rivals. It woke to fresh energy with the accession of his son, Fulk of Jerusalem. Now urging the turbulent Norman nobles 10 revolt, now supporting Robert's son William against his uncle, offering himself throughout as the loyal supporter of France, which was now hemmed in on all sides by the forces of the Engli^ih king and of his allies the Counts of Blois and Champagne, Fulk was the one enemy whom Henry the First really feared. It was to disarm his restless hostility that the king gave to his son, Geoffry the Handsome. II.] the hi unpof baroni baron save tendec A mor from ^em's/i "the I ended to the at his the for< " Go bed, "t the Noi departi appean queror'j been br heir, sa^ of Robe larity. his very had as when L Neither Council, voice of popular English the righ counselh ther the of the r deliberat defend t his who) realm. If Lot nineteen in our hi of Matik revolt. ' lil II.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. the hand of his daughter Matilda. No marriage could have been more unpopular, and the secrecy with which it was efifected was held by the barons as freeing them from the oath which they had sworn ; for no baron, if he was without sons, could give a husband to his daughter save by his lord's consent, and by a strained analogy the nobles con- tended that their own assent was necessary to the marriage of Matilda. A more pressing danger lay in the greed of her husband Geoffry, who from his habit of wearing the common broom of Anjou (the pianta genista) in his helmet had acquired, in addition to his surname of "the Handsome," the more famous title of " Plantagenet." His claims ended at last in intrigues with the Norman nobles, and Henry hurried to the border to meet an expected invasion ; but the plot broke down at his presence, the Angevins retired, and the old man withdrew to the forest of Lions to die. " (xod give him," wrote the Archbishop of Rouen from Henry's death- bed, " the peace he loved." With him indeed closed the long peace of the Norman rule. An outburst of anarchy followed on the news of his departure, and in the midst of the turmoil Earl Stephen, his nephew, appeared at the gates of London. Stephen was a son of the Con- queror's daughter, Adela, who had married a Count of Blois ; he had been brought up at the English court, and his claim as nearest male heir, save his brother, of the Conqueror's blood (for his cousin, the son of Robert, had fallen in Flanders) was supported by his personal popu- larity. Mere swordsman as he was, his good-humour, his generosity, his very prodigality made him a favourite with all. No noble however had as yet ventured to join him, nor had any town opened its gates when London poured out to meet him with uproarious welcome. Neither barons nor prelates were present to constitute a National Council, but the great city did not hesitate to take their place. The voice of her citizens had long been accepted as representative of the popular assent in the election of a king ; but it marks the progress of English independence under Henry that London now claimed of itself the right of election. Undismayed by the absence of the hereditary counsellors of the crown, its " Aldermen and wise folk gathered toge- ther the folkmoot, and these providing at their own will for the good of the realm, unanimously resolved to choose a king." The solemn deliberation ended in the choice of Stephen ; the citizens swore to defend the King with money and blood, Stephen swore to apply his whole strength to the pacification and good government of the realm. If London was true to her oath, Stephen was false to his. The nineteen years of his reign are years of a misrule and disorder unknown in our history. Stephen had been acknowledged even by the partizans of Matilda, but his weakness and prodigality soon gave room to feudal revolt. In 1138 a rising of the barons, planned by Earl Robert oi lOI Sfc. VII. England ANO Anjou 870 TO 1154. \ E I ■ ' " 'i.l Death of \ Henry f "35 I Stephen i of Blois H Stephen and the baronage ■>*; i': I 1 ^m: % 102 HISTORY OF THE ENGTJSH PEOPLE. [CHAIV Sk<:. VII. ' EN(;LANn ' AND j Anjou 870 !! TO i 1154 Battle of the Stantfard 1 138 1 139 II4I 1 148 Gloucester, in southern and western England was aided by the King of Scots, who poured his forces over the northern border. Stephew himself marched on the western rebels, and left them few strongholds iave Bristol. The pillage and cruelties of the wild tribes of Galloway and the Highlands roused the spirit of the north ; baron and freeman gathered at York round Archbishop Thurstan, and marched to the field of Northallerton to await the foe. The sacred banners of S. Cuthbert of Durham, S. Peter of York, S. John of Beverley, and S. Wilfrid of Ripon hung from a pole fixed in a four-wheeled car which stood in the centre of the host. " I who wear no armour," shouted the chief of the Galwegians, "will go as far this day as any one with breastplate of mail ; " his men charged with wild shouts of " Albin, Albin," and were followed by the Norman knighthood of the Lowlands. The rout, however, was complete ; the fierce hordes dashed in vain against the close English ranks around the Standard, and the whole army fled in confusion to Carlisle. But Stephen had few kingly qualities save that of a soldier's bravery, and the realm soon began to slip from his grasp. Released from the si.ern hand of Henry, the barons fortified their castles, and their example was necessarily followed, in self-defence, by the great prelates and nobles who had acted as ministers to the late King. Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, the justiciar, and his son Roger the Chancellor, were carried away by the panic. They fortified their castles, and appeared at court followed by a strong force at their back. The weak violence of the king's temper suddenly broke out. He seized Roger with his son the Chancellor and his nephew the Bishop of Lincoln at Oxford, and forced them to surrender their strongholds. Shame broke the justi- ciar's heart ; he died at the close of the year, and his nephew Nigel of Ely, the Treasurer, was driven from the realm. The fall of Roger's house shattered the whole system of government. The King's violence, while it cost him the support of the clergy, opened the wayfor Matilda's landing in England ; and the country was soon divided between the adherents of the two rivals, the West supporting Matilda, London and the East Stephen. A defeat at Lincoln left the latter a captive in the hands of his enemies, while Matilda was received throughout the land as its " Lady." But the disdain with which she repulsed the claim of London to the enjoyment of its older privileges called its burghers to arms, and her resolve to hold Stephen a prisoner roused his party again to life. Flying to Oxford, she was besieged there by Stephen, who had obtained his release ; but she escaped in white robes by a postern, and crossing the river unobserved on the ice, made her way to Abingdon. Six years later she returned to Normandy. The war had in fact become a mere chaos of pillage and bloodshed. The outrages of the feudal baronage showed from what horrors the rule of the Norman kings h.-\d saved England. No more ghastly picture of a nation's misery has n-l ever last [CHAr. II.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. 103 5 King tephen gholds lloway eeman to the s of S. and S. : which ted the ne with • Albin, wlands. in vain e whole soldier's .eleased les, and le great Roger, incellor, les, and he weak ger with Oxford, hejusti- ^ligel of 's house e, while landing herents he East ands of d as its aim of [hers to Is party [tephen, s by a way to had in Is of the |n kings lery has ever been painted than that which closes the English Chronicle, whose last accents falter out amidst the horrors of the time. " They hanged up men by their feet and smoked them with foul smoke. Some were hanged up by their thumbs, others by the head, and burning things were hung on to their feet. They put knotted strings about men's heads and writhed them till they went into the brain. They put men into prisons where adders and snakes and toads were crawling, and so they tormented them. Some they put into a chest short and narrow and not deep, and that had sharp stones within, and forced men therein so that they broke all their limbs. In many of the castles were hateful and grim things called rachenteges, which two or three men had enough to do to carry. It was thus made : it was fastened to a beam and had a sharp iron to go about a man's neck and throat, so that he might noways sit, or lie, or sleep, but he bore all the iron. Many thousands they starved with hunger." England was rescued from this feudal anarchy by the efforts of the Church. In the early part of Stephen's reign his brother Henry, the Bishop of Winchester, acting as Papal Legate for the realm, had striven to supply the absence of any royal or national authority by convening synods of bishops, and by asserting the moral right of the Church to declare sovereigns unworthy of the throne. The compact between king and people which became a part of constitutional law in the Charter of Henry had gathered new force in the Charter of Stephen, but its legitimate consequence in the responsibility of the crown for the execution of the compact was first drawn out by these ecclesiastical councils. From their alternate depositions of Stephen and Matilda flowed the after depositions of Edward and Richard, and the solemn act by which the succession was changed in the case of James. I^xtravagant and unauthorized as their expression of it may appear, they expressed the right of a nation to good government. Henry of Winchester, however, " half monk, half soldier," as he was called, possessed too little religious influence to wield a really spiritual power ; it was only at the close of Stephen's reign that the nation really found a moral leader in Theobald, the Archbishop of Canterbury. " To the Church," Thomas justly said afterwards, with the proud consciousness of having been Theobald's right hanH^ " Henry owed his crown and England her deliverance." Thomas was the son of Gilbert Beket, the portreeve of London, the site of whose house is still marked by the Mercers' chapel in Cheapside. His mother Rohese was a type of the devout woman of her day ; she weighed her boy each year on his birthday against money^ clothes, and provisions wiiich she gave to the poor. Thomas grew up amidst the Norman barons and clerks who frequented his father's house with a genial freedom of character tempered by the Norman refinement ; he passed from the school of Merton to the University of Paris, and returned to fling Skc. VII. I I Knglanu AND i Anjou t 870 TO 1154 i m England and the Churcb -■* n >► ^ 5 imt rV «• :^> ""' 1 ft ■V! aa U V. H a f , V: li. Eik ■ V. M \ : I 11. coars( stirrinl one w ing til diet, nl clowedl obstinl .')ir thai told dil period niarrial people.! barrier} even k was in enable man's i the old men's r of custo hostility fectly n Church clearly under St barrasse servants, as deleg; of judici; of the gi same dii social im them alo under th picture-l wild fren sides of mind to inevitabl of Henrj midst of dominioi swept av cleverne: seiously, II. knc;land under foreign kings. coarse strong hands, the bowed legs, that marked out the keen, stirring, coarse-fibred man of business. " He never sits down, ' saicl one who observed him closely ; "he is always on his legs from morn- ing till night." Orderly in business, careless in appearance, sparing in diet, never resting or giving his servants rest, chatty, inquisitive, en- dowed with a singular charm of address and strength of memory, obstinate in love or hatred, a fair scholar, a great hunter, his general jjir that of a rough, passionate, busy man, Henry's personal character told directly on the character of his reign. His accession marks the period of amalgamation, when neighbourhood and traffic and inter- !r>arriage drew Englishmen and Normans rapidly into a single people. A national feeling was thus springing up before which the barriers of the older feudalism were to be swept away. Henry had even less reverence for the feudal past than the men of his day ; he was indeed utterly without the imagination and reverence which enable men to sympathize with any past at all. He had a practical man's impatience of the obstacles thrown in the way of his reforms by the older constitution of the realm, nor could he understand other men's reluctance to purchase undoubted improvements by the sacrifice of customs and traditions of bygone days. Without any theoretical hostility to the co-ordinate powers of the state, it seemed to him a per- fectly reasonable and natural course to trample either baronage or Church under foot to gain his end of good government. He saw clearly that the remedy for such anarchy as England had endured under Stephen lay in the establishment of a kingly government unem- barrassed by any privileges of order or class, administered by royal servants, and in whose public administration the nobles acted simply as delegates of the sovereign. His work was to lie in the orgaiization of judicial and administrative reforms which realized this idea. But of the great currents of thought and fe-^ling which were tending in the same direction he knew nothing. What he did for the moral and social impulses which were telling on men about him was simply to let them alone. Religion grew more and more identified with patriotism under the eyes of a King who whispered, and scribbled, and looked at picture-books during mass, who never confessed, and cursed God in wild frenzies of blasphemy. Great peoples formed themselves on both sides of the sea round a sovereign . "nt the whole force of his mind to hold together an Empire which the growth of nationality must inevitably destroy. There is throughout a tragic grandeur in the irony of Henri's position, that of a Sforza of the fifteenth century set in the midst of the twelfth, building up by patience and policy and craft a dominion alitn to the deepest sympathies of his age, and fated to be swept away in the end by popular forces to whose existence his very cleverness and activity blinded him. But indirectly and uncon- sciously, his policy did more than that of all his predecessors to pre- 105 Sfc. vim. HfNRV Till Si roNi) 1154 1189 k\v io6 HISTORY OF tup: ENGLISH PKOPLE. [CIIAP. Sir«. VIII. Hknry riiK SK ONI) 1154 TO 1189 Henry and the Otaurch I 1 162 pare I'.nj^land for the imily aiul freedom which the fall of his house waj to reveal. He had been placed on the throne, as we have seen, by the Church. His first work was to repair the evils which Iln^land had endured till his accession by the restoration of the system of Henry the First ; and it was with the aid and counsel of Theobald that the foreign marauders were driven from the realm, the castles demolished in spite of the opposition of the baronage, the King's Court and iCxchequcr restored. Age and infirmity however warned the Primate to retire from the post of minister, and his power fell into the younger and more vigorous hands of Thomas Beket, who had long acted as his confidential ad- viser and was now made Chancellor. Thomas won the personal favour of the King. The two young men had, in Theobald's words, "but one heart and mind;" Henry jested in the Chancellor's hall, or tore his cloak from his shoulders in rough horse-play as they rode through the streets. He loaded his favourite with riches and honours, but there is no ground for thinking that Thomas in any degree in- fluenced his system of rule. Henry's policy seems for good or evil to have been throughout his own. His work of reorganization went steadily on amidst troubles at home and abroad. Welsh outbreaks forced him in 1 157 to lead an army across the border. The next year saw him drawn across the Channel, where he was already master of a third of the present France. He had inherited Anjou, Maine, and Touraine from his father, Normandy from his mother, and the seven provinces of the South, Poitou, Sairttongc, the Angoumois, La Marche, the Limousin, P^rigord, and Gascony belonged to his wife. As Duchess of Aquitaine Eleanor had claims on Toulouse, and these Henry prepared in 11 59 to enforce by arms. He was however luck- less in the war. King Lewis of France threw himself into Toulouse. Conscious of the ill-compacted nature of i is wide dominions, Henry shrank from an open contest with his suzerain ; he withdrew his forces, and the quarrel ended in 11 60 by a formal alliance and the betrothal of his eldest son to the daughter of Lewis. Thomas had fought bravely throughout the campaign, at the head of the 700 knights who formed his household. But the King had other work for him than war. On Theobald's death he at once forced on the monks of Canterbury, and on Thomas himself, his election as Archbishop. His purpose in this appointment was soon revealed. Henry proposed to the bishops that a clerk convicted of a crime should be deprived of his orders, and handed over to the King's tribunals. The local courts of the feudal baronage had been roughly shorn of their power by the judicial reforms of Henry the First ; and the Church courts, as the Conqueror had created them, with their exclusive right of justice over the clerical order, in other words over the whole body of educated men throughout the realm, formed the one great exception to the system which was ii.l concentrn yielded, h created t( Thomas part he hs pointed w to figure r primate, cism. F told their love me n the Churc doubted piety or le of Thoma tage of tl concessior to the Cor had appea state thes Salisbury, the " Cons provisions election of in the Kinj bound to c to hold hi burthens o might leav chief or ro under intei lation resp decide whe disputed, b was to be i the Bishop victed then was left fro justice, but consent. ' repealed, si passionate tions ; but I ment threw hands. V As n.l ENOT.AND UNDER FORF.TON KINGS. 107 concentrating all jurisdiction in the hands of the king. The bishops yielded, but opposition came from the very prelate whom Henry had created to enforce his will. From the moment of his appointment Thomas had flung himself with the whole energy of his nature into the part he had to play. At the first intimation of Henry's purpose he had pointed with a laugh to his gay attire-- " You are choosing a fine dress to figure at the head of your Canterbury monks ; " but once monk and primate, he passed with a fevered earnestness from luxury to asceti- cism. Kven as minister he had opposed the King's designs, and fore- told their future opposition : ** You will soon hate me as much as you love me now," he said, " for you assume an authority in the affairs of the Church to which 1 shall never assent." A prudent man might have doubted the wisdom of destroying the only shelter which protected piety or learning against a despot like the Red King, and in the mind of Thomas the ecclesiastical immunities were parts of the sacred heri- tage of the Church. He stood without support ; the Pope advised concession, the bishops forsook him, and Thomas bent at last to agree to the Constitutions drawn up at the Council of Clarendon. The King had appealed to the ancient " customs " of the realm, and it was to state these "customs" that a court was held at Clarendon near Salisbury. The report presented by bishops and barons formed the " Constitutions of Clarendon," a code which in the bulk of its provisions simply re-enacted the system of the Conqueror. Every election of bishop or abbot was to take place before royal officers, in the King's chapel, and with the King's assent. The prelate elect was bound to do homage to the King for his lands before consecration, and to hold his lands as a barony from the king, subject to all feudal burthens of taxation and attendance in the King's court. No bishop might leave the realm without the royal permission. No tenant in chief or royal servant might be excommunicated, or their land placed under interdict, but by the King's assent. What was new was the legis- lation respecting ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The King's court was to decide whether a suit between clerk and layman, whose nature was disputed, belonged to the Church courts or the King's. A royal officer was to be present at all ecclesiastical proceedings, in order to confine the Bishop's courf within its own due limits, and a clerk once con- victed there passed at once under the civil jurisdiction. An appenl was left from the Archbishop's court to the King's court for delect of justice, but none might appeal to the Papal court save with the King's consent. The privilege of sanctuary in churches or church) ards was repealed, so far as property and not persons was concerned. After a passionate refusal the Primate at last gave h"s assent to the Constitu- tions ; but this assent was soon retracted, and the King's savage resent- ment threw the moral advantage of the position into the Archbishop's hands. Vexatious charges were brought against him ; in the Council >\' Sk. VI II. Kk.nuv tiik SlCCDNIi 1164 rt> 1189 ■ I Constitu- tions of Clamnifon 1 164 %i I !!• Til |i 1 I r. .^ ' io8 HISTORY OF THE ENOLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Skc. VIII. Hfnry Tiir Sf.conii 1154. TO !189 FUf^Iit of Thomas 1 164 Beket's ■yet urn nyo '■: ' of Northampton a few months later his life was said to be in danger, and all urged him to submit. Rut in the presence of danger the courage of the man rose to its full height. Oasping his archiepiscopal cross he entered the royal court, forbade the nobles to condemn him, and appealed to the Papal See. Shouts of " Traitor ! traitor ! " fol- lowed him as he retired. The Primate turned fiercely at tiie word : " Were I a knight," he retorted, " my sword should answer that foul taunt !" At nightfall he fled in disguise, and reached France through Flanders. For six years the contest raged bitterly ; at Rome, at Paris, the agents of the two powers intrigued against each other. Henry stooped to acts of the meanest persecution in driving the Primate's kinsmen from England, and in threats to confiscate the lands of the Cistercians that he might force the monks of Pontigny to refuse Thomas a home ; while Beket himself exhausted the patience of his friends by his violence and ex- communications, as well as by the stubbornness with which he clung to the offensive clause " Saving the honour of my order," the addition of which would have practically neutralized the King's reforms. The Pope counselled mildness, the French king for a time withdrew his support, his own clerks gave way at last. " Come up," said one of them bitterly when his horse stumbled on the road, "saving the honour of the Church and my order." But neither warning nor desertion moved the resolu- tion of the Primate. Henry, in dread of papal excommunication, re- solved at last on the coronation of his son, in defiance of the privileges of anterbury, by the Archbishop of York. But the Pope's hands were now freed by his successes in Italy, and bis threat of an inter- dict forced the king to a show of submission. The Archbishop was allowed to return after a reconciliation with Henry at Freteval, and the Kentishmen flocked around him with uproarious welcome as he entered Canterbury. " Tiii3 is England," said his clerks, as they saw the white headlands of the coast. " You will wish yourself elsewhere before fifty days are gone," said Thomas sadly, and his foreboding showed his appreciation of Henry's character. He was now in the royal power, and orders had already been issued in the younger Henry's name for his arrect, when four knights from the King's court, spurred to outrage by a passionate outburst of their master's wrath, crossed the sea and forced their way into the Archbishop's palace. After a stormy parley with him in his chamber they withdrew to arm. Thomas was hurried by his clerks into the cathedral, but as he rea^'lied the steps leading from the transept to the choir his pursuers bursi. in from the cloisters. " Where," cried Reg-nald Fitzurse in the dusk of the dimly-lighted minster, " where is the traitor, Thomas Beket ? " The Primate turned resolutely back : " Here am I, no traitor, but a priest of God," he re- plied, and again descending the steps he placed himself with his back against a pillar and fronted his foes. All the bravery, the violence of his old knightly life seemed to revive in Thomas as he tossed back the II.] threat shoute ihe ch "pand ills pe retorte A retai the Pr triump The Christe canonij show o at first visions liberty c ^owevei ecclesia King's I bishops. great w< expediti allowing field for mo'- 2y. him to d tain a fc of the n which roi were res of the ba sheriff" w; to the \a.\ The resc when the of King, on his f; Flanders sons, Ric a descent repulsed no soone extent of l^oger M in the m; [chap. danger, \ger the piscopal im him, ,r ! " fol- e word : :hat foul through r^aris, the T Stooped nen from is that he lileBeket I and ex- ; clung to Idition of The Pope \ support, n bitterly le Church le resolu- :ation, re- privileges le's hands an inter- ihop was ,1, and the e entered Ithe white :fore fifty iwed his .1 power, name for outrage sea and ly parley hurried leading Icloisters. ly-lighted te turned ," he re- Ihis back )lence of Iback the II.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. threats and demands of his assailants. "You are our prisoner," shouted Fitzurse, and the four knights seized him to drag him from ihe church. "Do not touch me, Reginald," shouted the Primate, " pander that you are, you owe me fealty ; " and availing himself of his personal strength he shook him roughly off. " Strike, strike," retorted Fitzurse, and blow after blow struck Thomas to the ground. A retainer of Ranulf de Broc with the point of his sword scattered the Primate's brains on the ground. " Let us be off,"' he cried triumphantly, " this traitor will never rise at'ain." The brutal murder was received with a thrill of horror throughout Christendom ; miracles were wrought at the martyr's tomb ; he was canonized, and became the most popular of EngUsh saints ; but Henry's show of submission to the Papacy averted the excommunication which at first threatened to avenge the deed of blood. The judicial pro- visions of the Constitutions of Clarendon were in form annulled, and liberty of election was restored to bishopricks and abbacies. In reality however the victory rested with the King. Throughout his reign ecclesiastical appointments were practicrJly in his hands, while the King's Court asserted its power over the spiritual jurisdiction of the bishops. The close of the struggle left Henry free to complete his great work of legal reform. He had already availed himself of the expedition against Toulouse to deliver a blow at the baronage by allowing the lower tenants to commute their personal service in the field for a money payment under the name of " scutage," or shield- mo'-jy. The King thus became master of resources which enabled him to dispense with the military support of his tenants, and to main- tain a force of mercenary soldiers in their place. The diminution of the military power of the nobles was accompanied by measures which robbed them of their legal jurisdiction. The circuits of the j udges were restored, and instructions were given them to enter the manors of the barons and make inquiry into their privileges ; while the office of sheriff was withdrawn from the great nobles of the shire and entrusted to the lawyers and courtiers \^ ho already furnished the staff of justices. The resentment of the barons found an opportunity of displaying itself when the King's eldest son, whose coronation had given him the title of King, demanded to he put in possession of his English realm, and on his father's refusal took refuge with Lewis of France. France, Flanders, and Scotland joined the league against Henry ; his younger sons, Richard and Cieoffry, look up arms in Aquitaine. In P'ngland a descent of Flemish mercenaries under the Earl of Leicester was repulsed by the loyal justiciars near S. Edmundsbury ; but Lewis had no sooner entered Normandy and invested Rouen than the whoic extent of the danger was revealed. The Scots crossed the border, Roger Mowbray rose in revolt in Yorkshire, Ferrars, Earl of Derby, in the midland shires, Hugh Bigod in the eastern counties, while a 109 Skc. VIII. Hknkv the Second 1154> TO 1189 Henry and the baronase The great acutitf^e U Inquest oj shci iffs II 70 Ml L_ — ^ no Sec. VIII. Henkv thk Second 1154 'lO 1189 1174 Axs/^e of A nils ii8i Henry and the laiv Assize of Clarendon ii66 Trial by Jury HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap, Flemish fleet prepared to support the insurrection by a descent upon the coast. The murder of Archbishop Thomas still hung around Henry's neck, and his first act in hurrying to England to meet these perils was to prostrate himself before the shrine of the new martyr, and to submit to a public scourging in expiation of his sin. But the penance was hardly wrought when all danger was dispelled by a series of triumphs. The Kinrj of Scotland, William the Lion, surprised by the English under cover of a mist, fell into the hands of his minister, Ranulf de Glanvill, and at the retreat of the Scots the English rebels hastened to lay down their arms. With the army of mercenaries which he had brought over sea Henry was able to return to Normandy, to raise the siege of Rouen, and to reduce his sons to submission. The revolt of the baronage was followed by fresh blows at their power. A further step was Laken a few years later in the military organization of the realm by the Assize of Arms, which restored the national militia to the place which it had lost at the Conquest. The substitution of scutage for military service had freed the crown from its dependence on the baronage and its feudal retainers ; the Assize of Arms replaced this feudal organization by the older obligation of every freeman to serve in the defence of the realm. Every knight was bound to appear at the King's call in coat of mail and with shield and lance, every freeholder with lance and hauberk, every burgess and poorer freeman with lance and helmet. The levy of an armed nation was thus placed wholly at the disposal of the King for purposes of defence. The measures we have named were only part of Henry's legislation. His i3ign, it has been truly said, "initiated the rule of law" as dis- tinct from the despotism, whether personal or tempered by routine, of the Norman kings. It was in successive "Assizes" or codes issued with the sanction of great councils of barons and prelates, that he perfected by a system of reforms the administrative measures which Henry the First had begun. The fabric of our judicial legislation commences with the Assize of Clarendon, the first object of which was to provide for the order of the realm by reviving the old English system of mutual security or frankpledge. No stranger might abide in any place save a borough, and there but for a single night, unless sureties were given for his good behaviour; and the list of such strangers was to be submitted to the itinerant justices. In the pro- visions of this assize for the repression of crime we find the origin of trial by jury, so often attributed to earlier times. Twelve lawful men of each hundred, with four from each township, were sworn to present those who were known or reputed as criminals within their district for trial by ordeal. The jurors were thus not merely witnesses, but sworn to act as judges also in determining the value of the charge, and it is this double character of Henry's jurors that has descended to our 1 II.] "gra crimi Two Edwc quest separ simp] to be judge; which gation acquit kinsm the ne was foi was pr when 1 the ab( which jury" expand after th the Kii Assize ' regular assignee roughly was fina side wit to ever) abolitioi chief da judicial i forced t reserve , of Appe gave bir that the derived, the next which thi its judici Committi Appeal. jurisdicti( [CHAP. t upon around t these martyr, 3ut the d by a ir prised of his ots the army of 3 return sons to blows at military ored the it. The L from its \ssize of of every IS bound id lance, d poorer nation •poses of rislation. as dis- ^utine, of js issued that he 2s which [gislation lich was English [ht abide [t, unless of such the pro- lorigin of >ful men present strict for Lit sworn Imd it is to our II.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. til "grand jury," who still remain charged with the duty of presenting criminals for trial after examination of the witnesses against them. Two later steps brought the jury to its modern condition. Under Edward the First witnesses acquainted with the particular fact in question were added in each case to the general jury, and by the separation of these two classes of jurors at a later time the bst became simply " witnesses " without any judicial power, while the firi t ceased to be witnesses at all, and became our modern jurors, who are only judges of the testimony given. With this assize, too, the practice which had prevailed from the earliest English times of " compur- gation " passed away. Under this system the accused could be acquitted of the charge by the voluntary oath of his neighbours and kinsmen ; but this was abolished by the Assize of Clarendon, and for the next fifty years his trial, after the investigation of the grand jury, was found solely in the ordeal or "judgement of God," where innocence was proved by the power of holding hot iron in the hand, or by sinking when flung into the water, for swimming was a proof of guilt. It was the abolition of the whole system of ordeil by the Council of Lateran which led the way to the establishment of what is called a " petty jury" for the final trial of prisoners. The Assize of Clarendon was expanded in that of Northarrpton, which was drawn up immediately after the rebellion of the Barons. Henry, as we have seen, had restored the King's Court and the occasional circuits of its justices : by the Assize of Northampton he rendered this institution permanent and regular by dividing the kingdom into six districts, to each of which he assigned three itinerant justices. The circuits thus defined correspond roughly with those that still exist. The primary object of these circuits was financial, but the rendering of the King's justice went on side by side with the exaction of the King's dues, and this carrying of justice to every corner of the realm was made still more effective by the abolition of all feudal exemptions from the royal jurisdiction. The chief danger of the new system lay in the opportunities it afforded to judicial corruption ; and so great were its abuses that Henry was soon forced to restrict for a time the number of justices to five, and to reserve appeals from their court to himself in council. The Court of Appeal which he thus created, that of the King in Council, gave birth as time went on to tribunal after tribunal. It is from it that the judicial powers now exercised by the Privy Council are derived, as well as the equitable jurisdiction of the Chancellor. In the next century it becomes the Great Council of the realm, from which the Privy Council drew its legislative, and the House of Lords its judicial character. The Court of Star Chamber and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council are later otTshoots of Henry's Court of Appeal. The King's Court, which became inferior to this higher jurisdiction, was divided after the Great Charter into the three distinct Sec. VIII. Henky the Second 1154- If) 1189 12i6 Assize of North- ampton II76 1178 H r '■ *i 112 Sec. VIII. Hknry the Secono 1154. TO 1189 Deatb of Henry the Second 1183- II 86 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chat 1189 Richard the First 119a 1194 courts of the King's Bench, the Exchequer, and the Common Pleas, which by the time of Edward the First received distinct judges, and became for all purposes separate. For the ten years which followed the revolt of the b?.»'ons Henry's power was at its height ; and an invasion, which we shall tell hereafter, had annexed Ireland to his English crown. But the course of triumph and legislative reform was rudely broken by the quarrels and revolts of his sons. The successive deaths of Henry and Geofifry vvere followed by intrigues between Richard, now his father's heir, who had been entrusted with Aquitaine, and Philip, who had succeeded Lewis on the throne of France. The plot broke out at last in actual conflict ; Richard did homage to Philip, and their allied forces suddenly appeared before Le Mans, from which Henry was driven in headlong flight towards Normandy. From a height where he halted to look back on the burning city, so dear to him as his birthplace, the King hurled his curse against God : " Since Thou hast taken from me the town I loved best, where I was born and bred, and where my father lies buried, I will have my revenge on Thee too — 1 will rob Thee of that thing Thou lovest most in me." Death was upon him, and the longing of a dying man drew him to the home of his race, but Tours fell as he lay at Saumur, and the hunted King was driven to beg mercy from his foes. They gave him the list of the conspirators against him : at the head of them was his youngest and best-loved son, John. " Now," he said, as he turned his face to the wall, "let things go as they will — I care no more for myself or for the world." He was borne to Chinon by the silvery waters of Vienne, ana muttering, " Shame, shame on a conquered King," passed sullenly away. Section IX —The Fall of the AngevinS; 1189— 1204. [Aut/ioniits. — In addition to those mentioned in the last Section, the Chronicic of Richard of Dovizes, and the " Itinerarium Regis Ricardi," edited by Dr. Sttbbs, are useful for Richard's reign. Rigord's " Gesta Philippi," and the "I'hilippis Willelini BritoniL," the chief authorities on the French side, are given in Duchesne, "Hist. Franc. Scriptores," vol. v.] We need not follow Richard in the Crusade which occupied the be- ginning of his reign, and which left England for four years without a r-jler, — ii\ his quarrels in Sicily, his conquest of C>prus, his victory at Ja^lu nis iViiitless march upon Jerusalem, the truce he concluded with Saiadin, his shipwreck as he returned, or his two imprisonments in Gtrraan>. jL^eed at \z-x from Iiis captivity, he returned to face new piids. During his absence, the kingdom had been entrusted to Wi)l'aHi 0/ Longchainy , Bishop of Ely, head of Church and State, as at OHCc: justiciar .vid Papal Legate. Longcbamp was loyal to the King b'lt hii >; lactiCiis and scorn of Englishmen roused a fierce hatred /I.] amon his bi the F check Richa missic Richa: clear-s genius was fa: sheer roughl but he his plai care of release, action 1 availed the lord Bom. the men of their firm gov provi:ice none ; e steadily ; Philip's ] prised h rebels of groaned support t Crushi filled the tached F Chartres, against F Otto to knitted ai the King success 01 no longer trace his Angevin possible f in the Ar [chap. Pleas, s, and [enry's •eafter, iumph revolts T vvere ho had Lewis Dnflict ; iddenly ;adlong to look le King me the y father Thee of and the It Tours I to beg ipirators pst-loved all, "let world." ittering. lion, the I," edited ppi," and ich side, the be- Ithout a ;tory at led with lents ill Ice new (ited to Ite, as at ^e King hatred M.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. among the baronage, and this hatred found a head in John, traitor to his brother as to bis father. John's intrigues with the baronage and the French king ended at last in open revolt, which was, however, checked by the ability of the new Primate, Hubert Walter ; and Richard's landing in 1194 was followed by his brother's complete sub- mission. But if Hubert Walter had secured order in England, oversea Richard found himself face to face with dangers which he was too clear-sighted to undervalue. Destitute of his father's administrative genius, less ingenious in his political conceptions than John, Richard was far from being a mere soldier. A love of adventure, a pride in sheer physical strength, here and there a, romantic generosity, jostled roughly with the craft, the unscrupulousness, the violence of his race ; but he was at heart a statesman, cool and patient in the execution of his plans as he was bold in their conception. " The devil is loose ; take care of yourself," Philip had written *o John at the news of the king's release. In the French king's C2.se a restless ambition was spurred to action by insults which he had borne dui'ng the Crusade, and he had availed himself of Richard's imprisonment io invade Normandy, while the lords of Aquitaine rose in revolt under the t*'Oubadour Bertrand de Born. Jealousy of the rule of strangers, wearinesi' of the turbulence of the mercenary soldiers of the Angevins or cf the gieed and oppression of their financial administration, combined with an impatience of their firm government and vigorous justice to aiienate the nobles of their provi:ices on the Continent. Loyalty among the people there was none ; even Anjou, the home of their race^ diifted towards Philip as steadily as Poitou. But in warlike ability Richard was more than Philip's peer. He held him in check on the Norman fn tier and sur- prised his treasure at Fr^teval, while he reduced to s mission the rebels of Aquitaine. England, drained by the tax for Ri( rd's ransom, groaned under its burdens as Hubert Walter raise* ast sums to support the army of mercenaries which Richard led ag . 1st his foes. Crushing taxation had wrung from England weal . which again filled the royal treasury, and during cX short truce Richard's bribes de- tached Flanders from the French alliance, and uni d the Counts of Chartres, Champagne, and Boulogne with the Bretons in a revolt against PhiUp. He won a valuable aid by the election of his nephew Otto to the German throne, and his envoy, William Longchamp, knitted an alliance which would bring the German lances to bear on the King of Paris. But the security of Normandy was requisite to the success of these wider plans, and Richard saw that its t^efence could no longer rest on the loyalty of the Norman people, his lather might trace his descent through Matilda from the line of Hrolf, but the Angevin ruler was in fact a stranger to the Norman. It was im- possible for a Norman to recognize his Duke with any real sympathy in the Angevin prince whom he saw moving along the border at the "3 i Sec. IX. The Fall OF THE Angevins 1189 TO 1204 If-' Chateaci Gaillard Ii'' i 114 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. IX. The Fall OK THE Angevins 1189 TO 1204. II Richard's death head of Braban^on mercenaries, m whose camp the old names of the Norman baronage were missing, and Merchade, a Provencal ruffian, held supreme command. The purely military site which Richard selected for the new fortress with which he guarded the border showed his realization of the fact that Normandy could now only be held by force of arms. As a monument of warlike skill his " Saucy Castle," Chateau-Gaillard, stands first among the fortresses of the middle ages. Richard fixed its site where the Seine bends suddenly at Gaillon in a great semicircle to the north, and where the valley of Les Andelys breaks the line of the chalk cliffs along its banks. Blue masses of woodland crown the distant .hills ; within the river curve lies a dull reach of flat meadow, round which the Seine, broken with green islets, and dappled with the grey and blue of the sky, flashes like a silver bow on its way to Rouen. The castle formed a part of an entrenched camp which Richard designed to cover his Norman capital. Approach by the river was blocked by a stockade and a bridge of boats, by a fort on the islet in mid stream, and by the fortified town which the King built in the valley of the Gambon, then an impassable marsh. In the angle between this valley and the Seine, on a spur of the chalk hills which only a narrow neck of land connects with the general plateau, rose at the height of 300 feet above the river the crowning fortress of the whole. Its outworks and the walls which connected it with the town and stockade have for the most part gone, but time and the hand of man have done little to destroy the fortifications themselves — the fosse, hewn deep into the soHd rack, with casemates hollowed out along its sides, the fluted walls of the citadel, the huge donjon looking down on the brown roofs and huddled gables of Les Andelys. Even now in its ruin we can under- stand the triumphant outburst of its royal builder as he saw it rising against the sky ; " How pretty a child is mine, this child of but one year old ! " T)- -^ easy reduction of Normandy on the fall of Chdteau-Gailjard at a later time proved Richard's foresight ; but foresight and sagacity were mingled in him with a brutal violence and a callous indifference to honour, " I would take it, were its walls of iron," Philip exclaimed in wrath as he saw the fortress rise. " I would hold it, were its walls of butter," was the defiant answer of his foe. It was Church land, and the Archbishop of Rouen laid Normandy under interdict at its seizure, but the King met the interdict with mockery, and intrigued with Rome till the censure was withdrawn. He was just as defiant of a " rain of blood," whose fall scared his courtiers. " Had an angel from heaven bid him abandon his work," says a cool observer, " he would have answered with a curse." The twelvemonth's hard work, in fart, by securing the Norman frontier, set Richard free to deal his long-planned blow at Philip. Money only was wanting, and the king CHAP. of the uffian, ichard bowed leld by lastle," le ages. »n in a ^ndelys Lsses of 3 a dull n islets, a silver rencbed pproach its, by a lich the ! marsh. ir of the with the river the lis which lost part itroy the |lid rock, ,s of the lofs and n under- lit rising I but one U.] ENGLAND UNDER FOREIGN KINGS. "5 listened with more than the greed of his race to ti^e rumour that a treasure had been found in the fields of the Limousin, "^wf^-lve knights of gold seated round a golden tabic were the find, it was t aid, of the Lord of Chains. Treasure-trove id any rate there was, and 1^ ichard prowled around the walls, but the castle held stubbornly out till the King's greed passed into savage menace ; he would hang all, he swore — man, woman, the very child at the breast. In the midst of his threats an arrow from the walls struck him down. He died as he had lived, owning the wild passion which for seven years past had kept him from confession lest he should be forced to pardon Philip, for- giving with kingly generosity the archer who had shot him. The Angevin dominion broke to pieces at his death. John was acknowledged as king in Englaud and Normandy, Aquitaine was secured for him by its Duchess, his mother ; but Anjou, Maine, and Touraine did homage to Arthur, the son of his elder brother Geoffry, the late Duke of Britanny. The ambition of Philip, who protected his cause, turned the day against Arthur ; the Angevins rose against the French garrisons with which the French king prac- tically annexed the country, and John was a 1;!.:>'^ owned as master of the whole dominion of his house. A fresh o;^;. cak of war in Poitou was fatal to his rival ; surprised at the siege of Mirebeau by a rapid march of the King, Arthur was taken prisoner to Rouen, and murdered there, as men believed, by his uncle's hand. The brutal outrage at once roused the French provinces in revolt, while the French king marched straight on Normandy. The ease Avith which its conquest was effected can only be explained by the utter absence of any popular resistance on the part of the Normans themselves. Half a century before the sight of a Frenchman in the land would have roused every peasant to arms from Avranches to Dieppe, but town after town surrendered at the mere summons of Philip, and the conquest was hardly over before Normandy settled down into the most loyal of the provinces of France. Much of this was due to the wise liberality with which Philip met the claims of the towns to independence and self-government, as well as to the overpowering force and military ability with which the conquest was effected. But the utter absence of all opposition sprang from a deeper cause. To the Norman his transfer from John to Philip was a mere passing from one foreign master to another, and foreigner for foreigner Philip was the less alien of the two. Between France and Normandy there had been as many yr»ars of friendship as of strife ; between Norman and Angevin lay a century of bitterest hate. Moreover, the subjection to France was the realization in fact of a dependence which had always existed in theory ; Philip entered Rouen as the over-lord of its Dukes ; while the submission to the house of Anjou had been the most humiliating of all submissions, the submission to an equal. It was the consciousness of this temper in the Norman people that Sec. IX. The Fai.i, OK THE Anc.evins 1189 T(.) 1204 1 199 The loss of Nor- mandy Hi I200 1203 H'.- Ii6 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. in.] Sec. IX. I'me Fai I OK THE Angevins 1180 lfl04 1204 forced John to abandon all hope of resistance on the failure of his attempt to relieve Chdteau-Galllard, by the siege of which Philip com- menced his invasion. The skill with which the combined movements for its relief were planned proved the King's military ability. The besiegers were parted into two masses by the Seine ; the bulk of their forces were camped in the level space within the bend of the river, while one division was thrown across it to occupy the valley of the Gambon, and sweep the country around of its provisions. John proposed to cut the French army in two by destroying the bridge of boats which formed the only communication between the two bodies, while the whole of his own forces flung themselves on the rear of the French division encamped in the cul-de-sac formed by the nver-bend, and without any exit save the bridge. Had the attack been carried out as ably as it was planned, it must have ended in Philip's ruin \ but the two assaults were not made simultaneously, and were successively repulsed. The repulse was followed by the utter collapse of the military system by which the Angevins had held Normandy ; John's treasury was ex- hausted, and his mercenaries passed over to ♦he foe. The King's despairing appeal to the Duchy itself came too late ; its nobles were already treating with Philip, and the towns were incapable of resisting the siege tram of the French. It was despair of any aid from Nor- mandy that drove John over sea to seek it as fruitlessly from England, but with tbf^ fall of Chateau-Gaillard, after a gallant struggle, the pro- vince passti without a struggle into the French King's hands. In 1204 Philip turner on the south with as startling a success. Maine, Anjou, and Touraine passed with little resistance into his hands, and the death of Eleanor was followed by the submission of the bulk of Aquitaine. Little was left save the country south of the Garonne ; and from the lordship of a vast empire that stretched from the Tyne to the Pyrenees John saw himself reduced at a blow to the realm of England. On the loss of Chdteau-Gaillard in fact hung the destinies of England, and the interest that attaches one to the grand ruin on the heights of Les Andelys is, that it represents the ruin of a system as well as of a camp. From its dark donjon and broken walls we see not merely the pleasant vale of Seine, but the sedgy flats of our own Runnymede. Si \Autk "Englisl prefaces i Series gi Map hav Sir F. M iTisi we have people M face to ft In his aided hy literary history and pro under ec the days which fo intellect! the Char greater the chief and illun monastic house of shelte phical at work of the Con( ano. Sim< '1^ III.] THE GREAT CHARTER. CHAPTER III. THE GREAT CHARTER. 1204-1265. Section I.—Engliali Literature under the Norman and Anff^evin Kings. \ Authorities. — For the general literature of this period, see Mr. Morley's "English Writers from the Conquest to Chaucer," vol. i. part ii. The prefaces of Mr, Brewer and Mr. Dimock to his collected works in the Rolls Series give all that can be known of Gerald de Barri. The Poems of Walter Map have been edited by Mr. Wright for the Camden Society ; Layamon, by Sir F. Madden.] It is in a review of the literature of England during the period that we have just traversed that we shall best understand the new English people with which John, when driven from Normandy, found himself face to face. In his contest with Eeket, Henry the Second had been powerfully aided by the silent revolution which now began to part the purely literary class from the purely clerical. During the earlier ages of our history we have seen literature springing up in ecclesiastical schools, and protecting itself against the ignorance and violence of the time under ecclesiastical privileges. Almost all our writers from Baeda to the days of the Angevins ire clergy or monks. The revival of letters which followed the Conquest was a purely ecclesiastical revival ; the intellectual impulse which Bee had;:iven to Normandy travelled across the Channel with the new Norman abbots who were established in the greater English monasteries ; and writing-rooms or scriptoria, where the chief works of Latin literature, patristic or classical, were copied and illuminated, the lives of saints compiled, and entries noted in the monastic chronicle, formed from, this time a part of every religious house of any importance. But the literature which found this religious sbelte "as not so much ecclesiastical as secular. Even the philoso- phical and devotional impulse given by Anselm produced no English work of theology or metaphysics. The literary revival which followed the Conquest took mainly the old historical form. At Durham, Turgot and, Simeon threw into Latin ^hape the national annals to the time of 117 Tlie literary reyival fl I ii8 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. 1 Sec. I. n English ilR jITERATURK ■H> UNDER THE IB Norman In AND Ange- 11 vin Kings 1 I i \'U «.ut e and the Court IVilliam of Malmesbury The Court historians III 1 Inll iiHil i liiKiltt'f Ir I HUb^m Lj Gerald of Wales Henry the First with an especial regard to northern affairs, while the earlier events of Stephen's reign were noted down by two Priors of Hexham in the wild border-land between England and the Scots. These however were the colourless jottings of mere annalists ; it was in the Scriptorium of Canterbury, in Osbern's lives of the English saints, or in Eadmer's record of the struggle of Anselm against the Red King and his successor, that we see the first indications of a distinctively English feeling telling on the new literature. The national impulse is yet more conspicuous in the two historians that followed. The war-songs of the English conquerors of Britain were preserved by Henry, an Archdeacon of Huntingdon, who wove them into annals compiled from Basda and the Chronicle ; while William, the librarian of Malmesbury, as industriously collected the lighter ballads which embodied the popular traditions of the English Kings. It is in William above all others that we see the new tendency of English literature. In himself, as in his work, he marks the fusion of the conquerors and the conquered, for he was of both English and Norman parentage, and his sympathies were as divided as his blood. The form and style of his writings show the influence of those classical studies which were now reviving throughout Christendom. Monk as he is, he discards the older ecclesiastical models and the annalistic form. P>ents are grouped together with no strict reference to time, while the lively narrative flows rapidly and loosely along, with constant breaks of digression over the general history of Europe and the Church. It is in this change of historic spirit that William takes his place as first of the more statesmanlike and philosophic school of historians who began soon to arise in direct connection with the Court, and amongst whom the author of the chronicle which commonly bears the name of " Benedict of Peterborough," with his continuator Roger of Howden, are the most conspicuous. Both held judicial offices under Henry the Second, and it is to their position at Court that they owe the fulness and accuracy of their information as to affairs at home and abroad, their copious supply of official documents, and the purely political temper with which they regard the conflict of Church and State in their time. The same freedom from ecclesiastical bias, com- bined with remarkable critical ability, is found in the history of William, the CaiAon of Newburgh, who wrote far away in his Yorkshire monastery. The English court, however, had become the centre of a distinctly secukr literature. The treatise of Ranulf de Glanvill, the Justiciar of Henry the Second, is the earliest work on English law, as that of the royal treasurer, Richard Fitz-Neal, on the Exchequer is the earliest on English government. Still more distinctly secular than these, though the work of a priest who claimed to be a bishop, are the writings of Gerald de Barri. Gerald is the father of our popular literature, as he is the originator of III.] the pc name veins, writin in W; bishoj of his and pi in clas better apolog and so author in vog accoun taken i his rap sense, in the ( tone in anecdoi crifical a fearle even to Gerald ; of half t; into hist the see ( the spiri A torn from th( before t; patronaj the Celt! the exile by Geof dantry o memorie the Grea whose p( ferred G Norman verse. !^ tomb at < of his soi the es his lOOl of Court, bears Roger offices they home purely h and com- )ry of kshire e of a 1, the iw, as is the priest iBarri. Iter of HI.] THK GREAT CtTAUTKR. the political and ecclesiastical pamphlet. Welsh blood (as his usual name of Giraldus Cambrensis implies) mixed with Norman in his veins, and something of the restless Celtic rirc runs alike through his writings and his life. A busy scholar at Paris, a reforming archdeacon in Wales, the wittiest of Court chaplains, the meat troublesome of bishops, Gerald became the gayest and most amusing of all the authors of his time. In his hands the stately Latin tongue took the vivacity and picturesqueness of the jongleur's verse. Reared as he had been in classical studies, he threw pedantry contemptuously aside. " It is better to be dumb than not to be understood," is his characteristic apology for the novelty of his style : "new times require new fashions, and so I have thrown utterly aside the old and dry method of some authors, and aimed at adopting the fashion of speech which is actually in vogue to-day." His tract on the conqutst. of Ireland and his account of Wales, which are in fact reports of two journeys under- taken in those cotmtries with John and Archbishop Baldwin, illustrate his rapid faculty of careless observation, his audacity, and his good sense. They are just the sort of lively, dashing letters that we find in the correspondence of a modern journal. There is the same modern tone in his political pamphlets J his profusion of jests, his fund of anecdote, the aptness of his quotations, his natural shrewdness and critical acumen, the clearness and vivacity of his style, are backed by a fearlessness and impetuosity that made him a dangerous assa.iant even to such a ruler as Henry the Second. The invectives in which Gerald poured out his resentment against the Angevins are the cause of half the scandal about Henry and his sons which has found its way into history. His life was wasted in an ineffectual struggle to secure the see of St. David's, but his pungent pen played its part in rousing the spirit of the nation to its struggle with the Crcvn. A tone of distinct hostility to the Church developed itself almost from the first among the singers of romance. Romance had long before taken root in the court of Henry the First, where under the patronage of Queen Maud the dreams of Arthur, so long cherished by the Celts of Britanny, and which had travelled to Wales in the train of the exile Rhys ap Tevvdor, took shape in the History of the Britons by Geoffry of Monmouth. Myth, legend, tradition, the classical pe- dantry of the day, Welsh hopes of future triumph over the Saxon, the memories of the Crusades and of the world-wide dominion of Charles the Great, were mingled together by this daring fabrlist in a work whose popularity became at once immense. Alfred of Beverley trans- ferred Geoffry's inventions into the region of sober history, while two Norman irouveres, Gaimar and Wace, translated them into French verse. So complete was the credence they obtained, that Arthur's tomb at Glastonbury was visited by Henry the Second, while the child of his son Geoffry and of Constance of Britanny bore the name of the 119 Sec. I. English LiTEKATURI under tkk Norman AND Ance- viN Kings W '. * Roman Geoffry cf Monmouth :if IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) /. 4^ 1.0 ^KA 1^ 111.1 l.-^aa 4^ z 'i^. v^** ^.'!>'* Hiotographic Sciences Corporation 23 WBT MAIN STtiiT WIBSTIR.N.Y. I4SM (7t6)t72.4S03 120 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. I. English iLlTRRATURB UKUER THE NuRMAN AND AnCE* viN Kings Walter de Map I BaviTal of the ' Snslish toaffue ' Celtic hero. Out of Geoflfry's creation grew little by little the poem of the Table Round. Britanny, which had mingled with the story of Arthur the older and more mysterious legend of the Enchanter Merlin, lent that of Lancelot to the wandering minstrels of the day, who moulded it, as they wandered from hall to hall, into the familiar tale of knighthood wrested from its loyalty by the love of woman. The stories of Tristram and Gawayne, at firat as independent as that of Lancelot, were drawn with it into the whirlpool of Arthurian romance.; and when the Church, jealous of the popularity of the legends of chivalry, invented as a counteracting influence the poem of the Sacred Dish, the San Graal which held the blood of the Cross invisible to all eyes but those of the pure in heart, the genius of a court poet, Walter de Map, wove the rival legends together, sent Arthur and his knights wandering over sea and land in the quest of the San Graal, and crowned the work by the figure of Sir Galahad, the type of ideal knighthood, without fear and without reproach. Walter stands before us as the representative of a sudden outburst of literary, social, and religious criticism which followed the growth of romance and the appearance of a freer historical tone in the court of the two Henries. Born on the Welsh border, a student at Paris, a favourite with the King, a royal chaplain, justiciar, and ambassador, the genius of Walter de Map was as various as it was prolific. He is as much at his ease in sweeping together the chit-chat of the time in his " Courtly Trifles " as in creating the character of Sir Galahad. But he only rose to his fullest strength when he turned from the fields of romance to that of Church reform, and embodied the ecclesiastical abuses of his day in the figure of his " Bishop Goliath." The whole spirit of Henry and his court in their struggle with Beket is reflected and illustrated in the apocalypse and confession of this imaginary prelate. Picture after picture strips the veil from the corruption of .ne mediaeval Church, its indolence, its thirst for gain, its secret immorality. The whole body of the clergy, from Pope to hedge-priest, is pa.'nted as busy in the chase for gain ; what escapes the bishop is snapped up by the archdeacon, what escapes the archdeacon is nosed and hunted down by the dean, while a host of minor ofticials prowl hungrily around these greater marauders. Out of the crowd of figures which fills the canvas of the satirist, pluralist vicars, abbots " purple as their wines," monks feeding and chattering together like parrots in the refectory, rises the Philistine Bishop, light of purpose, void of conscience, lost in sensuality, drunken, unchaste, the Goliath who sums up the enormities of all, and against whose forehead this new David slings his sharp pebble of the brook. It is only, however, as the writings of Englishmen that Latin or French works like these can be claimed as part of English literature. The spoken tongue of the nation at large remained of course English re he III.] as befoi ministei only a fi Even E strangei survivec and psa Chronic Chronic ofitlfre a legend a native The app of time island mon ; He dwel seemed mind to 1 deeds of who first the priest and S. leaves; h Pen he to together, j is now A fact an e Historical beyond alj changed. Nonnan w the same ; affected b similes of simple joy thus wakes between th by the Cc literature, j de Map an with John. III.] THE GREAT CHARTER. 121 as before ; William himself had tried to learn it that he might ad- minister justice to his subjects ; and for a century after the Conquest only a few new words crept in from the language of the conquerors. Even English literature, banished as it was from the court of the stranger and exposed to the fashionable rivalry of Latin scholars, survived not only in religious works, in poetic paraphrases of gospels and psalms, but in the great monument of our prose, the English Chronicle. It was not till the miserable reign of Stephen that the Chronicle died out in the Abbey of Peterborough. But the " Sayings of itlfred," which embodied the ideal of an English king and gathered a legendary worship round the great name of the English past, show a native literature going on through the reign of Henry the Second. The appearance of a great work of English verse coincides in point of time with the loss of Normandy, and the return of John to his island realm. " There was a priest in the land whose name was Laya- mon ; he was son of Leovenath : may the Lord be gracious to him ! He dwelt at Earnley, a noble church on the bank of Severn (good it seemed to him !) pear Radstone, where he read books. It came in mind to him and in his chiefest thought that he would tell the noble deeds of England, what the men were named, and whence they came, who first had English land." Journeying far and wide over the land, the priest of Earnley found Bseda and Wace, the books too of S. Albin and S. Austin. " Layamon laid down these books and turned the leaves ; he beheld them lovingly : may the Lord be gracious to him ! Pen he took with fingers and wrote a book-skin, and the true words set together, and compressed the three books into one." Layamon's church is now Areley, near Bewdley, in Worcestershire. His poem was in fact an expansion of Wace's " Brut," with insertions from Bseda. Historically it is worthless, but as a monument of our language it is beyond all price. After Norman and Angevin English remained un- changed. In more than thirty thousand lines not more than fifty Norman words are to be found. Even the old poetic tradition remains the same ; the alliterative metre of the earlier verse is only slightly affected by riming terminations, the similes are the few natural similes of Caedmon, the battles are painted with the same rough, simple joy. It is by no mere accident that the English tongue thus wakes again into written life on the eve of the great struggle between the nation and its King. The artificial forms imposed by the Conquest were falling away from the people as from its literature, and a new England, quickened by the Celtic vivacity of de Map and the Norman daring of Gerald, stood forth to its conflict with John. Sec. I. Enc.msh Literature under tub Norman AND Ange- vin Kings Layamon i,'il 'i:,\ t * 1 s: 1 'A i 1 ' • t^ 1 '{. 1 '%kt III.] i Sec. II. John iao4 TO iai5 John Section II.— John. ia04-l&15. [Authorities.— Owe chief sources of information are the Chronicle embodied in the "Memoriale " of Walter of Coventry ; and the "Chronicle of Roger of Wendover," the first of the published annalists of S. Alban's, whose work was subsequently revised and continued in a more patriotic tone by another monk of the same abbey, Matthew Paris. The Annals of Waverley, Dunstable, and Burton are important for the period. The great series of the Royal Rolls begin now to be of the highest value. The French authorities as before. For Langton, see Hook's bic^aph^ in the ** Lives of the Arch- bishops." The best modern account of tn;s reign is in Mr. Pearson's " History of England," vol. ii.] " Foul as it is, hell itself is defiled by the fouler presence of John." The terrible verdict of the King's contemporaries has passed into the sober judgement of history. Externally John possessed all the quick- ness, the vivacity, the cleverness, the good-humour, the social charm which distinguished his house. His worst enemies owned that he toiled steadily and closely at the work of administration. He was fond of learned men like Gerald of Wales. He had a strange gift of attracting friends and of winning the love of women. But in his inner soul John was the worst outcome of the Angevins. He united into one mass of wickedness their insolence, their selfishness, their unbridled lust, their cruelty and tyranny, their shamelessness, their superstition, their cynical indifference to honour or truth. In mere boyhood he had torn with brutal levity the beards of the Irish chieftains who came to own him as their lord. His ingratitude and perfidy had brought down his father with sorrow to the grave. To his brother he had been the worst of traitors. All Christendom believed him to be the murderer of his nephew, Arthur of Britanny. He abandoned one wife and was faithless to another. His punishments were refinements of cruelty — the starvation of children, the crushing old men under copes of lead. His court was a brothel where no woman was safe from the royal lust, and where his cynicism loved to publish the news of his victims' shame. He was as craven in his superstition as he was daring in his impiety. He scoffed at priests and turned his back on the mass even amidst the solemnities of his coronation, but he never stirred on a journey without hanging relics round his neck. But with the supreme wickedness of his race he inherited its profound ability. His plan for the relief of Chiteau-Gaillard, the rapid march by which he shattered Arthur's hopes at Mirebeau, showed an inborn genius for war. In the rapidity and breadth of his political combinations he far surpassed the statesmen of his time. Throughout his reign we see him quick to discern the difficulties of his position, and inexhaustible in the resources with which he met them. The overthrow of his continen which al all Engh The clos incapacit The awfi indolent who lost struggle Thew dominion for the su struggling assemblec project w Primate a had both i that the a national fr braced hin few weeks the opposi head. Joh of Cunterbi though infc its sub-prio to appeal t( both for th< occupied tl Christendo] examinatioi was probab from love o: election wit peared befc archiepisco] made, for i holiness of career place the step was Crown. TI Papal threai his see, by s the banishn could seize i copes J>m the |of his was ickon never |t with Ibility. Iwhich [us for Ihefar ire see ^stible >f his iii.l THE GREAT CHARTER. continental power only spurred him to the formation of a great league which all but brought Philip to the ground ; and the sudden revolt of all England was parried by a shameless alliance with the Papacy. The closer study of John's history clears away the charges of sloth and incapacity with which men tried to explain the greatness of his fall. The awful lesson of his life rests on the fact that it was no weak and indolent voluptuary, but the ablest and most ruthless of the Angevins who lost Normandy, became the vassal of the Pope, and perished in a struggle of despair against English freedom. The whole energies of the King were bent on the recovery of ^ idance h who >f lead, le from nobles seemed 1 defied dress of ;mained seizing loyalty, avy and lof their ove De jo die in Ive been ill clung heaped lof their ications lughters. seen by [Ireland, the land hands, to have eads of remove Ihe ; and lissued a tst hiro, France. III.] THE GREAT CHARTER. "5 John met it with the same scorn as before. His insolent disdain suffered the Roman legate. Cardinal Pandulf, to proclaim his deposi- tion to his face at Northampton. An enormous army gathered at his call on Barham Down ; and the English fleet dispelled all danger of invasion by crossing the Channel, by capturing a number of French ships, and by burning Dieppe. But it was not in England only that the King showed his strength and activity. Vile as he was, John possessed in a high degree the political ability of his race, and in the diplomatic efforts with which he met the danger from France he showed himself his father's equal The barons of Poitou were roused to attack Philip from the south. John bought the aid of the Count of Flanders on his northern border. The German King, Otto, pledged himself to bring the knighthood of Germany to support an invasion of France. But at the moment of his success in diplomacy John suddenly gave way. It was in fact the revelation of a danger at home which shook him from his attitude of coiitemptuous defiance. The bull of deposition gave fresh energy to every enemy. The Scotch King was in correspondence with Innocent. The Welsh princes who had just been forced to submission broke out again in war. John hanged their hostages, and called his host to muster for a fresh inroad into Wales, but the army met only to become a fresh source of danger. Powerless to resist openly, the baronage had plunged almost to a man into secret conspiracies ; many promised aid to Philip on his landing. John, in the midst of hidden enemies, was only saved by the haste with which he disbanded his army and took refuge in Nottingham Castle. His daring self-confidence, the skill of his diplomacy, could no longer hide from him the utter loneliness of his position. At war with Rome, with France, with Scotland, Ireland and Wales, at war with the Church, he saw himself disarmed by this sudden revelation of treason in the one force left at his disposal. With characteristic suddenness he gave way. He endeavoured by remission of fines to win back his people. He negotiated eagerly with the Pope, consented to receive the Archbishop, and promised to repay the raoney he had extorted from the Church. The shameless ingenuity of the King's temper was seen in his immediate resolve to make Rome his ally, to turn its spiritual thunder against his foes, to use it in breaking up the confederacy it had formed against him. His quick versatile temper saw the momentary gain to be won. On the 15th of May 121 3 he knelt before the legate Pandulf, surrendered his kingdom to the Roman Sec, took it back again as a tributary vassal, swore fealty and did liege homage to the Pope. In after times men believed that England thrilled at the news with a sense of national shame such as she had never felt before. "He has become the Pope's man," the whole country vas said to have mur- mured ; " he has forfeited the very name of King ; from a free man he Sbc. II. JOHM iao4 TO laia Pope's ▼aasal ■I i '^1 U f H?'( The Battle of BouTlnes 126 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sbc. II. John 1A04 TC lfll5 if 1214 Stephen Laacton has degraded himself into a serf." But we see little trace of such a feeling in the contemporary accounts of the time. As a political measure indeed the success of John's submission was complete. The French army at once broke up in impotent rage, and when Philip turned against the enemy whom John had raised up for him in Flanders, five hundred English ship<^ under the Karl of Salisbury fell upon the fleet which accompaniec s army along the coast and utterly destroyed it. The league which John had so long matured at last disclosed itself. The King i. nself landed in Poitou, rallied its nobles round him, crossed the Loire in triumph, and won back Angers, the home of his race. At the same time Otto, reinforcing his German army by the knighthood of Flanders and Boulogne as well as by a body of English troops, threatened France from the north. For the moment Philip seemed lost, and yet on the fortunes of Philip hung the fortunes of English freedom. But in this crisis of her fate France was true to herself and her King; the townsmen marched from every borough to Philip's rescue, priests led their flocks to battle with the Church banners flying at their head. The two armies met near the bridge of Bouvines, between Lille and Tournay, and from the first the day went against the allies. The Flemish were the flrst to fly ; then the Germans in the centre were overwhelmed by the numbers of the French ; last of all the English on the right were broken by a fierce onset of the Bishop of Beauvais, who charged mace in hand and struck the Earl of Salisbury to the ground. The news of this complete overthrow reached John in the midst of his triumphs in the South, and scattered his hopes to the winds. He was at once deserted by the Poitevin nobles, and a hasty retreat alone enabled him to return, baffled and humiliated, to his island kingdom. It is to the victory of Bouvines that England owes her Great Charter. From the hour of his submission to the Papacy, John's ven- geance on the barons had only been delayed till he should return a conqueror from the fields of France. A sense of their danger nerved the baronage to resistance ; they refused to follow the King on his foreign campaign till the excommunication were removed, and when it was removed they s...l refused, on the plea that they were not bound to serve in wars without the realm. Furious as he was at this new atti- tude of resistance, the time had not yet come for vengeance, and John sailed for Poitou with the dream of a great victory which should lay Philip and the barons alike at his feet. He returned from his defeat to find the nobles no longer banded together in secret conspiracies, but openly united in a definite claim of liberty and law. The leader in this great change was the new Archbishop whom Innocent had set on the throne of Canterbury. From the moment of his landing in Eng- land, Stephen Langton had assumed the constitutional position of the Primate as champion of the old English customs and law against the III.] personal the Red, Stephen, from the observe t national sail to Pc but by pr ance sucl aim to re pledges o Geoffrey Albans. governme practise e pledged t( of the law Langton : meeting o the First, reforms. paign ; the after the K and swore storation c January in the King, 2 showed Jo were alike to plead hi man would gathered ii they not as the whole c her gates 1 Fitz-Waitei example of of aid cam( hastily tojc John found nation in ai liege lord, 1 Nursing wr the barons 1 III.] THE GREAT CHARTER. 127 personal despotism of the kings. As Anselm had withstood William the Red, as Theobald had rescued England from the lawlessness of Stephen, r>o Langton prepared to withstant< and rescue his country from the tyranny of John. He had already forced him to swear to observe the laws of the Confessor, a phrase h\ which the whole of the national liberties were summed up. When the baronage refused to sail to Poiiou, he compelled the King to deal with them not by arms but by process of law. Far however from being satisfied with resist- ance such as this to isolated acts of tyranny, it was the Archbishop's aim to restore on a formal basis the older freedom of the realm. The pledges of Henry the First had long been forgotten when the Justiciar, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, brought them to light at a Council held at S. Albans. There in the King's name the Justiciar promised good government for the time to come, and forbade all royal officers to practise extortion as they prized life and limb. The King's peace was pledged to these who had opposed him in the past ; and observance of the laws of Henry the First was enjoined upon all within the realm. Langton saw the vast importance of such a precedent. In a fresh meeting of the barons at S. Paul's he produced the Chartt r of Henry the First, and it was at once welcomed as a base for the needed reforms. All hope however hung on the fortunes of the French cam- paign ; the victory at Bou vines gave strength to John's opponents, and after the King's landing the barons secretly met at S. Edmundsbury, and swore to demand from him, if needful by force of arms, the re- storation of their liberties by Charter I'iider the King's seal. Early in January in the year 1215 they presented themselves in arms before the King, and preferred their claim. The few months that followed showed John the uselessness of resistance ; nobles and Churchmen were alike arrayed against him, and the commissioners whom he sent to plead his cause at the shire-courts brought back the news that no man would help him against the Charter.* At Easter the barons again gathered in arms at Brackley, and renewed their claim. " Why do they not ask for my kingdom ?" cried John in a burst of passion ; but the whole country rose as one man at his refusal. London threw open her gates to the forces of the barons, now organised under Robert Fitz- Walter as " Marshal of the Army of God and Holy Church." The example of the capital was followed by Exeter and Lincoln ; promises of aid came from Scotland and Wales ; the northern barons marched hastily to join their comrades in London. There was a moment when John found himself with seven knights at his back, and before him a nation in arms. He had summoned mercenaries and appealed to his liege lord, the Pope ; but summons and appeal were alike too late. Nursing wrath in his heart the tyrant bowed to necessity, and called the barons to a conference at Runnymede. '<• Sec. II. John iao4 TO lais I I ! I2S HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sbc. III. The Grkat Chartbk TO lfll7 1215 June IS ■•etion III.— The Ortat Charter, lfll5— lfll7. XAHthoritks.—IYit text of the Charter is given by Dr. Stubbs, with valuable comments, in his "Select Charters." Mr. Pearson gives a useful analysis of it.] An island in the Thames between Staines and Windsor had been chosen as the place of conference : the King encamped on one bank, while the barons covered the marshy flat, still known by the name of Runnymede, on the other. Their delegates met in the island between them, but the negotiations were a mere cloak to cover John's purpose of unconditional submission. The Great Charter was discussed, agreed to, and signed in a single day. One copy of it still remains in the British Museum, injured by age and fire, but with the royal seal still hanging from the brown, shrivelled parchment. It is impossible to gaze without reverence on the earliest monument of English freedom which we c»n see with our own eyes and touch with our own hands, the great Charter to which from age to age patriots have looked back as the basis of English liberty. But in itself the Charter was no novelty, nor did it claim to establish any new constitutional principles. The Charter of Henry the First formed the basis of the whole, and the additions to it are for the most part formal recognitions of the judicial and administrative changes intro- duced by Henry the Second. But the vague expressions of the older charter were now exchanged for precise and elaborate provisions. The bonds of unwritten custom which the older grant did little more than recognize had proved too weak to hold the Angevins j and the baronage now threw them aside for the restraints of written law. It is in this way that the Great Charter marks the transition from the age of traditional rights, preserved in the nation's memory and ofKcially declared by the Primate, to the age of written legislation, of Parlia- ments and Statutes, which was soon to come. The Church had shown its power of self-defence in the struggle over the interdict, and the clause which recognized its rights alone retained the older and general form. But all vagueness ceases when the Charter passes on to deal with the rights of Englishmen at large, their right to justice, to security of person and property, to good government " No freeman," ran the memorable article that lies at the base of our whole judicial system, " shall be seized or imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed, or in any way brought to ruin : we will not go against any man nor send against him, save by legal judgement of his peers or by the law of the land." "To no man will we sell," runs another^ "or deny, or delay, right or justice." The great reforms of the past reigns, were now formally recognized ; judges of assize were to hdld their circuits four times in 1 c in.] the year, wanderin of justice exactions the amoui applied it geld, or la had seizet and rated scutage, a counsel o provision tion of th Crown, " common vided that special wri at least for been the c( a national Parliament The righ for the nati a boon for 1 feiture of th tenement, o his wain. ' worst. The less exactior protected ag secured in tl from arbitra ofregulatior ties and its f we will and j ports, have i trading class journeying a formity of we the realm, difficult of all had establish abuses were ( the foreigner provide meai in.] THE GREAT CHARTER. 129 the year, and the King's Court was no longer to follow the King in his wanderings over the realm, but to sit in a fixed place. Hut the denial of justice under John was a small danger compared with the lawless exactions both of himself and his predecessor. Richard had increased the amount of the scutage which Henry the Second had introduced, and applied it to raise funds for his ransom. He had restored the Dane- geld, or land-tax, so often abolished, under the new name of "carucagc," had seized the wool of the Cistercians and the plate of the churches, and rated moveables as well as land. John had again raised the rate of scutage, and imposed aids, fines, and ransoms at his pleasure without counsel of the baronage. The Great Charter met this abuse by the provision on which our constitutional system rests. With the excep- tion of the three customary feudal aids which still remained to the Crown, " no scutage or aid shall be imposed in our realm save by the common council of the realm ; " and to this Great Council it was pro- vided that prelates and the greater barons should be summoned by special writ; and all tenants in chief through the sheriflfs and bailiflfs, at least forty days before. The provision defined what had probably been the common usage of the realm ; but the definition turned it into a national right, a right so momentous that on it rests our whole Parliamentary life. The rights which the barons claimed for themselves they claimed for the nation at large. The boon of free and unbought Justice was a boon for all, but ii special provision protected the poor. The for- feiture of the freeman on conviction of felony was never to include his tenement, or that of the merchant his wares, or that of the countryman his wain. The means of actual livelihood were to be left even to the worst. The under-tenants or farmers were protected against all law- less exactions of their lords in precisely the same terms as these were protected against the lawless exactions of the Crown. The towns were secured in the enjoyment of their municipal privileges, their freedom from arbitrary taxation, their rights of justice, of common deliberation, of regulation of trade. " Let the city of London have all its old liber- ties and its free customs, as well by land as by water. Besides this, we will and grant that all other cities, and boroughs, and towns, and ports, have all their liberties and free customs." The influence of the trading class is seen in two other enactments, by which freedom of journeying and trade was secured to foreign merchants, and an uni- formity of weights and measures was ordered to be enforced throughout the realm. There remained only one question, and that the most difificult of all ; the question how to secure this order which the Charter had established in the actual government of the realm. The immediate abuses were easily swept away, the hostages restored to their homes, the foreigners banished from the country. But it was less easy to provide means for the control of a King whom no man could trust, K 7i.. Sec. III. Thb Great Charter iai5 TO iai7 "^'T I m The Charter and the People i t%\'i I I; 130 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CHAP. Sec. hi. Tub Grrat Chartkr lais TO lfll7 John and th« Oharttr ! 1 I and a council of twenty-five barons were chosen from the general body of their order to enforce on John the observance of the Charter, with the right of declaring war on the King should its provisions be infringed. Finally, the Charter was published throughout the whole country, and sworn to at every hundred-mote and town-mote by order from the King. "They have given mc five-and-twenty over-kings," cried John in a burst of fury, flinging himself on the floor and gnawing sticks and straw in his impotent rage. But the rage soon passed into the subtle policy of which he was a master. Some days after he left Windsor, and lingered for months along the southern shore, waiting for news of the aid he had solicited from Rome and from the Continent. It was not without definite purpose that he had become the vassal of Rome. While Innocent was dreaming of a vast Christian Empire with the Pope at its head to enforce justice and religion on his under-kings, John believed that the Papal protection would enable him to rule as tyrannically as he would. The thunders of the Papacy were to be ever at hand for his protection, as the armies of England are at hand to protect the vileness and oppression of a Turkish Sultan or a Nizam of Hyderabad. His envoys were already at Rome, and Innocent, indignant that a matter which might have been brought before his court of appeal as overlord should have been dealt with by armed revolt, annulled the Great Charter and suspended Stephen Langton from the exercise of his office as Primate. Autumn brought a host of foreign soldiers from over sea to the King's standard, and advancing against the disorganized forces of the barons, John starved Rochester into submission and marched ravaging through the midland counties to the North, while his mercenaries spread like locusts over the whole face of the land. From Berwick the King turned back triumphant to coop up his enemies in London, while fresh Papal excommunications fell on the barons and the city. But the burghers set Innocent at defiance. " The ordering of secular matters appertaincth not to the Pope," they said, in words that seem like mutterings of the coming Lollardry ; and at the advice of Simon Langton, the Archbishop's brother, bells swung out and mass was celebrated as before. With the undisciplined militia of the country and the towns, however, suc- cess was impossible aga'.nst the trained forces of the King, and despair drove the barons to seek aid from France. Philip had long been waiting the opportunity for his revenge upon John, and his son Lewis at once accepted the crown in spite of Innocents excommunications, and landed in Kent with a considerable force. As the barons had foreseen, the French mercenaries who constituted John's host refused to fight against the French sovereign. The whole aspect of afifairs was suddenly reversed. Deserted by the bulk of his troops, the King was forced to fall rapidly back on the Welsh Marches, while his rival III.) entered England series of barons a crossed however, the royal The fe was inflai to die. ] was but a the hand! Marshal. Papal Lei father ha( and the s pended. national j< while the Henry wai the iniquii decided th under the Lincoln, w marched t( attacked ai hopeless re Walter was to London, defeat crusl set sail fror forcements a well-know trates the n vessels bowi hurled quid vessels crasl sh-ps. The ag. mst the I was utterly London, but Lambeth Le^ a sum which possessions, \ the prisoners HAP. body with iS be vhole order 1 in a straw policy r, and of the IS not Rome. th the ■kings, rule as to be L hand Nizam locent, ore his armed .angton host of ancing :hester lunties whole ant to Ications ent at to the loming lishop's With ir, suc- iespair been Lewis Rations, is had refused lirs was ig was Is rival III.] THE GREAT CHARTER. 131 entered London and received the submission of the larger part of England. Only Dover held out obstinately against Lewis. By a series of rapid marches John succeeded in distracting the plans of the barons and in relieving Lincoln ; then after a short stay at Lynn he crossed the Wash in a fresh movement to the north. In crossing, however, his army was surprised by the tide, and his baggage with the royal treasures washed away. The fever which seized the baffled tyrant in the abbey of Swineshcad was inflamed by a gluttonous debauch, and John entered Newark only to die. His death changed the whole face of affairs, for his son Henry was but a child of nine years old, and the royal authority passed into the hands of one who stands high among English patriots, William Marshal. The boy-king was hardly crowned when the Earl and the Papal Legate issued in his name the very Charter against which his father had died fighting ; only the clauses which regulated taxation and the summoning of Parliament were as yet declared to be sus- pended. The nobles soon streamed away from the French camp ; for national jealousy and suspicions of treason told heavily against Lewis, while the pity which was excited by the youth and helplessness of Henry was aided by a sense of injustice in burthening the child with the iniquity of his father. One bold stroke of William Marshal decided the struggle. A joint army of French and English barons under the Count of Perche and Robert Fitz-Walter was besieging Lincoln, when the Earl, rapidly gathering forces from the royal castles, marched to its relief. Cooped up in the steep narrow streets, and attacked at once by the Earl and the garrison, the barons fled in hopeless rout ; the Count of Perche fell on the field ; Robert Fitz- Walter was taken prisoner. Lewis, who was investing Dover, retreated to London, and called for aid from France. But a more terrible defeat crushed his remaining hopes. A small English fleet, which had set sail from Dover under Hubert de Burgh, fell boldly on the rein- forcements which were crossing under the escort of Eustace the Monk, a well-known freebooter of the Channel. The fight admirably illus- trates the naval warfare of the time. From the decks of the English vessels bowmen poured their arrows into the crowded transports, othe'-s hurled quicklime into their enemies' faces, while the more active vessels crashed with their arrned prows into the sides of the Frenci, sh'ps. The skill of the mariners of the Cinque Ports decided the day ag.. mst the larger forces of their opponents, and the fleet of Eustace was utterly destroyed. The royal army at once closed in upon London, but resistance was really at an end. By the treaty of Lambeth Lewis promised to withdraw from England on payment of a sum which he claimed as debt ; his adherents were restored to their possessions, the liberties of London and other towns confirmed, and the prisoners on either side set at liberty. The expulsion of the stranger K 2 .'3S thirst for knowledge, a passionate poetry of devotion, gathered thou- sands round the poorest scholar, and welcomed the barefoot friar. Edmund Rich — Archbishop of Canterbury and saint in later days — came to Oxford, a boy of twelve years old, from the little lane at Abingdon that still bears his name. He found his school in an inn that belonged to the abbey of Eynsham, where his father had taken refuge from the world. His mother was a pious woman of the day, too poor to give her boy much outfit besides the hair shirt that he promised to wear every Wednesday ; but Edmund was no poorer than his neigh- bours. He plunged at once into the nobler life of the place, its ardour for knowledge, its. mystical piety. " Secretly," perhaps at eventide when the shadows were gathering in the church of S. Mary's, and the crowd of teachers and students had left its aisles, the boy stood before an image of the Virgin, and placing a ring of gold upon its finger took Mary for his bride. Years of study, broken by a fever that raged among the crowded, noisome streets, brought the time for completing his education at Paris ; and Edmund, hand in hand with a brother Robert of his, begged his way, as poor scholars were wont, to the great school of Western Christendom. Here a damsel, heedless of his tonsure, wooed him so pertinaciously that Edmund consented at last to an assignation ; but when he appeared it was in company of grave academical ofificials, who, as the maiden declared in the hour of penitence which followed, "straightway whipped the offending Eve out of her." Still true to his Virgin bridal, Edmund, on his return from Paris, became the most popular of Oxford teachers. It is to him that Oxford owes her first introduction to the Logic of Aristotle. We see him in the little room which he hired, with the Virgin's chapel hard by, his grey gown reach- ing to his feet, ascetic in his devotion, falling asleep in lecture time after a sleepless night of prayer, with a grace and cheerfulness of manner which told of his French training, and a chivalrous love of knowledge that let his pupils pay what they would. " Ashes' to ashes, dust to dust," the young tutor would say, a touch of scholarly pride perhaps mingling with his contempt of worldly things, as he threw down the fee on the dusty window-ledge, whence a thievish student would sometimes nm off with it. But even knowledge brought its troubles ; the Old Testament, which with a copy of the Decretals long formed his sole library, frowned down upon a love of secular learning from which Edmund found it hard to wean himself. At last, in some hour of dream, the form of his dead mother floated into the room where the teacher stood among his mathematical diagrams. " What are these ? " she seemed to say ; and seizing Edmund's right hand, she drew on the palm three circles interlrxed, each of which bore the name of one of the Persons of the Christian Trinity. " Be these," she cried, as her figure faded away, " thy diagrams henceforth, my son." ''f : Sec. IV. The Univer- sities Edmund Rich I'' I' il it's. 1 ! :^li 136 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. IV. The Univer- sities Th« UnU ▼•rsitiea and Feu- dalism fl !..- The story admirably illustrates the real character of the new train- ing, and the latent opposition between the spirit of the Universities and the spirit of the Church. The feudal and ecclesiastical order of the old mediaeval world were both alike threatened by the power that had so strangely sprung up in the midst of them. Feudalism rested on local isolation, on the severance of kingdom from kingdom and barony from barony, on the distinction of blood and race, on the supremacy of material or brute force, on an allegiance determined by accidents of place and social position. The University, on the other hand, was a protest against this isolation of man from man. The smallest school was European and not local. Not .merely every pro- vince of France, but every people of Christendom, had its place among the "nations" of Paris or Padua. A common language, the Latin tongue, superseded within academical bounds the warring tongues of Europe. A common intellectual kinship and rivalry took the place of the petty strifes which parted province from province or realm from realm. What the Church and Empire had both aimed at and both failed in, the knitting of Christian nations together into a vast common- wealth, the Universities for a time actually did. Dante felt himself as little a stranger in the " Latin " quarter ai«.und Mont Ste. Genevieve as under the arches of Bologna. Wandering Oxford scholars carried the writings of Wyclif to the libraries of Prague. In England the >vork of provincial fusion was less difficult or important than elsewhere, but even in England work had to be done. The feuds of Northerner and Southerner which so long disturbed the discipline of Oxford witnessed at any rate to the fact that Northerner and Southerner had at last been brought face to face in its streets. And here as elsewhere the spirit of national isolation was held in check by the larger comprehensiveness of the University. After the dissensions that threatened the prosperity of Paris in the thirteenth century, Norman and Gascon mingled with Englishmen in Oxford lecture-halls. At a later time the rebellion of Owen Glyndwr found hundreds of Welshmen gathered round its teachers. And within this strangely mingled mass, society and government rested on a purely democratic basis. Among Oxford scholars the son of the noble stood on precisely the same footing with the poorest mendicant. Wealth, physical strength, skill in arms, pride of ancestry and blood, the very grounds on which feudal society rested, went for nothing in th^ lecture-room. The University was a state absolutely self-governed, and whose citizens were admitted by a purely intellectual franchise. Knowledge made the " master." To know more than one's fellows was a man's sole claim to be a ** ruler " in the schools : and within this intellectual aristocracy all were equal. When the free commonwealth of the masters gathered in the aisles of S. Mary's all had aji equal right to counsel, all had an equal vote in the final decision. Treasury and library were at their complete dis- af III.] posal. and sa had at their o If th their sp seeming which n educate their from la) only to This ec< head. Univers; sprung i Bishop ( then situ only rer sudden e of those hitherto ; revival oj and a gre mind, in doubt, ol claimed f cussed wi he censur in whom Second, t Europe as so long c Christians books of t Bacon. 1 Abelard c science w "Slowly," come into Metaphysi translated 1237 beca time, and 1 the third b III.] THE GREAT CHARTER. 137 ;eness ^perity with lion of id its and Ixford with I arms, jociety was ted by To fuler" jqual. lies of lote in le dis- posal. It was their voice that named every officer, that proposed and sanctioned every statute. Even the Chancellor, their head, who had at first been an officer of the Bishop, became an elected officer of their own. If the democratic spirit of the Universities threatened feudalism, their spirit of intellectual inquiry threatened the Church. To all outer seeming they were purely ecclesiastical bodies. The wide extension which mediaeval usage gave to the word " orders " gathered the whole educated world within the pale of the clergy. Whatever might be their age or proficiency, scholar and teacher were alike clerks, free from lay responsibilities or the control of civil tribunals, and amenable only to the rule of the Bishop and the sentence of his spiritual courts. This ecclesiastical character of the University appeared in that of its head. The Chancellor, as we have seen, was at first no officer of the University, but of the ecclesiastical body under whose shadow it had sprung into life. At Oxford he was simply the local officer of the Bishop of Lincoln, within whose immense diocese the University was then situated. But this identification in outer form with the Church only rendered more conspicuous the difference of its spirit. The sudden expansion of the field of education diminished the importance of those purely ecclesiastical and theological studies which had hitherto absorbed the whole intellectual energies of mankind. The revival of classical literature, the rediscovery as it were of an older and a greater world, the contact with a larger, freer life, whether in mind, in society, or in politics, introduced a spirit of scepticism, of doubt, of denial into the realms of unquestioning belief. Abelard claimed for reason the supremacy over faith. Florentine poets dis- cussed with a smile the immortality of the soul. Even to Dante, while he censures these, Vergil is as sacred as Jeremiah. The imperial ruler in whom the new culture took its most notable form, Frederic the Second, the " World's Wonder " of his time, was regarded by half Europe as no better than an infidel. A faint revival of physical science, so long crushed as magic by the dominant ecclesiasticism, brought Christians into perilous contact with the Moslem and the Jew. The books of the Rabbis were no longer a mere accursed thing to Roger Bacon. The scholars of Cordova were no mere Paynim swine to Abelard of Bath. How slowly indeed and against what obstacles science won its way we know from the witness of Roger Bacon. " Slowly/' he tells us, " has any portion of the philosophy of Aristotle come into use among the Latins. His Natural Philosophy and his Metaphysics, with the Commen':aries of Averroes and others, were translated in my time, and interdicted at Paris up to the year of grace 1237 because of their assertion of the eternity of the world and of time, and because of the book of the divinations by dreams (which is the third book, De Somniis et Vigiliis), and because of many passages — - - t . Sec. IV. The Univer- sities The Ual- versltlea and the Church ■Hi Sec. IV. The Univer- sities Roger Bacon I 2 14- I 292 ''■I erroneously translated. Even his Logic was slowly received and lectured on. For St. Edmund, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first in my time who read the Elements at Oxford. And I have seen Master Hugo, who first read the book of Posterior Analytics, and I have seen his writing. So there were but few, considering the multitude of the Latins, who were of any account in the philosophy of Aristotle : nay, very few indeed, and scarcely any up to this year of grace 1292." We shall see in a later page how fiercely the Church fought against this tide of opposition, and how it won back the allegiance of the Universities through the begging Friars. But it was in the ranks of the Friars themselves that the intellectual progress of the Universities found its highest representative. The life of Roger Bacon almost covers the thirteenth century ; he was the child of royalist parents, who had been driven into exile and reduced to poverty by the civil wars. From Oxford, where he studied under Edmund of Abingdon, to whom he owed his introduction to the works of Aristotle, he passed to the University of Paris, where his whole heritage was spent in costly studies and experiments. " From my youth up," h^ writes, " I have laboured at the sciences and tongues. I have sought the friend- ship of all men among the Latins who had any reputation for know- ledge. I have caused youths to be instructed in languages, geometry, arithmetic, the construction of tables and instruments, and many needful things besides." The difficulties in the way of such studies as he had resolved to pursue were immense. He was without instru- ments or means of experiment. " Without mathematical instruments no science can be mastered," he complains afterwards, " and these instrunicnts are not to be found among the Latins, nor could they be made for two or three hundred pounds. Besides, better tables are indispensably necessary, tables on which the motions of the heavens are certified from the beginning to the end of the world without daily labour, but these tables are worth a king's ransom, and could not be made without a vast expense. I have often attempted the composi- tion of such tables, but could not finish them through failure of means and the folly of those whom I had to employ." Books were difficult and sometimes even impossible to procure. " The philosophical works of Aristotle, of Avicenna,'of Seneca, of Cicero, and other ancients cannot be had without great cost ; their principal works have not been translated into Latin, and copies of others are not to be found in ordinary libraries or elsewhere. The admirable books of Cicero de Republica are not to be found anywhere, so far as I can hear, though I have made anxious inquiry for them in different parts of the world, and by various messengers. I could never find the works of Seneca, though I made diligent search for them during twenty years and more. And En it is with many more most useful books connected with the 111.] scienc< home t Roger record John o general says Ba nurture aptitude or six y and opt since th who kn produce because of surpa has begi The p justified Oxford, that « th< or elsewi science c seems to friars set mental e against s knowledg promotioi literature of incessE forgotten, his wealth laboured i men, I ha on accoun acquisitioi have mad instructed to the cou became a study wei specially u He had w write, that III.] THE GREAT CHARTER. science of morals." It is only words like these of his own that bring home to us the keen thirst for knowledge, the patience, the energy of Roger Bacon. He returned as a teacher to Oxford, and a touching record of his devotion to those whom he taught remains in the story of John of London, a boy of fifteeja, whose ability raised him above the general level of his pupils. " When he came to me as a poor boy," says Bacon, in recommending him to the Pope, " I caused him to be nurtured and instructed for the love of God, especially since for aptitude and innocence I have never found so towardly a youth. Five or six years ago I caused him to be taught in languages, mathematics, and optics, and I have gratuitously instructed him with my own lips since the time that I received your mandate. There is no one at Paris who knows so much of the root of philosophy, though he has not produced the branches, flowers, and fruit because of his youth, and because he has had no experience in teaching. But he has the means of surpassing all the Latins if he live to grow old and goes on as he has begun." The pride with which he refers to his system of instruction was justified by the wide extension which he gave to scientific teaching in Oxford. It is probably of himself that he speaks when he tells us that " the science of optics has not hitherto been lectured on at Paris or elsewhere among the Latins, save twice at Oxford." It was a science on which he had laboured for ten years. But his teaching seems to have fallen on a barren soil. From the moment when the friars settled in the Universities scholasticism absorbed the whole mental energy of the student world. The temper of the age was against scientific or philosophical studies. The older enthusiasm for knowledge was dying down ; the study of law was the one source of promotion, whether in Church or state ; philosophy was discredited, literature in its purer forms became almost extinct. After forty years of incessant study. Bacon found himself in his own words " unheard, forgotten, buried." He seems at one time to have been wealthy, but his wealth was gone. " During the twenty years that I have specially laboured in the attainment of wisdom, abandoning the path of common men, I have spent on these pursuits more than two thousand pounds, on account of the cost of books, experiments, instruments, tables, the acquisition of languages, and the like. Add to all this the sacrifices I have made to procure the friendship of the wise, and to obtain well- instructed assistants." Ruined and baffled in his hopes, Bacon listened to the counsels of his friend Grosseteste and renounced the world. He became a friar of the order of S. Francis, an order where books and study were looked upon as hindrances to the work which it had specially undertaken, that of preaching among the masses of the poor. He had written hardly anything. So far was he from attempting to write, that his new superiors had prohibited him from publishing any- 139 Sec. IV. The Univek- SITilCS -'. ■rJ il'u, m\ I 4 140 Skc. IV. The Univer- sities HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. [The Opus Majus fi thing under pain of forfeiture of the book and penance of bread and water. But we can see the craving of his mind, the passionate instinct of creation which marks the man of genius, in the joy with which he seized the strange opportunity which suddenly opened before him. " Some few chapters on different subjects, written at the entreaty of friends," seem to have got abroad, and were brought by one of his chaplains under the notice of Clement the Fourth. The Pope af once inyited him to write. Again difficulties stood in his way. Materials, transcription, and other expenses for such a work as he projected would cost at least ^60, and the Pope had not sent a penny. He begged help from his family, but they were ruined like himself. No one would lend to a mendicant friar, and when his friends raised the money it was by pawning their goods in the hope of repayment from Clement. Nor was this all ; the work itself, abstruse and scientific as was its subject, had to be treated in a clear and popular form to gain the Papal ear. But difficulties which would have crushed another man only roused Roger Bacon to an almost superhuman energy. In little more than a year the work was done. The " greater work," itself in modern form a closely printed folio, with its successive summaries and appendices in the " lesser " and the " third " works (which make a good octavo more) were produced and forwarded to the Pope within fifteen months. No trace of this fiery haste remains in the book itself. The " Opus Majus " is alike wonderful in plan and detail. Bacon's main plan, in the words of Dr. Whewell, is" to urge the necessity of a reform in the mode of philosophizing, to set forth the reasons why knowledge had not made a greater progress, to draw back attention to sources of knowledge which had been unwisely neglected, to discover other sources which were yet wholly unknown, and to animate men to the undertaking by a prospect of the vast advantages which it offered." The developement of his scheme is on the largest scale ; he gathers together the whole knowledge of his time on every branch of science which it possessed, and as he passes them in review he suggests im- provements in nearly all. His labours, both here and in his after works, in the field of grammar and philology, his perseverance in insisting on the necessity of correct texts, of an accurate knowledge of languages, of an exact interpretation, are hardly less remarkable than his scientific investigations. But from grammar he passes to mathe- matics, from mathematics to experimental philosophy. Under the name of mathematics was included all the physical science of the time. '* The neglect of it for nearly thirty or forty years," pleads Bacon passion- ately, " hath nearly destroyed the entire studies of Latin Christendom. For he who knows not mathematics cannot know any other sciences : and what is more, he cannot discover his ov/n ignorance or find its proper remedies." Geography, chronology, arithmetic, music, are III.] brough tion is and ast with gr eye, bes provinc the phi Novum works disentor magnifi( its own look for seems tc more re order. lived, an that hac roll of m graphers his editor 1 with stron] I have spo Waverley, many deta preface, aj opposition The dej the hands returned i It was an j transition; sympathy like that < preservatii English d< reluctance Able as h He was h legate resi III.] THE GREAT CHARTER. 141 in the had of other the red." thers kience Is im- after Ice in |ledge than [athe- Ir the 1 time. Bsion- Idom. ices : id its are brought into something of scientific form, and the same rapid examina- tion is devoted to the question of cHmate, to hydrography, geography, and astrology. The subject of optics, his own especial study, is treated with greater fulness ; he enters into the question of the anatomy of the eye, besides discussing the problems which lie more strictly within the province of optical science. In a word, the " Greater Work," to borrow the phrase of Dr. Whewell, is " at once the Encyclopaedia and the Novum Organum of the thirteenth century." The whole of the after works of Roger Bacon — and treatise after treatise has of late been disentombed from our libraries — are but developements in detail of the magnificent conception he had laid before Clement. Such a work was its own great reward. From the world around Roger Bacon could look for and found small recognition. No word of acknowledgement seems to have reached its author from the Pope. If we may credit a more recent story, his writings only gained him a prison from his order. " Unheard, forgotten, buried," the old man died as he had lived, and it has been reserved for later ages to roll away the obscurity that had gathered round his memory, and to place first in the great roll of modern science the name of Roger Bacon. Section v.— Henry the Third, 1216-1257. [Authorities. — The two great authorities for this period are the historio- graphers of St. Albans, Roger of Wendover, whose work ends in 1235, and his editor and continuator Matthew P::ris. The first is full but inaccurate, and with strong royal and ecclesiastical sympathies : of the charac '.er of Matthew, I have spoken at the close of the present section. The Chronicles of Dunstable, Waverley, and Burton (published in Mr. Luard's '* Annales Monastic! ") supply many details. The '* Royal Letters," edited by Dr. Shirley, with an admirable preface, are, like the Patent and Close Rolls, of the highest value. For opposition to Rome, see ** Grosseteste's Letters," edited by Mr. Luard.] The death of the Earl Marshal in 12 19 left the direction of affairs in the hands of a new legate, Pandulf, of Stephen Langton who had just returned forgiven from Rome, and of the Justiciar, Hubert de Burgh. It was an age of transition, and the temper of the Justiciar was eminently transitional. Bred in the school of Henry the Second, he had little sympathy with national freedom ; his conception of good government, like that of his master, lay in a wise personal administration, in the preservation of order and law. But he combined with this a thoroughly English desire for national independence, a hatred of foreigners, and a reluctance to waste English blood and treasure in Continental struggles. Able as he proved himself, his task was one of no common difficulty. He was hampered by the constant interference of Rome. A Papal legate resided at the EngUsh court, and claimed a share in the admin- Skc. V. Hknry thb Third laie TO 1A57 Hubert de Burgrb .-fe 142 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. III.] Sec. V. Henry thk Third laie TO lfl57 t 1224 Lanefon and the Charter I216 1223 istration of the realm as the '•epresentative of its over-lord, and as guardian of the young sovereign. A foreign party, too, had still a foot- ing in the kingdom, for William Marshal had been unable to rid him- self of men like Peter des Roches or Faukes de Hreaut^, who had fought on the royal side in the struggle against Lewis. Hubert had to deal too with the anarchy which that struggle left behind it. From the time of the Conquest the centre of England had been covered with the domains of great nobles, whose longings were for feudal independence, and whose spirit of revolt had been held in check, partly by the stern rule of the Kings, and partly by their creation of a baronaije sprung from the Court and settled for the most part in the North. The oppression of John united both the older and these newer houses in the struggle for the Charter. But the character of each remained unchanged, and the close of the struggle saw the feudal party break out in their old lawlessness and defiance of the Crown. For a time the anarchy of Stephen's days seemed revived. But the Justiciar was resolute to crush it, and he was backed by the strenuous efforts of Stephen Langton. The Earl of Chester, the head of the feudal baronage, though he rose in armed rebellion, quailed before the march of Hubert and the Primate's threats of excommunication. A more formidable foe remained in the Frenchman, Faukes de Breaute, the sherifif of six counJes, with six royal castles in his hands, and allied both with the rebel barons and Llewelyn of Wales. His castle of Bedford was besieged for two months before its surrender, and the stern justice of Hubert hanged the twenty-four knights and their retainers who formed the garrison before its walls. The blow was effectual ; the royal castles were surrendered by the barons, and the land was once more at peace. Freed from foreign soldiery, the country was freed also from the presence of the foreign legate. Langton wrested a promise from Rome that so long as he lived no future legate should be sent to England, and with Pandulfs resignation in 1221 the direct interference of the Papacy in the government of the realm came to an end. But even these services of the Primate were small compared with his services to English freedom. Throughout his life the Charter was the first objecl of his care. The omission of the articles which restricted the royal power over taxation in the Charter which was pub- lished at Henry's accession was doubtless due to the Archbishop's absence and disgrace at Rome. The suppression of disorder seems to have revived the older spirit of resistance among the royal ministers ; when Langton demanded a fresh confirmation of the Charter in Parlia- ment at London, William Brewer, one of the King's councillors, pro- tested that it had been extorted by force, and was without legal validity. " If you loved the King, William," the Primate burst out in anger, "you would not throw a stumbling-block in the way of the peace of the realm." The King was cowed by the Archbishop's wrath, and at once promise mulgati price ol fruitful I to the C The . English though powerle King. Christer kingdor barons, and sub might tl the Pap; grew m Englanc baronag Pope fel ables of murmuri patrons tions to clergy w indignat whole b< Romans gathered poor, th< foot. T of the m himself v while th( rioters aj the outbr came at 1 whom h< dominior had bijen armamen dispersed his swore treason a appeased III.] THE GREAT CHARTER. 143 promised observance of the Charter. Two years after, its solemn pro- mulgation WAS demanded by the Archbishop and the barons as the price of a subsidy, and Henry's assent established the principle, so fruitful of constitutional results, that redress of wrongs precedes a grant to the Crown. The death of Stephen Langton in 1228 proved a heavy blow to English freedom. In 1227 Henry had declared himself of age ; and though Hubert still remained Justiciar, every year saw him more powerless in his struggle with Rome and with the tendencies of the King. In the mediaeval theory of the Papacy, the constitution of Christendom as a spiritual realm took the feudal form of the secular kingdoms within its pale, with the Pope for sovereign, bishops for his barons, the clergy for his under vassals. As the King demanded aids and subsidies in case of need from his liegemen, so it was believed might the head of the Church from the priesthood. At this moment the Papacy, exhausted by its long struggle with Frederick the Second, grew more and more extortionate in its demands. It regarded England as a vassal kingdom, and as bound to aid its overlord. The baronage, however, rejected the demand of aid from the laity, and the Pope fell back on the clergy. He demanded a tithe of all the move- ables ofthe priesthood, and a threat of excommunication silenced their murmurs. Exaction followed exaction, the very rights of the lay patrons were set aside, and under the name of " reserves " presenta- tions to English benefices were sold in the Papal market, while Italian clergy were quartered on the best livings of the Church. The general indignation found vent at last in a wide conspiracy ; letters from " the whole body of those who prefer to die rather than be ruined by the Romans" were scattered over the kingdom by armed men; tithes gathered for the Pope and foreign clergy were seized and given to the poor, the Papal commissioners beaten, and their bulls trodden under foot. The remonstrances of Rome only revealed the national character of the movement ; but as inquiry proceeded the hand of the Justiciar himself was seen to have been at work. Sheriffs had stood idly by while the viohnce was done ; royal letters had been shown by the rioters as approving their acts ; and the Pope openly laid the charge of the outbreak on the secret connivance of Hubert de Burgh. The charge came at a time when Henry was in full collision with his minister, to whom he attributed the failure of his attempts to regain the foreign dominions of his house. An invitation from the barons of Normandy had b^en rejected through Hubert's remonstrances, and when a great armament gathered at Portsmouth for a campaign in Poitou, it was dispersed for want of transport and supplies. The young King drew his sword and rushed madly on the Justiciar, whom he charged with treason and corruption by thegold of France ; but the quarrel was appeased, and the expedition deferred for the year. The failure of the Sic. V. Hbnrv thm Third laie TO lfl57 Hubert's fall Langtoti'a death 1228 1: 1229 >i Is? \ A 1230 144 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. ICIIAP. Sec. V. Henry thk Third laie T(l laftT H«nrj III. and the aliens i 1236 I campaign in the foUowinj^ year, when Henry took the field in Dritanny and Poitou, was again laid at the door of Hubert, whose opposition was said to have prevented an engagement. The I'apal accusation filled up the measure of Henry's wrath. Hubert was dragged from a chapel at Mrentwood where he had taken refuge, and a smith was ordered to shackle him. " 1 will die any death," replied the smith, " before I put iron on the man who freed England from the stranger and saved Dover from France." On the remonstrances of the Bishop of London Hubert was replaced in sanctuary, but hunger compelled him to surrender ; he was thrown a prisoner into the Tower, and though soon released he remained powerless in the realm. His fall left England without a check to the rule of Henry himself. There was a certain refinement in Henry's temper which won him affection even in the worst days of his rule. The Abbey-church of Westminster, with which he replaced the ruder minster of the Con- fessor, remains a monument of his artistic taste. He was a patron and friend of artists and men of letters, and himself skilled in the " gay science " of the troubadour. From the cruelty, the lust, the impiety of his father he was absolutely free. But of the political capacity which had been the characteristic of his house he had little or none. Profuse, changeable, impulsive alike in good and ill, un- bridled in temper and tongue, reckless in insult and wit, Henry's delight was in the display of an empty and prodigal magnificence, his one notion of government a dream of arbitrary power. But frivolous as the King's mood was, he clung with a weak man's obstinacy to a distinct line of policy. He cherished the hope of recovering his heritage across the sea. He believed in the absolute power of the Crown ; and looked on the pledges of the Great Charter as promises which force had wrested from the King and which force could wrest back again. The claim which the French kings were advancing to a divine and absolute power gave a sanction in Henry's mind to the claim of absolute authority which was still maintained by his favourite advisers in the royal council. The death of Langton, the fall of Hubert de Burgh, left him free to surround himself with dependent ministers, mere agents of the royal will. Hosts of hungry Poitevins and Bretons were at once summoned over to occupy the royal castles and fill the judi-^ial and administrative posts about the Court. His marriage with Eleanor of Provence was followed by the arrival in England of the Queen's uncles. The " Savoy," as his house in the Strand was named, still recalls Peter of Savoy, who arrived five years later to take for a while the chief place at Henry's council-board ; another brother, Boni- face, was on Archbishop Edmund's death consecrated to the highest post in the realm save the Crown itself, the Archbishoprick of Canter- bury. The young Primate, like his brother, brought with him foreign fashions strange enough to English folk. His armed retainers pillaged iii.J the mark of St. Ba was rous« crowd of cries of v styled hi I was follov queen. Is Chester ; the King's lowed the Poitevin husbands, wedded bj tration pat the princip a mere an robberL, ar corruption proved to 1: disputed es That mis in defiance and sluggis] foreigners, ] forth as thei royal Coun( defeated th« treat for pea of Peter des barons were as an Ox fore terbury, fore no real chan and of Robe the long inte King forced used as a me were wrestec quarters wh< utterlv inpMff sixth of the n The debts oft was forced tc granted on i III.] TllK GREAT CHARTER the markets. His own archiepiscop)al fist felled to the ground the prior of St. Bartholomew-by-SmithficUl, who opposed his visitation. London was roused by the outrajje ; on the King's refusal to do justice a noisy crowd of citizens surrounded the Primate's house at Lambeth with cries of vengeance, and the " handsome archbishop," as his followers styled him, was glad to escape over sea. This brood of Proven<,*als was followed in 1243 by the arrival of the Poitevin relatives of Jol 1 s queen, Isabella of Angoulcme. Aymer was made Hishop of Win- chester ; WiUiam of Valence received the earldom of Pembroke. Kven the King's jester was a Poitevin. Hundreds of their dependants fol- lowed these great lords lo find a fortune in the Knglish realm. The Poitevin lords brought in their train a bevy of ladies in search of husbands, and three English earls who were in royal wardship were wedded by the King to foreigners. The whole machinery of adminis- tration passed into the hands of men ignorant and contemptuous of the principles of English government or English law. Their rule was a mere anarchy ; the very retainers of the royal liousehold turned robberL, and pillaged foreign merchants in the precincts of the Court ; corruption invaded the judicature ; Henry de Bath, a justiciar, was proved to have openly taken bribes and to have adjudged to himself disputed estates. That misgovernment of this kind should have gone on unchecked, in defiance of the provisions of the Charter, was owing to the disunion and sluggishness of the English baronage. On the first arrival of the foreigners, R' jhitrd, the Earl Marshal, a son of the great Regent, stood forth as their leader to demand the expulsion of the strangers from the royal Council, and though deserted by the bulk of the nobles, he defeated the foreign forces sent against him, and forced the King to treat for peace. But at this moment the Earl was drawn by an intrigue of Peter des Roches to Ireland ; he fell in a petty skirmish, and the barons were left without a head. Edmund Rich, whom we have seen as an Oxford teacher and who had risen to the Archbishoprickof Can- terbury, forced the King to dismiss Peter from court ; but there was no real change of system, and the remonstrances of the Archbishop and of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, remained fruitless. In the long interval of misrule which followed, the financial straits of the King forced him to heap exaction on exaction. The Forest Laws were used as a means of extortion, sees and abbeys were kept vacant, loans were wrested from lords and prelates, the Court itself lived at free quarters wherever it moved. Supplies of this kind however were utter) V ins'tfficient to defray the cost of the King's prodigality. A sixth of the royal revenue was wasted in pensions to foreiejn favourites. The debts of the Crown mounted to four times its annual income. Henry was forced to appeal to the Great Council of the realm, and aid was granted on condition that the King confirmed the Charter. The L 145 Sue. V. Hknrv tnk Thiru TO ia57 n ', ( ^H iffi The Barons and tk« Church i. wli ill \Riifv I 1 >234 iU"'^ »237 i 'i V 1 1 s m :] iflW^ltl^pt J 1 .« 1 146 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE, [chap. Sec. V. Henry the Third laie TO 1257 1242 1246 Matthew Paris 1200-1259 II Charter was confirmed and steadily disregarded ; and the resentment of the barons expressed itself in a determined protest and a refusal of further subsidies. In spite of their refusal however Henry gathered money enough for a costly expedition for the recovery of Poitou. The attempt ended in failure and shame. At Taillebourg the forces under Henry fled in disgraceful rout before the French as far as Saintes, and only the sudden illness of Lewis the Ninth and a disease which scat- tered his army saved Bordeaux from the conquerors. The treasury was drained, and Henry was driven to make a fresh appeal to the baronage. The growing resolution of the nobles to enforce good government was seen in their demand that the confirmation of the Charter was to be followed by the election of Justiciar, Chancellor, and Treasurer in the Great Council, and that a perpetual Council was to attend the King and devise further reforms. The plan broke against Henry's resistance and a Papal prohibition. The scourge of Papal taxation fell heavily on the clergy. After vain appeals to Rome and to the King, Archbishop Edmund retired to an exile of despair at Pontigny, and tax-gatherer after tax-gatherer with powers of excom- munication, suspension from orders, and presentation to benefices, descended on the unhappy priesthood. The wholesale pillage kindled a wide spirit of resistance. Oxford gave the signal by hunting a Papal legate out of the city, amid cries of " usurer " and " simoniac " from the mob of students. Fulk Fitz-Warenne in the name of the barons bade a Papal collector begone out of England. "If you tarry three days longer," he added, "you and your company shall be cut to pieces." For a time Henry himself was swept away by the tide of national indignation. Letters from the King, the nobles and the prelates pro- tested against the Papal exactions, and orders were given that no money should be exported from the realm. But the threat of interdict soon drove Henry back on a policy of spoliation, in which he went h?ind in hand with Rome. The story of this period of misrule has been preserved for us by an annalist whose pages glow with the new outburst of patriotic feeling which this common oppression of the people and the clergy had produced. Matthew Paris is the greatest, as he is in reality the last, of our monastic historians. The school of S. Alban's sur- vived indeed till a far later time, but the writers dwindle into mere annalists whose view is bounded by the abbey precincts, and whose work is as colourless as it is jejune. In Matthew the breadth and precision of the narrative, the copiousness of his information on topics whether national or European, the general fairness and justice of his comments, are only surpassed by the patriotic fire and enthu- siasm of the whole. He had succeeded Roger of Wendover as chronicler at S. Alban's ; and the Greater Chronicle with an abridge- jment of it which has long passed under the name of Matthew of iii.J Westm Earlier attest an histi illustrat like Gr ander d and ecc agents 1: He had and exc brought tributed faithfulm one solei sit on the to write Alban's name twc But all t case," as truth the^ God.^' \^ Benedict < patriotism same unsj Hi: point of an Eng an echo c yeomen ai freedom fr [Auihonil Marrh's Letl Franciscana ' edited by M Milman's "I From the which stretc with relief tc ^^ever. as HAP. nent alof ered The jidcr I, and scat- asury the good )f the :ellor, vas to gainst Papal le and )air at jxcom- lefices, andled 1 Papal om the barons y three ieces." ational les pro- Ihat no iterdict le went us by itriotic clergy I reality 's sur- mere I whose [\i and ion on Ijustice lenthu- Iver as )ridge- kew of HI.] THE GREAT CHARTER. •47 Westminster, a " History of the English," and the '* Lives of the Earlier Abbots," were only a few among the voluminous works which attest his prodigious industry. He was an artist as well as an historian, and many of the manuscripts which are preserved arc illustrated by his own hand. A large circle of correspondents — bishops like Grosseteste, mmisters like Hubert de Burgh, officials like Alex- ander de Swereford — furnished him with minute accounts of political and ecclesiastical proceedings. Pilgrims from the East and Papal agents brought news of foreign events to his scriptorium at S. Alban's. He had access to and quotes largely from state documents, charters, and c.vchequer rolls. The frequency of the royal visits to the abbey brought him ?, store of political intelligence, and Henry himself con- tributed to the great chronicle which has preserved with so terrible a faithfulness the memory of his weakness and misgovernment. On one solemn feast-day the King recognized Matthew, and bidding him sit on the middle step between the floor and the throne, begged him to write the story of the day's proceedings. While on a visit to S. Alban's he invited him to his table and chamber, and enumerated by name two hundred and fifty of the English baronies for his information. But all this royal patronage has left little mark on his work. " The case," as he says, " of historical writers is hard, for if they tell the truth they provoke men, and if they write what is false they offend God." With all the fulness of the school of court historians, such as Benedict or Hoveden, Matthew Paris combines an independence and patriotism which is strange to their pages. He denounces with the same unsparing energy the oppression of the Papacy and the King. Hi:, point of view is neither that of a courtier nor of a churchman, but of an Englishman, and the new national tone of his chronicle is but an echo of the national sentiment which at last bound nobles and yeomen and churchmen together into a people resolute to wrest freedom from the Crown. Section VI.— The Friars. [Authorities . — Kccleston's Tract on their arrival in England and Adam Marrh's Letters, with Mr. Brewer's admirable Preface, in the " Momimenta Franciscana " of the Rolls series. Grosseteste's Letters in the same series, edited by Mr. Luard. For a general account of the whol«' movement, sec Milman's ** Latin Christianity," vol. iv. caps. 9 and 10.] From the tedious record of misgovernmeit and political weakness which stretches over the forty years we have passed through, we turn with relief to the story of the Friars. Never, as we have seen, had the priesthood wielded such boundless L 2 Sec. V. Henry tiif Third 1216 •10 1257 fl= Eneland and the II ^ 1 hJl Church e ! \ ' \\ > «' ■ n "% ''4 '^Ski !♦ III.] THE GREAT CHARTER. pass am a istant )f, but igthe ission [as by Iks or jancis In the Is, his such true :sfor )ii, as nor the stringent observance of the rule. But one kind of knowledge indeed their work almost forced on them. The popularity of their preaching soon led them to the deeper study of theology. Within a short time after their establishment in England we find as many as thirty readers or lecturers appointed at Hereford, Leicester, Bristol, and other places, and a regular succession of teachers provided at each University. The Oxford Dominicans lectured on theology in the nave of their new church, while philosophy was taught in the cloister. The first pro- vincial of the Grey Friars built a school in their Oxford house, and persuaded Grosseteste to lecture there. His influence after his pro- motion to the see of Lincoln was steadily exerted to secure study among the Friars, and their establishment in the University. He was ably seconded by his scholar, Adam Marsh, or de Marisco, under whom the Franciscan school at Oxford attained a reputation through- out Christendom. Lyons, Paris, and Koln borrowed from it their professors : it was owing, indeed, to its influence that Oxford now rose to a position hardly inferior to that of P; : 3 itself as a centre of scholasticism. The three most profound and original of the school- men — Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and Ockham — were among its scholars ; and they were followed by a crowd of teachers hardly less illustrious in their day. But the result of this powerful impulse was soon seen to be fatal to the wider intellectual activity which had till now characterized the Universities. Theology in its scholastic form, which now found its only efficient rivals in practical studies such as medicine and law, resumed its supremacy in the schools ; while Aristotle, who had been so long held at bay as the most dangerous foe of mediaeval faith, was now turned by the adoption of his logical method in the discussion and definition of theological dogma into its unex- pected ally. It was this very method that led to " that unprofitable subtlety and curiosity" which Lord Bacon notes as the vice of the scholastic philosophy. But " certain it is " — to continue the same great thinker's comment on the Friars — " that if these schoolmen to their great thirst of truth and unwearied travel of wit had joined variety of reading and contemplation, they had proved excellent lights to the great advancement of all learning and knowledge." What, amidst all their errors, they undoubtedly did was to insist on the necessity of rigid demonstration and a more exact use of words, to introduce a clear and methodical treatment of all subjects into discussion, and above all to substitute an appeal to reason for unquestioning obedience to autho- rity. It was by this critical tendency, by the new clearness and precision which scholasticism gave to enquiry, that in spite of the trivial questions with which it often concerned itself, it trained the human mind through the next two centuries to a temper which fitted it to profit by the great disclosure of knowledge that brought about the Sec. VI. The Friars Scholas- ticism > i i 152 Sec. VII. The Barons' War 1858 TO 1865 ■ Simon of Montfort HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Renascence. And it is to the same spirit of fearless enquiry as well as to the strong popular sympathies which their very constitution necessitated that we must attribute the influence which the Friars undoubtedly exerted in the coming struggle between the people and the Crown. Their position is clearly and strongly marked throughout the whole contest. The University of Oxford, which had now fallen under the direction of their teaching, stood first in its resistance to Papal exactions and its claim of English liberty. The classes in the towns on whom the influence of the Friars told most directly were the steady supporters of freedom throughout the Barons' war. Adam Marsh was the closest friend and confidant both of Grosseteste and Earl Simon of Montfort. 1239-1241 Section VII.— The Barons' IVar, 1858—1265. [Atit/iorities. — At the very outset of this important period we lose the price- less aid of Matthew Paris. He is the last of the great chroniclers ; the Chroni- cles of his successor at S. Alban's, Rishanger (published by the Master of the Rolls), are scant and lifeless jottings, somewhat enlarged for this period by his fragment on the Barons' War (published by Camden Society). Something may be gleaned from the annals of Burton, Melrose, Dunstal)le, Waverley, Osney, and Lanercost, the Royal Letters, the (royalist) Chronic, of Wykes, and (for London) the ** Liber de Antiquis Legibus." Mr. Blaauw has given a useful summary of the period in his "Barons' War."] When a thunderstorm once forced the King, as he was rowing on the Thames, to take refuge at the palace of the Bishop of Durham, Earl Simon of Montfort, who was a guest of the prelate, met the royal barge with assurances that the storm was drifting away, and that there was nothing to fear. Henry's petulant wit broke out in his reply. " If I fear the thunder," said the King, " I fear you. Sir Earl, more than all the thunder in the world." The man whom Henry dreaded as the champion of English freedom was himself a foreigner, the son of a Simon de Montfort whose name had become memorable for his ruthless crusade against the Albigensian heretics in Southern Gaul. Though fourth son of this crusader, Simon became possessor of the English earldom of Leicester, which he inherited through his mother, and a secret match with Eleanor, the King's sister and widow of the second William Marshal, linked him to the royal house. The baronage, indignant at this sudden alliance with a stranger, rose in a revolt which failed only through the deser- tion of their head. Earl Richard of Cornwall ; while the censures of the Church on Eleanor's breach of a vow of chastity, which she had made at her first husband's death, were hardly averted by a journey III.] to Rom alienatec the reali took his was app( rule, an( necessar of the Earl Sim spent in the King traitor. bearest t utteredst and the come he reputatio] regency o But the taken the to recall : character and seven religious : Grossetest Adam Ma in the pen temperate sleep. Sc temper wa rapid and were in fa< one charac called his ' even deatl Edward th the device a clear di " thought i as the red I he persevc support or till the w( purpose in he had leai III.] THE GREAT CHARTER. 153 to Rome. Simon returned to find the changeable King quickly alienated from him and to be driven by a burst of royal passion from the realm. He was, however, soon restored to favour, and before long took his stand in the front rank of the patriot leaders. In 1248 he was appointed Governor of Gascony, where the stern justice of his rule, and the heavy taxation which his enforcement of order made necessary, earned the hatred of the disorderly nobles. The complaints of the Gascons brought about an open breach with the King. To Earl Simon's offer of the surrender of his post if the money he had spent in the royal service were, as Henry had promised, repaid him, the King hotly retorted that he was bound by no promise to a false traitor. Simon at once gave Henry the lie ; " and but that thou bearest the name of King it had been a bad hour for thee when thou utteredst such a word ! " A formal reconciliation was brought about, and the Earl once more returned to Gascony, but before winter had come he was forced to withdraw to France. The g^reatness of his reputation was shown in an offer which its nobles made him of the regency of their realm during the absence of King Lewis on the crusade. But the offer was refused ; and Henry, who had himself under- taken the pacification of Gascony, was glad before the clo^e of 1253 to recall its old ruler to do the work he had failed to do. Simon's character had now thoroughly developed. He had inherited the strict and severe piety of his father ; he was assiduous in his attendance on religious services whether by iiight or day ; he was the friend of Grosseteste and the patron of the Friars. In his correspondence with Adam Marsh we see him finding patience under his Gascon troubles in the perusal of the Book of Job. His life was pure and singularly temperate ; he was noted for his scant indulgence in meat, drink, or sleep. Socially he was cheerful and pleasant in talk ; but his natural temper was quick and ardent, his sense of honour keen, his speech rapid and trenchant. His impatience of contradiction, his fiery temper, were in fact the great stumbling-blocks in his after career. But the one characteristic which overmastered all was what men at that time called his " constancy," the firm immoveable resolve which trampled even death under foot in its loyalty to the right. The motto which Edward the First chose as his device, " Keep troth," was far truer as the device of Earl Simon. We see in his correspondence with what a clear discernment of its difficulties both at home and abroad he " thought it unbecoming to decline the danger of so great an exploit " as the reduction of Gascony to peace and order ; but once undertaken, he persevered in spite of the opposition he met with, the failure of all support or funds from England, and the King's desertion of his cause, till the work was done. There is the same steadiness of will and purpose in his patriotism. The letters of Grosseteste show how early he had learned to sympathize with the bishop in his resistance to Rome, Sec. VII. The Barons' War lfl58 TO laes 1248 ,w. \»H iU I *l I!' 154 IITSTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CHAP. III.] Sfc. VII. The Barons' Wak 1058 TO 11165 I The Pro- visions of Oxford 1254 and at the crisis of the contest he offers him his own support and that of his associates. He sends to Adam Marsh a tract of Grossetcste's on " the rule of a kingdom and of a tyranny," sealed with his own seal. He listens patiently to the advice of his friends on the subject of his household or his temper. " Better is a patient man," writes honest Friar Adam, ** than a strong man, and he who can rule his own temper than he who storms a city." " What use is it to provide for the peace of your fellow-citizens and not guard the peace of your own house- hold?" It was to secure *'the peace of his fellow-citizens" that the Earl silently trained himself as the tide of misgovernment mounted higher and higher, and the fruit of his discipline was seen when the crisis came. While other men wavered and faltered and fell away, the enthusiastic love of the people gathered itself round the stern, grave soldier who "stood like a pillar," unshaken by promise or threat or fear of death, by the oath he had sworn. In England affairs were going from bad to worse. The Pope still weighed heavily on the Church. Two solemn confirmations of the Charter failed to bring about any compliance with its provisions. In 1248, in 1249, and again in 1255, the Great Council fruitlessly renewed its demand for a regular ministry, and the growing resolvp of the nobles to enforce good government was seen in their offer of a grant on condition that the chief officers of the Crown were appointed by the Council. Henry indignantly refused the offer, and sold his plate to the citizens of London to find payment for his household. The barons were mutinous and defiant. " I will send reapers and reap your fields for you," Henry had threatened Earl Bigod of Norfolk when he refused him aid. " And I will send you back the heads of your reapers," retorted the Earl. Hampered by the profusion of the court and by the refusal of supplies, the Crown was penniless, yet new expenses were incurred by Henry's acceptance of a Papal offer of the kingdom of Sicily in favour of his second son Edmund. Shame had fallen on the English arms, and the King's eldest son, Edward, had been disastrously defeated on the Marches by Llewelyn of Wales. The tide of dis- content, which was heightened by a grievous famine, burst its bounds in the irritation excited by the new demands from both Henry and R' ne with which the year 1258 opened, and the barons repaired in arms to a Great Council summoned at London. The past half-century had shown both the strength and weakness of the Charter : its strength as a rallying-point for the baronage, and a definite assertion of rights which the King could be made to acknowledge ; its weakness in pro- viding no means for the enforcement of its own stipulations. Henry had sworn again and again to observe the Charter, and his oath was no sooner taken than it was unscrupulously broken. The barons had secured the freedom of the realm ; the secret of their long patience during the reign of Henry lay in the difficulty of securing its right administ to solve, the baro of twentj half the impossib of Oxfon thrice in occasion come to t when the wants of hold as nent com negotiate the King cellor, anc the advice officers, w to it at th from amoi to be exaci A royal since the C Provisions, armed den- power was the Great C prohibition to Rome, ii the negotia ended in th( and in the Within, ho\ The Provis pressure in furtherance feudal privil from attend; returned froi sures of refo oath to obse and Hugh E party to the a bull whic II1.1 THE GREAT CHARTER. administration. It was this difficulty which Earl Simon was prepared to solve. With the Earl of Gloucester he now appeared at the head of the baro >agc in arms, and demanded the appointment of a committee of twenty-four to draw up terms for the reform of the state. Although half the committee consisted of royal ministers and favourites, it was impossible to resist the tide of popular feeling. By the " Provisions of Oxford" it was agreed that the (}reat Council should assemble thrice in the year, whether summoned by the King or no ; and on each occasion "the Commonalty shall elect twelve honest men who shall come to the Parliaments, and at other times when occasion shall be when the King and his Council shall send for them, to treat of the wants of the King and of his kingdom. And the Commonalty shall hold as established that which these Twelve shall do." Three perma- nent committees were named — one to reform the Church, one to negotiate financial aids, and a Permanent Council of Fifteen to advise the King in the ordinary work of government. The Justiciar, Chan- cellor, and the guardians of the King's castles swore to act only with the advice and assent of the Permanent Council, and the first two great officers, with the Treasurer, were to give account of their proceedings to it at the end of the year. Annual sheriffs were to be appointed from among the chief tenants of the county, and no undue fees were to be exacted for the administration of justice in their court. A royal proclamation in the English tongue, the first in that tongue since the Conquest which has reached us, ordered the observance of these Provisions. Resistance came only from the foreign favourites, and an armed demonstration drove them in flight over sea. The whole royal power was now in fact in the hands of the committees appointed by the Great Council ; and the policy of the administration was seen in the prohibitions against any further payments, secular or ecclesiastical, to Rome, in the formal withdrawal from the Sicilian enterprise, in the negotiations conducted by Earl Simon with France, which finally ended in the absolute renunciation of Henry's title to his lost provinces, and in the peace which put an end to the incursions of the Welsh. Within, however, the measures of the barons were feeble and selfish. The Provisions of Westminster, published by them under popular pressure in the following year, for the protection of tenants and furtherance of justice, brought little fruit ; and a tendency to mere feudal privilege showed itself in an exemption of all nobles and prelates from attendance at the sheriff's courts. It was in vain that Earl Simon returned from his negotiations in France to press for more earnest mea- sures of reform, or that the King's son Edward remained faithful to his oath to observe the Provisions, and openly supported him. Gloucester and Hugh Bigod, faithless to the cause of reform, drew with the feudal party to the side of the King ; and Henry, procuring from the Pope a bull which annulled the Provisions and freed him from his oath 155 skc. vn. The IIarons' Wak 1258 TO 1265 Prcmhions of O.xforil July 1258 1259 I <\ .? % ;r I ■ fi-.^m f 156 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CHAF. Skc. VII. Thk Uarons' War lasa TO laes The ■tmcfle wltb the Grown 1263 Mtse of Amiens fan. 1264 to observe them, regained possession of the Tower and the other castles, appointed a new Justiciar, and restored the old authority of the C'rown. Deserted as he was, the Earl of Leicester was forced to with- draw for eighteen months to France, while Henry ruled in open defiance of the Provisions. The confusion of the realm renewed the disgust at his government ; and the death of Gloucester re- moved the one barrier to action. In 1263 Simon landed again as the unquestioned head of the baronial party. The march of Edward with a royal army against Llewelyn of Wales was viewed by the barons as a prelude to hostilities against them- selves ; and Earl Simon at once swept the Welsh border, marched on Dover, and finally appeared before London. His power was strength- ened by the attitude of the towns. The new democratic spirit which wc have witnessed in the Friars was now stirring the purely industrial classes to assert a share in the municipal administration, which had hitherto been confined to the wealthier members of the merchant gilds, and at London and elsewhere a revolution, which will be described at greater length hereafter, had thrown the government of the city into the hands of the lower citizens. The " Communes," as the new city governments were called, showed an enthusiastic devotion to Earl Simon and his cause. The Queen was stopped in her attempt to escape from the Tower by an angry mob, who drove her back with stones and foul words. When Henry attempted to surprise Leicester in his quarters in Southwark, the Londoners burst the gates which had been locked by the richer burghers against him, and rescued him by a welcome into the city. The clergy and Universities went in sympathy with the towns, and in spite of the taunts of the royalists, who accused him of seeking allies against the nobility in the common people, the popular enthusiasm gave a strength to Earl Simon which enabled him to withstand the severest blow which had yet been dealt to his cause. The nobles drew to the King. The dread of civil war gave strength to the cry for compromise, and it was agreed that the strife should be left to the arbitration of Lewis the Ninth of France. In the Mise of Amiens Lewis gave his verdict wholly in favour of the King. The Provisions of Oxford were annulled. Only the charters granted before the Provisions were to be observed. The appointment and removal of all officers of state was to be wholly with the King, and he was suffered to call aliens to his councils. The blow was a hard one, and the decision of Lewis was at once confirmed by the Pope. The barons felt themselves bound by the award ; only the ex- clusion of aliens — a point which they had not purposed to submit to arbitration — they refused to concede. Simon at once resolved on resistance. Luckily, the French award had reserved the rights of Englishmen to the liberties they had enjoyed before the Provisions ill.] of Oxfon power it Provision its citizen the royal already found hin of ill. A d De Mon the King Simon's o as he was end, he sa army rein Cinque P( march he Halting a royal arm) ter offered the Provii numbers w soldier rev seized the I to an attac in prayer h fight ; his f the bitterni ing three tl in the narri left were cr the Romar him a castt mangonels himself caf his father's The vict( "Now Eng time; "the up their he; with almos would be ii himself and of his king< according t the law." re- isions III.] TIIK GREAT CHARTER. of Oxford, and it was easy for Simon to prove that the arbitrary power it gave to the Crown was as contrary to the Charier as to the Provisions themsolves. London was the first to reject the decision ; its citizens mustered at the call of the town-bell at Saint Paul's, seized the royal officials, and plundered the royal parks. Hut an army had already mustered in great force at the King's summons, and Leicester found himself deserted by baron after baron. Every day brought news of ill. A detachment from Scotland joined Henry's forces. The younger De Montfort was taken prisoner. Northampton was captured, the King raised the siege of Rochester, and a rapid march of I-^arl Simon's only saved London itself from a surprise by Edward, lictrayed as he was, the Earl remained firm to the cause. He would fight to the end, he said, even were he and his sons left to fight alone. With an army reinforced by 15,000 Londoners, he marched to the relief of the Cinque Ports, which were now threatened by the King. Even on the march he w.is forsaken by many of the nobles who followed him. Halting at Fletching in Sussex, a few miles from Lewes, where the royal army was encamped, Earl Simon with the young Earl of Glouces- ter ofiered the King compensation for all damage if he would observe the Provisions. Henry's answer was one of defiance, and though numbers were against him the Earl resolved on battle. His skill as a soldier reversed the advantages of the ground ; marching at dawn he seized the heights eastward of the town, and moved down these slopes to an attack. His men, with white crosses on back and breast, knelt in prayer before the battle opened. Edward was the first to open the fight ; his furious charge broke the Londoners on Leicester's left, and in the bitterness of his hatred he pursued them for four miles, slaughter- ing three thousand men. He returned to find the battle lost. Crowded in the narrow space with a river in their rear, the royalist centre and left were crushed by Earl Simon ; the Earl of Cornwall, now King of the Romans, who, as the mocking song of the victors ran, " makcde him a castel of a mulne post " (" he weened that the mill-sails were mangonels " goes on the sarcastic verse), was made prisoner, and Henry himself captured. Edward cut his way into the Priory only to join in his father's surrender. The victory of Lewes placed Earl Simon at the head of the state. "Now England breathes in the hope of liberty," sang a poet of the time ; " the English were despised like dogs, but now they have lifted up their head and their foes are vanquished." The song announces with almost legal precision the theory of the patriots. " He who would be in truth a king, he is a ' free king ' indeed if he rightly rule himself and his realm. All things are lawful to him for the government of his kingdom, but nothing for its destruction. It is one thing to rule according to a king's duty, another to destroy a kingdom by resisting the law." " Let the community of the realm advise, and let it be 157 Sbc. VII. TlIK IUkhns' Wak 1258 TO 1265 Battle of Lewes May 14, 1264 Simon's rule t \\ .4 ' If* ' 158 HISTORY OF TllK KNCMSII rKOPLK. [chap. Skl. VII. Thr !'ah(in>,* War 1858 TO lfl65 Sutnmons of the Com- mons to Par- liament The fall of Earl Simon known what the generality, to whom their own laws are bcbt known, think on the matter. Tiicy who arc ruled by the laws know those laws best, they who make daily trial of ihem arc best acquainted with thcin ; and since it is their own affairs which are at stake, they will take more care, and will act with an eye to their own peace." "It concerns the community to see what sort of men ought justly to be chosen for the weal of the realm." The constitutional restrictions on the royal authority, the right of the whole nation to deliberate and decide on its own affairs, and to have a voice in the selection of the administrators of government, had never been so clearly stated before. Hut the moderation of the terms agreed upon in the Mise of Lewes, a convention between the King and his captors, shows Simon's sense of the difficulties of his position. The question of the Provisions was again to be submitted to arbitration; and a parliament in June, to which four knights were summoned from every county, placed the administration till this arbitration was complete in the hands of a new council of nine, to be nominated by the Earls of Leicester and (Gloucester and the patriotic Bishop of Chichester. Responsibility to the community was provided for by the declaration of a right in the body of barons and prelates to remove either of the Three Electors, who in turn could displace or appoint the members of the Council. Such a constitution was of a different order from the cumbrous and oligarchical Committees of 1258. But the plans for arbitration broke down, Lewis refused to review his decision, and the Pope formally condemned the barons' cause. The Earl's difficulties thickened every day. The Queen gathered an army in France for an invasion, and the baroni -^^ the Welsh border were still in arms. It was impossible to make binding terms with an imprisoned King, yet to release Henry without terms was to renew the war. A new parliament was summoned in January, 1265, to Westminster, but the weakness of the patriotic party among the baronage was shown in the fact that only twenty-three earls and barons could be found to sit beside the hundred and twenty ecclesiastics. But it was just this sense of his weakness that drove Earl Simon to a constitutional change of mighty issue in our history. As before, he summoned two knights from every county. But he created a new force in English politics when he summoned to sit beside them two citizens from every borough. The attendance of delegates from the towns had long been usual in the county courts when any matter respecting their interests was in question ; but it was the writ issued by Earl Simon that first summoned the merchant and the trader to sit beside the knight of the shire, the baron, and the bishop in the parliament of the realm. It is only this great event however which enables us to under- stand the large and prescient nature of Earl Simon's designs. Hardly a few months had passed since the victory of Lewes, and iii.l already, wli government h.id met wi forces on B; taincd by th the threats < was forbiddi were flung ii able every c] the national who always the barons over the spc public peac< he refused 1 the agreeme though enri( prohibition castles by h the Welsh r proves the y ment of \2( Lewes, with he withdrew with Roge.- followed hin moved alon Hereford, ai the heart of Glamorgan and joined chosen, and he took ad^ Severn he s the ships b Bristol, and too he place advancing f second force loss within t pensated bj breaking thi was, Simon aUiance wit turned to th iir.l THE r.r» « I I i ! f ' 'I 4 '. lit I [ '■' 111,) , ill; 111! b^n '. 1 ' ! I ?■ I ^h r h 7t •a Sit i6o HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. IV.] Sec. VII. The Karons' War 1258 TO 1265 Battle of Evesham 1265 the Severn held him a prisoner in Edward's grasp, and a fierce attack drove him back, with broken and starving forces, into the Welsh hills. In utter despair be struck northward to Hereford ; but the absence of Edward now enabled him on the 2nd of August to throw his troops in boats across the Severn below Worcester. The news drew Edward quickly back in a fruitless counter-march to the river, for the Earl had already reached Evesham by a long night march on the morning of the 4th, while his son, relieved in turn by Edward's counter-march, had pushed in the same night to the little town of Alcester. The two armies were now but some ten miles apart, and their junction see;ned secured. But both were spent with long marching, and while the Earl, listening reluctantly to the request of the King, who accompanied him, halted at Evesham for mass and dinner, the army of the younger Simon halted for the same purpose at Alcester. " Those two dinners doleful were, alas ! " sings Robert of Gloucester ; for through the same memorable night Edward was hurrying back from the Severn by country cross-lanes to seize the fatal gap that lay between them. As morning broke his army lay across the road that led north- ward from Evesham to Alcester. Evesham lies in a loop of the river Avon where it bends to the south ; and a height on which Edward ranged his troops closed the one outlet from it save across the river. But a force had been thrown over the river under Mortimer to seize the bridges, and all retreat was thus finally cut off. The approach of Edward's army called Simon to the front, and for the moment he took it for his son's. Though the hope soon died away a touch of soldierly pride moved him as he recognized in the orderly advance of hir enemies a proof of his own training. " By the arm of St. James," he cried, " they come on in wise fashion, but it was from me that they learnt it." A glance however satisfied him of the hopelessness of a struggle ; it was impossible for a handful of horsemen with a mob of half-armed Welshmen to resist the disciplined knighthood of the royal army. " Let us commend our souls to God," Simon said to the little group around him, "for our bodies are the foe's." He bade Hugh Despenser and the rest of his comrades fly from the field. " If he died," was the noble answer, " they had no will to live." In three hours the butchery was over. The Wels'i fled at the first onset like sheep, and were cut ruthlessly down in the cornfields and gardens where they sought refuge. The little group of knights around Simon fought desperately, falling one by one till the Earl was left alone. So terrible were his sword-strokes that he had all but gained the hill-top when a lance-thrust brought his horse to the ground, but Simon still rejected the summons to yield, till a blow from behind felled him, mortally wounded, to the ground. Then with a last cry of " It is God's grace" the soul of the great patriot passed away. brise" of sogion," ar Chronicle and Warrin affords a ge by Lady CI Mr. Matth( Welsh Foe mentioned a While England b brought int Wales. To all ou utterly barl civilization from the gej sunk into a the milk of retaining no by ruthless f But in the h poetic fire v Aneurin anc hour of its broken by a forth, not fr " In every hi arrived in th( maidens and race found a: developemen Romance tor IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. i6i CHAPTER IV. THE THREE EDWARDS. 1265— 1360. Section I.— The Conquest of VTales, lfl65— 1284>. ^Authorities. — For the general state of Wales, see the '* Itinerarium Cam- briae " of Giraldus Cambrensis : for its general history, the " Brut-y-Tywy- sogion," and " Annales Cambrije," published by the Master of the Rolls ; the Chronicle of Caradoc of Lancarvan, as given in the translation by Powel ; and Warrington's ** History of Wales." Stephen's " Literature of the Cymry " affords a general view of Welsh poetry ; the ' * M'Vuinogion " have been published by Lady Charlotte Guest. In his essays on " The Study of Celtic Literature," Mr. Matthew Arnold has admirably illustrated the characteristics of the Welsh Poetry, For English affairs the monastic annals we have befove mentioned are supplemented by the jejune entries of Trivet and Murimuth.] While literature and science after a brief outburst were crushed in England by the turmoil of the Barons' War, a poetic revival had brought into sharp contrast the social and intellectual condition of Wales. To all outer seeming Wales had in the thirteenth century become utterly barbarous. Stripped of every vestige of the older Roman civilization by ages of bitter warfare, of civil strife, of estrangement from the general culture of Christendom, the unconquered Britons had sunk into a mass of savage herdsmen, clad in the skins and fed by the milk of the cattle they tended, faithless, greedy, and revengeful, retaining no higher political organization than that of the clan, broken by ruthless feuds, united only in battle or in raid against the stranger. But in the heart of the wild people there still lingered a spark of the poetic fire which had nerved it four himdred years before, through Aneurin and Llywarch Hen, to its struggle with the Saxon. At the hour of its lowest degradation the silence of Wales was suddenly broken by a crowd of singers. The song of the twelfth century burst forth, not from one bax-d or another, but from the nation at large. '' In every house," sayc the shrewd Gerald de Barri, " strangers who arrived in the morning were entertained till eventide with the talk of maidens and the music of the harp." The romantic literature of the race found an admirable means of utterance in its tongue, as real a developement of the old Celtic language heard by Caesar as the Romance tongues are developements of Caesar's Latin, but which at M t • ' J The Welsh Litera- ture '-\\ l62 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. fCHAK I Shc. I. The Con- quest OF WAi-ES 1265 TO 1884 II a far earlier date than any other language of modern Europe had attained to definite structure and to settled literary form. No other mediaeval literature shows at its outset the same elaborate and com- pleted organization as that of the Welsh. But within these settled forms the C(;ltic fancy plays with a startling freedom. In one of the later poems Gwion the Little transforms himself into a hare, a fish, a bird, a grain of wheat ; but he is only the symbol of the strange shapes in which the Celtic fancy embodies itself in the tales or " Mabinogion " which reached their highest perfection in the legends of Arthur. Its gay extravagance flings defiance to all fact, tradition, probability, and revels in the impossible and unreal. When Arthur sails into the unknown world; it is in a ship of glass. The " descent into hell," as a Celtic poet paints it, shakes off the mediaeval horror with the mediaeval reverence, and the knight who achieves the quest spends his years of infernal durance in hunting and minstrelsy, and in converse with fair women. The world of the Mabinogion is a world of pure phantasy, a new earth of marvels and enchantments, of dark forests whose silence is broken by the hermit^s bell, and sunny glades where the light plays on the hero's armour. Each figure as it moves across the poet's canvas is bright with glancing colour. " The maiden was clothed in a robe of flame-coloured silk, and about her neck was a collar of ruddy gold in which were precious emeralds and rubies. Her head was of brighter gold than the flower of the broom, her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood-anemone amidst the spray of the meadow fountain. The eye of the trained hawk, the glance of the falcon, was not brighter than hers. Her bosom was more snowy than the breast of the white swan, her cheek was redder than the reddest roses." Everywhere there is an Oriental profusion of gorgeous imagery, but the gorgeousness is seldom oppressive. The sensibility of the Celtic temper, so quick to perceive beauty, so eager in its thirst for life, its emotions, its adventures, its sorrows, its joys, is tempered by a passionate melancholy that expresses its revolt against the impossible, by an instinct of what is noble, by a sentiment that discovers the weird charm of nature. Some graceful play of pure fancy, some tender note of feeling, some magical touch of beauty, relieves its wildest extravagance. As Kalweh's greyhounds bound from side to side of their master's steed, they " sport round him like two sea-swallows." His spear is " swifter than the fall of the dewdrop from the blade of reed-grass upon the earth when the dew of June is at the heaviest." A subtle, observant love of nature and natural beauty takes fresh colour from the passionate human sentiment with which it is imbued, sentiment which breaks out in Gwalchmai's cry of nature- love, " I love the birds and their sweet voices in the lulling songs of the wood," in his watches at night beside the fords "among the IV. 1 untrodd mew. poet hat own, he forest b< white se and sub clothed head wa theie is childlikf like the in beaut spray ; 1 cheeks i; the Fren refined i Four wh fancy re delight a It is St history ii fanciful s The old i freedom, extravaga intense fi new poeti the long i Of the of Britain two had 1 Dee had and the ; British C sword of dence of preserves of the Bri weakness English s the energ supremacy conquest : between tl IV. 1 THE THREE EDWARDS. 163 untrodden grass " to hear the nightingale and watch the play of the sea- mew. Even patriotism takes the same picturesque form ; the Welsh poet hates the flat and sluggish land of the Saxon ; as he dwells on his own, he tells of "its sea-coast and its mountains, its towns on the forest border, its fair landscape, its dales, its waters, and its valleys, its white sea-mews, its beauteous women." But the song passes swiftly and subtly into a world of romantic sentiment : " I love its fields clothed with tender trefoil, I love the marches of Merioneth where my head was pillowed on a snow-white arm." In the Celtic love of woman theie is little of the Teutonic depth and earnestness, but in its stead a childlike spirit of delicate enjoyment, a faint distant flush of passion like the rose-light of dawn on a snowy mountain peak, a playful delight in beauty. " White is my love as the apple blossom, as the ocean's spray ; her face shines like the pearly dew oa Eryri ; the glow of her cheeks is like the light of sunset." The buoyant and elastic temper of the French trouvlre was spiritualized in the Welsh singers by a more refined poetic feeling. " Whoso beheld her was filled with her love. Four white trefoils sprang up wherever she trod." The touch of pure fancy removes its object out of the sphere of passion into one of delight and reverence. It is strange, as we have said, to pass from the world of actual Welsh history into such a world as this. But side by side with this wayward, fanciful stream of poesy and romance ran a torrent of intenser song. The old spirit of the earlier bards, their joy in battle, their love for freedom, their hatred of the Saxon, broke out in ode after ode, in songs extravagant, monotonous, often prosaic, but fused into poetry by the intense fire of patriotism which glowed within them. The rise of the new poetic feeling indeed marked the appearance of a new finergy in the long struggle with the English conqueror. Of the three Welsh states into which all that remained unconquered of Britain had been broken bv the victories of Deorham and Chester, two had long ceased to exist. The country between the Clyde and the Dee had been gradually absorbed by the conquests of Northumbria and the growth of the Scot monarchy. West Wales, between the British Channel and the estuary of the Severn, had yielded to the sword of Ecgberht. But a fiercer resistance prolonged the indepen- dence of the great central portion which alone in modern language preserves the name of Wales. In itself the largest and most powerful of the British states, it was aided in its struggle against Mercia by the weakness of its assailant, the youngest and least powerful of the English states, as well as by the internal warfare which distracted the energies of the invaders. But Mercia had no sooner risen to supremacy among the English kingdoms than it took the work of conquest vigorously in hand. Offa tore from Wales the border land between the Severn and the Wye ; the raids of his successors carried M 2 Sec. I. The Con- quest OF Wales lfl65 TO lfl84 Ensland and the Welsh ' fj l"^ li H ' 1 64 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. I. The Con- quest OK Wales laes TO ltt84 1063 The ponquest of South Wales 1094 fire and sword into the heart of the country ; and an acknowledgement of the Mercian over-lordship was wrested from the Welsh princes. On the fall of Mercia this passed to the West- Saxon kings. The Laws of Howel Dda own the payment of a yearly tribute by " the prince of Aberfifraw " to " the King of London." The weakness of England during her long struggle with the Danes revived the hopes of British independence. But with the fall of the Danelaw the Welsh princes were again brought to submission, and when in the midst of the Con- fessor's reign the Welsh seized on a quarrel between the houses of Leofric and Godwine to cross the border and carry their attacks into England itself, the victories of Harold re-asserted the English sup- remacy. His light-armed troops disembarking on the coast pene- trated to the heart of the mountains, and the successors of the Welsh prince Gruffydd, whose head was the trophy of the campaign, swore to observe the old fealty and render the old tribute to the English Crown. A far more desperate struggle began when the wave of Norman conquest broke on the Welsh frontier. A chain of great earldoms, settled by William along the border-land, at once bridled the old marauding forays. From his county palatine of Chester, Hugh the Wolf harried Flintshire into a desert ; Robert of Belesme, in his earldom of Shrewsbury, " slew the Welsn," says a chronicler, " like sheep, conquered them, enslaved them, and flayed them with nails of iron." Backed by these greater baronies a horde of lesser adventurers obtained the royal " licence to make conquest on the Welsh." Monmouth and Abergavenny were seized and guarded by Norman castellans ; Bernard of Neufmarch^ won the lordship of Brecknock ; Roger of Montgomery raised the town and fortress in Powysland which still preserves his name. A great rising of the whole people in the days of the second William at last recovered some of this Norman spoil. The new castle of Montgomery was burned, Brecknock and Cardigan were cleared of the invaders, and the Welsh poured ravaging over the English border. Twice the Red King carried his arms fruitlessly among the mountains, against enemies who took refuge in their fastnesses till famine and hardship had driven his broken host into retreat. The wiser policy of Henry the First fell back on his father's system of gradual conquest, and a new tide of invasion flowed along the coast, where the land was level and open and accessible from the sea. The attack was aided by internal strife. Robert Fitz-Hamo, the lord of Gloucester, was summoned to his aid by a Welsh chieftain ; and the defeat of Rhys ap Tewdor, the last prince under whom Southern Wales was united, produced an anarchy which enabled Robert to land safely on the coast of Glamorgan, to conquer the country round, and to divide it among his soldiers. A force of Flemings and Englishmen followed the Earl of Clare as he landed I v. J near ^ a "Lit advent! where I war on It W£ race see tide of i province fire, as v suddenly bold for victory. received again He fastnesse Gruffydd arose tha standard, from utte storms of flight to English n Gwalchmi Abermena Jorwerth a independe men. Th( whole of t race, and g In consolii assertion c Jorwerth ai of the Sax( by the han forced the Snowdon ii an enemy ii The chiefta to join the I at last drive before Wale more united removed all to an excon IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. i6s near Milford Haven, and pushing back the British inhabitants settled a " Little England " in the present Pembrokeshire. A few daring adventurers accompanied the Norman Lord of Kemeys into Cardigan, where land might be had for the winning by any one who would " wage war on the Welsh." It was at this moment, when the utter subjugation of the British race seemed at hand, that a new outburst of energy rolled back the tide of invasion and changed the fitful resistance of the separate Welsh provinces into a national effort to regain independence. A new poetic fire, as we have seen, sprang into life. Every fight, every hero, had suddenly its verse. The names of the older bards were revived in bold forgeries to animate the national resistance and to prophesy victory. It was in North Wales that the new spirit of patriotism received its strongest inspiration from this burst of song. Again and again Henry the Second was driven to retreat from the impregnable fastnesses where the " Lords of Snowdon," the princes of the house of Gruffydd ap Conan, claimed supremacy over Wales. Once a cry arose that the King was slain, Henry of Essex flung down the royal standard, and the King's desperate efforts could hardly save his army from utter rout. In a later campaign the invaders were met by storms of rain, and forced to abandon their baggage in a headlong flight to Chester. The greatest of the Welsh odes, that known to English readers in Gray's translation as " The Triumph of Owen," is Gwalchmai's song of victory over the repulse of an English fleet from Abermenai. The long reigns of the two Llewelyns, the sons of Jorwerth and of Gruflfydd, which all but cover the last century of Welsh independence, seemed destined to realize the hopes of their country- men. The homage which the first succeeded in extorting from the whole of the Welsh chieftains placed him openly at the head of his race, and gave a new character to his struggle with the English King. In consolidating his authority within his own domains, and in the assertion of his lordship over the princes of the south, Llewelyn ap Jorwerth aimed steadily at securing the means of striking off the yoke of the Saxon. It was in vain that John strove to buy his friendship by the hand of his daughter Johanna. Fresh raids on the Marches forced the King to enter Wales ; but though his army reached Snowdon it fell back like its predecessors, starved and broken before an enemy it could never reach. A second attack had better success. The chieftains of South Wales were drawn from their new allegiance to join the English forces, and Llewelyn, prisoned in his fastnesses, was at last driven to submit. But the ink of the treaty was hardly dry before Wales was again on fire ; the common fear of the English once more united its chieftains, and the war between John and his barons removed all dread of a new invasion. Absolved from his allegiance to an excommunicated King, and allied with the barons under Fitz- Sec. I. The Con- quest OF Walks ia65 TO 1S84 The W«lali reTiral i -'11 "57 1194-128; Llewelyn a/ Jonverth 1 1 94- 1 24/; \\ ■ I2II ..£i. re m M- 1 66 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. IV.] Sec. I. IThe Con- quest OF i Wales laes ' TO 1884 dlbmralyn ap Jor- mrerth and the Bards 11 Walter — too glad to enlist in their cause a prince who could hold in check the nobles of the border country, where the royalist c4use was strongest — Llewelyn seized his opportunity to reduce Shrewsbury, to annex Powys, where the English influence had always been powerful, to clear the royal garrisons from Caermarthen and Cardigan, and to force even the Flemings of Pembroke to do him homage. The hopes of Wales rose higher and higher with each triumph of the Lord of Snowdon. The court of Llewelyn was crowded with bardic singers. " He pours," sings one of them, " his gold into the lap of the bard as the ripe fruit falls from the trees." But gold was hardly needed to wake their enthusiasm. Poet after poet sang of " the Devastator of England," the " Eagle of men that loves not to lie nor sleep," "towering above the rest of men with his long red lance," his " red helmet of battle crested with a fierce wolf" " The sound of his coming is like the roar of the wave as it rushes to the shore, that can neither be stayed nor appeased." Lesser bards strung together his victories in rough jingle of rime and hounded him on to the slaughter. " Be of good courage in the slaughter," sings Elidir, " cling to thy work, destroy England, and plunder its multitudes." A fierce thirst for blood runs through the abrupt, passionate verses of the court singers. " Swansea, that tranquil town, was broken in heaps," bursts out a triumphant poet ; " St. Clears, with its bright white lands, it is not Saxons who hold it now ! " "In Swansea, the key of Lloegria, we made widows of all the wives." " The dread Eagle is wont to lay corpses in rows, and to feast with the leader of wolves and with hovering ravens glutted with flesh, butchers with keen scent of carcases." " Better," closes the song, " is the grave than the life of man who sighs when the horns call him forth to the squares of battle." But even in bardic verse Llewelyn rises high out of the mere mob of chieftains who live by rapine, and boast as the Hirlas-horn passes from hand to hand through the hall that " they take and give no quarter." " Tender-hearted, wise, witty, ingenious," he was " the great Cassar " who was to gather beneath his sway the broken fragments of the Celtic race. Mysterious prophecies, the prophecies of Merlin the Wise, floated from lip to lip, to nerve Wales to its last struggle with the invaders. Medrawd and Arthur would appear once more on earth to fight over again the fatal battle of Camlan. The last conqueror of the Celtic race, Cadwallon, still lived to combat for his people. The sup- posed verses of Taliesin expressed the undying hope of a restoration of the Cymry. " In their hands shall be all the land from Britanny to Man : . . . a rumour shall arise that the Germans are moving out of Britain back again *^o their fatherland." Gathered up in the strange work of Geoffry of Monmouth, these predictions made a deep impres- sion, not on Wales only, but on its conquerors. It was to meet indeed the dreams of a yet living Arthur that the grave of the legendary hero-kin But neit in the u Welsh c can wit " may be but unle; utterly, this corn this peop Lord th( they sha justified ness and enabled ; till the clc supremac; triumphs ( whose rav his conque in a powe Throughoi Even at 1 kingdom o ment of his till then s( allowed the from the ot Near, ho aims, he wa a new sovei of his homj promise of ruler. The were to mal themselves f of their stru| the Provisioi into bondag danger he di first flush of Edward stoc Marcher lori corpse of his to the tomb. IV.] THE THRP:K EDWARDS. 167 ter. hero-king at Glastonbury was found and visited by Henry the Second. But neither trick nor conquest could shake the firm faith of the Celt in the ultimate victory of his race. " Think you," said Henry to a Welsh chieftain who had joined his host, " that your people of rebels can withstand my army.?" "My people," replied the chieftain, ■ " may be weakened by your might, and even in great part destroyed, but unless the wrath of God be on the side of its foe it will not perish | utterly. Nor deem I that other race or other tongue will answer for j this corner of the world before the Judge of all at the last day save i this people and tongue of Wales." So ran the popular rime, " Their j Lord they will praise, their speech they shall keep, their land they shall lose — except wild Wales." Faith and prophecy seemed justified by the growing strength of the British people. The weak- ness and dissensions which characterized the reign of Henry the Third enabled Llewelyn ap Jorwerth to preserve a practical independence till the close of his life, when a fresh acknowledgement of the English supremacy was wrested from him by Archbishop Edmund. But the triumphs of his arms were renewed by Llewelyn the son of Gruffydd, whose ravages swept the border to the very gates of Chester, while his conquest of Glamorgan seemed to bind the whole people together in a power strong enough to meet any attack from the stranger. Throughout the Barons' war Llewelyn remained master of Wales. Even at its close the threa;t of an attack from the now united kingdom only forced him to submission on a practical acknowledge- ment of his sovereignty. The chieftain whom the English kings had till then scrupulously designated as " Prince of Aberfifraw," was now allowed the title of" Prince of Wales," and his right to receive homage from the other nobles of his principality was allowed. Near, however, as Llewelyn seemed to the final realization of his aims, he was still a vassal of the English crown, and the accession of a new sovereign to the throne was at once followed by the demand of his homage. The youth of Edward the First had already given promise of the high qualities which distinguished him as an English ruler. The passion for law, the instinct of good government, which were to make his reign so memorable in our history, had declared themselves from the first. He had sided with the barons at the outset of their struggle with Henry ; he had striven to keep his father true to the Provisions of Oxford. It was only when the Crown seemed falling into bondage that Edward passed to the royal side ; and when the danger he dreaded was over he returned to his older attitude. In the first flush of victory, while the doom of Simon was yet unknown, Edward stood alone in desiring his captivity against the cry of the Marcher lords for his death. When all was over he wept over the corpse of his cousin, Henry de Montfort, and followed the Earl's body to the tomb. It was from Earl Simon, as the Earl owned with a Src. I. The Con- fJUKST OF Wales laes TO 1284 t '•' ) i\ ' .■ ' Mi Llewelyn ap Gruffydd 1 246- 1 283 1267 The Conquest of Vrales t ;t •I; i68 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. IV.] Sec. I. The Con- QUEST OF Wales laes TO 1884 1267 Death of Henry Hi. 12^2 1277 1282 proud bitterness ere his death, that Edward had learned the skill in warfare which distinguished him among the princes of his time. But he had learned the far nobler lesson of a self-government which lifted him high above them as a ruler among men. Severing himself from the brutal triumph of the royalist party, he secured fair terms to the conquered, and after crushing the last traces of resistance, he won the adoption by the Crown of the constitutional system of government for which the barons had fought. So utterly was the land at rest that he felt free to join a crusade in Palestine. His father's death recalled him home to meet at once the difficulty of Wales. During two years Llewelyn rejected the King' s repeated summons to him to perform his homage, till Edward's patience was exhausted, and the royal army marched into North Wales. The fabric of Welsh greatness fell at a single blow ; the chieftains of the south and centre who had so lately sworn fealty to Llewelyn deserted him to join his English enemies ; an English fleet reduced Anglesea, and the Prince, cooped up in his fastnesses, was forced to throw himself on the royal mercy. With characteristic moderation his conqueror contented himself with adding to the English dominions the coast-district as far as Conway, and providing that the title of Prince of Wales should cease at Llewelyn' s death. A heavy fine which he had incurred was remitted, and Eleanor the daughter of Simon of Montfort, who had been arrested on her way to join him as his wife, was wedded to him at the English court. For four years all was quiet, but the persuasions of his brother David, who had deserted him in the previous war, and whose desertion had been rewarded with an English lordship, roused Llewelyn to a fresh revolt. A prophecy of Merlin had announced that when English money became round the Prince of Wales should be crowned at London ; and a new coinage of copper money, coupled with the prohibition to break the silver penny into halves and quarters, as had been usual, was supposed to have fulfilled the prediction. In the campaign which followed the Prince held out in Snowdon with the stubbornness of despair, and the rout of an English detachment which had thrown a bridge across the Menai Straits into Anglesea pro- longed the contest into the winter. Terrible however as were the sufferings of the English army, Edward's firmness remained unbroken, and rejecting all proposals of retreat he issued orders for the formation of a new army at Caermarthen to complete the circle of investment round Llewelyn. The Prince sallied from his mountain-hold for a raid upon Radnorshire, and fell in a petty skirmish on the banks of the Wye. With him died the independence of his race. After six months of flight his brother David was arrested and sentenced in full Parliament to a traitor's death. The submission of the lesser chief- tains was followed by the building of strong castles at Conway and Caernarvon, and the settlement of English barons on the confiscated soil.. / " Statut justice the tim porated Welsh bards " rebellior hundred "Modus state and Stubbs, ir the presei of our pai "History prejudiced can now r [The se( with this authorities The coi policy on reign Edv the foreig trated hin itself W( to annex national a judicature like his El of nationa of Edwan which we it from ou: history of to the first these as w we speak, learned lik of Chauce historian i national sf and Cressi IV,] THE THREE EDWARDS. Ij9 soil.. A wiser instinct of government led Edward to introduce by the "Statute of Wales " English law and the English administration of justice into Wales. But little came of the attempt ; and it was not till the time of Henry the Eighth that the country was actually incor- porated in England. What Edward had really done was to break the Welsh resistance. His policy of justice (for the " massacre of the | bards " is a mere fable) accomplished its end, and in spite of two later rebellions Wales ceased to be any serious danger to England for a hundred years. Section II.-The EnsUsh Parliament, 1283—1205. [Authorities. — The short treatise on the Constitution of Parliament called " Modus tenendi Parliamenta" may be taken as a fair account of its actual state and powers in the fourteenth century. It has been reprinted by Dr. Stubbs, in the invaluable collection of Documents which serves as the base of the present section. Sir Francis Palgrave has illustrated the remedial side of our parliamentary institutions with much vigour and picturesqueness in his •' History of the English Commonwealth," but his conclusions are often hasty and prejudiced. On all constitutional points from the reign of Edward the First we can now rely on the judgment and research of Mr. Hallam ('* Middle Ages ").] [The second volume of Dr. Stubbs's " Constitutional History" which deals with this period was published after this History was written and the list of authorities prepared. — Ed.] The conquest of Wales marked the adoption of a new attitude and policy on the part of the crown. From the earliest moment of his reign Edward the First definitely abandoned all dreams of recovering the foreign dominions which his grandfather had lost. He concen- trated himself on the consolidation and good government of England itself. We can only fairly judge his annexation of Wales, or his attempt to annex Scotland, if we regard them as parts of the same scheme of national administration to which we owe his final establishment of our judicature, our legislation, our Parliament. The King's English policy, like his English name, was the sign of a new epoch. The long period of national formation had come practically to an end. With the reign of Edward begins modern England, the constitutional England in which we live. It is not that any chasm separates our history before it from our history after it, as the chasm of the Revolution divides the history of France, for we have traced the rudiments of our constitution to the first moment of the English settlement in Britain. But it is with these as with our language. The tongue of yElfred is the very tongue we speak, but in spite of its identity with modern English it has to be learned like the tongue of a stranger. On the other hand, the English of Chaucer is almost as intelligible as our own. In the first the historian and philologer can study the origin and developement of our national speech, in the last a school-boy can enjoy the story of Troilus and Cressida, or listen to the gay chat of the Canterbury Pilgrims. In Sec. II. The English Parlia- ment 1283 TO 1285 The New England 1 1 »• li : ■'i; ■;>' ■■■ , y^^X m p lyo HIbTOKV OF THE ENGLISH PEOrLK. [chap. IV. J Skc. II. Thk KNtil.ISIl Paki.ia- MKNT laaa TO 1895 Judicial reforms Tfi€ three Common Law Courts precisely the same way a knowledge of our earliest laws is indispensable for the right understanding of later legislation, its origin and its developement, while the principles of our Parliamentary system must necessarily be studied in the Meetings of Wise Men before the Con- quest or the Great Council of barons after it. JUit the Parliaments which Edward gathered at the close of his reign are not merely illus- trative of the history of later Parliaments, they are absolutely identical with those which still sit at St. Stephen's ; and a statute of Edward, if unrepealed, can be pleaded in our courts as formally as a statute of Victoria. In a word, the long struggle of the constitution for actual existence has come to an end. The contests which follow are not con- tests which tell, like those which preceded them, on the actual fabric of our political institutions ; they are simply stages in the rough dis- cipline by which England has learned, and is still learning, how best to use and how wisely to develope the latent powers of its national life, how to adjust the balance of its social and political forces, and to adapt its constitutional forms to the varying conditions of the time. From the reign of Edward, in fact, we are face to face with modern England. King, Lords, Commons, the Courts of Justice, the forms of public administration, our local divisions and provincial jurisdictions, the relations of Church and State, in great measure the framework of society itself, have all taken the shape which they still essentially retain. Much of this great change is doubtless attributable to the general temper of the age, whose special task and object seemed to be that of reducing to distinct form the great principles which had sprung into a new and vigorous life during the century that preceded it. As the opening of the thirteenth century had been an age of founders, creators, discoverers, so its close was an age of lawyers ; the most illustrious men of the time were no longer such as Bacon, or Earl Simon, or Francis of Assisi, but men such as St. Lewis of France or Alfonso the Wise, organizers, administrators, framers of laws and institutions. It was to this class that Edward himself belonged. He had little of creative genius or political originality in his character, but he possessed in a high degree the faculty of organization, and his passionate love of law broke out even in the legal chicanery to which he sometimes stooped. In the judicial reforms to which so much of his attention was directed, he showed himself, if not an " English Justinian," at any rate a clear-sighted man of business, developing, reforming, bringing into a lasting shape the institutions of his predecessors. One of his first cares was to complete the judicial reforms begun by Henry II. The most important court of civil jurisdiction, the Sheriff's or County Court, remained unchanged, both in the extent of its jurisdiction, and the character of the Sheriff as a royal officer. But the superior courts into which the King's Court had since the Great Charter divided itself, E those of received importan of a proC( lishment common the older of Appea gradually judges thi ordinary they failed the royal Council ministers, Crown, for correction to repress, especially < which defie with jealou have been followed ; form in the still exercise Council. B courts fell si •jurisdiction perhaps orij charging its independent ing the origi of the powe especially tl officials or c fell within th respecting tl: equitable juri and unbendi redress in ca interfered wi common law common law of his powers accident, or i II IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. 171 those of the King's Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas, now received a distinct stafif of judges for each court. Of far greater importance than this change, which was in effect but the completion of a process of severance that had long been going on, was the estab- lishment of an equitable jurisdiction side by side with that of the common law. In his reform of 1 178 Henry the Second had broken up the older King's Court, which had till then served as the final Court of Appeal, by the severance of the purely legal judges who had been gradually added to it from the general body of his councillors. The judges thus severed from the Council retained the name and the ordinary jurisdiction of " the King's Court," while all cases in which they failed to do justice were reserved for the special cognizance of the royal Council itself. To this final jurisdiction of the King in Council Edward gave a wide developement. His assembly of the ministers, the higher permanent officials, and the law officers of the Crown, for the first time reserved to itself in its judicial capacity the correction of all breaches of the law which the lower courts had failed to repress, whether from weakness, partiality, or corruption, and especially of those lawless outbreaks of the more powerful baronage which defied the common authority of the judges. Though regarded with jealousy by Parliament, the jurisdiction of the Council seems to have been steadily put in force through the two centuries which followed ; in the reignof Henry the Seventh it took legal and statutory form in the shape of the Court of Star Chamber, and its powers are still exercised in our own day by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. But the same duty of the Crown to do justice where its courts fell short of giving due redress for wrong expressed itself in the •jurisdiction of the Chancellor. This great officer of State, who had perhaps originally acted only as President of the Council when dis- charging its judicial functions, acquired at a very early date an independent judicial position of the same nature. It is by remember- ing the origin of the Court of Chancery that we unuorstand the nature of the powers it gradually acquired. All grievances of the subject, especially those which sprang from the misconduct of government officials or of powerful oppressors, fell within its cognizance, as they fell within that of the Royal Council, and to these were added disputes respecting the wardship of infants, dower, rent-charges, or tithes. Its equitable jurisdiction sprang from the defective nature and the technical and unbending rules of the common law. As the Council had given redress in cases where law became injustice, so the Court of Chancery interfered without regard to the rules of procedure adopted by the common law courts, on the petition of a party for whose grievance the common law provided no adequate remedy. An analogous extension of his powers enabled the Chancellor to afford relief in cases of fraud, accident, or abuse of trust, aad this side of his jurisdiction was largely Skc. II. Thk Kncmsii I'aki.ia- MKNT TO 1895 : ^i\ The King in Council The Court ofChancay .W; I \ ') s > j 172 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. 'I Skc. II. Thk English Parlia- ment IflSS TO 1295 Edward's leclsla- flon 1279 12J; 1285 Justices of the Peace 1285 extended at a later time through the results of legislation < \ the tenure of land by ecclesiastical bodies. The separate powers of the Chan- cellor, whatever was the original date at which they were first exercised, seem to have been thoroughly established under Edward the First. In legislation, as in his judicial reforms, Edward renewed and con- solidated the principles which had been already brought into practical working by Henry the Second. Significant acts announced his deter- mination to carry out Henry's policy of limiting the independent jurisdiction of the Church. He was resolute to force it to become thoroughly national by bearing its due part of the common national burthens, and to break its growing dependence upon Rome. The defiant resistance of the ecclesiastical body was answered in an emphatic way. By falling into the " dead hand " or " mortmain " of the Church land ceased to render its feudal services ; and the Statute " of Mortmain" nowforbade the alienation of land to religious bodies in such wise that it should cease to render its due service to the King. The restriction was probably no beneficial one to the country at large, for Churchmen were the best landlords, and it was soon evaded by the ingenuity of the clerical lawyers ; but it marked the growing jealousy of any attempt to set aside what was national from serving the general need and profit of the nation. Its immediate effect was to stir the clergy to a bitter resentment. But Edward remained firm, and when the bishops proposed to restrict the royal courts from dealing with cases of patronage or causes which touched the chattels of Churchmen he met their proposals by an instant prohibition. His care for the trading classes was seen in the Statute of Merchants, which provided for the registration of the debts of traders, and for their recovery by distraint of the debtor's goods and the imprisonment of his person. The Statute of Winchester, the greatest of Edward's measures for the enforcement of public order, revived and reorganized the old institu- tions of national police and national defence. It regulated the action of the hundred, the duty of watch and ward, and the gathering of the fyrd or militia of the realm as Henry the Second had moulded it into fonn in his Assize of Arms. Every man was bound to hold himself in readiness, duly armed, for the King's service in case of invasion or revolt, or to pursue felons when hue and cry were raised after them. Every district was made responsible for crimes committed within its bounds ; the gates of each town were required to be closed at night- fall, and all strangers to give an account of themselves to its magi- strates. As a security for travellers against sudden attacks from robbers, all brushwood was to be destroyed for a space of two hundred feet on either side the public highway, a provision which illustrates at once the social and physical condition of the country at the time. To enforce the observance of this act knights were appointed in every shire IV.] under th( conveniei their pow still retai common I3 legislative in the co diminishii of the mo the natioi desire to received services t( the baron; which the) the feudal or of relie the estate passing int was to chc the sub-ten of the supc ing the trai compelled 1 to dischargi was now e " tenant-rig However sr directly of \ grew steadi: It is to th ship of Edv Meeting of of the Ban The first th( at an early \ with the of was made ii Great Coun who held di character as merge in th( But though assembly ws Men " it sar [chap. tenure Chan- e first dward d con- actical , deter- endent )ecome ational The in an "of the ute " of in such r. The rge, for by the ealousy general stir the id when th cases he met trading for the istraint The for the institu- action of the it into [himself sion or them. Ithin its night- magi- ibbers, ifeet on it once ie. To shire IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. under the name of Conservators of the Peace, a name which, as the convenience of these local magistrates was more sensibly felt and their powers more largely extended, was changed for that which they still retain of "Justices of the Peace." The great measure which is commonly known as the Statute " Quia ICmptorcs " is one of those legislative efforts which mark the progress of a wide social revolution in the country at large. The number of the greater barons was diminishing every day, while the number of the country gentry and of the more substantial yeomanry was increasing with the increase of the national wealth. This increase showed itself in the growing desire to become proprietors of land. Tenants of the greater barons received under-tenants on condition of their rendering them similar services to those which they themselves rendered to their lords ; and the baronage, vvhile duly receiving the services in compensation for which they had originally granted their lands in fee, saw with jealousy the feudal profits of these new under-tenants, the profits of wardship or of reliefs and the like, in a word the whole increase in the value of ihe estate consequent on its subdivision and higher cultivation, passing into other hands than their own. The purpose of the statute was to check this process by providing that in any case of alienation the sub-tenant should henceforth hold, not of the tenant, but directly of the superior lord. But its result was to promote instead of hinder- ing the transfer and subdivision of land. The tenant who was before compelled to retain in any case so much of the estate as enabled him to discharge his feudal services to the over-lord of whom he held it, was now enabled by a process analogous to the modern sale of "tenant-right," to transfer both land and services to new holders. However small the estates thus created might be, the bulk were held directly of the Crown ; and this class of lesser gentry and freeholders grew steadily from this time in numbers and importance. • It is to the same social revolution as well as to the large statesman- ship of Edward the First that we owe our Parliament. Neither the Meeting of the Wise Men before the Conquest, nor the Great Council of the Barons after it, had been in any way representative bodies. The first theoretically included all free holders of land, but it shrank at an early time into a gathering of earls, higher nobles, and bishops, with the officers and thegns of the royal household. Little change was made in the composition of this assembly by the Conquest, for the Great Council of the Norman kings was held to include all tenants who held directly of the Crown, the bishops and greater abbots (whose character as independent spiritual members tended more and more to merge in their position as barons), and the great officers of the Court. But though its composition remained the same, the character of the assembly was essentially altered. From a free gathering of " Wise Men " it sank to a Royal Court of feudal vassals. Its functions seem 173 Sue. II. Thk K.Nt.i.isii Pakuia- MRNT lasa TO lfl95 1290 1 1 |f!'; The Great Council of the Realm 71) < :. .if', '( m 1 •'»•'.''' I- ■.I I !! 174 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. fCHAP. IV.] Sfc. II. The English Parlia- ment 1283 TO laes I to have become almost nominal, and its powers to have been restricted to the sanctioning, without debate or possibility of refusal, all grants demanded from it by the Crown. Its " counsel and consent," how- ever, remained necessary for the legal validity of every great fiscal or political measure, and its very existence was an effectual protest against the imperial theories advanced by the lawyers of Henry the Second, theories which declared all legislative power to reside wholly in the sovereign. It was in fact under Henry that these assemblies became more regular, and their functions more importart. The reforms which marked his reign were issued in the Great Council, and even financial matters were suffered to be debated there. But it was not till the grant of the Great Charter that its powers over taxation were formally recognized, and the principle established that no burthen beyond the customary feudal aids might be imposed " save by the Common Council of the Realm." The same great document first expressly regulated its form. In theory, as we have seen, the assembly con- sisted of all who leld land directly of the Crown. But the same causes which restricted attendance at the Witenagemot to the greater nobles told on the actual composition of the Council of Barons. While the attendance of the ordinary tenants in chief, the Knights or " Lesser Barons," was burthensome from its expense to themselves, their numbers and their dependence on the higher nobles made their assembly dangerous to the Crown. As early, therefore, as the time of Henry the First we find a distinction recognized between the " Greater Barons," of whom the Council was usually composed, and the " Lesser Barons '" who formed the bulk of the tenants of the Crown. But though the attendance of the latter had become rare, their right of attendance remained intact. While enacting that the prelates and greater barons should be summoned by special writs to each gathering of the Council, a remarkable provision of the Great Charter orders a general summons to be issued through the Sheriff to all direct tenants of the Crown. The provision was probably intended to rouse the lesser baronage to the exercise of rights which had practically passed into desuetude, bUt as the clause is omitted in later issues of the Charter we may doubt whether the principle it embodied ever received more than a very limited application. There are traces of the attendance of a few of the lesser knighthood, gentry perhaps of the neighbourhood where the assembly was held, in some of its meetings under Henry the Third, but till a late period in the reign of his successor the Great Council practically remained a gathering of the greater barons, the prelates, and the officers of the Crown. The change which the Great Charter had failed to accomplish was now, however, brought about by the social circumstances of the time. One of the most remarkable of these was the steady decrease in the number of the greater nobles. The bulk of the earldoms had already lapsed to the C of the g division the poor as to esc ment wh see from earlier C who act rapidly c whose ri} was as realm, wool, we well as o noticed t this reigr but the s< century, j class of n Charter t( the delibe their pres it as a n Great Coi for the Ki state as t grant mac prelates w or the shi had to be of each tc deacons c tedious ar in the late to obtain i of these c The eff lesser ban hardly be it more i; difficulty through V knighthoo the Shire ight of thering rders a tenants Use the oassed of the eceived of the of the eetings of his of the The s now, , One umber lapsed IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. to the Crown through the extinction of the families of th^ir possessors ; of the greater baro.-jies, many had practically ceased to exist by their division among co-heiresses, many through the constant struggle of the poorer barons to rid themselves of their rank by a disclaimer, so as to escape the bu then of higher taxation and attendance in Parlia- ment which it invol^ ed. How far this diminution had gone we may see from the fact thut hardly more than a hundred barons sal, in the earlier Councils of Edward's reign. But while the number of those who actually possessed the privilege of assisting in Parliament A^as rapidly diminishing, the numbers and wealth of the " lesser baronage," whose right of attendance had become a mere constitutional tradition, was as rapidly increasing. The long peace and prosperity of the realm, the extension of its commerce, and the increased export of wool, were swelling the ranks and incomes of the country gentry as well as of the freeholders and substantial yeomanry. We have already noticed the growing passion for the possession of land which makes this reign so critical a moment in the history of the English freeholder ; but the same tendency had to some extent existed in the preceding century, and it was a consciousness of the growing importance of this class of rural proprietors which induced the barons at the time of the Charter to make their fruitless attempt to induce them to take part in the deliberations of the Great Council. But while the barons desired their presence as an aid against the Crown, the Crown itself desired it as a means of rendering taxation more efficient. So long as the Great Coi'ncil remained a mere assembly ofmagnatesit was necessary for the King's ministers to treat separately with the other orders of the state as to the amount and assessment of their contributions. The grant made in the Great Council was binding only on the barons and prelates who made it ; but before the aids of the boroughs, the Church, or the shires could reach the rr yal treasury, a separate negotiation had to be conducted by the officers of the Exchequer with the reeves of each town, the sheriff and s^hire-court of each county, and the arch- deacons of each diocese. Bargains of this sort would be the more tedious and disappointing as the necessities of the Crown increased in the later years of Edward, anu it became a matter of fiscal expediency to obtain the sanction of any proposed taxation through the presence of these classes in the Great Council itself. The effort, however, to re\'ive the old personal attendance of the lesser baronage, which had broken down half a century before, could hardly be renewed at a time when the increase of their numbers made it more impracticable than ever ; but a means of escape from this difficulty was fortunately suggested by the very nature of the court through which alone a summons could be addressed to the landed knighthood. Amidst the many judicial reforms of Henry or Edward the Shire Court remained unchanged. The haunted mound or the 175 Sfc. II. The Enc.i.ish Pakma- MENT 1283 TO 1295 iVi'i KniffhtB of the Shire I f- ^4,, ')* w 176 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. II. The r-NULISH Parlia- ment 1283 TO 1295 I immemorial oak round > vhich the assembly gathered (for the court was often held in the open air) were the relics of a time before the free kingdom had sunk into a shire, cind its folk-moot into a County- Court. But save that the King's reeve had taken the place of the King, and that the Norman legislation had displaced the Bishop and set four Coroners by the Sheriff's side, the gathering of the free- holders remained much as of old. The local knighthood, the yeomanry, the husbandmen of the county, were all represented in the crowd that gathered round the Sheriff, as, guarded by his liveried followers, he published the King's writs, announced his demand of aids, received the presentment of criminals and the inquest of the local jurors, assessed the taxation of each district, or listened solemnly to appeals for justice, civil and criminal, from all who held themselves oppressed in the lesser courts of the hundred or the soke. It was in the County Court alone that the Sheriff could legally summon the lesser baronage to attend the Great Council, and it was in the actual constitution of this assembly that the Crown found a solution of the difficulty which we have already stated. For the principle of repre- sentation by which it was finally solved was coeval with the Shire Court itself In all cases of civil or criminal justice the twelve sworn assessors of the Sheriff, as members of a class, though not formally deputed for that purpose, practically represented the judicial opinion of the county at large. From every hundred came groups of twelve sworn deputies, the "jurors," through whom the presentments of the district were made to the royal officer, and with whom the assess- ment of its share in the general taxation was arranged. The husband- men on the outskirts of the crowd, clad in the brown smock frock which still lingers in the garb of our carters and ploughmen, were broken up into little knots of five, a reeve and four assistants, who formed the representatives of the rural townships. If, in fact, we regard the Shire Courts as lineally the descendants of our earliest English folk-moots, we may justly claim the principle of parliamentary representation as among the oldest of our institutions. But it was only slowly and tentatively that this principle was applied to the recon- stitution of the Great Council. As early as the close of John's reign there are indications of the approaching change in the summons of "four discreet knights'^ from every county. Fresh need of local support was felt by both parties in the conflict of the succeeding reign, and Henry and his barons alike summoned knights from each shire " to meet on the common business of the realm." It was no doubt with the same purpose that the writs of Earl Simon ordered the choice of knights in each shire for his famous parliament of 1265. Something like a continuous attendance may be dated from the accession of Edward, but it was long before the knights were regarded as more than local deputies for the assessment of taxation, or admitted IV.] to a sh{ " Quia who ha deliberz tinuous far grea place tl large. we have alone th sity of restrictic was com distingui lesser ba we find baronage whole bo governme The fii revolutior from the b have seen or share i] the burges of their v* the natior from all ] original 1< up, by whj other wore sum paid magistrate King legal levying a c name of " necessities appropriati than legal ] assuming a rity from tl: refuse inde( by the royj privileges b aids," howe larliest ;ntary [s only •econ- reign ms of local jreign, shire Idoubt Id the 1265. the larded liitted IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. to a share in the general business of the Great Council. The statute " Quia Emptores," for instance, was passed in it before the knights who had been summoned could attend. Their participation in the deliberative power of Parliament, as well as their regular and con- tinuous attendance, dates only from the Parliament of 1295. But a far greater constitutional change in their position had already taken place through the extension of electoral rights to the freeholders at large. The one class entitled to a seat in the Great Council wasj as we have seen, that of the lesser baronage ; and of the lesser baronage alone the knights were in theory the representatives. But the neces- sity of holding their election in the County Court rendered any restriction of the electoral body physically impossible. The court was composed of the whole body of freeholders, and no sheriff could distinguish the " aye, aye " of the yeoman from the " aye, aye " of the lesser baron. From the first moment therefore of their attendance we find the knights regarded not as mere representatives of the baronage, but as knights of the shire, and by this silent revolution the whole body of the rural freeholders were admitted to a share in the government of the realm. The financial difficulties of the Crown led to a far more radical revolution in the admission into the Great Council of representatives from the boroughs. The presence of knights from each shire was, as we have seen, the recognition of an older right, but no right of attendance or share in the national " counsel and consent " could be pleaded for the burgesses of the towns. On the other hand, the rapid developement of their wealth made them every day more important as elements in the national taxation. The towns had long since freed themselves from all payment of the dues or fines exacted by the King, ^s the original lord of the soil on which they had in most cases grown up, by what was called the purchase of the " farm of the borough " ; in other words, by the commutation of these uncertain dues for a fixed sum paid annually to the Crown, and apportioned by their own magistrates among the general body of the burghers. All that the King legally retained was the right enjoyed by every great proprietor of levying a corresponding taxation on his tenants in demesne under the name of " a free aid," whenever a grant was made for the national necessities by the barons of the Great Council. But the temptation of appropriating the growing wealth of the mercantile class proved stronger than legal restrictions, and we find both Henry the Third and his son assuming a right of imposing taxes at pleasure and without any autho- rity from the Council even over London itself. The burgesses could refuse indeed the invitation to contribute to the " free aid " demanded by the royal officers, but the suspension of their markets or trading privileges brought them in the end to submission. Each of these " free aids," however, had to be extorted after a long wrangle between the W 177 Sec. H. The English Parlia- MFNT 1283 TO 1295 11 1 ■ J ' i f ^ 1 [ t ': : • ( 1 i 1 i ^ [ >m Repre- sentation of Boroughs •fi\ > 1 ! ii I ■* t - 1)1 ■■i] ) il ^^r 178 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. II. The English Parlia- ment lasa TO 1295 ]! i borough and the officers of the Exchequer ; and if the towns were driven to comply with whai they considered an extortion, they could generally force the Crown by evasions and delays to a compromise and abatement of its original demands. The same financial reasons, there- fore, existed for desiring the presence of their representatives in the Great Council as existed in the case of the shires; but it was the genius of Earl Simon which first broke through the older constitutional tradition, and dared to summon two burgesses from each town to the Parliament of 1 265. Time had, indeed, to pass before the large and statesmanlike con- ception of the great patriot could meet with full acceptance. Through the earlier part of Edward's reign we find a few instances of the presence of representatives from the towns, but their scanty numbers and the irregularity of their attendance show that they were summoned rather to afford financial information to the Great Council than as repre- sentatives in it of an Estate of the Realm. But every year pleaded stronger and stronger for their inclusion, and in the Parliament of 1 295 that of 1265 found itself at last reproduced. " It was from me that he learnt it," Earl Simon had cried, as he recognized ♦he military skill of Edward's onset at Evesham ; "It was from me that he learnt it," his spirit might have exclaimed, as he saw the King gathering at last two burgesses " from every city, borough, and leading town " within his realm to sit side by side with the knights, nobles, and barons of the Great Council. To the Crown the change was from the first an advpiitageous one. The grants of subsidies by the burgesses in Parliament proved more profitable than the previous extortions of the Excnequer. The proportion of their grant generally exceeded that of the other estates by a tenth. Their representatives too proved far more compliant with the royal will than the barons or knights of the shire ; only on one occasion du ing Edward's reign did the burgesses waver from their general support of the Crown. It was easy indeed to con- trol them, for the selection of boroughs to be represented remained wholly in the King's hands, and their numbers could be increased or diminished at the King's pleasure. The determination was left to the sheriff, and a^ a hint from the royal Council a sheriff of Wilts would cut down the number of represented boroughs in his shire from eleven to three, or a sheriff of Bucks declare he could find but a single borough, that of Wycomb, within the bounds of the county. Nor was this exercise of the prerogative hampered by any anxiety on the part of the towns to claim representative privileges. It was difficult to suspect that a power before which the Crown would have to bow lay in the ranks of soberly clad traders, summoned only to assess the contri- butions of their boroughs, and whose attendance was as difficult to secure as it seemed burthensome to themselves and the towns who sent them. The mass of citizens took little or no part in their choice, for 'hey were elected in the county court by a few of the principal IV.] burgl thet) paid borou no rei troubJ the P a sin^ time : the Si any be Nor w their h trader journej ensure which ' horses ; in Pari] represe: the Par widenec borough practica in a con a changi summon admittec orders o The a assembly tion. Tl of the R( itself repi legislatioi all essent from that this assen St. Stephe from the orders am later time. lay in the nientary s especially AP. ^ere Duld and lere- i the us of Ltion, jntof scon- rough sence d the rather reprc- icaded ►f 1295 hat he y skill rnt it," at last within rons of 1 first an sses in of the that of ar more shire ; s waver to con- mained ased or ;t to the luld cut leven to jorough, as this part of suspect in the contri- icult to ■ns who choice, rincipal IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. burghers deputed for the purpose ; but the cost of their maintenance, the two shillings a day paid to the burgess by his town, as four were paid to the knight by his county, was a burthen from which the boroughs made desperate efforts to escape. Some persisted in making no return to the sheriff. Some bought charters of exemption from the troublesome privilege. Of the 165 who were summoned by Edward the First more than a third ceased to send representatives after a single compliance with ♦he royal summons. During the whole time from the reign of Edward the Third to the reign of Henry the Sixth the sheriff of Lancashire declined to return the names of any boroughs at all within that county, " on account of their poverty." Nor were the representatives themselves more anxious to appear than their boroughs to send them. The busy country squire and the thrifty trader were equally reluctant to undergo \.l*e trouble and expense of a journey to Westminster. Legal measures were often necessary to ensure their presence. Writs still exist in abundance such as that by which Walter le Rous is " held to bail in eight oxen and four cart- horses to come beforff the King on the day specified " for attendance in Parliament. But in spite of obstacles such as these the presence of representatives from the boroughs may be regarded as continuous from the Parlianicnt of 1295. As the representation of the lesser barons had widened through a silent change into that of the shire, so that of the boroughs — restricted in theory to those in royal demesne — seems practically from Edward's time to have been extended to all who were in a condition to pay the cost of their representatives' support. By a. change as silent within the Parliament itself the burgess, originally summoned to take part only in matters of taxation, was at last admitted to a full share in the deliberations and authority of the other orders of the State. The admission of the burgesses and knights of the shire to the assembly of 1295 completed the fabric of our representative constitu- tion. The Great Council of the Barons had become the Parliament of the Realm, a parliament in which every order of the state found itself represented, and took part in the grant of supplies, the work of legislation, and in the end the control of government. But though in all essential points the character of Parliament has remained the same from that time to this, there were some remarkable particulars in which this assembly of 1295 differed widely from the present Parliament at St. Stephen's. Some 01" these differences, such as those which sprang from the increased powers and changed relations of the different orders among themselves, we shall have occasion to consider at a later time. But a difference of a far more startling kind than these lay in the presence of the clergy. If there is any part in the Parlia- mentary scheme of Edward the First which can be regarded as especially his own, it is his project N 2 for the representation of the The early Parlia- mento m ' i V Representa- tion of the Clerg3' >-iaic i8o HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. II. The I English Parlia- ment lasa TO lfl95 Restriction I of Parlia- ment to IVesl- minster Parliament as Court of Appeal ecclesiastical order. The King had twice at least summoned its "proctors" to Great Councils before 1295, but it was then only that the complete representation of the Church was definitely organized by the insertion of a clause in the writ which summoned a bishop to Parliament requiring the personal attendance of all archdeacons, deans, or priors of cathedral churches, of a proctor for each cathedral chapter, and two for the clergy within his diocese. The clause is repeated in the writs of the present day, but its practical effect was foiled almost from the first by the resolute opposition of those to whom it was addressed. What the towns failed in doing the clergy actually did. Even when forced to comply with the royal summons, as they seem to have been forced during Edward's reign, they sat jealously by themselves, and their refusal to vote supplies in any but their own provincial assemblies, or convocations, of Canterbury and York left the Crown without a motive for insisting on their continued attendance. Their presence indeed, though still occasionally granted on some solemn occasions, became so pure a formality that by the end of the fifteenth century it had sunk wholly into desuetude. In their anxiety to preserve their existence as an isolated and privileged order the clel^gy flung away a power which, had they retained it, would have ruinously hampered the healthy developement of the state. To take a single instance, it is difficult to see how the great changes of the Reformation could have been brought about had a good half of the House of Commons consisted purely of churchmen, whose numbers would have been backed by the weight of property as possessors of a third of the landed estates of the realm. A hardly less important difference may be found in the gradual restriction of the meetings of Parliament to Westminster. The names of the early statutes remind us of its convocation at the most various quarters, at Winchester, Acton Burnell, or Northampton. It was at a later time that Parlia- ment became settled in the straggling village which had grown up in the marshy swamp of the Isle of Thorns, beside the palace whose embattled pile towered over the Thames and the great minster which was still rising in Edward's day on the site of the older church of the Confessor. It is possible that, while contributing greatly to its consti- tutional importance, this settlement of the Parliament may have helped to throw into the background its character as a supreme court of appeal. The proclamation by which it was called together invited " all who had any grace to demand of the King in Parliament, or any plaint to make of matters which could not be redressed or determined by ordinary course of law, or who had been in any way aggrieved by any of the King's ministers or justices or sheriffs, or their iDailiffs, or any other oil^icer, or have been unduly assessed, rated, charged, or sur- charged to aids, subs dies, or taxes," to deliver their petitions to receivers who sat in the Great Hall of the Palace of Westminster. IV.] The f bably rise o the openii which memo agains of the the jing of his most in Scotiae,' ments o called V its latest inforniat "Foedei illustrati Robertsc the ages stated thi see the ] essaj on The p in the cc of the hi latter ha In his object of national passed a lost at S( in her ru returned linked hi to the CO sentative of his rig hension, unselfish, self-respe IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. i8i hose hich the nsti- ped t of "all aint Iby any any sur- s to ster. The petitions were forwardeu Ic ♦he King's Council, and it was pro- bably the extension of the jurisdiction of that body, and the subsequent rise of the Court of Chancery, which reduced this ancient right of the subject to the formal election of " Triers of Petitions " at the opening of every new Parliament by the House of Lords, a usage which is still continued. But it must have been owmg to some memory of the older custom that the subject always looked for redress against injuries from the Crown or its ministers to the Parliament of the realm. Section III.— The Conqnest of Scotland, 1290 -1305. [Authorities. — Scotland itself has no contemporary chronicles for this period : the jingling rimes of Blind Harry are two hundred years later than the death of his hero, Wallace. Those of England are meagre and inaccurate ; the most important are the "Annates Angliiw et Scotioe" and " Annal^s Regni Scotiae," Rishanger's Chronicle, his •* Gesta Edwardi Primi," and three frag- ments of annals (all published in the Rolls Series). The portion of ihe so- called Walsingham's History which relates to this time is now attributed by its latest editor, Mr. Riley, to Rishanger's hand. But the main source of our information lies in the copious collection of state papers preserved in Rymer's "Foedera," in the "Rotuli Scotiae," and in the "Documents and Records illustrative of the History of Scotland," edited by Sir F. Palgrave. Mr. Robertson, in his *' Scotland under her Early Kings," has admirably illustrated the ages before the quarrel, and Mr. Burton in his History of Scotland has stated the quarrel itself with great accuracy and fairness. For Edward's side see the preface of Sir F. Palgrave to the work above, and Mr. Freeman's essay on "The Relations between the Crowns of England and Scotland,"] The personal character of Edward the First had borne a large part in the constitutional changes which we have described, but it becomes of the highest moment during the war with Scotland which covers the latter half of his reign. In his own time, and amongst his own subjects, Edward was the object of almost boundless admiration. He was in the truest sense a national King. At the moment when the last trace ot foreign conquest passed away, when the descendants of tnose who won and those who lost at Senlac blended for ever into an English people, England saw in her ruler no stranger, but an Englishman. The national tradition returned in more than the golden hair or the English name which linked him to our earlier Kings. Edward's very temper was English to the core. In good as in evil he stands out as the typical repre- sentative of the race he ruled, like them wilful and imperious, tenacious of his rights, indomitable in his pride, dogged, stubborn, slow of appre- hension, narrow in sympathy, but like them, too, just in the main, unselfish, laborious, conscientious, haughtily observant of truth and self-respect, temperate, reverent of duty, religious. He inherited \i Sbc. III. The Con- quest OF Scotland ia»o TO 1305 Edward the Firai 1272-130; 'i ! .:.•' h\ i I82 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE'. [chap. IV. Sec. III. (The Con- nUEST OK ' Scotland lfl90 TO 1305 Influ- ence of Chivalry indeed from the Angevins their fierce and passionate wrath ; his punishments, when he punished in anger, were without pity ; and a priest who ventured at a moment of storm into his presence with a remonstrance dropped dead from sheer fright at his feet. But for the most part his impulses were generous, trustful, averse from cruelty, prone to forgiveness. " No man ever asked mercy of me," he said in his old age, " and was refused." The rough soldierly nobleness of his nature breaks out at Falkirk, where he lay on the bare ground among his men, or in his refusal during a Welsh campaign to drink of the one cask of wine which had been saved Yrom marauders: "It is I who have brought you into this strait," he said to his thirsty fellow-soldiers, ^' and I will have no advantage of you in meat or drink." A strange tendern'^ss and sensitiveness to affection lay in fact beneath the stern imperiousness of his outer bearing. Every subject throughout his realm was drawn closer to the King who wept bitterly at the news of his father's death, though it gave him a crown ; whose fiercest burst of vengeance was called out by an insult to his mother ; whose crosses rose as memorials of his love and sorrow at every spot where his wife's bier rested. " I loved her tenderly in her lifetime," wrote Edward to Eleanor's friend, the Abbot of Cluny ; " I do not cease to love her now she is dead." And as it was with mother and wife, so it was with his people at large. All the self-concentrated isolation of the earlier Angevins disappears in Edward. He was the first English king since the Conquest who loved his people with a personal love, and craved for their love back again. To his trust in them we owe our Parlia- ment, to his care for them the great statutes which stand in the forefront of our laws. Even in his struggles with her England under- stood a temper which was so perfectly her own, and the quarrels between King and people duiing his reign are quarrels where, dog- gedly as they fought, neither disputant doubted for a moment the worth or affection of the other. Few scenes in our history are more touching than that which closes the long contest jver the Charter, when Edward stood face to face with his people in Westminster Hall, and with a sudden burst of tears owned himself frankly in the wrong. But it was just this sensitiveness, this openness to outer impressions and outer influences, that lei>' to the strange contradictions which meet us in Edward's career. Under the first king whose temper was dis- tinctly English a foreign influence told most fatally on our manners, our literature, our national spirit. The rise of France into a compact and organized monarchy from the time of Philip Augustus was now making its influence dominant in Western Europe. The " chivalry " so familiar in Froissart, that picturesque mimicry of high sentiment, of heroism, love, and courtesy, before which all depth and reality of nobleness disappeared to make room for th« coarsest profligacy, the 1 narrowf was spc nature His life the tim( from th from be desire v\ had bee Simon I Welsh wrested charge ( him to n old age to empk general s as a kni < His fram of limb, ( Adam Gi Evesham opening t at Challo frivolous Kenilwort the faded was soon sentiment at the roy Scotland t fatal influe in its excli " Knight ^ massacre nothing bi Hardly ] ence on E feudality, a ing custom such as coi through Fr that the im] this natural Caesars was IV. THE THREE EDWARDS. 183 narrowest caste-spirit, and a brutal indiffere ice to human sufFering, was specially of French creation. There was a nobleness in Edward's nature from which the baser influences of this chivalry fell away. His life was pure, his piety, save when it stooped to the superstition of the time, manly and sincere, while his high sense of duty saved him from the frivolous self-indulgence of his successors. But he was far from being wholly free from the taint of his age. His passionate desire was to be a model of the fashionable chivalry of his day. He had been famous from his very youth as a consummate general ; Earl Simon had admired the skill of his advance at Evesham, and in his Welsh campaign he had shown a tenacity and force of will which wrested victory out of the midst of defeat. He could head a furious charge of horse at Lewes, or organize a commissariat which enabled him to move army after army across the harried Lowlands. In his old age he was quick to discover the vak. of the English archery, and to employ it as a means of victory at Falkirk. But his fame as a general seemed a small thing to Edward when compared with his fame as a knight. He shared to the full his people's love of hard fighting. His frame, indeed, was that of a bom soldier — tall, deep-chested, long of limb, capable alike of endurance or action. WKen he encountered Adam Gurdon, a knight of gigantic size and renowned prowess, after Evesham he forced him single-handed to beg for mercy. At the opening of his reigu he saved his life by sheer fighting in a tournament at Challon. It was this love of adventure which lent itself to the frivolous unreality of the new chivalry. At his "Round Table of Kenilworth " a hundred lords and ladies, " c'^d all in silk," renewed the faded glories of Arthur's Court. The fal.'ie air of romance which was soon to turn the gravest political resolutions into outbursts of sentimental feeling appeared in his " Vow of the Swan," when rising at the royal boaid he swore on the dish before him to avenge on Scotland the murder of Comyn. Chivalry exerted on him a yet more fatal influence in its narrowing of his sympathy to the noble class, and in its exclusion of the peasant and the craftsman from all claim to pity. " Knight without reproach " as he was, he looked calmly on at the massacre of the burghers of Berwick, and saw in William Wallace nothing but a common robber. Hardly less powerful than the French notion of chivalry in its influ- ence on Edward's mind was the new French conception of kingship, feudality, and law. The rise of a lawyer class was everywhere harden- ing customary into written rights, allegiance into subjection, loose ties such as commendation into a definite vassalage. But it was specially through French influence, the influence of St. Lewis and his successors, that the imperial theories of the Roman Law were brought to bear upon this natural tendency of the time. When the " sacred majesty " of the Caesars was transferred by a legal fiction to the royal hesid of a feudal Sec. III. The Con- quest OK Scotland IflQO TO 1305 •:■ >. Influ- ence of Legality m m t' :; m \ "■:■ ■ Mf -r i84 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Skc. 111. The Con- QUHST OK SCOTLANU laeo T© 1305 Scotland Saxony Cutnbn'a baronage, every constitutional relation was changed. The " defiance" by which a vassal renounced service to his lord became treason, his after resistance " sacrilege." That Edward cotild appreciate what was sound and noble in the legal spirit around him was shown in his reforms of our judicature and our Parliament ; but there was some- thing as congenial to his mind in its definiteness, its rigidity, its narrow technicalities. He was never wilfully unjust, but he was too often captious in his justice, fond of legal chicanery, prompt to take advantage of the letter of the law. The high conception of royalty which he had borrowed from St. Lewis united with this legal turn of mind in the worst acts of his reign. Of rights or liberties unregistered in charter or roll Edward would know nothing, while his own good sense was overpowered by the majesty of his crown. It was incredible to him that Scotland should revolt against a legal bargain which made her national independence conditional on the terms extorted from a claimant of her throne ; nor could he view in any other light but as treason the resistance of his own baronage to an arbitrary taxation which their fathers had borne. It is in the very anomalies of such a character, in its strange union of justice and wrong-doing, of n'^ble- ness and meanness, that we must look for any fair explanation of much that has since been bitterly blamed in Edward's conduct and policy. Fairly to understand his c;;'arrel with the Scots, we must clear our minds of the ideas which we now associate with the words " Scotland," or the " Scotch people." At the opening of the fourteenth century the kingdom of the Scots was composed of four districts, each of which had originally its different people, its different speech, or at least dialect, and its different history. The first of these was the Lowland district, at one time called Saxony, and which now bears the name of Lothian and the Merse (or border land), the space, roughly speaking, between the Forth and Tweed. We have seen that at the close of the English conquest of Britain the kingdom of Northumbria stretched from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, and of this kingdom the Lowlands formed simply the northern portion. The English conquest and the English colonization were as complete here as over the rest of Britain. Rivers and hills indeed retained their Celtic names, but the " tons " and " hams " scattered over the country told the story of its Teutonic settlement. Livings and Dodings left their names to Living- stone and Duddingstone ; Elphinstone, Dolphinstone and Edmundstone preserved the memory of English Elphins, Dolphins, and Edmunds, who had raised their homesteads beyond the Teviot and the Tweed. To the northward and westward of this Northumbrian land lay the kingdoms of the conquered. Over the "Waste" or "Desert"— the range of barren moors which stretches from Derbyshire to the Cheviots - the Briton had sought a refuge in the long strip of coast between the iv.J Clyde I kingclor directet doms tc already was suff of Clyde owned t it seeme tribes to originall who seen the coun entries i made a ; greatness of submis became I Abercorn Bishop of bria reach over-lords victories t the Tay, a Nectansm Picts. Tl] history of 1 being amo ever. On life with it that follows north of th( the hour of the Pictish beginning ; borne a tril time called indented co these Irishr mountains lordship of of the direct Mac-Alpin, throne. Fo selves "Kir ar our land," mtury iwhich least [wland Line of [aking, of the tched 11 the quest est of lut the of its iving- stone lUnds, weed, ly the I'— the leviots :n the IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. Clyde and the Dee which formed the earlier Cumbria. Against this kingdom the efforts of the Northumbrian rulers had been incessantly directed ; the victory of Chester had severed it from the Welsh king- doms to the south ; Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland were already subdued by the time of Ecgfrith ; while the fragment which was suffered to remain unconquered between the Firths of Solway and of Clyde, and to which the name of Cumbria is in its later use confined, owned the English supremacy. At the close of the seventh century it seemed likely that the same supremacy would extend over the Celtic tribes to the north. The district north of the Clyde and Forth was originally inhabited chiefly by the Picts, a Latin name for the people who seem to have called themselves the Cruithne. To these Highlanders the country south of the Forth was a foreign land, and significant entries in their rude chronicles tell us how in their forays " the Ficts made a raid upon Saxony." But during the period of Northumbrian greatness they had begun to yield at least on their borders some kind of submission to its kings. Kadwine had built a fort at Dunedin, which became Edinburgh and looked menacingly across the Forth ; and at Abercorn beside it was established an English prelate with the title of Bishop of the Picts. Ecgfrith, in whose hands the power of Northum- bria reached its highest point, marched across the Forth to change this over-lordship into a direct dominion, and to bring the series of English victories to a close. His host poured burning and ravaging across the Tay, and skirted the base of the Grampians as far as the field of Nectansmere, where King Bruidi awaited them at the head of the Picts. The great battle which followed proved a turning-point in the history of the North ; the invaders were cut to pieces, Ecgfrith himself being among the slain, and the power of Northumbria was broken for ever. On the other hand, the kingdom of the Picts started into new life with its great victory, and pushed its way in the hundred years that followed westward, eastward, and southward, till the whole country north of the Forth and the Clyde acknowledged its supremacy. But the hour of Pictish greatness was marked by the sudden extinction of the Pictish name. Centuries before, when the English invaders were beginning to harry the south coast of Britain, a fleet of coracles had borne a tribe of the Scots, as the inhabitants of Ireland were at that time called, from the black cliff-walls of Antrim to the rocky and indented coast of South Argyle. The little kingdom of Scot-land which these Irishmen founded slumbered in obscurity among the lakes and mountains to the south of Loch Linnhe, now submitting to the over- lordship of Northumbria, now to that of the Picts, till the extinction of the direct Pictish line of sovereigns raised the Scot King, Kenneth Mac-Alpin, who chanced to be their nearest kinsman, to the vacant throne. For fifty years these rulers of Scottish blood still call them- selves " Kings of the Picts ; " but with the opening of the tenth ~i- I8S Sk.:. in. Tmk Con- ()()KSr OK Scotland laoo TO 1305 PuHaml 682 685 Scot-land \ '! 'I'll \m i 'A If ^' i 1 'n i86 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Skc. in. Thr Con- QUKST OK ScOTLANt) lfl90 TO 1309 924 Grant of Strath-clyde to the Scot King Grant of Northern Northum- bria century the very name passes away, the tribe which had given its chief to the common throne gives its designation to the common realm, and " Pict-hind" vanishes from the page of the chronicler or annalist to make wsiy for the "land of the Scots," It was even longer before the change made way among the people itself, and the real union of the nation with its kings was only effected by the common suffering of the Danish wars. In the north, as in the south of Britain, the invasion of the Danes brought about political unity. Not only were Picts and Scots thoroughly blended into a single people, but by the annexation of Cumbria and the Lowlands, their monarchs became rulers of the territory which we now call Scotland. The annexation was owing to the new policy of the English Kings. Their aim, after the long struggle of England with the northmen, was no longer to crush the kingdom across the Forth, but to raise it into a bulwark against the northmen who were still settled in Caithness and the Orkneys, and for whose aggressions Scotland was the natural highway. On the other hand, it was only in English aid that the Scot Kings could find a support for their throne against these Norse Jarls of Orkney and Caithness. It was probably this common hostility to a common foe which brought about the " commendation " by which the Scots beyond the Forth, with the Welsh of Strath-clyde, chose the English King, Eadward the Elder, "to father and lord." The choice, whatever weight after events may have given to it, seems to have been little more than the renewal of the loose English supremacy over the tribes of the North which had existed during the times of Northumbrian greatness ; it certainly implied at the time nothing save a right on either side to military aid, though the aid then rendered was necessarily placed in the hands of the stronger party to the agreement. Such a connexion naturally ceased in the event of any war between the two contracting parties ; it was in fact by no means the feudal vassalage of a later time, but rather a military con- vention. But loose as was the tie which bound the two countries, a closer tie soon bound the Scot King himself to his English overlord. Strath-clyde, which, after the defeat of Nectansmere, had shaken off the English yoke, and which at a later time had owned the supremacy of the Scots, rose into a temporary independence only to be conquered by the English Eadmund. By him it was granted to Malcolm of Scotland on condition that he should become his " fellow- worker " both by land and sea, and became from that time the appanage of the eldest son of the Scottish king. At a later time, under Eadgar or Cnut, the whole of Northern Northumbria, or what we now call the Lothians, was ceded to the Scottish sovereigns, but whether on the same terms of f'-idal dependence or on the same loose terms of "commendation" as ; .eady existed for lands north of the Forth, we have no means of deciding. The retreat, however, of the bounds of the great IV.] English southward change in theory wo Whatev relation of in a very r realm. Oi fixing of th burgh ; ar surroundec men. A w of Malcoli children we lives of the danger gre fresh multit Scotch cou formidable, they forced change of p( threats of tl again in an with the Sco line of much relations wit] the ambitiou head of his r Henry's brot court, and fo organization marriage witl into an Eng! Norman and nobles from destined to p time obtained modelled on fresh connexi ships in Engh times rendere the whole Sco during the r Henry the Se< the English C English bishopric of the North, the see of St. Cuthbcrt, as far southward as the Pcntland Hills, would seem to imply a j^rcatcr change in the political character of the ceded district than the first theory would allow. Whatever change these cessions may have brought about in the relation of the Scottish to the English Kings, they certainly affected in a very marked way their relation both to England and to their own realm. One result of the acquisition of the Lowlands was the ultimate fixing of the royal residence in their new southern dominion at Edin- burgh ; and the English civilization with which they were then surrounded changed the Scot Kings in all but blood into English- men. A way soon opened itself to the English crown by the marriage of Malcolm with Margaret, the sister of Eadgar ^^.theling. Their children were regarded by a large party within England as representa- tives of the older royal race and as claimants of the throne, and this danger grew as William's devastation of the North not only drove fresh multitudes of Englishmen to settle in the Lowlands, but filled the Scotch court with English nobles who fled thither for refuge. So formidable, indeed, became the pretension^ of the Scot Kings, that they forced the ablest of our Norman sovereigns into a complete change of policy. The Conqueror and William the Red had met the threats of the Scot sovereigns by invasions which ended again and again in an illusory homage ; but the marriage of Henry the First with the Scottish Matilda not only robbed the claims of the Scottish line of much of their force, but enabled him to draw it into far closer relations with the Norman throne. King David not only abandoned the ambitious dreams of his predecessors to place himself later at the head of his niece Matilda's party in her contest with Stephen, but as Henry's brother-in-law he figured as the first noble of the English court, and found English models and English support in the work of organization which he attempted within his own dominions. As the marriage with Margaret had changed Malcolm from a Celtic chieftain into an English King, so that of Matilda converted David into a Norman and feudal sovereign. His court was filled with Norman nobles from the South, such as the Balliols and Bruces who were destined to play so great a part afterwards but who now for the first time obtained fiefs in the Scottish realm ; and a feudal jurisprudence modelled on that of England was introduced into the Lowlands. A fresh connexion between the countries began with the grant of lord- ships in England to the Scot Kings or their sons. Homage was some- times rendered, whether for these lordships, for the Lowlands, or for the whole Scottish realm, but it was the capture of William the Lion during the revolt of the English baronage which suggested to Henry the Second the project of a closer dependence of Scotland on the English Crown. To gain his freedom, William consented to hold .Src. III. Thr Con- l.X'KST OK SCMTLAND laoo TO 1305 England and tb« Scot Klnva 1069 1 100 David 1 124-1 1 53 1174 I ( .1*1 ^* v'lJ r .=' ; J i88 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. IV.] Sec. III. THir Con- quest OK Scotland lfl90 TO 1305 , 1286 1290 The First Conquest I 290- I 296 May, 1 29 1 his crown of Henry and his heirs, the prelates and lords of the Scotch kingdom did homage to Henry as to their direct lord, and a right of appeal in all Scotch causes was allowed to the superior court of the English suzerain. From this bondage, however, Scotland was soon freed by the prodigality of Richard, who allowed her to buy back the freedom she had forfeited, and from that time the difficulties of the older claim were evaded by a legal compromise. The Scot Kings repeatedly did homage to the English sovereign, but with a reservation of rights which were prudently left unspecified. The English King accepted the homage on the assumption that it was rendered to him as overlord of the Scottish realm, and this assumption was neither granted nor denied. For nearly a hundred years the relations of the two countries were thus kept peaceful and friendly, and the death of Alexander the Third seemed destined to remove even the necessity of protests by a closer union of the two kingdoms. Alexander had wedded his only daughter to the King of Norway, and after long negotiation the Scotch Parliament proposed the marriage of her child Margaret, " the Maid of Norway," with the son of Edward the First. It was, however, carefully provided in the marriage treaty of I^righam that Scotland should remain a separate and free kingdom, and that its laws and customs should be preserved inviolate. No military aid was to be claimed by the English King, no Scotch appeal to be carried to an English court. But" this project was abruptly frustrated by the child's death on her voyage to Scotland, and with the rise of claimant after claimant of the vacant throne Edward was drawn into far other relations to the Scottish realm. Of the thirteen pretenders to the throne of Scotland, only three could be regarded as serious claimants. Ey the extinction of the line of William the Lion the right of succession passed to the daughters of his brother David. The claim of John Balliol, Lord of Galloway, rested on his descent from the eldest of these ; that of Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, on his descent from the second ; that of John Hastings, Lord of Abergavenny, on his descent from the third. At this crisis the Norwegian King, the Primate of St. Andrew's, and seven of the Scotch Earls, had already appealed to Edward before Margaret's death ; and the death itself was followed by the consent bc(th of the claimants and the Council of Regency to refer the question c/ the succession to his decision in a Parliament at ^^orham. But the over-lcrdship which the Scots acknowledged was something far less direct and definite than what Edward claimed at the opening of this conference. His claim was supported by excerpts from English monastic chronicles, and by the slow advance of an English army, while the Scifch lords, taken by surprise, found little help in the delay which was granted them, and at last, in common with nine of the claimants themselves, formally admitted Edward's direct suzeramty. To the n for like t in blood, pensions gathered could be i the Comn quietly pa assumed country as dispute w castles de homage t< reduced to Second, bi to the thro to be his ri commissio were main the claima of Balliol to that of h The cast did homage to him froi Edward in his crown. was far fror custom a di tions of a d to his sove strict accor the ordinar there were ( these. Th< council of t to contribul express acki but for a ti pendent jusi these. It w that of his William the expressly rei the right of King IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. I To the nobles, in fact, the concession must have seemed a small one, for like the principal claimants they were for the most part Norman in blood, with estates in both countries, and looking for honours and pensions from the English Court. From the Commons who were gathered with the nobles at Norham no admission of Edward's claims could be extorted ; but in Scotland, feudalized as it had been by David, the Commons were as yet of little weight, and their opposition was quietly passed by. All the rights of a feudal suzerain were at once assumed by the English King ; he entered into the possession of the country as into that of a disputed fief to be held by its over-lord till the dispute was settled, his peace was sworn throughout the land, its castles delivered into his charge, while its bishops and nobles swore homage to him directly as their lord superior. Scotland was thus reduced to the subjection which she had experienced under Henry the Second, but the full discussion which followed over the various claims to the throne showed that, while exacting to the full what he believed to be his right, Edward desired to do justice to the country itself. The commissioners whom he named to report on the claims to the throne were mainly Scotch ; a proposal for the partition of the realm among the claimants was rejected as contrary to Scotch law ; and the claim of Balliol as representative of the elder branch was finally preferred to that of his rivals. The castles were at once delivered to the new monarch, and Balliol did homage to Edward with full acknowledgement of the services due to him from the realm of Scotland. For a time there was peace. Edward in fact seemed to have no desire to push farther the rights of his crown. Even allowing that Scotland was a dependent kingdom, it was far from being an ordinary fief of the English crown. By feudal custom a distinction had always been held to exist between the rela- tions of a dependent king to a superior lord and those of a vassal noble to his sovereign. At Balliol's homage Edward had disclaimed, in strict accordance with the marriage treaty of Brigham, any right to the ordinary incidents of a fief, those of wardship or marriage ; but there were other customs of the realm of Scotland as incontestable as these. The Scot King had never been held bound to attend the council of the English baronage, to do service in English warfare, or to contribute on the part of his Scotch realm to English aids. No express acknowledgement of these rights had been given by Edward, but for a time they were practically observed. The claim of inde- pendent justice was more doubtful, as it was of higher import than these. It was certain that no appeal from a Scotch King's court to that of his supposed overlord had been allowed since the days of William the Lion, and the judicial independence of Scotland had been expressly reserved in the marriage treaty. But in feudal jurisprudence ihe right of ultimate appeal was the test of sovereignty. This right 189 Sec. III. The Con- quest OF Scotland 1390 TO 1305 , • 'f: I -^ i4 1293 I90 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. IV. 3 H Sec. III. The Con. QUEST OK Scotland ia9o TO 1305 1296 of appeal Edward now determined to enforce, and Balliol at first gave way. It was alleged, however, that the resentment of his baronage and people forced him to resist ; and while appearing formally at Westminster he refused to answer an appeal save by advice of his Council. He was in fact Looking to France, which, as we shall after- wards see, was jealously watching Edward's proceedings, and ready to force him into war. By a new breach of customary law Edward summoned the Scotch nobles to follow him in arms against this foreign foe. But the summons was disregarded, and a second and formal refusal of aid was followed by a secret alliance with France and by a Papal absolution of Balliol from his oath of fealty. Edward was still reluctant to begin the war, when all hope of accommodation was ended by the refusal of Balliol to attend his Parliament at Newcastle, the rout of a small body of English troops, and the investment of Carlisle by the Scots. Orders were at once given for an advance upon Berwick. The taunts of its citizens stung the King to the quick. " Kynge Edward, waune thou havest Berwick, pike thee ; waune thou havest geten, dike thee," they shouted from behind the wooden stockade, which formed the only rampart of the town. But the stockade was stormed with the loss of a sin'^le knight, and nearly eight thousand of the citizens were mown down in a ruth- less carnage, while a handful of Flemish traders who held the town- ball stoutly against all assailants were burned alive in it. The massacre only ceased when a procession of priests bore the host to the King's presence, praying for mercy, and Edward with a sudden and character- istic burst of tears called off his troops ; but the town was ruined for ever, and the great merchant city of the North sank from that time into a petty seaport. At Berwick Edward received Balliol's defiance. "Has the fool done this folly.?" the King cried in haughty scorn. " If he will not come to us, we will come to him." The terrible slaughter, however, had done its work, and his march was a triumphal progress. Edinburgh, Stirling, and Perth opened their gates, Bruce joined the English army, and Balliol himself surrendered and passed without a blow from his throne to an English prison. No further punishment, however, was exacted from the prostrate realm. Edward simply treated it as a fief, and declared its forfeiture to be the legal consequence of Balliol's treason. It lapsed in fact to the overlord, and its earls, barons, and gentry swore homage in Parliament at Berwick to Edward, as their king. The sacred stone on which its older sovereigns had been installed, an oblong block of saudstone, which legend asserted to have been the pillow of Jacob as angels ascended and descended upon h'm, was removed from Scone and placed in Westminster by the shrine of the Confessor. It was enclosed by Edward's order in a stately seat, which became from that hour the coronation chair of Eng''sh kings. Toth and eas which 1 governn of Sum was free and pul injustice already and by fanned t of feuds caused b of the so The disg selves to of the Lc Northum supremac stranger, their smo his daring country a we know '. and enorn the Scotc national h right, and itself to ai coast distr of the sam 1297, enca south, and Warenne s leader, " m Wallace, a consumma broad enoi army had I at noon wh pieces in tl over the b( a time he a headed a w Castle at la [chap. it gave ronage ally at of his I after- . ready ildward foreign formal id by a lope of ;nd his troops, at once IS stung Jerwick, zd from t of the ! knight, a ruth- le town- nassacre ; King's laracter- ned for lat time efiance. scorn, terrible iumphal Bruce passed further Edward le legal verlord, nent at hich its dstone, angels IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. 191 me Inc lour losed To the King himself the whole business must have seemed another and easier conquest of Wales, and the mercy and just government which had followed his first success followed his second also. The government of the new dependency was entrusted to Warenne, Earl of Surrey, at the head of an English Council of Regency. Pardon was freely extended to all who had resisted the invasion, and order and public peace were rigidly enforced. But both the justice and injustice of the new rule proved fatal to it ; the wrath of the Scots, already kindled by the intrusion of English priests into Scotch livings, and by the grant of lands across the border to English barons, was fanned to fury by the strict administration of law, and the repression of feuds and cattle-lifting. The disbanding, too, of troops, which was caused by the penury of the royal exchequer, united with the licence of the soldiery who remained to quicken the national sense of wrong. The disgraceful submission of their leaders brought the people them- selves to the front. In spite of a hundred years of peace the farmer of the Lowlands and the artisan of the towns remained stout-hearted Northumbrian Englishmen ; they had never consented to Edward's supremacy, and their blood rose against the insolent rule of the stranger. The genius of an outlaw knight, William Wallace, saw in their smouldering discontent a hope of freedom for his country, and his daring raids on outlying parties of the English soldiery roused the country at last into revolt. Of Wallace himself, of his life or temper, we know little or nothing ; the very traditions of his gigantic stature and enormous strength are dim and unhistorical. But the instinct of the Scotch people has guided it aright in choosing Wallace for its national hero. He was the first to assert freedom as a national birth- right, and amidst the despair of nobles and priests to call the people itself to arms. At the head of an army drawn principally from the coast districts north of the Tay, which were inhabited by a population of the same blood as that of the Lowlands, Wallace, in September, 1297, encamped near Stirling, the pass between the north and the south, and awaited the English advance. The offers of John of Warenne were scornfully rejected : " We have come," said the Scottish leader, " not to make peace, but to free our country," The position of Wallace, a rise of hills behind a loop of Forth, was in fact chosen with consummate skill. The one bridge which crossed the river was only broad enough to admit two horsemen abreast ; and though the English army had been passing from daybreak, only half its force was across at noon when Wallace closed on it and cut it after a short combat to pieces in the sight of its comrades. The retreat of the Earl of Surrey over the border left Wallace head of the country he had freed, and for a time he acted as " Guardian of the Realm " in Balliol's name, and headed a wild foray into Northumberland. His reduction of Stirling Castle at last called Edward to the field. The King, who marched Sec. III. The Con- quest OF Scotland 1290 TO 1305 The Second Conquest I 297-1 305 ;;?;< i ',i Battle of Stirling Sept. 1297 i/ i 192 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. III. The Con- quest OF Scotland laoo TO 1305 Battle cf Falkirk /tdy, 1298 1300 1303 northward with a larger host than had ever followed his banner, was enabled by treachery to surprise Wallace, as he fell back to avoid an engagement, and to force him to battle near Falkirk. The Scotch force consisted almost wholly of foot, and Wallace drew up his spear- men in four great hollow circles or squares, the outer ranks kneeling, and the whole supported by bowmen within, while a small force of horse were drawn up as a reserve in the rear. It was the formation of Waterloo, the first appearance in our history since the day of Senlac of " that unconquerable British infantry," before which chivalry was destined to go down. For a moment it had all Waterloo's success. " I have brought you to the ring, hop (dance) if you can," are words of rough humour that reveal the very soul of the patriot leader, and the serried ranks answered well to his appeal. The Bishop of Durham, who led the English van, shrank wisely from the look of the squares. " Back to your mass, Bishop," shouted the reckless knights behind him, but the body of horse dashed itself vainly on the wall of spears. Terror spread through the English army, and its Welsh auxiliaries drew off in a body from the field. But the generalship of Wallace was met by that of the King. Drawing his bowmen to the front, Edward riddled the Scottish ranks with arrows, and then hurled his cavalry afresh on the wavering line. In a moment all was over, and the maddened knights rode in and out of the broken ranks, slaying without mercy. Thousands fell on the field, and Wallace himself escaped with difficulty, followed by a handful of men. But ruined as the cause of freedom seemed, his work was done. He had roused Scotland into life, and even a defeat like Falkirk left her unconquered. Edward remained master only of the ground he stood on ; want of supplies forced him to retreat ; and in the following year a regency of Scotch nobles under Bruce and Comyn continued the struggle for independence. Troubles at home and dangers from abroad stayed Edward's hand. The barons were pressing more and more vigorously for redress of their grievances and the heavy taxation brought about by the war. France was still menacing, and a claim advanced by Pope Boniface the Eighth, at its suggestion, to the feudal superiority over Scotland, arrested a fresh advance of the King. A quarrel, however, which broke out between Philippe le Bel and the Papacy removed all obstacles, and enabled Edward to defy Boniface and to wring from France a treaty in which Scotland was abandoned. In 1304 he resumed the work of invasion, and again the nobles flung down their arms as he marched to the North. Comyn, at the head of the Regency, acknowledged his sovereignty, and the surrender of Stirling completed the conquest of Scotland. The triumph of Edward was but the prelude to the full execution of his designs for knitting the two countries together by a clemency and wisdom which reveal the great- ness of his statesmanship. A general amnesty was extended to all IV.] who hac of Edwj minster the grei placed u one bio entruste< many of anticipat Scotland was sumi a great adopted legis]:i;io districts, Highland two justi( [Autkori and "Libei communal Stapleton f< story in Wi tory" (186' Leicester w Charter Ro English Boi and Merewi full and scie its sides, ist( of English ( From sc bloodshed ( of Englanc Through been almo; whole char; new class < connection Wat Tyler, and the stj older burg] national hi IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. 193 was i^ever, id all from D4 he their |f the [irling was |e two jreat- to all who had shared in the revolt. Wallace, who refused to avail himself of Edward's mercy, was captured, and condemned to death at West- minster on charges of treason, sacrilege, and robbery. The head of the great patriot, crowned in mockery with a circlet of laurel, was placed upon London Bridge. But the execution of Wallace was the one blot on Edward's clemency. With a masterly boldness he entrusted the government of the country to a council of Scotch nobles, many of whom were freshly pardoned for their share in the war, and anticipated the policy of Cromwell by allotting ten representatives to Scotland in the Common Parliament of his realm. A Convocation was summoned at Perth for the election of these representatives, and a great judicial scheme which was promulgated in this assembly adopted the amended laws of King David as the base of a new legisl Lvion, and divided :the country for judicial purposes into four districts, Lothian, Galloway, the Highlands, and the land between the Highlands and the Forth, at the head of each of which were placed two justiciars, the one English and the other Scotch. Section IV.— The EneUsh Towns. [Authorities. — For the general history of London see its "Liber Albus" and "Liber Custumarum," in the series of the Master of the Rolls ; for its communal revoluticn, the '* Liber de Antiquis Legibus," edited by Mr. Stapleton for the Camden Society ; for the rising of William Longbeard, the story in William of Newburgh. In his " Essay on English Municipal His- tory" (1867), Mr. Thompson has given a useful account of the relations of Leicester with its Earls. A great store of documents will be found in the Charter Rolls published by the Record Commission, in Brady's work on English Boroughs, and (though rather for Parliamentaiy purposes) in Stephen's and Merewether's " History of Boroughs and Corporations." But the only full and scientific examination of our early municipal history, at least on ore of its sides, is to be found in the Essay prefixed by Dr. Brentano to the " Ordinances of English Gilds," published by the Early English Text Society.] From scenes such as we have been describing, from the wrong and bloodshed of foreign conquest, we pass to the peaceful life and progress of England itself Through the reign uf the three Edwards two revolutions, which have been almost ignored by our historians, were silently changing the whole character of English society. The first of these, the rise of a new class of tenant-farmers, we shall have to notice hereafter in its connection with the great agrarian revolt which bears the name of Wat Tyler. The second, the rise of the craftsmen within our towns, and the struggle by which they won power and privilege from the older burghers, is the most remarkable event in the period of our national history at which we have arrived. O Sec. IV. Thk Knglish Towns f ; 1 'M '' t a 194 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. IV. J .Skc. IV. The English Towns The Early English Boroughs I The English borough was originally a mere township or group of townships whose inhabitants happened, either for purposes of trade or protection, to cluster together more thickly than elsewhere. It is this characteristic of our boroughs which separates them at once from the cities of Italy and Provence, which had preserved the municipal in- stitutions of their Roman past, from the German towns founded by Henry the Fowler with the special purpose of sheltering industry from the feudal oppression around them, or from the communes- of northern France which sprang into existence in revolt against feudal outrage within their walls. But in England the tradition of Rome had utterly passed away, while feudal oppression was held fairly in check by the Crown. The English town, therefore, was in its beginning simply a piece of the general country, organized and governed precisely in the same manner as the townships around it. The burh or borough was probably a more defensible place than the common village ; it may have had a ditch or mound about it instead of the quickset-hedge or "tun" from which the township took its name. But its con- stitution was simply that of the people at large. The obligations of the dwellers within its bounds were those of the townships round, to keep fence and trench in good repair, to send a con- tingent to the fyrd, and a reeve and four men to the hundred court and shire court ; and the inner rule of the borough lay as in the townships about in the hands of its own freemen, gathered in "borough- moot " or " portmannimote.'' But the social change brought about by the Danish wars, the legal requirement that each man should have a lord, affected the towns, as it affected the rest of the country. Some passed into the hands of great thegns near to them ; the bulk became known as in the demesne of the king. A new officer, the lord's or king's reeve, was a sign of this revolution. It was the reeve who now summoned the borough-moot and administered justice in it ; it was he who collected the lord's dues or annual rent of the town, and who exacted the services it owed to its lord. To modern eyes these services would imply almost complete subjection. When Leicester, for instance, passed from the hands of the Conqueror into those of its Earls, its townsmen were bound to reap t/ieir lord's corn-crops, to grind at his mill, to redeem their strayed cattle from his pound. The great forest around was the Earl's, and it was only out of his grace that the little borough could drive its swine into the woods or pasture its cattle in the glades. The justice and government of th'i town lay '"holly in its master's hands ; he appointed its bailiffs, received the fines and forfeitures of his tenanis, and the fees and tolls of their markets and fairs. But when once these dues were paid and thes". services rendered the English townsman was practically free. His rights were as rigidly defined by custom as those of his lord. Property and person alike were secured against arbitrary seizure. He could t demand by his n assent o town tov could ex affairs buted tl looked much th these rig widening history o progress privilege lord of tl thriftless sovereigr about an their ma; gave the times a c Leicester English t which ha( by battle, men, NicI waged a ( had arisei hour, eacl other till ] pit, and v of the pit, clamour a sitting arc castle, an( and answ( certain pii little pit, ; the other made a cc yearly for tion that 1 in Leicest and decid niost part IV. J THE THREE EDWARDS. 195 is, to The demand a fair trial on any charge, and even if justice was administered by his master's reeve it was administered in the presence and with the assent of his fellow-townsmen. The bell which sv/ung out from the town tower gathered the burgesses to a common meeting, where they could exercise rights of free speech and free deliberation on their own affairs. Their merchant-gild over its ale-feast regulated trade, distri- buted the sums due from the town among the different burgesses, looked to the due repairs of gate and wall, and acted, in fact, pretty much the same part as a town-council of to-day. Not only, too, were these rights secured by custom from the first, but they were constantly widening as time went on. Whenever we get a glimpse of the inner history of an English town, we find the same peaceful revolution in progress, services disappearing through disuse or omission, while privileges and immunities are being purchased in hard cash. The lord of the town, whether he were king, baron, or abbot, was commonly thriftless or poor, and the capture of a noble, or the campaign of a sovereign, or the building of some new minster by a prior, brought about an appeal to the thrifty burghers, who were ready to fill again their master's treasury at the price of the strip of parchment which gave them freedom of trade, of justice, and of government. Some- times a chanric story lights up for us this work of emancipation. At Leicester one of the chief aims of its burgesses was to regain their old English trial by compurgation, the rough predecessor of trial by jury, which had been abolished by the Earls in favour of the foreign trial by battle. " It chanced," says a charter of the place, " that two kins- men, Nicholas the son of Aeon, and Geoffrey the son of Nicholas, waged a duel about a certain piece of land, concerning which a dispute had arisen between them ; and they fought from the first to the ninth hour, each conquering by turns. Then one of them fleeing from the other till he came to a certain little pit, as he stood on the brink of the pit, and was about to fall therein, his kinsman said to him * Take care of the pit, turn back lest thou shouldest fall into it.' Thereat so much clamour and noise was made by the bystanders and those who were sitting around, that the Earl heiird these clamours as far off as the castle, and he inquired of some how it was there was such a clamour, and answer was made to him that two kinsmen were fighting about a certain piece of ground, and that one had lied till he reached a certain little pit, and that as he stood over the pit and was about to fall into it the other warned him. Then the townsmen being moved with pity made a covenant with the Earl that they should give him threepence yearly for each house in the High Street that had a gable, on condi- tion that he should grant to them that the twenty-four jurors who were in Leicester from ancient Hmes should from that time forwiird discuss and decide all pleas they might have among them'elves." For the niost part the liberties of our towns were bought in this way, by sheer o 1 Sec. IV. The Kn(;lisii Towns p'-m 190 Skl. IV. The Kn(;lisii Towns HIS'J'ORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CIIAI*, The hard bargaining. The earliest English charters, save that of London, date from the years when the treasury of Henry the First was drained by his Norman wars ; and grants of munic !>al liberty made profesbedh- l)y the Angevins are probably the result c 'heir costly employnienL of mercenary troops. At the close, howevet^ of the thirteen .h century, this struggle for emancipation was nearly '^/er. The ' irger towns had secured the administration of justice in tl ir o\\ borough-cDurts, the privilege of self-government, and the co.\irol of their own trade, ana their Jiiberties and charterr. iervtd as models and in -ent.ves to the smaller cc mmunities which were struggling into life. During the progress of this outer revolution, the inner life of the English town was in the same quiet and hardly conscious way deve- loping itself from the common form of the life around it into a form especially its own. Within as without the ditch or stockade which formed the eaiiest boundary of the borough, land was from the first the test of freedom, and the possession of land was what constituted the townsman. We may take, perhaps, a foreign instance to illustrate this fundamental point in our municipal history. When Duke Berthold of Zahringen resolved to found Freiburg, his " free town," in the Brisgau, the mode he adopted was to gather a grr ip of traders together, and to give each man a plot of ground for his freehold round what was des- tined to be the market-place of the new community. In England the landless man who dwelled in a borough had no share in its corporate life ; for purposes of government or property the town was simply an association of the landed proprietors within its bounds ; nor was there anything in this association, as it originally existed, which could be considered peculiar or exceptional. The constitution of the English town, however different its form may have afterwards become, was at first simply that of the people at large. We have seen that among the German races society rested on the basis of the family, that it was the family who fought and settled side by side, and the kinsfolk who were bound together in ties of mutual responsibility to each other and to the law. As society became more complex and less stationary it neces- sarily outgrew these simple ties of blood, and in England this dissolu- tion of the family bond seems to have taken place at the very time when Danish incursions and the growth of a feudal temper among the nobles rendered an isolated existence most perilous for the freeman. His only resource was to seek protection among his fellow-freemen, and to replace the older brotherhood of the kinsfolk by a voluntary association of his neighbours for the same purposes of order and self- defence. The tendency to unite in such ' frith-gilds ' or peace-clubs became general throughout Europe during the ninth and tenth centu- ries, but on the Continent it was roughly met and repressed. The successors of Charles the Great enacted penalties of scourging, nose- slittmg, and banishment against voluntary unions, and even a league IV. I of the pn suppress attitude ( time as ' was acce recogniz( gild ' sid 'frith gill of Londo Thefri to the fri at large. for the t common hearth. establish share the member < guilt incu of violent romp'irgr On the o State, for brother w punished offender n these gild close loca /Ethelstar out more < gilds of B side in on dealings c process w naturally ( effected w of some o London, f the he^d > while its became th bury we fi; the town s as the uni( a mere col ■*'f. IV. J THE THREE EDWARDS. »97 league of the poor peasants of Gaul aj^^ainst the inroads of the northmen was suppressed by the swords of the Frankish nobles. In T.ngland the attitude of the Kings was utterly different. Th; ystem known at a later lime as ' frank-pledge,' or free engagement ( / r ighbour for neighbour, was accepted after the Danish wars as the ha . of social order. /T-'lfrcd recognized the common responsibility of the members of the ' frith- gild ' side by side with that of the kinsfolk, and /Ethelstan accepted 'frith gilds' as a constituent element of borough life in the Dooms of London. The frith-gild, then, in the earlier English town, was precisely similar to the frith-gilds which formed the basis of social order in the country at large. An oath of mutual fidelity among its members was substituted for the tie of blood, w'^^le the gild-feast, held once a month in the common hall, replaced ic thering of the kinsfolk round their family hearth. But within hm ■ \ family the aim of the frith-gild was to establish a mutual re ;•[. nsi'r.?uity as close as that of the old. " Let all share the same lot, f. craft-gilds, It is th "greater i general m£ 'of janer [eigh- IV. 1 THE TIIREF EDWARDS. hours. This advance in the division of labour is marked by such severances as \vc note in tiie thirteenth century of tlie chnh merchant from the tailor, or the leather merchant frouj the butcher. J5ut the result of this severance was all-important in its inllur ice on the consti- tution of our towns. The members of the trades thus abandoned by the wealthier burs^hers formed themselves into Craft-gilds, which soon rose into dangerous rivalry with the original Merchant-gild of the town. A seven years' apprenticeship formed the necessary prelude to full membership of any trade-gild. Their regulations were of the minutest character ; the quality and value of work was rigidly prescribed, the hours of toil fixed " from day-break to curfew," and strict provision made against competition in labour. At each meeting of these gilds their members gathered round the Craft-box, which contained the rules of their Society, and stood with bared heads as it was opened. The warden and a quorum of gild-brothers formed a court which enforced the ordinances of the gild, inspected all work done by its members, confiscated unlawful tools or unworthy goods ; and dis- obedience to their orders was punished by fines, or in the last resort by expulsion, which involved the loss of right to trade. A common fund was raised by contributions among the members, which not only provided for the trade objects of the gild, but sufficed to found chantries and masses, and set up painted windows in the church of their patron saint. Even at the present day the arms of the craft-gild may often be seen blazoned in cathedrals side by side with those of prelates and of kings. But it was only by slow degrees that they rose to such a height as this. The first steps in their existence were the most difficult, for to enable a trade-gild to carry out its objects with any success, it was first necessary that the whole body of craftsmen belonging to the trade should be compelled to belong to it, and secondly, that a legal control over the trade itself should be secured to it. A royal charter was indispensable for these purposes, and over the grant of these charters took place the first struggle with the merchant-gild, which had till then soioi; exercised jurisdiction over trade within the boroughs. The weavers, who were the first trade- gild to secure royal sanction in the reign of Henry the First, were still engaged in the contest for existence as late as the reign of John, when the citi7ens of London bought for a time the suppression of their gild. ^ under the house of Lancaster, Exeter was engaged in resisting the establishment of a tailors' gild. From the eleventh century, however, the spread of these societies went steadily on, and the control of trade passed from the merchant-gilds to the craft-gilds. It is this struggle, to use the technical terms of the time, of the " greater folk " against the " lesser folk," or of the " commune," the general mass of the inhabitants, against the " prudhommes," or " wiser " 199 Skc. IV. 'I'lIK I'.NIil.lSll I'llWNS ■f 'li ' • I The Greater and I«esser Folk ,11 ^;i, ^M •m aoo HISTORY OF TIIK ENGLISH PEOPLK. [chap. Skc. IV. Thr Knoi.isii Towns I'' I 1 196 few, which broujjht about, as it passed from the rc^ulation.of trade to the j:jcneral jjovernnicnt of the town, the great civic revolution of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. On the Continent, and especially along the Rhine, the struggle was as fierce as the supremacy of the older burghers had been complete. In Koln the craftsmen had been reduced to all but serfage, and the merchant of Brussels might box at his will the ears of "the man without heart or honour who lives by his toil." Such social tyranny of class over cla>s brought a century of bloodshed to the cities of Germany ; but v\ England the tyranny of class over class had been restrained by the general tenor of the law, and the revolution took for the most part a milder form. The longest and bitterest strife of all was naturally at London. Nowhere had the territorial constitution struck root so deeply, and nowhere had the landed oligarchy risen to such a height of wealth and influence. The city was divided into wards, each of which was governed by an alder- man drawn from the ruling class. In some, indeed, the office seems to have become hereditary. The " magnates," or " barons," of the merchant-gild advised alone on all matters of civic government or trade regulation, and distributed or assessed at their will the revenues or burthens of the town. Such a position afforded an opening for cor- ruption and oppression of the most galling kind ; and it seems to have been the general impression of the unfair assessment levied on the poor, and theundueburthens which were thrown on the unenfranchised classes, which provoked the first serious discontent. William of the Long Beard, himself one of tne governing body, placed himself at the head of a conspiracy which numbered, in the terrified fancy of the burghers, fifty thousand of the craftsmen. His eloquence, his bold defiance of the aldermen in the town-mote, gained him at any rate a wide popularity, and the crowds who surrounded him hailed him as '* the sav'our of the poor." One of his addresses is luckily preserved to us by a hearer of the time. In mediaeval fashion he began with a text from the Vulgate, " Ye shall draw water with joy from the fountain of the Saviour." " I," he began, " am the saviour of the poor. Ye poor men who have felt the weight of rich men's hands, draw from m fountain waters of wholesome instruction and that with joy, for the tinv" of your visitation is at hand. For I will divide the waters from the waters. It is the people who are the waters, and I will divide the lowly and f.tithful folk from the proud and faithless folk ; I will part the chosen from the reprobate as light from darkness." But it was in vain that by appeals to the King he strove to win royal favour for the popular cause. The support of the moneyed classes was essential to Richard in the costly wars with Philip of France, and the Justiciar, Archbishop Hubert, after a moment of hesitation, issued orders for his arrest. William felled with an axe the first soldier who advanced to seize him, and taking refuge with a few followers in the tower of St. Mary-le- iv.J How, su already right of surrendc as he cai than fifi) No fu Barons' with disc ving the rose fron burghers. recomme settmg as for their i the secon victory of have ceas formally r liveries as which the power bro of the tr^ current of ers. This had becon Municipal hands of a nothing a< trade-gilds they had c Se< [Atit/iorit important a "Anglica, (published b bury, printci porary in da aspect of th( If we tu accession ( chequered A great tra IV.] THE TFIRFF, KDWARDS. 20 1 How, summoned his adherents \i rise. Hubert, however, who had already flooded the city with troops, with bold contempt of the rij^ht of sanctuary, set fiio to the tower and forced William to surrender. A Ivurj^her's son, whorie father he had slain, stabbed hiii\ as he came forth, and with ins death the (piarrel slumbered for more than fifty years. No further movement, in fact, took place till the outbreak of the Harons' war, but the city had all through the interval been seething with discontent ; the unenfranchised craftsmen, under pretext of preser- ving the peace, had united in secret frith-gilds of their own, and mobs rose from time to time to sack the houses of foreigners and the wealthier burghers. But it was not till the civil war began that the open contest recommenced. The craftsmen forced their way into the town-mote, and settmg aside the aldermen and magnates, chose Thomas Fitz-Thomas for their mayor. Although dissension still raged during the reign of the second Edward, we may regard this election as marking the final victory of the craft-gilds. Under his successor all contest seems to have ceased : charters had been granted to every trade, their ordinances formally recognized and enrolled in the mayor's court, and distinctive liveries assumed to which they owed the name of "Livery Companies" which they still retain. The wealthier citizens, who found their old power broken, regained influence by enrolling themselves as members of the trade-gilds, and Edward the Third himself humoured the current of civic feeling by becoming a member of the gild of Armour- ers. This event marks the time when the government of our towns had become more really popular than it ever again became till the Municipal Reform Act of our own days. It had passed from the hands of an oligarchy into those of the middle classes, and there was nothing as yet to foretell the reactionary revolution by which the trade-gilds themselves became an oligarchy as narrow as that which they had deposed. Section v.— The Kini: and the Baronage, 1290—1327. {Anf/iorities. — For Edward I. as before. For Edward II. we have three important contemporaries : on the King's side, Thomas de la More (in Camden, "Anglica, Brittanica, etc."); on thnt (published by the Master of the Ro)';) bury, printed by Hearne. The ;:hoit Chronic-c porary in date. Hallam ("Niiddle Ages") ha aspect of the time.] of the Barons, ltd the Life by Sk.. IV. The Knclish The Com- mune If Trokelowe's Annals a monk of Malmes- by Murimuth is also contem- illustrated the constitutional If we turn again to the constitiuional history of England from the accession of Edward the First we find a progress not less real but chequered with darker viciti'.itudes than the progress of our towns. A great transfer of power had been brought about by the long struggle 1261 I r W V Vi ft. 1 1 . 'h '•i ■ '■I : i '::iif England ' f ■■ BhLlm [M under ■|H Edward I. HK ! 1 ff' 1 \ ( 1 K \ 1 i 1- J \ d 202 Sec. V. TlIK KiNC AND 'IIIK liAK'ONAfil''. 1290 1327 I d HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. for llic Charter, by the reforms of Earl Simon, and by the earlier lei^islation of Edward himself. His conception of kingship indeed was that of a just and rcliL;ioiis Henry the Seco:.d, but his Ens^land was as tlilfcrent from the Eni,dand of Henry as the Parlir.ment of the one was d-ffercnt from the Cire.'t Council of the other, la the rough rimes of llobert of Gloucester we read the simple politi.al creed of the people at large. " When the land through God's grace to good peace was brought For to have the old laws the high men turned their thought : For to have, as we said erst, the good old Law, The King made his charter and granted it with sawe." But the power which the Charter had wrested from the Crown fell not to the people but to the Baronage. The farmer and the artisan, though they could fight in some great crisis for freedom, had as yet no wish to interfere in the common task of government. The vast industrial change in both town and country, which had begun during the reign of Henry the Third, and which continued with increasing force during that of his son, absorbed the energy and ..tention of the trading classes. In agriculture, the inclosure of common lands anr" he intro- duction of the system of leases on the part of the great proprietors, coupled with the subdivision of estates which was facilitated by Edward's legislation, was gradually creating out of the masses of rural bondsmen a new class of tenant farmers, whose whole energy was absorbed in their own great rise to social freedom. The very causes which rendered the growth of municipal liberty so difficult, increased the wealth of the towns. To the trade with Nv way and the Hanse towns of North Germany, the wool-trade with Flanders, and the wine trade with Gascon y, was now added a fast increasing commerce with Italy and Spain. The great Venetian merchant galleys appeared on the English coast, Florentine traders settled in the southern ports, the bankers of Florence and Lucca followed those of Cahors, who had already dealt a death-blow to the usury of the Jews. But the wealth and industrial energy of the country was shown, not only in the rise of a capitalist class, but in a crowd of civil and ecclesiastical buildings which distinguished this period. Christian architecture reached its highest beauty in the opening of Edwai d's reign, a period marked by the completion of the abbey church of Westminster and the exquisite cathedral church at Salisbury. An English noble was proud to be styled " an incor parable builder," while some traces of the art which was rising across the Alps perhaps flowed in with the Italian ecclesi- astics whom the Papacy was forcing on the English Church. In the abbey of Vv'^estminiter the shrine of the Confessor, the mosaic pave- ment, and the paintings on the walls of minster and chapter-house, remind us of tlie schools which were springing up under Giotlo and the Pisans. gov P IV.] But classes govern accord the po King withou wavcri; foreign been r ]jcasan and th its nat which its transfei commit of state The bo( the qui€ betweer effective relation the Cro; Council will of tl which tl the mosi towns, i frequenc for cour action ; taxation rule of 1 efforts From ing infli revolutif were cru despotisi whicli th tiie polic com miss on its r these fr IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. 203 reign quisite to be which cclesi- In the pave- louse, to and wavcnnsr foreigners But even had this industrial distraction been wanting the tradine classes had no mind to claim any direct part in the actual work of government. It was a work which, in default of the Crown, fell naturally, according to the ideas of the time, to the Baronage, Constitutionally the position of the ICnglish nobles had now become established. A King could no longer make laws or levy taxes or even make war without their assent. And in the Baronage the nation reposed an un- trust. The nobles of England were no more the brutal from whose violence the strong hand of a Norman ruler had been need-^d to protect his subjects ; they were as P2nglish as the peasant or the trader. They had won English liberty by their swords, and the tradition of their order bound them to look on themselves as its natural guardians. At the close of the Barons' war, the problem which had so long troubled the icahii, the problem of how to ensure its government in accordance with the Charter, was solved by the transfer of the business of administration into the hands of a standing committee of the greater prelates and barons, acting as chief officers of state in conjvmct^on with specially appointed ministers of the Crown. The body thus composed was known as the Continual Council ; and the quiet government of the kingdom by the Council in the long interval between the death of Henry the Third and his son's return shows how effective this rule of the nobles was. It is significant of the new relation which they were to strive to establish between themselves and the Crown that in the brief which announced Edward's accession the Council asserted that the new monarch mounted his throne " by the will of the peers." The very form indeed of the new Parliament, in which the barons were backed by the knights of the shire, eh cted for the most part under their influence, and by the representatives of the towns, still true to the traditions of the Barons' war ; the increased frequency of these Parliamentary assemblies which gave opportunity for counsel, for party organization, and a distinct political base of action ; above all, the new financial power which their control over taxation enabled them to exert on the throne, ultimately placed the rule of the nobles on a basis too strong to be shaken by the utmost efforts of even Edward liimself. From the first the King struggled fruitlessly against this overpower- ing influence ; and his sympathies must have been stirred by the revolution on the other side of the Channel, where the French kings were crushing the power of the feudal baronage, and erecting a royal despotism on its ruins. Edward watched jealously over the ground which, the Crown had already gained against the nobles. Follow ing the policy of Henry II., at the very outset of his reign he instituted a commission of enquiry into the ji/'i'ial franchises still existing, and on its report itineiant justices were sent to discover by what right these franchises were held. The writs of "quo warranto" were Sf.c. v. TiiF, KiNc. AND THIs 1!akonac;k 1290 TO 1327 The Baronage and its rule sHi and the j Baronage |' '.(■'i I ; 127S 204 ITTSTORY OF THE ENGLTSH PEOPLE. [CTTAP. Sec. V. The KiNf; AND THE Baronac.k 12QO TO 1327 i27cS U ■: I2S6-I2S9 roiighly met here and there. Earl Warenne bared a rusty sword, and flung it on the justices' table. " This, sirs," he said, " is my warrant. By the sword our fathers won their lands when they came over with the Conqueror, and by the sword we will keep them." But the King- was far from limiting himself to the plans of flcnry 11. ; he aimed further at neutralizing the power of the nobles by raising the whole body of landowners to the same level ; and a royal writ ordered all freeholders who held land of the value of twenty pounds to receive knighthood at the King's hands. While the political influence of the baronage as a leading element in the nation mounted, in fact, the personal and purely feudal power of each individual on his estates as steadily fell. The hold Avhich the Crown had gained on every noble family by its rights of wardship and marriage, the circuits of the royal judges, the ever narrowing bounds within which baronial justice was circumscribed, the blow dealt by scutage at their military power, the prompt intervention of the Council in their feuds, lowered the nobles more and more to the level of thc'r fellow subjects. Much yet remained to be done. Different as the English baronage, taken as a whole, was from a feudal noblesse like that of Germany or France, there is in every military class a natural drift towards violence and lawlessness, which even the stern justice of Edward found it difficult to repress. Throughout his reign his strong hand was needed to enforce order on warring nobles. Great earls, such as those of Gloucester and Hereford, carried on private war ; in Shropshire the Earl of Arundel waged his feud with Fulk Fitz Warine. To the lesser and poorer nobles the wealth of the trader, the long wain of goods as it passed along the highway, was a tempting prey. Once, under cover of a mock tournament of monks against canons, a band of country gentlemen succeeded in introducing themselves into the great merchant fair at P)OSton ; at nightfall every booth was nn fire, the merchants robbod and slaughtered, and the booty carried off to ships which lay ready at the quay. Streams of gold and silver, ran the talc of popular horror, flowed melted down the gutters to the sea ; " all the money in England could hardly make good the loss." Even at the close of Edward's reign lawless bands of " trail-bastons," or club-men, maintained themselves by general outrage, aided thecountr) nobles in their feuds, and wrested money and goods by threats from the great tradesmen. The King was strong enough to fine and imprir>on the Earls, to hang the chief of the Boston marauders, and to suppress the outlaws by rigorous commissions. During Edward's absence of three years from the realm, the judges, who were themselves drawn from the lesser baronage, were charged with vioien. -e and corruption. After a careful investigation the judicial abuses were recognized and amended ; two of the chief justices were banished from the coimtry, and their colleagues imprisoned and fined. IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. great The next year saw a step which remains the great blot upon Edward's reign. Under the Angevins the popular hatred of the Jew.i had grown rapidly in intensity. But the royal protection had never wavered. Henry the Second had granted them the right of burial outside of every city where they dwelt. Richard had punished heavily a massacre of the Jews at York, and organized a mixed court of Jews and Christians for the registration of their contracts. John suffered none to plunder them save himself, though he once wrested from them a sum equal to a year's revenue of his realm. The troubles of the next reign brought in a harvest greater than even the royal greed could reap ; the Jews grew wealthy enough to acquire estates, and only a burst of popular feeling prevented a legal decision which would have enabled them to own freeholds. Their pride and contempt of the superstitions around them broke out in the taunts they levelled at processions as they pp.ssed their Jewries, sometimes as at Oxford in actual attacks upon them. Wild stories floated about among the people of children carried off to Jewish houses, to be circumcised or crucified, and a boy of Lincoln who was found slain in a Jewish house was canonized by popular leverence as " St. Hugh." The first work of the Friars was to settle in the Hebrew quarters and attempt their conversion, but the tide of popular fury rose too fast for these gentler means of recon- ciliation. When the Franciscans saved seventy Jews from, death by their prayers to Henry the Third the populace angrily refused the brethren alms. The sack of Jewry after Jewry was the sign of popular hatred during the Barons' war. With its close, fell on the Jews the more terrible persecution of the law. Statute after statute hemmed them in. They were forbidden to hold real propert^^, to employ Christian servants, to move through the streets without the two white tablets of wool on their breasts which distinguished their race. They were prohibited from building new synagogues, or eating with Chris- tians, or acting as physicians to them. Their trade, already crippled by the rivalry of the bankers of Cahors, was annihilated by a royal order, which bade them renounce usury under pain of death. At last perse- cution could do no more, and on the eve of his struggle with Scotland, Edward, eager at the moment to find supplies for his treasury, and himself swayed by the fanaticism of his subjects, bought the grant of a fifteenth from clergy and laity by consenting to drive the Jews from his realm. Of the sixteen thousand who preferred exile to apostasy few reached the shores of France. Many were wrecked, others robbed and flung overboard. One shipmaster turned out a crew of wealthy merchants on to a sandbank, and bade them call a new Moses to save tiiem from the sea. From the time of Edward to that of Cromwell no J ew touched English ground. No share in the enormities which accompanied the expulsion of the jews can fall upon Edward, for he not only suffered the fugitives to 205 Sec. V. The Kino AND THE 15ARONAGE 1290 TO 1327 Ed-wrard and the Jews 1290 '1 : Edivard and the Baronage 2o6 Skc. V. Thk Kin(; AND THK RAKONA(;tC 1290 TO 1327 1294 1297 2297 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. take their wealth with them, but punished with the halter those who plundered them at sea. But the expulsion was none the less cruel, and the grant of a fifteenth made by the grateful Parliament proved but a poor substitute for the less which the royal treasury had sustained. The Scotch war more than exhausted the aids granted by the Parlia- ment. The treasury was utterly drained ; the costly fight with the French in Gascony called for supplies, while the King was planning a yet costlier attack on northern Fiance with the aid of Flanders. It was sheer want which drove Edward to tyrannous extortion. His first blow fell on the Church ; he had already demanded half their annual income from the clergy, and so terrible was his wrath at their resist- ance, that the Dean of St. Paul's, who had stood forth to remonstiate, dropped dead of sheer terror at his feet. " If any oppose the King's demand," said a royal envoy, in the midst of the Convocation, " let him stand up that he may be noted as an enemy to the King's peace." The outraged churchmen fell back on an untenable plea that their ai'' was due solely to Rome, and pleaded a bull of exemption, issued by Pope Boniface VIII., as a ground for refusing to comply with further taxa- tion. Edward met their refusal by a general outlawry of the whole order. The King's courts were closed, and all justice denied to those who refused the King aid. By their actual plea the clergy had put themselves formally in the wrong, and the outlawry soon forced them to submission, but their aid did little 10 recruit the exhausted treasury, while the pressure of the war steadily increased. Far v/ider measures of arbitrary taxation were needful to equip an expedition which Edward prepared to lead in person to Flanders.. The country gentle- men were compelled to take up knighthood, or to compound for exemption from the burthensome honour. Forced contributions of cattle and corn were demanded from the counties, and the export duty on wool — now the staple produce of the country — was raised to six times its former amount. Though he infringed no positive charter or statute, the work of the Great Charter and the Barons' war seemed suddenly to have been undone. But the blow had no sooner been struck than Edward found himself powerless within his realm. The baronage roused itself to resistance, and the two greatest of the English nobles, Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, placed them- selves at the head of the opposition. Their protest against the war and the financial n: ^asures by which it was carried on, took the practical form of a refusal to lead a force to Gascony as Edward' s lieutenants, while he himself sailed for Flanders. They availed themselves of the plea that they were not bound to foreign service save in attendance on the King. " By (;od. Sir Earl," swore the King to Bigod, " you shall either go or hang ! " " By God, Sir King," was the cool reply, " I will neither go nor hang ! " Ere the Parliament he had convened could meet, Edward had discovered his own powerlessness, and, with one of [chap. IV] THE THREE EDWARDS. 207 those who s cruel, and 3ved but a sustained, the Parlia- lit with the phinning a anders. it 1. His first heir annual their resist- emonstiate, the King's in, " let him eace." The eir aid was ed by Pope urther taxa- f the whole ied to those •gy had put forced them ;ed treasury, er measures ition which ntry gentle- 11 pound for ributions of the export IS raised to tive charter ^var seemed been struck le baronage lish nobles, aced them- ist the war he practical ieutenants, :lves of the sndance on " you shall )ly, " I will ned could ,vith one of those sudden revulsions of feeling of which his nature was capable, he stood before his people in Westminster Hall and owned, with a bu st of tears, th?t he had taken their substance without due warrant of law. His passionate appeal to their loyalty wrested a reluctant assent to the prosecution of the war, but the crisis had taught the need of further securities against the royal power. While Edward was still struggling in Flanders, the Primate, Winchelsey, joined the two Earls and the citizens of London in forbidding any further levy of supplies till Edward at Ghent solemnly confirmed the Charter with the new clauses added to it prohibiting the King from raising taxes save by general consent of the realm. At the demand of the barons he renewed the Confirma- tion in 1299, when his attempt to add an evasive clause saving the rights of the Crown proved the justice of their distrust. Two years later a fiesh gathering of the barons in arms wrested from him tht. lUll execution of the Charter of Forests. The bitterness of his humiliation ^rey ^d on him ; he exaded his pledge to levy no new taxes on mer- chand.'ze by the sale to merchants of certain privileges of trading ; and a foimal absolution from his promises which he obtained from the Pope showed his intention of re-opening the questions he had yielded. His hand was stayed, however, by the fatal struggle with Scotland which levived in the lising of Robert Bruce, and the King's death bequeathed the contest to his worthless son. Worthless, however, as Edward the Second morally might be, he was far fr->m being dstitute of the intellectual power which seemed hereditary in the Plan agenets. It was his settled purpose to fling off the yoke of the baronage, and the means by which he designed ac- complishing his purpo: e was the choice of a minister wholly dependent on the Crown. We ] ve aheady noticed the change by which the pel," who had been the ministers of arbitrary ormans and Angevins, had been quietly super- d lords of the Continual Council. At the close direct demand on the part of the Barons to nominate the great c licers of state had been curtly rejected ; but the royal choice had b'^en practically limited in the selection of its minis- ters to the class ot >relates and nobles, and, however closely connected with royalty, such officers always to a great extent shared the feelings and opinions of their order. It seems to have been the aim of the young King to undo the change which had been silently brought about, and to imitate the policy of the contemporary sovereigns of France by choosing as his ministers men of an inferior position, wholly dependent on ii\e Crown for their power, and representatives of nothing but the policy and interests of their master. Piers Gaveston, a foreigner sprung from a family of Ckiienne, had been his friend and companion during his father's reign, at the close of which he had been banished from the realm for his share in intrigues which had divided " clerks of the king's ( government under the seded by the prelates of his father's reign Sec V. The Kin(; AND THE Bakona(;ic 1200 TO 1327 1297 1 301 1305 1307 the Second 1307-13:^7 ii 1 .^ 208 Siic. V. The KiNCi AND THE liAKONAiaC 1290 1327 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CHAl*. 1307 i?o8 1309 The IiordB Crdainers 13" .tf 1 Edward from his son. At the new King's accession he was at once recalled, created Earl of Cornwall, and placed at the head of the ad- ministration. Gay, genial, thriftless, Gaveston showed in his first acts the quickness and audacity of Southern Gaul ; the older ministers were dismissed, all claims of precedence or inheritance set aside in the distribution of offices at the coronation, while taunts and defiances goaded the proud baronage to fury. The favourite was a fine soldier, and his lance unhorsed his opponents in tourney after tourney. His reckless wit flung nicknames about the Court ; the Earl of Lancaster was "the Actor," Pembroke "the Jew," Warwick " the Black Dog." But taunt and defiance broke helplessly against the iron mass of the baronage. After a few months of power the demand of the Parliament for his dismissal could not be resisted, and he was formally banished from the realm. In the following year it was only by conceding the rights which his father had sought to establish of imposing import duties on the merchants by their own assent, that Edward procured a subsidy for the Scotch war. The firmness of the baronage sprang from their having found a head in the Earl of Lancaster, son of Edmund Crouchback. His weight proved irresistible. When Edward at the close of the Parliament recalled Gaveston, Lancaster withdrew from tlie royal Council, and a Parliament which met in 1310 resolved that the affairs of the realm should be entrusted for a year to a body of twenty-one " Ordainers." A formidable list of " Ordinances " drawn up by the twenty-one met Edward on his return from a fruitless warfare with the Scots. By this long and important statute Gaveston was banished, other ad- visers were driven from the Council, and the Florentine bankers whose loans had enabled Edward to hold the baronage at bay sent out of the realm. The customs duties imposed by Edward the First were de- clared to be illegal. Parliaments were to be called every year, and in these assemblies the King's servants were to be brought, if need were, to justice. The great officers of state were to be appointed with the counsel and consent of the baronage, and to be sworn in Parliament. The same consent of the barons in Parliament was to be needful ere the King could declare war or absent himself from the realm. As the Ordinances show, the baronage still looked on Parliament rather as a political organization of the nobles than as a gathering of the three Estates of the realm. The lower clergy pass unnoticed ; the Commons are regarded as mere tax-payers whose part was still confined to the presentation of petitions of grievances and the grant of money. But even in this imperfect fashion the Parliament was a real representation of the country, and Edward was forced to assent to the Ordinances after a long and obstinate struggle. The exile of Gaveston was the sign of the barons' triumph ; his recall a few months later renewed a strife which was only ended by his capture in Scarborough. The IV. ] " Black teeth of Lane defianc burst of submiss barons which s powerle servanc The six history, which s] between and the ; such as i'lobert formally belongin The ^i Leicestei the King the Engl raised hi charactei lion. Ir jealousy and the 3 whom th its heires found litt kingdom turned tc whom Le unexpect fresh stre Despens( a<:jain int able negc his preci] At Boroi Karl hir tried and King of out a bri [CHAV. at once the iid- irst acts linisters ie in the efiances soldier, :. His incaster k Dog." s of the rliament •anished ling the import •cured a ,ng from Edmund i at the ew from vcd that body of ^nty-one Scots, her ad- rs whose It of the veve de- and in 3d were, vith the iament. dful ere As the er as a le three )mmons to the y. But :ntation inances as the ewed a 11. The IV.] THE TIHi;d Lancaster, as well as by his royal blood (for like the King he was a grandson of Henry' the Third), stood at the head of the English baronage, and the issue of the long struggle with Edward raised him for the moment to supreme power in the realm. But his character seems to have fallen far beneath the greatness of his posi- tion. Incapable of governing, he could do little but regard with jealousy the new advisers on whom the King now leaned, the older and the younger Hugh Le Dcspenser. The rise of the younger, on whom the King bestowed the county of Glamorgan with the hand of its heiress, was rapid enough to excite general jealousy, and Lancaster found little difficulty in extorting by i'orce of arms his exile from the kingdom. But the tide of popular sympathy, already wavering, was turned to the royal cause by an insult offered to the Queen, again^^t whom Lady Badlesmere had closed the doors of Ledes Castle, and the unexpected energy shown by Edward in avenging the insult gave fresh strength to his cause. He found himself strong enough to recall Despenser, and when Lancaster convoked the baronage to force him again into exile, the weakness of their party was "hown by the treason- able negotiations into which the Earl entered witn the Scots, and by his precipitate retreat to the north on the advance of the royal army. At Boroughbridge his forces were arrested and dispersed, and the Karl himself, brought captive before Edward at Pontefract, was tried and condemned to death as a traitor. " Have mercy on me, King of Heaven," cried Lancast'ir, .. ^ Jiiounted on a grey pony with- out a bridle he \ as hurried to execution, " for my earthly King has P Src. V. TlIK KiNC AND THK liAKONAtiK laoo 10 1337 1312 Iff ,1 'i 1^18 The De- spenaers I m 1321 /'ait 0/ f.atu aster 1322 \ I. f ato lUr^TORV OF THE KNGTJSH PFOrLK. [CTTAP Sec. V. The K»ni; AND THK Baron, \(".K 1B90 TO 1387 132: 1326 1327 Deposition of Rd-ivani forsaken ine." His dentil was followed by that of \ number of his adherents and by the crptivity of others ; while a Parliament at York annulled the proceedings against the Dcspensers, and repealed the Ordinances. It is to this Parliament however, and perhaps to the victorious confidence of the royalists, that we owe the famous provision which reveals the policy of the Dcspensers, the provision that all laws concerning " the estate of the Crown, or of the realm and people, shall be treated, accorded, and established in Pinliamcnts by our Lord the King and by the consent of the prelates, earls, barons, and ronmionalty of the realm, according as hath been hitherto ac- cxistoiaed." It would seem from the tenor of this remarkable enact- ment thai much of the sudden revulsion of popular feeling had been owing to the assumption of all legislati\c action by the baronage alone. But the arrogance of the Dcspensers, the utter failure of a fresh campaign against Scotland, and the humiliating truce for thir- teen years which Edward was forced to conclude wuh Robert Bruce, soon robbed the Crown of its temporary popularity, and led the way to the sudden catastrophe which closed this disastrous reign. It had been airanged that the Queen, a sister of the King of France, should re-visit her home to conclude a treaty between the two countries, whose quarrel was again verging upon war ; and her son, a boy of twelve years old, followed her to do homage in his father's stead for the duchies of Gascony and Aquitaine. Neither threats nor prayers, however, could induce either wife or child to return to his court ; and the Queen's connexion with a secret conspiracy of the baronage was revealed when the primate and nobles hurried to her standard on her landing at Orwell. Deserted by all, and re- pulsed by the citizens of London whose aid he implored, the King fled hastily to the west and embarked with the Dcspensers for Lundy Isle ; but contrary winds flung the fugitives again on the Welsh coast, where they fell into the hands of the new Earl of Lancaster. The younger Despenser was at once hanged e a a gibbet fifty feet high, and the King placed in ward at Kenilworth till his fate could be ie- cided by a Parliament summone^l for that purpose at Westminster. The Peers who assembled fearlessly revived the constitutional usage of the earlier English freedom, and asserted their right to depose a king who had proved himself unworthy to rule. Not a voice was raised in Edward's behalf, and only four prelates protested when the young Prince was proclaimed King by acclamation, and presented as their sovereign to the multitudes without. The revolution soon took legal form in a bill which charged the captive monarch with indolence, incapacity, the loss of Scotland, the violation of his coronation oath, and oppression of the Church and baronage ; and on the approval of this it was resolved that the reign of Edward of Caernarvon had ceased and that the crown had passed to his son, Edward of Windsor. [CHAP of his nent at epcalccl haps lo famous ion that people, by our barons, erto ac- 3 enact- ad been aronage Lire of a for thir- t Bruce, the way ign. It France, the two her son, i father's ^ threats eturn to Diracy of irried to and re- ic King r Lundy e Welsh mcaster. eet high, d be de- iminster. al usage epose a ice was hen the nted as on took dolence, on oath, roval of on had indsor. iv.l THK THRRK EDWARDS. 3it A deputation of the Parliament proceeded to Kenilworth to procure the assent of the discrowned King to his own deposition, antl Kdward, "clad in a plain black gown," submitted quietly to his fate. Sir William Trussel at once addressed him in words which better than any other mark the true nature of the step whicli the Parliament had taken. " I, William Trussel, proctor of the carls, barons, and others, having for this full and sufficient power, do render and give bac'-. to you, Edward, once King of England, the homage and fealty of the persons named in my procuracy ; and acquit a ul discharge them thereof in the best manner that law and custom will give. And I now make protestation in their name that they will no longer be in your fealty and allegiance, nor claim to hold anything of you as king, but will account you hereafter as a private person, without any manner of royal tlignity." A significant act followed these emphatic words. Sir Thomas Blount, the steward of the household, broke his staff of office, a ceremony only used at a king's death, and declared that all persons engaged in the royal service were discharged. In the following September the King was murdered in Berkeley Castle. Section VI.- The Scotch War of Independence, 1306— 134fl. {Aitthorifies. — Mainly the contemporary English Chroniclers and state tlocuments for the reigns of the three Edwards. John Barbour's "Bruce," the great legendary storehouse for his hero's adventures, is historically worth- less. Mr. Burton s is throughout the best modern account of the time,] To obtain a clear view of the constitutional struggle between the kings and the baronage, we have deferred to its close an account of the great contest which raged throughout the whole period in the north. With the Convocation of Perth the conquest and settlement of Scotland seemed complete. Edward I., in fact, was preparing for a joint Parliament of the two nations at Carlisle, when the conquered country suddenly sprang again to arms under Robert Bruce, the grandson of one of the orir nal claimants of the crown. The Norman house of Bruce formed a part of the Yorkshire baronage, but it had acquired through intermarriages the Earldom of Carrick and the Lordship of Annandale. Both the claimant and his son had been pretty steadily on the English side in the contest with Balliol and Wallace, and Robert had himself been trained in the English court, and stood high in the King's favour. But the withdrawal of Balliol gave a new force to his claims upon the crown, and ihe discovery of an intrigue which he had set on foot with the Bishop of St. Andrews so roused Edward's jealousy that Bruce fled for his life across the border. in the church of the Grey Friars at Dumfries he met Comyn, the Lord of Badenoch, to whose treachery he att-ributed the disclosure of 1' 3 Skc. VI. The Scot' i\ War ok Indepkn- DHNCK 1306 TO 1348 The Scotch Revolt 1305 1306 212 IITSTORV OF THE ENGIJSII PKOPLK. [niAr IV.] S«c. VI. ThkSiotc II Wak (.1- Indkikn- 1)KN( K 1306 TO 1342 1307 Robert Bruce his plans, and after the interchange of a few hot words struck him with Iiis dagger to the ground. It was an outrage that admitted of no forgiveness, and lirucc for very saioty was forcctl to assume the crown six weeks after in the Abbey of Scone. 'I'he news roused Scotland again to arms, and siniimoncd Ixlward to a fresh contest with his un- conquerable foe. ]iut the murder of Comyn had changed the King's mood to a terrible pitilessness ; he threatened death ag.iinst all con- cerned in the outrage, and exposed the Countess of JUichan, who jiad set the crown on IJruce's head, in a cage or open chamber built for the purpose in one of the towers of Berwick. At the solemn feast which celebrated his son's knighthood Edward vowed on the swan, which formed the chief dish at the banquet, to devote the rest of his days to exact vengeance from the murderer himself. But even at the moment of the vow, Bruce was already flying for his life to the western islands. " Henceforth," he had said to his wife at their corona- tion, "thou art queen of Scotland and I king." " I fear," replied Mary Bruce, " we are only playing at royalty, like children in their grimes."' The play was socn turned into bitter earnest. A small English force under Aymer de Valence sufficed to rout the disorderly levies which gathered round the new monarch, and the flight ot Bruce left his followers at Edward's mercy. Noble after noble was hurried to th(> block. The Earl of Athole pleaded kindred witli royalty ; "His only privilege," burst forth the King, " shall be that of being hanged on a higher gallows than the rest." Kniglits and priests were strung up side by side by the English justiciars ; while the wife and daughter of Robert liruce were flung into prison. Bruce himself had offered to capitulate to Prince Edward, but the offer only roused the old King to fury. " Who is so bold," he cried, " as to treat with our traitors without our knowledge ?" and rising from his sick-bed he led his army northwards to complete the conquest. But the hand of death was upon him, and in the very sight of Scotland the old man breathed his last at Burgh-upon-Sands. The death of Edward arrested only for a moment the advance of his army to the north. The Earl of Pembroke led it across the border, and found himself master of the country without a blow. Bruce's career became that of a desperate adventurer, for even the Highland chiefs in whose fastnesses he found shelter were bitterly hostile to one who claimed to be King of their foes in the Lowlands. It was this adversity that transformed the murderer of Comyn into the noble leader of a nation's cause. Strong and of commanding presence, brave and genial in temper, Bruce bore the hardships of his career with a courage and hopefulness which never failed. In the legends which clustered round his name we see him listening in Highland glens to the bay of the bloodhounds on his track, or holding single-handed a pass against a crowd of savage clansmen. Sometimes the little King's [CHAl'. ck him cl of no J crown rotlimd his un- King's ill con- ho iiacl xiilt for iin feast e swan, it of his 1 at the : to the corona- id Mary g.'unes."' sh force s whicli left his I to the His only ed on a rung up aughter offered the old ith our d he led land of old man ^ancc of border, IJruce's ighland e to one this noble resence, s career legends d glens ■handed ■ne little IV.] THK rilKKK l.DVVARDS. vas e band which ( hnig to him were forced to support themselves by hunting or fishing, sometimes to break up for safety as their enemies tracked them to the lair. JJruce himself had more than once to tling off his shirt of mail anrl scramble barefoot for very life up the crags. Little by little, however, thn d.irk sky cleared. The I'Jiglish pressure relaxed, as the struggle between lu'ward and his barons grew fiercer. James Douglas, the darling of Scotch story, was the first of the Lowland barons to rally again to the Bruce, and his daring gave heart to the King's cause. Once lie surj)rised his own house, which had been given to an l-jiglishman, ate the dinner which had been preparetl foi' its new owner, slew his captives, and tossed their bodies on to a pile of wood gathered at the castle gate. Then he staved in the wine- vats that the wine might mingle with their blood, and set house and woodpile on fire. A terrible fei-»city mingled with heroism in the work of freedom, but the revival of the country went steadily on. Ihiice's " harrying of liuchan" after the defeat of its Karl, who had joined the Knglish army, at last fairly turned the tide of success. I'Minburgh, Roxburgh, Perth, and most of the Scotch fortresses fell one by one into King Robert i. hands. The clergy met in council and owned him as their lawful lord. Gradually the Scotch barons who still held to the ICnglish cause were coerced into submission, and Bruce found himself strong enough to invest Stirling, the last and the most important of the Scotch fortress' i which held out for Mdward. Stirling was in fact the key of Scotland, and its danger roused England out of its civil strife to a vast effort for the recovery of its prey. Thirty thousand horsemen formed the fighting part of the great army which followed Edward to the north, and a host of wild marauders had been summoned from Ireland and Wales to its support. The army which Bruce had gathered to oppose the inroad was formed almost wholly of footmen, and was stationed to the south of Stirling on a rising ground flanked by a little brook, tin .nnock burn which gave its name to the engagement. Again two sysi^.ns of warfare were brought face t » face as they had been brought at Falkirk, for Robert, like Wallace, drew up his force in solid squares or circles of spearmen. The English \rere dispirited at the very outset by the failure of an attempt to relieve Stirling, and by the issue of a single combat between Bruce and Henry de Bohun, a knight who bore down upon him as he was riding peacefully along the front of his army. Robert was mounted on a small hackney and held only a light battle-axe in his hand, but, warding off his opponent's spear, he cleft his skull with so terrible a blow that the handle of the axe was shattered in his grasp. At the opening of the battle the English archers were thrown forward to rake the Scottish squares, but they were without support and were easily dispersed by a handful of horse whom Bruce had held in reserve for the purpose. The body of men-at-arms next flung themselves on 213 Sec. VI. The Scotch War ok I.NDICrBN- PKNCK 130.6 TO 1342 H ij»3 Bannock burn June 24, ''^ vis* IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // ^/ ^ >. ?' ^ ^ . ■^ 'i^^^ '4' 1.0 1.1 ^Bi |25 ut Itt 12.2 £f US. 12.0 la lii^ m U4 ■ ^ A" ^ I % ^ > Photographic Sciences Corporalion \ 4 \\ 33 WKT MAIN STtllT WltSTH.N.Y. 14SM (716) •72-4903 r' 214 Sec. VI. The Scotch War of Indepen- dence 1306 TO 134a HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. The Inde- pendence of Scotland 1318 1319 1323 the Scottish front, but their charge was embarrassed by the narrow space along which the line was forced to move, and the steady resist- ance of the squares soon threw the knighthood into disorder. " The horses that were stickit," says an exulting Scotch writer, " rushed and reeled right rudely." In the moment of failure the sight of a body of camp-followers, whom they mistook for reinforcements to the enemy, spread panic through the English host. It broke in a headlong rout. Its thousands of brilliant horsemen were soon floundering in pits which had guarded the level ground to Bruce's left, or riding in wild haste for the border. Few however were fortunate enough to reach it. Edward himself, with a body of five hundred knights, succeeded in escaping to Dunbar and the sea. But the flower of his knighthood fell into the hands of the victors, while the Irishry and the footmen were ruthlessly cut down by the country folk as they fled. For centuries after, the rich plunder of the English camp left its traces on the treasure and vestment rolls of castle and abbey throughout the Lowlands. Terrible as was the blow England could not humble herself to re- linquish her claim on the Scottish crown. With equal pertinacity Bruce refused all negotiation while the royal title was refused to him, and steadily pushed on the recovery of his southern dominions. Berwick was at last forced to surrender, and held against a desperate attempt at its recapture ; while barbarous forays of the borderers under Douglas wasted Northumberland. Again the strife between the Crown and the baronage was suspended to allow the march of a great English army to the north ; but Bruce declined an engagement till the' wasted Lowlands starved the invaders into a ruinous retreat. The failure forced England to stoop to a truce for thiiteen years, in the negotiation of which Bruce was suffered to take the royal title. But the truce ceased legally with Edward's deposition. Troops gathered on either side, and Edward Balliol, a son of the former king John, was solemnly received as a vassal-king of Scotland at the English court. Robert was disabled by leprosy from taking the field in person, but the insult roused him to hurl his marauders again over the border under Douglas and Randolph. An eye-witness has painted for us the Scotch army, as it appeared in this campaign : " It consisted of four thousand men-at-arms, knights and esquires, well mounted, besides twenty thousand men bold and hardy, armed after the manner of their country, and mounted upon little hackneys that are never tied up or dressed, but turned immediately after the day's march to pasture on the heath or in the fields. . . . They bring no carriages with them on account of the mountains they have to pass in Northumberland, neither do they carry with them any provisions of bread and wine, for their habits of sobriety are such in time of war that they will live for a long time on flesh half-sodden ivithout bread, and drink the river IV.] water v pans, fc have fla which ti his sadc little ba^ flesh an( over the put a litt eat to ^A perform foe the I the bord in the v disappea made to when fou after a b( intercept; lessly up, court to dependen ledged as The pr struggle t the overti by the pri rest of thi The first ( headed b King's UE before th< the Coun< had intro stands, E( execution, restore gc govemmei France for at last to 1 year after child of bi broke out the late pe held large [chap. larrow resist- "The ed and >ody of enemy, ig rout, in pits in wild reach it. eded in lood fell ;n were enturies on the lOUt the If to re- rtinacity I to him, minions, esperate lorderers veen the f a great nent till at. The s, in the le. But gathered ig John, English person, e border ir us the of four besides of their d up or sture on them on berland, wine, for ive for a he river IV.] THE THREE EDWARDS. 215 water without wine. They have therefore no occasion for pots or pans, for they dress the flesh of the cattle in their skins after they have flayed them, and being sure to find plenty of them in the country which they invade, they carry none with them. Under the flaps of his saddle each man carries a broad piece of metal, behind him a little bag of oatmeal : when they have eaten too much of the sodden flesh and their stomach appears weak and empty, they set this plate over the fire, knead the meal with water, and when the plate is hot put a little of the paste upon it in a thin cake like a biscuit which they eat to warm their stomachs. It is therefore no wonder that they perform a longer day's march than other soldiers." Against such a foe the English troops "ho marched under their boy-king to protect the border were utterly helpless. At one time the army lost its way in the vast border waste ; at another all traces of the enemy had disappeared, and an offer of knighthood and a hundred marks was made to any who could tell where the Scots were encamped. But when found their position behind the Wear proved unassailable, and after a bold sally on the English camp Douglas foiled an attempt at intercepting him by a clever retreat. The English levies broke hope- lessly up, and a fresh foray on Northumberland forced the English court to submit to peace. By the Treaty of Northampton the in- dependence of Scotland was formally recognized, and Bruce acknow- ledged as its king. The piide of England, however, had been too much aroused by the struggle to bear easily its defeat. The first result of the treaty was the overthrow of the government which concluded it, a result hastened by the pride of its head, Roger Mortimer, and by his exclusion of the rest of the nobles from all share in the administration of the realm. The first efforts to shake Roger's power were unsuccessful : a league headed by the Earl of Lancaster broke up without result ; and the King's uncle, the Earl of Kent, was actually brought to the block, before the young King himself interfered in the struggle. Entering the Council chamber in Nottingham Castle, with a force which he had introduced through a secret passage in the rock on which it stands, Edward arrested Mortimer with his own hands, hurried him to execution, and assumed the control of affairs. His first care was to restore good order throughout the country, which under the late government had fallen into ruin, and to free his hands by a peace with France for further enterprises in the North. Fortune indeed, seemed at last to have veered to the English side ; the death of Bruce only a year after the Treaty of Northampton left the Scottish throne to a child of but eight years old, and the internal difficulties of the realm broke out in civil strife. To the great barons on either side the border the late peace involved serious losses, for many of the Scotch houses held large estates in England, as many of the English lords held Sec. VI. The Scotch War or Indepen- DENCE laoe TO 134a . ii 1.528 Scotland and Edward the Third »33o ;sM i \ t* "1^« ':m 2l6 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. T Sec. VI. Thk Scotch War ok Indepen- DENCB 1306 TO 134fl 1332 1333 1337 1339 »342 large estates in Scotland ; and although the treaty had provided for their claims, they had in each case been practically set aside. It is this discontent of the barons at the new settlement which explains the sudden success of Edward Balliol in his snatch at the Scottish throne. In spite of King Edward's prohibition, he sailed from England at the head of a body of nobles who claimed estates in the north, landed on the shores of Fife, and, after repulsing with immense loss an army which attacked him near Perth, was crowned at Scone, while David Bruce fled helplessly to France. Edward had given no open aid to the enterprise, but the crisis tempted his ambition, and he demanded and obtained from Balliol an acknowledgement of the English suzerainty. The acknowledgement, however, was fatal to Balliol himself. He was at once driven from his realm, and Berwick, which he had agreed to surrender to Edward, was strongly garrisoned against an English attack. The town was soon besieged, but a Scotch army under the regent Douglas, brother to the famous Sir James, advanced to its relief, and attacked a covering force, which was encamped on the strong position of Halidon Hill. The English bowmen, however, vindicated the fame they had first won at Falkirk, and were soon to crown in the victory of Crdcy ; and the Scotch only struggled through the marsh which covered the English front to be riddled with a storm of arrows, and to break in utter rout. The battle decided the fate of Berwick, and from that time the town remained the one part of Edward's conquests which was preserved by the English crown. Fragment as it was, it was always viewed legally as representing the realm of which it had once formed a part. As Scotland, it had its chancellor, chamberlain, and other officers of State ; and the peculiar heading of Acts of Parliament enacted for England " and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed" still preserves the memory of its peculiar position. Balliol was restored to his throne by the conquerors, and his formal cession of the Lowlands to England rewarded their aid. During the next three years Edward persisted in the line of policy he had adopted, retaining his hold over Southern Scotland, and aiding his sub-king Balliol in campaign after campaign against the despairing efforts of the nobles who still adhered to the house of Bruce. His perseverance was all but crowned with success, when the outbreak of war with France saved Scotland by drawing the strength of England across the Channel. The patriot party drew again together. Balliol found himself at last without an adherent and withdrew to the Court of Edward, while David returned to his kingdom, and won back the chief fastnesses of the Lowlands. The freedom of Scotland was, in fact, secured. From a war of conquest and patriotic resistance the struggle died into a petty strife between two angry neighbours, which became a mere episrde in the larger contest between England and France. [chap. led for It is ins the hrone. at the led on I army David i to the ,ed and jrainty. He was reed to English der the I to its on the owever, soon to through a storm ; fate of part of crown. ;ing the had its peculiar town of peculiar ors, and leir aid. f policy d aiding bpairing :e. His break of ;ngland Balliol le Court )ack the was, in mce the s, which and and 'I mm '^1 HtANCE AT THE TREAH' OF BRETlGJTi ]Sav»vV S PAIN, i^ Vj^^'^'TB glffiZr Stanfiyr^y Gtogmphieal E*tab^ London : Macmillan ^ Co . CHAPTER V. THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 1336—1431. Section I.— Edward the Third, 1336— 1360. [Authorities. — The concluding part of the chronicle of Walter of Hemin- burgh or Ilemingford seems to have been jotted down as news of the passing events reached its author ; it ends at the battle of Crecy. Ilearnc has pub- lished another contemporary account by Robert of Avosbury, which closes in 1356. A third account by Knyghton, p canon of Leicester, will be found in the collection of Twysden. At the end of this century and the beginning of the next the annais that had been carried on in the Abbey of St. Albans were thrown together by Walsingham in the ** Ilistoria Anglicana " which bears his name, a compilation whose history is given in the prefaces to the "Chronica Monasterii S. Albani " (Rolls Series). Rymer's Fcedera is rich in documents fo»- this period, and from this lime we have a storehouse of political and social information in the Parliamentary Rolls. For the French war itself our primaiy authority is the Chronicle of Jehan le Bel, a canon of S. Lambert of Liege, who had himself served in Edward's campaign against the Scots, and spent the rest of his life at the court of John of I lainault. Up to the Treaty of Bretigny, where it closes, Froissart has done little more than copy this work, making however large additions from his own inquiries, especially in the Flemish and Breton campaigns and the account of Crecy. ^ A Hainaulter of Valenciennes, Froissart held a post in Queen Philippa's household from 1361 to 1369 ; and under this influence produced in 1373 the first edition of his well- known Chronicle. A later edition is far less English in tone, and a third ver- sion, begun by him in his old age after long absence from England, is distinctly French in its sympathies. Froissart's vivacity and j>icturesqueness blind us to the inaccuracy of his details ; as an historical authority he is of little value. The incidental mention of Crecy and the later English expeditions by Villani in his great Florentine Chronicle are important. The best modern account of this period is that by Mr. W. Longman, '* History of Edward lU." Mr. Morley (" English Writers ") has treated in great detail of Chaucer.] [Dr. Stubbs' "Constitutional History" (vol. ii.), published since this chapter was written, deals with the whole period. — Eil.'\ In the middle of the fourteenth century the great movement towards national unity which had begun under the last of the Norman Kings seemed to have reached its end, and the perfect fusion of conquered and conquerors into an English people was marked by the disuse, even amongst the nobler classes, of the French tongue. In spite of the efforts of the grammar schools, and of the strength of fashion, English was winning its way throughout the reign of Edward the Third to its M I England under Edward III. *--. \ % i a .■*A\ 'I If' HI 2l8 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. v.] Skc. I. Edward riiE TiiiKu 1336 TO 1360 final triumph in that of his grandson. " Children in school," says a writer of the earlier reign, " against the usage and manner of all other nations, be compelled for to leave their own language, and for to con- st»"ue their lessons and their things in French, and so they have since Normans first came into England. Also gentlemen's children be taught to speak French from the time that they be rocked in their cradle, and know how to speak and play with a chik"s toy ; and up- landish (or country) men will liken themselves to gentlemen, and strive with great busyness to speak French for to be more told of." " This manner," adds a translator of Richard's time, " was much used before the first murrain (the plague of 1349), and is since somewhat changed ; for John Cornwal, a master of grammar, changed the lore in grammar school and construing of French into English ; and Richard Pencrych learned this manner of teaching of him, as others did of Pencrych. So that now, the year of our Lord, 1385, and of the second King Richaid after the Conquest nine, in all the grammar schools of England childien leaveth French, and coustrueth and learneth in English." A more formal note of the change is found when English was ordered to be used in courts of law in 1 362 " because the French tongue is much unknown ; " and in the following year it was employed by the Chan- cellor in opening Parliament. Bishops began to preach in English, and the English tracts of Wyclif made it once more a literary tongue. This drift towards a geP'jral use of the national tongue told powerfully on literature. 'Ihc mfluence of the French romances everywhere tended to make French the one literary language at the opening of the fourteenth century, and in England this influence had been backed by the French^one of the court of Henry the Third and the three Edwards. But at the close of the reign of Edward the Third the long French romances needed to be translated even for knightly hearers. " Let clerks indite in Latin," says the author of the " Testament of Love," " and let Frenchmen in their French also indite their quaint terms, for it is kindly to their mouths ; and let us show our fantasies in such wordes as we learned of our mother's tongue." But the new national life afforded nobler material than " fantasies " now for English literature. With the completion of the work of national unity had come the completion of the work of national freedom. Under the first Edward the Parliament had vindicated its right to the control of taxation, under the second it had advanced from the removal of ministers to the deposition of a King, under the third it gave its voice on questions of peace and war, controlled expenditure, and regelated the course of civil administration. The vigour of English life showed itself socially in the wide extension of commerce, in the rapid growth of the woollen trade, and the increase of manufactures after the settle- ment of Flemish weavers on the eastern coast ; in the progress of the towns, fresh as they were from the victory of the craft-gilds ; and in the deve rise of t its activi ness whi feeling, broke th of the L( over the It is tl verse of a Londo: that the seems to career w< he was n first bore to be ma of Br^tigi time. H and it wa this time employee with the I374> am brilliant ( memory reverently at Padua, ofGriseld Comptrol member c 1 39 1 Cler Windsor, forked be; gi#dle, ani his own. portly wa jested at wouldest i " and ever neighbour thy own ] another b( although/' abstractioj v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. the developement of agriculture through the division of lands, and the rise of the tenant farmer and the freeholder. It gave nobler signs of its activity in the spirit of national independence and moral earnest- ness which awoke at the call of Wyclif. New forces of thought and feeling, which were destined to tell on every age of our later history, broke their way through the crust of feudalism in the socialist revolt of the Lollards, and a sudden burst of military glory threw its glamour over the age of Cr^cy and Poitiers. It is this new gladness of a great people which utters itself in the verse of Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer was born about 1 340, the son of a London vintner who lived in Thames Street ; and it was in London that the bulk of his life was spent. His family, though not noble, seems to have been of some importance, for from the opening of his career we find Chaucer in close connexion with the Court. At sixteen he was made page to the wife of Lionel of Clarence ; at nineteen he first bore arms in the campaign of 1359. But he vas luckless enough to be made prisoner ; and from the time of his release after the treaty of Br^tigny he took no further share in the military enterprises of his time. He seems again to have returned to service about the Court, and it was now that his first poems made their appearance, and from this time John of Gaunt may be looked upon as his patron. He was employed in seven diplomatic missions which were probably connected with the financial straits of the Crown, and three of these, in 1372, 1374, and 1378, carried him to Italy. He visited Genoa and the brilliant court of the Visconti at Milan ; at Florence, where the memory of Dante, the "great master" whom he commemorates so reverently in his verse, was still living, he may have met Boccaccio ; at Padua, like his own clerk of Oxenford, he possibly caught the story of Griseldis from the lips of Petrarca. He was a busy, practical worker ; Comptroller of the Customs in 1374, of the Petty Customs in 1382, a member of the Commons in the Parliament of 1386, and from 1389 to 1 391 Clerk of the Royal Works, busy with building at Westminster, Windsor, and the Tower. A single portrait has preserved for us his forked beard, his dark-coloured dress, the knife and pen-case at his gi#dle, and we may supplement this portrait by a few vivid touches of his own. The sly, elvish face, the quick walk, the plump figure and portly waist were those of a genial and humorous man ; but men jested at his silence, his love of study. "Thou lookest as thou wouldest find an hare," laughs the Host, in the " Canterbury Tales," " and ever on the ground I see thee stare." He heard little of his neighbours' talk when office work was over. " Thou goest home to thy own house anon, and also dumb as any stone thou sittest at another book till fully dazed is thy look, and livest thus as an heremite, although," he adds slyly, " thy abstinence is lite " (little). But of this abstraction from his fello»vs there is no trace in his verse. No poetry 219 Sec. I. Kdw\ki> 1336 TO 13«0 Chancer 1340-1400 i s % t i w ^ ' 1 '■'' :si1 Hi ry ■f" ill 220 Sec. I. KnwAKU TIIK TlllKt) 1336 TO 1360 H ..ORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. 1383 was ever more human than Chaucer's ; none ever came more frankly and genially home to its readers. The first note of his song is a note of freshness and gladness. " Of ditties and of songes glad, the which he for my sake made, the land fulfilled is over all," Gower makes Love say in his lifetime ; and the impression of gladness remains just as fresh now that four hundred years have passed away. The historical character of Chaucer's work lies on its surface. It stands out in vivid contrast with the poetic literature from the heart of which it sprang. The long French romances were the product of an age of wealth and ease, ot" indolent curiosity, of a fanciful and self-indulgent sentiment. Of the great passions which gave life to the Middle Ages, that of religious enthusiasm had degenerated into the pretty conceits of Mariolatry, that of war into the extravagances of Chivalry. Love, indeed, remained ; it was the one theme of troubadour and trouvijre, but it was a love of refinement, of romantic follies, of scholastic dis- cussions, of sensuous enjoyment — a plaything rather than a passion. Nature had to reflect the pleasant indolence of man ; the song of the minstrel moved through a perpetual May-time ; the grass was ever green ; the music of the lark and the nightingale rang out from field and thicket. There was a gay avoidance of all that is serious, moral, or reflective in man's life : life was too amusing to be serious, too piquant, too sentimental, too full of interest and gaiety and chat. It was an age of talk ; " mirth is none," says the Host, " to ride on by the way dumb as a stone ; " and the trouvere aimed simply at being the most agreeable talker of his day. His romances, his rimes of Sir Tristram, his Romance of the Rose, are full of colour and fantasy, endless in det^l, but with a sort of gorgeous idleness about their very length, the minuteness of their description of ou'.er things, the vague- ness of their touch when it passes to the subtler inner world. It was with this literature that Chaucer had till now been familiar, and it was this which he followed in his earlier work. But from the time of his visits to Milan and Genoa his sympathies drew him not to the dying verse of France, but to the new and mighty upgrowth of poetry in Italy. Dante's eagle looks at him from the sun. " Fraunces Petrark, the laureat poetc," is to him one " whose rethorique swe'ete enlumyned al Itail of poetrie." The " Troilus " is an enlarged English version of Boccaccio's " Filostrato," the Knight's Talc bears slight traces of his Teseide. It was, indeed, the "Decameron" which suggested the very form of the " Canterbury Tales." But even while changing, as it were, the front of English poetry, Chaucer preserves his own distinct personality. If he quizzes in the rime of Sir Thopaz the wearisome idleness of the French romance, he retains all that was worth retaining of the French temper, its rapidity and agility of movement, its lightness and brilliancy of touch, its airy mockery, its gaiety and good humour, its critical coolness and self-control. The sc v.] Fr( .ch sturdy extravagj the othei tale, he Boccacci( Troilus ableness on the un But the element core, and great poe begun aft bei .veen tales add( his laboui at Westm to Canter tales, coni peculiar c and the ui of mediae^ the wond( allegory ai his genius start in t distinct fig the noble knight" ir beside hirr faced yeon his hand. —the bra^\ as the ch harpers of and devou first he foil pardoner v hot"— the red mouth ing is then profits of t busier tha love of boc v.l THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. Fn ,ch wit quickens in him more than in any English writer the sturdy sense and slirewdness of our national disposition, corrects its extravagance, and relieves its somewhat ponderous morality. If, on the other hand, he echoes the joyous carelessness of the Italian tale, he tempers it with the ICnglish seriousness. As he follows Hoccaccio, all his chani^^es are on the side of purity ; and when the Troilus of the Florentine ends with the old sneer at the change- ableness of woman, Chaucer bids us " look Godward," and dwells on the unchangeableness of Heaven. But the genius of Chaucer was neither French nor Italian, whatever element it might borrow from either literature, but English to the core, and from 1384 all trace of foreign influence dies away. The great poem on which his fame must rest, the " Canterbury Tales," was begun after his first visits to Italy, and its best tales were written bel.veen 1384 and 1391. The last ten years of his life saw a few more tales added ; but his power was lessening, and in 1400 he rested from his labours in his last home, a house in the garden of St. Mary's Chapel at Westminster. The framework — that of a pilgrimage from London to Canterbury — not only enabled him to string together a number of tales, composed at different times, but lent itself admirably to the peculiar characteristics of his poetic temper, his dramatic versatility, and the universality of his sympathy. His tales cover the whole field of mediaeval poetry ; the legend of the priest, the knightly romance, the wonder-tale of the traveller, the br>ad humour of the fabliau, allegory and apologue are all there. He finds a yet wider scope for his genius in the persons who te'l these stories, the thirty pilgrims who start in the May morning fro \ the Tabard in Southwark — thirty distinct figures, representatives of every class of English society from the noble to the ploughman. We see the "verray perfight gentil knight" in cassock and coat of mail, with his curly-headed squire beside him, fresh as the May morning, and behind them the brown- faced yeoman, in his coat and hood of green, with the good bow in his hand. A group of ecclesiastics light up for us the mediaeval church —the brawny hunt-loving monk, whose bridle jingles as loud and clear as the chapel-bell — the wanton friar, first among the beggars and harpers of the country side — the poor parson, threadbare, learned, and devout (" Christ's lore and His apostles twelve he taught, and first he followed it himself") — the summoner with his fiery face — the pardoner with his wallet " bret-fuU of pardons, come from Rome all hot" — the lively prioress with her courtly French lisp, her soft little red mouth, and "Amor vincit omnia" graven on her brooch. Learn- ing is there in the portly person of the doctor of physic, rich with the profits of the pestilence — the busy serjeant-of-law, " that ever seemed busier than he was " — the hollow-cheeked clerk of Oxford, with his love of books, and short sharp sentences that disguise a latent tender- 231 Src. I. KnwARn IIIK 'riiiKD 1336 TO Th« Canter- bury Tales ft \ m I I I Vi < it. i 1 •\ 'Am f if 222 HISTORY or THK ENGLISH PEOPLK. [chap. vl Sfc. I. Edward TMit Third 1336 TO 1360 ncss which breaks out at last in the story of (iriseldis. Around them crowd types of English industry ; the merchant ; the franklin, in whose house " it snowed of mca' and drink ; " the sailor fresh from frays in the Channel ; the buxom wife of IJath ; the broad-shouldered miller ; the haberdasher, carpenter, weaver, dyer, tapestry-maker, each in the livery of his craft ; .ind last, the honest ploughman, who would dyke and delve for the poor without hire. It is the first time in English poetry that we are brought face to face not with characters or allegories or reminiscences of the past, but with living and breathing men, men distinct in temper and sentiment as in face or costume or mode of speech ; and with this distinctness of each maintained throughout the story by a thousand shades of expression and action. It is the first time too, that we meet with the dramatic power which not only creates each character, but combines it with its fellows, which not only adjusts each tale or jest to the temper of the person who utters it, but fuses all into a poetic unity. It is life in its largeness, its variety, its complexity, which surrounds us in the " Canterbury Tales." In some of the stories^ indeed, composed no doubt at an earlier time, there is the tedium of the old romance or the pedantry of the school- man ; but taken as a whole the poem is the work not of a man of letters, but of a man of action. Chaucer has received his training from war, courts, business, travel — a training not of books, but of life. And it is life that he loves — the delicacy of its sentiment, the breadth of its farce, its laughter and its tears, the tenderness of its Griseldis or the Smollett-like adventures of the miller and the clerks. It is this largeness of heart, this wide tolerance, which enables him to reflect man for us as none but Shakspere has ever reflected him, and to do this with a pathos, a shrewd sense and kindly humour, a freshness and joyousness of feeling, that even Shakspere has not surpassed. It is strange that such a voice as this should have awakened no echo in the singers who follow ; but the first burst of English song died as suddenly and utterly with Chaucer as the hope and glory of his age. The hundred years which follow the brief sunshine of Crdcy and the " Canterbury Tales " are years of the deepest gloom ; no age of our history is more sad and sombre than the age which we traverse from the third Edward to Joan of Arc. The throb of hope and glory which pulsed at its outset through every class of English society died at its close into inaction or despair. Material life lingered on indeed, commerce still widened, but its progress was dissociated from all the nobler elements of national well-being. The towns sank again into close oligarchies ; the bondsmen struggling forward to freedom fell back into a serfage which still leaves its trace on the soil. Literature reached its lowest ebb. The religious revival of the Lollard was trodden out in blood, while the Church shrivelled into a self-seeking secular p but extin ended wi The sc more tha temper o .Scotland involved back, a c had begu struggle \ cesses of more as I Duchy of heritance sooner be than a p between t which cul to 8,000 I France, tl defiance, of the ms fashion a^ that they to make contest c( before his Edward c Guienne i French so war. Th( arms, and but the fir Edward h first conqi the recov< A truce w even after forsixyeai face the E which alio Bruce was quarrel o'' the reign ( i was vl THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. secular priesthood. In the clash of civil strife political freedom was all but extinguished, and the age which began with the Ciood Parliament ended with the despotism of the Tudors. The secret of the change is to be found in the fatal war which for more than a hundred years drained the strength and corrupted the temper of the English people. We have followed the attack on Scotland to its disastrous close, but the struggle ere it ended, had involved England in a second contest, to which we must now turn back, a contest yet more ruinous than that which Edward the First had begun. From the war with .Scotland sprang the hundred years' struggle with France. From the first France had watched the suc- cesses of her rival in the north, partly with a natural jealousy, but still more as likely to aflford her an opening for winning the great southern Duchy of Guienne and Gascony — the one fragment of Eleanor's in- heritance which remained to her descendants. Scotland had no sooner begun to resent the claims of her over-lord, Edward the First, than a pretext for open quarrel was found by France in the rivalry between the mariners of Normandy and those of the Cinque Ports, which culminated at the moment in a great lea-fight that proved fatal to 8,000 Frenchmen. So eager was Edward to avert a quarrel with France, that his threats roused the English seamen to a characteristic defiance. " Be the King's Council well advised," ran the remonstrance of the mariners, " that if wrong or grievance be done them in any fashion against right, they will sooner forsake wives, children, and all that they have, and go seek through the seas where they shall think to make their profit." In spite, therefore, of Edward's efforts the contest continued, and Philip found an opportunity to cite the King before his court at Paris for wrongs done to him as suzerain. Again Edward endeavoured to avert the conflict by a formal cession of Guienne into Philip's hands during forty days, but the refusal of the French sovereign to restore the province left no choice for him but war. The refusal of the Scotch barons to answer his summons to arms, and the revolt of Balliol, proved that the French outrage was but the first blow in a deliberate and long-planned scheme of attack ; Edward had for a while no force to waste on France, and when the first conquest of Scotland freed his hands, his league with Flanders for the recovery of Guienne was foiled by the strife with his baronage. A truce with Philip set him free to meet new troubles in the north ; but even after the victory of Falkirk Scotch independence was still saved for six years bythe threats of France and the intervention of its ally, Boni- face the Eighth ; and it was only the quarrel of these two confederates which allowed Edward to complete its subjection. But the rising under Bruce was again backed by French aid and by the renewal of the old quarrel over Guienne — a quarrel which hampered England through the reign of Edward the Second, and which indirectly brought about aaa Src. I. Edward THK Thiro 1336 TO 1360 England and rrano* 1293 1294 1296 ^1 m 1 ■ •! \i m "'4 iibi 1304 1305 1 l;i', sp-tl 224 "ISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. Sec. 1. \ EUWAKI) \ i UK TiiiKi) 1336 lO 1360 1332 1335 The Openingr of the W^ar 1337 i •338 1339 '#'''; [chap. his terrible fall. The accession of Edward the Third secured a momentary peace, but the fresh attack on Scotland which marked the opening of his rei^n kindled hostility anew ; the young King David found refuge in France, and arms, money, and men were despatched from its ports to support his cause. It was this intervention of France which foiled Edward's hopes of the submission of Scotland at the very moment when success seemed in his grasp ; the solemn announcement by Philip of Valois that his treaties bound him to give effective help to his old ally, and the assembly of a French fleet in the Channel drew the King from his struggle in the north to face a storm which his negotiations could no longer avert. From the first the war took European dimensions. The weakness of the Empire, the captivity of the Papacy at Avignon, left France without a rival among European powers. In numbers, in wealth, the French people far surpassed their neighbours over the Channel. England can hardly have counted four millions of inhabitants, France boasted of twenty. Edward could only bring eight thousand men-at- arms into the field. Philip, while a third of his force was busy else- where, could appear at the head of forty thousand. Edward's whole energy was bent on meeting the strength of France by a coalition of powers against her ; and his plans were helped by the dread which the great feudatories of the Empire who lay nearest to him felt of French annexation, as well as oy the quarrel of the Empire with the Papacy. Anticipating the later policy of Godolphin and Pitt, Edward became the paymaster of the poorer princes of Germany ; his subsidies purchased the aid of Hainault, Gelders, and Julich ; sixty thousand crowns went to the Duke of Brabant, while the Emperor him- self was induced by a promise of three thousand gold florins to furnish two thousand men-at-arms. Negotiations and profuse expenditure, ^lOwever, brought the King little fruit save the titie of Vicar-General of the Empire on the left of the Rhine ; now the Emperor hung back, now the allies refused to move ; and when the host at last crossed the border, Edward found it impossible to bring the French king to an engagement. But as hope from the Imperial alliance faded away, a fresh hope dawned on the King from another quarter. Flanders was his natural ally. England was the great wool-producing country of the west, but few woollen fabrics were woven in England. The number of weavers' gilds shows that the trade was gradually extending, and at the very outset of his reign Edward had taken steps for its encouragement. He invited Flemish weavers to settle in his country, and took the new immigrants, who chose the eastern counties for the seat of their trade, under his royal protection. But English manufactures were still in their infancy, and nine-tenths of the English wool went to the looms of Bruges or of Ghent. We may see the rapid grov/th of this export trade in the fact that the King received in a v.] single ye< stoppage Flemish t alliance, t of the tov treaty wa towns, an gathered s the Cham the Frenc proved fri him to a t Brittany, claimants dragged c English C5 1345 prov( indeed ha bankers oj overtures he advanci among the difficult ei male issu Isabella. daughters Philip's so this diflicu right of su son, as the lifetime, c( Philip in a that only n the right ir to the son mounted tl have been fact, did fu and it was his claim Flemish to The faih England it he landed i the whole f v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. single year more than ;^ 30,000 from duties levied on wool alone. A stoppage of this export would throw half the population of the great Flemish towns out of work ; and Flanders was drawn to the English alliance, not only by the interest of trade, but by the democratic spirit of the towns which jostled roughly with the feudalism of France. A treaty was concluded with the Duke of Brabant and the Flemish towns, and preparations were made for a new campaign. Philip gathered a fleet of two hundred vessels at Sluys to prevent his crossing the Channel, but Edward with a far smaller force utterly destroyed the French ships, and marched to invest Tournay. Its siege however proved fruitless ; his vast army broke up, and want of money forced him to a truce for a year. A quarrel of succession to the Duchy of Brittany, which broke out in 1341, and in which of the two rival claimants one was supported by Philip and the other by Edward, dragged on year after year. In Flanders things went ill for the English cause, and the death of the great statesman Van Arteveldt in 1 345 proved a heavy blow to Edward's projects. The King's difficulties indeed had at last reached their height. His loans from the great bankers of Florence amounted to half a million of our money ; his overtures for peace were contemptuously rijected ; the claim which he advanced to the French crown found not a single adherent save among the burghers of Ghent. To establish such a claim, indeed, was difficult enough. The three sons of Philip the Fair had died without male issue, and Edward claimed as the son of Philip's daughter Isabella. But though her brothers had left no sons, they had left daughters ; and if female succession were admitted, ♦hese daughters of Philip's sons would precede a son of Philip's daughter. Isabella met this difficulty by contending that though females could transmit the right of succession they could not themselves possess it, '^nd that her son, as the nearest living male descei^dant of Philip, and born in his lifetime, could claim in preference to females who were related to Philip in as near a degree. But the bulk of French jurists asserted that only male succession gave right to the throne. On such a theory the right inheritable from Philip was exhausted ; and the crown passed to the son of his brother Charles of Valois, who in fact peacefully mounted the throne as Philip the Sixth. Edward's claim seems to have been regarded on both sides as a mere formality ; the King, in fact, did full and liege homage to his rival for his Duchy of Guienne ; and it was not till his hopes from Germany had been exhausted, and his claim was found to be useful in securing the loyal aid of the Flemish towns, that it was brought seriously to the front. The failure of his foreign hopes threw Edward on the resources of England itself, and it was with an army of thirty thousand men that he landed at La Hogue, and commenced a march which was to change the whole face of the war. The French forces were engaged in hold- 225 Sec. I. Edward THE Third 1336 TO 1360 1340 '. i 1330 133I Or^cj < s' u. 226 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. I. EOWARD THB ThIKU 1336 TO 1360 ■H. Crity August 26, 1346 ing in check an English army which had landed in Guienne ; and panic seized the French King as Edward now marched through Normandy, and finding the bridges on the lower Seine broken, pushed straight on Paris, rebuilt the bridge of Poissy and threatened the capital. At this crisis, however, France found an unexpected help in a body of German knights. The Pope having deposed the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria, had crowned as his successor a son of King John of Bohemia, the well-known Charles IV. of the Golden Bull. But against this Papal assumption of a right to bestow the German Crown, Germany rose as one man, and Charles, driven to seek help from Philip, now found himself in France with his father and a troop of five hundred knights. Hurrying to Paris this German force formed the nucleus of an army which assembled at St. Denys ; and which was soon reinforced by 1 5,000 Genoese cross-bowmen who had been hired from among the soldiers of the Lord of Monaco on the sunny Riviera, and arrived at this hour of need. The French troops too were called from Guienne to the rescue. With this host rapidly gathering in his front Edward abandoned his march on Paris, and threw himself across the Seine to join a Flemish force gathered at Gravelines, and open a campaign in the north. But the rivers in his path were carefully guarded, and it was only by surprising the ford of Blanche- Taque on the Somme, that Edward escaped the necessity of surren- dering to the vast host which was now hastening in pursuit. His com- munications, however, were no sooner secured than he halted at the village of Crdcy, in Ponthieu, and resolved to give battle. Half of his army, now greatly reduced in strength by his rapid marches, con- sisted of the light-armed footmen of Ireland and Wales ; the bulk of the remainder was composed of English bowmen. The King ordered his men-at-arms to dismount, and drew up his forces on a low rise sloping gently to the south-east, with a windmill on its summit from which he could overlook the whole field of battle. Immediately beneath him lay his reserve, while at the base of the slope was placed the main body of the army in two divisions, that to ilie right com- manded by the young Prince of Wales, Edward the Black Prince as he was called, that to the left by the Earl of Northampton. A small ditch protected the English front, and behind it the bowmen were drawn up " in the form of a harrow," with small bombards between them " which, with fire, threw little iron balls to frighten the horses" — the first instance of the use of artillery in field warfare. The halt of the English army took Philip by surprise, and he attempted for a time to check the advance of his army, but the disorderly host rolled on to the English front. The sight of his enemies, indeed, stirred the King's own blood to fury, " for he hated them," and at vespers the fight began. The Genoese crossbowmen were ordered to begin the attack, but the men were weary with the march; a sudden storm v.| wetted an with whicl silence in brought a seemed as as the Gei into their 1 the head ( For the ir send him j help himse is in a har to those th send to mt for if God honour ma Edward co The Engli while the brought kn wavering i cried the b to the Gerr me so far sword of n plunged int ing. The himself hu knights an( force — lay < "God h£ Denys, in great host > the fall of P ruin at a sir social fabri superiority ^ power lay freeholders weapon into carried a ne struck dow in sheer h* feudalism tc day was the , 1! v.j THE HUKDRED YEARS' WAR. wetted and rendered useless their bowstrings ; and the loud shouts with which they leapt forvvard to the encounter were met with dogged silence in the English ranks. Their first arrow-flight, however, brought a terrible reply. So rapid was the English shot, "that it seemed as if it snowed." " Kill me these scoundrels," shouted Philip, as the Genoese fell back ; and his men-at-arms plunged butchering into their broken ranks, while the Counts of Alen^on and Flanders, at the head of the French knighthood, fell hotly on the Prince's line. For the instant his small force seemed lost, but Edward refused to send him aid. " Is he dead or unhorsed, or so wounded that he cannot help himself?" he asked the envoy. "No, Sir," was the reply, " but he is in a hard passage of arms, and sorely needs your help." " Return to those that sent you, Sir Thomas," said the King, " and bid them not send to me again so long as my son lives ! Let the boy win his spurs ; for if God so order it, I will that the day may be his, and that the honour may be with him and them to whom I have given it in charge." Edward could see, in fact, from his higher ground, that all went v/ell. The English bowmen and men-at-arms held their ground stoutly, while the Welshmen stabbed the French horses in the meMe, and brought knight after knight to the ground. Soon the French host was wavering in a fatal confusion. "You are my vassals, my friends," cried the blind King John of Bohemia, who had joined Philip's army, to the German nobles around him : "I pray and beseech you to lead me so far into the fight that I may strike one good blow with this sword of mine ! " Linking their bridles together, the little company plunged into the thick of the combat to fall as their fellows were fall- ing. The battle went steadily against the French: at last Philip himself hurried from the field, and the defeat became a rout: 1,200 knights and 30,000 footmen— a number equal to the whole English force — lay dead upon the ground. "God has punished us for our sins," cries the chronicler of St. Denys, in a passion of bewildered grief, as he tells the rout of the great host which he had seen mustering beneath his abbey walls. But the fall of France was hardly so sudden or so incomprehensible as the ruin at a single blow of a system of warfare, and of the political and social fabric which rested on it. Feudalism depended on the superiority of the mounted noble to the unmounted churl ; its fighting power lay in its knighthood. But the English yeomen and small freeholders who bore the bow in the national fyrd had raised their weapon into a terrible engine of war ; in the English archers Edward carried a new class of soldiers to the fields of France. The churl had struck down the noble ; the yeoman proved more than a match in sheer hard fighting for the knight. From the day of Crdcy feudalism tottered slowly but surely to its grave. To Engla.id the day was the beginning of a career of military glory, which, fatal as it Q 2 227 Sec. I. Edward theThiru i33e TO 1360 4- ■ !l ■ ! ^ i 4 yi M Calais I HI I m I 22$ HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. I. Edward The Third laae TO 1360 Neville's Cross Oct. 1346 1347 III was destined to prove to the higher sentiments and interests of the nation, gave it for the moment an energy such as it had never known before. Victory followed victory. A few months after Cr^cy a Scotch army which had burst into the north was routed at Neville's Cross, and its King, David Bruce, taken prisoner ; while the withdrawal of the French from the Garonne enabled the English to recover Poitou. Edward meanwhile turned to strike at the naval superiority of France by securing the mastery of the Channel. Calais was a great pirate- haven ; in one year alone, twenty-two privateers had sailed from its port ; while its capture promised the King an easy base of com- munication with Flanders, and of operations against France. The siege lasted a year, and it was not till Philip had failed to relieve it that the town was starved into surrender. Mercy was granted to the garrison and the people on condition that six of the citizens gave themselves unconditionally into the King's hands. " On them," said Edward, v/ith a burst of iDitter hatred, " I will do my will." At the sound of the town bell, Jehan le Bel tells us, the folk of Calais gathered round the bearer of these terms, " desiring to hear their good news, for they were all mad with hunger. When the said knight told them his news, then began they to weep and cry so loudly that it was great pity. Then stood up the wealthiest burgess of the town. Master Eustache de 8. Pierre by name, and spake thus before all : *My masters, great grief and mishap it were for all to leave such a people as this is to die by famine or otherwise ; and great charity and grace would he win from our Lord who could defend them from dying. For me, I have great hope in the Lord that if I can save this people by my death, I shall have pardon for my faults, wherefore will I be the first of the six, and of my own will put myself barefoot in my shirt and with a halter round my neck in the mercy of King Edward.' " The list of devoted men was soon made up, and the six victims were led before the King. " All the host assembled together ; there was great press, and many bade hang them openly, and many wept for pity. The noble King came with his train of counts and barons to the place, and the Queen followed him, though great with child, to see what there would be. The six citizens knelt down at once before the King, and Master Eustache said thus : * Gentle King, here be we six who have been of the old bourgeoisie of Calais and great merchants ; we bring you the keys of the town and castle of Calais, and render them to you at your pleasure. We set ourselves in such wise as you see purely at your will, to savo the remnant of ihe people that has suffered much pain. So may you have pity and mercy on us for your high nobleness' sake.' Certes, there was then in that place neither lord nor knight that wept not for pity, nor who could speak for pity ; but the King had his heart so hardened by wrath, that for a long while he could not reply ; then he commanded to cut off their heads. All the knights and lords v.] prayed hi but he w( de Maunj the renow men can ! say that y to death t to save th countenar it shall be made so n did the no was great longer stai her lord th day that I for nothing love of our waited for knelt befor little, and I you pray s( against m> took he the and release the good 1; good cheer Edward \ greatest vi( states, was A naval pi meet a Spi the King si by a black John Chanc Germany, begins whic But peace v for seven became at I once in Nor paign brok( called, alon staved off tl and central CHAP. of the snown Scotch Cross, wal of Poitou. France pirate- •om its if com- !. The slieve it : to the IS gave ^" said At the gathered d news, lid them as great Master masters, Is this is krould he )r me, I ly death, st of the i with a lC list of d before at press, y. The ace, and lat there g, and ho have we bring m to you purely at ed much obleness' light that had his lOt reply ; nd lords v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. prayed him with tears, as much as they could, to have pity on them, but he would not hear. Then spoke the gentle knight. Master Walter de Maunay, and said, * Ha, gentle sire ! bridle your wrath ; you have the renown and good fame of all gentleness ; do not a thing whereby men can speak any villany of you ! If you have no pity, all men will say that you have a heart full of all cruelty to put these good citizens to death that of their own will a* . come to render themselves to you to save the remnant of their people.' At this point the King changed countenance with wrath, and said, ' Hold your peace, Master Walter ! it shall be none otherwise. Call the headsman ! They of Calais have made so many of my men die, that they must die themselves ! ' Then did the noble Queen of England a deed of noble lowliness, seeing she was great with child, and wept so tenderly for pity, that she could no longer stand upright ; therefore she cast herself on her knees before her lord the King, and spake on this wise : * Ah, gentle sire ! from the day that I passed over sea in great peril, as you know, I have asked for nothing : now pray I and beseech you, with folded hands, for the love of our Lady's Son, to have mercy upon them.' The gentle King waited for a while before speaking, and looked on the Queen as she knelt before him bitterly weeping. Then began his heart to soften a little, and he said, * Lady, I would rather you had been otherwhere ; you pray so tenderly, that I dare not refuse you ; and though I do it against my will, nevertheless take them, I give them to you.' Then took he the six citizens by the halters and delivered them to the Queen, and released from death all those of Calais for the love of her ; and the good lady bade them clothe the six burgesses and make them good cheer." Edward now stood at the height of his renown. He had won the greatest victory of his age. France, till now the first of European states, was broken and dashed from her pride of place at a single blow. A naval picture of Froissart sketches Edward for us as he sailed to meet a Spanish fleet which was sweeping the narrow seas. We see the King sitting on deck in his jacket of black velvet, his head covered by a black beaver hat " which became him well," and calling on Sir John Chandos to troll out the songs he had brought with him from Germany, till the Spanish ships heave in sight and a furious fight begins which ends in a victory that leaves Edward " King of the Seas." But peace with France was as far off as ever. Even the truce which for seven years was forced on both countries by sheer exhaustion became at last impossible. Edward prepared three armies to act at once in Normandy, Brittany, and Guienne, but the plan of the cam- paign broke down. The Black Prince, as the hero of Crdcy was called, alone won a disgraceful success. Unable to pay his troops, he staved off their demands by a campaign of sheer pillage. Northern and central France had by this time fallen into utter ruin ; the royal 229 Sec. I. Edwaru THE Third 1336 TO 1300 ' ' '!t '■• Poitiers 1347-1355 LA , SI if] 'm 230 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. I. EUWARI) THE TllIKI) 1336 TO 1360 1356 Poitiers Sept. 19, 1356 treasury was empty, the fortresses unoccupied, the troops disbanded for want of pay, the country swept by bandits. Only the south remained at peace, and the young Prince led his army of freebooters up the Garonne into " what was before one of the fat countries of the world, the people good and simple, who did not know what war was ; indeed, no war had been waged against them till the Prince came. The English and Gascons found the country full and gay, the rooms adorned with carpets and draperies, the caskets and chests full of fair jewels. But nothing was safe from these robbers. They, and especially the Gascons, who are very greedy, carried off everything." The capture of Narbonne loaded them with booty, and they fell back to Bordeaux, "their horses so laden with spoil that they could hardly move." The next year a march of the Prince's army on the Loire pointed straight upon Paris, and a French army under John, who had succeeded Philip of Valois on the throne, hurried to check his advance. The Prince gave orders for a retreat, but as he approached Poitiers he found the French, who now numbered 60,000 men, in his path. He at once took a strong position in the fields of Ma ipertuis, his front covered by thick hedges, and approachable only by a deep and narrow lane which ran between vineyards. The Prince lined the vineyards and hedges with bowmen, and drew up his small body of men-at-arms at the point where the lane opened upon the higher plain where he was encamped. His force numbered only 8,000 men, and the danger was great enough to force him to offer the surrender of his prisoners and of the places he had taken, and an oath not to fight against France for seven years, in exchange for a free retreat. The terms were rejected, and three hundred French knights charged up the narrow lane. It was soon choked with men and horses, while the front ranks of the advancing army fell back before a galling fire of arrows from the hedgerows. In the moment of confusion a body of English horsemen, posted on a hill to the right, charged suddenly on the P'rench flank, and the Prince seized the opportunity to fall boldly on their front. The English archery completed the disorder produced by this sudden attack ; the French King was taken, desperately fighting ; and at noontide, when his army poured back in utter rout to the gates of Poitiers, 8,000 of their number had fallen on the field, 3,000 in the flight, and 2,000 men-at-arms, with a crowd of nobles, were taken prisoners. The royal captive entered London in triumph, and a truce for two years seemed to give healing-time to France. But the mis- erable country found no rest in itself. The routed soldiery turned into free companies of bandits, while the captive lords procured the sums needed for their ransom by extortion from the peasantry, who were driven by oppression and famine into wild insurrection, butchering their lords, and firing the castles ; while Paris, impatient of the weakness, and misrule of the Regency, rose in arms against the v.] Crown. ^ been crusi land. Fai believe," s; which I h to my eyes houses in 1 marks of < the roads ( misery of t treaty was Chartres. crown of ] hand, his ] Saintonge, counties ol from its ol with Ponth First, as w \Authoriti is printed in ment ; anotl 1388 " (Roll! the publicati( If we tun the more fr with a mar compositior into a Hous the original each of the deliberated, tion, howe\ While the c union with the similarit lords. The age to an al or counsello little part at related to tl v.] THE HUNDRKD YEARS' WAR. Crown. The " Jacquerie," as the peasant rising was called, had hardly been crushed, when Edward again poured ravaging over the wasted land. Famine, however, proved its best defence. " I could not believe," said Petrarch of this time, " that this was the same France which I had seen so rich and flourishing. Nothing presented itself to my eyes but a fearful solitude, an utter poverty, land uncultivated, houses in ruins. Even the neighbourhood of Paris showed everywhere marks of desolation and conflagration. The streets are deserted, the roads overgrown with weeds, the whole is a vast solitude." The misery of the land at last bent Charles to submission, and in May a treaty was concluded at Brdtigny, a small place to the eastward of Chartres. By this treaty the English King waived his claims on the crown of France and on the Duchy of Normandy. On the other hand, his Duchy of Aquitaine, which included Gascony, Poitou, and Saintonge, the Limousin and the Angoumois, Pdrigord and the counties of Bigorre and Rouergue, was not only restored but freed from its obligations as a French fief, and granted in full sovereignty with Ponthieu, Edward's heritage from th'^ second wife of Edward the First, as well as with Guisnes and his new conquest of Calais. Section II.— The Good Parliament, 1360—1377. [Authorities. — As in the last period. An anonymous chronicler whose work is printed in the *' Archoeologia " (vol. 22) gives the story of the Good Parlia- ment ; another account is preserved in the "Chronica Anglise from 1328 to 1388 " (Rolls Series), and fresh light has been recently thrown on the time by the pubhcation of a Chronicle by Adam of Usk from 1377 to 1404.] If we turn from the stirring but barren annals of foreign warfare to the more fruitful field of constitutional progress, we are at once struck with a marked change which takes place during this period in the composition of Parliament. The division, with which we are so familiar, into a House of Lords and a House of Commons, formed no part of the original plan of Edward the First ; in the earlier Parliaments, each of the four orders of clergy, barons, knights, and burgesses met, deliberated, and made their grants apart from each other. This isola- tion, however, of the Estates soon showed signs of bieaking down. While the clergy, as we have seen, held steadily aloof from any real union with its fellow-orders, the knights of the shire were drawn by the similarity of their social position into a close connexion with the lords. They seem, in fact, to have been soon admitted by the baron- age to an almost equal position with themselves, whether as legislators or counsellors of the Crown. The burgesses, on the other hand, took little part at first in Parliamentary proceedings, save in those which related to the taxation of their class. But their position was raised 231 Sec. II. The Good Paklia- MENT 1360 TO 1377 Treaty of lirHigny May 1360 1! I I I i m m The Two Houses 232 Sec. II. Thk Good Parlia- ment 1360 TO 1377 1332 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. 1354 I by the strifes of the reign of Edward the Second, when their aid was needed by the baronage in its struggle with the Crown ; and their right to share fully in all legislative action was asserted in the famous statute of 1322. Gradually too, through causes with which we are imperfectly acquainted, the knights of the shire drifted from their older connexion with the baronage into so close and intimate a union with the representatives of the towns that at the opening of the reign of Edward the Third the two orders are found grouped formally together, under the name of " The Commons " ; and by 1341 the final decision of Parliament into two Houses was complete. It is difficult to over-esti- mate the importance of this change. Had Parliament remained broken up into its four orders of clergy, barons, knights, and citizens, its power would have been neutralized at every great crisis by the jealousies and difficulty of co-operation among its component parts. A permanent union of the knighthood and the baronage, on the other hand, would have converted Parliament into a mere representative of an aristo- cratic caste, and would have robbed it of the strength which it has drawn from its connexion with the great body of the commercial classes. The new attitude of the knighthood, their social connexion as landed gentry with the baronage,, their political union with the burgesses, really welded the three orders into one, and gave that unity ")f feeling and action to our Parliament on which its power has ever since mainly depended. From the moment of this change, indeed, we see a marked increase of parliamentary activity. The need of con- tinual grants during the war brought about an assembly of Parliament year by year ; and with each supply some step was made to greater political influence. A crowd of enactments for the regulation of trade, whether wise or unwise, and for the protection of the subject against oppression or injustice, as well as the great ecclesiastical provisions of this reign, show the rapid widening of the sphere of parliamentary action. The Houses claimed an exclusive right to grant supplies, and asserted the principle of ministerial responsibility to Parlia- ment. But the Commons long shrank from meddling with purely administrative matters. Edward in his anxiety to shift from his shoulders the responsibility of the war with France, referred to them for counsel on the subject of one of the numerous propositions of peace. "Most dreaded lord," they replied, "as to your war and the equipment necessary for it, we are so ignorant and simple that we know not how, nor have the power, to devise ; wherefore we pray your Grace to excuse us in this matter, and that it please you, with advice of the great and wise persons of your Council, to ordain what seems best to you for the honour and profit of yourself and of your king- dom ; and whatsoever shall be thus ordained by assent and agree- ment on the part of you and your lords we readily assent to, and will hold it firmly established." But while shrinking from so wide an V.J extension a practice were oftei professed Thus mar set aside. royal assc into stati the rolls ( The po forced on Brittany j which foil the Fifth, of renewii by despat into the n victory of penses of necessitat( of the trea the Black •* but helm however, 1: had laid h of the whc on a litter surrendere fame of hi war, protrj engage, di< last, howe^ ance of a i it won ove: fatal to the seas, and roused to yielded to 1 citizens. A of Lancast< had forbid( the King, English." Auvergne, failure was HAP. was their mous » are older with gnof ether, ion of r-esti- roken power ;s and lanent would aristo- it has iiercial nexion ith the it unity as ever ;ed, we of con- iament greater f trade, against ions of lentary iipplies, Parlia- purely om his rred to tions of and the .hat we ay your advice [t seems ir king- agree- to, and ■ide an v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. extension of their responsibility, the Commons wrested from the Crown a practical reform of the highest value. As yet their petitions, if granted, were often changed or left incomplete in the statute or ordinance which professed to embody them, or were delayed till the session had closed. Thus many provisions made in Parliament had hitherto been evaded or set aside. But the Commons now met this abuse by a demand that on the royal assent being given their petitions should be turned without change into statutes of the realm, and derive force of law from their entry on the rolls of Parliament. The political responsibility which the Commons evaded was at last ' forced on them by the misfortunes of the war. In spite of quarrels in I Brittany and elsewhere, peace wa .'airly preserved in the nine years i which followed the treaty of Brdtigny ; but the shrewd eye of Charles | the Fifth, the successor of John, was watching keenly for the moment i of renewing the struggle. He had cleared his kingdom of the freebooters j by despatching them into Spain, and the Black Prince had plunged into the revolutions of that country only to return from his fruitless victory of Navarete in broken health, and impoverished by the ex- penses of the campaign. The anger caused by the taxation which this necessitated was fanned by Charles into revolt. He listened, in spite of the treaty, to an appeal from the lords of Aquitaine, and summoned the Black Prince to his Court. " I will come," replied the Prince, " but helmet on head, and with sixty thousand men at my '• ack." War, however, had hardly been declared before the ability with which Charles had laid his plans was seen in his seizure of Ponthieu, and in a rising of the whole country south of the Garonne. The Black Prince, borne on a litter to the walls of Limoges, recovered the town, which had been surrendered to the French, and by a merciless massacre sullied the fame of his earlier exploits ; but sickness recalled him home, and the war, protracted by the caution of Charles, who forbade his armies to engage, did little but exhaust the energy and treasures of England. At last, however, the error of the Prince's policy was seen in the appear- ance of a Spanish fleet in the Channel, and in a decisive victory which it won over an English convoy off Rochelle. The blow was in fact fatal to the English cause ; it wrested from Edward the mastery of the seas, and cut off his communication with Aquitaine. Charles was roused to new exertions. Poitou, Saintonge, and the Angoumois yielded to his general Du Guesclin, and Rochelle was surrendered by its citizens. A great army under the King's third son, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, penetrated fruitlessly into the heart of France. Charles had forbidden any fighting. " If a storm rages over the land," said the King, coolly, " it disperses of itself ; and so will it be with the English." "Winter, in fact, overtook the Duke in the mountains of Auvergne, and a mere fragment of his host reached Bordeaux. The failure was the signal for a general defection, and ere the summer of 233 .Skc. II. TllK (JtKJD I'AKl.tA- MKNT 1300 to 1377 The Lobs of Aqui- taine 1360-1396 1366 1 "1 1 ■ \i' 1* 1367 1369 i; " 1 »372 234 HISTORY OF THK ENOLTRH I'KOPLK. [ciiAr. v.] Sec. II. The Good Parlia- ment laao TO 1377 1371 The Good Parliament ^/r//,i376 1 374 had closed the two towns of Bordeaux and Bayonne were all thut remained of the English possessions in southern France. It was a time of shame and suffering such as England had never known. Her conquests were lost, her shores insulted, her fleets anni- hilated, her commerce swept from the seas ; while within she was exhausted by the long and costly war, as well as by the ravages of pestilence. In the hour of distress the eyes of the hard-pressed nobles and knighthood turned greedily on the riches of the Church. Never had her spiritual or moral hold on the nation been less ; never had her wealth been greater. Out of a population of some three millions, the ecclesiastics numbered between twenty and thirty thousand. Wild tales of their riches floated about. They were said to own in landed property alone more than a third of the soil, their " spiritualities " in dues and offerings amounting to twice the King's revenue. The throng of bishops round the council-board was still more galling to the feudal baronage, flushed as it was with a new pride by the victories of Crdcy and Poitiers. On the renewal of the war the Parliament prayed that the chief offices of state might be placed in lay hands, William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, resigned the Chancellorship, another prelate the Treasury, to lay dependents of the great nobles ; and the panic of the clergy was seen in large grants which they voted in Convocation. The baronage found a leader in John of Gaunt ; but even the promise to pillage the Church failed to win for the Duke and his party the goodwill of the lesser gentry and of the burgesses ; while the corruption and the utter failure of the new administration and the calamities of the war left it powerless before the Parliament of 1 376. The action of this Parliament marks a new stage in the cha- racter of the national opposition to the misrule of the Crown. Till now the task of resistance had devolved on the baronage, and had been carried out through risings of its feudal tenantry ; but the misgovern- ment was now that of a main part of the baronage itself in actual con- junction with the Crown. Only in the power of the Commons lay any adequate means of peaceful redress. The old reluctance of the Lower House to meddle with matters of State was roughly swept away there- fore by the pressure of the time. The Black Prince, sick as he was to death and anxious to secure his child's succession by the removal of John of Gaunt, the prelates with William of Wykeham at their head, resolute again to take their place in the royal councils and to check the projects of ecclesiastical spoliation, alike found in it a body to oppose to the Duke's administration. Backed by powers such as these, the action of the Commons showed none of their old timidity or self- distrust. The knights of the shire united with the burgesses in a joint attack on the royal council. " Trusting in God, and standing with his followers before the nobles, whereof the chief was John, Duke of Lancaster, whose doings were ever contrary," their speaker, Sir Peter dc la pressive I; "What do Gaunt. " even the 1 governmen condcmnat self had si mistress ni royal serva were preset demanded for the knij by the Cro\ roads on tl trade, the e the powers little son R heir. But sumed his He dismiss back Alice Parliament as statutes, sessions of attack on tl canvassed, 1 brings us a( [Author Hi documents a Wyclif and h by Mr. T. A "Trias." T a valuable pr Wyclif by Le has given a b Nothing i of Wyclif 's of him durii earlier part age when h University in v.] THE IIUNDRKI) YRARS' WAR. Peter do la Mar*?, denounced the mismanagement of the war, the op- pressive taxation, and demanded an account of the expenditure. "What do these base and ignoble knights attempt?" cried John of Gaunt. " Do they think they be kings or princes of the land ? " But even the Duke was silenced by the charges brought against the government, and the Parliament proceeded to the impeachment and condemnation of two minii^ters, Latimer and Lyons. The King him- self had sunk into dotage, and was wholly under the influence of a mistress named Alice Perrers ; she was banished, and several of the royal servants driven from the Court. One hundred and forty petitions were presented which embodied the grievances of the realm. They demanded the annual assembly of Parliament, and freedom of election for the knights of the shire, whose choice was now often tampered with by the Crown ; they protested against arbitrary taxation and Papal in- roads on the liberties of the Church ; petitioned for the protection of trade, the enforcement of the statute of labourers, and the limitation of the powers of chartered crafts. At the death of the Black Prince his little son Richard was brought into Parliament and acknowledged as heir. But the Houses were no sooner dismissed than Lancasior re- sumed his power. His haughty will flung aside all restraints of law. He dismissed the new lords and prelates from the Council. He called back Alice Perrers and the disgraced ministers. He declared the Good Parliament no parliament, and did not suffer its petitions to be enrolled as statutes. He imprisoned Peter de la Mare, and confiscated the pos- sessions of William of Wykeham. His attack on this prelate was an attack on the clergy at large. Fresh projects of spoliation were openly canvassed, and it is his sunport of these plans of confiscation which now brings us across the path of John Wyclif. Section III.— John Wyclif. {Authorities. — The "Fasciculi Zizaniorum" in the Rolls Series, with the documents appended to it, is a work of primary authority for the history of Wyclif and his followers. A selection from his English tracts has been made by Mr, T. Arnold for the University of Oxford, which has also published his "Trias." The version of the Bible that bears his name has been edited with a valuable preface by Rev. J. Forshall and Sir F. Madden. There are lives of Wyclif by Lewis and Vaughan ; and Milman (" Latin Christianity," vol. vi.) has given a brilliant summary of the Lollard movement.] Nothing is more remarkable than the cor' rast between the obscurity of Wyclif 's earlier life and the fulness and vividness of our knowledge of him during the twenty years which preceded its close. Bom in the earlier part of the fourteenth century, he had already passed middle age when he was appointed to the mastership of Balliol College in the University of Oxford, and recognized as first among the schoolmen of 235 Skc. II. Thr Guod I'ahi.iv MKNT 1360 TO 1377 /uptc S July 6 i {9 ,ll ♦ 'n i.f f ' I. ' i;', * \ Wyclif m * .1 'p i ii aw* • 2j6 HISTORY OF THE KNGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Skc. 111. John WVIXIK li24?li(}t Eneland and the Papacy his day. Of all the scholastic doctors those of England had been throughout the keenest and the most daring in philosophical specula- tion ; a reckless audacity and love of novelty was the common note of D 1 Enrland Id the Church tv ;U 1.' :il 238 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. III. John Wyci.if ^ Wycllf and : Church Reform 1366 away ; the wealthiest churchmen, with curled hair and hanging sleeves, aped the costume of the knightly society to which they really belonged. We have already seen the general impression of their worldliness in Chaucer's picture of the hunting monk and the courtly prioress with her love-motto on her brooch. Over the vice of the higher classes they exerted no influence whatever ; the King paraded his mistress as a Queen of Beauty through London, the nobles blazoned their infamy in court and tournament. " In those days," says a chronicler of the time, "arose a great rumour and clamour among the people, that wherever there was a tournament there came a great concourse of ladies of the most costly and beautiful, but not of the best in the kingdom, sometimes forty or fifty in number, as if they were a part of the tournament, in diverse and wonderful male apparel, in parti- colou'-ed tunics, with short caps and bands wound cord- wise round their head, and girdles bound with gold and silver, and daggers in pouches across their body, and then they proceeded on chosen coursers to the place of tourney, and so expended and wasted their goods and vexed their bodies with scurrilous wantonness that the rumour of the people sounded everywhere ; and thus they neither feared God nor blushed at the chaste voice of the people." They were not called on to blush at the chaste voice of the Church. The clergy were in fact rent by their own dissensions. The higher prelates were busy with the cares of political office, and severed from the lower priesthood by the scandalous inequality between the revenues of the wealthier eccle- siastics and the "poor parson" of the country. A bitter hatred divided the secular clergy from the regular ; and this strife went fiercely on in the Universities. Fitz-Ralf, the Chancellor of Oxford, attributed to the Friars the decline in the number of academical students, and the University checked by statute their admission of mere children into their orders. The older religious orders in fact had sunk into mere landowners, while the enthusiasm of the Friars had in great part died away and left a crowd of impudent mendicants behind it. Wyclif could soon with general applause denounce them as sturdy beggars, and declare that " the man who gives alms to a begging friar is ipso facto excommunicate." Without the ranks of the clergy stood a world of earnest men who, like " Piers the Ploughman," denounced their worldliness and vice, sceptics like Chaucer laughing at the jingling bells of their hunting abbots, and the brutal and greedy baronage under John of Gaunt, eager to drive the prelates from office and to seize on their wealth. Worthless as the last party seems to us, it was with John of Gaunt that Wyclif allied himself in his effi)rt for the reform of the Church. As yet his quarrel was not with the doctrines of Rome but with its practice^ and it was on the principles of Ockham that he de- fended the Parliament's indignant refusal of the " tribute " which was v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 239 claimed by the Papacy. But his treatise on " The Kingdom of God'* (De Dominio Divino) shows how different his aims really were from the selfish aims of the men with whom he acted. In this, the most famous of his works, Wyclif bases his action on a distinct ideal of society. All authority, to use his own expression, is " founded in grace." Dominion in the highest sense is in God alone ; it is God who, as the suzerain of the universe, deals out His rule in fief to rulers in their various stations on tenure of their obedience to Himself. It was easy to object that in such a case " dominion " could never exist, since mortal sin is a breach of such a tenure, and all men sin. But, as Wyclif urged it, the theory is a purely ideal one. In actual practi».2 he distinguishes be- tween dominion and power, power which the wicked may have by God's permission, and to which the Christian must submit from motives of obedience to God. In his own scholastic phrase, so strangely per- verted afterwards, here on earth " God must obey the devil." But whether in the ideal or practical view of the matter, all power or dominion was of God. It was granted by Him not to one person, His Vicar on earth, as the Papacy alleged, but to all. The King was as truly God's Vicar as the Pope. The royal power was as sacred as the ecclesiastical, and as complete over temporal things, even the tem- poralities of the Church, as that of the Church over spiritual things. On the question of Church and State therefore the distinction between the ideal and practical view of "dominion" was of little account. Wyclif s application of the theory to the individual conscience was of far higher and wider importance. Obedient as each Christian might be to king or priest, he himself, as a possessor of " dominion," held im- mediately of God. The throne of God Himself was the tribunal of personal appeal. What the Reformers of the sixteenth century at- tempted to do by their theory of J ustification by Faith, Wyclif attempted to do by his theory of " dominion." It was a theory which in establishing a direct relation between man and God swept away the whole basis of a mediating priesthood on which the mediaeval Church was built ; but for a time its real drift was hardly perceived. To Wyclif s theory of Church and State, his subjection of their tem- poralities to the Crown, his contention that like other property they might be seized and employed for national purposes, his wish for their voluntary abandonment and the return of the Church to its original poverty, the clergy were more sensitive. They were bitterly galled when he came forward as the theological bulwark of the Lancastrian party at a time when they were writhing under the attack on Wykeham by the nobles ; and in the prosecution of Wyclif, they resolved to return blow for blow. He was summoned before Bishop Courtenay of London to answer for his heretical propositions concerning the wealth of the Church. The Duke of Lancaster accepted the challenge as really given to himself, and stood by Wyclif s side in the Consistory Sec. III. John Wyclif C. 1368 I Wmi V. : lit'' : :ti .1 ■; I 1 1 1 ( 1377 m ^' h 240 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. III. John Wyclif i! The First pro test- ant 1381 Court at St. Paul's. But no trial took place. Fierce words passed between the nobles and the prelate ; the Duke himself was said to have threatened to drag Courtenay out of the church by the hair of his head, and at last the London populace, to whom John of Gaunt was hateful, burst in to their Bishop's rescue, and Wyclif s life was saved with diffi- culty by the aid of the soldiery. But his courage only grew with the danger. A Papal bull which was procured by the bishops, directing the University to condemn and arrest him, extorted from him a bold defiance. In a defence circulated widely through the kingdom and laid before Parliament, Wyclif broadly asserted that no man could be excommunicated by the Pope " unless he were first excommunicated by himself." He denied the right of the Church to exact or defend temporal privileges by spiritual censures, declared that a Church might justly be deprived by the King or lay lords of its property for defect of duty, and defended the subjection of ecclesiastics to civil tribunals. Bold as the defiance was, it won the support of the people and of the Crown. When he appeared at the close of the year in Lambeth Chapel to answer the Archbishop's summons, a message from the Court forbade the Primate to proceed, and the Londoners broke in and dissolved the session. Wyclif was still working hand in hand with John of Gaunt in advo- cating his plans of ecclesiastical reform, when the great insurrection of the peasants, which we shall soon have to describe, broke out under Wat Tyler. In a few months the whole of his work was undone. Not only was the power of the Lancastrian party on which Wyclif had relied for the moment annihilated, but the quarrel between the baronage and the Church, on which his action had hitherto been grounded, was hushed in the presence of a common danger. His " poor preachers " were looked on as missionaries of socialism. The Friars charged him with being a " sower of strife, who by his serpent-like instigation has set the serf against his lord," and though Wyclif tossed back the charge with disdain, he had to bear a suspicion which was justified by the conduct of some of his followers. John Ball, who had figured in the front rank of the revolt, was claimed as one of his adherents, and was alleged to have denounced in his last hour the conspiracy of the "Wyclifites." His most prominent scholar, Nicholas Herford, was said to have openly approved the brutal murder of Archbishop Sud- bury. Whatever belief such charges might gain, it is certain that from this moment all plans for the reorganization of the Church were con- founded in the general odium which attached to the projects of the peasant leaders, and that any hope of ecclesiastical reform at the hands of the baronage and the Parliament was at an end. But even if the Peasant Revolt had not deprived Wyclif of the support of the aristo- cratic party with whom he had hitherto co-operated, their alliance must have been dissolved by the new theological position which he had already t tion, he : reformer of a prott upon whi doctrine ( performai the lowlie denial of in the sp ended, mi freedom, 1 body of tl utterly alo all-powerf be silent. disputatio academica the momei conclusion of Lancast which clos the truth \ panic arou displacing Wyclif no ] on whom memorable large. Wi tongue of t and involve academic which mar transformei English po rough, clea man and tl: phraseolog' of his own sentences, t dullest mini questioning Pardons, ir saints, wors successiveh rHAT-. assed (have head, iteful, idiffi- th the ecting I bold m and aid be licated defend . might feet of bunals. of the imbeth e Court in and n advo- iction of t under ,e. Not clif had iron age ed, was ichers " ed him ion has charge by the in the ind was of the rd, was ap Sud- hat from sre con- s of the le hands n if the ! aristo- alliance h he had v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. already taken up. Some months before the outbreak of the insurrec- tion, he had by one memorable step passed from the position of a reformer of the discipline and political relations of the Church to that of a protester against its cardinal beliefs. If there was one doctrine upon which the supremacy of the Mediaeval Church rested, it was the doctrine of Transubstantiation. It was by his exclusive right to the performance of the miracle which was wrought in the mass that the lowliest priest was raised high above princes. With the formal denial of the doctrine of Transubstantiation which Wyclif issued in the spring of 1381 began that great movement of revolt which ended, more than a century after, in the establishment of religious freedom, by severing the mass of the Teutonic peoples from the general body of the Catholic Church. The act was the bolder that he stood utterly alone. The University, in which his influence had been hitherto all-powerful, at once condemned him. John of Gaunt enjoined him to be silent. Wyclif was presiding as Doctor of Divinity over some disputations in the schools of the Augustinian Canons when his academical condemnation was publicly read, but though startled for the moment he at once challenged Chancellor or doctor to disprove the conclusions at which he had arrived. The prohibition of the Duke of Lancaster he met by an open avowal of his teaching, a confession which closes proudly with the quiet words, " I believe that in the end the truth will conquer." For the moment his courage dispelled the panic around him. The University responded to his appeal, and by displacing his opponents from office tacitly adopted his cause. But Wyclif no longer looked for support to the learned or wealthier classes on whom he had hitherto relied. He appealed, and the appeal is memorable as the first of such a kind in our history, to England at large. With an amazing industry he issued tract after tract in the tongue of the people itself. The dry, syllogistic Latin, the abstruse and involved argument which the great doctor had addressed to his academic hearers, were suddenly flung aside, and by a transition which marks the wonderful genius of the man the schoolman was transformed into the pamphleteer. If Chaucer is the father of our later English poetry, Wyclif is the father of our later English prose. The rough, clear, homely English of his tracts, the speech of the plough- man and the trader of the day, though coloured with the picturesque phraseology of the Bible, is in its literary use as distinctly a creation of his own as the style in which he embodied it, the terse vehement sentences, the stinging sarcasms, the hard antitheses which roused the dullest mind like a whip. Once fairly freed from the trammels of un- questioning belief, Wyclif 's mind worked fast in its career of scepticism. Pardons, indulgences, absolutions, pilgrimages to the shrines of the saints, worship of their images, worship of the saints themselves, were successively denied. A formal appeal to the Bible as the one ground 11 241 Sec. III. John Wyclif 1381 m i '\ ''.n ' Ml i' '■■• ti ii] M I Ml II 242 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. III. John Wyclik Oxford and the Lollards 1382 of faith, coupled with an assertion of the right of every instructed man to examine the Bible for himself, threatened the very groundwork of the older dogmatism with ruin. Nor were these daring denials confined to the small circle of the scholars who still clung to him ; with the practical ability which is so marked a feature of his character, Wyclif had organized some few years before an order of poor preachers, " the Simple Priests," whose coarse sermons and long russet dress moved the laughter of the clergy, but who now formed a priceless organization for the diffusion of their master's doctrines. How rapid their progress must have been we may see from the panic-struck exaggerations of their opponents. A few years later they complained that the followers of Wyclif abounded everywhere and in all classes, among the baronage, in the cities, among the peasantry of the country-side, even in the monastic cell itself " Every second man one meets is a Lollard." " Lollard," a word which probably means " idle babbler," was the nickname of scorn with which the orthodox Churchmen chose to insult their assailants. But this rapid increase changed their scorn into vigorous action. Courtenay, now become Archbishop, summoned a council at Blackfriars, and formally submitted twenty-four propositions drawn from Wyclifs works. An earthquake in the midst of the proceedings terrified every prelate but the resolute Primate ; the expulsion of ill humours from the earth, he said, was of good omen for the expulsion of ill humours from the Church ; and the condemnation was pronounced. Then the Archbishop turned fiercely upon Oxford as the fount and centre of the new heresies. In an English sermon at St. Frideswide's, Nicholas Herford had asserted the truth of Wyclifs doctrines, and Courtenay ordered the Chancellor to silence him and his adherents on pain of being himself treated as a heretic. The Chancellor fell back on the liberties of the University, and appointed as preacher another Wyclifite, Repyngdon, who did not hesitate to style ths Lollards "holy priests," and to affirm that they were protected by John of Gaunt. Party spirit meanwhile ran high among the students ; the bulk of them sided with the Lollard leaders, and a Carmelite, Peter Stokes, who had procured the Archbishop's letters, cowered panic-stricken in his chamber while the Chancellor, pro- tected by an escort of a hundred townsmen, listened approvingly to Repyngdon's defiance. " I dare go no further," wrote the poor Friar to the Archbishop, " for fear of death ; " but he soon mustered courage to descend into the schools where Repyngdon was now maintaining that the clerical order was "better when it was but nine years old than now that it has grown to a thousand years and more." The appearance, however, of scholars in arms again drove Stokes to fly in despair to Lambeth, while a new heretic in open Congregation maintained Wyclifs denial of Transubstantiation. "There is no idolatry," cried William James, " save in the Sacrament of the Altar." " You s Courtei summo: only ac Univer; the Cha tion. ' the Prii within i injunctic fire. T] they wi Henry ( calling t: roughlv banishm of all Lo The thre vain to J them as 1 evasion 1 Oxford ii the deatl disappear is the mo broken tii the life ar Nothing the last of as Courte] sures agai made no " Pontius comment ( the prelate with each easy infen seems inde of the final said to hav declare the ment that I forth, and assailants, ] tithes migh maintained [chap. :d man /ork of onfined ith the Wyclif 's, " the moved nization )rogress tions of Dllowers ironage, 1 in the ird." 2r," was in chose ;d their hbishop, ;nty-four he midst ate ; the omen for imnation 1 Oxford ermon at Wyclif's him and ic. The ppointed jsitate to ley were ;h among ders, and 's letters, llor, pro- jrovingly the poor mustered was now but nine d more," 3tokes to regation re is no ,e Altar." v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. " You speak like a wise man," replied the Chancellor, Robert Rygge. Courtenay however was not the man to bear defiance tamely, and his summons to Lambeth wrested a submission from Rygge which was only accepted on his pledge to suppress the LoUardism of the University. " I dare not publish them, on fear of death," exclaimed the Chancellor when Courtenay handed him his letters of condemna- tion. " Then is your University an open /au/or of heretics," retorted the Primate, " if it suffers not the Catholic truth to be proclaimed within its bounds." The royal council supported the Archbishop's injunction, but the publication of the decrees at once set Oxford on fire. The scholars threatened death against the Friars, "crying that they wished to destroy the University." The masters suspended Henry Crump from teaching, as a troubler of the public peace, for calling the Lollards " heretics." The Crown however at last stepped roughlv in to Courtenay's aid, and a royal writ ordered the instant banishment of all favourers of Wyclif, with the seizure and destruction of all Lollard books, on pain of forfeiture of the University's privileges. The threat produced its effect. Herford and Repyngdon appealed in vain to John of Gaunt for protection ; the Duke himself denounced them as heretics against the Sacrament of the Altar, and after much evasion they were forced to make a formal submission. Within Oxford itself the suppression of LoUardism was complete, but with the death of religious freedom all trace of intellectual life suddenly disappears. The century which followed the triumphs of Courtenay is the most barren in its annals, nor was the sleep of the University broken till the advent of the New Learning restored to it seme of the life and liberty which the Primate had so roughly trodden out. Nothing marks more strongly the grandeur of Wyclif s position as the last of the great schoolmen, than the reluctance of so bold a man as Courtenay even after his triumph over Oxford to take extreme mea- sures against the head of Lollardry. Wyclif, though summoned, had made no appearance before the " Council of the Earthquake." " Pontius Pilate and Herod are made friends to-day," was his bitter comment on the new union which proved to have sprung up between the prelates and the monastic orders who had so long been at variance with each other ; " since they have made a heretic of Christ, it is an easy inference for them to count simple Christians heretics." He seems indeed to have been sick at the moment, but the announcement of the final sentence roused him to life again. " I shall not die," he is said to have cried at an earlier time when in grievous peril, " but live and declare the works of the Friars." He petitioned the King and Parlia- ment that he might be allowed freely to prove the doctrines he had put forth, and turning with characteristic energy to the attack of his assailants, he asked that all religious vows might be suppressed, that tithes might be diverted to the maintenance of the poor and the clergy maintained by the free alms of their Hocks, that tlie Statutes of R 2 Hi Sec. III. JOHM WVCLII' The death of Wyclif \-' m\'': 11 ■u m p. I ^ u 'M ^1 244 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. III. John WVCLIK 1383 Dec. 31, 1384 The Engrlivh Manor Provisors and Prjemunire might be enforced against the Papacy, that churchmen might be declared incapable of secular offices, and im- prisonment for excommunication cease. Finally, in the teeth of the council's condemnation, he demanded that the doctrine of the Eucha- rist which he advocated might be freely taught. If he appeared in the following year before the Convocation at Oxford, it was to perplex his opponents by a display of scholastic logic which permitted him to retire without any retractation of his sacramental heresy. For the time his opponents seemed satisfied with his expulsion from the University, but in his retirement at Lutterworth he was forging during these troubled years the great weapon which, wielded by other hands than his own, was to produce so terrible an effect on the triumphant hierarchy. An earlier translation of the Scriptures, in part of which he was aided by his scholar Herford, was being revised and brought to the second form, which is better known as " Wyclif s Bible," when death drew near. The appeal of the prelates to Rome was answered at last by a brief ordering him to appear at the Papal Court. His fr.iling strength exhausted itself in the cold sarcastic reply which explained that his refusal to comply with the summons simply sprang from broken health. " I am always glad," ran the ironical answer, " to explain my faith to any one, and above all to the Bishop of Rome ; for I take it for granted that if it be orthodox he will confirm it, if it be erroneous he will correct it. I assume, too, that as chief Vicar of Christ upon earth the Bishop of Rome is of all mortal men most bound to the law of Christ's Gospel, for among the disciples of Christ a majority is not reckoned by simply counting heads in the fashion of this world, but according to the imitation of Christ on either side. Now Christ during His life upon earth was of all men the poorest, casting from Him all worldly authority. I deduce from these premisses, as a simple counsel of my own, that the Pope should surrender all temporal authority to the civil power and advise his clergy to do the same." The boldness of his words sprang perhaps from a knowledge that his end was near. The terrible strain on energies enfeebled by age and study had at last brought its inevit- able result, and a stroke of paralysis while Wyclif was hearing mass in his parish church of Lutterworth was followed on the next day by his death. , . . Section IV.— The Peasant Revolt, 1377-1381. [Atiihoi'ities. — For the condition of land and labour at this time see the " History of Prices," by Professor Thorold Rogers, the "Domesday Book of St. Paul s " (Camden Society) with Archdeacon Hale's valuable introduction, and Mr. Seebohm's •• Essays on the Black Death " {Forltiightly Review, 1865). Among the chroniclers Knyghton and Walsingham are the fullest and most valuable. The great Labour Statutes will be found in the Parliamentary Rolls.] The religious revolution which we have been describing gave fresh impulse to a revolution of even greater importance, which had for a V.1 long tin- system, land res of inter was usu home-fa were be Alfreds freemen had bee general often di thegn wl payment " villeins and boui older rig lord, and They sto never po the legisl lord on \ hired lab not his ( tinction 1 the Ange pure " th villein sa was undc geneous the view manor-he court was received enrolled criminal stood his cultivatio was by tl sheep sh( services was the r the popu word, wa ploughing that V.1 THE HUNDRED YEARS* WAR, long time been changing the whole face of the country. The manorial system, on which the social organization of every rural part of Eng- land rested, had divided the land, for the purposes of cultivation and of internal order, into a number of large estates ; a part of the soil was usually retained by the owner of the manor as his demesne or home-farm, while the remainder was distributed among tenants who were bound to render service to their lord. Under the kings of ^Ifreu's house, the number of absolute slaves, and the number of freemen, had alike diminished. The slave class, never numerous, had been reduced by the efforts of the Church, perhaps by the general convulsion of the Danish wars. But these wars had often driven the ceorl or freeman to " commend " himself to a thegn who pledged him his protection in consideration of a labour- payment. It is probable that these dependent ceorls are the " villeins" of the Norman epoch, men sunk indeed from pure freedom and bound both to soil and lord, but as yet preserving much of their older rights, retaining their land, free as against all men but their lord, and still sending representatives to hundred-moot and shire-moot. They stood therefore far above the "^ landless man," the man who had never possessed even under the old constitution political rights, whom the legislation of the English kings had forced to attach himself to a lord on pain of outlawry, and who served as household servant or as hired labourer, or at the best as rent-paying tenant of land which was not his own. The Norman knight or lawyer however saw little dis- tinction between these classes ; and the tendency of legislation under the Angevins was to blend all in a single class of serfs. While the pure " theow " or absolute slave disappeared, therefore, the ceorl or villein sank lower in the social scale. But though the rural population was undoubtedly thrown more together and fused into a more homo- geneous class, its actual position corresponded very imperfectly with the view of the lawyers. All indeed were dependents on a lord. The manor-house became the centre of every English village. The manor- court was held in its hall ; it was here that the lord or his steward received homage, recovered fines, held the view of frnnk- pledge, or enrolled the villagers in their tithing. Here too, if the lord possessed criminal jurisdiction, was held his justice court, and without its doors stood his gallows. Around it lay the demesne or home-farm, and the cultivation of this rested wholly with the "villeins" of the manor. It was by them that the great barn of the lord was filled with sheaves, his sheep shorn, his grain malted, the wood hewn for his hall fire. These services were the labour-rent by which they held their lands, and it was the nature and extent of this labour-rent which parted one class of the population from another. The " villein," in the strict sense of the word, was bound only to gather in his lord's harvest and to aid in the ploughing and sowing of autumn and Lent. The cottar, the bordar. 245 Sec. IV. The Peasant Rkvout 1377 TO 1381 m'v. t. » •I t Xil i J i ( r. il "• , J- 246 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. IV. Thb Peasant Revolt 1377 TO 1381 Tbe Fanner and the Labourer 1^ i 'l and the labourer were bound to help in the work of the home-farm throughout the year. But these services and the time of rendering them were strictly limited by custom, not only in the case of the ceorl or villein, but in that of the originally meaner " landless man." The possession of his little homestead with the ground around it, the privilege of turning out his cattle on the waste of the manor, passed quietly and insensibly from mere indulgences that could be granted or withdrawn at a lord's caprice into rights that could be pleaded at law. The number of teams, the fines, the reliefs, the services that a lord could claim, at first mere matter of oral tradition, came to be entered on the court-roll of the manor, a copy of which became the title-deed of the villein. It was to this that he owed the name of " copy-holder " which at a later time superseded his older title. Disputes were settled by a reference to this roll or on oral evidence of the custom at issue, but a social arrangement which was eminently characteristic of the English spirit of compromise generally secured a fair adjustment of the cl?ims of villein and lord. It was the duty of the lord's bailiff to exact their due services from the villeins, but his coadjutor in this office, the reeve or foreman of the manor, was chosen by the tenants themselves and acted as representative of their interests and rights. The first disturbances of the system of tenure which we have described sprang from the introduction of leases. The lord of the manor, instead of cultivating the demesne through his own bailiff, often found it more convenient and profitable to let the manor to a tenant at a given rent, payable either in money or in kind. Thus we find the manor of Sandon leased by the Chapter of St. Paul's at a very early period on a rent which comprised the payment of grain both for bread and ale, of alms to be distributed at the cathedral door, of wood to be used in its bakehouse and brewery, and of money to be spent in wages. It is to this system of leasing, or rather to the usual term for the rent it entailed (feorm, from the Latin yfrwa), that we owe the words, "fann" and " farmer," the growing use of which marks the first step in the rural revolution which we are examining. It was a revolution which made little direct change in the manorial system, out its indirect effect in breaking the tie on which the feudal organization of the manor rested, that of the tenant's p -sonal dependence on his lord, and in affording an opportunity by which the wealthier among the tenantry could rise to a position of apparent equality with their older masters and form a new class intermediate between the larger pro- prietors and the customary tenants, was of the highest importance. This earlier step, however, in the modification of the manorial system, by the rise of the Farmer-class, was soon followed by one of a far more serious character in the rise of the Free Labourer. Labour, whatever right it might have attained in other ways, was as yet in the strictest sense bound to the soil. Neither villein nor serf had any v.] choice, ei his holdi from the recall by outlaw. populatic this local promotin The fugii where a fresh ste commute slowly in to all Ian of the tei and the s A labour- of wealth dence, m probably for a m( gradually already v case of S "malt-sil place of t commuta The luxu cost of c; sale of fre an easy a kings to< estates fo serfs ; an with theii excheque By this land, the the rise of the coi The rise was no Ic itself to would. had been [CIIAP. e-farm dering B ceorl ' The it, the passed [ited or at law. a lord jntered le-deed lolder" settled t issue, ; of the nent of lailiff to in this tenants ights. jscribed , instead it more en rent, 3nor of iriod on ind ale, used in It is rent it "farm" in the which indirect of the lis lord, ong the ir older jer pro- ortance. system, of a far Labour, Bt in the lad anv v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' AVAR. 247 i. choice, either of a master or of a sphere of toil. He was born, in fact, to his holding and to his lord ; he paid head-money for licence to remove from the estate in search of trade or hire, and a refusal to return on recall by his owner would have ended in his pursuit as a fugitive outlaw. But the advance of society and the natural increase of population had for a long time been silently freeing the labourer from this local bondage. The influence of the Church had been exerted in promoting emancipation, as a work of piety, on all estates but its own. The fugitive bondsman found freedom in a flight to chartered towns, where a residence during a year and a day conferred franchise. A fresh step towards freedom was made by the growing tendency to commute labour-services for money-payments. The population was slowly increasing, and as the law of gavel-kind which was applicable to all landed estates not held by military tenure divided the inheritance of the tenantry equally among their sons, the holding of each tenant and the services due from it became divided in a corresponding degree. A labour-rent thus became more difficult to enforce, while the increase of wealth among the tenantry, and the rise of a new spirit of indepen- dence, made it more burthensome to those who rendered it. It was probably from this cause that the commutation of the arrears of labour for a money payment, which had long prevailed on. every estate, gradually developed into a general commutation of services. We have already witnessed the silent progress of this remarkable change in the case of St. Edmundsbury, but the practice soon became universal, and " malt-silver," " wood-silver," and " larder-silver," gradually took the place of the older personal services on the court-rolls. The process of commutation was hastened by the necessities of the lords themselves. The luxury of the castle-hall, the splendour and pomp of chivalry, the cost of campaigns, drained the purses of knight and baron, and the sale of freedom to a serf or exemption from services to a villein afforded an easy and tempting mode of refilling them. In this process even kings took part. Edward the Third sent commissioners to royal estates for the especial purpose of selling manumissions to the King's serfs ; and we still possess the names of those who were enfranchised with their families by a payment of hard cash in aid of the exhausted exchequer. By this entire detachment of the serf from actual dependence on the land, the manorial system was even more radically changed than by the rise of the serf into a copyholder. The whole social condition of the country, in fact, was modified by the appearance of a new class. The rise of the free labourer had followed that of the farmer, labour was no longer bound to one spot or one master : it was free to hire itself to what employer, and to choose what field of employment it would. At the moment we have reached, in fact, the lord of a manor had been reduced over a large part of England to the position of Sec. IV. Thb Peasant Revolt 1377 TO 1381 •■V ■f) ! I' \ The Black Death li-':,. ! i ■II 248 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [ciiAr. v.J Skc. IV. The Peasant Rkvolt 1377 TO 1381 1349 The Statutes of Iiabour- ers a modern landlord, receiving a rental in money from his tenants, and dependent for the cultivation of hi.> own demesne on paid labourers. But a formidable difficulty now met the landowners who had been driven by the process of enfranchisement to rely on hired labour. Hitherto this supply had been abundant and cheap ; but this abundance suddenly disappeared. The most terrible plague which the world ever witnessed advanced at this juncture from the East, and after devastating Europe from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Baltic, swooped at the close of 1348 upon Britain. The traditions of its destructiveness, and the panic-struck words of the statutes wh'ch followed it, have been more than justified by modern research. Of the three or four millions who then formed the population of England, more than one-half were swept away in its repeated visitations. Its ravages were fiercest in the greater towns, where filthy and undrained streets afforded a constant haunt to leprosy and fever. In the burial-ground which the piety of Sir Walter Maunay purchased for the citizens of London, a spot whose site was afterwards marked by the Charter House, more than fifty thousand corpses are said to have been interred. Thousands of people perished at Norwich, while in Bristol the living were hardly able to bury the dead. But the Black Death fell on the villages almost as fiercely as on the towns. More than one-half of the priests of York- sb're are known to have perished ; in the diocese of Norwich two- thirds of the parishes changed their incumbents. The whole organiza- tion of labour was thrown out of gear. The scarcity of hands made it difficult for the minor tenants to perform the services due for their lands, and only a temporary abandonment of half the rent by the land- owners induced the farmers to refrain from the abandonment of their farms. For a time cultivation became impossible. " The sheep and cattle strayed through the fields and corn," says a contemporary, " and there were none left who could drive them." Even when the first burst of panic was over, the sudden rise of wages consequent on the enormous diminution in the supply of free labour, though accompanied by a corresponding rise in the price of food, rudely disturbed the course of industrial employments ; harvests rotted on the ground, and fields were left untilled, not merely from scarcity of hands, but from the strife which now for the first time revealed itself between capital and labour. While the landowners of the country and the wealthier craftsmen of the town were threatened with ruin by what seemed to their age the extravagant demands of the new labour class, the country itself was torn with riot and disorder. The outbreak .of lawless self -indulgence which followed everywhere in the wake of the plague told especially upon the " landless men," wandering in search of work, and for the first time masters of the labour market ; and the wandering labourer or ti artizan woods, the CroM in the St; provision within th whereof 1 may occii the cmpli wages wh he is hour obey was found to I ment in tied to th( he lived became a justices oj impossibli at the old support, repeated and the s fines and visions fc were the ordered t harbourin merely th reactionai tion of iah the ingen manor wa tomrry la exemptior grounds o selves fre( The atten the mano interest it growth of in vain to was appli' combinati country th [ciiAr. s, and )urers. . been abour. t this which East, ranean The of the ed by Formed ; away gfrcater haunt of Sir ; whose an fifty people able to nost as .f York- ch two- ■ganiza- made it or their le land- of their »ep and y, " and St burst lormous :d by a ourse of d fields cm the ital and aftsmen age the vas torn :e which ly upon the first ourer or v.l THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. artizan turned easily into the "sturdy beggar," or the bandit of the woods. A summary redress for these evils was at once provided by the Crown in a royal ordinance which was subsequently embodied in the Statute of Labourers. " Every man or woman," runs this famous provision, " of whatsoever condition, free or bond, able in body, and within the age of threescore years, . . . and not having of his own whereof he may live, nor land of his own about the tillage of which he may occupy himself, and not serving any other, shall be bound to serve the employer who shall require him to do so, and shall take only the wages which were accustomed to be taken in the neighbourhood where he is bound to serve " two years before the plague began. A refusal to obey was punished by imprisonment. But sterner measures were soon found to be necessary. Not only was the price of labour fixed by Parlia- ment in the Statute of 1351, but the labour class was once more tied to the soil. The labourer was forbidden to quit the parish where he lived in search of better-paid employment ; if he disobeyed he became a "fugitive," and subject to imprisonment at the hands of the justices of the peace. To enforce such a law literally must have been impossible, for corn had risen to so high a price that a day' s labour at the old wages would not have purchased wheat enough for a man's support. But the landowners did not flinch from the attempt. The repeated re-enactment of the law shows the difficulty of applying it, and the stubbornness of the struggle which it brought about. The fines and forfeitures which were levied for infractions of its pro- visions formed a large source of royal revenue, but so ineffectual were the original penalties that the runaway labourer was at last ordered to be branded with a hot iron on the forehead, while the harbouring of serfs in towns was rigorously put down. Nor was it merely the existing class of free labourers which was attacked by this reactionary movement. The increase of their numbers by a commuta- tion of labour services for money payments was suddenly checked, and the ingenuity of the lawyers who were employed as stewards of each manor was exercised in striving to restore to the landowners that cus- tomrry labour whose loss was now severely felt. Manumissions and exemptions which had passed without question were cancelled on grounds of informality, and labour services from which they held them- selves freed by redemption were again demanded from the villeins. The attempt was the more galling that the cause had to be pleaded in the manor-court itself, and to be decided by the very officer whose interest it was to give judgement in favour of his lord. We can see the growth of a fierce spirit of resistance through the statutes which strove in vain to repress it. In the towns, where the system of forced labour was applied with even more rigour than in the country, strikes and combinations became frequent among the lower craftsmen. In the country the free labourers found allies in the villeins whose freedom 249 Sec. IV. The Pkasant Rk.voi.t 1377 TO 1381 1349 *l i Si: M 1 1' 17. > H i ■ ■ C ' I] I vM u: \m 250 HISTORY OF TTTF. FNOUSII PEOPLE. fniAP. vl Sec. IV. TllR Pkasant RKvoi.r 1377 1381 John Ball 1360 from manorial service was questioned. These were often men of position and substance, and throughout the eastern counties the gatherings of " fugitive serfs " were supported by an organized resist- ance and by large contributions of money on the part of the wealthier tenantry. A statute of later date throws light on their resistance. It tells us that " villeins and holders of lands in villeinage withdrew their customs and services from their lords, having attached themselves to other persons who maintained and abetted them ; and who, under colour of exemplifications from Domesday of the manors and villages where they dwelt, claimed to be quit of all manner of services, either of their body or of their lands, and would suffer no distress or other course of justice to be taken against them ; the villeins aiding their maintainers by threatening the officers of their lords with peril to life and limb, as well by open assemblies as by confederacico to support each other." It would seem not only as if the villein was striving to resist the reactionary tendency of the lords of manors to regain his labour service, but that in the general overturning of social institutions the copyholder was strug- gling to become a freeholder, and the farmer to be recognized as pro- prietor of the demesne he held on lease. A more terrible outcome of the general suffering was seen in a new revolt against the whole system of social inequality which had till then passed unquestioned as the divine order of the world. The cry of the poor found a terrible utterance in the words of "a mad priest of Kent," as the courtly Froissart calls him, who for twenty years found audience for his sermons, in defiance of interdict and imprisonment, in the stout yeomen who gathered in the Kentish churchyards. " Mad " as the landowners called him, it was in the preaching of John Ball that England first . ' 3ned to a declaration of natural equality and the rights of man. " Good people," cried the preacher, " things will never go well in England so long as goods be not in commc n, and so long as there be villeins and gentlemen. By what right are they whom we call lords greater folk than we? On what grounds have they deserved it ? Why do they hold us in serfage? If we all came of the same father and mother, of Adam and Eve, how can they say or prove that they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gain for them by our toil what they spend in their pride ? They are clothed in velvet, and warm in their furs and their ermines, while we are covered with rags. They have wine and spices and fair bread ; and we oat-cake and straw, and water to drink. They have leisure and fine houses ; we have pain and labour, the rain and the wind in the fields. And yet it is of us and of our toil that these men hold their state." It was the tyranny of pro- perty that then as ever roused the defiance of socialism. A spirit fatal to the whole system of the Middle Ages breathed in the popular rime which condensed the levelling doctrine of John IniAP. men of ties the d resist- vealthier sistance. vithdrew emselves lo, under I villages either of er course lintainers I limb, as 3ther." It actionary )ut that in vas strug- »d as pro- 5 seen in ity which :he world, rds of " a who for f interdict e Kentish as in the eclaration cried the goods be men. By we? On n serfage? Eve, how K not that d in their and their ind spices to drink, abour, the nd of our ny of pro- A spirit id in the of John vl TFIF IIUNDRKO YEARS' WAR. Ball: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman ? " The rime was running from lip to lip when a fresh instance of public oppression fanned the smouldering discontent into a flame. Edward the Third died in a dishonoured old age, robbed on his death-bed even of his finger-rings by the vile mistress to whom he had clung ; and the accession of the child of the Black Prince, Richard the Second, revived the hopes of what in a political sense we must still c?ll the popular party in the Legislature. The Parliament of 1377 took up the work of reform, and boldly assumed the control of a new subsidy by assigning two of their number to regulate its expenditure : that of 1378 demanded and obtained an account of the mode in which the subsidy had been spent. But the real strength of Parliament was directed, as we have seen, to the desperate struggle in which the proprietary classes, whom they exclusively represented, were striving to reduce the labourer into a fresh serfage. Meanwhile the shame of defeat abroad was added to the misery and discord at home. The French war ran its disastrous course : one English fleet was beaten by the Spaniards, a second sunk by a storm ; and a campaign in the heart of France ended, like its predecessors, in dis- appointment and ruin. It was to defray the heavy expenses of the war that the Parliament of 1380 renewed a grant made three years before, to be raised by means of a poll-tax on every person in the realm. The tax brought under contribution a class which had hitherto escaped, men such as the labourer, the village smith, thfc village tiler ; it goaded into action precisely the class which was already seething with discontent, and its exaction set England on fire from sea to sea. As spring went on quaint rimes passed through the country, and served as summons to the revolt which soon extended from the eastern and midland counties over all England south of the Thames. "John Ball," ran one, "greeteth you all, and doth for to understand he hath rung your bell. Now right and might, will and skill, God speed every dele." " Help truth," ran another, " and truth shall help you ! Now reigneth pride in price, and covetise is counted wise, and lechery withouten shame, and gluttony withouten blame. Envy reigneth with treason, and sloth is take in great season. God do bote, for now is tyme ! " We recognise Ball's hand in the yet more stirring missives of "Jack the Miller" and "Jack the Carter." "Jack Miller asketh help to turn his mill aright. He hath grounden small, small : the King's Son of Heaven he shall pay for all. Look thy mill go aright with the four sailes, and the post stand with steadfastness. With right and with might, with skill and with will ; let might help right, and skill go before will, and right before might, so goeth our mill aright." "Jack Carter," ran the companion missive, "prays you all that ye make a good end of that ye have begun, and do 251 Sue. IV. Tmr Peasant Kkvolt 1377 TO 1381 The Peaaant RlBlng if J \ ij 1379 11 1381 ill I I 'I I! ':»'■ i %. Sec. IV. The Peasant Revolt 1377 TO 1381 f Feasant revolt I! f I ' 111 ) '.. I Itine 13 well, and aye better and better: for at the even men heareth the day." " Falseness and guile," sang Jack Trewman, " have reigned too long, and truth hath been set under a lock, and falseness and guile rcigneth in every stock. No man may come truth to, but if he sing * si dedero.' True love is away that was so good, and clerks for wealth work them wee. God do bote, for now is tyme." In the rude jingle of these lines began for England the literature of political controversy : they are the first predecessors of the pamphlets of Milton and of Burke. Rough as they are, they express clearly enough the mingled passions which met in the Vevolt of the peasants : their longing for a right rule, for plain and simple justice ; their scorn of the immorality of the nobles and the infamy of the court ; their resentment at the perversion of the law to the cause of oppression. The revolt spread like wildfire over the country ; Norfolk and Suffolk, Cambridge and Hertfordshire rose in arms ; from Sussex and Surrey the insurrec- tion extended as far as Devon. But the actual outbreak began in Kent, where a tiler killed a tax-collector in vengeance for an outrage on his daughter. The county rose in arms. Canterbury, where " the whole town was of their mind," threw open its gates to the insurgents, who plundered the Archbishop's palace and dragged John Ball from its prison, while a hundred thousand Kentish-men gathered round Wat Tyler of Essex and John Hales of Mailing. In the eastern counties the levy of the poll-tax had already gathered crowds of peasants together, armed with clubs, rusty swords, and bows, and the royal commis- sioners sent to repress the tumult were driven from the field. While the Essex-men marched upon London on one side of the river, the Kentish- men marched on the other. Their grievance was mainly political, for villeinage was unknown in Kent ; but as they poured on to Blackheath, every lawyer who fell into their hands was put to death ; "not till all these were killed would the land enjoy its old freedom again," the peasants shouted as they fired the houses of the stewards and flung the records of the manor-courts into the flames. The whole popula- tion joined them as they marched along, while the nobles were paralyzed with fear. The young King — he was but a boy of fifteen- addressed them from a boat on the river ; but the refusal of his Council under the guidance of Archbishop Sudbury to allow him to land kindled the peasants to fury, and with cries of "Treason'' the great mass rushed on London. Its gates were flung open by the poorer artizans within the city, and the stately palace of John of Gaunt at ihe Savoy, the new inn of the lawyers at the I'emple, the houses of the foreign merchants, were soon in a blaze. But the insurgents, as they proudly boasted, were "seekers of truth and justice, not thieves or robbers," and a plunderer found carrying off a silver vessel from the sack of the Savoy was flung with his spoil into the flames. The general terror was shown ludicrously enough on v.] the folio self, fon knights promise( But the King ha the Trio dragged was wre levy of t: Tower t( the city j occupied boy begc the crisi shouted nor held go home amnesty, day mon emancipj men wit! William head of t deliver u But a n: which af placed w might gr: will. Bu from the in churc when the Many to the me Tyler wh ing at Sn leader, w brought Walwortl shouted t my mastc am your peasants been to fi v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. ^53 the following day, when a daring band of peasants, under Tyler him- self, forced their way into the Tower, and taking the panic-stricken knights of the royal household in rough horse-play by the beard, promised to be their equals and good comrades in the time to come. But the horse-play changed into dreadful earnest when they found the King had escaped their grasp, and when Archbishop Sudb.'.ry and the Prior of St. John were discovered in the chapel ; the primate was dragged from his sanctuary and beheaded, and the same vengeance was wreaked on the Treasurer and the Chief Commissioner for the levy of the hated poll-tax. Meanwhile the King had ridden from the Tower to meet the mass of the Essex-men, who had encamped without the city at Mile-end, while the men of Hertfordshire and St. Albans occupied Highbury. " I am your King and Lord, good people," the boy began with a fearlessness which marked his bearing throughout the crisis ; " what will ye ? " " We will that you free us for ever," shouted the peasants, " us and our lands ; and that we be never named nor held for serfs." " I grant it," replied Richard ; and he bade them go home, pledging himself at once to issue charters of freedom and L:mnesty. A shout of joy welcomed the promise, f hroughout the day more than thirty clerks were busied writing letters of pardon and emancipation, and with these the mass of the Essex and Hertfordshire men withdrew quietly to their homes. It was with such a charter that William Grindecobbe returned to St. Albans, and breaking at the head of the burghers into the abbey precincts, summoned the abbot to deliver up the charters which bound the town in bondage to his house. But a more striking proof of servitude remained in the millstones, which after a long suit at law had been adjudged to the abbey, and placed within its cloister as a triumphant witness that no townsman might grind corn within the domain of the abbey save at the abbot's will. Bursting into the cloister the burghers now tore the millstones from the floor, and broke them into small pieces, " like blessed bread in church," so that each might have something to show of the day when their freedom was won again. Many of the Kentish-men dispersed at the news of the King's pledge to the men of Essex, but thirty thousand men still surrounded Wat Tyler when Richard by a mere chance encountered him the next morn- ing at Smithfield. Hot words passed between his train and the peasant leader, who advanced to confer with the King ; and a threat from Tyler brought on a brief struggle in which the Mayor of Loidon, William Walworth, struck him with his dagger to the ground. " Kill, kill," shouted the crowd, " they have slain our captain." " What need ye, my masters ? " cried the boy-king, as he rode boldly to the front, " I am your Captain and your King ! Follow me." The hopes of the peasants centred in the young sovereign : one aim of their rising had been to free him from the evil counsellors who, as they believed, abused Sec. IV. The Peasant Revolt 1377 TO 1381 Suppres- sion of the Revolt June 15 \:-m '! , il 254 Sec. IV. The Peasant Revolt 1377 TO 1381 Nov. 1 38 1 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. his youth, and they now followed him with a touching loyalty and trust till he entered the Tower. His mother welcomed him with tears of joy. " Rejoice and praise God," the boy answered, " for I have recovered to-day my heritage which was lost, and the realm of England." But he was compelled to give the same pledge of freedom as at Mile-end, and it was only after receiving his letters of pardon and emancipation that the Kentish-men dispersed to their homes. The revolt, indeed, was far from being at an end. South of the I'hames it spread as far as Devonshire ; there were outbreaks in the north ; the eastern coun- ties were in one wild turmoil of revolt. A body of peasants occupied St. Albans. A maddened crowd fcrced the gates of St. Edmundsbury and wrested from the trembling monks pledges for the confirmation of the liberties of the town. John the Litster, a dyer of Norwich, headed a mass of peasants, under the title of King of the Commons, and compelled the jiobles he captured to act as his meat-tasters and to serve him on their knees during his repast. But the withdrawal of the peasant armies with their letters of emancipation gave couragi; to the nobles. The warlike Bishop of Norwich fell lance in hand on Litster's camp, and scattered the peasants of Norfolk at the first shock: while the King, with an army of 40,000 men, spread terror by the ruthlessness of his executions as he marched in triumph through Kent and Essex. At "Waltham he was met by the display of his own recent charters and a protest from the Essex-men that " they were so far as freedom went the peers of their lords." But they were to learn the worth of a king's word. "Villeins you were," answered Richard, "and villeins you are. In bondage you shall abide, and that not your old bondage, but a worse ! " But the stubborn resistance which he met showed the temper of the people. The villagers of Billericay threw themselves into the woods and fought two hard fights before they were reduced to submission. It was only by threats of death that verdicts of guilty could be wrung from the Essex jurors when the leaders of the revolt were brought before them. Grindecobbe was offered his life if he would persuade his followers at St. Albans to restore the charters they had wrung from the monks. He turned bravely to his fellow- townsmen and bade them take no thought for his trouble. " If I die," he said, " I shall die for the cause of the freedom we have won, counting myself happy to end my life by such a martyrdom. Do then to-day as you would have done had I been killed yesterday." But the stubborn wih of the conquered was met by as stubborn a will in their conquerors. Through the summer and autumn seven thousand men are said to have perished on the gallows or the field. The r0y.1I council indeed showed its sense of the danger of a mere policy of resistance by submitting the question of enfranchisement to the Parlia- ment which assembled on the suppression of the revolt, with words which suggested a compromise. " If you desire to enfranchise and set at li mon ass he will influence letters, tl and void goods fn ended, " one day. \AHtho) by the Ma St. Alban the Life o same viol book of J are vehem plemented "Chroniq both the Henry the the Hous( feeling in Richard I indispensa illustrated "Complai English T( at the time published 1 best mode Paris, 186, All the viewing, ii of the po fidelity ir vividly he severed tl plaint of world of Chaucer 1 world of \\ probably i minor ore for his ta earned a n in the stat CHAP. ^.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 255 I trust of joy. )vered But e-end, pation ndeed, as far I coun- cupied dsbury .tion of aded a ipelled )n their es with warlike :attered g, with , of his ex. At > and a m went th of a villeins ondage, showed mselves uced to f guilty ,e revolt 'e if he :harters fellow- «lf I ve won, Do then But the in their nd men e royal olicy of Parlia- words ise and set at liberty the said serfs," ran the royil message, " by your com- mon assent, as the King has been informed that some of you desire, he will consent to your prayer.*' But no thoughts of compromise influenced the landowners in their reply. The King's grant and letters, the Parliament answered with perfect truth, were legally null and void : their serfs were their goods, and the King could not take their goods from them but by their own consent. " And this consent," they ended, " we have never given and never will give, were we all to die in one day." Section v.— Richard the Seccnd, 1381—1399. [AntJiorltics. — The *' Annales Rica.; li Secundi et Henrici Quarti," published by the Master of the Rolls, are our main authority. They form the basis of the St. Albans compihiticm which bears the name of Walsingham, and from which the Life of Richard by a monk of Evesham is for the most part derived. The same violent Lancastrian sympathy runs through Walsingham and the fifth book of Knyghton's Chronicle. The French authorities, on the other hand, are vehemently on Richard's side. Froissart, who ends at this time, is sup- plemented by the metrical history of Creton (** Archaeologia," vol. xx.) and the "Chronique de la Traison et Mort de Richart" (English Historical Society), both the works of French authors, and published in France in the time of Henry the Fourth, probably with the aim of arousing French feeling against the House of Lancaster and the war-policy it had revived. The popular feeling in England may be seen in "Political Songs from Edward HI. to Richard HL" (Rolls Series). The "Foedera" and Rolls of PaVliament are indispensable for »this period : its constitutional importance has been ably illustrated by Mr. Hallam (" Middle Ages "). William Longland's poem, the "Complaint of Piers the Ploughman (edited by Mr. Skeat for the Early English Text Society), throws a flood of light on the social condition of England at the time ; a poem on "The Deposition of Richard II.," which has been published by the Camden Society, is now ascribed to the same author. The best modern work on Richard II. is that of M. Wallon (" Richard II." Paris, 1864).] All the darker and sterner aspects of the age which we have been viewing, its social revolt, its moral and religious awakening, the misery of the poor, the protest of the Lollard, are painted with a terrible fidelity in the poem of William Longland. Nothing brings more vividly home to us the social chasm which in the fourteenth century severed the rich from the poor than the contrast between the " Com- plaint of Piers the Ploughman " and the " Canterbury Tales." The world of wealth and ease and laughter through which the courtly Chaucer moves with eyes downcast as in a pleasant dream is a far-off world of wrong and of ungodliness to the gaunt poet of the poor. Born probably in Shropshire, where he had been put to school and received minor orders as a clerk, " Long Will," as Longland was nicknamed for his tall stature, found his way at an early age to London, and earned a miserable livelihood there by singing "placebos" and "diriges" in the stately funerals of his day. Men took the moody clerk for a Sec. v. Richard THE Second 1381 TO 1300 Fiers the Plough- ) '.:] ' \ : ' ' v^ '11^ :' ^■f . : I 4 ' It 256 Sec. V. Richard THE Second 1381 TO 1399 [ 1362-180 i HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. madman ; his bitter poverty quickened the defiant pride that made him loth — as he tells us — to bow to the gay lords and dames who rode decked in silver and minivere along the Cheap, or to exchange a " God save you " with the law sergeants as he passed their new house in the Temple. His world is the world of the poor : he dwells on the poor man's Hfe, on his hunger and toil, his rough revelry and his despair, with the narrow intensity of a man who has no outlook beyond it. The narrowness, the misery, the monotony of the life he paints reflect themselves in his verse. It is only here and there tliat a love of nature or a grim earnestness of wrath quicken his rime into poetry ; there is not a gleam of the bright human sympathy of Chaucer, of his fresh delight in the gaiety, the tenderness, the daring of the world about him, of his picturesque sense of even its coarsest contrasts, of his delicate irony, of his courtly wit. The cumbrous allegory, the tedious platitudes, the rimed texts from Scripture which form the staple of Longland's work, are only broken here and there by phrases of a shrewd common sense, by bitter outbursts, by pictures of a broad Hogarthian humour. What chains one to the poem is its deep under- tone of sadness : the world is out of joint and the gaunt rimer who stalks silently along the Strand has no faith in his power to put it right. His poem covers indeed an age of shame and suffering such as England had never known, for if its first brief sketch appeared two years after the Peace of Brdtigny its completion may be dated at the close of the reign of Edward the Third, and its final issue preceded but by a single year the Peasant Revolt. Londoner as he is, Will's fancy flies far from the sin and suffering of the great city to a May- morning in the Malvern Hills. " I was wery forwandered and went me to rest under a broad bank by a burn side, and as I lay and leaned and looked in the water I slumbered in a sleeping, it sweyved (sounded) so merry." Just as Chaucer gathers the typical figures of the world he saw into his pilgrim train, so the dreamer gathers into a wide field his army of traders and chafferers, of hermits and solitaries, of minstrels, " japers and jinglers," bidders and beggars, ploughmen that " in setting and in sowing swonken (toil) full hard," pilgrims " with their wenches after," weavers and labourers, burgess and bondman, lawyer and scrivener, court-haunting bishops, friars, and pardoners "parting the silver " with the parish priest. Their pilgrimage is not to Can- terbury, but to Truth ; their guide to Truth neither clerk nor priest but Peterkin the Ploughman, whom they find ploughing in his field. He it is who bids the knight no more wrest gifts from his tenant nor misdo with the poor. " Though he be thine underling here, well may hap in heaven that he be worthier set and with more bliss than thou. . . . For in charnel at church churles be evil to know, or a knight from a knave there." The gospel of equality is backed by the gospel of labour. .The aim of the Ploughman is to v.] work, and as he warr idlest to t the wastei labour Lo political ar which was a famous any rate ] the people claims a r; God sends sings as a only in a < trial, and t waking life upon— he t in the clos followed b amidst the Pride and f ilgrim sta The strif the fiercer of Laboun employer j their imme restricting 1 During the out so rapic years after purchase i have been statement ii the workin Longland < disdained or fish, friec The market "and but if lie was mad to its norn] Hunger wa against his win while yi t [chap. made rode "God in the d poor espair, ond it. reflect iove of )oetry ; , of his i world asts, of ry, the rm the phrases 1 broad • under- ler who D put it such as red two I at the receded 3, Will's May- id went I leaned ounded) vorld he field his instrels, 1 setting kvenches ^er and parting to Can- )r priest lis field. tenant ig here, are bliss evil to ahty is an is to v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 457 work, and to make the world work with him. He warns the labourer as he warns the knight. Hunger is God's instrument in bringing the idlest to toil, and Hunger waits to work her will on the idler and the waster. On the eve of the great struggle between wealth and labour Longland stands alone in his fairness to both, in his shrewd political and religious common sense. In the face of the popular hatred which was to gather round John of Gaunt, he paints the Duke in a famous apologue as the cat who, greedy as she might be, at any rate keeps the noble rats from utterly devouring the mice of the people. Though the poet is loyal to the Church, he pro- claims a righteous life to be better than a host of indulgences, and God sends His pardon to Piers when priests dispute it. But he sings as a man conscious of his loneliness and without hope. It is only in a dream that he sees Corruption, " Lady Mede," brought to trial, and the world repenting at the preaching of Reason. In the waking life Reason finds no listeners. The poet himself is looked upon — he tells us bitterly — as a madman. There is a terrible despair in the close of his later poem, where the triumph of Christ is only followed by the reign of Antichrist ; where Contrition' slumbers amidst the revel of Death and Sin ; and Conscience, hard beset by Pride and Sloth, rouses himself with a last effort, and seizing his pilgrim staff wanders over the world to find Piers Ploughman. The strife indeed which Longland would have averted raged only the fiercer after the repression of the Peasant Revolt. The Statutes of Labourers, effective as they proved in sowing hatred between employer and employed, between rich and poor, were powerless for their immediate ends, either in reducing the actual rate of wages or in restricting the mass of floating labour to definite areas of employment. During the century and a half after the Peasant Revolt villeinage died out so rapidly that it became a rare and antiquated thing. A hundred years after the Black Death the wages of an English labourer could purchase iwice the amount of the necessaries of life which could have been obtained for the wages paid under Edward the Third. The statement is corroborated by the incidental descriptions of the life of the working classes which we find in Piers Ploughman. Labourers, Longland tells us, " that have no land to live on but their hands disdained to live on penny ale or bacon, but demanded fresh flesh or fish, fried or baked, and that hot and hotter for chilling of their maw." The market was still in fact in the labourer's hands, in spite of statutes ; " and but if he be highly hired else will he chide and wail the time that he was made a workman." The poet saw clearly that as population rose to its normal rate times such as these would pass away. " Whiles Hunger was their master here would none of them chide or strive against /it's statute, so sternly he looked : and I warn you, workmen, win while ye may, for Hunger hitherward hasteth him fast." But even S Sec. V. Richard THE Second 1381 TO 1399 The Social Strife I., '^^ il "H;, t -liii^ '■ ■■'■ 4^ I'-'B^ j A-t iSa mi H^'^ ii 'i ii. ^^'^ 258 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. V. Richard THE Second laai TO 1399 1381 LoUardry at the time when he wrote there were seasons of the year during which employment for the floating mass of labour was hard to find. In the long interval between harvest-tide and harvest-tide, work and food were alike scarce in the mediaeval homestead. " I have no penny," says Piers the Ploughman in such a season, in lines which give us the picture of a farm of the day, " pullets for to buy, nor neither geese nor pigs, but two green cheeses, a few curds and cream, and an oaten cake, and two loaves of beans and bran baken for my children. I have no salt bacon, nor no cooked meat collops for to make, but I have; parsley and leeks and many cabbage plants, and eke a cow and a calf, and a cart-mare to draw a-field my dung while the drought lasteth, and by this livelihood we must all live till Lammas-tide (August), and by that I hope to have harvest in my croft." But it was not till Lammas-tide that high wages and the new corn bade " Hunger go to sleep," and during the long spring and summer the free labourer, and the "waster that will not work but wander about, that will eat no bread but me finest wheat, nor drink but of the best and brownest ale," was a source of social and political danger. " He grieveth him against God and grudgeth against Reason, and then curseth he the King and all his Council after such law to allow labourers to grieve." The terror of the landowners expressed itself in legislation which was a fitting sequel to the Statutes of Labourers. They forbade the child of any tiller of the soil to be apprenticed in a town. They prayed Richard to ordain "that no bondman or bondwoman shall place their children at school, as has been done, so as to advance their children in the world by their going into the Church." The new colleges which were being founded at the two Universities at this moment closed their gates upon villeins. It was the failure of such futile efforts to effect their aim which drove the energy of the great proprietors into a new direction, and in the end revolutionized the whole agricultural system of the country. Sheep-farming required fewer hands than tillage, and the scarcity and high price of labour tended to throw more and more land into sheep-farms. In the decrease of personal service, as villeinage died away, it became the interest of the lord to diminish the number of tenants on his estate as it had been before his interest to maintain it, and he did this by massing the small allotments together into larger holdings. By this course of eviction the number of the free-labour class was enormously increased while the area of employment was diminished ; and the social danger from vagabondage and the " sturdy beggar " grew every day greater till it brought about the despotism of the Tudors. This social danger mingled with the yet more formidable religious peril which sprang from the party violence of the later LoUardry. The persecution of Courtenay had deprived the religious reform of its v.] more learr Wyclif s di been done ceased to 1 a general « the times f of the peas hatred of tl the fanatici hostility tc religion foi of organiza made it pe men becan schools, its hand to h; "Golias"ii were sung a later tim( of the causi London in i a Lollard p the pulpit o the influen( with the m( ness of the he arrestee through the of the new gerous to tl and system which bore itself, a fait truth. The a canon of '. folk and wc themselves, drawing w( declared to priesthood, attempted 1 cution. Th pretension c persecution procured th [chap. g which In the nd food penny," e us the 2r geese in oaten dren. I It I have; y and a drought mas-tide ft." But ew corn summer : wander rink but political against iter such idowners Statutes oil to be "that no jl, as has eir going ed at the eins. It ch drove id in the country, scarcity land into lage died umber of lintain it, to larger ee-labour nent was ; " sturdy potism of religious dry. The m of its v.] THE HUNDUEn YEARS' WAR. more learned adherents and of the support of the Universities, while Wyclif s death had robbed it of its head at a moment when little had been done save a work of destruction. From that moment I.oUardry ceased to be in any sense an organized movement, and crumbled into a general spirit of revolt. All the religious and social discontent of the times floated instinctively to this new centre ; the socialist dreams of the peasantry, the new and keener spirit of personal morality, the hatred of the friars, the jealousy of the great lords towards the prelacy, the fanaticism of the reforming zealot, were blended together in a common hostility to the Church and a common resolve to substitute personal religion for its dogmatic and ecclesiastical system. But it was this want of organization, this looseness and fluidity of the new movement, that made it penetrate through every class of society. Women as well as men became the preachers of the new sect. Lollardry had its own schools, its own books ; its pamphlets were passed everywhere from hand to hand ; scurrilous ballads which revived the old attacks of '* Golias " in the Angevin times upon the wealth and luxury of the clergy were sung at every corner. Nobles, like the Earl of Salisbury, and at a later time Sir John Oldcastle, placed themselves openly at the head of the cause and threw open their gates as a refuge for its missionaries. London in its hatred of tlie clergy became fiercely Lollard, and defended a Lollard preacher who had ventured to advocate the new doctrines from the pulpit of St. Paul's. One of its mayors, John cf Northampton, showed the influence of the new morality by the Puritan spirit in which he dealt with the morals of the city. Compelled to act, as he said, by the remiss- ness of the clergy, who connived for money at every kind of debauchery, he arrested the loose women, cut off their hair, and carted them through the streets as an object of public scorn. But the moral spirit of the new movement, though infinitely its grander side, was less dan- gerous to the Church than its open repudiation of the older doctrines and systems of Christendom. Out of the floating mass of opinion which bore the name of Lollardry one great faith gradually evolved itself, a faith in the sole authority of the Bible as a source of religious truth. The translation of Wyclif did its work. Scripture, complains a canon of Leicester, " became a vulgar thing, and more open to lay folk and women that knew how to read than it is wont to be to clerks themselves." Consequences which Wyclif had perhaps shrunk from drawing were boldly drawn by his disciples. The Church was declared to have become apostate, its priesthood was denounced as no priesthood, its sacraments as idolatry. It was in vain that the clergy attempted to stifle the new movement by their old weapon of perse- cution. The jealousy entertained by the baronage and gentry of every pretension of the Church to secular power foiled its efforts to make persecution effective. At the moment of the Peasant Revolt, Courtenay procured the enactment of a statute which, commissioned the sheriffs to S 2 259 Sec. V. Richard THE Second 1381 TO 1399 I I •HI i' m 1l *'H '% ^r III 'r 1 I l! I' % 266 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. V. Richard THE Second 1381 TO i3e9 1395 The French Wars 13S5 seize all persons convicted before the bishops of preaching heresy. But the statute was repealed in the next session, and the Commons added to the bitterness of the blow by their protest that they considered it " in nowise their interest to be more under the jurisdiction of the prelates or more bound by them than their ancestors had been in times past." Heresy indeed was still a felony by the common law, and if as yet we meet with no instances of the punishment of heretics by the fire it was because the threat of such a death was commonly followed by the recantation of the Lollard. But the restriction of each bishop's jurisdiction within the limits of his own diocese made it almost impossible to arrest the wandering preachers of the new doctrine, and the civil punishment — even if it had been sanctioned by public opinion — seems to have long fallen into desuetude. Experience proved to the prelates that few sheriffs would arrest on the mere warrant of an ecclesi- astical officer, and that no royal court would issue the writ " for the burning of a heretic " on a bishop's requisition. But powerless as the efforts of the Church were for purposes of repression, they were effective in rousing the temper of the Lollards into a bitter fanaticism. The Lollard teachers directed their fiercest invectives against the wealth and secularity of the great Churchmen. In a formal petition to Parlia- ment they mingled denunciations of the riches of the clergy with an open profession of disbelief in transubstantiation, priesthood, pilgrimages, and image worship, and a demand, which illustrates the strange medley of opinions which jostled together in the new movement, that war might be declared unchristian, and that trades such as those of the goldsmith or the armourer, which were contrary to apostolical poverty, might be banished from the realm. They contended (and it is re- markable that a Parliament of the next reign adopted the statement) that from the superfluous revenues of the Church, if once they were applied to purposes of general utility, the King might maintain fifteen earls, fifteen hundred knights, and six thousand squires, besides endowing a hundred hospitals for the relief of the poor. The distress of the landowners, the general disorganization of the country, in every part of which bands of marauders were openly defying the law, the panic of the Church and of society at large as the projects of the Lollards shaped themselves into more daring and revolutionary forms, added a fresh keenness to the national discontent at the languid and inefficient prosecution of the war. The junction of the French and Spanish fleets had made them masters of the seas ; what fragments were left of Guienne lay at their mercy, and the northern frontier of England itself was flung open to France by the alliance of the Scots. The landing of a French force in the Forth roused the whole country to a desperate t.Tort, and a large and well-equipped army of Englishmen penetrated as far as Edinburgh in the vain hope of bringing their enemy to battle. A more terrible blow had been struck in the re- V.] duction of market foi employed the threat > frontier in right, the c Duke had de Vere ai the suppre steady pur the depart his son, th lukewarm Court, and Parliamen impeachec regency fo attempt of measures \ in arms ; i into exile o had pronoi and four 1 hardly a ye to break d( gled so va tell him ho your twent affairs," sal than any v lords, but ] For eight into his har he carried I brought ah 1394 for foil years by a daughter oj to rule by t consulted i pacified Ire his absence Richard sh inconstanc; uncle, the I [chap. heresy, mmons isidered of the Deen in aw, and etics by iiimonly of each t almost ine, and opinion id to the I ecclesi- 'for the IS as the effective [Ti. The ; wealth Parlia- i an open primages, e medley that war se of the poverty, is re- atement) hey were in fifteen besides m of the » openly ge as the ring and iscontent nction of las ; what northern ice of the he whole army of bringing n the re- V.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 261 duction of Ghent by the French troops, and the loss of the one remaining market for English commerce ; while the forces which should have been employed in saving it, and in the protection of the English shores against the threat of invasion, were squandered by John of Gaunt on the Spanish frontier in pursuit of a visionary crown, which he claimed in his wife's right, the daughter of Pedro the Cruel. The enterprise showed that the Duke had now abandoned the hope of directing affairs at home. Robert de Vere and Michael de la Pole, the Earl of Suffolk, had stood since the suppression of the revolt at the head of the royal councils, and their steady purpose was to drive the Duke of Lancaster from power. But the departure of John of Gaunt only called to the front his brother and his son, the Duke of Gloucester and the Earl of Derby ; while the lukewarm prosecution of the war, the profuse expenditure of the Court, and above all the manifest will of the King to free himself from Parliamentary control, estranged the Lower House. The Parliament impeached Suffolk for corruption, and appointed a commission of regency for a year, of which Gloucester was the leading spirit. The attempt of the young King at the close of the session to reverse these measures was crushed by the appearance of Gloucester and his friends in arms ; in the Merciless Parliament a charge of high treason hurried into exile or to death Suffolk with his supporters, the five judges who had pronounced the commission to be in itself illegal were banished, and four members of the royal household sent to the block. But hardly a year had passed when Richard found himself strong enough to break down by a word the government against which he had strug- gled so vainly. Entering the Council he suddenly asked his uncle to tell him how old he was. " Your Highness," replied Gloucester, " is in your twenty-fourth year." " Then I am old enough to manage my own affairs," said Richard coolly. " I have been longer under guardianship than any ward in my realm. I thank you for your past services, my lords, but I need them no longer." For eight years the King wielded the power which thus passed quietly into his hands with singular wisdom and good fortune. 9n the one hand he carried his peace policy into effect by negotiations with France, which brought about a truce renewed year by year till it was prolonged in 1394 for four years, and this period of rest was lengthened for twenty-five years by a subsequent agreement on his marriage with Isabella, the daughter of Charles the Sixth. On the other he announced his resolve to rule by the advice of his Parliament, submitted to its censure, and consulted it on all matters of importance. In a short campaign he pacified Ireland ; and the Lollard troubles which had threatened during his absence died awav on his return. But the brilliant abilities which Richard shared with the rest of the Plantagenets were marred by a fitful inconstancy, an insane pride, and a craving for absolute power. His uncle, the Duke of Gloucester remained at the head of the opposit; n ; Skc. V. Richard THK Sf.i.o.m> 1381 TO 1399 . v»i ' -.Ml I- i v: 1386 1388 1389 Richard the Second 1389-1397 sir* \\ 1 im i : 111 Id ' -i. .,_, . jKJ: ■ , Mil :' * ' ■ ■ - ■ m suarnxusmiti Sec. V. Richard THK Sf.coni) 1381 TO 1309 1397 The Lancas- ■trian Revolu- tion while the King had secured the friendship of John of Gaunt, and of his son Henry, Earl of Derby. The readiness with which Richard seized on an opportunity of provoking a contest shows the bitterness with which during the long years that had passed since the flight of Suffolk he had brooded over his projects of vengeance. The Duke of Glou- cester and the Earls of Arundel and Warwick were arrested on a charge of conspiracy. A Parliament packed with royal partizans was used to crush Richard's opponents. The pardons granted nine years before were recalled ; the commission of regency declared to have been illegal, and its promoters guilty of treason. The blow was ruthlessly followed up. The Duke was saved from a trial by a sudden death in his prison at Calais ; while his chief supporter, Arundel, the Archbishop of Canter- bury, was impeached and banished, and the nobles of his party con- demned to death and imprisonment. The measures introduced into the Parliament of the following year showed that besides his projects of revenge Richard's designs had widened into a definite plan of absolute government. It declared null the proceedings of the Parliament of 1388. He was freed from Parliamentary control by the grant to him of a subsidy upon wool and leather for the term of his life. His next step got rid of Parliament itself. A committee of twelve peers and six commoners was appointed in Parliament, with power to continue their sittings after its dissolution and to " examine and deter- mine all matters and subjects which had been moved in the presence of the King, with all the dependences of those not determined." The aim of Richard was to supersede by means of this permanent commis- sion the body from which it originated : he at once employed it to determine causes and carry out his will, and forced from every tenant of the Crown an oath to recognize the validity of its acts and to oppose any attempts to alter or revoke them. With such an engine at his command the King was absolute, and with the appearance of absolut- ism the temper of his reign suddenly changed. A system of forced loans, the sale of charters of pardon to Gloucester's adherents, the out- lawry of seven counties at once on the plea that they had supported his enemies and must purchase pardon, a reckless interference with the course of justice, roused into new life the social and political discontent which was threatening the very existence of the Crown. By his good government and by his evil government alike, Richard had succeeded in alienating every class of his subjects. He had estranged the nobles by his peace policy, the landowners by his refusal to sanction the insane measures of repression they directed against the labourer, the merchant class by his illegal exactions, and the Church by his want of zeal against the Lollards. Richard himself had no sympathy with the Lollards, and the new sect as a social danger was held firmly at bay. But the royal officers showed little zeal in aiding the bishops to seize or punish the heretical teachers, and v.l Lollardry through tl the tracts native Inn earliest Ic almost al( hatred mi tyranny national d eldest son cousin in his recent these mca the more quarrel be party bar both from of leave w John of G estates. / Richard c organizati exile like absence fo French C( handful of by the Ea] great hou! which gre) Duke of ^ forces joir Haven he landed, an a second f port alrea< Lancaster am betray the hill; « late for ret am come h son. You you have i to rule the you, it plej in the gov* I [chap. d of his :l seized ;ss with Suffolk ^f Glou- i charge used to 3re were gal, and wed up. rison at Canter- rty con- roduced besides definite js of the ►1 by the ' his life. f twelve Dower to id deter- Dresence i." The ;ommis- ed it to y tenant oppose le at his absolut- f forced the out- pported with the scontent Richard He had 5 refusal against and the himself , social ed little ers, and LoUardry found favour in the very precincts of the Court ; it was through the patronage of Richard's first queen, Anne of Bohemia, that the tracts and Bible of the Reformer had been introduced into i,2r native hind, to give rise to the remarkable movement v/hich found its earliest leaders in John Huss and Jerome of Prague. R'chard stood almost alone in fact in his realm, but even this accumulatctl mass of hatred might have failed to crush him hail not an act of jealousy and tyranny placed an able and unscrupulous leader at the head of the national discontent. Henry, Earl of Derby and Uuke of Hereford, the eldest son of John of Gaunt, though he had taken part against his royal cousin in the earlier troubles of his reign, had loyally supported him in his recent measures against Gloucester. No sooner, however, were these measures successful than Richard turned his new power against the more dangerous House of Lancaster, and availing himself of a quarrel between the Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk, in which each party bandied accusations of treason against the other, banished both from the realm. Banishment was soon followed by the annulling of leave which had been given to Henry to receive his inheritance on John of Gaunt's death, and the King himself seized the Lancastrian estates. At the moment when he had thus driven his cousin to despair, Richard crossed into Ireland to complete the work of conquest and organization which he had begun there ; and Archbishop Arundel, an exile like himself, urged the Duke to take advantage of the King's absence for the recovery of his rights. Eluding the vigilance of the French Court, at which he had taken shelter, Henry landed with a handful of men on the coast of Yorkshire, where he was at once joined by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, the heads of the great houses of the Percies and the Nevilles ; and, with an army which grew as he advanced, entered triumphantly into London. The Duke of York, whom the King had left regent, submitted, and his forces joined those of Henry ; and when Richard landed at Milford Haven he found the kingdom lost. His own army dispersed as it landed, and the deserted King fled in disguise to North Wales, to find a second force which the Earl of Salisbury had gathered for his sup- port already disbanded. Invited to a conference with the Duke of Lancaster at Flint, he saw himself surrounded by the rebel forces. " I am betrayed," he cried, as the view of his enemies burst on him from the hill ; " there are pennons and banners in the valley." But it was too late for retreat. Richard was seized and brought before his cousin. " I am come before my time," said Lancaster, " but I will show you the rea- son. Your people, my lord, complain that for the space of twenty years you have ruled them harshly : however, if it please God, I will help you to rule them better." " Fair - ousin," replied the King, " since it pleases you, it pleases me well." F ut Henry's designs went far beyond a share in the government of the realm. The Parliament which assembled in Skc. v. Richard TIIK SK(()Nr> 1381 ro 1399 i»:!.| 1399 :|l I I \\ Si k^ - M ',] l.:ll 264 HISTORY OF THE KNGLISH rKOPLK. [ciiAr, ki Sfc. V. KlCHAKl) TMK SkiOND 1381 TO 1399 ! Westminster Hall received with shouts of applause a formal paper in which Richard resigned the crown as one incapable of reigning and worthy for his great demerits to be deposed. 'I'he resignation was con- firmed by a solemn Act of Deposition. The coronation oath was read, and a long impeachment, which stated the breach of the promises made in it, >.'as followed by a solemn vote of both Houses which removed Richard from the state and authority of King. According to the strict rules of hereditary descent as construed by the feudal lawyers, by an assumed analogy with the descent of ordinary estates, the crown would now have passed to a house which had at an earlier period played a leading part in the revolutions of the Edwards. The great grandson of the Mortimer who brought about the deposition of Edward the Second had married the daughter and heiress of Lionel of Clarence, the third son of Edward the Third. The childlessness of Richard and the death of Edward's second son without issue placed Edmund, his grandson by this marriage, first among the claimants of the crown ; but he was a child of six years old, the strict rule of hereditarj^ descent had never received any formal recognition in the case of the crown, and precedent had established the right of Parliament to choose in such a case a successor among any other members of the Royal House. Only one such successor was in fact possible. Rising from his seat and crossing himself, Henry of Lancaster solemnly challenged the crown " as that I am descended by right line of blood coming from ti:e good lord King Henry the Third, and through that right that God of Hii: grace hath sent me with help of my kin and of my friends to recover it : ihe which realm was in point to be undone for default of governance and undoing of good laws." Whatever defects such a claim might present were more than covered by the solemn recognition of Parliament. The two Archbishops, taking the new sovereign by the hand, seated him upon the throne, and Henry in emphatic words ratified the compact between himself and his people. " Sirs," he said to the prelates, lords, knights, and burgesses gathered round him, " I thank God and you, spiritual and temporal, and all estates of the land : and do you to wit it is not my will that any man think that by way of conquest I would disinherit any of his heritage, franchises, or other rights that he ought to have, nor put him out of the good that he has and has had by the good laws and customs of the realm, except those persons that have been against the good purpose and the common profit of the realm." Section VI.— The House of Lancaster, 1399—1422. [Authorities. — For Henry IV. the *' Annales Henrici Quarti" and Walsing- ham, as before. For his successor, the "Acta Henrici Quinti " by Titus Livius, a chaplain in the royal army (English Historical Society) ; a life by Elmham, Prior of Lenton. simpler in style but identical in arrangement and facts with v.] the form Elmham meagre « importnn M. Puise vigorous in his " I Raisec claims o by its v« pendenc effort of were the of Henr compliai successo the CroM constitut the hope Church h The last his reigr ordered 1 of the wa Statute o provision neutralize they pern fected wit and to irr a refusal over the 1 enactmen was to be hardly pa its first vi( to the flai transubstj cantation, offer of lif and he w the fierce revolts wh of his po\ of the Kii of Huntin: CIIAI*. per in g and IS ron- i read, amises which ording feudal estates, earlier . The tosition ■ Lionel mess of placed lants of rule of in the right of y other in fact incaster »ht line through kin and undone defects solemn he new [enry in people, fathered land all [ny man heritage, out of stoms of good v.l THE HUNnRFD YEARS' WAR. 265 raising- |s Livius, i^lmham, icts with the former work ; a hiopraphy by Robert Ree Fifth on his accession declared his purpose of renewing the war. No claim could have been more utterly baseless, for the Parliamentary title by which the House of Lancaster held England could give it no right over France, and the strict law of hereditary succession which Edward asserted could be pleaded, if pleaded at all, only by the House of Mortimer. Not only the claim, indeed, but the very nature of the war itself was wholly different from that of Edward the Third. Edward had been forced into the struggle against his will by the ceaseless attacks of France, and his claim of the crown was a mere afterthought to secure the alliance of Flanders. The war of Henry, on the other hand, though in form a renewal of the earlier struggle on the expira- tion of the truce made by Richard the Second, was in fact a wanton aggression on the part of a nation tempted by the helplessness of its opponent and galled by the memory of former defeat. Its one excuse Sec. VI. The House of Lancaster 1399 TO 1422 I418 Agin- court ' H ii- : 1412 ' \i '■ I ■ V !'i i^. f ' r fi l^ A it 268 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Skc. VI. Thk House of ILancaster 1399 TO 1422 Agincourt Oct. 25, I415 indeed lay in the attacks which France for the past fifteen years had directed against the Lancastrian throne, its encouragement of every enemy without and of every traitor within, in ihe summer of 141 5 the King sailed for the Norman coast, and his first exploit was the capture of HarflC'ir. Dysentery made havoc in his ranks during the siege, and it was with a mere handful of men that he resolved to insult the enemy by a daring march, like that of Edward, upon Calais. The discord, however, on which he probably reckoned for security, vanished before the actual appearance of the invaders in the heart of France ; and when his weary and half-starved force succeeded in crossing the Somme, it found sixty thousand Frenchmen encamped on the field of Agincourt right across its line of march. Their position, flanked on either side by woods, but with a front so narrow that the dense masses were drawn up thirty men deep, was strong for purposes of defence but ill suited for attack ; and the French leaders, warned by the experience of Crdcy and Poitiers, resolved to await the English advance. Henry, on the other hand, had no choice between attack and unconditional surrender. His troops were starving, and the way to Calais lay across the French army. But the King's courage rose with the peril. A knight in his train wished that the thousands of stout warriors lying idlft that night in England had been sta ding in his ranks. Henry answered with a burst of scorn. " I would not have a single man more,'' he replied. ' If God give us the victory, it will be plain that we owe it to His grace. If not, the fewer we are, the less loss for England." Starving and sick as were the handful of men whom he led, they shared the spirit of their leader. As the chill rainy night passed away, his archers bared their arms and breasts to give fair play to " the crooked stick and the grey goose wing," but for which — as the rime ran — " England were but a fling," and with a great shout sprang forward to the attack. The sight of their advance roused the fiery pride of the French ; the wise resolve of their leaders was forgotten, and the dense mass of men-at-arms plunged heavily forward through miry ground on the English front. But at the first sign of movement Henry had halted his line, and fixing in the ground the sharpened stakes with which each man was furnished, his archers poured their fatal arrow flights into the hostile ranks. The carnage was terrible, but the desperate charges of the French knighthood at last drove the English archers to the neighbouring woods, from which they were still able to pour their shot into the enemy's flanks, while Henry, with the men-at-arms around him, flung himself on the French line. In the terrible struggle which followed the King bore off the palm of bravery: he was felled once by a blow from a French mace, and the crown on his helmet was cleft by the sword of the Duke of Alengon ; but the enemy was at last broken, and the defeat of the main body of the French was followed at once by the rout of their reserve. The triumph was V.J more ( thousa prince The Englis Calais for the strife h resume his ain: provide or sim] with w] ofmilit the mot Bayeux Duke c Avrancl hands, \ de-l'Arc masterlj the larg defende resolute populati thousan equal to himself mandy, sea, anc the side investme Harfleur the deep perate sa Rouen of count thousand policy of between women were dra to die on itself. A "War,"s, i v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 269 more complete, as the odds were even greater, than at Crdcy. Eleven thousand Frenchmen lay dead on the field, and more than a hundred princes and great lords were among the fallen. The immediate result of the battle of Agincourt was small, for the English army was too exhausted for pursuit, and it made its way to Calais only to return to England. The war was limited to a contest for the command of the Channel, till the increasing bitterness of the strife between the Burgundians and Armagnacs encouraged Henry to resume his attempt to recover Normandy. . Whatever may have been his aim in this enterprise — whether it were, as has been suggested, to provide a refuge for his house, should its power be broken in England, or simply to acquire a command of the seas — the patience and skill with which his object was accomplished raise him high in the rank of military leaders. Disembarking with an army of 40,000 men. near the mouth of the Touque, he stormed Caen, received the surrender of Bayeux, reduced Alen^on and Falaise, and detaching his brother the Duke of Gloucester to occupy the Cotentin, made himself master of Avranches and Domfront. With Lower Normandy wholly in his hands, he advanced upon Evreux, captured Louviers, and, seizing Pont- de-1'Arche, threw his troops across the Seine. The end of these masterly movements was now revealed. Rouen was at this time the largest and wealthiest of the towns of France ; its walls were defended by a powerful artillery ; Alan Blanchard, a brave and resolute patriot, infused the are of his own temper into the vast population ; and the garrison, already strong, was backed by fifteen thousand citizens in arms. But the genius of Henry was more than equal to the difficulties with which he had to deal. He had secured himself from an attack on his rear by the reduction of Lower Nor- mandy, his earlier occupation of Harfleur severed the town from the sea, and his conquest of Pont-de-l'Arche cut it off from relief on the side of Paris. Slowly but steadily the King drew his lines of investment round the doomed city ; a flotilla was brought up from Harfleur, a bridge of boats thrown over the Seine above the town, the deep trenches of the besiegers protected by posts, and the des- perate sallies of the garrison stubbornly beaten back. For six months Rouen held resolutely out, but famine told fast on the vast throng of country folk who had taken refuge within its walls. Twelve thousand of these were at last thrust out of the city gates, but the cold policy of the conqueror refused them passage, and they perished between the trenches and the walls. In the hour of their agony women gave birth to infants, but even the new-born babes which were drawn up in baskets to receive baptism were lowered again to die on their mothers' breasts. It was little better within the town itself. As winter drew on one-half of the population wasted away. " War," said the terrible King, " has three handmaidens ever waiting Sec. VI. Tfe H0US.I OF Lancaster 1390 TO 14>22 The Conquest of Nor- mandy 1417 1418 1. ■ ,i>fe' ; 1 2J0 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. VI.] Sec. VI. The Hoi/SE OF II.ANCASTER 1399 TO 1422 The JConquest iof France 1419 II 1420 1422 on her, Fire, Blood, and Famine, and I have chosen the meekest maid of the three." But his demand of unconditional surrender nerveu the citizens to a resolve of despair ; they determined to fire the city and fling themselves in a mass on the English lines ; and Henry, fearful lest his prize should escape him. at the last, was; driven to offer terms. Those who rejected a foreign yoke were suffered to leave the city, bat his vengeance reserved its victim in Alan Blanchard, and the brave patriot was at Henry's orders put to death in cold blood. A few sieges completed the reduction of Normandy. The King's designs were still limited to the acquisition of that province ; and pausing in his career of conquest, he strove to win its loyalty by a remission of taxation and a redress of grievances, and to seal its possession by a formal peace with the French Crown. The confer- ences, however, which were held for this purpose at Pontoise failed through the temporary reconciliation of the French factions, while the length and expense of the war began to rouse remonstrance and discontent at home. The King's difficulties were at their height when the assassination of the Duke of Burgundy at Montereau, in the very presence of the Dauphin with whom he had come to hold conference, rekindled the fires of civil strife. The whole Burgundian party, with the new Duke, Philip the Good, at its head, flung itself in a wild thirst for revenge into Henry's hands. The mad King, Charles the Sixth, with his Queen and daughters, were in Philip's power ; and in his resolve to exclude the Dauphin from the throne the Duke stooped to buy English aid by giving Catharine, the eldest of the French princesses, in marriage to Heniy, by conferring on him the Regency during the life of Charles, and by recognizing his succession to the crown at that sovereign's death. The treaty was solemnly ratified by Charles himself in a conference at Troyes, and Henry, who in his new capacity of Regent had undertaken to conquer in the name of his father-in-law the territory held by the Dauphin, reduced the towns of the Upper Seine and entered Paris in triumph side by side with the King. The States-General of the realm were solemnly convened to the capital ; and strange as the provisions of the Treaty of Troyes must have seemed, they were confirmed without a murmur, and Henry was formally recognized as the future sovereign of France. A defeat of his brother Clarence in Anjou called him back to the war. His reappearance in the field was marked by the capture of Dreux, and a repulse before Orleans was redeemed by his success in the long and obstinate siege of Meaux. At no time had the fortunes of Henry reached a higher pitch than at the moment when he felt the touch of death. But the rapidity of his disease baffled the skill of physicians, and with a strangely characteristic regret that he had not lived to achieve the conquest of Jerusalem, the great conqueror passed away. • • r (• ! I . "De R give air remains Jeanne ( real autl meagre t Chronicl favoiu- of ator is o: York, lh( him fairh copious r but of lai and Rymi in his "I at once e the Hous [Dr. S pages wei At th greatnes: had won prowess, Poitiers. foreign c^ and of SI estates ol promised But tht veiled at Crown wl rity of H father's c after-rule, But the P VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. ... .!. ' ' CHAPTER VI. : THE NEW MONARCHY. *' 14-22-1540. Section I.— Joan of Arc, 1422— 14-51. [Authorities. — The " Wars of the English in France," and Blondel's work **De Reductione Normannise," both published by the Master of the Rolls, give ample information on the military side of this period. Monstrelet remains our chief source of knowledge on the French side. The '* Proces de Jeanne d'Arc " (published by the Societe de I'Histoire de France) is the only real authority for her history. For English affairs we are reduced to the meagre accounts of William of Worcester, of the Continuator of the Crowland Chronicle, and of Fabyan. Fabyan, a London alderman with a strong bias in favour of tue House of Lancaster, is useful for London only. The Continu- ator is one of the best of his class, and though connected with the House of York, the date of his work, which appeared soon after Bosworth Field, makes him fairly impartial ; but he is sketchy and deficient in actual facts. The more copious narrative of Polydore Vergil is far superior to these in literary ability, but of later date and strongly Lancastrian in tone. The Rolls of Parliament and Rymer's ' ' Foedera " are of high value. Among modern writers M. Michelet, in his "History of France " (vol. v.), has given a portrait of the Maid of Orleans at once exact and full of a tender poetry. Lord Brougham (" England under the House of Lancaster") is still useful on constitutional points.] [Dr. Stubbs' "Constitutional History," vol. iii., published since these pages were written, illustrates this period. — Ed.'\ At the moment when death so suddenly stayed his course the greatness of Henry the Fifth had reached its highest point. He had won the Church by his orthodoxy, the nobles by his warlike prowess, the whole people by his revival of the glories of Cregy and Poitiers. In France his cool policy had transformed him from a foreign conqueror into a legal heir to the crown ; his title of Regent and of successor to the throne rested on the formal recognition of the estates of the realm ; and his progress to the very moment of his death promised a speedy mastery of the whole country. But the glory of Agincourt and the genius of Henry the 7ifth hardly veiled at the close of his reign the weakness and humiliation of the Crown when the succession passed to his infant son. The long mino- rity of Henry the Sixth, who was a boy of nine months old at his father's death, as well as the personal weakness which m.arked his after-rule, left the House of Lancaster at the mercy of the Parliament. But the Parliament was fast dying down into a mere representation 27! Ti. ItcJ J \\\ ::i % li \ 1 ' EB r .f. Disfran- chise- ment of tbe Com.- mons ■ '1 272 HISTORY OF' THE ENGLISH PEOPLK. [chap. VI.J Sec. I. Joan ok Arc TO 1451 Restriction ^of Borough Freedom «'' Restriction of County Franchise of the baronage and the great landowners. The Commons indeed retained the right of granting and controlling subsidies, of joining in all statutory enactments, and of impeaching ministers. But the Lower House was ceasing to be a real representative of the " Com- mons " whose name it bore. The b'^rough franchise was suffering from the general tendency to restriction and privilege which in the bulk of towns was soon to reduce it to a mere mockery. Up to this time all freemen settling in a borough and paying their dues to it became by the mere settlement its burgesses ; but from the reign of Henry the Sixth this largeness of borough life was roughly curtailed. The trade companies which vindicated civic freedom from the tyranny of the older merchant gilds themselves tended to become a narrow and exclusive oligarchy. Most of the boroughs had by this time acquired civic property, and it was with the aim of securing their own enjoyment of this against any share of it by "strangers" that the existing burgesses, for the most part, procured charters of incorporation from the Crown, which turned them into a close body, and excluded from their number all who were not burgesses by birth or who failed henceforth to purchase their right of entrance by a long apprenticeship. In addition to this narrowing of the burgess-body, the internal government of the boroughs had almost universally passed, since the failure of the Communal move- ment in the thirteenth century, from the free gathering of the citizens in borough-mote into the hands of Common Councils, either self- elected or elected by the wealthier burgesses ; and it was to these councils, or to a yet more restricted number of " select men " belonging to them, that clauses in the new charters generally confined the right of choosing their representatives in Parliament. It was with this restriction that the long process of degradation began which ended in reducing the representation of our boroughs to a mere mockery. Great nobles, neighbouring landowners, the Crown itself seized on the boroughs as their prey, and dictated the choice of their repre- sentatives. Corruption did whatever force failed to do ; and from the Wars of the Roses to the days of Pitt the voice of the people had to be looked for, not in the members for the towns, but in the knights of the counties. The restriction of the county franchise on the other hand was the direct work of the Parliament itself. Economic changes were fast widening the franchise in the counties. The number of freeholders increased with the subdivision of estates and the social changes which we have already examined, while the increase of independence was marked by the "riots and divisions between the gentlemen and other people," which the statesmen of the day attributed to the excessive number of the voters. In many counties the power of the great lords undoubtedly enabled them to control elections through the number of their retainers. In Cade's revolt the Kentisi men complained that " the people of the shire are not allo) the shirt nobles < people b was prin the Sixtl holding least iviQ. income a has been " of no equivaler the same in a far convey. Sheriff's ( but by tl leasehold! prived of have had the social every Kni The dea of power, in a counc baronage, a legitimal ford. In at this tim section of enoriTJous heretics an of the stea< nine years Gloucester repressing against the iike a taint with Franc work on th( more than farms, the < greed of ga in their ran anxiety of t VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 273 right not allowed to have their free elections in the choosing of knights for the shire, but letters have been sent from divers estates to the great nobles of the county, the which enforceth their tenants and other people by force to choose other persons than the common will is." It was primarily to check this aiuse that a statute of the reign of Henry the Sixth restricted in 1430 the right of voting in shires to freeholders holding land worth forty shillings (a sum equal in our money to at least twenty pounds) a year, a:A representing a far higher proportional income at the present time. This "great disfranchising statute," as it has been justly termed, was aimed, in its own words, against voters " of no value, whereof every of them pretended to have a voice equivalent with the more worthy knights and esquires dwelling within the same counties." But in actual working the statute was interpreted in a far more destructive fashion than its words were intended to convey. Up to this time all suitors who found themselves at the Sheriff's Court had voted without question for the Knight of the Shire, but by the new statute the great bulk of the existing voters, every leaseholder and every copyholder, found themselves implicitly de- prived of their franchise. A later statute, which seems, however, to have had no practical effect, showed the aristocratic temper, as well as the social changes against which it struggled, in its requirement that every Knight of the Shire should be " a gentleman born." The death of Henry the Fifth revealed in its bare reality the secret of power. The whole of the royal authority vested without a struggle in a council composed of great lords and Churchmen representing the baronage, at whose head stood Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, a legitimated son of John of Gaunt by his mistress Catharine Swyn- ford. In the presence of Lollardry and socialism, the Church had at this time ceased to be a great political power and sunk into a mere section of the landed aristocracy. Its one aim was to preserve its enonnous wealth, which was threatened at once by the hatred of the heretics and by vhe greed of the nobles. Lollardry still lived, in spite of the steady persecution, as a spirit of religious and moral revolt ; and nine years after the young King's accession we find the Duke of Gloucester traversing England with men-at-arms for the purpose of repressing its risings and hindering the circulation of its invectives against the clergy. The violence and anarchy which had always clung like a taint to the baronage had received a new impulse from the war with France. Long before the struggle was over it had done its fatal work on the mood of the English noble. His aim had become little more than a lust for gold, a longing after plunder, after the pillage of farms, the sack of cities, the ransom of captives. So intense was the greed of gain that only a threat of death could keep the fighting men in their ranks, and the results of victory after victory were lost by the anxiety of the conquerors to deposit their plunder and captives safely Sec. I. JOAN OK Arc 142a TO 1451 England under the Nobles ■;- w So «J ■SI A. :« i i ..K)' 274 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. vi.J I f i ij' i ii Sec. I. Joan op Arc 1402 TO 1451 Joan of Arc at home. The moment the firm hand of great leaders such as Henry the Fifth or Bedford was removed, the war died down into mere massacre and brigandage. " If God had been a captain now-a-days," exclaimed a French general, " He would have turned marauder." The nobles were as lawless and dissolute at home as they were greedy and cruel abroad. The Parliaments, which became mere sittings of their retainers and partizans, were like armed camps to which the great lords came with small armies at their backs. That of 1426 received its name of the " Club Parliament," from the fact that when arms were prohibited the retainers of the barons appeared with clubs on their shoulders. When clubs were forbidden, they hid stones and balls of lead in their clothes. The dissoluteness against which Lollardry had raised its great moral protest reigned nor without a check. A gleam of intellectual light was breakin^: on the darkness of the time, but only to reveal its hideous con,bination of mental energy with moral worthlessness. The Uuke of Gloucester, whose love of letters was shown in the noble library he collected, was the most selfish and profligate prince of his day. The Earl of Worcester, a patron of Caxton, and one of the earliest scholars of the Revivpl of Letters, earned his title of "butcher" by the cruelty which raised him t"» a pre-eminence of infamy among the bloodstained leaders of the Wars of the Roses. All spiritual life seemed to have been trodden out in the ruin of the Lollards. Never had English literature fallen so low. A few tedious moralists alone preserved the name of poetry. History died down into the barest and most worthless fragments and annals. Even the religious enthusiasm of the people seemed to have spent itself, or to have been crushed out by the bishops' courts. The one belief of the time was in sorcery and magic. Eleanor Cobham, the wife of the Duke of Gloucester, was convicted of having practised magic against the King's life witl' a priest, and condemned to do penance in the streets of I ondon. The mist which wrapped the battle-field of Barnet was a' tribute d to the incantations of Friar Bungay. The one pure figure which rises out 01 the greed, the lust, the selfishness, and unbelief of the time, the figure of Joan of Ar^ , was regarded by the doctors and priests who judged her as that of a sorceress. Jeanne d'Arc was the child of a labourer of Domrdmy, a little village in the neighbourhood of Vaucouleurs on the borders of Lorraine and Champagne. Just without the cottage where she was b"»rn began the great woods of the Vosges, where the children of Domremy drank in poetry and legend from fairy ring and haunted well, hung their flower garlands on the sacred trees, and sang songs to the "good people " who might not drink of the fountain because of their sins. Jeunne loved the forest ; its birds and beasts came lovingly to her at her childish call. But at home men saw nothing in her but " a good girl, simple and pleasant in her ways/' spinning and sewing by her mothi and s passit by th( of Ki broug Charl( Sover( ruled ; forced Scots Loire \ brothei genius Henry his alli pleted 1 with N the line into the Constat borders But a r€ of the F to cross the Duk in Engl Council, invested in the N Countes! married < thejealo- J^uke of drawal o his broth struggle remain s to him th Beaufort money m England forward l little help of the alli [CIIAP. Henry Lssacre I aimed nobles d cruel itainers s came lame of )hibited oulders. in their its great ellectual eveal its 5s. The tie noble ce of his le of the title of nence of le Roses, lin of the w tedious led down Even the self, or to ief of the ife of the ic against ce in the of Barnet one pure [ness, and Led by the VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 275 mother's side while the other girls went to the fields, tender to the poor and sick, fold of church, and listening to the church-bell with a dreamy passion of delight which never left her. The quiet life was soon broken by the storm of war as it at last came home to Domreiny. The death of King Charles, which followed hard on that of Henry the Fifth, brought little change. The Dauphin at once proclaimed himselif Charles the Seventh of France : but Henry the Sixth was owned as Sovereign over the whole of the territory which Charles had actually ruled ; and the incursions which the partizans of Charles, now rein- forced by Lombard soldiers from the Milanese and by four thousand Scots under the Earl of Douglas, made with fresh vigour across the Loire were easily repulsed by Duke John of Bedford, the late King's brother, who had been named in his will Regent of France. In genius for war as in political capacity John was hardly inferior to Henry himself. Drawing closer by marriage and patient diplomacy his alliances with the Dukes of Burgundy and Britanny, he com- pleted the conquest of Northern France, secured his communications with Normandy by the capture of Meulan, made himself master of the line of the Yonne by a victory near Auxerre, and pushed forward into the country near MAcon. It was to arrest his progress ihaX the Constable of Buchan advanced boldly from the Loire to the very borders of Normandy and attacked the English army at Verneuil. But a repulse hardly less disastrous than that of Agincourt left a third of the French knighthood on the field ; and the Regent was preparing to cross the Loire when he was hindered by the intrigues of his brother the Duke of Gloucester. The nomination of Gloucester to the Regency in England by the will of the late King had been set aside by the Council, and sick of the powerless Protectorate with which they had invested him, the Duke sought a new opening for his restless ambition in the Netherlands, where he supported the claims of Jacqueline, the Countess in her own right of Holland and Hainault, whom he had married on her divorce from the Duke of Brabant. His enterprise roused thejealo Msyof the Duke of Burgundy, who regarded himself as heir to the Duke of Brabant, and the efforts of Bedford were paralyzed by the with- drawal of his Burgundian allies as they marched northward to combat his brother. Though Gloucester soon returned to England, the ruinous struggle went on for three years, during which Bedford was forced to remain simply on the defensive, till the cessation of war again restored to him the aid of Burgundy. Strife at home between Gloucester and Beanfort had been even more fatal in diverting the supplies of men and money needed for the war in France, but with temporary quiet in England and peace in Holland Bedford was once more able to push forward to the conquest of the South. The delay, however, brought little help to France, and Charles saw Orleans invested by ten thousand of the allies without power to march to its relief. The war had long T 2 Sec. I. Joan op Akc i4.aa TO 1451 r/te DukeoJ Bedford 1424 The Duke 0/ Gloucester, V\ '1 I 1428 \ '^ ^ ■ 1 276 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOI'I.E. (CIIAF. Skc. I. Joan of Akc 1451 The Relief of Orleans since reached the borders of Lorraine. The north of France, indeed, was being fast reduced to a desert. The husbandmen fled for refuge to the towns, till these in fear of famine shut their gates against them. Then in their despair they threw themselves into the woods and became brigands in their turn. So terrible was the devastation, that two hostile bodies of troops at one time failed even to find one another in the desolate Beaucc. The towns were in hardly better case, for misery and disease killed a hundred thousand people in Paris alone. As the outcasts and wounded passed by Domrdmy the young peasant girl gave them her bed and nursed them in their sickness. Her whole nature summed itself up in one absorbing passion : she " had pity," to use the phrase for ever on her lip, " on the fair realm of France." As her passion grew she recalled old prophecies that a maid from the Lorraine border should save the land; she saw visions; St. Michael appeared to her in a flood of blinding light, and bade her go to the help of the King and restore to him his realm. " Messire," answered the girl, " I am but a poor maiden ; I know not how to ride to the wars, or to lead men-at-arms." The archangel returned to give her courage, and to tell her of " the pity " that there was in heaven for the fair realm of France. The girl wept, and longed that the angels who appeared to her would carry her away, but her mission was clear. It was in vain that her father when he heard her purpose swore to drown her ere she should go to the field with men-at-arms. It was in vain that the priest, the wise people of the village, the captain of Vaucouleurs, doubted and refused to aid her. " I must go to the King," persisted the peasant girl, " even if I wear my limbs to the very knees." " I had far rather rest and spin by my mother's side," she pleaded with a touching pathos, " for this is no work of my choosing, but I muse go and do it, for my Lord wills "* " " And who," they asked, " is your Lord ? " " He is God." Words such as these touched the rough captain at last ; he took Jeanne by the hand and swore to lead her to the King. When she reached Chinon she found hesitation and doubt. The theologians proved from their books that they ought not to believe her. '* 1 here is more in God's book than in yours," Jeanne answered simply. At last Charles received her in the midst of a throng of nobles and soldiers. " Gentle Dauphin," said the girl, " my name is Jeanne the Maid. The Heavenly King sends me to tell you that you shall be anointed and crowned in the town of Rheims, and you shall be lieutenant of the Heavenly King who is the King of France." 'i i Orleans had already been driven by famine to offers of surrender when Jeanne appeared in the French Court. Charles had done nothing for its aid but shut himself up at Chinon and weep help- lessly. The long series of English victories had in fact so demoralized the French soldiery that a mere detachment of archers under Sir John Fastolfe had repulsed an army, in what was called the " Battle VI.] of the owed three new } swarm during Englis had ca spell, the vig to nigh charge) banner "athir men-at- only pr; Hire wl God," ] round tl her to IT camp-fir hibition the mid£ crowded and brin them yoi be just a firm as ( Bedford, company you," she "thebes The bes riding roi forts whic generals proportioi till only t to adjoui Jeanne, men-at-ar against th and the scale its the retrea 1 .1'] leed, ;fuge hem. :ame ostile n the \isery lS the i gave \ature se the IS her »rraine peared of the jirl, " I to lead and to ;alm of ared to in vain ere she J priest, loubted peasant rather pathos, for my I" He is last: he When )logians Ihere )ly. At soldiers. lid. The Ited and It of the irrender ltd done |ep help- loralized Inder Sir « Battle VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 277 of the Herrings," and conducted the convoy of provisions to which it owed its name in triumph into the camp before Oilcans. Only three thousand Englishmen remained there in the trenches after a new withdrawal of their Burgundian allies, but though the town swarmed with men-at-arms not a single sally had been ventured upon during the six months' siege. The success however of the handful of English besiegers depended wholly on the spell of terror which they had cast over France, and the appearance of Jeanne at once broke the spell. The girl was in her eighteenth year, tall, finely formed, with all the vigour and activity of her peasant rearing, able to stay from dawn to nightfall on horseback without meat or drink. As she mounted her charger, clad in white armour from head to foot, with the great white banner studded with fleur-de-lys waving over her head, she seemed " a thing wholly divine, whether to see or hear." The ten thousand men-at-arms who followed her from Blois, rough plunderers whose only prayer was that of La Hire, " Sire Dieu, I pray you to do for La Hire what La Hire would do for you, were you captain-at-arms and he God," left off their oaths and foul living at her word and gathered round the altars on their march. Her shrewd peasant humour helped her to manage the wild soldiery, and her followers laughed over their camp-fires at the old warrior who had been so puzzled by her pro- hibition of oaths that she suffered him still to swear by his baton. In the midst of her enthusiasm her good sense never left her. The people crowded round her as she rode along, praying her to work miracles, and bringing crosses and chaplets to be blest by her touch. " Touch them yourself," she said to an old Dame Margaret ; "your touch will be just as good as mine." But her faith in her mission remained as firm as ever. " The Maid prays and requires you," she wrote to Bedford, " to work no more distraction in France, but to come in her company to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the Turk." " I bring you," she told Dunois when he sallied out of Orleans to meet her, "the best aid ever sent to any one, the aid of the King of Heaven." The besiegers looked on overawed as she entered Orleans, and, riding round the walls, bade the people look fearlessly on the dreaded forts which surrounded them. Her enthusiasm drove the hesitating generals to engage tl:e handful of besiegers, and the enormous dis- proportion of forces at once made itself felt. Fort after fort was taken, till only the strongest remained, and then the council of war resolved to adjourn the attack. "You have taken your counsel," replied Jeanne, "and I take mine." Placing herself at the head of the men-at-arms, she ordered the gates to be thrown open, and led them against the fort. Few as they were, the English fought desperately, and the Maid, who had fallen wounded while endeavouring to scale its walls, was borne into a vineyard, while Dunois sounded the retreat. "Wait a while!" the girl imperiously pleaded, "eat Sec. I. Joan ok Arc TO 1451 ll h \- if* 1429 <) WW 27$ HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLK. tcMAP. VI.) Sic I. • Joan ok Arc i4aa TO 14A1 Death of the Maid 1430 and drink ! so soon as my standard touches the wall you shall enter the fort." It touched, and the assail.ints burst in. On the next day the siege was abandoned, and the force which had con- ducted it withdrew in good order to the north. In the midst of her triumph Jeanne still remained the p\ne, tender-hearted peasant girl of the Vosges. Her first visit as she entered Orleans was to the great church, and there, as she knelt at mass, she wept in such a passion of devotion that " all the people wept with her." Her tears burst forth afresh at her first sight of bloodshed and of the corpses strewn over the battle-field. She grew frightened at her first wound, and only threw off the touch of womanly fear when she heard the signal for retreat. Yet more womanly was the purity with which she passed through the brutal warriors of a mediaeval camp. It was her care for her honour that had led her to clothe herself in a soldier's dress. She wept hot tears when told of the foul taunts of the English, and called passionately on God to witness her chastity. " Yield thee, yield thee, Glasdale," she cried to the English warrior whose insults had been foulest, as he fell wc mded at her feet, " you called me harlot ! I have great pity on your soul." But all thought of herself was lost in the thought of her mission. It was in vain that the French generals strove to remain on the Loire. Jeanne was resolute to complete her task, and while the English remained panic-stricken around Paris the army followed her from Gien through Troyes, growing in number as it advanced, till it reached the gates of Rheims. With the coronation of Charles, the Maid felt her errand to be over. " O gentle King, the pleasure of God is done," she cried, as she flung herself at the feet of Charles the Se\enth and asked leave to go home. "Would it were His pleasure," she pleaded with the Archbishop as he forced her to remain, " that I might go and keep sheep once more with my sisters and my brothers : they would be so glad to see me again ! " The policy of the French Court detained her while the cities of the north of France opened their gates to the newly-consecrated King. Bedford, however, who had been left without money or men, had now received reinforcements, and Charles, after a repulse before the walls of Paris, fell back behind the Loire ; while the towns on the Oise submitted again to the Duke of Burgundy. In this later struggle Jeanne fought with her usual bravery, but with the fatal consciousness that her mission was at an end, and during the defence of Compi^gne she fell into the power of the Bastard of Vendome, to be sold by her captor into the hands of the Duke of Burgundy and by the Duke into the hands of the English. To the English her triumphs were victories of sorcery, and after a year's imprisonment she was brought to trial on a charge of her* -^y before an ecclesiastical court with the Bishop of Beauvais at i head. Throughout the long process which followed every art was employed to entangle her in her talk. ] of her j of grac am. Go God ha taken," mit," tl Militani " by cor to that I sionatel; They dc your aid "forbid Lord firs wonder question diabolica Judge," s the King all that was only transferrc abjuratioi those out first assui was a crir resume tli a relapse raised in 1 the brutal the clergy the stake, from a sti( Rouen," s from the 1< "Yes! m moment ci reached he "Jesus !"- broke up, • The En pompous c cool wisdo] "lanently MAP. shall I the con- >f her ;irl of great ion of forth I over 1 only nal for passed are for . She called d thee, d been 1 have in the 5 strove ler task, le army ;r as it ation of ing, the e feet of it were her to |y sisters le cities Isecrated |oney or repulse le towns lis later the fatal defence lome, to and by Jriumphs Ishe was kl court [he long ler in her VI.] TIIK NKW MONARCHY. 279 ^ il talk. Rut the simple shrewdness of the ,)easant jfirl foiled the efforts of her judges. '* Do you believe," they asked, " that you are in a state of grace ? " '* If I am not," she replied, " (Jod will put me in it. If I am, (jod will keep me in it." Her capture, they argued, showed that God had forsaken her. " Since it has pleased C]od that I should be taken," she answered meekly, "it is for the best." "Will you sub- mit," they demanded at last, " to the judgement of the Church Militant?" "I have come to the King of France," Jeanne replied, " by commission from God and from the Church Triumphant above : to that Church I submit." " I had far rather die," she ended, pas- sionately, " than renounce what I have done by my Lord's command." They deprived her of mass. " Our Lord can make mc hear it without your aid," she said, weeping. " Do your voices/' asked the judges, " forbid you to submit to the Church and the Pope ?" " Ah, no ! Uur Lord first served." Sick, and deprived of all religious aid, it was no wonder that as the long trial dragged on and question followed question Jeanne's firmness wavered. On the charge of sorcery and diabolical possession she still appealed firmly to God. '' I hold to my Judge," she said, as her earthly judges gave sentence against her, " to the King of Heaven and Earth. God has always been my Lord in all that I have done. The devil has never had power over me." It was only with a view to be delivered from the military prison and transferred to the prisons of the Church that she consented to a formal abjuration of heresy. She feared in fact among the English soldiery those outrages to her honour, to guard against which she had from the first assumed the dress of a man. In die eyes of the Church her dress was a crime and she abandoned it ; but a renewed insult forced her to resume the one safeguard left her, and the return to it was treated as a relapse into heresy which doomed her to death. A great pile was raised in the market-place of Rouen where her statue stands now. Even the brutal soldiers who snatched the hated " witch " from the hands of the clergy and hurried her to her doom were hushed as she reached the stake. One indeed passed to her a rough cross he had made from a stick he held, and she clasped it to her bosom. " Oh ! Rouen, Rouen," she was heard to murmur, as her eyes ranged over the city from the lofty scaffold, " ! have great fear lest you suffer for my death." " Yes ! my voices were of God ! " she suddenly cried as the last moment came ; " they have never deceived me ! " Soon the flames reached her, the girl's head sank on her breast, there was one cry of " Jesus ! " — " We are lost," an English soldier muttered as the crowd broke up, '* .. :: have burned a Saint." The English cause was indeed irretrievably lost. In spite of a pompous coronation of the boy-king Henry at Paris, Bedford, with the cool wisdom of his temper, seems to have abandoned all hope of per- manently retaining France, and to have fallen back on his brother's Si^c. I. Joan ok Arc TO 1451 I ■ r>. »4J1 II i ^ II ) ! il rl-i The Loss of France 28o HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CHAf, Sec. 1. Joan of Akc 1422 TO 1451 1431 1445 1447 1449 original plan of securing Normandy. Henry's Court was established for a year at Rouen, a university founded at Caen, and whatever rapine and disorder might be permitted elsewhere, justice, good government, and security for trade were steadily maintained through the favoured provinces. At home Bedford was resolutely backed by the Bishop of Winchester, who had been raised in 1426 to the rank of Cardinal, and who now again governed England through the Royal Council in spite of the fruitless struggles of the Duke of Gloucester. Even when he had been excluded from the Council by Gloucester's intrigues, Beau- fort's immense we^ilth was poured without stint into the exhausted Treasury till his loans to the Crown amounted to half-a-million ; and he had unscrupulously diverted an army which he had raised at his own cost for the Hussite Crusade in Bohemia to the relief of Bedford after the deliverance of Orleans. The Cardinal's diplomatic ability was seen in the truces he wrung from Scotland, and in his personal efforts to prevent the reconciliation of Burgundy with France. In 1435 however the Duke of Piurgundy concluded a formal treaty with Charles ; and his desertion was followed by a yet more fatal blow to the English cause iit the death of Bedford. Paris rose suddenly against its English garrison and declared for King Charier.. Henry's dominion shrank at once to Normandy and the outlying fortresses of Picardy and Maine. Bui veduced as they were to a niere handful, and fronted by a whole nation in arms, the English soldiers struggled on with as desperate a bravery as in their days of triumph. Lord Talbot, the most daring of their chiefs, forded the Somme with the v/aters up to his chin to relieve Crotoy, and threw his men across the Oise in the fact- of a French army to relieve Pontoise. The Duke of York, v/ho succeeded Bedford as Regent, by his abilities stemmed for a time the tide of ill-fortune, but che jealousy shown to him by the King's counsellors told fatally on the course of the war. A fresh effort for peace was made by the Earl of Sufiolk, who swayed the Council after age forced Beaufort to retire to Winchester, and who negotiated for his master a marriage with Mar- garet, the daughter of Duke Rend of Anjou. Not only Anjou, of which England possessed nothing, but Maine, the bulwark of Normandy, were ceded to Duke Rend as the price of a match which Suffolk regarded as the prelude to peace. But the terms of the treaty and the delays which still averted a final peace gave new strength to the .var-party with Gloucester at its head. The danger was roughly met. Gloucester was arrested as he rode : > Parliament on a charge of secret conspiracy ; and a few days later he was found dead in his lodging. But the difficulties he had raised foiled Suffolk in his negotiations ; and though Charles extorted the surrender of Le Mans by a threat of war, the provisions of the treaty rem rained for the n-ost part unfulfilled. The itrugglc, however, now became a hopeless one. In two months from the resumption of the war half Normandy was in the hands of Dunois ; [chap. )lished rapine nment, voured Bishop irdinal, incil in n when 3, Beau- hausted )n ; and his own )rd after lity was efforts to however ; and his 3h cause English ihrank at i Maine. T a whole isperate a daring of to relieve nch army idford as tune, but y on the Earl of retire to ith Mar- of which ormandy, Suffolk reaty and th to the ghly met. of secret lodging;, ons; and at of war, llled. The ths from Dunois ; le VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. Rouen rose against her feeble garrison and threw open her gates to Charles ; and the defeat of an English force at Fourmigny was the signal for revolt throughout the rest of the province. The surrender of Cherbourg in 1450 left Henry not a foot of Norman ground, and the next year the last fragment of the Duchy of Guienne was lost. Gascony indeed once more turned to the English Crown on the landing of an English force under Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. But ere the twenty thousand men whose levy was voted by Parliament for his aid could cross the Channel Shrewsbury suddenly found himself face to face with the whole French army. His men were mown down by its guns, and the Earl himself left dead on the field. The surrender of fortress after fortress secured the final expulsion of the English from the soil of France. The Hundred Years' War had ended, not only in the loss of the temporary conquests made since the time of Edward the Third, with the exception of Calais, but in the loss of the great southern province which had remained in English hands ever since the marriage of its Duchess, Eleanor, to Henry the Second, and in the building up of France into a far greater power than it had ever been before. Section II.— The Wars of the Roses, 14-50— 1471. [Auihorities. — No period, save the last, is scantier in historical authorities. We still possess William of Worcester, Fabyan, and the Crowland Continuator, and for the struggle between Warwick and Edward, the valuable narrative of " The Arrival of Edward IV.," edited for the Camden Society, which may be taken as the official account on the royal side. *' The Paston Letters " (edited by Mr. Gairdner) are the first instance in English history of a family corre- spondence, and throw great light on the social history of the time. Cade's rising has been illustrated in two papers, lately reprinted, by Mr. Durrani Cooper. The Rolls of Parliament are, as before, of the highest value.] The ruinous issue of the great struggle with France roused England to a burst of fury against the wretched government to whose weakness and credulity it attributed its disasters. Suffolk was impeached, and murdered as he crossed the sea into exile. When the Bishop of Chichester was sent to pay the sailors at Portsmouth, and strove to put them off with less than their due, they fell on him and slew him. In Kent, the great manufacturing district of the day, seething with a busy population, and especially concerned with the French contests through the piracy of the Cinque Ports, where every house showed some spoil from the wars, the discontent broke into open revolt. The rising spread from Kent over Surrey and Sussex. A military levy of the yeomen of the three shires was organized ; the insurgents were joined by more than a hundred esquires and gentlemen, and two great landowners of Sussex, the Abbot of Battle and the Prior of Lewes, openly favoured their cause. John Cade, a soldier of some experience in the French wars, took the significant name of Mortimer, and placed 281 Sec. I. Joan ok Arc 14-22 TO 1451 i\i i;i; 1453 il I" i 'i ■I' \ Cade's Revolt 1449 ii'l 1 'J \ 'I 282 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. vt.] Sec. II. The Wars OF THE Roses 1450 TO 1471 /u/te, 1450 11 ii York and the Beau- forts himself at their head ; and the army, now twenty thousand men strong, marched on Blackheath. The " Complaint of the Commons of Kent " which they laid before the Royal Council, is of hi^h value in the light which it throws on the condition of the people. Not one of die demands touches on religious reform. The question of villeinage and serfage finds no place in the "Complaint" of 1450. In the seventy years which had intervened since the last peasant rising, villeinage had died natii ally away before the progress of social change. The Statutes of Apparel, which from this time encumber the Statute-Book, show in their anxiety to curtail the dress of the labourer and the farmer the progress of these classes in comfort and wealth ; and from the language of the statutes themselves, it is plain that as wages rose both farmer and i^ibourer went on clothing themselves better in spite of sumptuary provisions. With the exception of a demand for the repeal of the Statute of Labourers, the programme of the Commons was now not social, but political. The " Complaint " calls for administrative and economical reforms, for a change of ministry, a more careful expendi- ture of the royal revenue, and for the restoration of freedom of election, which had been broken in upon by the interference both of the Crown and the great landowners. The refusal of the Council to receive the " Complaint " was followed by a victory of the Kentishmen over the royal forces at Sevenoaks ; the entry of the insurgents into London, coupled with the execution of Lord Say, the most unpopular of the royal ministers, broke the obstinacy of his colleagues. The " Com- plaint " was received, pardons were granted to all who had joined in the rising ; and the insurgents dispersed to their homes. Cade, who had striven in vain to retain them in arms, sought to form a new force by throwing open the gaols ; but his men quarrelled, and Cade himself was slain by the sheriff of Kent as he fled into Sussex. The " Com- plaint " was quietly laid aside. No attempt was made to redress the grievances which it stated, and the main object of popular hate, the Duke of Somerset, took his place at the head of the Royal Council. Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, as the grandson of John of Gaunt and his mistress Catharine Swynford, was the representative of a junior branch of the House of Lancaster, whose claims to the throne Henry IV. had barred by a clause in the Act which legitimated their line, but whose hopes of the Cro vn were roused by the childlessness of Henry VI. He found a rival in the Duke of York, heir of the houses of York, of Clarence, and of Mortimer, who boasted of a double descent from Edward III. In addition to other claims which York as yet re- frained from urging, he claimed as descendant of Edmund of Langley, P2dvvard's fifth son, to be regarded as heir presumptive to the throne. Popular favour seems to have been on his side, but in 1453 the birth of the King's son promised to free the Crown from the turmoil of warring factions ; Henry, however, at the same time sank into a state of idiotcy which of the who hj was re audaci the Ea Neville was en the dea renewa restore( reconci war. £ the two rapidly the dese rest. T Queen, attainde tempora in Kent, amidst t in a har and Hen Thepc Edmund the victo] of affairs which he owing the Edmund Lancastej John of have alrej of Mortin had wedc however, Parliamen the Parlia throne the set aside. To moderi at a later t also was K cradle; yo 1 I CHAP. VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. a83 trong, Kent" e light of die ye and eventy ge had tatutes how in ler the nguage farmer nptuary of the low not ive and jxpendi- slection, z Crown eive the Dver the London, ir of the "Corn- oined in ide, who ew force ; himself ; « Com- Iress the ate, the luncil. ,unt and a junior Henry leir line, sness of |e houses descent yet re- JLangley, throne. ;he birth warring if idiotcy which made his rule impossible, and York was appointed Protector of the Realm. But on Henry's recovery the Duke of Somerset, who had been impeached and committed to the Tower by his rival, was restored to power, and supported with singular vigour and audacity by the Queen. York at once took up arms, and backed by the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick, the heads of the great House of Neville, he advanced with 3,000 men upon St. Albans, where Henry was encamped. A successful assault upon the town was crowned by the death of Somerset ; and a return of the King's malady brought the renewal of York's Protectorate. Henry's recovery, however, again restored the supremacy of the House of Beaufort, and after a temporary reconciliation between the two parties there was a fresh outbreak of war. Salisbury defeated Lord Audley at Bloreheath, and York with the two Earls raised his standard at Ludlow. The King marched rapidly on the insurgents, and a decisive battle was only averted by the desertion of a part of the Yorkist army and the disbanding of the rest. The Duke himself fled to Ireland, the Earls to Calais, while the Queen, summoning a Parliament at Coventry, pressed on their attainder. But the check, whatever its cause, had been merely a temporary one. In the following Midsummer the Earls again landed in Kent, and backed by a general rising of the county, entered London amidst the acclamations of its citizens. The royal army was defeated in a hard-fought action at Northampton, Margaret fled to Scotland, and Henry was left a prisoner in the hands of the Duke of York. The position of York as heir presumptive to the crown by descent from Edmund of Langley had ceased with the birth of a son to Henry ; but the victory of Northampton no sooner raised him to the supreme control of affairs than he ventured to assert the far more dangerous claims which he had secretly cherished, and to their consciousness of which was owing the bitter hostility of Henry and his Queen. As the descendant of Edmund of Langley he stood only next in succession to the House of Lancaster, but as the descendant of Lionel, the elder brother of John of Gaunt, he stood in strict hereditary right before it. We have already seen how the claims of Lionel had passed to the House of Mortimer : it was through Anne, the heiress of the Mortimers, who had wedded his father, that they passed to the Duke. There was, however, no constitutional ground for any limitation of the right of Parliament to set aside an elder branch in favour of a younger, and in the Parliamentary Act which placed the House of Lancaster on the throne the claim of the House of Mortimer had been deliberately set aside. Possession, too, told against the Yorkist pretensions. To modern minds the best reply to their claim lay in the words used at a later time by Henry himself. " My father was King ; his father also was King ; I myself have worn the crown forty years from my cradle ; you have all sworn fealty to me as your sovereign, send your Sec. II. The Wars OK THE Roses 1450 TO 1471 HSS 1458 Northamp- ton 1460 The Wars of the Roses ii 284 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. II. The Wars OK THE Roses 1450 TO 1471 Wakefield 1460 I; fathers have done the like to mine. How then can my right be disputed "i " Long and undisturbed possession, as well as a distinctly legal title by free vote of Parliament, was in favour of the House of Lancaster. But the persecution of the Lollards, the interference with elections, the odium of the war, the shame of the long misgovernment, told fatally against the weak and imbecile King, whose reign had been a long battle of contending factions. That the misrule had been serious was shown by the attitude of the commercial class. It was the rising of Kent, the great manufacturing district of the realm, which brought about the victory of Northampton. Throughout the struggle which followed, London and the great merchant towns were steady for the House of York. Zeal for the Lancastrian cause was found only in Wales, in northern England, and in the south-western shires. It is absurd to suppose that the shrewd traders of Cheapside were moved by an abstract question of hereditary right, or that the wild Welshmen believed themselves to be supporting the right of Parliament to regulate the succession. But it marks the power which Parliament had now gained that the Duke of York felt himself compelled to convene the two Houses, and to lay his claim before the Lords as a petition of right. Neither oaths nor the numerous Acts which had settled and confirmed the right to the crown in the House of Lancaster could destroy, he pleaded, his hereditary claim. The baronage received the petition with hardly concealed reluctance, and solved the question, as they hoped, by a compromise. They refused to dethrone the King, but they had sworn no fealty to his child, and at Henry' s death they agreed to receive the Duke as successor to the crown. But the open di^^play of York's pretensions at once united the partisans of the royal House, and the deadly struggle which received the name of the Wars of the Roses, from the white rose which formed the badge of the House of York and the red rose which was the cognizance of the House of Lancaster, began in the gathering of the North round Lord Clitford, and of the West round the new Duke of Somerset. York, who had hurried to meet the first with a far inferior force, was defeated and slain at Wakefield, and the passion of civil war broke fiercely out on the field. The Earl of Salisbury was hurried to the block, and the head of Duke Richard, crowned in mockery with a diadem of paper, is said to have been impaled on the walls of York. His second son. Lord Rutland, fell crying for mercy on his knees before Clifford. But Clifford's father had been the first to fall in the battle of St. Albans which opened the struggle. " As your father killed mine," cried the savage baron while he plunged his dagger in the young noble's breast, " I will kill you !" The brutal deed was soon to be avenged. Duke Richard's eldest son, Edward, Ea.l of March, hurried from the West, and, routing a body of Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross, struck boldly upon London. A vi.l force c the La St. Alb diate a Queen cutions scatten citizens rang ro A coun( promise Lancast not with Lancast: as rapid The t Tadcast< of the sti of Senlae day had snow-fall either sid stabbing or die on with a fre rear turne quarter w morrow. corpses 01 heavy. I land was 1 beheaded his Queen Scotland. the victor York. A ' tion the nc The Strugs her adhere of Warwic a gleam o difficulty fr of the woo child. " I Margaret a [chap. ight be istinctly 'ouse of \ce with irnnient, lad been ti serious tie rising brought le which fior the I only in es. It is e moved the wild right of le power It himself im before numerous wn in the iry claim, leluctance, ;e. They his child, ccessor to at once struggle the white e red rose an in the round the first with and the J Earl of Richard, lave been tland, fell ■d's father pened the .ron while ill you!" ildest son, g a body indon. A VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 28s force of Kentishmen under the Earl of Warwick barred the march of the Lancastrian army on the capital, but after a desperate struggle at St. Albans the Yorkist forces broke under cover of night. An imme- diate advance of the conquerors might have decided the contest, but (2ueen Margaret paused to sully her victory by a series of bloody exe- cutions, and the rough northerners who formed the bulk of her army scattered to pillage, while Edward appeared before London. The citizens rallied at his call, and cries of "Long live King Edward" rang round the handsome young leader as he rode through the streets. A council of Yorkist lords, hastily summoned, resolved that the com- promise agreed on in Parliament was at an end and that Henry of Lancaster had forfeited the throne. The final issue, however, now lay, not with Parliament, but with the sword. Disappointed of London, the Lancastrian army fell rapidly back on the North, and Edward hurried as rapidly in pursuit. The two armies encountered one another at Towton Field, near Tadcaster. In the numbers engaged, as well as in the terrible obstinacy of the struggle, no such battle had been seen in England since the fight of Senlac. The armies numbered together nearly 1 20,000 men. The day had just broken when the Yorkists advanced through a thick snow-fall, and for six hours the battle raged with desperate bravery on either side. At one critical moment Warwick saw his men falter, and stabbing his horse before them, swore on the cross of his sword to win or die on the field. The battle was turned by the arrival of Norfolk with a fresh force. At last the Lancastrians gave way, a river in their rear turned the retreat into a rout, and the flight and carnage, for no quarter was given on either side, went on through the night and the morrow. Edward's herald counted more than 20,000 Lancastrian corpses on the field, and the losses of the conquerors were hardly less heavy. But their triumph was complete. The Earl of Northumber- land was slain ; the Earls of Devonshire and Wiltshire were taken and beheaded ; the Duke of Somerset fled into exile. Henry himself with his Queen was forced to fly over the border and to find a refuge in Scotland. The cause of the House of Lancaster was lost : and with the victory of Towton the crown of England passed to Edward of York. A vast bill of attainder wrapped in the same ruin and confisca- tion the nobles and gentry who still adhered to the House of Lancaster. The struggles of Margaret only served to bring fresh calamities on her adherents. A new rising in the North was crushed by the Earl of Warwick, and a legend which Hghts up the gloom of the time with a gleam of poetry told how the fugitive Queen, after escaping with difficulty from a troop of bandits, found a new brigand in the depths of the wood. With the daring of despair she confided to him her child. " I trust to your loyalty," she said, " the son of your King." Margaret and her child escaped over the border under the robber's Sec. II. The Wars OK THE Roses 1450 TO 1471 1 46 1 Toivton Field March 29, 146 1 11 t 1463 ^•i li 2S6 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. .Sec II. The Wars OK THIC Roses 1450 TO 1471 The King- Maker 1464 guidance ; but on the defeat of a new revolt in the battle of Hexham, Henry, after helpless wanderings, was betrayed into the hands of his enemies. His feet were tied to the stirrups, he was led thrice round the pillory, and then conducted as a prisoner to the Tower. Ruined as feudalism really was by the decline of the baronage, the extinction of the greater houses, and the break-up of the great estates, which had been steadily going on, it had never seemed more powerful than in the years which followed Towton. Out of the wreck of the baronage a family which had always stood high amongst its fellows towered into unrivalled greatness. Lord Warwick was by descent Earl of Salisbury, a son of the great noble whose support had been mainly instrumental in raising the House of York to the throne. He had doubled his wealth and influence by his acquisition of the Earldom of Warwick through a marriage with the heiress of the Beauchamps. His services to the Yorkists were munificently rewarded by the grant of vast estates from the confiscated lands of Lancastrians, and by his elevation to the highest posts in the service of the State. He was captain of Calais, admiral of the fleet in the Channel, and Warden of the Western Marches. This personal power was backed by the power of the House of Neville, of which he was the head. The command of the northern border lay in the hands of his brother. Lord Montagu, who received as his share of the spoil the forfeited Earldom of Northumberland and the estates of his hereditary rivals, the Percies. A younger brother, George Neville, was raised to the See of York and the post of Lord Chancellor. Lesser rewards fell to his uncles, Lords Falconberg, Abergavenny, and Latimer. The vast power which such an accumulation of wealth and honours placed at the Earl's disposal was wielded with consummate ability. In outer seeming Warwick was the very type of the feudal baron. He could raise armies at his call from his own earldoms. Six hundred liveried retainers followed him to Parliament. Thousands of dependants feasted in his courtyard. But few men were really further from the feudal ideal. Active and ruthless warrior as he was, his enemies denied to the Earl the gift of personal daring. In war he was rather general than soldier. His genius in fact was not so much military as diplomatic ; what he excelled in was intrigue, treachery, the contriv- ance of plots, and sudden desertions. And in the boy-king whom he had raised to the throne he met not merely a consummate general, but a politician whose subtlety and rapidity of conception was destined to leave a deep and enduring mark on the character of the monarchy itself. Edward was but nineteen at his accession, and both his kinship (for he was th?j King's cousin by blood) and his recent services rendered War- wick during the first three years of his reign all-powerful in the State. But the final ruin of Henry's cause in the battle of Hexham gave the signal for a silent struggle between the Earl and his young Sovereign. Edward's first step was to avow his union with the widow of a slain t •I.] Lancas was ne villes, \ father, ; marria^ Warwic nexion riage of while h( his abs( Margan the Bole by a plot Duke of daughtei Edward down. ' could loc manded fatal to thrown b; out in thi ready for insurgent Clarence Lancastrii though he Earl's flee connexion Eleventh. alliance w! Lancaster. daughter i captive wh when Edw had dispei threw hims northward, trusted, drc fled with a Henry of L; but the bitt no gratitude his party, w showed a w CHAP. I] THE NEW MONARCHY. 287 xham, of his round je, the istates, )werful of the fellows nt Earl mainly loubled rarwick vices to estates n to the F Calais, >Vestern e House lorthern eived as and the , George .ncellor. |nny, and ilth and ummate ^e feudal s. Six Isands of further i^as, his Ir he was ] military f contriv- i he had |al, but a Itined to Ihy itself. Ip (for he led W?r- le State. ;ave the ^vereign. a slain Lancastrian, Dame Elizabeth Grey, at the very moment when Warwick was negotiating for him a French marriage. Her family, the Wood- villes, were raised to greatness as a counterpoise to the Nevilles ; her father. Lord Rivers, became treasurer and constable ; her son by the first marriage was betrothed to the heiress of the Duke of Exeter, whom Warwick sought for his nephew. Warwick's policy lay in a close con- nexion with France ; foiled in his first project, he now pressed for a mar- riage of the King's sister, Margaret, with a French prince, but in 1467, while he crossed the sea to treat with Lewis, Edward availed himself of his absence to deprive his brother of the seals, and prepared to wed Margaret to the sworn enemy both of France and of Warwick, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Warwick replied to Edward's challenge by a plot to rally the discontented Yorkists round the King's brother, the Duke of Clarence. Secret negotiations ended in the marriage of his daughter to Clarence ; and a revolt which instantly broke out threw Edward into the hands of his great subject. But the bold scheme broke down. The Yorkist nobles demanded the King's liberation. Warwick could look for support only to the Lancastrians, but the Lancastrians de- manded Henry'srestoration as the price of their aid. Such a demand was fatal to the plan for placing Clarence on the throne, and Warwick was thrown back on a formal reconciliation with the King. A new rising broke out in the following spring in Lincolnshire. The King, however, was now ready for the strife. A rapid march to the north ended in the rout of the insurgents, and Edward turned on the instigators of the revolt. But Clarence and the Earl could gather no force to meet him. Yorkist and Lancastrian alike held aloof, and they were driven to flight. Calais, though held by Warwick's deputy, repulsed them from its walls, and the Earl's fleet was forced to take refuge in France, where the Burgundian connexion of Edward secured his enemies the support of Lewis the Eleventh. But the unscrupulous temper of the Earl was seen in the alliance which he at once concluded with the partizans of the House of Lancaster. On the promise of Queen Margaret to wed her son to his daughter Anne, Warwick engaged to restore the crown to the royal captive whom he had flung into the Tower ; and choosing a momtnt when Edward was busy with a revolt in the North, and when a storm had dispersed the Burgundian fleet which defended the Channel, he threw himself boldly on the English shore. His army grew as he pushed northward, and the desertion of Lord Montagu, whom Edward still trusted, drove the King in turn to seek shelter over sea. While Edward fled with a handful of adherents to beg help from Charles the Bold, Henry of Lancaster was again conducted from his prison to the throne, but the bitter hate of the party Warwick had so ruthlessly crushed found no gratitude for the " King Maker." His own conduct, as v/ell as that of his party, when Edward again disembarked in the spring at Ravenspur, showed a weariness of the new alliance, quickened perhaps by their Sec. II. TiiK Wars OK THK Roses 1450 TO 1471 1469 m ' n 1470 .;!!' t!50 TO 14.71 April 14, 1471 I Death cj Henry May 4 The Nex^r f Monarchy r dread of Margaret, whose return to England was hourly expected. Passing through the Lancastrian districts of the North with a declara- tion that he waived all right to the crown and sought only his own hereditary dukedom, Edward was left unassailed by a force which Montagu had collected, and was joined on his march by his brother Clarence, who had throughout acted in concert with Warwick. En- camped at Coventry, the Earl himself contemplated a smiilar treason, but the coming of two Lancastrian leaders put an end to the negotia- tions. When Montagu joined his brother, Edward marched on London, follow by Warwick's army ii^ gates were opened by tbt pcrfi:!/ A tiie Earl's brother, Ai uhis'" :. N( ville ; p id Hei.ry of Lancaster passed anew to the I owei , i ue battle of Barnet, a medley of carnage and treachery which 1' stf 1 thrt > hours, ended with the fall of Warwick, who was charged with cowardly «) :ht. Margaret had landed too late to bring aid to her great partizan, but the military triumph of Edward was completed by the skilful strategy with which he forced her army to battle at Tewkesbury, and by its complete overthrow. The Queen her- self became a captive ; her boy fell on the field, stabbed — as was affirmed — by the Yorkist lords aftc Edward had met his cry for mercy liy a buffet from his gauntlet ; and the death of Henry in the Tower crushed the last hopes of the House of Lancaster. ' •■ ■ ^ >' '' Section III.— The New Monarchy. 1471— 1509. [Anthoj'ities. — Edward V. is the subject of a work attributed to Sir Thomas More, and which almost certainly derives much of its information from Arch- bishop Morton. Whatever its historical worth may be, it is remarkable in its English form as the first historical work of any literary value which we possess written in our modern prose. The " Letters and Papers of Richard III. and Henry VII.," some " Memorials of Henry VII.," including his life by Bernard Andre of Toulouse, and a volume of ** Materials " for a history of his reign have been edited for the Rolls Series. A biography of Henry is among the w >rks of Lord Bacon. Halle's Chronicle extends from Henry IV. to Henry VIII. Miss Halstead, in her " Life of Richard HI.," has elaborately illustrated a reign of some constitutional importance. For Caxton, see the biography by Mr. Biades.] - ,. ^. There are few periods in our annals from which we turn with such weariness and disgust as from the Wars of the Roses. Their savage battles, their ruthless executions, their shameless treasons, seem all the more terrible from the pure selfishness of the ends for which men fought, the utter want of all nobleness and chivalry in the struggle itself, of all great result in its close. But even while the contest was raging the cool eye of a philosophic statesman could find in it matter for other feelings than those of mere disgust. England presented to Philippe de Commines the rare spectacle of a land where, brutal as was the civil stiife, " there are no buildings destroyed or demolished HAP. VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 289 scted. clara- 5 own which rother En- eason, egotia- ondon, r of the passed ge and ck, who late to ard was irmy to een her- -as was »r mercy e Tower Thomas )m Arch- ible in its see by war, and where the mischief of it falls on those who make the war." The ruin and bloodshed were limited, in fact, to the great lords and their feudal retainers Once or twice indeed, as at Towton, the towns threw themsplveii into the strug^jle, but for the most part the trading and agricultural classes stood wholly apart from it. Slowly but surely the foreign commerce of the cou try, hitherto conducted by the Italian, the Hanse mer:hant, or the trader of Catalonia or southern Gaul, was passuig into English hands. English merchants were settled at Florence and '.t Venice. English merchant ships appeared in the Baltic. The first faint upgrowth of manufactures was seen in a crowd of protective statutes which formed a marked feature in the legislation of Edward the Fourth. The general tranquillity of the country at large, while the baronage was dashing itself to pieces in battle after battle, was shown by the remarkable fact that justice remained ii. "7 imdis- turbed. The law courts sate at Westminster. The judge -ode on circuit as of old. The system of jury-trial took mon ^nd Uiore its modern form by the separation of the jurors from th' ,'ti: sses. But if the common view of England rearing these Wars ar a r er" chaos of treason and bloodshed is a false one, still more fals is the common view of the pettiness of their result. The Wars o< Je Roses did far more than ruin one royal house or set up another on the throne. If they did not utterly destroy English freedom, they arrested its progress for more than a hundred years. They found England, in the words of Commines, "among all the world's lordships of which I have knowledge, that where the public weal is best ordered, and where least violence reigns over the people." A King of England — the shrewd observer noticed — "can undertake no enterprise of account without assembling his Parliament, which is a thing most wise and holy, and therefore are these Kings stronger and better served" than the despotic sovereigns of the Continent. The English kingship, as a judge. Sir John Fortescue, could boast when writing at this time, was not an absolute but a limited monarchy ; the land was not a land where the will of the prince was itself the law, but where the prince could neither make laws nor impose taxes save by his subjects* con- sent. At no time had Parliament played so constant and prominent a part in the government of the realm. At no time had the principles of constitutional liberty seemed so thoroughly understood and so dear to the people at large. The long Parliamentary contest between the Crown and the two Houses since the days of Edward the First had firmly established the great securities of »iational liberty — the right of freedom from arbitrary taxation, from arbitrary legislation, from arbitrary imprisonment, and the responsibility of even the highest servants of the Crown to Parliament and to the law. But with the close of the struggle for the succession this liberty suddenly disappears. We enter on an epoch of constitutional retrogression in which the u Skc. III. Thk N ' MONAi T 290 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Skc. III. The New monakchv 1471 TO 10O9 The Causes of the new Monarchy slow work 01 the age that went before it was rapidly undone. Parlia- mentary life was almost suspended, or was turned into a mere form by the overpowering influence of the Crown. The legislative powers of the two Houses were usurped by the royal Council. Arbitrary taxation re-appeared in benevolences and forced loans. Personal liberty wa' almost extinguished by a formidable spy-system and by the constant practice of arbitrary imprisonment. Justice was degraded by the pro- digal use of bills of attainder, by the wide extension of the judicial power of the Royal Council, by the servility of judges, by the coercion of juries. So vast and sweeping was the change that to careless ob- servers of a later day the constitutional monarchy of the Edwards and the Henries seemed suddenly to have transformed itself under the Tudors into a despotism as complete as the despotism of the Turk. Such a view is no doubt exaggerated and unjust. Bend and strain the law as he might, there never was a time when the most wilful of Eng- lish rulers failed to own the restraints of law; and the obedience of the most servile among English subjects lay within bounds, at once poli- tical and religious, which no theory of King-worship could bring them to overpairs. But even if we make these reserves, the character of the Monarchy from the time of Edward the Fourth to the time of Elizabeth remains something strange and isolated in our history. It is hard to connect the kingship of the old English, of the Norman, the Angevin, or the Plantagenet Kings, with the kingship of the House of York or of the House of Tudor. If we seek a reason for so sudden and complete a revolution, we find it in the disappearance of th^it organization of society in which our constitutional liberty had till now found its security. Freedom had been won by the sword of the Baronage. Its tradition had been watched over by the jealousy of the Church. The new class of the Commons which had grown from the union of the country squire and the town trader was widening its sphere of political activity as it grew. But at the close of the Wars of the Roses these older checks no longer served as restraints upon the action of the Crown. The baronage h.id fallen more and more into decay. The Church lingered helpless and perplexed, till it was struck down by Thomas Cromwell. The traders and the smaller proprietors sank into political inactivity. On the other hand, the Crown, which only fifty years before had been the sport of every faction, towered into solitary greatness. The old English king- ship, limited by the forces of feudalism or of the religious sanctions wielded by the priesthood, or by the progress of constitutional free- dom, faded suddenly away, and in its place we see, all-absorbing and unrestrained, the despotism of the new Monarchy. Revolutionary as the change was, however, we have - Iready seen in their gradual growth the causes which brought it about. The social organization from which our political constitution had hitherto sprung and on which it still rested VI.] had spirii war. Chur of the only great How; theol Neith with t place still si traditi spiritu deepei intelle( what o; and th( exercis temper barons spiritua weight means ( politica insignif share tl: county J the burg developj and of insignifii virtual d which it disappea indeed \ to vindic preserval The Chi corporati landownf disorder ' entrust tl But abov( CHAP. VI. 1 THE NEW MONARCHY. 291 vers of ixation ty wa' mstant he pro- judicial oercion less ob- rds and dor the ke Turk, rain the of Eng- ce of the nee poli- ing them :er of the Elizabeth s hard to Angevin, ork or of n,we find hich our ;dom had lad been ss of the [uire and .s it grew. |no longer ' inage h.id pless and e traders the other sport of [lish king- sanctions lonal free- |rbing and ary as the •rowth the [which our ;till rested had been silently sapped by the progress of industry, by the growth of spiritual and intellectual enlightenment, and by changes in the art of war. Its ruin was precipitated by the new attitude of men towards the Church, by the disfranchisement of the Commons, and by the decline of the Baronage. Of the great houses some were extinct, others lingered only in obscure branches which were mere shadows of their former greatness. With the exception of the Poles, the Stanleys, arid the Howards, themselves families of recent origin, hardly a fragment of theolder baronage interfered from this time in the work of government. Neither the Church nor the smaller proprietors of the country, who with the merchant classes formed the Commons, were ready to take the place of the ruined nobles. Imposing as the great ecclesiastical body still seemed from the memories of its past, its immense wealth, its tradition of statesmanship, it was rendered powerless by a want of spiritual enthusiasm, by a moral inertness, by its antagonism to the deeper religious convictions of the people, and its blind hostility to the intellectual movement which was beginning to stir the world. Some- what of their old independence lingeied indeed among the lower clergy and the monastic orders, but it was through its prelates that the Church exercised a directly political influence, and these showed a different temper from the clergy. Driven by sheer need, by the attack of the barons on their temporal possessions, and of the Lollards on their spiritual authority, into dependence on the Crown, they threw their weight on the side of the King with the simple view of averting by means of the Monarchy the pillage of the Church. But in any wider political sense the influence of the body to which they belonged was insignificant. It is less obvious at first sight why the Commons should share the political ruin of the Church and the Lords, for the smaller county proprietors were growing fast, both in wealth and numbers, while the burgess class, as we have seen, was deriving fresh riches from the developement of trade. But tue result of the narrowing of the franchise and of the tampering with elections was now felt in the political insignificance of the Lower House. Reduced by these measures to a virtual dependence on the baronage, it fell with the fall of the class to which it looked for guidance and support. And while its rival forces disappeared, the Monarchy stood ready to take their place. Not only indeed were the churchman, the squir^^ ^ the burgess powerless to vindicate liberty against the Crown, but the very interests of self- preservation led them at this moment to lay freedom at its feet. The Church still trembled at the progress of heresy. The close corporations of the towns needed protection for their privileges. The landowner shared with the trader a profound horror of the war and disorder which they had witnessed, and an almost reckless desire to entrust the Crown with any power which would prevent its return. But above all, the landed and nronied classes (lung passionately to the u 2 Skc. III. The New MoNAKCHV 1471 TO 1509 I 292 HISTORY OK THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Skc. III. Thk Nkw munanchv 1471 •JO 1509 Edward the Fourth Mon.irchy, as the one great force left which could save them from stKial revolt. The rising of the Commons of Kent shows that the troubles against which the Statutes of Labourers had been directed still remained as a formidable source of discontent. The great change in the character of agriculture indeed, which we have before described, the throwing together of the smaller holdings, the diminution of tillage, the increase of pasture lands, had tended largely to swell the numbers and turbulence of the floating labour class. The riots against " enclosures," of which we first hear in the time of Henry the Sixth, and which became a constant feature of the Tudor period, are indications not only of a constant strife going on in every quarter between the landowner and the smaller peasant class, but of a mass of social discontent which was constantly seeking an outlet in violence and revolution. And at this moment the break-up of the military households of the nobles, and the return of wounded and dis- abled soldiers from the wars, added a new element of violence and disorder to the seething mass. It was in truth this social danger which lay at the root of the Tudor despotism. For the proprietary classes the repression of the poor was a question of life and death. Employer and proprietor were ready to surrender freedom into the hands of the one power which could preserve them from social anarchy. It was to the selfish panic of the landowners that England owed the Statute of Labourers and its terrible heritage of pauperism. It was to the selfish panic of both landowner and merchant that she owed the despotism of the Monarchy. The founder of the new Monarchy was Edward the Fourth. As a mere boy he showed himself among the ablest and the most pitiless of the warriors of the civil war. In the first flush of manhood he looked on with a cool ruthlessness while grey-haired nobles were hurried to the block. In his later race fc power he had shown him- self more subtle in his treachery than even Warwick himself. His triumph was no sooner won however than the young King seemed to abandon himself to a voluptuous indolence, to revels with the city- wives of London and the caresses of mistresses like Jane Shore. Tall in stature and of singular beauty, his winning manners and gay care- lessness of bearing secured him a popularity which had been denied to nobler kings. But his indolence and gaiety were mere veils beneath which Edward shrouded a profound political ability. No one could contrast more utterly in outward appearance with the subtle sovereigns of his time, with Louis the Eleventh or Ferdinand of Aragon, but his work was the same as theirs, and it was done as completely. While jesting with aldermen, or dallying with his mistresses, or idling over the new pages from the printing-press at Westminster, Edward was silently laying the foundations of an absolute rule. The almost total discontinuance of Parliamentary life was in itself a revolution. Up CHAP. from at the rected hangc :ribed, ion of swell le riots iry the od, are quarter a mass tlet in of the ind dis- ice and r which sses the lyer and the one ls to the ;atute of e selfish otism of VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. \. As a pitiless ood he les were m him- klf. His seemed |the city- \e. Tall ky care- denied 1 beneath le could fvereigns ], but his While [ing over ^ard was iost total m. Up to this moment the two Houses had played a part which became -nore and more prominent in the government of the realm. Under the two first Kings of the House of Lancaster Parliament had been sum- moned almost every year. Not only had the ri|;ht of self-taxation and initiation of laws been yielded explicitly to the Commons, but they had interfered with the administration of the State, had directed the application of subsidies, and called royal ministers to account by repeated instances of impeachment. Under Henry the Sixtl. an im- portant step in constitutional progress had been made by abandoning the old form of , presenting the requests of the Parliament in the form of petitions which were subsequently moulded into statutes by the Royal Council ; the statute itself, in its final form, was now presented for the royal assent, and the Crown was deprived of its former privilege of modifying it. But with the reign of Edward the Fourth not only does this progress cease, but the very action of Parliament itself comes almost to an end. For the first time since the days of John not a single law which promoted freedom or remedied the abuses of power was even proposed. The necessity for summoning the two Houses had, in fact, been removed by the enormous tide of wealth which the confiscations of the civil war poured into the royal treasury. In the single bill of attainder which followed the victory of Towton, twelve great nobles and more than a hundred knights and squires were stripped of their estates to the King's profit. It was said that nearly a fifth of the land had passed into the royal possession at one period or another of the civil war. A grant of the customs was given to the King for life. Edward added to his resources by trading on a vast scale. The royal ships, freighted with tin, wool, and cloth, made the name of the merchant-king famous in the ports of Italy and Greece. The enterprises he planned against France, though frustrated by the refusal of Charles of Burgundy to co-operate with him in them, afforded a fresh financial resource ; and the subsidies granted for a war which never took place swelled the royal exchequer. But the pretext of war enabled Edward not only to increase his hoard, but to deal a deadly blow at the liberty which the Commons had won. Setting aside li ^ usage of contracting loans by the authority of Parlia- ment, Edward (ailed before him the merchants of London and requested from c;ich a gift or "benevolence," in proportion to the royal needs. The exaction was bitterly resented even by the c' asses with whom the King had been most popular, but for the m(;inent re- sistance was fruitless, and the system of " benevolence " wa.'i soon to be developed into the forced loans of Wolsey and of Charles the First. It was to Edward that his Tudor successors owed the introduction of an elaborate spy-system, the use of the rack, and the practice of interference with the purity of justice. In the history of intellectual progress alone his reign takes a brighter colour, and the founder of 293 .Skc. III. TiiK Nkw M(>NAK( MY 1471 TO 1509 >474 .tl ?t ' i 4 I 294 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. I Sec. III. The New Monarchy 1471 TO 1500 Iilicra- ture after Chaucer a new despotism presents a claim to our regard as the patron of Caxton. ? Literature indeed seemed at this moment to have died as utterly as freedom itself. The genius of Chaucer, and of the one or more poets whose works have been confounded with Chaucer's, defied for a while the pedantry, the affectation, the barrenness of their age ; but the sudden close of this poetic outburst left England +0 a crowd of poetasters, compilers, scribblers of interminable moralities, rimers of chronicles, and translators from the worn-out field of French romance. Some faint trace of the liveliness and beauty of older models lingers among the heavy platitudes of Gower, but even this vanished from the didactic puerilities, the prosaic com- monplaces, of Occleve and Lydgate. The literature of the Middle Ages was dying out with the Middle Ages themselves ; in letters as in life their thirst for knowledge had spent itself in the barren mazes of the scholastic philosophy, their ideal of warlike noble- ness faded away before the gaudy travestie of a spurious chivalry, and the mystic enthusiasm of their devotion shrank at the touch of persecution into a narrow orthodoxy and a flat morality. The clergy, who had concentrated in themselves the intellectual effort of the older time, were ceasing to be an intellectual class at all. The monasteries were no longer seats of learning. " I found in them," said Poggio, an Italian traveller twenty years after Chaucer's death, " men given up to sensuality in abundance, but very few lovers of learning, v^nd those of a bi.i yarous sort, skilled more in quibbles and Fophisms than in literature." The erection of colleges, which was beginning, failed to arrest the quick decline of the universities both in the numbers and learning of their students. Those at Oxford amoimted to only a fifth of the scholars who had attended its lectures a century before, and "■ Oxford Latin " became proverbial for a jargon in which the very tradition of grammar had been lost. All literary production was nearly at an end. Historical composition lingered on indeed in compilations of exiracts from past writers, such as make up the so-called works of Wals'ngham, in jejune monastic annals, or worthless popular com- pendiims. But the only real trace of mental activity is to be found in the numerous treatises on alchemy and magic, on the elixir of life or the philosopher's stone, a fungous growth which most unequivocally witnesses to the progress of intellectual decay. On the other hand, while the older literary class was dying out, a glance beneath the surface shows us the stir of a new interest in 1^^ owledge among the masses of the people itself. The correspondence of the Paston family, which has been happily preserved, not only displays a fluency and vivacity as well as a grammatical con ctness which would have been impossible in familiar letters a few years before, but shews country squires discussing about books and gathering libraries. The very ."^m •i .ill CHAP. on of ;rly as more ied for r age ; 1 +0 a •alities, ield of auty of 'er, VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 295 but c com- of the ves ; in f in the e noble- :hivalry, touch of ; clergy, he older lasteries )ggio, an ^en up to those of than in failed to jers and ly a fifth "ore, and |the very ,s nearly ipilations jworks of lar com- found in >f life or livocally er hand, eath the |iong the |n family, incy and .ve been country ;he very character of the authorship of the time, its love of compendiums and abridgements of the scientific and historical knowledge of its day, its dramatic performances or mysteries, the commonplace morality of its ooets, the popularity of its rimed chronicles, are additional proofs that literature was ceasing to be the possession of a purely intellectual class and was beginning to appeal to the people at large. The increased use of linen paper in place of the costlier parchment helped in the popularization of letters. In no former age had finer copies of books been produced ; in none had so many been transcribed. This in- creased demand for their production caused the processes of copying and illuminating manuscripts to be transferred from the scriptoria of the religious houses into the hands of trade-gilds, like the Gild of St. John at Bruges, or the Brothers of the Pen at Brussels. It was, in fact, this increase of demand for books, pamphlets, or fly-sheets, especially of a grammatical or religious character, in the middle of the fifteenth century that brought about the introduction of printing. "We meet with it first in rude sheets simply struck off from wooden blocks, " block-books " as they are now called, and later on in works printed from separate and moveable types. Originating at Maintz with the thr ^ famous printers, Gutenberg, Fust, and Schceffer, the new process travelled southward to Strasburg, crossed the Alps to Venice, where it lent itself through the Aldi to the spread of Greek literature in Europe, and then floated down the Rhine to the towns of Flanders. It was probably at the press of Colard Mansion, in a little room over the porch of St. Donat's at Bruges, that Caxton learnt the art which he was the first to introduce into England. J. Kentish boy by birth, but apprenticed to a London mercer, WiUiam Caxton had already spent thirty years of his manhood in Flanders, as Governor of the English gild of Merchant Adventurers there, when we find him engaged as cop> ist iu the service of Edv^ard' s sister, Duchess Margaret of Burgundy, But the tedious process of copy- ing was soon thrown aside for the new art which Colard Mansion had introduced into Bruges. " For as much as in the writing of the same," Caxton tells us in the preface to his first printed work, the Tales of Troy, " my pen is worn, my hand weary and not steadfast, mine eyes dimmed with over much looking on the white paper, and my courage not so prone and ready to labour as it hath been, and that age creepeth on me daily and feebkih all the body, and also because 1 have pro- mised to divers gentlemen and to my friends to address to tiiem as hastily as I might the said book, therefore I have practised and learned at my great charge and dispense to ordain this said book in print after the manner and form as ye may see, and is not written with pen and ink as other books be, to the end that every man may have them at once, for all the books of this story here emprynted as ye see were begun in one day and also finished in one day." The printing press Sec. in. The New Monarchy 1471 TO 1500 ^^'■l Caxton 1476 \ W 296 Sec. III. The Nkw Monarchy 1471 TO iao9 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. : I I' •1 Caxton's Transla- tions [chap. VI.] was the precious freight he brought back to England, after an absence of five-and-thirty years. Through the next fifteen, at an age when other men look for ease and retirement, we see him plunging with characteristic energy into his new occupation. His "red pale," or heraldic shield marked with a red bar down the middle, invited buyers to the press established in the Almonry at Westminster, a little enclosure containing a chapel and almshouses near the west front of the church, where the alms ex the abbey were distributed to the poor. "If it please any man, spiritual or temporal," runs his advertisement, " to buy any pyes of two or three commemorations of Salisbury all emprynted after the form of the present letter, which be well and truly correct, let him come to Westminster into the Almonry at the red pale, and he shall have them good chepe." He was a practical man of business, as this advertisement shows, no rival of the Venetian Aldi Ci of the classical printers of Rome, but resolved to get a living from his trade, supplying priests with service books, and preachers with sermons, furnishing the clerk with his " Golden Legend," and knight and baron with "joyous and pleasant histories of chivalry." But while careful to win his daily bread, he found time to do much for what of higher literature lay fairly to hand. He printed all the English poetry of any moment which was ther» in existence. His reverence for " that worshipful man, Geoffry Chaucer," who " ought to be eternally remembered," is shown not merely by his edition cf the " Canterbury Tales," but by his reprint of them when a purer text of the poem offered itself. The poems of Lydgate and Gower were added to those of Chaucer. The Chronicle of Brut and Higden's " Poly- chronicon " were 'he only available works of an historical character then existing in the English tongue, and Caxton not only printed them but himself continued the latter up to his own time. A translation of Boethius, a version of the vEneid from the French, and a tract or two of Cicero, were the stray first-fruits of the classical press in England. Busy as was Caxton's printing-press, he was even busier as a trans- lator than as a printer, More than four thousand of his printed pages are from works of his own rendering. The need of these translations shows the popular drift of literature at the time ; but keen as the demand seems to have been, there is nothing mechanical in the temper with which Caxton prepared to meet it. A natural, simple-hearted literary taste and enthusiasm, especially for the style and forms of language, breaks out in his curious prefaces. " Having no work in hand," he says in the preface to his Eneid, " I sitting in my study where as lay many divers pamphlets and books, happened that to my hand came a little book in French, which late was translated out of Latin by some noble clerk of France — which book is named Eneydos, and made in Latin by that noble poet and great clerk Vergyl — in J^i- [CHAP. ibsence je when ng with lale," or d buyers a little front of he poor. :isement, sbury all and truly ; the red ;ical man Venetian ; a living preachers end," and chivalry." » much for ;d all the :nce. His " ought to ion of the ■er text of /ere added v's " Poly- character jited them islation of a tract or press in VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 297 which book I had great pleasure by reason of the fair and honest termes and wordes in French which I never saw to-fore-like, none so pleasant nor so well-ordered, which book as me seemed should be much requisite for noble men to see, as well for the eloquence as the histories ; and when I had advised me to this said book I deliber- ated and concluded to translate it into English, and forthwith took a pen and ink and wrote a leaf or twain." But the work of transla- tion involved a choice of English which made Caxton's work impor- tant in the history of our language. He stood between two schools of translation, that of French affectation and English pedantryr It was a moment when the character of our literary tongue was being settled, and it is curious to see in his own words the struggle over it which was going on in Caxton's time. " Some honest and great clerks have been with me and desired me to write the most curious terms that I could find ; " on the other hand, " some gentleme.i of late blamed me, saying that in my translations I had over many curious terms which could not be understood of common people, and desired me to use old and homely terms in my translations." " Fain would I please every man," comments the good-humoured printer, but his sturdy sense saved him alike from the temptations of the court and the schools. His own taste pointed to English, but " to the common terms that be daily used" rather than to the English of his anti- quarian advisers. " I took an old book and read therein, and cer- tainly the English was so rude and broad I could not well understand it," while the Old-English charters which the Abbot of Westminster lent as models from the archives of his house seemed " more like to Dutch than to English." On the other hand, to adopt current phraseology was by no means easy at a time when even the speech of common talk was in a state of rapid flux. " Our language now used varieth far from that which was used and sooken when I was born." Not only so, but the tongue of each shire was still peculiar to itself, and hardly intelligible to men of another county. " Common English that is spoken in one shire varieth from another so much, that in my days happened that certain merchants v/ere in a ship in Thames, for to have sailed over the sea into Zealand, and for lack of wind they tarried at Foreland, and went on land for to refresh them. And one of them, named Sheffield, a mercer, came into a house and asked for meat, and especially he asked them after eggs. And the good wife answered that she could speak no P'rench. And the merchant was angry, for he also could speak no French, but would have had eggs, but she understood him not. And then at last another said he would have eyren, then the good wife said she understood him well. Lo ! what should a man in these days now write," adds the puzzled printer, "eggs or eyren.'' certainly it is hard to please every man by cause of diversity and change of language." His own mother- Sec. III. The New Monarchy 1471 TO 1509 298 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. III. The New Monarchy 1471 TO 1509 Iiitcra- turc and the Nobles 149 1 HI ' it i II iU 11' I ' tongue too was that of " Kent in the Weald, where I doubt not is spoken as broad and rude English as in any place in England ; " and coupling this with his long absence in Flanders, we can hardly wonder at the confession he makes over his first translation, that " when all these things came to fore i.ie, after that I had made and writtcii a five or six quires, I fell in despair of this work, and purposed never to have continued therein, and the quires laid apart, and in two years after laboured no more in this work." He was still, however, busy translating when he died. All difficul- ties, in fact, were lightened by the general interest which his labours aroused. When the length of the " Golden Legend " makes him " half desperate to have accomplished it " and ready to " lay it apart," the Earl of Arundel solicits him in nowise to leave it and promises a yearly fee of a buck in summer and a doe in winter, once it were done. " Many noble and divers gentle men of this realm came and demanded many and often times wherefore I have not made and imprinted the noble history of the * San Graal.' " We see his visitors discussing with the sagacious printer the historic existence of Arthur. Duchess Margaret of Somerset lei ^ him her " Blanchardine and Eglantine ; " an Arch- deacon of Colchester brought him his translation of the work called " Cato ; ^' a mercer of London pressed him to undertake the " Royal Book" of Philip le Bel. The Queen's brother, Earl Rivers, chatted with him over his own translation of the " Sayings of the Philosophers." Even kings showed their interest in his work ; his " TuUy " was printed under the patronage of Edward the Fourth, his " Order of Chivalry " dedicated to Richard the Third, his " Facts of Arms " published at the desire of Henry the Seventh. The fashion of large and gorgeous libraries had passed from the French to the English princes of his day : Henry the Sixth had a valuable collection of books ; that of the Louvre was seized by Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, and formed the basis of the fine library which he presented to t],e University of Oxford. Great nobles took an active and personal part of the literary revival. The warrior, Sir John Fastolf, was a well-known lover of books. Earl Rivers was himself one of th*^ authors of the day ; he found leisure in the intervals of pilgrimages and politics to translate the " Sayings of the Philosophers " and a couple of religious tracts for Caxton's press. A friend of far greater intellectual distinction, however, than these was found in John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester. He had wandered d jr'n^'; the reign of Henry the Sixth in search of learning to Italy, had st! spoken :oupling ir at the all these ve or six to have ;ars after I difficul- s labours iim"half part," the ;s a yearly ;. " Many ded many the noble r with the Margaret an Arch- rork called he " Royal rs, chatted losophers." v&s printed Chivalry " hed at the gorgeous of his day : he Louvre he basis of ord. Great val. The oks. Earl 1 leisure in Sayings of on's press. ;han these wandered Italy, had where the |the Popes, an find no ich in his like among But the ruthlessness of the Renascence appeared in Tiptoft side by side with its intellectual vigour, and the fall of one whose cruelty had earned him the surname of " the Butcher " even amidst the horrors of civil war was greeted with sorrow by none but the faithfu! printer. "What great loss was it," he says in a preface long after his fall, " of that noble, virtuous, and well-disposed lord ; when I remember and ad- vertise his life, his science, and his virtue, me thinketh (God not displeased) over great a loss of such a man, considering his estate and cunning." Among the nobles who encouraged the work of Caxton we have already seen the figure of the King's youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Ruthless and subtle as Edward himself, the Duke at once came to the front with a scheme of daring ambition when the succession of a boy of thirteen woke aga.n the fierce rivalries of the Court. On the King's death Richard hastened to secure the person of his nephew, Edward the Fifth, to overthrow the power of the Queen's family, and to receive from the counci? the office of Protector of the realm. Little more than a month had pas-sed, when suddenly entering the Council chamber, he charged Lord Hastings, the chief adviser of the late King and loyal adherent of his sons, wub sorcery and designs upon his life. As he dashed his hand upon the iible the room was filled with soldiers. " I will not dine," said the Duke . addressmg Hastings, "till they have brought me your head;" and the powerful minister was hurried to instant execution in the court-yard of the Tower. The Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely were thrown into prison, and every check on Richard's desigur v'i6 removed. Only one step remained to be taken, and two months after his brother's death the Duke consented after some show of reluctance to recei\ a petition presented by a body of lords and others in the name " the three estates, which, setting aside Edward's children as the fr of an un- lawful marriage and those of Clarence as disabled by s attainder, besought him to take the office and title of King. His young nephews, Edward V. and his brother the Duke of York, were ing into the Tower, and there murdered, as was alleged, by their . icle's order ; while the Queen's brother and son, Lord Rivers and S : Richard Grey, were hurried to execution. Morton, the Bishop of Ely, imprisoned under Buckingham in Wales, took advantage of the disappearance of the two boys to found a scheme which was to unite the discontented Yorkists with what remained of the Lancastrian party, and to link both bodies in a wide conspiracy. All the descendants of Henry IV. had passed away, but the line of John of Gaunt still survive . The Lady Margaret Beaufort, the last representative of the House of Somerset, had married the Earl of Richmond, Edmund Tudor, and become the mother of Henry Tudor. In the act which legitimated the Bcauforts an illegal clause had been inserted by Henry IV. which barred their Sec. III. The New Monarchy 1471 TO 1509 Richard the Third 1483 ',; i V\ ; r Henry Tudor % >-• Sec. Ill The New- Monarchy 1471 TO 1509 1483 1484 Boszvorth Field 14^5 succession to the crown ; but as the last remaining scion of the line of Lancaster Henry's claim was acknowledged by the partizans of his House, and he had been driven to seek a refuge in Brittany from the jealous hostility of the Yorkist sovereigns. Morton's plan was the marriage of Henry Tudor with Elizabeth, the daughter and heiress of Edward IV., and with Buckingham's aid a formidable revolt was organized. The outbreak was quickly put down. But daring as was Richard's natural temper, it was not to mere violence that he trusted in his seizure of the throne. During his brother's reign he had watched keenly the upgrowth of public discontent as the new policy of the monarchy developed itself, and it was as the restorer of its older liberties that he appealed for popular support. " We be determined," said the citizens of London in a petition to the King, " rather to adven- ture and to commit us to the peril of our lives and jeopardy of death, than to live in such thraldom and bondage as we have lived long time heretofore, oppressed and injured by extortions and new impositions against the laws of God and man and the liberty and laws of this realm, wherein every EngHshman is inherited." Richard met the ap- peal by again convoking Parliament, which, as we have seen, had been all but discontinued under Edward, and by sweeping measures of reform. In the one session of his brief reign the practice of extort- ing money by "benevolences" was declared illegal, while grants of pardons and remission of forfeitures reversed in some measure the policy of terror by which Edward at once held the country in awe and filled his treasury. Numerous statutes broke the slumbers of Parliamentary legislation. A series of mercantile enactments strove to protect the growing interests of English commerce. The King's love of literature showed itself in the provision that no statutes should act as a hindrance " to any artificer or merchant stranger, of what nation or country he be, for bringing unto this realm or selling by retail or otherwise of any manner of books, written or imprinted." His prohibi- tion of the iniquitous seizure of goods before conviction of felony, whic- had prevailed during Edward's reign, his liberation of the bondmen who still remained unenfranchised on the royal domain, and his religious foundations, show Richard's keen anxiety to purchase a popularity in which the bloody opening of his reign might be forgotten. But as the news of the royal children's murder slowly spread, the most pitiless stood aghast at this crowning deed of blood. The pretence of constitutional rule, too, was soon thrown off, and a levy of benevolences in defiance of the statute which had just been passed woke general indignation. The King felt himself safe ; he had even won the Queen-niother's consent to his marriage with Elizabeth ; and Henry, alone and in exile, seemed a small danger. But a wide con- spiracy at once revealed itself when Henry landed at Milford Haven, and advanced through Wales. He no sooner encountered the royal army VI.] [ciiAp. le line of IS of his from the was the leiress of volt was \g as was le trusted I watched cy of the its older ermined," to adven- of death, long time npositions vs of this et the ap- , had been gasures of of extort- grants of easure the ry in awe umbers of s strove to king's love should act at nation ly retail or lis prohibi- of felony, Ion of the Imain, and lurchase a ] forgotten. Dread, the kd. The ind a levy ten passed had even )eth ; and Iwide con- [aven, and loyal arrny VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 301 at Bosworth Field in Leicestershire than treachery decided the day. Abandoned ere the battle began by a division of his forces under Lord Stanley, and as it opened by a second body under the Earl of Northumberland, Richard dashed, with a cry of " Treason, Treason," into the thick of the fight. In the fury of his despair he had already flung the Lancastrian standard to the ground and hewed his way into the very presence of his rival, when he fell overpowered by numbers, and the crown which he had worn, and which was found as the struggle ended lying near a hawthorn bush, was placed on the head of the conqueror. With the accession of Henry the Seventh ended the long bloodshed of the civil wars. The two warring lines were united by his marriage with Elizabeth : his only dangerous rivals were removed by the succes- sive deaths of the nephews of Edward the Fourth, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, a son of Edward's sister, who had been acknowledged as his successor by Richard the Third ; and the Ear) of Warwick, a son of Edward's brother the Duke of Clarence, and next male heir of the Yorkist line. Two remarkable impostors succeeded for a time in exciting formidable revolts, Lambert Simnel, under the name of the Earl of Warwick, and Perkin Warbeck, who j * >m ated the Duke of York, the second of the children murdered in the " - vver. Defeat, how- ever, reduced the first to the post of scullion in the royal kitchen ; and the second, after far stranger adventures, and the recognition of his claims by the Kings of Scotland and France, as well as by the Duchess- Dowager of Burgundy, whom he claimed as his aunt, was captured and four years later hanged at Tyburn. Revolt only proved more clearly the strength which had been given to the New Monarchy by the revolution which had taken place in the art of war. The introduction of gunpowder had ruined feudalism. The mounted and heavily-armed knight gave way to the meaner footman. Fortresses which had been impregnable against the attacks of the Middle Ages crumbled before the new artillery. Although gunpowder had been in use as early as Cr^cy, it was not till the accession of the House of Lancaster that it was really brought into effective employment as a military resource. But the revolution in warfare was immediate. The wars of Henry the Fifth were wars of sieges. The " Last of the Barons," as Warwick has pic- turesquely been styled, relied mainly on his train of artillery. It was artil- lery that turned the day at Barnet and Tewkesbury, and that gave Henry the Seventh his victory over the formidable dangers which assailed him. The strength which the change gave to the crown was, in fact, almost irresistible. Throughout the Middle Ages the call of a great baron had been enough to raise a formidable revolt. Yeomen and retainers took down thebowfrom theirchimneycorner,knights buckled on theirarmour, and in a few days an army threatened the throne. Bit without artillery such an army was now helpless, and the one train of artillery in the Sec. III. The New Monarchy 1471 TO 1509 Henry the Seventh 1487 1492 1501 .1 I ii I .i.r " I 303 IITSTORY Of Tttk feNCLISn ?FOPT,E. [chap. Sbc. III. The New MoNAR( IIY 1471 ro 1509 IT N ■ |i^ Couri of Star Chamber kingdom lay ai the disposal of the King. It was the conaiiousness of his strength which enabled the new sovereign to quietly resume the policy of lulward the Fourth. He was forced, indeed, by the circumstances of his descent to base his right to the throne on a Parliamentary title. Without reference either to the claim of blood or conquest, the Houses enacted simply " that the inheritance of the Crown should be, rest, remain, and abide in the most Royal person of their sovereign lord, King Henry the Seventh, and the heirs of his body lawfully ensuing." But the policy of Edward was faithfully followed, and Parliament was but twice convened during the last thirteen years of Henry's reign. The chief aim, indeed, of the King was the accumulation of a treasure which would relieve him from the neec of ever appealing for its aid. Subsidies granted for the support of wars which Henry evaded formed the base of a royal treasure, which wa.> swelled by the revival of dormant claims of the crown, by the exaction of fines for the breach of forgotten tenures, and by a host of petty extortions. A dilemma of his favourite minister, which received the name of " Morton's fork," extorted gifts to the exchequer from men who lived handsomely on the ground that their wealth was manifest, and from those who lived plainly on the plea that economy had made them wealthy. Still greater sums were drawn from those who were compromised in the revolts which chequered the King's rule. So successful were these efforts that at the end of his reign Henry bequeathed a hoard of two millions tn his successor. The same imitation of Edward's policy was see in Henry's civil government. Broken as was the strength of the biiionage, there still remained lords whom the new monarch watched with a jealous solicitude. Their power lay in the hosts of disorderly retainers who swarmed round their houses, ready to furnish a force in case of revolt, while in peace they became centres of outrage and defiance to the law. Edward had ordered the dissolution of these military households in his Statute of Liveries, and the statute was enforced by Henry with the utmost severity. On a visit to the Earl of Oxford, one of the most devoted adherents of the Lancastrian cause, the King found two long lines of liveried retainers drawn up to receive him. " I thank you for your good cheer, my Lord," said Henry as they parted, " but I may not endure to have my laws broken in my sight. My attorney must speak with you." The Earl was glad to escape with a fine of ;^io,ooo. It was with a special view to the suppression of this danger that Henry employed the criminal jurisdic- tion of the Royal Council. He appointed a committee of his Council as a regular court, to which the place where it usually sat gave the name of the Court of Star Chamber. The King's aim was probably little more than a purpose to enforce order on the land by bringing the great nobles before his own judgment-seat ; but the establishment of the court as a regular and no longer an exceptional tribunal, whose vi.l trad it i the al peers, thoug] potisn rather eye, th or gen tastes press, dream with d which which [Autl curately but inte accessib Elizabet The hisi Letters, ' by Jortir describee share, I '. and the i Great if we tu; the min moment and the enlarged of the u Hope ar Columbi Old. S( way amc lands, ne gence of that told soon " in range of tells us 1 human lii [chap. sness of le policy tistances ary title. I Houses be, rest, ign lord, irisuing." nent was ^'s reign, treasure r its aid. d formed evival of le breach lemma of I's fork," omely on who lived ly. Still ;d in the ^ere these rd of two I's policy ! strength monarch ! hosts of o furnish if outrage of these Ltute was e Earl of an cause, o reoeive eniy as ;n in my |s glad to ;w to the jurisdic- |s Council gave the probably ging the ihment of lal, whose vi.l THE NEW MONARCHY. 303 » 1 traditional powers were confirmed by Parliamentary statute, and where the absence of a jury cancelled the prisoner's right to be tried by his peers, furnished his son with his readiest instrument of tyranny. But though the drift of Henry's policy was steady in the direction of des- potism, his temper seemed to promise the reign of a poetic dreamer rather than of a statesman. The spare form, the sallow face, the quick eye, the shy, solitary humour broken by outbursts of pleasant converse or genial sarcasm, told of an inner concentration and enthusiasm. His tastes were literary and artistic ; he was a patron of the new printing press, a lover of books and of art. But life gave Henry little leisure for dreams or culture. Wrapt in schemes of foreign intrigue, struggling with dangers at home, he could take small part in the one movement which stincu England during his reign, the great intellectual revolution which bears the nainc of the Revival of Letters. Section IV.— The New Learnlngr. 1509— 1520. [Authoriiies, — The general literary history of this period is fully and ac- curately given by Mr. Hallam (*• Literature of Europe"), and in a confused but interesting way by Warton ("History of English Poetry"). The most accessible edition of the typical book of the Revival, More's " Utopia," is the Elizabethan translation, published by Mr. Arber ("English Reprints," 1869). The history of Erasmus in England must be followed in his own entertaining Letters, abstracts of some of which will be found in the well-known biography by Jortin. Colet's work and the theolog'cal aspect of the Revival has been described by Mr. Seebohm (" The Oxford Reformers of 1498 ") ; for Warham's share, I have ventured to borrow a little from a paper of mine on " Lambeth and the Archbishops," in " Stray .Studies."] Great as were the issues of Henry's policy, it shrinks into littleness if we turn from it to the weighty movements which were now stirring the minds of men. The world was passing through changes more momentous than any it had witnessed since the victory of Christianity and the fall of the Roman Empire. Its physical bounds were suddenly enlarged. The discoveries of Copernicus revealed to man the secret of the universe. Portuguese mariners doubled the Cape of Good Hope and anchored their merchant fleets in the harbours of India. Columbus crossed the untraversed ocean to add a New World to the Old. Sebastian Cabot, starting from the port of Bristol, threaded his way among the icebergs of Labrador. This sudden contact with new lands, new faiths, new races of men quickened the slumbering intelli- gence of Europe into a strange curiosity. The first book of voyages that told of the Western World, the Travels of Amerigo Vespucci, were soon " in every body's hands." The "Utopia" of More, in its wide range of speculation on every subject of human thought and action, tells us how roughly and utte-ly the narrowness and limitation of human life had been broken up. The capture of Constantinople by Skc. IV. The New Lharninp. 1500 TO isao The Ne^w^ lieaming I 1I 51: I: 304 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. !1! S«c. IV. The Nkw Lkarninc; 1500 TO i5ao 149 1 Colet at Oxford the Turks, and the flight of its Greek scholars to the shores of Italy, opened anew the science and literature of the older world at the very Hour when the intellectual energy of the Middle Ages had sunk into exhaustion. The exiled Greek scholars were welcomed in Italy, and Florence, so long the home of freedom and of art, became the home of an intellectual revival. The poetry of Homer, the drama of Sopho- cles, the philosophy of Aristotle and of Plato woke again to life beneath the shadow of the mighty dome with which Brunelleschi had just crowned the City by the Arno. All the restless energy which Florence had so long thrown into the cause of liberty she flung, now ' that her liberty was reft from her, into the cause of letters. The galleys of her merchants brought back manuscripts from the East as the most precious portion of their freight. In the palaces of her nobles fragments of classic sculpture ranged themselves beneath the frescoes of Ghirlandajo. The recovery of a treatise of Cicero's or a tract of Sailust's from the dust of a monastic library was welcomed by the group of statesmen and artists who gathered in the Rucellai gardens with a thrill of enthusiasm. Foreign scholars soon flocked over the Alps to learn Greek, the key of the new knowledge, from the Florentine teachers. Grocyn, a fellow of New College, was perhaps the first Englishman who studied under the Greek exile, Chalcondylas ; and the Greek lectures which he delivered in Oxford on his return mark the opening of a new period in our history. Physical as well as literary activity awoke with the re-discovery of the teachers of Greece, and the con- tinuous progress of English science may be dated from the day when Linacre, another Oxford student, returned from the lectures of the Florentine Politian to revive the older tradition of medicine by his translation of Galen. But from the first it was manifest that the revival of letters would take a tone in England very different from the tone it had taken in Italy, a tone less literary, less largely human, but more moral, more religious, more practical in its bearings both upon society and politics. The awakening of a rational Christianity, whether in England or in the Teutonic world at large, began with the Italian studies of John Colet ; and the vigour and earnestness of Colet were the best proof of the strength with which the new movement was to affect English re- ligion. He came back to Oxford utterly untouched by the Platonic mysticism or the semi-serious infidelity which characterized the group of scholars round Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was hardly more influenced by their literary enthusiasm. The knowledge of Greek seems to have had one almost exclusive end for him, and this was a religious end. Greek was the key by which he could unlock the Gospels and the New Testament, and in these he thought that he could find a new religious standing-ground. It was this resolve of Colet to fling aside the traditional dogmas of his day and to discover a rational VI.J and p stamp a vivi( such J Script of faitl strong Catho] the Mi pose fe gramm "p by 1 the Scl simple Apostle patienc coarser before t indicati metal-w saint so the - she petulant for his a earnestn pathy wi burst oul Oxford. one insp out of h] severity he prese frank sin outbursts scholars foremost " Greec hearing a the glory followed 1: industry, accumulat reading he foundness though he [chap. ' Italy, e very ik into ,ly, and e home Sopho- aeneath ad just 'lorence ;hat her 's cf her precious nents of •landajo. Tom ihe :atesmen thrill of to learn teachers, glishman le Greek ; opening f activity the con- lay when es of the le by his vi.J THE NEW MONARCHY. 305 and practical religion in the Gospels themselves, which gave its peculiar stamp to the theology of the Renascence. His faith stood simply on a vivid realization of the person of Christ. In the prominence which such a view gave to the moral life, in his free criti. ism of the earlier Scriptures, in his tendency to simple forms of doctrine and confessions of faith, Colet struck the key-note of a mode of religious thought as strongly in contrast with that of the later Reformation as with that of Catholicism itself. The allegorical .md mystical theology on which the Middle Ages had spent their intellectual vigour to such little pur- pose fell at one blow before his rejection of all but the historical and grammatic.il sense of the Biblical text. The great fabric of belief built up by the mediaeval doctors seemed to him simply " the corruptions of the Schoolmen." In the life and sayings of its P'ounder he founr' a simple and rational Christianity, whose fittest expression was the Apostles' creed. "About the rest," he said with characteristic im- patience, " let divines dispute as they will." Of his attitude towards the coarser aspects of the current religion his behaviour at a later time before the famous shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury gives us ,1 rough indication. As the blaze of its jewels, its ' ostly sculptures, its elaborate metal-work burst on Colet's view, he suggested with bitter irony that a saint so lavish to the poor in his lifetime woo'd certainly prefer that the; • should possess the wealth heaped round him since his death. With petulant disgust he rejected the rags of the martyr which were offered for his adoration, and the shoe which was offered for his kiss. The earnestness, the religious zeal, the very impatience and want of sym- pathy with the pa t which we see in every word and act of the man, burst out in the lectures on St. Paul's Epistles which he delivered at Oxford. Even to the most critical among his hearers he seemed " like one inspired, raised in voice, eye, his whole com Lenance and mien, out of himself." Severe as was the outer life of the new teacher, a severity marked by his plain black robe and the frugal table wMch he preserved amidst his later dignities, his lively conversation, his frank simplicity, the purity and nobleness of his life, even the keen outbursts of his troublesome temper, endeared him to a group of scholars among whom Erasmus and Thomas More stood in the foremost rank. "Greece has crossed the Alps," cried the exiled Argyropulos on hearing a translation of Thucydides by the German Reuchlin ; but the glory, whether of Reuchlin or of the Teutonic scholars who followed him, was soon eclipsed by that of Erasmus. His enormous industry, the vast store of classical learning which he gradually accumulated, Erasmus shared with others of his day. In patristic reading he may have stood beneath Luther ; in originality and pro- foundness of thought he was certainly inferior to More. His theology, though he made a far greater mark on the world by it than even by X Sec. IV. Thr New Learning 1509 TO isao 1497 Erasmus in England ll i I !■ I ' ! IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 5? // ^ A f mind begun, arning ; loyhood The tion in ff ignor- know- lounts a IS of the of the Ifishness All the educational designs of the reformers were carried out in the new foundation. The old methods of instruction were superseded by fresh grammars composed by Erasmus and other scholars for its use. Lilly, an Oxford student who had studied Greek in the East, was placed at its head. The injunctions of the founder aimed at the union of rational religion with sound learning, at the exclusion of the scholastic logic, and at the steady diffusion of the two classical literatures. The more bigoted of the clergy were quick to take alarm. " No wonder," More wrote to the Dean, "your school raises a storm, for it is like the wooden horse in which a»*med Greeks were hidden for the ruin of barbarous Troy." But the cry of alarm passed helplessly away. Not only did the study of Greek creep gradually into the schools which existed, but the example of Colet was followed by a crowd of imitators. More gram- mar schools, it has been said, were founded in the latter years of Henry than in the *hree centuries before. The impulse grew only stronger as the direct influence of the New Learning passed away. The grammar schools of Edward the Sixth and of Elizabeth, in a word the system of middle-class education which by the close of the century had changed the very face of England, were amongst the results of Colet's foundation of St. Paul's. But the '* armed Greeks " of Move's apologue found a yet wider field in the reform of the higher education of the country. On the Universities the influence of the New Learning was like a passing from death to life. Erasmus gives us a picture of what happened at Cambridge, where he was himself for a time a teacher of Greek. " Scarcely thirty years ago nothing was taught here but the Parva Logicalia^ Alexander, antiquated exercises from Aristotle, and the Quastiones of Scotus. As time went on better studies were added, mathematics, a new, or at any rate a renovated, Aristotle, and a knowledge of Greek literature. What has been the result ? The University is now so flourishing that it can compete with the best universities of the age." Latimer and Croke returned from Italy and carried on the work of Erasmus at Cambridge, where Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, himself one of the foremost scholars of the new movement, lent it his powerful support. At Oxford the Revival met with a fiercer opposition. The contest took the form of boyish frays, in which the young partisans and opponents of the New Learning took sides as Greeks and Trojans. The King himself had to summon one of its fiercest enemies to Woodstock, and to impose silence on the tirades which were delivered from the University pulpit. The preacher .alleged that he was carried away by the Spirit. "Yes," retorted the King, " by the spirit, not of wisdom, but of folly." But even at Oxford the contest was soon at an end. Fox, Bishop of Winchester, established the first Greek lecture there in his new college of Corpus Christi, and a Professorship of Greek was at a later time established by the Crown. " The students," wrote an eye- Sec. IV. Thr New i.rarnino 1509 TO lAao M ■» it:' V I516 1520 *j'' I 3IO HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. vM Sec. IV. The Nrw Learning 1509 TO 15flO The New Leamlnc lu&d the Church 1512 I Henry and France witness, " rush to Greek letters, they endure watching, fasting, toil, and hunger in the pursuit of them." The work was crowned at last by the munificent foundation of Cardinal College, to share in whose teaching Wolsey invited the most eminei < of the living scholars of Europe, and for whose library he promised to obtain copies of all the manuscripts in the Vatican. From the reform of education the New Learning pressed on to the reform of the Church. Warham still flung around the movement his steady protection, and it was by his commission that Colet was en- abled to address the Convocation of the Clergy in words which set before them with unsparing severity the religious ideal of the New Learning. "Would that for once," burst forth the fiery preacher, " you would remember your name and profession and take thought for the reformation of the Church ! Never was it more necessary, and never did the state of the Church need more vigorous endeavours." " We are troubled with heretics," he went on, " but no hej-esy of theirs is so fatal to us and to the people at large as the vicious and depraved lives of the clergy. That is the worst heresy of all." It was the reform of the bishops that must precede that of the clergy, the reform of the clergy that would lead to a general revival of religion in the people at large. The accumulation of benefices, the luxury and worldliness of the priesthood, must be abandoned. The prelat 2s ought to be busy preachers, to forsake the Court and labour in their own dioceses. Care should be taken for the ordmation and promotion of worthier ministers, residence should be enforced, the low standard of clerical morality should be raised. It is plain that the men of the New Learning looked forward, not to a reform of doctrine, but to a reform of life, not to a revolution which should sweep away the older superstitions which they despised, but to a regeneration of spiritual feeling before which they would inevitably vanish. Colet was soon charged with heresy by the Bishop of London. Warham however protected him, and Henry, to whom the Dean was denounced, bade him go boldly on. " Let every man have his own doctor," said the young King, after a long interview, " and let every man favour his own, but this man is the doctor for me." But for the success of the new reform, a reform which could only be wrought out by the tranquil spread of knowledge and the gradual en- lightenment of the human conscience, the one thing needful was peace ; and the young King to whom the scholar-group looked was already longing for war. Long as peace had been established between the two countries, the desig^ns of England upon the French crown had never been really waived, and Henry's pride dwelt on the older claims of England to Normandy and Guienne. Edward the Fourth and Henry the Seventh had each clung to a system of peace, only broken by the vain efforts to save Britanny from FrencI and p( tion o he intr Europe balance the un Ferdinz his dau Maximi Seventh tary ene his elde This ma by the enabled howeverj powers Eighth marriage amidst whole en which th the old s efforts of Italy. T] mastery m once abo\ remained of Milan ; in the leai oppose he was calle< from the as he was and Juliu Eighth. « chased be only used 1 the view Navarre. English as need. He of the Fr< received fro :hap. , and St by krhose irs of 11 the to the nt his as en- ch set ; New lacher, jht for y, and vours." f theirs praved ^as the reform in the ry and s ought ir own tion of Idard of of the lut to a le older •iritual Ls soon lowever I, bade lid the |is own, )nly be lual en- jul was [looked )Ushed 'rcnch ^elt on ;dward system from VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. French invasion. But the growth of the French monarchy m extent and power through the policy of Lewis the Eleventh, his extinc- tion of the great feudatories, and the administrative centralization he introduced, raised his kingdom to a height far above that of its European rivals. The power of France, in fact, was only counter- balanced by that of Spain, which had become a great state through the union of Castile and Aragon, and where the cool and wary Ferdinand of Aragon was building up a vast power by the marriage of his daughter and heiress to the Archduke Philip, son of the Emperor Maximilian. Too weak to meet France single-handed, Henry the Seventh saw in an alliance with Spain a security against his " heredi- tary enemy," and this alliance had been cemented by the marriage of his eldest son, Arthur, with Ferdinand's daughter, Catharine of Aragon. This match was broken by the death of the young bridegroom ; but by the efforts of Spain a Papal dispensation was procured which enabled Catharine to wed the brother of her late husband. Henry, however, anxious to preserve a balanced position between the battling powers of France and Spain, opposed the union ; but Henry the Eighth had no sooner succeeded his father on the throne than the marriage was carried out. Throughout the first years of his reign, amidst the tournaments and revelry which seemed to absorb his whole energies, Henry was in fact keenly watching the opening which the ambition of France began to afford for a renewal of the old struggle. Under the successors of Lewis the Eleventh the efforts of the French monarchy had been directed to the conquest of Italy. The passage of the Alps by Charles the Eighth and the mastery which he won over Italy at a single blow lifted France at once above the states around her. Twice repulsed from Naples, she remained under the successor of Charles, Lewis the Twelfth, mistress of Milan and of the bulk of Northern Italy ; and the ruin of Venice in the league of Cambray crushed the last Italian state which could oppose her designs on the whole peninsula. A Holy League, as ii was called from the accession to it of the Pope, to drive France from the Milanese was formed by the efforts of Ferdinand, aided as he was by the kinship of the Emperor, the support of Venice and Julius the Second, and the warlike temper of Henry the Eighth. " The barbarians," to use the phrase of Julius " were chased beyond the Alps ; " but Ferdinand's unscrupulous adroitness only used the English force, which had landed at Fontarabia with the view of attacking Guienne, to cover his own conquest of Navarre. The troop mutinied and sailed home ; men scoffed at the English as useless for war. Henry's spirit, however, rose with the need. He landed in person in the north of France, and a sudden rout of the French cavalry in an engagement near Guinegate, which received from his bloodless character the name of the Battle of the 3" Sec. IV. Tub New Learnino 1509 TO isao i 1 ■1 1501 1509 I5II 1514 li } A ' 312 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CHAP. Sec. IV. Thi New Lkarning 1509 TO i5ao The Peace and the New Learning Spurs, gave him the fortresses of Tdrouanne and Tournay. The young conqueror was eagerly pressing on to the recovery of his '*' heritage of France," when he found himself suddenly left alone by the desertion of Ferdinand ar 1 the dissolution of the league. Henry had indeed gained much. The might of France was broken. The Papacy was restored to freedom. Kngland had again figured as a great power in Euiope. But the millions left by his father were exhausted, his sub] - v ' had been drained by repeated subsidies, and, furious as he was at the treachery of his Spanish ally, Henry was driven to concluc' j jl peace. To the hopes of the New Learning this sudden outbreak of the spirit of war, this change of the monarch from whom they had looked for a " new order " into a vulgar conqueror, proved a bitter disappointment. Colet thundered from the pulpit of St. Paul's that " an unjust peace is better than the justest war," and protested that "when men out of hatred and ambition fight with and destroy one another, they fight under the banner, not of Christ, but of the Devil." Erasmus quitted Cambridge with a bitter satire against the " madness " around him. "It is the people," he said, in words which must have startled his age, — "it is the people who build cities, while the madness of princes destroys them," The sovereigns of his time appeared to him like ravenous birds pounc- ing with beak and claw on the hard-won wealth and knowledge of mankind. " Kings who are scarcely men," he exclaimed in bitter irony, " are called * divine ; ' they are * invincible ' though they fly from every bat^'.*,-field ; ' serene ' though they turn the world upside down in a storm of war ; ' illustrious' though they grovel in ignorance of all that is noble ; * Catholic ' though they follow anything rather than Christ. Of all birds the Eagle alone has seemed to wise men the type of royalty, a bird neither beautiful nor musical nor good fc«r food, but murderous, greedy, hateful to all, the curse of all, and with its great powers of doing harm only surpassed by its desire to do it." It was the first time in modern history that religion had formally dissociated itself from the ambition of princes and the horrors of war, or that the new spirit of criticism had ventured not only to question but to deny what had till then seemed the primary truths of political order. We shall soon see to what further length the new speculations -ere pushed by a greater thinker, but for the moment the indignation of the New Learning was diverted to more practical ends by the sudden peace. However he had disappointed its hopes, Henry still remained its friend. Through all the changes of his terrible career his home was a home of letters. His boy, Edward the Sixth, was a fair scholar in both the classical languages. His daughter Mary wrote good Latin letters. Elizabeth began every day with an hour's reading in the Greek Testament, the tragedies of Sophocles, or the orations of Demosthenes. The ladies of the court caught the royal fashion, and were found poring over the pages of Plato. Widely as Henry's ministers differed from e^ch other, they aU agreed VJ.] in shai scholar Tenth, give to turbulei declarec Court, ii favour 1 no war ministry struggles peace, to Engh produce protect i 01 Jerome 1 great sch tion to th tection in to the pat words so sympathiz the spirit " Synods no means unless trui more dogr heresies, when the \ creed we h of reason soon to flo Pope Pius principles greater clei future Ref( iiad been t wholly due English scl tradition, secured uni tion was ba the text. ] Oxford lect of the Churc CHAP. young age of tion of gained stored uiope. V ■ had at the 3eace. B spirit i for a itment. eace is out of t under abridge ; is the it is the them." , pounc- edge of 1 bitter fly from down in all that Christ, royalty, -derous, f doing time in om the pirit of had till Don see greater ing was he had I all the is boy, [guages. every fdies of ,e court .f Plato, agreed VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 313 in sharing and fostering the culture around them. The panic of the scholar-group therefore soon passed away. The election of Leo the Tenth, the fellow-student of Linacre, the friend of Erasmus, seemed tj give to the New Learning control of Christendom. The age of the turbulent, ambitious Julius was thought to be over, and the new Pope- declared for a universal peace. " Leo," wrote an English agent at his Court, in words to which after-history lent a strange meaning, " would favour literature and the arts, busy himself in building, and enter into no war save through actual compulsion." England, under the new ministry of Wolsey, withdrew from any active interference in the struggles of the Continent, and seemed as resolute as Leo himself for peace. Colet toiled on with his eaucational efforts ; Erasmus forwarded to England the works which English liberality was enabling him to produce abroad. Warham extended to him as generous an aid as the protection he had afforded to Colet. His edition of the works of St. Jerome had been begun under Warhan's encouragement during the great scholar's residence at Cambridge, and it appeared with a dedica- tion to the Archbishop on its title-page. That Erasmus could find pro- tection in Warham's name for a work which boldly recalled Christendom to the path of sound Biblical criticism, that he could address him in words so outspoken as those of his preface, shows how fully the Primate sympathized with the highest efforts of the Nev/ Learning. Nowhere had the spirit of inquiry so firmly set itself against the claims of authority. " Synods and decrees, and even councils," wrote Erasmus, " are by no means in my judgement the fittest modes of repressing error, unless truth depend simply on authority. But on the contrary, the more dogmas there are, the more fruitful is the ground in producing heresies. Never was the Christian faith purer or more undefiled than when the world was content with a single creed, and that the shortest creed we have." It is touching even now to listen to such an appeal of reason and of culture against the tide of dogmatism which was soon to flood Christendom with Augsburg Confessions and Creeds of Pope Pius and Westminster Catechisms and Thirty-nine Articles. The principles which Erasmus urged in his "Jerome" were urged with far greater clearness and force in a work which laid the foundation of the future Reformation, the edition of the Greek Testament on which he had been engaged at Cambridge, and whose production was almost wholly due to the encouragement and assistance he received from English scholars. In itself the book was a bold defiance of theological tradition. It set aside the Latin version of the Vulgate, which Had secured universal acceptance in the Church. Its method of interpreta- tion was based, not on received dogmas, but on the literal meaning of the text. Its real end was the end at which Colet had aimed in his Oxford lectures. Erasmus desired to set Christ himself in the place of the Church, to recall men from the teachings of Christian theologians .Skc. IV. The Nkw l.F\RNINr. 150Q TO isao The Jerome of hUanHin Neiv Testa- ment 0/ Erasmus i^ i^S'll m 314 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CHAP. Sec. IV. The Nkw LlTARNINC 1509 TO i5ao i 1516 Thomas More to the teachings of the Founder of Christianity. The whole value of the Gospels to him lay in the vividness with which they brought hoiuc to their readers the personal impression of Christ himself. " Were we to have seen him with our own eyes, we should not have so intimate a knowledge as they give us of Christ, speaking, healing, dying, rising again, as it were in our very presence." All the superstitions of mediaeval worship faded away in the light of this personal worship of Christ. " If the footprints of Christ are shown us in any place, we kneel down and adore them. Why do we not rather venerate the living and breathing picture of him in these books ? We deck statues of wood and stone with gold and gems for the love of Christ, "^'"et they only profess to represent to us the outer form of his body, while these books present us with a living picture of his holy mind." In the same way the actual teaching of Christ was made to supersede the mysterious dogmas of the older ecclesiastical teaching. " As though Christ taught such subtleties," burst out Erasmus : " subtleties that can scarcely be understood even by a few theologians — or as though the strength of the Christian religion consisted in man's ignorance of it ! It may be the safer course," he goes on, with characteristic irony, " to conceal the state-mysteries of kings, but Christ desired his mysteries to be spread abroad as openly as was possible." In the diffusion, in the universal knowledge of the teaching of Christ the foundation of a reformed Chris- tianity had still, he urged, to be laid. With the tacit approval of the Primate of a Church which from the time of Wyclif had held the trans- lation and reading of the Bible in the common tongue to be heresy and a crime punishable with the fire, Erasmus boldly avowed his wish for a Bible open and intelligible to all. " I wish that even the weakest woman might read the Gospels and ihe Epistles of St. Paul. I wish that they were translated into all languages, so as to be read and understood not only by Scots and Irishmen, but even by Saracens and Turks. But the first step to their being read is to make them in- telligible to the reader. I long for the day when the husbandman shall sing portions of them to himself as he follows the plough, when the weaver shall hum them to the tune of his shuttle, when the traveller shall while away with their stories the weariness of his journey." The New Testament of Erasmus became the topic of the day ; the Court, the Universities, every household to which the New Learning had penetrated, read, and discussed it. But bold as its language may have seemed, Warham not only expressed his approba- tio'n, but lent the work — as he wrote to its author — " to bishop after bishop." The most influential of his suffragans. Bishop Fo.x of Win- chester, declared that the mere version was worth ten commentaries : one of the most learned, Fisher of Rochester, entertained Erasmus at his house. Daring and full of promise as were these efforts of the New Learning [CHAP. alue of t home ere we \timate , rising ions of rship of ace, we ate the statues ''et they le these le same sterious t taught rcely ue ength of may be iceal the e spread miversal id Chris- al of the le trans- resy and wish for weakest I wish ad and VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 315 In the direction of educational and religious reform, its political and social speculations took a far wider range in the " Utopia" of Thomas More. Even in the household of Cardinal Morton, where he had spent his childhood, More's precocious ability had raised the highest hopes. " Whoever may live to see it," the grey-haired statesman used to say, " this boy now waiting at table will turn out a marvellous man." We have seen the spell which his wonderful learning and the sweet- ness of his temper threw over Colet and Erasmus at Oxford, and young as he was, More no sooner quitted the University than he was known throughout Europe as one of the foremost figures in the new movement. The keen, irregular face, the grey restless eye, the thin mobile lips, the tumbled brown hair, the careless gait and dress, as they remain stamped on the canvas of Holbein, picture the inner soul of the man, his vivacity, his restless, all-devouring intellect, his keen and even reckless wit, the kindly, half-sad humour that drew its strange veil of laughter and tears over the deep, tender reverence of the soul within. In a higher, because in a sweeter and more loveable form than Colet, More is the representative of the religious tendency of the New Learning in England. The young law-student who laughed at the superstition and asceticism of the monks of his day wore a hair shirt next his skin, and schooled himself by penances for the cell he desired among the Carthusians. It was characteristic of the man that among all the gay, profligate scholars of the Italian Renascence he chose as the object of his admiration the disciple of Savonarola, Pico di Mirandola. Free-thinker as the bigots who listened to his daring speculations termed him, his eye would brighten and his tongue falter as he spoke with friv ids of heaven and the after-life. When he took office, it v/as with the open stipulation " first to look to God, and after God to the King." But in his outer bearing there was nothing of the monk or recluse. The brightness and freedom of the New Learning seemed incarnate in the young scholar, with his gay talk, his win- someness of manner, his reckless epigrams, his passionate love of music, his omnivorous reading, his paradoxical speculations, his gibes at monks, his schoolboy fervour of liberty. But events were soon to prove that beneath this sunny nature lay a stern inflexibility of con- scientious resolve. The Florentine scholars who penned declamations against tyrants had covered with their flatteries the tyranny of the house of Medici. More no sooner entered Parliament than his ready argument and keen sense of justice led to the rejection of the Royal demand for a heavy subsidy. " A beardless boy," said the courtiers, — and More was only twenty-six, — ''has disappointed the King's pur- pose ; " and during the rest of Henry the Seventh's reign the young lawyer found it prudent to withdraw from public life. But the with- drawal had little effect on his buoyant activity. He rose at once into repute at the bar. He wrote his " Life of Edward the Fifth," Skc. IV. Thk New Lkaknino 1509 TO isao i ■It' % 1 504 lf; 3l6 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. fCIIAP. Sue. IV. Thr Nkw I^RARNINn 1509 TO isao The Utopia 1516 the first work in which what wc may call modern English prose appears written with purity and clearness of style and a freedom cither from antiquated forms of expression or classical pedantry. His ascetic dreams were replaced by the aflfections of home. It' is when we get a glimpse of him in his house at Chelsea that we understand the endearing epithets which Erasmus always lavishes upon More. The delight of the young husband was to train the girl he had chosen for his wife in his own taste for letters and for music. The reserve which the age cxiicted from parents was thrown to the winds in More's intercourse with his children. He loved teaching them, and lured them to their deeper studies by the coins and curiosities he had gathered in his cabinet. He was as fond of their pets and their games as his children themselves, and would take grave scholars and statesmen into the garden to see his girls' rabbit-hutches or to watch the gambols of their favourite monkey. " I have given you kisses enough," he wrote to his little ones in merry verse when far away on political business, " but stripes hardly ever." The accession of Henry the Eighth dragged him back into the politi- cal current. It was at his house that Erasmus penned the " Praise of Folly," and the work, in its Latin title, " Moriae Encomium," embodied in playful fun his love of the extravagant humour of More. More " tried as hard to keep out of Court," says his descendant, " as most men try to get into it." When the charm of his conversation gave so much pleasure to the young sovereign, " that he could not once in a month get leave to go home to his wife or children, whose company he much desired, ... he began thereupon to dissemble his nature, and so, little by little, from his former mirth to dissemble himself." More shared to the full the disappointment of his friends at the sudden outbreak of Henry's warlike temper, but the peace again drew him to Henry's side, and he was soon in the King's confidence both as a counsellor and as a diplomatist. It was on one of his diplomatic missions that More describes himself as hearing news of the Kingdom of " Nowhere." " On a cer- tain day when I had heard mass in Our Lady' s Church, which is the fairest, the most gorgeous and curious church of building in all the city of Antwerp, and also most frequented of people, and service being over 1 was ready to go home to my lodgings, I chanced to espy my friend Peter Gilles talking with a certain stranger, a man well stricken in age, with a black sun-burnt face, a large beard, and a cloke cast trimly about his shoulders, whom by his favour and apparell forthwith I judged to be a mariner." The sailor turned out to have been a companion of Amerigo Vespucci in those voyages to the New World " that be now in print and abroad in every man's hand," and on More's invitation he accompanied him to his house,and "there in my garden upon a bench covered with green turves we sate down, talking Vf.J togcth by Ve line, ai the sto derful yet the reform More forms o and pol teaching politica in whic ends of very ins wanders the grea problem: to have prove th< shown ir the pure of the d| most imp pated by treatment current of him "not economic by procesi thing furtl even by pi that those least rewai "The rich secure to t to their ow labour of tl devices in was the wr life so wre cry of pity Jnanufactui had been Christendoi [CHAP. prose eedom iantry. le. It • lat we iivishes lin the rs and kts was n. He by the as fond I would is girls' nonkey. n merry [y ever." le politi- " Praise omium," )f More, ant, " as ersation )uld not , whose issemble issemble friends e again fidence lescribes In a cer- /hich is all the service [to espy Ian well I a cloke ipparell Ito have le New Id," and le in my 1 talking VI.] TIIK NEW MONAkClIY. 317 together "of the man's marvellous adventures, his desertion in America by Vespucci, his wanderings over the country under the equinoctial line, and at last of his stay in the Kingdom of " Nowhere." It was the story of" Nowhere,'.' or Utopia, which More embodied in the won- derful book which reveals to us the heart of the New Learning. As yet the movement had been one of scholars and divines. Its plans of reform had been almost exclusively intellectual and religious. But in More the same free play of thought which had shaken off the old forms of education and faith turned to question the old forms of society and politics. From a world where fifteen hundred years of Christian teaching had produced social injustice, religious intolerance, and political tyranny, the humourist philosopher turned to a "Nowhere" in which the mere efforts of natural human virtue realized those ends of security, equality, brotherhood, and freedom for which the very institution of society seemed to have been framed. It is as he wanders through this dreamland of the new reason that More touches the great problems which were fast opening before the modern world, problems of labour, of crime, of conscience, of government. Merely to have seen and to have examined questions such as these would prove the keenness of his intellect, but its far-reaching originality is shown in the solutions which he proposes. Amidst much that is the pure play of an exuberant fancy, much that is mere recollection of the dreams of bygone dreamers, we find again and again the most important social and political discoveries of later times antici- pated by the genius of Thomas More. In some points, such as his treatment of the question of Labour, he still remains far in advance of current opinion. The whole system of society around him seemed to him "nothing but a conspiracy of the rich against the poor." Its economic legislation was simply the carrying out of such a conspiracy by process of law. " The rich are ever striving to pare away some- thing further from the daily wages of the poor by private fraud and even by public law, so that the wrong already existing (for it is a wrong that those from whom the State derives most benefit should receive least reward) is made yet greater by means of the law of the State." " The rich devise every means by which they may in the first place secure to themselves what they have amassed by wrong, and then take to their own use and profit at the lowest possible price the work and labour of the poor. And so soon as the rich decide on adopting these devices in the name of the public, then they become law." The result was the wretched existence to which the labour-class was doomed, " a life so wretched that even a beast's life seems enviable." No such cry of pity for the poor, of protest against the system of agrarian and manufacturing tyranny which found its expression in the Statute-book, had been heard since the days of Piers Ploughman. But from Christendom More turns with a smile to ** Nowhere." In " Nowhere " Skc. IV. TiiK Nkw Lkahninu 150» TO isao I h 3i8 HISfORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. IV. The New Leakninu 1509 TO i5ao the aim of legislation is to secure the welfare, social, industrial, intel- lectual, religious, of the community at large, and of the labour-class as the true basis of a well-ordered commonwealth. The end of its labour-laws was simply the welfare of the labourer. Goods werfe possessed indeed in common, but work was compulsory with all. The period of toil was shortened to the nine hours demanded by modern artizans, with a view to the intellectual improvement of the worker. "In the institution of the weal public this end is only and chiefly pretended and minded that what time may possibly be spared from the necessary occupations and affairs of the commonwealth, all that the citizens should withdraw from bodily service to the free liberty of the mind and garnishing of the same. For herein they conceive the felicity of this life to consist." A public system of education enabled the Utopians to avail themselves of their leisure. While in England half of the population could read no English, every child was well taught in " Nowhere." The physical aspects of society were cared for as attentively as its moral. The houses of Utopia " in the beginning were very low and like homely cottages or poor shepherd huts made at all adventures of every rude piece of timber that came first to hand, with mud walls and ridged roofs thatched over with straw." The picture was really that of the common English town of More's day, the home of squalor and pestilence. In Utopia however they had at last come to realize the connexion between public morality and the health which springs from light, air, comfort, and cleanliness. " The streets were twenty feet broad ; the houses backed by spacious gardens, and curiously builded after a gorgeous and gallant sort, with their stories one after another. The outsides of the walls be made either of hard flint, or of plaster, or else of brick ; and the inner sides be well strengthened by timber work. The roofs be plain and flat, covered over with plaster so tempered that no fire can hurt or perish it, and withstanding the violence of the weather better than any lead. They keep the wind out of their windows with glass, for it is there much used, and sometimes also with fine linen cloth dipped in oil or amber, and that for two commo- dities, for by this means more light cometh in and the wind is better kept out." The same foresight which appears in More's treatment of the ques- tions of Labour and the Public Health is yet more apparent in his treatment of the question of Crime. He was the first to suggest that punishment was less effective in suppressing it than prevention. " If you allow your people to be badly taught, their morals to be corrupted from childhood, and then when they are men punish them for the very crimes to which they have been trained in childhood — what is this but to make thieves, and then to punish them?" He was the .first to I plead for proportion between the punishment and the crime, and to CHAP. VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 319 intel- -class of its werfc The lodern worker, chiefly spared ,1th, all le free n they tern of leisure. :nglish, >ects of uses of iges or f timber hatched ommon itilence. P' ' l ;d r. :ommo- better le ques- in his lest that In. "If trrupted •he very Ithis but first to and to point o;it the folly of the cruel penalties of his day. '' Simple theft is not so great an offence as to be punished with death." If a thief and a murderer are sure of the same penalty, More shows that the law is simply tempting the thief to secure his theft by murder. " While we go about to make thieves afraid, we are really provoking tl\em to kill good men." The end of all punishment he declares to be reforma- tion, " nothing else but the destruction of vice and the saving of men." He advises " so using and ordering criminals that they cannot choose but be good ; and what harm soever they did before, the residue of their lives to make amends for the same." Above all, he urges tha t to be remedial punishment must be wrought out by labour and hope, so that " none is hopeless or in despair to recover again his former state of freedom by giving good tokens and likelihood of himself that he will ever after that live a true and honest man." It is not too much to say that in the great principles More lays down he anticipated every one of the improvements in our criminal system which have distinguished the last hundred years. His treatment of the religious question v^as even more in advance of his age. If the houses of Utopia were strangely in contrast with the halls of England, where the bones from every dinner lay rotting in the dirty straw which strewed the floor, where the smoke curled about the rafters, and the wind whistled through the unglazed windows ; if its penal legislation had little likeness to the gallows which stood out so frequently against our English sky ; the religion of " Nowhere " was in yet stronger conflict with the faith of Christendom. It rested simply on nature and reason. It held that God's design was the happiness of man, and that the ascetic rejection of human delights, save for the common good, was thanklessness to the Giver. Christianity, indeed, had already reached Utopia, but it had few priests ; religion found its centre rather in the family than in the congregation : and each household confessed its faults to its own natural head. A yet stranger characteristic was seen in the peaceable way in which it lived side by side with the older religions. More than a century before William of Orange, More discerned and proclaimed the great principle of religious toleration. In " Nowhere" it was lawful to every man to be of what religion he would. Even the disbelievers in a Divine Being or in the immortality of man, who by a single exception to its perfect religious indifference were excluded from public office, were excluded, not on the ground of their religious belief, but because their opinions were deemed to be degrading to mankind, and therefore to incapacitate those who held them from governing in a noble temper. But even these were subject to no punishment, be- cause the people of Utopia were "persuaded that it is not in a man's power to believe what he list." The religion which a man held he might propagate 1 y argument, though not by violence or insult to the religion of others. But while each sect performed its rites Sec. IV. The New Learning 1509 TO 1520 I: r > '■■ ^1^9 l-V' i -t'! -t" H ",! 320 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. V. WOLSKV 1515 TO 1531 tS»7 1520 The New Xieaminir and the Refor- mation in private, all assembled for public worship in a spacious temple, where the vast throng, clad in white, and grouped round a priest clothed in fair raiment wrought marvellously out of birds' plumage, joined in hymns and prayers so framed as to be acceptable to all. The importance of this public devotion lay in the evi- dence it afforded that liberty of conscience could be combined with religious unity. Section V.-Wol«ey. 1515-1531. {Authorities. — The chronicler Halle, who wrote under Edward the Sixth, has been copied for Henry the Eighth's reign by Grafton, and followed by Holin- shed. But for any real knowledge of Wolsey's administration we must turn to the invaluable prefaces which Professor Brewer has prefixed to the Calen- dars of State Papers for this period, and to the State Papers themselves.] " There are many things in the commonwealth of Nowhere, which I rather wish than hope to see adopted in our own." It was with these words of characteristic irony that More closed the first work which embodied the dreams of the New Learning. Destined as they were to fulfilment in the course of ages, its schemes of social, religious, and political reform broke helplessly against the temper of the f' ne. At the very moment when More was pleading the cause of justice between rich and poor, social discontent was being fanned by exactions into a fiercer flame. While he aimed sarcasm after sarcasm at king- worship, despotism was being organized into a system. His advocacy of the two principles of religious toleration and Christian comprehen- sion coincides almost to a year with the opening of the strife between the Reformation and the Papacy " That Luther has a fine genius," laughed Leo the Tenth, when he heard that a German Professor had nailed some Propositions denouncing the abuse of Indulgences, or of the Papal power to remit certain penalties attached to the commis'^ion of sins, against the doors of a church at Wittenberg. But the " Quarrel of Friars," as the controversy was termed contemptuously at Rome, soon took larger proportions. If at the outset Luther flung himself "prostrate at the feet " of the Papacy, and owned its voice as the voice of Christ, the sentence of Leo no sooner confirmed the doctrine of Indulgences than their opponent appealed to a future Council of the Church. Two years later the rupture was complete. A Papal Bull formally condemned the errors of the Reformer. The condemnation was met with defiance, and Luther publicly consigned the Bull to the flames. A second con- demnation expelled him from the bosom of the Church, and the ban of the Empire was soon added to that of the Papacy. " Here stand I ; I can none ofher," Luther replied to the young Emperor, Charles the Fifth, as he pressed him to recant in the Diet of Worms ; end from CHAP. ;mple, priest mage, ijle to ; evi- ibined VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 321 cth, has Holin- [ist turn Calen- ds.] , which IS with it work as they iligious, le t" ne. justice [actions It king- ivocacy prehen- )etween the hiding-place in the Thuringian Forest where he was sheltered by the Elector of Saxony he denounced not merely, as at first, the abuses of the Papacy, but the Papacy itself. The heresies of Wycl if were revived ; the infallibility, the authority of the Roman See, the truth of its doctrines, the efficacy of its worship, were denied and scoffed at in vigorous pamphlets which issued from his retreat, and were dispersed throughout the world by the new printing-press. The old resentment of Germany against the oppression of Rome, the moral revolt In its more religious minds against the secularity and corruption of the Church, the disgust of the New Learning at the superstition which the Papacy now formally protected, combined to secure for Luther a wide- spread popularity and the protection of the northern princes of the Empire. In England however his protest found as yet no echo. England and Rome were drawn to a close alliance by the difficulties of their political position. The young King himself, a trained theologian and proud of his theological knowledge, entered the lists against Luther with an "Assertion of the Seven Sacraments," for which he was rewarded by Leo with the title of " Defender of the Faith." The insolent abuse of the Reformer's answer called More and Fisher into the field. As yet the New Learning, though scared by Luther's intemperate language, had steadily backed him in his struggle. Erasmus pleaded for him with the Emperor; Ulrich von Hutten attacked the friars in satires and invectives as violent as his own. But the temper of the Renascence was even more antagonistic to the temper of Luther than that of Rome itself. From the golden dream of a new age, wrought peaceably and purely by the slow pro- gress of intelligence, the growth of letters, the developement of human virtue, the Reformer of Wittemberg turned away with horror. He had little or no sympathy with the new culture. He despised reason as heartily as any Papal dogmatist could despise it He hated the very thought of toleration or comprehension. He had been driven by a moral and intellectual compulsion to declare the Roman system a false one, but it was only to replace it by another system of doctrine just as elaborate, and claiming precisely the same infallibihty. To degrade human nature was to attack the very base of the New Learning ; but Erasmus no sooner advanced to its defence than Luther declared man to be utterly enslaved by original sin and incapable through any efforts of his own of discovering truth or of arriving at goodness. Such a doctrine not only annihilated the piety and wisdom of the classic past, from which the New Learning had drawn its larger views of life and of the world ; it trampled in the dust reason itself, the very instrument by which More and Erasmus hoped to regene- rate both knowledge and religion. To More especially, with his keener perception of its future effect, this sudden revival of a purely theological and dogmatic spirit, severing Christendom into Y Sec. V. WOLSEY 1515 TO 1531 1521 h 1 U .U, V-. I 322 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. V. WOLSEY 1515 TO 1531 Wolsey 1514 1516 warring camps, and annihilating all hopes of union and tolerance, was especially hateful. The temper which hitherto had seemed so "endearing, gentle, and happy," suddenly gave way. His reply to Luther's attack upon the King sank to the level of the work it answered. That of Fisher was calmer and more argumentative ; but the divorce of the New Learning from the Reformation was complete. Nor were the political hopes of the " Utopia" destined to be realized by the minister who at the close of Henry's early war with France mounted rapidly into power. Thomas Wolsey was the son of a wealthy townsman of Ipswich, whose ability had raised him into notice at the close of the preceding reign, and who had been taken by Bishop Fox into the service of the Crown. His extraordinary powers hardly per- haps required the songs, dances, and carouses with his indulgence in which he was taunted by his enemies, to aid him in winning the favour of the young soverign. From the post of favourite he soon rose to that of minister. Henry's resentment at Ferdinand's perfidy enabled Wolsey to carry out a policy which reversed that of his predecessors. The war had freed England from the fear of French pressure. Wolsey was as resolute to free her from the dictation of Ferdinand, and saw in a French alliance the best security for English independence. In 1514 a treaty was concluded with Lewis. The same friendship was continued to his successor Francis the First, whose march across the Alps for the reconquest of Lombardy was facilitated by Henry and Wolsey, in the hope that while the war lasted England would be free from all fear of attack, and that Francis himself might be brought to inevitable ruin. These hopes were defeated by his great victory at Marignano. But Francis in the moment of triumph saw himself confronted by a new rival. Master of Castile and Aragon, of Naples and the Netherlands, the new Spanish King, Charles the Fifth, rose into a check on the French monarchy such as the policy of Henry or Wolsey had never been able to construct before. The alliance of England was eagerly sought by both sides, and the administration of Wolsey, amid all its ceaseless diplomacy, for seven years kept England out of war. The Peace, as we have seen, restored the hopes of the New Learning ; it enabled Colet to reform education, Erasmus to undertake the regeneration of the Church, More to set on foot a new science of politics. But peace as Wolsey used it was fatal to English freedom. In the political hints which lie scattered over the "Utopia" More notes with bitter irony the advance of the new despotism. It was only in " Nowhere" that a sovereign was "removeable on suspicion of a design to enslave his people." In England the work of slavery was being quietly wrought, hints the great lawyer, through the law. "There will never be wanting some pretence for deciding in the King's favour; as that equity is on his side, or the strict letter of the law, or some :hap. ance, ed so )ly to )rk it ative ; 1 was jalized "ranee realthy at the jp Fox ily per- ilgence ing the on rose inabled :essors. Wolsey I saw in ImSH intinued 5 for the , in the |l fear of lie ruin. 10. But a new |nds, the French ;en able |ught by baseless ;ace, as enabled lation of It peace tal hints ;r irony ' that I enslave quietly ;re will I favour ; )r some VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 323 forced interpretation of it ; or if none of these, that the royal pre- rogative ought with conscientious judges to outweigh all other con- siderations." We are startled at the precision with which More maps out the expedients by which the law courts were to lend themselves to the advance of tyranny till their crowning judgement in the case of ship-money. But behind these judicial expedients lay great principl'' 3 of absolutism, which partly from the example of foreign monarchies, partly from the sense of social and political insecurity, and yet more from the isolated position of the Crown, were gradually winning their way in public opinion. " These notions," he goes boldly on, " are fostered by the maxim that the king can do no wrong, however much he may wish to do it ; that not only the property but the persons of his subjects are his own ; and that a man has a right to no more than the king's goodness thinks fit not to take from him." In the hands of Wolsey these maxims were transformed into principles of State. The checks which had been imposed on the action of the sove- reign by the presence of great prelates and nobles at his council were practically removed. All authority was concentrated in the hands of a single minister. Henry had munificently rewarded Wolsey's services to the Crown. He had been promoted to the See of Lincoln and thence to the Archbishoprick of York. Henry procured his elevation to the rank of Cardinal, and raised him to the post of Chancellor. The revenues of two sees whose tenants were foreigners fell into his hands ; he held the bishoprick of Winchester and the abbacy of St. Albans ; he was in receipt of pensions from France and Spain, while his official emoluments were enormous. His pomp was almost royal. A train of prelates and nobles followed him wherever he moved ; his household was composed of five hundred persons of noble birth, and its chief posts were held by knights and barons of the realm. He spent his vast wealth with princely ortentation. Two of his houses, Hampton Court and York House, the later Whitehall, were splendid enough to serve at his fall as royal palaces. His school at Ipswich was eclipsed by the glories of his foundation at Oxford, whose name of Cardinal College has been lost in its later title of Christ-church. Nor was this magnificence a mere show of power. The whole direction of home and foreign affairs rested with Wolsey alone ; as Chancellor he stood at the head of public justice ; his elevation to the office of Legate rendered him supreme in the Church. Enormous as was the mass of work which he undertook, it was thoroughly done : his administration of the royal treasury was economical ; the number of his despatches is hardly less remarkable than the care bestowed upon each ; even More, an avowed enemy, confesses that as Chancellor he surpassed all men's expecta- tions. The court of Chancery, indeed, became so crowded through the character for expedition and justice which it gained under his rule that subordinate courts had to be created for its relief. It was this concen- Y 2 Sec. V. WOLSKY 1315 TO 1531 1 ': ■V Wolsey's ad- vtinistration 1515 :r 1! 'I i. 1517 ii it II Vvlj i m m W J I >'• » '"i 324 Sec. V. WOLSEY 1515 TO 1531 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CHAP. WoUey and the Parlia- ment 1519 1520 tration of all secular and ecclesiastical power in a single hand which accustomed England to the personal government which began with Henry the Eighth ; and it was, above all, Wolsey's long tenure of the whole Papal authority within the realm, and the consequent suspension of appeals to Rome, that led men to acquiesce at a later time in Henry's claim of religious supremacy. For proud as was Wolsey's bearing and high as were his natural powers he stood before England as the mere creature of the King. Greatness, wealth, authority he held, and owned he held, simply at the royal will. In raising his low-born favourite to the head of Church and State Henry was gathering all religious as well as all civil authority into his personal grasp. The nation which trembled before Wolsey learned to tremble before the King who could destroy Wolsey by a breath. The rise of Charles of Austria gave a new turn to Wolsey's policy. Possessor of the Netherlands, of Franche Comt^, of Spain, the death of his grandfather Maximilian added to his dominions the heritage of the House of Austria in Swabia and on the Danube, and opened the wj y for his election as Emperor. France saw herself girt in on every side by a power greater than her own ; and to Wolsey and his master the time seemed come for a bolder game. Disappointed in his hopes of obtaining the Imperial crown on the death of Maximilian, Henry turned to the dream of " recovering his French inheritance," which he had never really abandoned, and which was carefully fed by his nephew Charles. Nor was Wolsey forgotten. If Henry coveted France, his minister coveted no less a prize than the Papacy ; and the young Emperor was lavish of promises of support in any coming election. The result of these seductions was quickly seen. In May, 1520, Charles landed at Dover to visit Henry, and King and Emperor rode alone to Canterbury. It was in vain that Francis strove to retain Henry's friendship by an interview near Guisnes, to which the profuse expenditure of both monarchs gave the name of the Field of Cloth of Gold. A second interview between Charles and his uncle as he returned from the meeting with Francis ended in a secret confederacy of the two sovereigns, and the promise of the Emperor to marry Henry's one child, Mary Tudor. Her right to the throne was asserted by a deed which proved how utterly the baronage now lay at the mercy of the King. The Duke of Buckingham stood first in blood as in power among the English nobles ; he was the descendant of Edward the Third's youngest son, and if Mary's succes- sion were denied he stood heir to the throne. His hopes had been fanned by prophets and astrologers, and wild words told his purpose to seize the Crown on Henry's death in defiance of every opponent. But word and act had for two years been watched by the King ; and in 1 52 1 the Duke was arrested, condemned as a traitor by his peers, and beheaded on Tower Hill. The French alliance came to an end, VI.] and at was CO] The fir Wolsey the pas forty th of the tj Wolsey Though expense seven ye Parliam summon had inve repaid f were ass from Loi Cardinal Commiss assessme some cas for the K following before it cent. TJ received member a been elecl Speaker's reply till effort to o than an ; objections minister's discuss th fortnight ; party were demand. nioney was once more from the ] the royal < ing," War! should give "then it v VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. and at the outbreak of war between France and Spain a secret league was concluded at Calais between the Pope, the Emperor, and Henry. The first result of the new war policy at home was quickly seen, Wolsey's economy had done nothing more than tide the Crown through the past years of peace. But now that Henry had promised to raise forty thousand men for the coming campaign the ordinary resources of the treasury were utterly insufficient. With the instinct of despotism Wolsey shrank from reviving the tradition of the Parliament. Though Henry had thrice called together the Houses to supply the expenses of his earlier struggle with France, Wolsey governed during seven years of peace without once assembling them. War made a Parliament inevitable, but for a while the Cardinal strove to delay its summons by a wide extension of the practice which Edward the Fourth had invented of raising money by forced loans or " Benevolences," to be repaid from the first subsidy of a coming Parliament. Large sums were assessed on every county. Twenty thousand pounds were exacted from London ; and its wealthier citizens were summoned before the Cardinal and required to give an account of the value of their estates. Commissioners were despatched into each shire for the purposes of assessment, and precepts were issued on their information, requiring in some cases supplies of soldiers, in others a tenth of a man's income, for the King's service. So poor, however, was the return that in the following year Wolsey was forced to summon Parliament and lay before it the unprecedented demand of a property-tax of twenty per cent. The demand was made by the Cardinal in person, but he was received with obstinate silence. It was in vain that Wolsey called on member after member to answer ; and his appeal to More, who had been elected to the chair of the House of Commons, was met by the Speaker's falling on his knees and representing his powerlessness to reply till he had received instructions from the House itself. The effort to overawe the Commons failed, and Wolsey no sooner withdrew than an angry debate began. He again returned to answer the objections which had been raised, and again the Commons foiled the minister's attempt to influence their deliberations by refusing to dis- discuss the matter in his presence. The struggle continued for a fortnight ; and though successful in procuring a subsidy, the court party were forced to content themselves with less than half Wolsey's demand. Convocation betrayed as independent a spirit ; and when money was again needed two years later, the Cardinal was driven once more to the system of Benevolences. A tenth was demanded from the laity, and a fourth from the clergy in every county by the royal commissioners. There was " sore grudging and murmur- ing," Warham wrote to the court, " among the people." " If men should give their goods by a commission," said the Kentish squires, "then it would be worse than the taxes of France, and England 335. Sec. V. WOLSEV 1515 TO 1531 1(1 ill- '! I 1523 1525 "M A A $% '^1 n M ■I'll! 326 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. V. WOLSEY 1515 TO 1531 The Acrarian Diacon- tent should be bond, not free." The political instinct of the nation dis- cerned as of old that in the question of self-taxation was involved that of the very existence of freedom. The clergy put themselves in the forefront of the resistance, and preached from every pulpit that the commission was contrary to the liberties of the realm, and that the King could take no man's goods but by process of law. So stirred was the nation that Wolsey bent to the storm, and offered to rely on the voluntary loans of each subject. But the statute of Richard the Third which declared all exaction of benevolences illegal was recalled to memory ; the demand was evaded by London, and the commissioners were driven out of Kent. A revolt broke out in Suffolk ; the men of Cambridge and Norwich threatened to rise. There was in fact a general strike of the employers. Clothmakers discharged their workers, farmers put away their servants. " They say the King asketh so much that they be not able to do as they have done before this , time." Such a peasant insurrection as was raging in Germany was only prevented by the unconditional withdrawal of the royal demand. Wolsey's defeat saved English freedom for the moment ; but the danger from which he shrank was not merely that of a conflict with the sense of ' iberty. The murmurs of the Kentish squires only swelled the ever-deepening voice of public discontent. If the condition of the land question in the end gave strength to the Crown by making it the security for public order, it became a terrible peril at every crisis of conflict between the monarchy and the landowners. The steady rise in the price of wool was giving a fresh impulse to the agrarian changes which had now been going on for over a hundred and fifty years, to the throwing together of the smaller holdings, and the introduction of sheep-farming on an enormous scale. The new wealth of the merchant classes helped on the change. They invested largely in land, and these "farming gentlemen and clerking knights," as Latimer bitterly styled them, were restrained by few traditions or associations in their eviction of the smaller tenants. The land indeed had been greatly underlet, and as its value rose the temptation to raise the customary rents became irresistible. "That which went heretofore for twenty or forty pounds a year," we learn from the same source, "now is let for fifty or a hundred." But it had been only by this low scale of rent that the small yeomanry class had been enabled to exist. " My father," says Latimer, " was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own ; only he had a farm of three or four pounds by the year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half-a-dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine ; he was able and did find the King a harness with himself and his horse while he came to the place that he should receive the King's wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when he went to Blackheath Field. He kept l HAP. I dis- Ithat n the Lt the It the tirred ;ly on •d the called ioners nen of fact a their asketh re this . ly was nand. )ut the :t with swelled I of the g it the trisis of dy rise [hanges years, luction of the n land, atimer iations 4 been lise the etofore (source, )y this Enabled lad no ids by Is kept id my :ing a place that I le kept VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. me to school : he married my sisters with five pounds apiece, so that he brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours, and some alms he gave to the poor, and all this he did of the same farm, where he that now hath it payeth sixteen pounds by year or more, and is not able to do anything for his prince, for himself, nor for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor." Increase of rent ended with such tenants in the relin- quishment of their holdings, but the bitterness of ejection was increased by the iniquitous means which were often employed to bring it about. The farmers, if we believe More in 1515, were "got rid of either by fraud or force, or tired out with repeated wrongs into parting with their property." " In his way it comes to pass that these poor wretches, men, women, husbands, orphans, widows, parents with little children, households greater in number than in wealth (for arable farming requires many hands, while one shepherd and herdsman will suffice for a pasture farm), all these emigrate from their native fields without knowing where to go." The sale of their scanty household stuff drove them to wander homeless abroad, to be thrown into prison as vagabonds, to beg and to steal. Yet in the face of such a spectacle as this we still find the old complaint of scarcity of labour, and the old legal remedy for it in a fixed scale of wages. The social disorder, in fact, baffled the sagacity of English statesmen, and they could find no better remedy for it than laws against the furth er extension of sheep- farms, and a terrible increase of public executions. Both were alike fruitless. Enclosures and evictions went on as before. " If you do not remedy the evils which produce thieves," More urged with bitter truth, " the rigorous execution of justice in punishing thieves will be vain." But even More could only suggest a remedy which, efficacious as it was subsequently to prove, had yet to wait a century for its reali- zation. " Let the woollen manufacture be introduced, so that honest employment may be found for those whom want has made thieves or will make thieves ere long." The mass of social disorder grew steadily greater ; while the break up of the great military households of the nobles which was still going on, and the return of wounded and dis- abled soldiers from the wars, introduced a dangerous leaven of outrage and crime. This public discontent, as well as the exhaustion of the treasury, added bitterness to the miserable result of the war. To France, indeed, the struggle had been disastrous, for the loss of the Milanese and the capture of Francis the First in the defeat of Pavia laid her at the feet of the Emperor. But Charles had no purpose of carrying out the pledges by which he had lured England into war. Wolsey had seen two partizans of the Emperor successively raised to the Papal chair. The schemes of winning anew " our inheritance of France " had ended in utter failure ; England, as before, gained nothing from 327 Sec. V. Wolsey 1515 TO 1531 I ;>■•'( ■t i I|V ,v,v ''■'.•'•- *' The Divorce 1525 H •15 U* 3a8 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Skc. V. WOLSEV 1S15 TO 1531 Anne Boleyn 1526 two useless c^.mpaigns, and it was plain that Charles meant it to win nothing. He concluded an armistice with his prisoner ; he set aside all projects of a joint invasion ; he broke his pledge to wed Mary Tudor, and married a princess of Portugal ; he pressed for peace with France which would give him Burgundy. It was time for Henry and his minister to change their course. They resolved to withdraw from all active part in the rivalry of the two powers, and a treaty was secretly concluded with France. But Henry re- mained on fair terms with the Emperor, and abstained from any part in the fresh war which broke out on the refusal of the French monarch to fulfil the terms by which he had purchased his release. No longer spurred by the interest of great events, the King ceased to take a busy part in foreign politics, and gave himself to hunting and sport. Among the fairest and gayest ladies of his court stood Anne Boleyn. Her gaiety and wit soon won Henry's favour, and grants of honours to her father marked her influence. In 1524 a new colour was given to this intimacy by a resolve on the King's part to break his marriage with the Queen. The death of every child save Mary may have woke scruples as to the lawfulness of a marriage on which a curse seemed to rest ; the need of a male heir may have deepened this impression. But, whatever were the grounds of his action, Henry from this moment pressed the Roman See to grant him a divorce. Clement's consent to his wish, however, would mean a break with the Emperor, Catharine's nephew ; and the Pope was now at the Emperor's mercy. While the English envoy was mooting the question of divorce, the surprise of Rome by an Imperial force brought home to Clement his utter helplessness ; the next year the Pope was in fact a prisoner in the Emperor's hands after the storm and sack of Rome. Meanwhile a secret suit which had been brought before Wolsey as legate was suddenly dropped ; as Catharine denied the facts on which Henry rested his case her appeal would have carried the matter to the tribunal of the Pope, and Clement's decision could hardly have been a favourable one. The difficulties of the divorce were indeed manifest. One of the most learned of the English bishops, Fisher of Rochester, declared openly against it. The English theologians, who were consulted on the validity of the Papal dispensation which had allowed Henry's marriage to take place, referred the King to the Pope for a decision of the question. The commercial classes shrank from a step which involved an irre- trievable breach with the Emperor, who was master of their great market in Flanders. Above all, the iniquity of the proposal jarred against the public conscience. But neither danger nor shame availed against the King's wilfulness and passion. A great party too had gathered to Anne's support. Her uncle the Duke of Norfolk, her father, now Lord Rochford, afterwards Earl of Wiltshire, pushed the :hap. VI.] Tllli: NEW MONARCHY. 329 o win aside Mary peace le for /ed to o.vers, ry re- n any "rench elease. ised to ng and i Anne ants of colour lart to Id save iage on ay have s of his ant him a break at the question it home was in sack of before ied the d have ement's culties of the ■inst it. dity of to take [uestion. n irre- ir great jarred 1 availed )o had )lk, her led the divorce resohitely on ; the brilliant group of young courtiers to which hei brother belonged saw in her success their own elevation ; and the Duke of Suffolk with the bulk of the nobles hoped through her means to bring about the ruin of the statesman before whom they trembled. It was needful for the Cardinal to find some expedients to carry out the King's will ; but his schemes one by one broke down before the difficulties of the Papal Court. Clement indeed, perplexed at once by his wish to gratify Henry, his own conscientious doubts as to the course proposed, and his terror of the Emperor whose power was now predominant in Italy, even blamed Wolsey for having hindered the King from judging the matter in his own realm, and marrying on the sentence of his own courts. Henry was resolute in demanding the express sanction of the Pope to his divorce, and this Clement steadily evaded. He at last, however, consented to a legatinc commission for the trial of the case in England. In this commission Cardinal Campeggio was joined with Wolsey. Months however passed in fruitless negotiations. The Cardinals pressed on Catharine the expediency of her withdrawal to a religious house, while Henry pressed on the Pope that of a settlement of the matter by his formal declaration against the validity of the marriage. At last in 1529 the two Legates opened their court in the great hall of the Blackfriars. Henry briefly announced his resolve to live no longer in mortal sin. The Queen offered an appeal to Clement, and on the refusal of the Legates to admit it she flung herself at Henry's feet. " Sire," said Catharine, " I beseech you to pity me, a woman and a stranger, without an assured friend and without an indifferent counsellor. I take God to witness that I have always been to you a true and loyal wife, that I have made it my constant duty to seek your pleasure, that I have loved all whom you loved, whether I have reason or not, whether they are friends to me or foes. I have been your wife for years, I have brought you many children. God knows that when I came to your bed I was a virgin, and I put it to your own conscience to say whether it was not so. If there be any offence which can be alleged against mc I consent to depart with infamy ; if not, then I pray you to do me justice." The piteous appeal was wasted on a King who was already entertaining Anne Boleyn with royal state in his own palace. The trial proceeded, and the court assembled to pronounce sentence. Henry's hopes were at their highest when they were suddenly dashed to the ground. At the opening of the proceedings Campeggio rose to declare the court adjourned. The adjournment was a mere evasion. The pressure of the Imperialists had at last forced Clement to summon the cause to his own tribunal at Rome, and the jurisdiction of the Legates was at an end. " Now see I," cried the Duke of Suffolk as he dashed his hand on TO i5ai i ,p; 'J'/ie Lcga- tine court 1528 Jttly 23 !*i M 330 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Stc. v. WOLSRY Iftlft TO 1691 The Fall of Wolsay 1529 Death of IVolsey 1530 the tabic, " that the old saw is true, that tlicrc was never Legate or Cardinal that did good to Itlngland ! " " Of all men living," Wolsey boldly retorted, " you, my lord Duke, have the least reason to dispraise Cardinals, for if I, a poor Cardinal, had not been, you would not now have had a head on your shoulders wh'jrcwith to make such a brag in disrepute of us." But both the Cardinal and his enemies knew that the minister's doom was scaled. Through the twenty years of his reign Henry had known nothing of opposition to his will. His imperious temper had chafed at the weary negotiations, the subterfuges and perfidies of the Pope. His wrath fell at once on Wolsey, who had dissuaded hin\ from acting at the first independently, from conducting the cause in his own courts and acting on the sentence of his own judges ; who had counselled him to seek a divorce from Rome and promised him success in his suit. From the close of the Legatine court he would see him no more. If Wolsey still remained minister for a while, it was because the thread of the complex foreign negotia- tions could not be roughly broken. Here loo, however, failure awaited him as he saw himself deceived and outwitted by the conclusion of peace between P" ranee and the Emperor in a new treaty at Cambray. Not only was his French policy no longer possible, but a reconciliation with Charles was absolutely needful, and such a reconciliation could only be brought about by Wolsey's fall. He was at once prosecuted for receiving bulls from Rome in violation of the Statute of Praemunire. A few days later he was deprived of the seals. Wolsey was prostrated by the blow. He offered to give up everything that he possessed if the King would but cease from his displeasure. " His face," wrote the French ambassador, " is dwindled to half its natural size. In truth his misery is such that his enemies. Englishmen as they are, cannot help pitying him." Office and wealth were flung desperately at the King's feet, and for the moment Henry seemed contented with his disgrace. A thousand boats full of Londoners covered the Thames to see the Cardinal's barge pass to the Tower, but he was permitted to retire to Esher. Pardon was granted him on surrender of his vast possessions to the Crown, and he was permitted to withdraw to his diocese of York, the one dignity he hcd been suffered to retain. But hardly a year had passed before the jealousy of his political rivals was roused by the King's regrets, and on the eve of his installation feast he was arrested on a charge of high treason, and conducted by the Lieutenant of the Tower towards London. Already broken by his enormous labours, by internal disease, and the sense of his fall, Wolsey accepted the arrest as a sentence of death. An attack of dysentery forced him to rest at the abbey of Leicester, and as he reached the gate he said feebly to the brethren who met him, " I am come to lay my bones among you." On his death-bed his thoughts still clung to the prince whom he had served. " He is a prince," said the dying man to the VI.] Lieutena any part do assun hours toj prevail. as I have grey hair regarding words coi despotisn before hir to its inst statesman will and trampling ingratitud while he r could hare courage, a in the yeai [Aut/iorii what we re; Hook's "L authorities a for the Mai life by his religious his Burnet's ** I the Monastei Camden Soc material of v which begin vols. i. ii. iii. liy hero-worsi during this pi The ten ^ momentous power, and t out with a te still offer re became a n learned their with ruthless and merciles :iiAP. ite or ^olsey praise t now rag in w that i reign (crious :s and lo had lucting is own ic and 2gatine minister egotia- iwaited sion of mbray. :i)iation n could isecuted munire. jstrated essed if rote the ruth his ot help King's sgracc. see the etire to essions icese of ardly a roused he was utenant ormous cepted ed him e said bones prince to the VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. Lieutenant of the Tower, "of a most royal courage: sooner than miss any part of his will he will endanger one half of his kingdom : and I do assure you I have often kneeled before him, sometimes for three hours together, to persuade him from his appetite, and could not prevail. And, Master Knyghton, had I but served (lod as diligently as I have served the king, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs. But this is my due reward for my pains and study, not regarding my service to (iod, but only my duty to my prince." No words could paint with so terrible a truthfulness the spirit of the new despotism which Wolsey had done more than any of those who went before him to build up. All sense of loyalty to Kngland, to its freedom, to its institutions, had utterly passed away. The one duty which the statesman owned was a duty to his " prince," a prince whose personal will and appetite was overriding the highest interests of the State, trampling under foot the wisest counsels, and crushing with the blind ingratitude of Fate the servants who opposed him. But even Wolsey, while he recoiled from the monstrous form which had revealed itself, could hardly have dreamed of th*^ work of destruction which the royal courage, and yet more royal appetite, of his master was to accomplish in the years to come. Section VI.— Thomaa Cromwell. 1030—1540. \Attt/torii\es. — Crornwell's earlv life as told by Foxc is a mass of fable ; what we really know of it may be seen conveniently put together in Dean Hook's "Life of Archbishop Cranmer.' For his ministry, the only real authorities are the State Papers for this period, which are now being calendared for the Master of the Rolls. For Sir Thomas More, we have n touching life by his son-in-law, Roper. The more important documents for the religious history of the time will be found in Mr. Pocock's new edition of Burnet's " History of the Reformation" ; those relating to the dissolution of the Monasteries, in the collection of letters on that subject published by the Camden Society, and in the *' Original Letters " of Sir Henry Ellis. A mass of material of very various value has been accumulated by Strype in his collections, which begin at this time. Mr. Froude's narrative (*' History of England," vols. i. ii. iii.), though of great literary merit, is disfigured by a )ove of paradox, by hero-worship, and by a reckless defence of tyranny and crime. It possesses, during this period, little or no historical value. ] The ten years which follow the fall of Wolsey are among the most momentous in our history. The New Monarchy at last realized its power, and the work for which Wolsey had paved the way was carried out with a terrible thoroughness. The one great institution which could still offer resistance to the royal will was struck down. The Church became a mere instrument o/ the central despotism. The people learned their helplessness in rebellions easily suppressed and avenged with ruthless severity. A reign of terror, organized with consummate and merciless skill, held England panic-stricken at Henry's feet. The 33 « Sue. V. WoLSKY 1515 TO 1551 i! 1 ^ 'i^- ' i iii I 332 Sec. VI. Thomas Cromwell 1530 TO 1540 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Thomas Cromwell noblest heads rolled on the block. Virtue and learning could not save Thomas More : royal descent could not save Lady Salisbury. The putting away of one queen, the execution of another, taught England that nothing was too high for Henry's " courage " or too sacre^ for his " appetite." Parliament assembled only to sanction acts of unscru- pulous tyranny, or to build up by its own statutes the great fabric of absolute rule. All the constitutional safe-guards of English freedom were swept away. Arbitrary taxation, arbitrary legislation, arbitrary imprisonment were powers claimed without dispute and unsparingly exercized by the Crown. The history of this great revolution, for it is nothing less, is the history of a single man. In the whole line of English statesmen there is no one of whom we would willingly know so much, no one of whom we really know so little, as Thomas Cromwell. When he meets us in Henry's service he had already passed middle life ; and during his earlier years it is hardly possible to do more than disentangle a few fragmentary facts from the mass of fable which gathered round them. His youth was one of roving adventure. Whether he was the son of a poor blacksmith at Putney or no, he could hardly have been more than a boy when he was engaged in the service of the Marchioness of Dorset. He must still have been young when he took part as a common soldier in the wars of Italy, a " ruffian," as he owned afterwards to Cranmer, in the most unscrupulous school the world contained. But it was a school in which he learned lessons even more dangerous than those of the camp. He not only mastered the Italian language but drank in the manners and tone of the Italy around him, the Italy of the Borgias and the Medici. It was with Italian versatility that he turned from the camp to the counting-house ; he was certainly engaged as a commercial agent to one of the Venetian merchants ; tradition finds him as a clerk at Antwerp ; and in 15 12 history at last encounters him as a thriving wool merchant at Middleburg in Zealand. Returning to England, Cromwell continued to amass wealth by adding the trade of scrivener, something between that of a banker and attorney, to his other occupations, as well as by advancing money to the poorer nobles ; and on the outbreak of the second war with France we find him a busy and influential member of the Commons in Parliament. Five years later the aim of his ambi- tion was declared by his entrance into Wolsey's service. The Cardinal needed a man of business for the suppression of some smaller monas- teries which he had undertaken, and for the transfer of their revenues to his foundations at Oxford and Ipswich. The task was an unpopular one, and it was carried out with a rough indifference to the feelings it aroused which involved Cromwell in the hate which was gathering round his master. But his wonderful self-reliance and sense of power o'liy broke upon the world at Wolsey's fall. Of the hundreds of dependents who waited on the Cardinal's nod, Cromwell was the only one who disgrace comfortei to go to common which W by confii revenues, these trar bill disqt and it w permitted seems to patron. * esteemed commendt ride to L< which Cro the simple note of the the whole ; held out b^ absolutism concealed, waited pati For succ had come alliance an( was expect! Houses ma on Parliam( to use it as strife with I the New Le Cardinal's f; in accepting of his brief religious ref( while checki severities ag polemic rani other. But from what se for a success liament. Th [chap. 3t save . The ngland for his .inscru- ,bric of reedom rbitrary (aringly : history 5 no one e really Henry's • years it iry facts was one smith at n he was lust still the wars the most in which np. He ners and Medici, p to the agent to clerk at ing wool romwell mething , as well break of member is ambi- ardinal monas- l-evenues ipopular jlings it ithering kf power Ireds of the only VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 333 one who clung to him faithfully at the last. In the lonely hours of his disgrace at Esher Wo?sey " made his moan uiUo Master Cromwell, who comforted him the best he could, and desired my lord to give him leave to go to London, where he would make or mar, which was always his common saying." He shewed his consummate craft in a scheme by which Wolsey was persuaded to buy off the hostility of the courtiers by confirming the grants which had been made to them from his revenues, while Cromwell acquired importance as go-between in these transactions. It was by Cromwell's efforts in Parliament that a bill disqualifying Wolsey from all after employment was defeated, and it was by him that the negotiations were conducted which permitted the fallen minister to retire to York. A general esteem seems to have rewarded this rare instance of fidelity to a ruined patron. " For his honest behaviour in his master's cause he was esteemed the most faithfuUest servant, and was of all men greatly commended." But Henry's protection rested on other grounds. The ride to London had ended in a private interview with the King, in which Cromwell boldly advised him to cut the knot of the divorce by the simple exercise of his own supremacy. The advice struck the key- note of the later policy by which the daring counseller was to change the whole face of Church and State ; but Henry still clung to the hopes held out by his new ministers, and shrank perhaps as yet from the bare absolutism to which Cromwell called him. The advice at any rate was concealed, and though high in the King's favour, his new servant waited patiently the progress of events. f^or success in procuring the divorce, the Duke of Norfolk, who had come to the front on Wolsey's fall, relied not only on the alliance and aid of the Emperor, but on the support which the project was expected to receive from Parliament. The reassembling of the two Houses marked the close of the system of Wolsey. Instead of looking on Parliament as a danger the monarchy now felt itself strong enough to use it as a tool ; and Henry justly counted on warm support in his strife with Rome. Not less significant was the attitude of the men of the New Learning. To them, as to his mere political adversaries, the Cardinal's fall opened a prospect of better things. The dream of More in accepting the office of Chancellor, if we may judge it from the acts of his brief ministry, seems to have been that of carrying out the religious reformation which had been demanded by Colet and Erasmus, while checking the spirit of revolt against the unity of the Church. His severities against the Protestants, exaggerated as they have been by polemic rancour, remain the one stain on a memory that knows no other. But it was only by a rigid severance of the cause of reform from what seemed to him the cause of revolution that More could hope for a successful issue to the projects which the Council laid before Par- liament. The Petition of the Commons sounded like an echo of Colet's Sec. VI. Thomas Cromwell 1530 TO 1540 t " ' 'i ■> Norfolk and > More t! s!(« u- 334 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Skc. VI. Thomas Ckomwell 1530 TO 1540 ! 1530 Cromwell and the Church famous address to the Convocation. It attributed the growth of heresy not more to "frantic and seditious books published in the EngHsh tongue contrary to the very true Catholic and Christian faith " than to " the extreme and uncharitable behaviour of divers ordinaries." It re- monstrated against the legislation of the clergy in Convocation without the King's assent or that of his subjects, the oppressive procedure of the Church Courts, the abuses of ecclesiastical patronage, and the ex- cessive number of holydays. Henry referred the Petition to the bishops, but they could devise no means of redress, and the ministry persisted in pushing through the Houses their bills for ecclesiastical reform. The questions of Convocation and the bishops* courts were adjourned for further consideration, but the fees of the courts were curtailed, the clergy restricted from lay employments, pluralities restrained, and residence enforced. In spite of a dogged opposition from the bishops the bills received the assent of the House of Lords, " to the great rejoicing of lay people, and the great displea- sure of spiritual persons." The importance of the new measures lay really in the action of Parliament. They were an explicit announcement that church-reform was now to be undertaken, not by the clergy, but by the people at large. On the other hand it was clear that it would be carried out, not in a spirit of hostility, but of loyalty to the church. The Commons forced from Bishop Fisher an apology for words which were taken as a doubt thrown on their orthodoxy. Henry forbade the circulation of Tyndale's translation o^ the Bible as executed in a Pro- testant spirit, while he promised a more correct version. But the domestic aims of the New Learning were foiled by the failure of the ministry in its negotiations for the divorce. The severance of the French alliance, and the accession of the party to power which clung to alliance with the Emperor, failed to detach Charles from his aunt's cause. The ministers accepted the suggestion of a Cambridge scholar, Thomas Cranmer, that the universities of Europe should be called on for their judgement ; but the appeal to the learned opinion of Christendom ended in utter defeat. In France the profuse bribery of the English agents would have failed with the university of Paris but for the interference of Francis himself. As shameless an exercize of Henry's own authority was required to wring an approval of his cause from Oxford and Cambridge. In Germany the very Protestants, in the fervour of their moral revival, were dead against the King. So far as could be seen from Cranmer's test every learned man in Christendom but for bribery and threats would have condemned Henry's cause. It was at the moment when every expedient had been exhausted by Norfolk and his fellow ministers that Cromwell came again to the front. Despair of other means drove Henry nearer and nearer to the bold plan from which he had shrunk at Wolsey's fall. Cromwell was again ready with his suggestion that the King should disavow the VI.] Papal j realm, j with Cr he was ministei in the n their cl< state-cri the first period o His pur] every ri\ mere sla in his yo on the id hand. Reginald "Prince' or in the tyrannies the policy England i check on lay in th( religious < to a mere from the s his decisit without a Cromwell pulously t Wolsey ha The pedar formally ir The legal i this pardor forgiveness fine amour ledgement lord, the H demand th hard, but 1 demands fo by the insei allow;" an^ i i [CHAP. heresy English than to Itre- without sdure of the ex- to the ninistry siastical ' courts e courts uralities iposition [ouse of displea- ures lay mcement ;y,butby would be e church, ds which bade the in a Pro- But the ire of the e of the lich clung lis aunt's scholar, [called on inion of bribery of Paris exercize ihis cause ts, in the So far as istendom ause. usted by ,n to the •er to the iwell was avow the VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 3S5 Papal jurisdiction, declare himself Head of the Church within his realm, and obtain a divorce from his own Ecclesiastical Courts. But with Cromwell the divorce was but the prelude to a series of changes he was bent upon accomplishing. In all the chequered life of the new minister what had left its deepest stamp on him was Italy. Not only in the rapidity and ruthlessness of his designs, but in their larger scope, their clearer purpose, and their admirable combination, the Italian state-craft entered with Cromwell into English politics. He is in fact the first English minister in whom we can trace through the whole period of his rule the steady working out of a great and definite aim. His purpose was to raise the King to absolute authority on the ruins of every rival power within the realm. It was not that Cromwell was a mere slave of tyranny. Whether we may trust the tale that carries him in his youth to Florence or no, his statesmanship was closely modelled on the ideal of the Florentine thinker whose book was constantly in his hand. Even as a servant of Wolsey he startled the future Cardinal, Reginald Pole, by bidding him take for his manual in politics the " Prince " of Machiavelli. Machiavelli hoped to find in Caesar Borgia or in the later Lorenzo de' Medici a tyrant who after crushing all rival tyrannies might unite and regenerate Italy ; and it is possible to see in the policy of Cromwell the aim of securing enlightenment and order for England by the concentration of all authority in the Crown. The last check on royal absolutism which had survived the Wars of the Roses lay in the wealth, the independent synods and jurisdiction, and the religious claims of the Church. To reduce the great ecclesiastical body to a mere department of the State in which all authority should flow from the sovereign alone, and in which his will should be the only law, his decision the only test of truth, was a change hardly to be wrought without a struggle ; and it was the opportunity for such a struggle that Cromwell saw in the divorce. His first blow showed how unscru- pulously the struggle was to be waged. A year had passed since Wolsey had been convicted of a breach of tiie Statute of Praemunire. The pedantry of the judges declared the whole nation to have been formally involved in the same charge by its acceptance of his authority. The legal absurdity was now redressed by a general pardon, but from this pardon the clergy found themselves omitted. They were told that forgiveness could be bought at no less a price than the payment of a fine amounting to a million of our present money, and the acknow- ledgement of the King as " the chief protector, the only and supreme lord, the Head of the Church and Clergy of England." To the first demand they at once submitted ; against the second they struggled hard, but their appeals to Henry and to Cromwell met only with demands for instant obedience. A compromise was at last arrived at by the insertion of a qualifying phrase " So far as the law of Christ will allow ; " and with this addition the words were again submitted by Sec. VI. Thomas Cromwell 1530 TO 1540 II pm ;:ifd I i '■^ w. I53I "i^ { ., ; • i'".fl* 336 Sec. VI. Thomas Cromwell 1530 TO 1540 The Headship of the Church 1532 Act of Appeals HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Warham to the Convocation. There was a general silence. " Who- ever is silent seems to consent," said the Archbishop. " Then are we all silent," replied a voice from among the crowd. There is no ground for thinking that the "Headship of the Church" which Henry claimed in this submission was more than a warning addressed to the independent spirit of the clergy, or that it bore as yet the meaning which was afterwards attached to it. It certainly implied no independence of Rome ; but it told the Pope plainly that in any strife that might come the clergy were in the King's hand. The warning was backed by the demand for the settle- ment of the question addressed to Clement on the part of the Lords and some of the Commons. " The cause of his Majesty," the Peers were made to say, " is the cause of each of ourselves." If Clement would not confirm what was described as the judgement of the Universities in favour of the divorce " our condition will not be wholly irremediable. Extreme remedies are ever harsh of application ; but he that is sick will by all means be rid of his dis- temper." The banishment of Catharine from the King's palace gave emphasis to the demand. The failure of a second embassy to the Pope left Croir well free to take more decisive steps in the course on which he had entered. As his policy developed itself More withdrew from the post of Chancellor ; but the revolution from which he shrank was an inevitable one. F rom the reign of the Edwards men had been occupied with the problem of reconciling the spiritual and temporal relations of the realm. Parliament from the first became the organ of the national jealousy whether of Papal jurisdiction without the kingdort or of the separate jurisdiction of the clergy within it. The movement, long arrested by religious reaction and civil war, was reviving under the new sense of national greatness and national unity, when it was suddenly stimulated by the question of the divorce, and by the submission cr English interests to a foreign Court. With such a spur it moved forward quickly. The time had come when England was to claim for herself the fulness of power, ecclesiastical as well as temporal, within her bounds ; and, in the concentration of all authority within the hands of the sovereign which was the political characteristic of the time, to claim this power for the nation was to claim it for the king. The import of the headship of the Church was brought fully out in one of the propositions laid before the Convocation of 1532. "The King's Majesty," runs this memorable clause, " hath as well the care of the souls of his subjects as their bodies ; and may by the law of God by his Parliament make laws touching and concerning as well the one as the other." Under strong pressure Convocation was brought to pray that the power of independent legislation till now exercized by the Church should come to an end. Rome was dealt with in the same VI.] unsparir appeals vocation raents of Rome or with the back on doned, ai on the P: Clement restore C course wi to submit Pope dar< long deba and Cram of Canter] the marric primate at ^oleyn the As yet t] disguised negotiatioi final de-isi on the seri whole cha Henry's tit to have bee policy by the throne. in the strife for the gre defined. 1 taken, acce Church of E Imperial Cr honours, jui to the said e reform, and enormities, 'night or ms astical, as w spiritual" b courts at We was only se CHAP. Who- ire we lurch" arning ore as rtainly plainly King's settle- ; Lords y," the :s." If gement on will larsh of his dis- ce gave he Pope ti which ew from ank was ad been :emporal le organ lout the It. The ^ar, was national of the foreign ime had power, in the jvereign lim this import le of the King's re of the of God I well the [ought to :ized by Ihe same VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. unsparing fashion. The Parliament forbade by statute any further appeals to the Papal Court ; and on a petition from the clergy in Con- vocation the Houses granted power to the King to suspend the pay- ments of first-fruits, or the year's revenue which each bishop paid to Rome on his election to a see. All judicial, all financial connexion with the Papacy was broken by these two measures. Cromwell fell back on Wolsey's policy. The hope of aid from Charles was aban- doned, and by a new league with France he sought to bring pressure on the Papal court. But the pressure was as unsuccessful as before. Clement threatened the King with excommunication if he did not restore Catharine to her place as Queen and abstain from all inter- course with Anne Boleyn till the case was tried. Henry still refused to submit to the judgement of any court outside his realm ; and the Pope dared not consent to a trial within it. Henry at last closed the long debate by a secret union with Anne Boleyn. Warham was dead, and Cranmer, an active partizan of the divorce, was named to the see of Canterbury ; proceedings were at once commenced in his court ; ant', the marriage of Catharine was formally declared invalid by the new primate ut Dunstable. A week later Cranmer set on the brow of Anne Boleyn the crown which she had so long coveted. As yet the real character of Cromwell's ecclesiastical policy had been disguised by its connexion with the divorce. But though formal negotiations continued between England and Rome, until Clement's final decision in Catharine's favour, they had no longer any influence on the series of measures which in their rapid succession changed the whole character of the English Church. The acknowledgement of Henry's title as its Protector and Head was soon found by the clergy to have been more than a form of words. It was the first step in a policy by which the Church was to be laid prostrate at the foot of the throne. Parliament had shown its accordance with the royal will in the strife with Rome. Step by step the ground had been cleared for the great Statute by which the new character of the Church was defined. The Act of Supremacy ordered that the King "shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England, and shall have and enjoy annexed and united to the Imperial Crown of this realm as well the title and state thereof as all the honours, jurisdictions, authorities, immunities, profits and commodities to the said dignity belonging, with full power to visit, repress, redress, reform, and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, contempts, and enormities, which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction might or may lawfully be reformed." Authority in all matters ecclesi- astical, as well as civil, was vested solely in the Crown. The " courts spiritual" became as thoroughly the King's courts as the temporal courts at Westminster. But the full import of the Act of Supremacy was only seen in the following year, when Henry formally took the z 337 f:ii I- Sec. VI. Thomas Cromwell 1530 TO 1540 ^^' ! I' T/ie Divorce 1533 Act of Supre- macy !<• !;i 1534 I »S35 " i] •1! H I jH ?.'! n IS m ■ill Ml {■- W- 338 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CHAP. Sec. VI. Thomas Cromwell 1530 TO 1540 Subjection of the Bishops 1536 The Dis- solution of the Monas- teries title of " on earth Supreme Head of the Church of England," and some months later Cromwell was raised to the post of Vicar-General or Vicegerent of the King in all matters ecclesiastical. His title, like his office, recalled the system of Wolsey ; but the fact that these powers were now united in the hands not of a priest but of a layman, showed the new drift of the royal policy. And this policy Cromwell's position enabled him to carry out with a terrible thoroughness. Or»? great step towards its realization had already been taken in the statute which annihilated the free legislative powers of the convocations of the clergy. Another followed in an Act* which under the pretext of restoring the free election of bishops turned every prelate into a nominee of the King. Their election by the chapters of their cathedral churches had long become formal, and their appointment had since the time of the Edwards been practically made by the Papacy on the nomination of the Crown. The privilege of free election was now with bitter ifony restored to the chapters, but they were compelled on pain of praemunire to choose the candid? le recommended by the King. This strange ex- pedient has lasted till the present time ; but its character has wholly changed with the developement of constitutional rule. The nomination of bishops has ever since the accession of the Georges passed from the King in person to the Minister who represents the will of the people. Practically therefore an English prelate, alone among all the prelates of the world, is now raised to his episcopal throne by the same popular election which raised Ambrose to his episcopal chair at Milan. But at the moment Cromwell's measure reduced the English bishops to absolute dependence on the Crown. Their dependence would have been complete had his policy been thoroughly carried out and the royal power of deposition put in force as well as that of appointment. As it was Henry could warn the Archbishop of Dublin that if he persevered in his " proud folly, we be able to remove you again and to put another man of more virtue and honesty in your place." E/en Elizabeth in a burst of ill-humour threatened to " unfrock " the Bishop of Ely. By the more ardent partizans of the Reformation this depen- dence of the bishops on the Crown was fully recognized. On the death of Henry the Eighth Cranmer took out a new commission from Edward for the exercise of his office. Latimer, when the royal policy clashed with his belief, felt bound to resign the See of Worcester. That the power of deposition was at a later time quietly abandoned was due not so much to any deference for the religious instincts of the nation as to the fact that the steady servility of the bishops rendered its exercise unnecessary. Master of Convocation, absolute master of the bishops, Henry had become master of the monastic orders through the right of visitation over them which had been transferred by the Act of Supremacy from the Papacy to the Crown. The religious houses had drawn on them- [CHAP. td some leral or tie, like Lt these layman, >mwell's s. One e statute ns of the •estoring je of the ches had le of the nation of :ter ii'ony ■aemunire range ex- is wholly )mination I from the ,e people. B prelates le popular 1. But at ishops to ,uld have and the lointment. :hat if he in and to ," E»^en le Bishop lis depen- the death _ Edward [y clashed That the .s due not ition as to exercise Lenry had (visitation lacy from on them- VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. selves at once the hatred of the New Learning and of the Monarchy. In the early days of the revival of letters Popes and bishops had joined with princes and scholars in welcoming the diffusion of culture and the hopes of religious reform. But though an abbot or a prior here or there might be found among the supporters of the movement, the monastic orders as a whole repelled it with unswerving obstinacy. The quarrel only became more bitter as years went on. The keen sarcasms of Erasmus, the insolent buffoonery of Hutten, were lavished on the "lovers of darkness" and of the cloister. In England Colet and More echoed with greater reserve the scorn and invective of their friends. As an outlet for religious enthusiasm, indeed, monasticism was practically dead. The friar, now that his fervour of devotion and his intellectual energy had passed away, had sunk into a mere beggar. The monks had become mere landowners. Most of their houses were anxious only to enlarge their revenues and to diminish the number of those who shared them. In the general carelessness which prevailed as to the spiritual objects of their trust, in the wasteful management of their estates, in the indolence and self-indulgence which for the most part characterized them, the monastic houses simply exhibited the faults of all corporate bodies which have outlived the work which they were created to perform. But they were no more unpopular than such corporate bodies generally are. The Lollard cry for their suppression had died away. In the north, where some of the greatest abbeys were situated, the monks were on good terms with the country gentry, and their houses served as schools for their children ; nor is ihere any sign of a different feeling elsewhere. But in Cromwell's system there was no room for either the virtues or the vices of monasticism, for its indolence and superstition, or for its independence of the throne. Two royal commissioners therefore were despatched on a general visitation of the religious houses, and their reports formed a " Black Book" which was laid before Parliament on their return. It was acknowledged that about a third of the religious houses, including the bulk of the larger abbeys, were fairly and decently conducted. The rest were charged with drunkenness, with simony, and with the foulest and most revolting crimes. The character of the visitors, the sweeping nature of their report, and the long debate which followed on its reception, leaves little doubt that the charges were grossly exagge- rated. But the want of any effective discipline which had resulted from their exemption from any but Papal supervision told fatally against monastic morality even in abbeys 'ike St. Alban's : and the acknow- ledgement of Warham, as well as the partial measures of suppression begun by Wolsey, go far to prove that in the smaller houses at least indolence had passed into crime. But in spite of the cry of " Down with them " which broke from the Commons as the report was read, the country was still far from desiring the utter downfall of the Z 2 339 Sec. VI. Thomas Cromwei.i, 1530 TO 1540 i 1536 I ;>! '11 m 140 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. VI. Thomas Cromwell 1530 TO 1540 Enslaye- ment of the Oleryy A rticles of Religion 1536 monastic system. A long and bitter debate was followed by a com- promise which suppressed all houses whose incomes fell below £100 a year, and granted their revenues to the Crown ; but the great abbeys were still preserved intact. The secular clergy alone remained ; and injunction after injunction from the Vicar-General taught rector and vicar that they must learn to regard themselves as mere mouthpieces of the royal will. With the instinct of genius Cromwell discerned the part which the pulpit, as the one means which then existed of speaking to the people at large, was to play in the religious and political struggle that was at hand ; and he resolved to turn it to the profit of the Monarchy. The restriction of the right of preaching to priests who received licenses from the Crown silenced every voice of opposition. Even to those who received these licenses theological controversy was forbidden ; and a high-handed process of " tuning the pulpits " by directions as to the subject and tenor of each special discourse made the preachers at every crisis mere means of diffusing the royal will. As a first step in this process every bishop, abbot, and parish priest, was required to preach against the usurpation of the Papacy, and to proclaim the King as the supreme Head of the Church on earth. The very topics of the sermon were carefully prescribed ; the bishops were held responsible for the com- pliance of the clergy with Ihese orders, and the sheriffs were held responsible for the compliance of the bishops. It was only when all possibility of resistance was at an end, when the Church was gagged and its pulpits turned into mere echoes of Henry's vill, that Cromwell ventured on his last and crowning change, that of claiming for the Crown the right of dictating at its pleasure the form of faith and doctrine to be held and taught throughout the land. A purified Catholicism such as Erasmus and Colet had dreamed of was now to be the religion of England. But the dream of the New Learning was to be wrought out, not by the progress of education and piety, but by the brute force of the Monarchy. The Articles of Religion, which Convocation received and adopted without venturing on a protest, were drawn up by the hand of Henry himself. The Bible and the three Creeds were laid down as the sole grounds of faith. The Sacra- ments were reduced from ^ven to three, only Penance being allowed to rank on an equality with Baptism and the Lord's Supper. The doctrines of Transubstantiation and Confession were maintained, as they were also in the Lutheran Churches. The spirit of Erasmus was seen in the acknowledgement of Justification by Faith, a doctrine for which the friends of the New Learning, such as Pole and Contarini, were struggling at Rome itself, in the condemnation of purgatory, of pardons, and of masses for the dead, in the admission of prayers for the dead, and in the retention of the ceremonies of the Church without material change. Enormous as was the doctrinal revolution, not a :hap. com- bbeys iction am to :h the as the B, was mdhe lion of Crown 1 these landed ct and r crisis arocess against Lipreme n were e com- re held hen all gagged omwell for the ith and lurified now to ng was but by ., which [protest, ind the Sacra- illowed The ned, as us was ine for Jntarini, jtory, of Ters for irithout not a VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. murmur broke the assent of Convocation, and the Articles were sent by the Vicar-General into every county to be obeyed at men's peril. The policy of reform was carried steadily out by a series of royal injunctions which followed. Pilgrimages were suppressed ; the excessive number of holy days diminished ; the worship of images and relics discouraged in words which seem almost copied from the protest of Erasmus. His burning appeal for a translation of the Bible which weavers might repeat at their shuttle and ploughmen sing at their plough received at last a reply. At the outset of the ministry of Norfolk and More the King had promised an English version of the scriptures, while prohibiting the circulation of Tyndale's Lutheran translation. The work however lagged in the hands of the bishops ; and as a preliminary measure the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments were now rendered into English, and ordered to be taught by every schoolmaster and father of a family to his children and pupils. But the bishops' version still hung on hand ; till in despair of its appearance a friend of Archbishop Cranmer, Miles Coverdale, was employed to correct and revise the translation of Tyndale ; and the Bible which he edited was published in 1 538 under the avowed patronage of Henry himself. The story of the royal supremacy was graven on its very title-page. The new foundation of religious truth was to be regarded throughout England as a gift, not from the Church, but from the King. It is Henry on his throne who gives the sacred volume to Cranmer, ere Cranmer and Cromwell can distribute it to the throng of priests and laymen below. The debate on the suppression of the monasteries was the first instance of opposition with which Cromwell had met, and for some time longer it was to remain the only one. While the great revolution which struck down the Church was in progress, England looked silently on. In all the earlier ecclesiastical changes, in the contest over the Papal jurisdiction and Papal exactions, in the reform of the Church courts, even in the curtailment of the legislative independence of the clergy, the nation as a whole had gone with the King. But from the enslavement of the clergy, from the gagging of the pulpits, from the suppression of the monasteries, the bulk of the nation stood aloof. It is only through the stray depositions of royal spies that we catch a glimpse of the wrath and hate which lay seething under this silencfe of a whole people. For the silence was a silence of terror. Before Crom- well's rise and after his fall from power the reign of Henry the Eighth witnessed no more than the common tyranny and bloodshed of the time. But the years of Cromwell's administration form the one period in our history which deserves the name which men have given to the rule of Robespierre. It was the English Terror. It was by terror that Crom- well mastered the King. Cranmer could plead for him at a later time with Henry as " one whose surety was only by your Majesty, who loved 341 Sbc. VI. Thomas Ckomwei.i. isao TO 1540 The Terror I' i ! ■t ■ ■ 1 i 1 ■'' iii; Mf. ''-':' \ B' : H' I I i 4 :-tf ;5l I 'i 342 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. VI. Thomas Crumweli. 1530 TO 1540 your Majesty, as I ever thought, no less than God." But the attitude of Cromwell towards the King was something more than that of abso- lute dependence and unquestioning devotion. He was " so vigilant to preserve your Majesty from all treasons," adds the Primate, " that few could be so secretly conceived but he detected the same from the beginning." Henry, like every Tudor, was fearless of open danger, but tremulously sensitive to the slightest breath of hidden disloyalty. It was on this inner dread that Cromwell based the fabric of his power. He was hardly secretary before a host of spies were scattered broad- cast over the land. Secret denunciations poured into the open ear of I'le minister. The air was thick with tales of plots and conspiracies, and with the detection and suppression of each Cromwell tightened his hold on the King. And as it was by terror that he mastered the King, so it was by terror that he mastered the people. Men felt in England, to use the figure by which Erasmus paints the time, " as if a scorpion lay sleeping under every stone." The confessional had no secrets for Cromwell. Men's talk with their closest friends found its way to his ear. "Words idly spoken," the murmurs of a petulant abbot, the ravings of a moon-struck nun, were, as the nobles cried passionately at his fall, " tortured into treason." The only chance of safety lay in silence. " Friends who used to write and send me presents," Erasmus tells us, " now send neither letter nor gifts, nor receive any from any one, and this through fear." But even the refuge of silence was r'jsed by a law more infamous than any that has ever blotted the Statute-book of England. Not only was thought made treason, but men were forced to reveal their thoughts on pain of their very silence being punished with the penalties of treason. All trust in the older bulwarks of liberty was destroyed by a policy as daring as it was un- scrupulous. The noblest institutions were degraded into instruments of terror. Though Wolsey had strained the law to the utmost he had made no open attack on the freedom of justice. If he had shrunk from assembling Parliaments it was from his sense that they were the bulwarks of liberty. Under Cromwell the coercion of juries and the management of judges rendered the courts mere rnouth-pieces of the royal will : and where even this shadow of justice proved an obstacle to bloodshed, Parliament was brought into play to pass bill after bill of attainder. " He shall be judged by the bloody laws he has himself made," was the cry of the Council at the moment of his fall, and by a singular retribution the crowning injustice which he sought to intro- duce even into the practice of attainder, the condemnation of a man without hearing his defence, was only practised on himself. But ruth- less as was the Terror of Cromwell it was of a nobler type than the Terror of France. He never struck uselessly or capriciously, or stooped to the meaner victims of the guillotine. His blows were effective just because he chose his victims from among the noblest and the best. If VI.] he stru themos it was t blood o murder with hi- few stoi kindly-I for a cei ship whi of love c velli had to a sys business " remem sent dow King's p] shall go absence ( Cromwel] in the er woodman The ch which Cr< foremost policy of withdraw! more telli] must havi reserve. rapidly ca the very li and jufitic More inde gious warr the success legal heirs an oath tc succession, Catharine v had long ki this oath w Chelsea whi he had haw of Holbein. :hap. titude abso- ant to at few m the anger, )yalty. power. broad- ear of racies, led his 5 King, igland, ;orpion rets for yr to his )ot, the onately ' lay in Irasmus om any ice was ted the ion, but silence le older as un- uments he had shrunk ere the ^nd the of the (bstacle ifter bill himself [nd by a o intro- a man lut ruth- Ihan the stooped ;ive just •est. U VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 343 he struck at the Church, it was through the Carthusians, the holiest and the most renowned of English churchmen. I f he struck at the baronage, it was through the Courtenays and the I'oles, in whose veins flowed the blood of kings. If he struck at the New Learning it was through the murder of Sir Thomas More. But no personal vindictivcness mingled with his crime. In temper, indeed, so far as we can judge from the few stories which lingered among his friends, he was a generous, kindly-hearted man, with pleasant and winning manners which atoned for a certain awkwardness of person, and with a constancy of friend- ship which won him a host of devoted adherents. But no touch either of love or hate swayed him from his course. The student of Machia- velli had not studied the " Prince" in vain. He had reduced bloodshed to a system. Fragments of his papers still show us with what a business-like brevity he ticked off human lives among the casual "remembrances" of the day. "Item, the Abbot of Reading to be sent down to be tried and executed at Reading." " Item, to know the King's pleasure touching Master More." " Item, when Master Fisher shall go to his execution, and the other." It is indeed this utter absence of all passion, of all personal feeling, that makes the figure of Cromwell the most terrible in our history. He has an absolute faith in the end he is pursuing, and he simply hews his way to it as a woodman hews his way through the forest, axe in hand. The choice of his first victim showed the ruthless precision with which Cromwell was to strike. In the general opinion of Europe the foremost Englishman of his time was Sir Thomas More. As the policy of the divorce ended in an open rupture with Rome he had withdrawn silently from the ministry, but his silent disapproval was more telling than the opposition of obscurer foes. To Cromwell there must have been something specially galling in More's attitude of reserve. The religious reforms of the New Learning were being rapidly carried out, but it was plain that the man who represented the very life of the New Learning believed that the sacrifice of liberty and justice was too dear a price to pay even for religious reform. More indeed looked on the divorce and re-marriag-e as without reli- gious warrant, though his faith in the power of Parliament to regulate the succession made him regard the children of Anne Boleyn as the legal heirs of the Crown. The Act of Succession, however, required an oath to be taken by all persons, which not only recognized the succession, but contained an acknowledgement that the marriage with Catharine was against Scripture and invalid from the beginning. Henry had long known More's belief on this point ; and the summons to take this oath was simply a summons to death. More was at his house at Chelsea when the summons called him to Lambeth, to the house where he had bandied fun with Warham and Erasmus or bent over the easel of Holbein. For a moment there may have been some passing impulse Sue. VI. 'I'llOMAH ('kumwki.i. 1530 TO 1S40 - !"! : ! I' * i' i' 'A I .(iff r The Death of More y:;M 1534 i. ) .^1 344 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. VI. Thomas Cromwkm. 1530 TO 1640 Tite Carthusiam t to yield. Hut it was soon over. " I thank the Lord," More said with a sudden start as the boat dropped silently down the river from his garden steps in the early morning, " I thank the Lord that the field is won." Cranmcr and his fellow commissioners tendered to him the new oath of allegiance ; but, as they expected, it was refused. They bade him walk in the garden that he might reconsider his reply. The day was hot and More seated himself in a window from which he could look down into the crowded court. ICven in the presence of death, the quick sympathy of his nature could enjoy the humour and life of the throng below. " I saw," he said afterwaids, " Master Latimer very merry in the court, for he laughed Jind took one or twain by the neck so handsomely that if they had been women I should have weened that he waxed wanton." The crowd below was chiefly of priests, rectors and vicars, pressing to take the oath that More found harder than death. He bore them no grudge for it. When he heard the voice of one who was known to have boggled hard at the oath a little while before calling loudly and ostentatiously for drink, he only noted him with his peculiar humour. " He drank," More supposed, " either from dryness or from gladness," or " to show quod ille notus erat Pontifici." He was called in again at last, but " only repeated his refusal It was in vain that Cranmer plied him with dis- tinctions which perplexed even the subtle wit of the ex-chancellor ; he remained unshaken and passed to the Tower. He was followed there by Bishop Fisher of Rochester, charged with countenancing treason by listening to the prophecies of a fanatic called the " Nun of Kent." For the moment even Cromwell shrank from their blood. They remained prisoners while a new and more terrible engine was devised to crush out the silent but widespread opposition to the religious changes. By a statute passed at the close of 1534 a new treason was created in the denial of the King's titles ; and in the opening of 1535 Henry assumed, as we have seen, the title of " on earth supreme Head of the Church of England." In the general relaxation of the religious life the charity and devotion of the brethren of the Charter-house had won the reverence even of those who condemned monasticism. After a stubborn resist- ance they had acknowledged the royal Supremacy, and taken the oath of submission prescribed by the Act. But by an infamous construc- tion of the statute which made the denial of the Supremacy treason, the refusal of satisfactory answers to official questions as to a con- scientious belief in it was held to be equivalent to open denial. The aim of the new measure was well known, and the brethren prepared to die. In the agony of waiting enthusiasm brought its imaginative consolations ; " when the Host was lifted up there came as it were a whisper of air which breathed upon our faces as we knelt ; and there came a sweet soft sound of music." They had not long however to wait. Their refusal to answer was the signal for their doom. Three CHAP. d with m his field is m the They The which esence mmour Master one or women ow was ,th that . When hard at >r drink, ," More >w quod )ut ■ only vith dis- illor ; he ,ed there eason by For emained to crush jes. By d in the issumed, hurch of irity and iverence n resist- the oath onstruc- treason, a con- .1. The ►repared iginative [t were a id there ever to Three vi.l THE NEW MONARCHY. 345 of the brethren went to the gallows ; the rest were flung into Newgate, chained to posts in a noisome dungeon where, "tied and not able to stir," they were left to perish of gaol-fcvcr and starvation. In a fortnight five were dead and the rest at the point of death, "almost despatched," Cromwell's envoy wrote to him, " by the hand of (iod, of which, considering their behaviour, I am not sorry." The interval of imprisonment had failed to break the resolution of More, and the new statute sufficed to bring him to the block. With Fisher he was con- victed of denying the King's title as only supreme head of the Church. The old Bishop approached the block with a book of the New Testa- ment in his hand. He opened it at a venture ere he knelt, and read, " This is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God." Fisher's death was soon fodowed by that of More. Cn the eve of the fatal blow he moved his beard carefully from the block. " Pity that should be cut," he was heard to mutter with a touch of the old sad irony, " that has never committed treason." But it required, as Cromwell well knew, heavier blows even than these to break the stubborn resistance of Englishmen to his projects of change, and he seized his opportunity in the revolt of the North. In the north the monks had been popular ; and the outrages with which the dissolution of the monasteries was accompanied gave point to the mutinous feeling that prevailed through the country. The nobles too were writhing beneath the rule of one whom they looked upon as a low-born upstart. " The world will never mend," Lord Hussey was heard to say, " till we fight for it." Agrarian discontent and the love of the old religion united in a revolt which broke out in Lincolnshire. The rising was hardly suppressed when Yorkshire was in arms. From every parish the farmers marched with the parish priest at their head upon York, and the surrender of the city determined the waverers. In a few days Skipton Castle, where the Earl of Cumberland held out with a handful of men, was the only spot north of the H umber which remained true to the King. Durham rose at the call of Lords Latimer and Westmoreland. Though the Earl of Northumberland feigned sickness, the Percies joined the revolt. Lord Dacre, the chief of the Yorkshire nobles, surrendered Pomfret, and was at once acknowledged as their chief by the insurgents. The whole nobility of the north were now in arms, and thirty thousand *' tall men and well horsed" moved on the Don, demanding the reversal of the royal policy, a re- union with Rome, the restoration of Catharine's daughter, Mary, to her rights as heiress of the Crown, redress for the wrongs done to the Church, and above all the driving away of base-born counsellors, in other words the fall of Cromwell. Though their advance was checked by negotiation, the organization of the revolt went steadily on throi ^h- out the winter, and a Parliament of the North gathered at Pomfret, and fornially adopted the demands of the insurgents, Only six Sec. VI. Thomai Cromwell 1630 TO l.»40 Cromwell and the Nobles I The Pilgriiuagt ' ' of Grace »S36 I jit; H* i' K ■m 346 Skc. VI. Thomas Cromwei.i. 1530 TO 1540 1537 153S HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. thousand men under Norfolk barred their way southward, and the Midland counties were known to be disaffected. Cromwell, however, remained undaunted by the peril. lie suffered Norfolk to negotiate ; and allowed Henry under pressure from his Council to promise pardon and a free rarliamcnt at York, a pledge which Norfolk and Dacre alike construed into an acceptance of the demands made by the in- surgents. Their leaders at once Hung aside the badge of the Five Wounds which they had worn, with a cry " We will wear no badge but that of our Lord the King," and nobles and farmers dispersed to their homes in triumph. Jiut the towns of the North were no sooner garri- soned and Norfolk's army in the heart of Yorkshire than the veil was flung aside. A few isolated outbreaks gave a pretext for the with- drawal of every concession. The arrest of the leaders of the " Pil- grimage of Grace," as the insurrection was styled, was followed by ruthless severities. The country was covered with gibbets. Whole districts were given up to military execution, liut it was on the leaders of the rising that Cromwell's hand fell heaviest. He seized his oppor- tunity for dealing at the northern nobles a fatal blow. " Cromwell," one of the chief among them broke fiercely out as he stood at 'he Council board, "it is thou that art the very special and chief cause of all this rebellion and wickedness, and dost daily travail to bring us to our ends and strike off our heads. I trust that ere thou die, though thou wouldst procure .M the noblest heads within the realm to be stricken off, yet there shall one head remain that shall strike oft thy head." lUit the warning was unheeded. Lord Darcy, who stood first among the nobles of Yorkshire, and Lord Hussey, who stood first among the nobles of Lincolnshire, went alike to the block. Tha Abbot of Barlings, who had ridden into Lincoln with his canons in full armour, swung with his brother Abbots of Whalley, Woburn, and .Sawley from the gallows. The Abbots of Fountains and of Jervaulx were hanged at Tyburn side by side with the representative of the great line of Percy. Lady Bulmer was burnt at the stake. Sir Robert Constable was hanged in chains before the gate of Hull. The blow to the north had not long been struck when Cromwell turned to deal with the west. The opposition to his system gathered above all round two houses who represented what yet lingered of Yorkist tradition, the Courtenays and the Poles. Margaret, the Countess of Salisbury, a daughter of the Duke of Clarence by the heiress of the Earl of War- wick, was at once representative of the Nevilles and a niece of Edward the Fourth. Her third son, Reginald Pole, after refusing the highest offers from Henry as the price of his approval of the divorce, harl taken refuge in Rome, where he had bitterly attacked the King in a book on "The Unity of JtliQ^. Church." "There may be found ways enough in Italy," Cromwell wrote to him in significant words, " to rid a treacherous subject. When Justice can take no place by process of VI.] VI.] THE NEW MONARCHY. 347 law at home, sometimes she may be enforced to take new means abroad." JUit he had left hostages in Henry's liands. " Pity that the folly of one witless fool should be the ruin of so great a family. Let him follow ambition as fast as he can, those that little have offended (saving that he is of their kin), were it not for the great mercy and benignity of the prince, should and might feel wi at it is to have a traitor as their kinsman." Pole answered l)y pressing the Emperor to execute a bull of excommunication and dei)osition which was now launched by the Papacy. Cromwell was quick with his reply. Courtenay, the Marquis of Exeter, was a kinsman of the Poles, aixl like them of royal blood, a grandson through his mother of Edward the Fourth. He was known to have bitterly denounced the " knaves that ruled about the King; " and his threats to "give them some day a buffet " were formidable in the mouth of one whose influence in the western counties was supreme. He was at once arrested with Lord Montacute, Pole's elder brother, on a charge of treason, and both were beheaded on Tower Hill, while the Countess of Salisbury was attainted and sent to the Tower. Never indeed had Cromwell shown such greatness as in his last struggle against Fate, "lieknaved" by the King whose confidence in him waned as he discerned the full meaning of the religious changes, met too by a growing opposition in the Council as his favour declined, the temper of the man remained indomitable as ever. He stood absolutely alone. Wolsey, hated as he had been by the nobles, hud been supported by the Church ; but Churchmen hated Cromwell with an even fiercer hite than the nobles themselves. His only friends were the Protestants, and their friendship was more fatal than the hatred of his foes. liut he Shewed no signs of fear or of halting in the course he had entered on. His activity was as boundless as ever. Like Wolsey he had concentrated in his hands the whole administra- tion of the state ; he was at once foreign minister and home minister and Vicar-General of the Church, the creator of a new fleet, the organizer of armies, the president of the terrible Star Chamber. But his Italian indifference to the mere show of power contrasted strongly with the pomp of the Cardinal. His personal habits were simple and unostentatious. If he clutched at money, it was to feed the vast army of spies whom he maintained at his own expense, and whose work he surveyed with a sleepless vigilance. More than fifty volumes still remain of the gigantic mass of his correspondence. Thousands of letters from "poor bedesmen," from outraged wives and wrunged labourers and persecuted heretics, flowed in to the all-powerful minister whose system of personal government had turned him into the universal court of appeal. So long as Henry supported him, however reluctan^^ly, he was more than a match for his foes. He was strong enough to expel his chief opponent, Bishop Gardiner of Winchester, from the Skc. VI. Thomas CKUMWiil.l. 1530 TO 1540 •539 The Fall of Crom- well ■( ]< I ifl '^■i i m 348 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. Sec. VI. Thomas CrO IWELL 1530 TO 1540 1538 1540 [chap. June 1540 July royal Council. He met the hostility of the nobles with a threat which marked his power. " If the lords would handle him so, he would give them such a breakfast as never was made in England, and that the proudesc of them should know." His single will forced on a scheme of foreign policy whose aim was to bind England to the cause of the Reformation while it bound Henry helplessly to his minister. The daring boast which his enemies laid afterwards to his charge, whether uttered or not, is but the expression of his system. "In brief time he would bring things to such a pass that the King with all his power should not be able to hinder him." His plans rested, like the plan which proved fatal to Wolsey, on a fresh marriage of his master. The short-lived royalty of Anne Boleyn had ended in charges of adultery and treason, and in her death in May, 1536. Her rival and successor in Henry's affections, Jane Seymour, died next year in child- birth ; and Cromwell replaced her with a German consort, Anne of Cleves, a sister-in-law of the Lutheran elector of Saxony. He dared even to resist Henry's caprice, when the King revolted on their first interview at the coarse features and unwieldy form of his new bride. For the moment Cromwell had brought matters " to such a pass " that it was impossible to recoil from the marriage. The marriage of Anne of Cleves, however, was but the first step in a policy which, had it been carried out as he designed it, would have anticipated the triumphs of Richelieu. Charles and the House of Austria could alone bring about a Catholic reaction strong enough to arrest and roll back the Re- formation : and Cromwell was no sooner united with the princes of North Germany than he sought to league them with France for the overthrow of the Emperor. Had he succeeded, the whole face of Europe would have been changed. Southern Germany would have been secured for Protestantism, and the Thirty Years War averted. He failed as men fail who stand ahead of their age. The German princes shrank from a contest with the Emperor, France from a struggle which would be fatal to Catholicism ; and Henry, left alone to bear the resentment of the House of Austria and chained to a wife he loathed, turned savagely on Cromwell. The nobles sprang on him with a fierceness that told of their long-hoarded hate. Taunts and execrations burst from the Lords at the Council table, as the Duke of Norfolk, who had been charged with the minister's arrest, tore the ensign of the Garter from his neck. At the charge of treason Cromwell flung his cap on the ground with a passionate cry of despair. ." This then," i»e exclaimed, " is my guerdon for the services I have done \ On your consciences, I ask you, am I a traitor } " Then with a sudden sense that all was over he bade his foes "make quick work, and not leave me to languish in prison." Quick work was made, and a yet louder burst of popular applause than that which hailed the attainder of Cromwell hailed his execution, VII.] •m [chap. 1 thi'eat a so, he and, and :ed on a he cause minister. i charge, ' In brief h all his , like the s master, larges of rival and : in child- , Anne of He dared their first ew bride. Dass " that e of Anne ad it been lumphs of ring about k the Re- princes of ce for the e face of 3uld have averted. German :e from a left alone I to a wife ig on him aunts and e Duke of , tore the Cromwell r. "This ,ve done! a sudden , and not ,nd a yet attainder vii.] THE REFORMATION. ^^^ I '! ' m CHAPTER VII. THE REFORMATION. % Section I.— The Protestants. 1540-1553. [Author ides. — For the lose of Henry's reign and for that of Edward, we have a mass of material in Strypc's "Memorials," and his hves of Cranmer, Cheke, and Smith, in Mr. Pocock's edition of •'Burnet's History of the Reformation," in Hay ward s Life of Edward, and Edward's own Journal, in Ilolinshed's *' Chronicle," and Machyn's '* Diary" (Camden Society), For the Protectorate see the correspondence published by Mr. Tytler in his '"England under Edward VI. and Mary * ; much light is thrown on its close by Mr. NichoUs in the "Chronicle of Queen Jane" (Camden Society). Among outer observers, the Venetian Soranzo deals with the Protectorate ; and the despatches of Giovanni Michiel, published by Mr. Friedmann, with the events of Mary's reign. In spite of endless errors, of Puritan prejudices and deliberate suppressions of the truth (many of which will be found corrected by Dr. Maitland's "Essay on the Reformation,"), its mass of facts and wonderful charm of style will always give a great importance to the " Book of Martyrs" of Foxe. The story of the early Protestants has been admirably wrought up by Mr. Froude (" History of Engiand/ chap, vi.).] At Cromwell's death the success of his policy was complete The Monarchy had reached the height of its power. The old liberties of England lay prostrate at the feet of the King. The Lords were cowed and spiritless ; the House of Commons was filled with the creatures of the Court and degraded into an engine of tyranny. Royal proclamations were taking the place of parliamentary legislation ; benevolences were encroaching more and more on the right of parliamentary taxation. Justice was prostituted in the ordinary courts to the royal will, while the boundless and arbitrary powers of the royal Council were gradii- aljy superseding the slower processes of the Common Law. The new religious changes had thrown an almost sacred character over the "majesty" of the King. Henry was the Head of the Church. From the primate to the meanest deacon every minister of it derived from him his sole right to exercise spiritual powers. The voice of its preachers was the echo of his will. He alone could define orthodoxy or declare heresy. The forms of its worship and belief were changed and rechanged at the royal caprice. Half of its wealth went to swell the royal treasury, and the other half lay at the King's mercy. It was this unprecedented concentration of all power in the hands of a single man that overawed the imagination of Henry's subjects. He was re- garded as something high above the laws which govern common men. 'I : i t. i 1 ii •-It VI I >'?. Cromwell and the Monarchy mi •'1 m ni^ ifl ^ . 'A \ 350 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec- I. Thh Pro- testants 1540 TO 1553 Cromwell and the Parlia- ment The voices of statesmen and of priests extolled his wisdom and power as more than human. The Parliament itself rose and bowed to the vacant throne when his name was mentioned. An absolute devotion to his person replaced the old loyalty to the law. When the Primate of the English Church described the chief merit of Cromwell, it was by asserting that he loved the King " no less than he loved God." It was indeed Cromwell, as we have seen, who more than any man had reared this fabric of king-worship ; but he had hardly reared it before it began to give way. The very success of his measures indeed brought about the ruin of his policy. One of the most striking features of his system had been his revival of Parliaments. The great assembly which the Monarchy, from Edward the Fourth to Wolsey, had dreaded and silenced, was called to the front again by Cromwell, and turned into the most formidable weapon of despotism. He saw nothing to fear in a House of Lords whose nobles cowered helpless before the might of the Crown, and whose spiritual members his policy was degrading into mere tools of the royal will. Nor could he find anything to dread in a House of Commons which was crowded with members direct'y or in- directly nominated by the royal Council. With a Parliament such as this Cromwell might well trust to make the nation itself through its very representatives an accomplice in the work of absolutism. It was by parliamentary statutes that the Church was prostrated at the feet of the Monarchy. It was by bills of attainder that great nobles were brought to the block. It was under constitutional forms that freedom was gagged with new treasons and oaths and questionings. But the success of such a system depended wholly on the absolute servility of Parlia- ment to the will of the Crown, and Cromwell's own action made the continuance of such a servility impossible. The part which the Houses were to play in after years shows the importance of clinging to the forms of constitutional freedom, even when their life is all but lost. In the inevitable reaction against tyranny they furnish centres for the reviving energies of the people, while the returning tide of liberty is enabled through their preservation to flow quietly and naturally along its traditional channels. On one occasion during Cromwell's own rule a " great debate " on the suppression of the lesser monasteries showed that elements of resistance still survived ; and these elemenls developed rapidly as the power of the Crown declined under the minority of Edward and the unpopularity or Mary. To this revival of a spirit of independence the spoliation of the Church largely contributed. Partly from necessity, partly from a desire to build up a faction interested in the maintenance of their ecclesiastical policy, Cromwell and the King squandered the vast mass of wealth which flowed into the Treasury with reckless prodigality. Something like a fifth of the actual land in the kingdom was in this way transferred from the holding of the Church to that of nobles and gentry. Not only were the older houses enriched, i- n VII.] THE REFORMATION. but a new aristocracy was erected from among the dependants of the Court. The Russells and the Cavendishes are famiUar instances of famiUes which rose from obscurity through the enormous grants of Church-land made to Henry's courtiers. The old baronage was hardly crushed before a new aristocracy took its place. " Those families within or without the bounds of the peerage," observes Mr. Hallam, " who are now deemed the most considerable, will be found, with no great number of exceptions, to have first become conspicuous under the Tudor line of kings, and, if we could trace the title of their estates, to have acquired no small portion of them mediately or immediately from monastic or other ecclesiastical foundations." The leading part which the new peers took in the events which followed Henry's death gave a fresh strength and vigour to the whole order. But the smaller gentry shared in the general enrichment of the landed proprietors, and the new energy of the Lords was soon followed by a display of fresh political independence among the Commons themselves. But it was above all in the new energy which the religious spirit of the people at large drew from the ecclesiastical changes which he had brought about, that the policy of Cromwell was fatal to the Monarchy. Lollardry, as a great social and popular movement, had ceased to exist, and little remained of the directly religious impulse given by Wyclif beyond a vague restlessness and discontent with the system of the Church. But weak and fitful as was the life of Lollardry, the prosecutions whose records lie scattered over the bishops' registers failed wholly to kill it. We see groups meeting here and there to read " in a great book of heresy all one night certain chapters of the Evan- gelists in English," while transcripts of Wyclif s tracts passed from hand to hand. The smouldering embers needed but a breath to fan them into flame, and the breath came from William Tyndale. He had passed from Oxford to Cambridge to feel the full impulse given by the appearance there of the New Testament of Erasmus. From that moment one thought was at his heart. " If God spare my life," he said to a learned controversialist, " ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the scripture than thou dost." But he was a man of forty before his dream became fact. Drawn from his retirement in Gloucestershire by the news of Luther's protest at Wittemberg, he found shelter for a time in London, and then at Hamburg, before he found his way to the little town which had suddenly become the sacred city of the Reformation. Students of all nations were flocking there with an enthusiasm which resembled that of the Crusades. " As they came in sight of the town," a contemporary tells us, " they returned thanks to God with clasped hands, for from Wittemberg, as heretofore from Jerusalem, the light of evangelical truth had spread to the utmost parts of the earth." In 1525 his version of the New Testament was completed. Driven from Koln, he had to \ m 351 : \ || ^^^H ' ' -,' ''^^H Sec. I. ': ill .i'l ''' '^1 The'Pro- TESTANTS « 1540 f iL,Ui*i. . '^^1 RMH '''N'I TO Ptm 11 i''^l 1553 ' /' * '^BS ;| 1 :| ^W' l'"M r , ' ' '' i '-'-' ^1 '1' ||i-i,| ' HK 1', 1 The Pro- I !. '-■*';• \ J ^•1 testants j 'r-i • ■ sm 'li jf^^^-i^ m II ; '\ r lr:!i:::i.-i «1 ^.1 ; ;, ', ,;', * • '■ ' ~-'/! i , y :l 'ft! , -;S ii ; ' ' ^ .. ; :1' J; r.i : \ \ ■ \ 1525 « I 352 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Skc. I. The Pro- testants 1540 TO 1653 1528 Iifttimer 1490 fly with his sheets to Worms, from whence six thousand copies of the New Testament were sent to English shores. But it was not as a mere translation of the Bible that Tyndale's work reached England. It came as a part of the Lutheran movement ; it bore the Lutheran stamp in its version of ecclesiastical words ; it came too in company with Luther's bitter invectives and reprints of the tracts of Wyclif. It was denounced as heretical, and a pile of books was burned before Wolsey in St. Paul's Churchyard. Bibles and pamphlets however were smuggled over to England and circulated among the poorer and trading classes through the agency of an association of " Christian Brethren," consisting principally of London tradesmen and citizens, but whose missionaries spread over the country at large. They found their way at once to the Universities, where the intellectual impulse given by the New Learning was quickening religious speculation. Cambridge had already won a name for heresy, and the Cambridge scholars whom Wolsey introduced into Cardinal College which he was founding spread the contagion through Oxford. A group of " Brethren " which was formed in Cardinal College for the secret reading and dis- cussion of the Epistles soon included the more intelligent and learned scholars of the University. It was in vain that Clark, the centre of this group, strove to dissuade fresh members from joining it by warn- ings of the impending dangers. " I fell down on my knees at his feet," says one of them, Anthony Dalaber, " and with tears and sighs be- sought him that for the tender mercy of God he should not refuse me, saying that I trusted verily that He who had begun this an me would not forsake me, but would give me grace to continue therein to Ihe end. When he heard me say so he came to me, took me in his arms, and kissed me, saying, * The Lord God Almighty grant you so to do, and from henceforth ever take me for your father, and I will take you for my son in Christ.'" The excitement which followed on this rapid diffusion of Tyndale's works forced Wolsey to more vigorous action ; many of the Oxford Brethren were thrown into prison and their books seized. But in spite of the panic of the Protestants, some of whom fled over sea, little severity was really exercised; and Wolsey remained steadily indifferent to all but political matters. Henry's chief anxiety, indeed, was lest in the outburst against heresy the interest of the New Learning should suffer harm. This was remarkably shown in the protection he extended to one who was destined to eclipse even the fame of Colet as a popular preacher. Hugh Latimer was the son of a Leicestershire yeoman, whose armour the boy had buckled on ere he set out to m^et the Cornish insurgents at Blackhealh field. He has himself described the soldierly training of his youth. " My father was delighted to teach me to shoot with the bow. He taught me how to draw, how to lay my body to the bow. Vll.'j THE REFORMATION. 353 not to draw with strength of arm as other nations do, but with the strength of the body." At fourteen he was at Cambridge, flinging himself into the New Learning which was winning its way there with a zeal which at last told on his physical strength. The ardour of his mental efforts left its mark on him in ailments and enfeebled health, from which, vigorous as he was, his frame never wholly freed itself. But he was destined to be known, not as a scholar, but as a preacher. The sturdy good sense of the man shook off the pedantry of the schools as well as the subtlety of the theologian in his addresses from the pulpit. He had little turn for speculation, and in the religious changes of the day we find him constantly lagging behind his brother reformers. But he had the moral earnestness of a Jewish prophet, and his denunciations of wrong had a prophetic directness and fire. " Have pity on your soul," he cried to Henry, " and think that the day is even at hand when you shall give an account of your office, and of the blood that hath been shed by your sword." His irony was yet more telling than his invective. " I would ask you a strange question," he said once at Paul's Cross to a ring of Bishops, " who is the most diligent prelate in all England, that passeth all the rest in doing of his office ? I will tell you. It is the Devil ! of all the pack of them that have cure, the Devil shall go for my money ; for he ordereth his business. Therefore, you unpreaching prelates, learn of the Devil to be diligent in your office. If you will not learn of God, for shame learn of the Devil." But he was far from limiting himself to invective. His homely humour breaks in with story and apologue ; his earnestness is always tempered with good sense ; his plain and simple style quickens with a shrewd mother-wit. He talks to his hearers as a man talks to his friends, telling stories such as we have given of his own life at home, or chatting about the changes and chances of the day with a transparent simplicity and truth that raises even his chat into grandeur. His theme is always the actual world about him, and in his homely lessons of loyalty, of industry, of pity for the poor, he touches upon almost every subject, from the plough to the throne. No such preaching had been heard in England before his day, and with the growth of his fame grew the danger of perse- cution. There were moments when, bold as he was, Latimer's heart failed him. " If I had not trust that God will help me," he wrote once, " I think the ocean sea would have divided my lord of London and me by this day." A\itation for heresy at last brought the danger home. " I intend," he wrote with his peculiar medley of humour and pathos, " to make merry with my parishioners this Christmas, for all the sorrow, lest perchance I may never return to them again." But he was saved throughout by the steady protection of the Court. Wolsey upheld him against the threats of the Bishop of Ely ; Heniy made him his own chaplain ; and the King's interposition at this A A Sec. I. The Pro- testants 1540 TO 1553 • -^'i'li i ?■' J 354 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. tCHAP. Sbc. I. The Pro* tbstants 1540 TO 1553 Orom- Tvell and the Pro- testants 1536 1538 critical moment forced Latimer's judges to content themselves with a few vague words of submission. Henry's quarrel with Rome saved the Protestants from the keener persecution which troubled them after Wolsey's fall. The divorce, the renunciation of the Papacy, the degradation of the clergy, the suppression of the monasteries, the religious changes, fell like a series of heavy blows upon the priesthood. From persecutors they suddenly sank into men trembling for their very lives. Those whom they had threatened were placed at their head. Cranmer became Primate ; Shaxton, a favourer of the new changes, was raised to the see of Salisbury ; Barlow, a yet more extreme partizan,to that of St. David's ; Hilsey to that of Rochester ; Goodrich to that of Ely ; Fox to that of Hereford. Latimer himself became Bishop of Worcester, and in a vehement address to the clergy in Convocation taunted them with their greed and superstition in the past, and with their inactivity when the King and his Parliament were labouring for the revival of religion. The aim of Cromwell, as we have seen, was simply that of the New Learning ; he desired religious reform rather than revolution, a simpli- fication rather than a change of doctrine, the purification of worship rather than the introduction of a new ritual. But it was impossible to strike blow after blow at the Church without leaning instinctively to the party who sympathized with the German reformation, and were longing for a more radical change at home. Few as these ** Luther- ans " or " Protestants " still were in numbers, their new hopes made them a formidable force ; and in the school of persecution they had learned a violence which delighted in outrages on the faith which had so long trampled them under foot. At the very outset of Cromwell's changes four Suffolk youths broke into the church at Dovercourt, tore down a wonder-working crucifix, and burned it in the fields. The suppression of the lesser monasteries was the signal for a new out- burst of ribald insult to the old religion. The roughness, insolence, and extortion of the Commissioners sent to effect it drove the whole monastic body to despair. Their servants rode along the road with copes for doublets and tunicles for saddle-cloths, and scattered panic among the larger houses which were left. Some sold their jewels and relics to provide for the evil day they saw approaching. Some begged of their own will for dissolution. It was worse when fresh ordinances of the Vicar-General ordered the removal of objects of superstitious veneration. The removal, bitter enough to those whose religion twined itself around the image or the relic which was taken away, was yet more embittered by the insults with which it was accompanied. The miraculous rood at Boxley, which bowed its head and stirred its eyes, was par?ded from market to market and exhibited as a juggle before the Court. Images of the Virgin were stripped of their costly vestments and sent to be publicly burnt at London. Latimer for- vir.l THE REFORMATION. warded to the capital the figure of Our Lady, which he had thrust out of his cathedral church at Worcester, with rough words of scorn : " She with her old sister of Walsingham, her younger sister of Ips- wich, and their two other sisters of Doncaster and Penrice, vould make a jolly muster at Smithfield." Fresh orders were given to fling all relics from their reliquaries, and to level every shrine with the ground. The bones of St. Thomas of Canterbury were torn from the stately shrine which had been the glory of his metropolitan church, and his name was erased from the service-books as that of a traitor. The introduction of the English Bible into churches gave a new open- ing for the zeal of the Protestants. In spite of royal injunctions that it should be read decently and without comment, the young zealots of the party prided themselves on shouting it out to a circle of excited hearers during the service of mass, and accompanied their reading with violent expositions. Protestant maidens took the new English primer to church with them, and studied it ostentatiously during matins. Insult passed into open violence when the Bishops' Courts were invaded and broken up by Protestant mobs ; and law and public opinion were outraged at once when priests who favoured the new doctrines began openly to bring home wives to their vicarages. A fiery outburst of popular discussion compensated for the silence of the pulpits. The new Scriptures, in Henry's bitter words of complaint, were " disputed, rimed, sung, and jangled in every tavern and ale- house." The articles which dictated the belief of the English Church roused a furious controversy. Above all, the Sacrament of the Mass, the centre of the Catholic system of faith and worship, and which still remained sacred to the bulk of Englishmen, was attacked with a scurrility and profaneness which passes belief. The doctrine of Transubstantiation, which was as yet recognized by law, was held up to scorn in ballads and mystery plays. In one church a Protestant lawyer raised a dog in his hands when the priest elevated the Host. The most sacred words of the old worship, the words of consecra- tion, " Hoc est corpus," were travestied into a nickname for jugglery as " Hocus-pocus." It was by this attack on the Mass, even more than by the other outrages, that the temper both of Henry and the nation was stirred to a deep resentment ; and the first signs of re- action were seen in the Act of the Six Articles, which was passed by the Parliament with g|neral assent. On the doctrine of Transubstan- tiation, which was re-asserted by the first of these, there was no differ- ence of feeling or belief between the men of the New Learning and the older Catholics. But the road to a further instalment of even moderate reform seemed closed by the five other articles which sanctioned com- munion in one kind, the celibacy of the clergy, monastic vows, private masses, and auricular confession. A more terrible feature of the re- action was the revival of persecution. Burning was renounced as the A A 2 35S :!■' I; Skc. I. The Pro- testants 1540 TO 1553 153S !;! '.i:*' ' 'I '^.f. The Six A rticles »539 A 1 1 '1 vt I I 1 I? If i ■ !:■! ffiV iW % 1 35^ HISTORY OF THE i.NGLISM PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. I. The Pro- testants 1540 TO 1553 The Deatb of Henry VIII. penalty for a denial of transubstantiation ; on a second offence it be- came the penalty for an infraction of the other five doctrines. A refusal to confess or to attend Mass was made felony. It was in vain that Cranmer, with the five bishops who partially sympathized with the Protestants, struggled against the bill in the Lords : the Commons were " all of one opinion," and Henry himself acted as spokesman on the side of the Articles. In London alone five hundred Protestants were indicted under the new act. Latimer and Shaxton were im- prisoned, and the former forced into a resignation of his see. Cranmer himself was only saved by Henry's personal favour. But the first burst of triumph had no sooner spent itself than the strong hand of Cromwell again made itself felt. Though his opinions re- mained those of the New Learning and differed little from the general sentiment represented in the Act, he leaned instinctively to the one party which did not long for his fall. His wish was to restrain the Protestant excesses, but he had no mind to ruin the Protestants. The bishops were quietly released. The London indictments were quashed. The magistrates were checked in their enforcement of the law, while a general pardon cleared the prisons of the heretics who had been arrested under its provisions. A few months after the enactment of the Six Articles we find from a Protestant letter that persecution had wholly ceased, " the Word is powerfully preached and books of every kind may safely be exposed for sale." At Cromwell's fall his designs seemed to be utterly abandoned. The marriage with Anne of Cleves was annulled, and a new Queen found in Catharine Howard, a niece of the Duke of Norfolk. Norfolk him- self returned to power, and resumed the policy which Cromwell had interrupted. Like the King he looked to an Imperial alliance rather than an alliance with Francis and the Lutherans. He still clung to the dream of the New Learning, to a purification of the Church through a general Council, and the reconciliation of England with the purified body of Catholicism. For such a purpose it was necessary to vindicate English orthodoxy ; and to ally England with the Emperor, by whose influence alone the assembly of such a Council could be brought about. To the hotter Catholics indeed, as to the hotter Protestants, the years after Cromwell's fall seemed years of a gradual return to Catholicism. There was a slight sharpening of persecution for the Protestants, and restrictions were put on the reading of the Engjjish Bible. But neither Norfolk nor-his master desired any rigorous measure of reaction. There was no thought of reviving the old superstitions, or undoing the work which had been done, but simply of guarding the purified faith against Lutheran heresy. The work of supplying men with means of devotion in their own tongue was still carried on by the publication of an English Litany and prayers, which furnished the germ of the national Prayer Book of a later time. The greater abbeys which had been saved by CHAP. it be- !S. A n vain id with ■nmons lan on estants ;re im- is see. •. But : strong ons re- om tlie y to the rain the s. The [uashed. , while a id been tment of tion had of every VII.] THE REFORMATION. the energetic resistance of the Parliament in 1536 had in 1539 been involved in the same ruin with the smaller ; but in spite of this con- fiscation the treasury was now empty, and by a bill of 1545 more than two thousand chauntries and chapels, with a hundred and ten hos- pitals, were suppressed to the profit of the Crown. If the friendship of England was offered to Charles, when the struggle between France and the House of Austria burst again for a time into flame, it was because Henry saw in the Imperial alliance the best hope for the reformation of the Church and the restoration of unity. But, as Crom- well had foreseen, the time for a peaceful reform and for a general reunion of Christendom was past. The Council, so passionately de- sired, met at Trent in no spirit of conciliation, but to ratify the very superstitions and errors against which the New Learning had protested, and which England and Germany had flung away. The long hostility of France and the House of Austria merged in the greater struggle which was opening between Catholicism and the Reformation. The Emperor allied himself definitely with the Pope. As their hopes of a middle course faded, the Catholic nobles themselves drifted uncon- sciously with the tide of reaction. Anne Ascue was tortured and burnt with three companions for the denial of Transubstantiation. Latimer was examined before the Council ; and Cranmer himself, who in the general dissolution of the moderate party was drifting towards Pro- testantism as Norfolk was drifting towards Rome, was for a moment in danger. But at the last hours of his life Henry proved himself true to the work he had begun. His resolve not to bow to the pretensions of the Papacy sanctioned at Trent threw him, whether he would or no, back on the policy of the great minister whom he had hurried to the block. He offered to unite in a " League Christian" with the German Princes. He consented to the change, suggested by Cranmer, of the Mass into a Communion Service. He flung the Duke of Norfolk into the Tower as a traitor, and sent his son, the Earl of Surrey, to the block. The Earl of Hertford, the head of the " new men," and known as a patron of the Protestants, came *o the front, and was appointed one of the Council of Regency which Henry nominated at his death. Catharine Howard atoned like Anne Boleyn for her unchastity by a traitor's death ; her successor on the throne, Catharine Parr, had the luck to outlive the King. But of Henry's numerous marriages only three children survived ; Mary and Elizabeth, the daughters of Catharine of Aragon and of Anne Boleyn ; and Edward, the boy who now ascended the throne as Edward the Sixth, his son by Jane Seymour. As ^ iward was but nine years old, Henry had appointed a carefully bal tnced Council of Regency ; but the will fell into the keeping of Jane's brother, whom he had raised to the peerage as Lord Hertford, and who at a later time assumed the title of Duke of Somerset. 357 Sec. I. Thk Pro- testants 1540 TO 1553 1543 I i! 154.') Death oj Henry \ Jan. 1547 j Somerset' I m ^■^ 1 ' ' HI , : if ) ..I it Jilt ii. i,t ^va? i »h .-^ U %:■■■ -n'-. 358 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Skc. I. The Pro- testants 1640 TO 1553 The Common Prayer 1548 1549 When the list of regents was at last disclosed Gardiner, who had till now been the leading minister, was declared to have been excluded from it ; and Hertford seized the whole royal power with the title of Protector. H is personal weakness forced him at once to seek for popular supoort by measures which marked the first retreat of the Monarchy from the position of pure absolutism which it had reached under Henry. The Statute which had given to royal proclamations the force of law was repealed, and several of the new felonies and treasons which Crom- well had created and used with so terrible an effect were erased from the Statute Book. The hope of support from the Protestants united with Hertford's personal predilections in his patronage of the innova- tions against which Henry had battled to the last. Cranmer had now drifted into a purely Protestant position ; and his open break with the older system followed quickly on Hertford's rise to power. " This year," says a contemporary, " the Archbishop of Canterbury did eat meat openly in Lent in the Hall of Lambeth, the like of which was never seen since England was a Christian country." This significant act was followed by a rapid succession of sweeping changes. The legal pro- hibitions of LoUardry were removed ; the Six Articles were repealed ; a royal injunction removed all pictures and images from the churches ; priests were permitted to marry; the new Communion which had taken the place of the Mass was ordered to be administered in both kinds, and in the English tongue ; an English book of Common Prayer, the Liturgy which with slight alterations is still used in the Church of England, replaced the Missal and Breviary from which its contents are mainly drawn. Thece sweeping religious changes were carried through with the despotism, if not with the vigour, of Cromwell. Gardiner, who in his acceptance of the personal supremacy of the sovereign denounced all ecclesiastical changes made during the King's minority as illegal and invalid, was sent to the Tower. The power of preaching was restricted by the issue of licences only to the friends of the Primate. While all counter arguments were rigidly suppressed, a crowd of Pro- testant pamphleteers flooded the country with vehement invectives against the Mass and its superstitious accompaniments. The assent of noble and landowner was won by the suppression of chauntries and religious gilds, and by glutting their greed with the last spoils of the Church. German and Italian mercenaries were introduced to stamp out the wider popular discontent which broke out in the east, in the west, and in the midland counties. The Cornishmen refused to receive the new service " because it is like a Christmas game." Devonshire demanded in open revolt the restoration of the Mass and the Six Articles. The agrarian discontent, now heightened by economic changes, woke again in the general disorder. Twenty thousand men gathered round the " oak of Reformation" near Norwich, and repulsing the royal troops in a desperate ergagement renewed the old cries VII.] THE REFORMATION. 359 for he removal of evil counsellors, a prohibition of enclosurea, and redress for the grievances of the poor. Revolt was stamped out in blood ; but the weakness which the Protector had shown in presence of the danger, his tampering with popular demands, and the anger of the nobles at his resolve to enforce the laws against enclosures and evictions, ended in his fall. He was forced by the Council to resign, and his power passed to the Earl of Warwick, to whose ruthless severity the suppression of the revolt was mainly due. But the changeof governors brought about no change of sys- tem. The rule of the upstarl nobles who formed the Council of Regency became simply a rule of terror. " The greater part of the people," one of their creatures, Cecil, avowed, " is not in favour of defending this cause, but of aiding its adversaries ; on that side arc the greater part of the nobles, who absent themselves from Court, all the bishops save three or four, almost all the judges and lawyers, almost all the justices of the peace, the priests who can move their flocks any way, for the whole of the commonalty is in such a state of irritation that it will easily follow any stir towards change." But, heedless of danger from without or from within, Cranmer and his colleagues advanced yet more boldly v. the career of innovation. Four prelates who adhered to the older system were deprived of their sees and committed on frivolous pretexts to the Tower. A new Catechism embodied the doctrines of the reformers ; and a Book of Homilies, which enforced the chief Protestant tenets, was appointed to be read in churches. A crowning defiance was given to the doctrine of the Mass by an order to demolish the stone altars and replace them by wooden tables, which were stationed for the most part in the middle of the church. A revised Prayer-book was issued, and every change made in it leaned directly towards the extreme Protestantism which was at this time finding a home at Geneva. Forty-two Articles of Religion were intro- duced ; and though since reduced by omissions to thirty-nine, these have remained to this day the formal standard of doctrine in the English Church. The sufferings of the Protestants had failed to teach them the worth of religious liberty ; and a new code of eccle- siastical laws, which was ordered to be drawn up by a board of Commissioners as a substitute for the Canon Law of the Catholic Church, although it shrank from the penalty of death, attached that of perpetual imprisonment or exile to the crimes of heresy, blasphemy, and adultery, and declared excommunication to involve a severance of the o..ender from the mercy of God, and his deliverance into the tyranny of the devil. Delays in the completion of this Code prevented its legal establishment during Edward's reign ; but the use of the new Liturgy and attendance at the new service was enforced by imprison- ment, and subscription to the Articles of Faith was demanded by royal authority from all clergymen, churchwardens, and schoolmasters. Sic. I. Thk Pro. tkstanis 1540 TO 1553 The Pro- testant MIs-ruU ll^'anvic/f't rrottctorati- Articles of Reliction I i».«i m ,^:h m M J : , f. 36o HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Shc. I. The Pro- testants 1540 TO 1553 The distaste for changes so hurried and so rigorously enforced was increased by the daring speculations of the more extreme Protestants. The real value of the religious revolution of the sixteenth century to mankind lay, not in its substitution of one creed for another, but in the new spirit of inquiry, the new freedom of thought and of discussion, which was awakened during the process of change. But however familiar such a truth may be to us, it was absolutely hidden from the England of the time. Men heard with horror that the foundations of faith and morality were questioned, polygamy advocated, oaths denounced as unlawful, community of goods raised into a sacred obligation, the very Godhead of the Founder of Christianity denied. The repeal of the Statute of Heresy left the powers of the Comr.ion Law intact, and Cranmer availed himself of these to send heretics of the last class without mercy to the stake ; but within the Church itself the Primate's desire for uniformity was roughly resisted by the more ardent members of his own party. Hoop*^ r, who had been named Bishop of Gloucester, refused to wear he episcopal habits, and denounced them as the livery of the " harlot of Babylon," a name for the Papacy which was supposed to have been discovered in the Apocalypse. Ecclesiastical order was almost at an end. Priests flung aside the surplice as superstitious. Patrons of livings presented their huntsmen or gamekeepers to the benefices in their gift, and kept the stipend. All teaching of divinity ceased at the Universities : the students indeed had fallen off in numbers, the libraries were in part scattered or burnt, the intellectual impulse of the New Learning died away. One noble measure indeed, the foundation of eighteen Grammar Schools, was destined to throw a lustre over the name of Edward, but it had no tiiae to bear fruit in his reign. All that men saw was religious and political chaos, in which ecclesiastical order had perished and in which politics were dying down into the squabbles of a knot of nobles over the spoils of the Church and the Crown. The plunder of the chauntries and the gilds failed to glut the appetite of the crew of spoilers. Half the lands of every see were flung to them in vain : the wealthy see of Durham had been suppressed to satisfy their greed ; and the whole endowments of the Church were threatened with confiscation. But while the courtiers gorged themselves with manors, the Treasury grew poorer. The coinage was again debased. Crown lands to the value of five millions of our modern money had been granted away to the friends of Somerset and Warwick. The royal expenditure had mounted in seventeen years to more than four times its previous total. It is clear that England must soon have risen against the misrule of the Protectorate, if the Protectorate had not fallen by the intestine divisions of the plunderers themselves. -t)l VII.] THE REFORMATION. 361 Section IX.— The Martyrs. ^553— 1558. [Authorities — As before.] The waning health of Edward warned Warwick, who had now become Duke of Northumberland, of an unlooked-for drjiger. Mary, the daughter of Catharine of Aragon, who had been placed next to Edward by the Act of Succession, remained firm amidst all the changes of the time to the older faith ; and her accession threatened to be the signal for its return. But the bigotry of the young King was easily brought to consent to a daring scheme by which her rights might be set aside. Edward's " plan," as Northumberland dictated it, annulled both the Statute of Succession and the will of his father, to whom the right of disposing of the Crown after the death of his own children had been entrusted by Parliament. It set aside both Mary and Elizabeth, who stood next in the Act. With this exclusion of the direct line of Henry the Eighth the succession would vest, if the rules of here- ditary descent were observed, in the descendants of his elder sister Margaret, who had become by her first husband, James the Fourth of Scotland, the grandmother of the young Scottish Queen, Mary Stuart ; and, by a second marriage with the Earl of Angus, was the grandmother of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Henry's will, however, had passed by the children of Margaret, and had placed next to Elizabeth in the suc- cession the children of his younger sister Mary, the wife of Charles Brr^ndon, the Duke of Suffolk. Frances, Mary's child by this marriage, was still living, and was the mother of three daughters by her marriage with Grey, Lord Dorset, a hot partizan of the religious changes, who had been raised under the Protectorate to the Dukedom of Suffolk. Frances however was passed over, and Edward's " plan " named her eldest child Jane as his successor. The marriage of Jane Grey w-th Guildford Dudley, the fourth son of Northumberland, was all that was needed to complete the unscrupulous plot. The consent of the judges and council to her succession was extorted by the authority of the dying King, and the new sovereign was proclaimed on Edward's death. But the temper of the whole people rebelled against so lawless a usurpation. The eastern counties rose as one man to support Mary ; and when Northum- berland marched from London with ten thousand at his back to crush the rising, the Londoners, Protestant as they were, showed their ill-will by a stubborn silence. " The people crowd to look upon us," the Duke noted gloomily, "but not one calls * God speed ye.'" The Council no sooner saw the popular reaction than they proclaimed Mary Queen ; the fleet and the levies of the shires declared in her favour. Northumber- land's courage suddenly gave way, and his retreat to Cambridge was the signal for a general defection. The Duke himself threw his cap into the air and shouted with his men forOueen Mary. Buthissubmissionfailed '^. ■' ■ \ Sec. IL The Martyrs 1553 TO 1558 Mar^ uiiife vHif^" ''Plan" of succession 1553 "m 1 4 Si- fS! } ii 362 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. II. The Martvrs 1553 TO 155S The Spanis7a Marriag^e 1554 to avert his doom ; and the death of Northumberland drew with it the imprisonment in the Tov/er of the hapless girl whom he had made the tool of his ambition. The whole system which had been pursued during Edward's reign fell with a sudden crash. London indeed retained much of its Protestant sympathy, but over the rest of thv« country the tide of reaction swept without a check. The married priests were driven from their churches, the images were replaced. In many parishes the new Prayer-book was set aside and the Mass restored. The Parliament which met in October annulled the laws made respecting religion during the past reign. Gardiner was drawn from the Tower. Bonner and the deposed bishops were restored to their sees. Ridley with the others who had displaced them were again expelled, and Latimer and Cranmer were sent to the Tower. But with the restoration of the system of Henry the Eighth the popular impulse was satisfied. The people had no more sympathy with Mary's leanings towards Rome than with the violence of the Protestants. The Parliament was with difficulty brought CO set aside the new Prayer-book, and clung obstinately to the Church- lands and to the Royal Supremacy. Nor was England more favourable to the marriage on which, from motives both of policy and religious zeal, Mary had set her heart. The Emperor had ceased to be the object of hope or confidence as a mediator who would at once purify the Church from abuses and restore the unity of Christendom : he had ranged himself definitely on the side of the Papacy and of the Council of Trent ; and the cruelties of the Inquisition which he introduced into Flanders gave a terrible in- dication of the bigotry which he was to bequeath to his House. The marriage with his son Philip, whose hand he offered to his cousin Mary, meant an absolute submission to the Papacy, and the undoing not only of the Protestant reformation, but of the more moderate refornifi of the New Learning. On the other hand, it would have the political advantage of securing Mary's throne against the pretensions of the young Queen of Scots, Mary Stuart, who had become formidable by her marriage with the heir of the French Crown ; and whose adherents already alleged the illegitimate birth of both Mary and Elizabeth, through the annulling of their mothers' marriages, as a ground for denying their right of succession. To the issue of the marriage he proposed, Charles promised the heritage of the Low Countries, while he accepted the demand made by Mary's minister, Bishop Gardiner of Winchester, and by the Council, of complete inde- pendence both of policy and action on the part of England, in case of such a union. The temptation was great, and Mary's resolution overleapt all obstacles. But in spite of the toleration which she had promised, and had as yet observedj the announcement of her design drove the Protestants into a panic of despair. Risings which broke out in the west and centre of the country were quickly put down. VII.] THE REFORMATION. 36: and the Duke of Suffolk, who appeared in arms at Leicester, was sent to the Tower. The danger was far more formidable when the dread that Spaniards were coming " to conquer the realm " roused Kent into revolt under Sir Thomas Wyatt. The ships in the Thames submitted to be seized by the insurgents. A party of the trainbands of London, who marched under the Duke of Norfolk against them, deserted to the rebels in a mass with shouts of " A Wyatt ! a Wyatt ! we are all Englishmen ! " Had the insurgents moved quickly on the capital, its gates would at once have been flung open and success would have been assured. But in the critical moment Mary was saved by her queenly courage. Riding boldly to the Guildhall she appealed with " a man's voice " to the loyalty of the citizens, and when Wyatt ap- peared on the Southwark bank the bridge was secured. The issue hung on the question which side London would take ; and the insur- gent leader pushed desperately up the Thames, seized a bridge at Kingston, threw his force across the river, and marched rapidly back on the capital. The night march along miry roads wearied and disorganized his men, the bulk of whom were cut off from their leader by a royal force which had gathered in the fields at what is now Hyde Park Corner, but Wyatt himself, with a handful of followers, pushed desperately on to Temple Bar. " I have kept touch," he cried as he sank exhausted at the gate ; but it was closed, his adherents within were powerless to effect their promised diversion in his favour, and the daring leader was seized and sent to the Tower. The courage of the Queen, who had refused to fly even while the rebels were marching beneath her palace walls, was only equalled by her terrible revenge. The hour was come when the Protestants were at her feet, and she struck without mercy. Lady Jane, her father, her husband, and her uncle atoned for the ambition of the House of Suffolk by the death of traitors. Wyatt and his chief ad- herents followed them to execution, while the bodies of the poorer insurgents were dangling on gibbets round London. Elizabeth, who had with some reason been suspected of complicity in the insurrection, was sent to the Tower ; and only saved from death by the interposition of the Council. But the failure of the revolt not only crushed the Pro- testant party, it secured the marriage on which Mary was resolved. She used it to wring a reluctant consent from the Parliament, and meeting Philip at Winchester in the ensuing summer became his wife. The temporizing measures to which the Queen had been forced by the earlier difficulties of her reign could now be laid safely aside. Mary was resolved to bring about a submission to Rome ; and her minister Gardiner fell back on the old ecclesiastical order, as the moderate party which had supported the policy of Henry the Eighth saw its hopes dis- appear, and ranged himself definitely on the side of a unity which could now only be brought about by a reconciliation with the Papacy. The Sec. II. The Martyrs 1553 TO 1558 Is I ;w ;«■ r^i The Sub- mission to Rome ' I 1554 ! !l II 3^4 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap, Sec. II. The Martyhs 1553 TO 1558 Roi^land Taylor Spanish match was hardly concluded, when the negotiations with Rome were brought to a final issue. The attainder of Reginald Pole, who had been appointed by the Pope to receive the submission of the realm, was reversed ; and the Legate, who entered London by the river with his cross gleaming from the prow of his barge, was solemnly welcomed by a compliant Parliament. The two Houses decided by a formal vote to return to the obedience of the Papal See, and received on their knees the absolution which freed the realm from the guilt incurred by its schism and heresy. But, even in the hour of her triumph, the temper both of Parliament and the nation warned the Queen of the failure of her hope to bind England to a purely Catholic policy. The growing independence of the two Houses was seen in their rejection of measure after measure proposed by the Crown. A proposal to oust Elizabeth from the line of succession could not even be submitted to the Houses, nor could their assent be won to the postponing of her succession to that of Philip. Though the statutes abolishing Papal jurisdiction in England were repealed, they rejected all proposals for the restoration of Church-lands to the clergy. A proposal to renew the laws against heresy was thrown out by the Lords, even after the failure of Wyatt's insurrection, and only Philip's influence secured the re-enactment of the statute of Henry the Fifth in a later Parliament. Nor was the temper of the nation at large less decided. The sullen discontent of London compelled its Bishop, Bonner, to withdraw the inquisitorial articles by which he hoped to purge his diocese ol heresy. Even the Council was divided on thi question of persecution, and in the very interests of Catholicism the Emperor himself counselled prudence and delay. Philip gave the same counsel. But whether from without or from within, warning was wasted on the fierce bigotry of the Queen. It was a moment when the prospects of the party of reform seemed utterly hopeless. Spain had taken openly the lead in the great Catholic movement, and England was being dragged, however reluc- tantly, by the Spanish marriage into the current of reaction. Its opponents were broken by the failure of their revolt, and unpopular through the memory of their violence and greed. Now that the laws against heresy were enacted, Mary pressed for their execution ; and in 1555 the opposition of her councillors was at last mastered, and the work of death began. But the cause which prosperity had ruined revived in the dark hour of persecution. If the Protestants had not known how to govern, they knew how to die. The story of Rowland Taylor, the Vicar of Hadleigh, tells us more of the work which was now begun, and of the effect it was likely to produce, than pages of historic dissertation. Taylor, who as a man of mark had been one of the first victims chosen for execution, was arrested in London, and condemned to suffer in his own parish. His wife, " suspecting that her husband should that night be carried away," had waited through the VII.] THE REFORMATION. darkness with her children in the porch of St. Botolph's beside Aldgate. "Now when the sheriff his company came against St. Botolph's Church, Elizabeth cried, saying, ' O my dear father ! Mother ! mother ! here is my father led away ! ' Then cried his wife, ' Rowland, Rowland, where art thou ?' — for it was a very dark morning, that the one could not see the other. Dr. Taylor answered, ' I am here, dear wife,' and stayed. The sheriff's men would have led him forth, but the sheriff said, ' Stay a little, masters, I pray you, and let him spp?> to his wife.' Then came she to him, and he took his daughter Mary in his arms, and he and his wife and Elizabeth knelt down and said the Lord's prayer. At which sight the sheriff wept apace, and so did divers others of the company. After they had prayed he rose up and kissed his wife and shook her by the hand, and said, * Farewell, my dear wife, be of good comfort, for I am quiet in my conscience ! God shall still be a father to my children.' . . . Then said his wife, ' God be with thee, dear Rowland ! I will, with God's grace, meet thee at Hadleigh.' ... All the way Dr. Taylor was merry and cheerful as one that accounted hhnself going to a most pleasant banquet or bridal. . . . Coming within two miles of Hadleigh he desired to light off his horse, which done he '.eaped and set a frisk or twain as men commonly do for dancing. ' Why, master Doctor,' quoch the Sheriff, ' how do you now.'*' He answered, 'Well, God be praised, Master Sheriff, never better ; for now I know I am almost at home. I lack not past two stiles to go over, and I am even at my Father's house ! ' . . . The streets of Hadleigh were beset on both sides with men and women of the town and country who waited to see him ; whom when they beheld so led to death, with weeping eyes and lamentable voices, they cried, 'Ah, good Lord ! there goeth our good shepherd from us ! '" The journey was at last over. " ' What place is this,' he asked, ' and what meaneth it that so much people are gathered together.?' It was answered, ' It is Oldham Common, the place where you must suffer, and the people are come to look upon you.' Then said he, ' Thanked be God, I am even at home !'.... But when the people saw his reverend and ancient face, with a long white beard, they burst out with weeping tears and cried, saying, ' God save thee, good Dr. Taylor ; God strengthen thee and help thee ; the Holy Ghost comfort thee ! ' He wished, but was not suffered, to speak. When he had prayed, he went to the stake and kissed it, and set himself into a pitch-barrel whirh they had set for him to stand on, and so stood with his back uprigh" against the stake, with his hands folded together and his eyes towards heaven, and so let himself be burned." One of the executioners " cruelly cast a fagot at him, which hit upon his head and brake his face that the blood ran down his visage. Then said Dr. Taylor, ' O friend, I have harm enough —what needed that.-" " One more act of brutality brought his sufferings to an end. — " So stood he still without either crying or moving, with his "\4 365 i-;l:-:1 " « 'Rl Sec. II. The Martyks 1553 TO 1558 ( ,■; nil 1 I 1 1 ,1 « k 366 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. II. The Martyrs 1553 TO 1558 The Martyrs Death of Latimer Oct. 1555 hands folded together, till Soyce with a halberd struck nim on the head that the brains fell out, and the dead corpse fell down into the fire." The terror of death was powerless against men like these. Bonner, the Bishop of London, to whom, as Bishop of the diocese in which the Council sate, its victims were generally delivered for execution, but who, in spite of the nickname and hatred which his official prominence in the work of death earned him, seems to have been naturally a good- humoured and merciful man, asked a youth who was brought before him whether he thought he could bear the fire. The boy at once held his hand without flinching in the flame of a candle which stood by. Rogers, a lellow-worker with Tyndale in the translation of the Bible, and one of the foremost among the Protestant preachers, died bathing his hands in the flame " as if it had been in cold water." Even the commonest lives gleamed for a moment into poetry at the stake. " Pray for me," a boy, William Hunter, who had been brought home to Brentwood to suffer, asked of the bystanders. " I will pray no more for thee," one of them replied, " than I will pray for a dog." " * Then,' said William, ' Son of God, shine upon me ; ' and immediately the sun in the elements shone out of a dark cloud so full in his face that he was constrained io look another way ; whereat the people mused, be- cause it was so dark a little time before." The persecution fell heavily on London, and on Kent, Sussex, and the Eastern Counties, the homes of the mining and manufacturing industries ; a host of Protestants were driven over sea to find refuge at Strasburg or Geneva. But the work of terror failed in the very ends for which it was wrought. The old spirit of insolent defiance, of outrageous violence, was roused again at the challenge of persecution. A Protestant hung a string of pud- dings round a priest's neck in derision of his beads. The restored images were grossly insulted. The old scurrilous ballads were heard again in the streets. One miserable wretch, driven to frenzy, stabbed the priest of St. Margaret's as he stood with the chalice in his hand It was a more formidable sign of the times that acts of violence sucii as these no longer stirred the people at large to their former resent- ment. The horror of the persecution left no room for other feelings. Every death at the stake won hundreds to the cause of its victims, " You have lost the hearts of twenty thousands that were rank Papists," a Protestant wrote to Bonner, " within these twelve months." Bonner indeed, never a very zealous persecutor, was sick of his work ; and the energy of the bishops soon relaxed. But Mary had no thought of hesitation in the course she had begun. '' Rattling letters " from the council roused the lagging prelates to fresh activity and the mar- tyrdoms went steadily on. Two prelates had already perished; Hooper, the Bishop of Gloucester, had been burned in his own cathe- dral city ; Ferrar, the Bishop of St. David's, had suffered at Caer- marthen. Latimer and Bishop Ridley of London were now drawn VII. 1 THE REFORMATION. 367 from their prison at Oxford. *'Play the man, Master Ridley," cried the old preacher of the Reformation as the flames shot up around him ; " we shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as I trust shall never oe put out." One victim remained, far beneath many who had precedec him in character, but high above them in his posi- tion in the Churc'i of England. The other prelates who had suffered had been created after the separation from Rome, and were hardly re- garded as bishop . by their opponents. But, whatever had been his part in the schism, Cranmer had received his Pallium from the Pope. He was, in the eyes of all. Archbishop of Canterbury, the successor of St. Augustine and of St. Thomas in the second see of Western Christendom. To burn the Primate of the English Church for heresy was to shut out meaner victims from all hope of escape. But revenge and religious zeal alike urged Mary to bring Cranmer to the stake. First among the many decisions in which the Archbishop had prosti- tuted justice to Henry's will stood that by which he had annulled the King's marriage with Catharine and declared Mary a bastard. The last of his political acts had been to join, whether reluctantly or no, in the shameless plot to exclude Mary from the throne. His great posi- tion too made him more than any man the representative of the reli- gious revolution which had passed over the land. His figure stood with those of Henry and of Cromwell on the frontispiece of the English Bible. The decisive change which had been given to the character of the Reformation under Edward was due wholly to Cranmer. It was his voice that men heard and still hear in the accents of the English Liturgy. As an Archbishop, Cranmer's judg- ment rested with no meaner tribunal than that of Rome, and his execution had been necessarily delayed till its sentence could be given. But the courage which he had shown since the accession of Mary gave way the moment his final doom was announced. The mora! cowardice which had displayed itself in his miserable com- pliance with the lust and despotism of Henry displayed itself again in six successive recantations by which he hoped to purchase pardon. But pardon was impossible ; and Cranmer' s strangely mingled nature found a power in its very weakness when he was brought into the church of St. Mary at Oxford to repeat his recantation on the way to the stake. " Now," ended his address to the hushed congregation before him, " now I come to the great thing that troubleth my con- science more than any other thing that ever I said or did in my life, and that is the setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth ; which here I now renounce and refuse as things written by my hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death to save my life, if it might be. And, forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand therefore shall be the first punished ; for if I come to the fire, it shall be the Sec. II. The Martyrs 1553 TO 1558 Death of Cranmer 1556 'it ^i fl 1' •is i j, r 1 I 1 * ■ ■ ! r- r i., 368 Sec. II. The Maktyrs 1553 TO 1558 The Death of Mary IIISTORV OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. 1555 IS57 first burned." " This was the hand that wrote it," he again ex- claimed at the stake, " therefore it shall suffer first punishment ; " and holding it steadily in the flame " he never stirred nor cried " till life was gone. It was with the unerring instinct of a popular movement that, among a crowd of far more heroic sufferers, the Protestants fixed, in spite of his recantations, on the martyrdom of Cranmer as the death-blow to Catholicism in England. For one man who felt within him the joy of Rowland Taylor at the prospect of the stake, there were thousands who felt the shuddering dread of Cranmer. The triumphant cry of Latimer could reach only hearts as bold as his own ; but the sad pathos of the Primate's humiliation and repentance struck chords of sympathy and pity iu the hearts of all. It is from that moment that we may trace the bitter remembrance of the blood shed in the cause of Rcrne ; which, however partial and unjust it must seem to an his- toric observer, still lies graven deep in the temper of the English people. The overthrow of his projects *"rr the permanent acquisition of England to the House of Austria had disenchanted Philip of his stay in the realm ; and on the disappearance of all hope of a child, he had left the country in spite of Mary's passiOiiate entreaties. But the Queen struggled desperately on. She did what was possible to satisfy the unyielding Pope. In the face of the Parliament's significant reluctance even to restore the first-fruits to the Church, she refounded all she could of the abbeys which had been suppressed ; the greatest of these, thai of Westminster, was re-established in 1556. Above all, she pressed on the work of persecution. It had spread now from bishops and priests to the people itself. The sufferers were sent in batches to the flames. In a single day thirteen victims, two of them women, were burnt at Stratford- le-Bow. Seventy-three Protestants of Colchester were dragged through the stree^^j of London, tied to a single rope. A new commission for the ■^Mppression of heresy was exempted by royal authority from all restric- tions of law which fettered its activity. The Universities were visited ; and the corpses of foreign teachers who had found a resting place there under Edward were torn from their g\aves and reduc»-d to ashes. The penalties of martial lav; were threaten'^d against the possessors of heretical bcoks issued from Geneva ; the treasonable contents of which indeed, and their constant exhortations to rebellion and civil war, justly called for stern repression. But the wo*-!: '~>." terror broke down before the silent revolt of the whole nation. Open sympathy began to be shown to the sufferers for conscience' sake. In the three and a half years of the persecution nearly three hundred victims had perished at the stake. The people sickened at the work of death. The crowd round the fire at Smithfield shouted " Amen " to the prayer of seven martyrs whom Bonner had condemned, and prayed with them that God would strengthen them. A general discontent was roused when, in [chap. ex- gam timent ; ried" till Lt, among n spite of ti-blow to the joy of housands int cry of It the sad chords of ment that the cause to an his- ish people. )f England ,tay in the le had left the Queen satisfy the reluctance 11 she could lese, thai of ;ssed on the riests to the ,mes. In a t Stratford- red through isionforthe L all restric- ere visited ; place there ashes. The )Ssessors of Its of which i civil war, broke down hy began to three and a ad perished The crowd er of seven them that icd when, in VII.] THE REFORMATION. 369 I. V i. I • lit spite of the pledges given at her marriage, Mary dragged England i ito a war to support Philip — who on the Emperor's resignation had succeeded to his dominions of Spain, Flanders, and the New World — in a struggle against France. The war ended in disaster. With characteristic secrecy and energy, the Duke of Guise flung himself upon Calais, and compelled it to surrender before succour could arrive. " The chief jewel of the realm," as Mary herself called it, was suddenly reft away ; and the surrender of Guisnes, which soon followed, left England without a foot of land on the Continent. Bitterly as the blow was felt, the Council, though passionately pressed by the Queen, could find neither money nor men for any attempt to recover the town. The forced loan to which she resorted came in slowly. The levies mutinied and dispersed. The death of Mary alone averted a general revolt, and a burst of enthusiastic joy hailed the accession of Elizabeth. Section III.— Elizabeth. 1558—1560. {Authorities. — Camden's "Life of Elizabeth." For ecclesiastical matters, Strype's •' Annals," his lives of Parker, Grindal, and Whitgift, and the "Zurich Letters" (Parker Society), are important. The State Papers are being calendared for the Master of the Rolls, and fresh light may be looked for from the Cecil Papers and the documents at Simancas, some of which are embodied in Mr. Froude's " History" (vols. vii. to xii.). We have also the Burleigh Papers, the Sidney Papers, the Sadler State Papers, the Hardwicke State Papers, letters published by Mr. Wright in his " Elizabeth and her Times," the collections of Murdin, the Egerton Papers, the "Letters of Elizabeth and James VL," published by Mr. Bruce. The " Papiers d'Etat " of Cardinal Granvelle and the French despatches published by M. Teulet are valuable.] Never had the fortunes of England sunk to a lower ebb than at the moment when Elizabeth mounted the throne. The country was humiliated by defeat and brought to the verge of rebellion by the bloodshed and misgovernment of Mary's reign. The old social dis- content, trampled down for a time by the horsemen of Somerset, remained a menace to public order. The religious strife had passed beyond hope of reconciliation, now that the reformers were parted from their opponents by the fires of Smithfield and the party of the New Learning all but dissolved. The more earnest Catholics were bound helplessly to Rome. The temper of the Protestants, burned at home or driven into exile abroad, had become a fiercer thing, and the Calvinistic refugees were pouring back from Geneva with dreams of revolutionary change in Church and State. England, dragged at the heels of Philip into a useless and ruinous war, was left without an ally save Spain ; while France, mistress of Calais, became mistress of the Channel. Not only was Scotland a standing danger in the north, through the French marriage of its Queen Mary Stuart and its conse- quent bondage to French policy ; but Mary Stuart and her husband BB Sec. Ill Elizahetii 1558 TO 1560 1558 Elizabeth \% \ 1 'i !! 1558 I'l! ! M, n 370 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CHAP. Sec. III. Klizabkth 1558 TO 1660 now assumed the style and arms of English sovereigns, and threatened to rouse every Catholic throughout the realm against Elizabeth's title. In presence of this host of dangers the country lay helpless, without army or fleet, or the means of manning one, for the treasury, already drained by the waste of Edward' s reign, had been utterly exhausted by Mary' s restoration of the Church-lands in possession of the Crown, and by the cost of her war with France. England's one hope lay m the character of her Queen. Elizabeth was now in her twenty-fifth year. Personally she had more than her mother's beauty ; her figure was commanding, her face long but queenly and intelligent, her eyes quick and fine. She had grown up amidst the liberal culture of Henry's court a bold horsewoman, a good shot, a graceful dancer, a skilled musician, and an accomplished scholar. She studied every morning the Greek Testament, and fol- lowed this by the tragedies of Sophocles or orations of Demosthenes, and could " rub up her rusty Greek " at need to bandy pedantry with a Vice-Chancellor. But she was far from being a mere pedant. The new hterature which was springing up around her found constant welcome in her court. She spoke Italian and French as fluently as her mother-tongue. She was familiar with Ariosto and Tasso. Even amidst the affectation and love of anagrams and puerilities which sullied her later years, she listened with delight to the " Faery Queen," and found a smile for " Master Spenser" when h*^ appeared in her presence. Her moral temper recalled in its strange contrasts the mixed blood within her veins. She was at once the daughter of Henry and of Anne Boleyn. From her father she inherited her frank and hearty address, her love of popularity and of free intercourse with the people, her dauntless courage and her amazing self-confidence. Her harsh, ... inlike voice, her impetuous will, her pride, her furious outbursts of anger came to her with her Tudor blood. She rated great nobles as if they were schoolboys ; she met the insolence of Essex with a box on the ear ; she would break now and then into the gr^west deliberations to swear at her ministers like a fishwife. But strangely in contrast with the violent outlines of her Tudor temper stood the sensuous, self- indulgent nature she derived from Anne Boleyn. Splendour and pleasure were -.vith Elizabeth the very air she breathed. Her delight was to move in perpetual progresses from castle to castle through a series of gorgeous pageants, fanciful and extravagant as a caliph's dream. She loved gaiety and laughter and wit. A happy retoxt or a finished compliment never failed to win her favour. She hoarded jewels. Her dresses were innumerable. Her vanity remained, even to old age, the vanity of a coquette in her teens. No adulation was too fulsome for her, no flattery of her beauty too gross. " To see her was heaven," Hatton told her, " the lack of her was hell." She would play with her rings that her courtiers might note the delicacy of her [CHAP. reatened th's title. , without ', already :xhausted le Crown, Elizabeth than her long but grown up woman, a omplished t, and fol- nosthenes, antry with lant. The d constant intly as her so. Even [ties which iry Queen," ired in her } the mixed Henry and and hearty the people, Her harsh, lutbursts of nobles as if ;h a box on ;liberations |in contrast suous, self- sndour and er delight through a a caliph's retoit or a le hoarded ained, even lulation was To see her She would cacy of her VM.l THE REFORMATION. 3/1 hands ; or dance a coranto that the French ambassador, hidden dex- terously behind a curtain, might report her sprightlincss to his master. Her levity, her frivolous laughter, her unwomanly jests gave colour to a thousand scandals. Her character in fact, like her portraits, was utterly without shade. Of womanly reserve or self-restraint she knew nothing. No instinct of delicacy veiled the voluptuous temper which had broken out in the romps of her girlhood and showed itself almost ostentatiously throughout her later life. Personal beauty in a man was a sure passport to her liking. She patted handsome young squires on the neck when they knelt to kiss her hand, and fondled her " sweet Robin," Lord Leicester, in the face of the court. It was no wonder that the statesmen whom she outwitted held Elizabeth almost to the last to be little more than a frivolous woman, or that Philip of Spain wondered how " a wanton " could hold in check the policy of the Escurial. But the Elizabeth whom they saw was far from being all of Elizabeth. The wilfulness of Henry, the triviality of Anne Boleyn played over the surface of a nature hard as steel, a temper purely intellectual, the very type of reason un- touched by imagination or passion. Luxurious and pleasure-loving as she seemed, Elizabeth lived simply and frugally, and she worked hard. Her vanity and caprice had no weight whatever with her in state affairs. The coquette of the presence-chamber became the coolest and hardest of politicians at the council-board. Fresh from the flattery of her courtiers, she would tolerate no flattery in the closet ; she was herself plain and downright of speech with her counsellors, and she looked for a corresponding plainness of speech in return. If any trace of her sex lingered in her actual statesmanship, it was seen in the simplicity and tenacity of purpose that often underlies a woman's fluctuations of feeling. It was this in part which gave her her marked superiority over the statesmen of her time. No nobler group of ministers ever gathered round a council-board than those who gathered round the council-board of Elizabeth. But she was the in- strument of none. She listened, she weighed, she used or put by the counsels of each in turn, but her policy as a whole was her own. It was a poUcy, not of genius, but of good sense. Her aims were simple and obvioub : to preserve her throne, to keep England out of war, to restore civil and rehgious order. Something of womanly caution and timidity perhaps backed the passionless indifference with which she set aside the larger schemes of ambition which were ever opening before her eyes. She was resolute in her refusal of the Low Countries. She rejected with a laugh the offers of the Protestants to make her "head of the religion" and "miscress of the seas." But her amazing success in the end sprang mainly from this wise limitation of her aims. She had a finer sense than any of her counsellors of her real resources ; she knew instinctively how far she could go, and what she could do. B B 2 Sec. III. El.I2AUKTH 1558 TO 1560 "fl •!s i.i m\ f 372 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. fciCAP. Sec. III. Elizahrtii 1558 TO 1560 Her cold, critical intellect was never swayed by enthusiasm or by panic cither to exaggerate or to under-estimatc her risks or her power. Of pol' ical wisdom indeed in its larger and more generous sense Elizabeth had little or none ; but her political tact was unerring. She seldom saw her course at a glance, but she played with a hundred courses, fitfully and discursively, as a musician runs his fingers over the key-board, till she hit suddenly upon the right one. Her nature was essentially practical and of the present. She distrusted a plan in fact just in proportion to its speculative range or its out-look into the future. Her notion of statesmanship lay in watching how things turned out around her, and in seizing the moment for makmg the best of them. A policy of this limited, practical, tentative order was not only best suited to the England of her day, to its small resources and the transitional character of its religious and political belief, but it was one eminently suited to Elizabeth's peculiar powers. It was a policy of detail, and in details her wonderful readiness and ingenuity found scope for their exercise. " No War, my Lords," the Queen used to cry imperiously at the council-board, " No War ! " but her hatred of war sprang less from her aversion to blood or to expense, real as was her aversion to both, than from the fact that peace left the field open to the diplomatic manoeuvres and intrigues in which she excelled. Her delight in the consciousness of her ingenuity broke out in a thousand puckish freaks, freaks in which one can hardly see any purpose beyond the purpose of sheer mystification. She revelled in "bye-ways" and "crooked ways." She played with grave cabinets as a cat plays with a mouse, and with much of the same feline delight in the mere embarrassment of her victims. When she was weary of mys- tifying foreign statesmen she turned to find fresh sport in mystifying her own ministers. Had Elizabeth written the story of her reign she would have prided herself, not on the triumph of England or the ruin of Spain, but on the skill with which she had hoodwinked and out- witted every statesman in Europe during fifty years. Nor was her trickery without political value. Ignoble, inexpressibly wearisome as the Queen's diplomacy seems to us now, tracing it as we do through a thousand despatches, it succeeded in its main end. It gained time, and every year that was gained doubled Elizabeth's strength. Nothing is more revolting in the Queen, but nothing is more characteristic, than her shameless mendacity. It was an age of political lying, but in the profusion and recklessness of her lies Elizabeth stood without a peer in Christendom. A falsehood was to her simply an intellectual means of meeting a difficulty ; and the case with which she asserted or denied whatever suited her purpose was only equalled by the cynical indif- ference with which she r :; the exposure of her lies as soon as their purpose was answered. The same purely intellectual view of things showed itself in the dexterous use she made of her very faults. Her VII.] TIIL REFORMATION. levity carried her gaily over moments of detection and embarrassment where better women would have died of shame. She screened her tentative and hesitating statesmanship under the natural timidity and vacillation of her sex. She turned her very luxury and sports to good account. There were moments of grave danger in her reign when the country remained indifferent to its perils, as it saw the Queen give her days to hawking and hunting, and her nights to dancing and plays. Her vanity and affectation, her womanly fickle- ness and caprice, all had their part in the diplomatic comedies she played with the successive candidates for her hand. If political neces- sities made her life a lonely one, she had at any rate the satisfaction of averting war and conspiracies by love sonnets and romantic inter- views, or of gaining a year of tranquillity by the dexterous spinning out of a flirtation. As we track Elizabeth through her tortuous mazes of lying and in- trigue, the sense of her greatness is almost lost in a sense of contempt. But wrapped as they were in a cloud of mysterv, the aims of her policy were throughout temperate and simple, and they were pursued with a singular tenacity. The sudden acts of energy which from time to time broke her habitual hesitation proved that it was no hesitation of weak- ness. Elizabeth could wait and finesse ; but when the hour was come she could strike, and strike hard. Her natural temper indeed tended to a rash self-confidence rather than to self-distrust. She had, as strong natures always have, an unbounded confidence in her luck. " Her Majesty counts much on Fortune," Walsingham wrote bitterly ; " I wish she would trust more in Almighty God." The diplomatists who censured at one moment her irresolution, her delay, her changes of front, censure at the next her " obstinacy," her iron will, her defiance of what seemed to them inevitable ruin. " This woman," Philip's envoy wrote after a wasted remonstrance, " this woman is possessed by a hundred thousand devils." To her own subjects, indeed, who knew nothing of her manoeuvres and retreats, of her " bye-ways " and " crooked ways," she seemed the embodiment of dauntless resolution. Brave as they were, the men who swept the Spanish Main or glided between the icebergs of Baffin's Bay never doubted that the palm of bravery lay with their Queen. Her steadiness and courage in the pur- suit of her aims was equalled by the wisdom with which she chose the men to accomplish them. She had a quick eye for merit of any sort, and a wonderful power of enlisting its whole energy in her service. The sagacity which chose Cecil and Walsingham was just as unerring ir. its choice of the meanest of her agents. Her success indeed in securing from the beginning of her reign to its end, with the single ex- ception of Leicester, precisely the right men for the work she set them to do sprang in great measure from the noblest characteristic of her intellect. If in loftiness of aim her temper fell below many of the 373 skc. III. Ki.UAiii-:rii 1558 TO i5eo I" ' ? !1' '< I I) 374 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. III. Elizabeth 1558 TO 1560 tempers of her time, in the breadth of its range, in the universaHty of its sympathy it stood far above them all. Ehzabeth could talk poetry with Spenser and philosophy with Bruno ; she could discuss Euphuism with Lyiy, and enjoy the chivalry of Essex ; she could turn from talk of the last fashions to pore with Cecil over despatches and treasury books ; she could pass from tracking traitors with Walsingham to settle points of doctrine with Parker, or to calculate with Frobisherthe chances of a north-west passage to the Indies. The versatility and many-sidedness of her mind enabled her to understand every phase of the intellectual movement of her day, and to fix by a sort of instinct on its higher representatives. But the greatness of the Queen rests above all on her power over her people. We have had grander and nobler rulers, but none so popular as Elizabeth. The passion of love, of loyalty, of admiration which finds its most perfect expression in the " Faery Queen," throbbed as intensely through the veins of her mer.nest subjects. To England, during her reign of half a century, she was a virgin and a Protestant Queen ; and her immorality, her absolute want of religious enthusiasm, failed utterly to blur the bright- ness of the national ideal. Her worst acts broke fruitlessly against the general devotion. A Puritan, whose hand she cut off in a freak of tyrannous resentment, waved his hat with the hand that was left, and shouted " God save Queen Elizabeth ! " Of her faults, indeed, England beyond the circle of her court knew little or nothing. The shiftings of her diplomacy were never seen outside the royal closet. The nation at large could only judge her foreign policy by its main outlines, by its temperance and good sense, and abo/e all by its success. But every Englishman was able to judge Elizabeth in her rule at home, in her love of peace, her instinct of order, the firmness and moderation of her government, the judicious spirit of conciliation and compromise among warring factions which gave the country an unexamp-ed tranquillity at a time when almost every other country in Europe was torn v/ith civil war. Every sign of the growing prosperity, the sight of London as it became the mart of the world, of stately mansions as they rose on every manor, told, and justly told, in Elizabeth's favour. In one act of her civil administration she showed the boldness and originality of a great ruler ; for the opening of her reign saw her face the social difficulty v.hich had so long impeded English progress, by the issue of a commission of inquiry which ended in the solution of the problem by the system Oi' poor-laws. She lent a ready patronage to the new commerce ; she considered its extension and protection as a part of public policy, and her statue in the centre of the London Exchange was a tribute on the part of the merchant class to the interest with which she watched a id shared personally in its enter- prises. Her thrift won a general gratitude. The memories of the Terror and of the Martyrs threw into bright relief the aversion from VII.] THE REFORMATION. 375 bloodshed which was conspicuous in her earUer reign, and never wholly wanting through its fiercer close. Above all there was a general confidence in her instinctive knowledge of the national temper. Her finger was always on the public pulse. She knew exactly when she could resist the feeling of her people, and when she must give way before the new sentiment of freedom which her policy unconsciously fostered. But when she retreated, her defeat had all the grace of victory ; and the frankness and unreserve of her surrender won back at once the love that her resistance had lost. Her attitude at home in fact was that of a woman whose pride in the well-being of her subjects, end whose longing for their favour, was the one warm touch in the coldness of her natural temper. If Elizabeth could be said to love anything, she loved England. " Nothing," she said to her first Parliament in words of unwonted fire, " nothing, no worldly thing under the sun, is so dear to me as the love and good-will of my subjects." And the love and good- will which were so dear to her she fully won. She clung perhaps to her popularity the more passionately that it hid in some measure from her the terrible loneliness of her life. She was the last of the Tudors, the last of Henry's children ; and her nearest relatives were Mary Stuart and the House of Suffolk, one the avowed, the other the secret claimant of her throne. Among her mother's kindred she found but a single cousin. Whatever womanly tenderness she had, wrapt itself around Leicester ; but a marriage with Leicester was impossible, and every other union, could she even have bent to one, was denied to her by the political difficulties of her position. The one cry of bitterness which burst from Elizabeth revealed her terrible sense of the solitude of her life. " The Queen of Scots," she cried at the birth of James, " has a fair son, and I am but a barren stock." But the loneliness of her position only reflected the loneliness of her nature. She stood utterly apa^t from the world around her, sometimes above it, sometimes below it, but never of it. It was only on its intellectual side that Elizabeth touched the England of her day. All its moral aspects were simply dead to her. It was a time when men were being lifted into nobleness by the new moral energy which seemed suddenly to pulse through the whole people, when honour and enthusiasm took colours of poetic beauty, and religion became a chivalry. But the finer sentiments of the men around her touched Elizabeth simply as the fair tints of a picture would have touched her. She made her market with equal indifference out of the heroism of William of Orange or the bigotry of Philip. The noblest aims and lives were only counters on her board. She was the one soul in her realm whom the news of St. Bartholomew stirred to no thirst for vengeance ; and while England was thrilling with its triumph over the Armada, its Queen was coolly grumbling over the cost, and Sec. III. Elizabeth 1558 TO 1560 €^ WFf'' ' \ ■} • 'It J ii 1' ii \\\ t ii \\\ 376 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. III. Elizabetk 1558 TO 1560 Elizabeth and the Church making hei profit out of the spoiled provisions she had ordered for the fleet that saved her. To the voice of gratitude, indeed, she was for the most part deaf. She accepted services such as were never rendered to any other English sovereign without a thought of return. Walsingham spent his fortune in saving her life and her throne, v.vd she left him to die a beggar. But, as if by a strange irony, it was to this very want of sympathy that she owed some of the grander features of her character. If she was without love she was without hate. She cherished no petty resentments ; she never stooped to envy or suspicion of the men who served her. She was indifferent to abuse. Her good-humour was never ruffled by the charges of wantonness and cruelty with which the Jesuits filled every Court in Europe. She was insensible to fear. Her life became at last the mark for assassin after assassin, but the thought of peril was the one hardest to bring home to her. Even when the CathoUc plots broke out in her very household she would listen to no proposals for the removal of Catholics from her court. It was this moral isolation which told so strangely both for good and for evil on her policy towards the Church. The young Queen was not without a sense of religion. But she was almost wholly destitute of spiritual emotion, or of any consciousness of the vast questions with which theology strove to deal. While the world around her was being swayed more and more by theological beliefs and controversies, Eliza- beth was absolutely untouched by them. She was a child of the Italian Renascence rather than of the New Learning of Colet or Erasmus, and her attitude towards the enthusiasm of her time was that of Lorenzo de' Medici towards Savonarola. Her mind was unruffled by the spiritual problems which were vexing the minds around her; to Elizabeth indeed they were not only unintelligible, they were a little ridiculous. She had the same intellectual contempt for the superstition of the Romanist as for the bigotry of the Protestant. While she ordered Catholic images to be flung into the fire, she quizzed the Puritans as "brethren in Christ." But she had no sort of religious aversion from either Puritan or Papist. The Protestants grumbled at the Catholic nobles whom she admitted to the presence. The Catholics grumbled at the Protestant statesmen whom she called to her council-board. But to Elizabeth the arrange- ment was the most natural thing in the world. She looked at theo- logical differences iu a purely political light. She agreed with Henry the Fourth that a kingdom was well worth a mass. It seemed an obvious thing to her to hold out hopes of conversion as a means of deceiving Philip, or to gain a point in negotiation by restoring the crucifix to her chapel. The first interest in her own mind was the interest of public order, and she never could understand how it could fail to be first in every one's mind. Her ingenuity set itself to con- struct a system in which ecclesiastical unity should not jar against , the rights of conscience ; a compromise which nerely required outer V^ VII.] THE REFORMATION. "conformity" to the established worship while, as she was never weary of repeating, it " left opinion free." She fell back from the very first on the system of Henry the Eighth. " I will do," she told the Spanish ambassador, " as my father did." She opened negotiations with the Papal See, till the Pope's summons to submit her claim of succession to the judgment of Rome made compromise impossible. The first work of her Parliament was to declare her legitimacy and title to the crown, to restore the royal supremacy, and to abjure all foreign authority and jurisdiction. At her entry into London Elizabeth kissed the English Bible which the citizens presented to her and promised " diligently to read therein." Further she had no personal wish to go. A third of the Council and at least two-thirds of the people were as opposed to any radical changes in religion as the Queen. Among the gentry the older and wealthier were on the conservative side, and only the younger and meaner on the other. But it was soon necessary to go further. If the Protestants were the less numerous, they were the abler and the more vigorous party ; and the exiles who returned from Geneva brought with them a fiercer hatred of Catholicism. To every Protestant the Mass was identified with the fires of Smithfield, while Edward's Prayer-book was hallowed by the memories of the Martyrs. But if Elizabeth won the Protestants by an Act of Uni- formity which restored the English Prayer-book and enforced its use on the clergy on pain of deprivation, the alterations she made in its language showed her wish to conciliate the Catholics as far as possible. She had no mind merely to restore the system of the Pro- tectorate. She dropped the words " Head of the Church " from the royal title. The forty-two Articles which Cranmer had drawn up were left in abeyance. If Elizabeth had had her will, she would have retained the celibacy of the clergy and restored the use of crucifixes in the churches. In part indeed of her effort she was foiled by the increabed bitterness of the reformers. The London mob tore down the crosses in the streets. Her attempt to retain the crucifix or enforce the celibacy of the priesthood fell dead before the opposition of the Pro- testant clergy. On the other hand, the Marian bishops, with a single exception, discerned the Protestant drift of the changes she was making, and bore imprisonment and deprivation rather than accept the oath required by the Act of Supremacy. But to the mass of the nation the compromise of Elizabeth seems to have been fairly acceptable. The bulk of the clergy, if they did not take the oath, practically submitted to the Act of Supremacy and adopted the Prayer-book. Of the few who openly refused only two hundred were deprived, and many went unharmed. No marked repugnance to the new worship was shown by the people at large ; and Elizabeth was able to turn from questions of belief to the question of order. She found in Matthew Parker, whom Pole's death enabled her to 377 Sec. III. Elizabeth 1558 TO 1560 I •i Act of Uniformity 1559 1 :i|- m 1 \ • Parker a I 378 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Sec. III. Elizabeth 1558 TO 1560 Hi IP raise to the see of Canterbury, an agent in the reorganization of the Church whose patience and moderation were akin to her own. Theo- logically the Primate was a moderate man, but he was resolute to restore order in the discipline and worship of the Church. The whole machinery of English religion had been thrown out of gear by the rapid and radical changes of the past two reigns. The majority of the parish priests were still Catholic in heart ; sometimes mass was cele- brated at the parsonage for the more rigid Catholics, and the new communion in church for the more rigid Protestants. Sometimes both parties knelt together at the same altar-rails, the one to receive hosts consecrated by the priest at home after the old usage, the other wafers consecrated in Church after the new. In many parishes of the north no change of service was made at all. On the other hand, the new Protestant clergy were often unpopular, and roused the disgust of the people by their violence and greed. Chapters plundered their own estates by leases and fines and by felling timber. The marriages of the clergy became a scandal, which was increased when the gorgeous vestments of the old worship were cut up into gowns and bodices for the priests' wives. The new services sometimes turned into scenes of utter disorder where the clergy wore what dress they pleased and the communicant stood or sate as he liked ; while the old altars were broken down and the communion-table was often a bare board upon trestles. The people, naturally enough, were found to be "utterly devoid of religion," and came to church " as to a May game." To the difficulties which Parker found in the temper of the reformers and their opponents new difficulties were added by the freaks of the Queen. If she had no convictions, she had tastes ; and her taste revolted from the bareness of Protestant ritual and above all from the marriage of priests. " Leave that alone," she shouted to Dean Nowell from the royal closet as he denounced the use of images — "stick to your text. Master Dean, leave that alone ! " When Parker was firm in resisting the introduction of the crucifix or of celibacy, Elizabeth showed her resentment at his firmness by an insult to his wife. Married ladies were addressed at this time as " Madam," unmarried ladies as " Mistress ; " and when Mrs. Parker advanced at the close of a sumptuous entertainment at Lambeth tr» take leave of the Queen, Elizabeth feigned a momentary hesitation. " Madam," she said at last, " I may not call you, and Mistress I am loth to call you ; however, I thank you for your good cheer." To the end of her reign indeed Elizabeth remained as bold a plunderer of the wealth of the bishops as either of her predecessors, and carved out rewards for her ministers from the Church-lands with a queenly disregard of the rights of property. Lord Burleigh built up the estate of the house of Cecil out of the demesnes of the see of Peterborough. The neigh- bourhood of Hattor Garden to Ely Place recalls the spoliation of VII.] THE REFORMATION. another bishopric in favour of the Queen's sprightly chancellor. Her reply to the bishop's protest against this robbery showed what Eliza- beth meant by her Ecclesiastical Supremacy. " Proud prelate," she wrote, " you know what you were before I made you what you are ! If you do not immediately comply with my request, by God I will unfrock you." But freaks of this sort had little real influence beside the steady support which the Queen gave to the Primate in his work of order. She suffered no plunder save her own, and she was earnest for the restoration of order and decency in the outer arrangements of the Church. The vacant sees were filled for the most part with learned and able men ; and England seemed to settle quietly down in a religious peace. », The settlement of religion however was not the only pressing care which met Elizabeth as she n.ounted the throne. The country was drained by war ; yet she could only free herself from war, and from the dependence on Spain which it involved, by acquiescing in the loss of Calais. But though peace was won by the sacrifice, France re- mained openly hostile ; the Dauphin and his wife, Mary Stuart, had assumed the arms and style of King and Queen of England ; and their pretensions became a source of immediate danger through the pre- sence of a French army in Scotland. To understand, however, what had taken place there we must cursorily review the past history of the Northern Kingdom. From the moment when England finally abandoned the fruitless effort to subdue it the story of Scotland had been a miserable one. Whatever peace might be concluded, a sleep- less dread of the old danger from the south tied the country to an alliance with France, which dragged it into the vortex of the Hundred Years' War. But after the final defeat and capture of David in the field of Neville's Cross the struggle died down on both sides into marauding forays and battles, like those of Otterburn and Homildon Hill, in which alternate victories were won by the feudal lords of the Scotch or English border. The ballad of " Chevy Chase" brings home to us the spirit of the contest, the daring and defiance which stirred Sidney's heart " more than with a trumpet." But its effect on the internal developement of Scotland was utterly ruinous. The houses of Douglas and of March which it raised into supremacy only interrupted their strife with England to battle fiercely with one another or to coerce their King. The power of the Crown sank in fact into insignificance under the earlier sovereigns of the line of Stuart which had succeeded to the throne on the extinction of the male line of Bruce. Invasions and civil feuds not only arres>f.ed but even rolled back the national industry and prosperity. The country was a chaos of disorder and misrule, in which the peasant and the trader were the victims of feudal outrage. The Border became a lawless land, where robbery and violence reigned utterly without 1 1:': 1 :r:-" 379 I' ^ 1 ;. 11 ■ Sec. 111. f ■ i Elizabeth 1558 TO 1560 ' ■ 1 'i 1559 Scotla&d 4 :•''■ : 1346 I37I > tl 38o j Sec. III. Elizabeth 1558 TO 1560 I 'I r i 1411 1424 1437 1502 1513 1542 1547 1558 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. check. So pitiable seemed the state of the kingdom that the clans of the Highlands drew together at last to swoop upon it as a certain prey ; but the common peril united the factions of the nobles, and the victory of Harlaw saved the Lowlands from the rule of the Celt. A gre?it name at last broke the line of the Scottish kings. Schooled by a long captivity in England, James the First returned to his reahn to be the ablest of her rulers as he was the first of her poets. In the thirteen years of a short but wonderful reign justice and order were restored for a while, the Scotch Parliament organized, the clans of the Highlands assailed in their own fastnesses and reduced to swear fealty to the " Saxon " King. James turned to deal with the great houses, but feudal violence was still too strong for the hand of the law, and a band of ruffians who burst into the royal chamber left the King lifeless with sixteen stabs in his body. His death was the signal for a struggle between the House of Douglas and the Crown, which lasted through half a century. Order, however, crept gradually in ; the exile of the Douglases left the Scottish monarchs supreme in the Lowlands ; while their dominion over the Highlands was secured by the ruin of the Lords of the Isles. But in its outer policy the country still followed in the wake of France ; every quarrel between French King and English King brought danger with it on the Scottish border ; till Henry the Seventh bound England and Scotland together for a time by bestowing in 1502 the hand of his daughter Margaret on the Scottish king. The union was dissolved however by the strife with France which followed the accession of Henry the Eighth ; war broke out anew, and the terrible defeat and death of James the Fourth at Flodden Field involved his realm in the turbulence and misrule of a minority. His successor James the Fifth, though nephew of the English King, from the outset of his reign took up an attitude hostile to England ; and Church and people were ready to aid in plunging the two countries into a fresh struggle. His defeat at Solway Moss brought the young King broken-hearted to his grave. " It came with a lass, and it will go with a lass," he cried, as they brought him on his death-bed the news of Mary Stuart's birth. The hand of his infant successor at once became the subject of rivalry between England and France. Had Mary, as Henry the Eighth desired, been wedded tc Edward the Sixth, the whole destinies of Europe might have been changed by the union of the two realms ; but the recent bloodshed had embittered Scotland, and the high-handed way in which Somerset pushed the marriage project completed the breach. Somerset's in- vasion and victory at Pinkie Cleugh only enabled Mary of Guise, the French wife of James the Fifth, who had become Regent of the realm at his death, to induce the Scotch estates to consent to the union of her child with the heir of the French crown, the Dauphin Francis. From that moment, as we have seen, the claims of the Scottish Queen on vn.] THE REFORMATION. 381 I the English throne became so formidable a danger as to drive Mary Tudor to her marriage with Philip of Spain. But the danger became a still greater one on the accession of Elizabeth, whose legitimacy no Catholic acknowledged, and whose religious attitude tended to throw the Catholic party into her rival's hands, In spite of the peace with France, therefore, Francis and Mary persisted in their pretensions ; and a French force landed at Leith, with the connivance of Mary of Guise. The appearance of this force on the Border was intended to bring about a Catholic rising. But the hostility between France and Spain bound Philip, for the moment, to the support of Ehzabeth ; and his influence over the Catholics secured quiet for a time. The Queen, too, played with their hopes of a religious reaction by talk of her own reconciliation with the Papacy and admission of a Papal legate to the realm, and by plans for her marriage with an Austrian and Catholic prince. Mean- while she parried the blow in Scotland itself, where the Reformation had begun rapidly to gain ground, by secretly encoumging the " Lords of the Congregation," as the nobles who headed the Protestant party were styled, to rise against the Regent. Since her accession Eliza- beth's diplomacy had gained her a year, and her matchless activity had used the year to good purpose. Order was restored throughout England, the Church was reorganized, the debts of the Crown were in part paid off, the treasury was recruited, a navy created, and a force ready for action in the north, when the defeat of her Scotch adherents forced her at last to throw aside the mask. As yet she stood almost alone in her self reliance. Spain believed her ruin to be certain ; France despised her chances ; her very Council was in despair. The one minister in whom she dared to confide was Cecil, the youngest and boldest of her advisers, and even Cecil trembled for her success. But lies and hesitt,tion were no sooner put aside than the Queen's vigour and tenacity came fairly into play. At a moment when D Oysel, the French ccmmander, was on the point of crushing the Lords of the Congregation, an English fleet appeared suddenly in the Forth and forced the Regent's army to fall back upon Leith. The Queen made a formal treaty with the Lords, and promised to assist them in the expulsion of the strangers. France was torn by internal strife, i.nd could send neither money nor men. In March, Lord Grey moved over the border with 8,000 men to join the Lords of the Congregation in the siege of Leith. The Scots indeed gave little aid ; and an assault on the town signally failed. Philip too in a sudden jealousy of Eliza- beth's growing strc^ngth demanded the abandonment of the enterprise. But Elizabeth was immovable. Famine did its work better than the sword ; and in two treaties with the Scotch and Engli'ih, the envoys of Francis and Mary at last promised to withdraw the French, and leave the government to a Council of the Lords ; and acknowledged Sec. 111. Elizabeth 1,'558 TO 1S60 Elisabeth and Scotland 1559 1560 iii ■ i si ; til rii 1 » i 1 r I ^'^i m 382 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TEOPLE. [chap. Spr. IV. England AND Mary Stuakt 1560 TO 1572 Mary Stuart 1560 1561 Elizabeth's title to her throne. A Scotch Tariiament at once declared Calvinism the national religion. Both Act and Treaty indeed were set aside by P'rancis and Mary, but Elizabeth's poUcy had in fact broken the dependence of Scotland on France, and bound to her side * ' ^ strongest and most vigorous party among its nobles. Section IV.— England and Mary Stuart. 1560-157fl. format Mel I 'oiiey's lands."! ivi»0 >f the Dutch Republic," and " History of the United Nether- The issue of the : tch war revealed suddenly to Europe the vigour of Elizabeth, and the real strength of her throne. She had freed herself from the concrol of Philip, she had defied France, she had averted the danger from the North by the creation of an English party among the nobles of Scotland. The same use of religious divi- sions gave her a simi'ar check on the hostility of France. The Huguenots, as the French Protestants were called, had become a formidable party under the guidance of the Admiral Coligni, and the defeat of their rising against the family of the Guises, who stood at the head of the French Catholics and were supreme at the Court of Francis and Mary, threw them on the support and alliance of Elizabeth. But if the decisive outbreak of the great religious struggle, so long looked for between the Old Faith and the New, gave Ehzabeth strength abroad, it weakened her at home. Her Catholic subjects lost all hope of her conversion as they saw the Queen allying herself with Scotch Calvinists and French Huguenots ; her hopes of a religious compromise in matters of worship were broken by the issue of a Papal brief which forbade attendance at the EngUsh service ; and Philip of Spain, freed like herself from the fear of France by its religious divi- sions, had less reason to hold the English Catholics in check. He was preparing, in fact, to take a new political stand as the patron of Catholicism throughout the world ; and his troops were directed to support the Guises in the civil war which broke out after the death of Francis the Second, and to attack the heretics wherever they might find them. " Religion," he told Elizabeth, " was being made a cloak for anarchy and revolution." It was at the moment when the last hopes of the English Catholics were dispelled by the Queen's refusal to take part in the Council of Trent that Mary Stuart, whom the death of her husband had left a stranger in France, landed at Leith. Girl as she was, and she was only nineteen, she was hardly inferior in intellectual power to Elizabeth herself, while in fire and grace and brilliancy of temper she stood high above her. She m [chap. declared were set t brok:*!! side *' - a. of the. Re- iiid Leslie, utch revolt ed Nether- the vigour had freed , she had n English gious divi- nce. The become a )ligni, and who stood . the Court illiance of IS struggle, Ehzabeth Djects lost erself with religious of a Papal d Philip of gious divi- leck. He the patron directed the death rever they eing made iient when he Queen's art, whom ce, landed she was I'hile in fire her. She VII.] THE REFORMATION. 383 e brought with her the voluptuous refinement of the French Renascence : she would lounge for days in bed, and rise only at night for dancef and music. But her frame was of iron, and incapable of fatigue ; she galloped ■•ineLy mil^s after her last defeat without a pause save to change horses. She loved risk and adventure and the ring of arms as she rode in a fora_> to the north, the grim swordsmen beside her heard her wish she was a man, "to know what life it was to lie all night in ihe fields, or to walk on the cawsey with a Glasgow buckle and a broadsword." But in the closet she was as cool and astute a politician as Elizabeth herself; with plans as subtle, but of a fa'" wider and grander range than the Queen's. " Whatever policy is in all the chief and best practised heads of France," wrote an English envoy, " whatever craft, falsehood, and deceit is in all the subtle brains of Scotland, is either fresh in this woman's niP .0. ' or she can fetch it out ^yith a wet finger." Her beauty, her exot'i.jiti ^race of manner, her generosity of temper and warmth of aff. HoLj .,er frankness of speech, her sensibility, her gaiety, her wo'v nly tears, her manlike courage, the play and freedom of her natrre, ag flashes of poetry that broke from her at every intense mome; t of her life, flung a spell over friend or foe which has only deepenec! ' ai the lapse of years. Even to Knollys, the sternest Puritan of his day, she seemed in her captivity to be " a notable woman." " She seemeth to regard no ceremonious honour besides the acknowledgement of her estate royal. She showeth a disposition to speak much, to be bold, to be pleasant, to be very familiar. She showeth a great desire to be avenged on her enemies. She showeth a readiness to expose herself to all perils in hope of victory. She desireth much to hear of hardiness and valiancy, commending by name all approved ha-dy men of her country though they be her enemies, and she concaleth no cowardice even in her friends." As yet men knew nothing of the stern bigotry, the intensity of passion, which lay beneath the winning surface of Mary's ^man- hood. But they at once recognized her political ability. She had seized eagerly on the new strength which was given her by her hus- band's death. Her cause was no longer hampered, either in Scotland or in England, by a national jealousy of French interference. It was with a resolve to break the league between Elizabeth and the Scotch Protestants, to unite her own realm around her, and thus to give a firm base for her intrigues among the English Catholic;, that Mary landed at Leith. The effect of her prepence was marvellous. Her personal fascination revived the national loyalty, and swept all Scotland to her feet. Knox, the greatest and sternest of the Calvinistic preachers, alone withstood her spell. The rough Scotch nobles owned that there was in Mary " some enchantment whereby men are bewitched." A promise of religious toleration united her subjects in support of the claim which she advanced to be named Elizabeth's successor. But Sec. IV. England AND Mary Stuart 1560 TO 1572 L I 1 1 ! * ili' .!' iP 384 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [CHAP, :f Sfc. IV. Fnglano ANn Maky Stuart 1560 T(J 157a The Test Act 1562 til 1563 the question of the succession, like the question of her marriage, was with Elizabeth a question of life and death. Her wedding with a Catholic or a Protestant suitor would have been eq »lly the end of her system of balance and national union, a signal for the revolt of the party which she disappointed and for the triumphant dicto ion of the party which she satisfied. " If a Catholic prince come here," a Spanish ambassador wrote while pressing an Austrian marriage, " the first Mass he attends will be the signal for a revolt." It was so with the question of the succession. To name a Protestant successor from the House of Suffolk would have driven every Catholic to insurrection. To name Mary was to stir Protestantism to a rising of despair, and to leave Elizabeth at the mercy of every fanatical assassin who wished to clear the way for a Catholic ruler. " I am not so foolish," was the Queen's reply to Mary, " as to hang a winding-sheet before my eyes." But the pressure on her was great, and Mary looked to the triumph of Catholicism in France to increase the pressure. It was this which drove Elizabeth to listen to the cry of the Huguenots at the moment when they were yielding to the strength of the Guises. Hate war as she might, the instinct of self-preservation dragged her into the great struggle ; and in spite of the menaces of Philip, money and six thou- sand men were promised to the aid of the Protestants under Condd. But a fatal overthrow of the Huguenot army at Dreux left the Guises masters of France, and brought the danger to the very doors of Eng- land. The hopes of the English Catholics rose higher. Though the Pope delayed to issue his Bull of Deposition, a Papal brief pronounced joining in the CoT.inon Prayer schismatic, and forbade the attendance of Catholics at church. With the issue of this brief the conformity of worship which Elizabeth had sought to estabhsh came to an end. The hotter Catholics withdrew from church. Heavy fines were laid on them as recusants ; fines which, as their numbers increased, became a valu- able source of supply for the exchequer. But no fines could compensate for the moral blow which their wi.'ndrawal dealt. It was the beginning of a struggle which Elizabeth had averted through three memorable years. Protestant fanaticism met Catholic fanaticism. The tidings of Dreux spread panic through the realm. Parliament showed its terror by measures of a new severity. " There has been enough of words," said the Queen's minister, Sir Francis Knollys ; " it were time to draw sword." The sword was drawn in a Test Act, the first in a series of penal statutes which weighed upon English Catholics for two hundred years. By this statute an oath of allegiance to the Queen and abjura- tion of the temporal authority of the Pope was exacted from all holders of office, lay or spiritual, with the exception of peers. Its effect was to place the whole power of the realm in the hands either of Protestants, or of Catholics who accepted Elizabeth's legitimacy and her ecclesias- tical jurisdiction in the teeth of the Papacy. Caution indeed was used m [CHAP. [age, was g with a nd of her >lt of the on of the 1 Spanish 'the first with the • from the urrection. lir, and to wished to le Queen's le triumph this which e moment ate war as ) the great d six thou- der Condd. the Guises |rs of Eng- hough the »ronounccd [attendance iformity of end. The |id on them ime a valu- ompensate beginning emorable tidings of |d its terror of words," ,e to draw a series of o hundred md abjura- all holders feet was to rotestants, ecclesias- was used VII. THE REFORMATION. 385 in applying ti.is test to the laity, but pressure was more roughly put on the clergy. Many of the parish priests, though they had submitted to the use of the Prayer-book, had not taken the oath prescribed by the Act of Uniformity. As yet Elizabeth had cautiously refused to allow any strict inquiry into their opinions. But a commission was now opened by her order at Lambeth, with the Primate at its head, to enforce the Act ; while thirty-nine of the Articles drawn up under Edward were adopted as a standard of faith, and acceptance of them demanded of the clergy. It is possible that Elizabeth might have clung to her older policy of conciliation had she foreseen how suddenly the danger that appalled her was to pass away. At this crisis she was able, as usual, to "count on Fortune." The assassination of the Dukeof Guise broke up his party; a policy of moderation and balance prevailed at the French Court ; Catharine of Medicis was now supreme, and her aim was still an aim of peace. The Queen's good luck was chequered by a merited humiliation. She had sold her aid to the Huguenots in their hour of distress at the price of the surrender of Hpvre, and Havre was again wrested from her by the reunion of the P^ench parties. Peace with P'rance in the following spring secured her a year's respite in her anxieties ; and Mary was utterly foiled in her plan for bringing the pressure of a united Scot- land, backed by France, to bear upon her rival. But the defeat only threw her on a yet more formidable scheme. She was weary of the mask of religious indifference which her policy had forced her to wear with the view of securing the general support of her subjects. She re- solved now to appeal to the English Catholics on the ground of Catho- licism. Next to the Scottish Queen in the line of blood stood Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, a son of the Countess of Lennox, and grandson of Margaret Tudor by her second marriage with the Earl oi Angus, as Mary was her grandchild by Margaret's first marriage with James the Fourth. Though the house of Lennox conformed to the new system of English worship, its sympathies were known to be Catholic, and the hopes of the Catholics wrapped themselves round its heir. It was ' >> a match with Henry Stuart that Mary now determined to unite the forces of Catholicism. The match was regarded on all sides as a challenge to Protestantism. Philip had till now looked upon Mary's system of toleration and on her hopp'' ^'rom France with equal suspicion. But he now drew slowly to hei ^. .v-. " She is the one gate," he owned, " through which Religion can be restored in England. All the rest are closed." It was in vain that Elizabeth strove to prevent the marriage by a threat of war, or by secret plots for the seizure of Mary and the driving of Darnley back over the border. The Lords of the Congregation woke with a start from their confidence in the Queen, and her half-brother. Lord James Stuart, better known as Earl of Murray, mustered his Protestant confederates. But their revolt was hardly c c Skc. IV. Knc!i,and AND MaWV Sru , to find the house of Kirk o' Field destroyed, and Daii^ ley's body dead beside the ruins. The murder was undoubtedly the deed of Bothwell. His servant, it was soon known, had stored the powder beneath the and the Earl had watched without the walls till c c 2 Sue. IV. England AND Mahv Stuart 1560 TO 1578 iS^i? The Damloj Murder 1 .1 1 ;■ ; 1 ' 1 1- 1 lily ' ■. l itni^ '. p 1 r 1 m 1567 li King's bed-chamber u , > • Kfif El Dorados where all was of gold, threw a haze of prodi- gality ar 1 profusion over the imagination of the meanest seaman. The woi.ders, too, of the New World kindled a burst of extravagant fancy ii; the Old. The strange medley of past and present which distinguishes its masques and feastings only reflected the medley of men's thoughts. Pedantry^ novelty, the allegory of Italy, the chivalry of the Middle Ages, the mythology of Rome, the English bear-fight, pastorals, superstition, farre, all took tlieir turn in the entertainment Tin? F.Nr,I.ANU OK Elizabeth iiii( I ■X'. Mi. 39« Sec. V. Thk England OK i: KHZABKTH The Revival of Enirliali Iiltera- ture HISTORY OF TriE KN(iT.ISn FEOPI-K. [CIIAI-. which Lord Leicester provided for the Queen at Kenihvorth. A " wild man'' from the Indies chanted her praises, and Echo answered him. Elizabeth turned from the greetings of sibyls and giants to deliver thr enchanted lady from her tyrant " Sans Pitie." Shepherdesses wclcomcil her with carols of the spring, while Ceres and Bacchus poured their corn and grapes at her feet. It was to this turmoil of men's minds, this wayward luxuriance and prodigality of fancy, that we owe the revival of English lotters under Elizabeth. Here, as elsewhere, the Renascence found vernacular literature all but dead, poetry reduced to the doggrel of Skelton, his- tory to the annals of Fabyan or Halle. It had however done little for English letters. The overpowering influence of the new models both of thought and style which it gave to the world in the writers of Greece and Rome was at first felt only as a fresh check to the dreams of any revival of English poetry or prose. Though England shared more than any European country in the political and ecclesiastical results of the New Learning, its literary results were far less than in the rest of Europe, in Italy, or Germany, or Trance. More alone ranks among the great classical scholars of the sixteenth century. Classical learn- ing indeed all but perished at the Universities in the storm of the Reformation, nor did it revive there till the close of Elizabeth's reign. Insensibly however the influences of the Renascence fertilized the in- tellectual soil of England for the rich harvest that was to come. The court poetry which clustered round Wyatt and Surrey, exotic and imi- tative as it was, promised a new life for English verse. Th*" growth of grammar schools realized the dream of Sir Thomas More, and brought the middle-classes, from the squire to the petty tradesman, into contact with the masters of Greece and Rome. The love of travel, which became so remarkable a characteristic of Elizabeth's day, quickened the intelligence of the wealthier nobles. " Home-keeping youths," says Shakspere in words that mark the time, "have ever homely wits ;" and a tour over the Continent was just becoming part of the education of a gentleman. Fairfax's version of Tasso, Harring- ton' s version of Ariosto, were signs of the influence which the litera- ture of Italy, the land to which travel led most frequently, exerted on English minds. The writers of Greece and Rome began at last to tell upon England when they were popularized by a crowd of translations. Chapman's noble version of Homer stands high above its fellows, but all the greater poets and historians of the classical world were turned into .English before the close of the sixteenth century. It is charac- teristic of England that historical literature was the first to rise from its long death, though the form in which it rose marked the difference between the world in which it had perished and that in which it re- appeared. During the Middle Ages the world had been without a past, save the shadowy and unknown past of early Rome ; and annalist mi [ciiAr. , A "wild ered him. iehvev Uk' welcomed urcd their fiance and ters under vernacular kelton, his- no little for lodels both s of Greece ims of any 1 more than suits of the the rest of mks among isical learn- torm of the )eth's reign, lized the in- :ome. The tic and imi- h*" growth More, and tradesman, >ve of travel, ibeth's day, >me-keeping "have ever :oming part 5o, Harring- h the litera- exerted on It last to tell ranslations. fellows, but were turned t is charac- to rise from le difference which it re- ;n without a ,nd annalist VII.] THE REFORMATION. I and chronicler told the story of the years which went before as a pre- face to his tale of the present without a sense of any difference between them. But the religious, social, and political change which had passed over England under the New Monrirchy broke the continuity of its ' life ; and the depth of the rift between the f vo ages is seen by the way ! in which History passes, on its revival under l-^lizabeth, from the niedixval form of pure narrative to its mo lern form of an investigation and reconstruction of the past. The new interest which attached to the bygone u orld led to the collection of its annals, their reprinting and embodiment in an English shape. It was his desire to give the Elizabethan Church a basis in the past, as much as any pure zeal for lelLcrs, which induced Archbishop Parker to lead the way in the first of these labours. The collection of historical manuscripts which, fol- lowing in the track of Leland, he rescued from the wreck of the monastic libraries created a school of antiquarian imitators, whose re- search and industry have preserved for us almost every work of per- manent historical value which existed before the Dissolution of the Monasteries. To his publication of some of our earlier chronicles we owe the series of similar publications which bear the names of Camden, Twysden, and Gale. But as a branch of literature, English History in ihe new shape which we have noted began in the work of the poet Daniel. The chronicles of Stowe and Speed, who preceded him, are simple records of the past, oiien copied almost literally from the annals they used, and utterly without style or arrangement ; v/hil Daniel, in- accurate and superficial as he is, gave his story a literary form and embodied it in a pure and graceful prose. Two larger works at the close of Elizabeth's reign, the " History of the Turks" by Knolles, and Ralegh's vast but unfinished plan of the " History of the World," showed the widening of historic interest beyond the merely national bounds to which it had hitherto been conf led. A far higher developement of our literature sprang from the growing influence which Italy, as we have seen, was exerting, prrtly through travel and partly through its poetry and romances, on the manners and taste of the time. Men made more account of a story of Boccaccio's, it was said, than of a story from the Bible. The dress, the speech, the manners of Italy became objects of almost passionate imitation, and of an imitation not always of the wisest or noblest kind. To Ascham it seemed like " the enchantment of Circe brought out of Italy to mar men's manners in England." " An Italianate Englishman," ran the harder proverb of Italy itself, " is an incarn.i'e devil." The literary form which this imitation took seemed at any rate absurd. John Lyly, distinguished both as a dramatist and a poet, laid aside the tradition of English style for a style modelled on the decadence of Italian prose. Euphuism, as the new fashion has been styled from the prose romance of Euphues in which Lyly originated it, is best known to modern m Skc. V. The England OF Em/abf.tii il^ 1 ;i "•y and trre 1579 ^, IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) /y ^ >i 1.0 1.1 ■tt|21 125 li! ^" 2.2 H 1^ 2.0 Hiotographic Sciences CoipoMon 23 WBT IfMH STRHT WnSTM,N.Y. MStO (716) •72-4S03 ^^^^ '^ 400 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Skc. V. The England OF Elizaheth Sidney. 1590 readers by the pitiless caricature in which Shakspere quizzed its pedantry, its affectation, the meaningless monotony of its far-fetched phrases, the absurdity of its extravagant conceits. Its representative, Armado in " Love's Labour's Lost," is " a man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight," " that hath a mint of phrases in his brain ; one whom the music of his own vain tongue doth ravish like enchanting harmony." But its very extravagance sprang from the general burst of delight in the new resources of thought and language which litera- ture felt to be at its disposal ; and the new sense of literary beauty which it disclosed in its affectation, in its love cf a "mint of phrases" and the " music of its own vain tongue," the new sense of pleasure in delicacy or grandeur of phrase, in the structure and arrangement of sentences, in what has been termed the atmosphere of words, was a sense out of which style was itself to spring. For a time Euphuism had it all its own way. Elizabeth was the most affected and detestable of Euphuists ; ind " that beauty in Court which could not parley Euphuism," a courtier of Charles the First's time tells us, "was as little regarded as she that now there speaks not French." The fashion however passed away, but the "Arcadia" of Sir Philip Sidney shows the wonderful advance which prose had made under its influence. Sidney, the nephew of Lord Leicester, was the idol of his time, and perhaps no figure reflects the age more fully and more beautifully. Fair as he was brave, quick of wit as of affection, noble and generous in temper, dear to Elizabeth as to Spenser, the darling of the court and of the camp, his learning and his genius made him the centre of the literary world which was springing into birth on English soil. He had travelled in France and Italy, he was master alike of the older learning and of the new discoveries of astronomy. Bruno dedicated to him as to a friend his metaphysical speculations ; he was familiar with the drama of Spain, the poems of Ronsard, the sonnets of Italy. He combined the wisdom of a grave councillor with the romantic chivalry of a knight-errant. " I never heard the old story of Percy and Douglas," he says, " that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet." He flung away his life to save the English army in Flanders, and as he lay dying they brought a cup of water to his fevered lips. He bade them give it to a soldier who was stretched on the ground beside him. " Thy necessity," he said, " is greater than mine." The whole of Sidney's nature, his chivalry and his learning, his thirst for adventures, his tendency to extravagance, his freshness of tone, his tenderness and childlike simplicity of heart, his affectation and false sentiment, his keen sense of pleasure and delight, pours itself out in the pastoral medley, forced, tedious, and yet strangely beautiful, of his " Arcadia." In his " Defence of Poetry " the youthful exuberance of the romancer has passed into the earnest vigour and grandiose stateliness of the rhetorician. But whether in the one work vii.J or the othe Sidney's styl prose, howe who appeal fiction is to and Nash the Italian to the appe was seen in which passe which they the eight ye " In a night in seven yej him dear f< of the wit t peers ; but and his riv£ the pedantr; facility, his ^ of popular li and the ver The abunda of the Queer widened far which it beg We shall which this ii religious ch progress of 1 impulses of revive a spir it was impc which her w conflict aros live percepti modification the system c she abandon She tamper freedom ; th juries in poli ment was sti cloth and taxation. VII.J THE REFORMATION. 40 1 one was a or the other, the flexiWlity, the music, the luminous clearness of Sidney's style remains the same. The quickness and vivacity of Erglish prose, however, was first developed in the school of Italian imitators who appeared in Elizabeth's later years. The origin of English fiction is to be found in the tales and romances with which Greene and Nash crowded the market, models for which they found in the Italian novels. The brief form of these novelettes soon led to the appearance of the " pamphlet ; " and a new world of readers was seen in the rapidity with which the stories or scurrilous libels which passed under this name were issued, and the greediness with which they were devoured. It was the boast of Greene that in the eight years before his death he had produced forty pamphlets. " In a night or a day would he have yarked up a pamphlet, as well as in seven years, and glad was that printer that might be blest to pay him dear for the very dregs of his wit." Modem eyes see less of the wit than of the dregs in the works of Greene and his com- peers ; but the attacks which Nash directed against the Puritans and his rivals were the first English works which shook utterly off the pedantry and extravagance of Euphuism. In his lightness, his facility, his vivacity, his directness of speech, we have the beginning of popular literature. It had descended from the closet to the street, and the very change implied that the street was ready to receive it. The abundance indeed of printers and of printed books at the close of the Queen's reign shows that the world of readers and writers had widened far beyond the small circle of scholars and courtiers with which it began. We shall have to review at a later time the great poetic burst for which this intellectual advance was paving the way, and the moral and religious change which was passing over the country through the progress of Puritanism. But both the intellectual and the religious impulses of the age united with the influence of its growing wealth to revive a spirit of independence in the nation at large, a spirit which it was impossible for Elizabeth to understand, but the strength of which her wonderful tact enabled her to feel Long before any open conflict arose between the people and the Crown, we see her instinc- tive perception of the changes which were going on round her in the modifications, conscious or unconscious, which she introduced into the system of the monarchy. Of its usurpations on English liberty she abandoned none. But she curtailed and softened down almost all. She tampered, as her predecessors had tampered, with personal freedom ; there was the same straining of statutes and coercion of juries in political trials as before, and an arbitrary power of imprison- ment was still exercised by the Council. The duties she imposed on cloth and sweet wines were an assertion of her right of arbitrary taxation. Proclamations in Council constantly assumed the force of DD Sec. V. The England OP Elizabeth EUsfc. betbaa Enclaad and the Crown i'l >'!' ' 402 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. rCHAP. Sec. V. The England OP Elizabeth Changes in the Commons. law. In one part of her policy indeed Elizabeth seemed to fall back from the constitutional attitude assumed by the Tudor sovereigns. Ever since Cromwell's time the Parliament had been convened almost year by year as a great engine of justice and legislation, but Elizabeth recurred to the older jealousy of the two Houses which had been en- tertained by Edward the Fourth, Henry the Seventh, and Wolsey. Her Parliaments were summoned at intervals of never less than three, and sometimes of five years, and never save on urgent necessity. Practically however the royal power was wielded with a caution and moderation that showed the sense of a gathering difficulty in the full exercise of it. The ordinary course of justice was left undisturbed. The jurisdiction of the Council was asserted almost exclusively over the Catholics ; and defended in their case as a precaution against pressing dangers. The proclamations issued were temporary in character and of small importance. The two duties imposed were so slight as to pass almost unnoticed in the general satisfaction at EHzabeth's abstinence from internal taxation. She abandoned the benevolences and forced loans which had brought home the sense of tyranny to the subjects of her predecessors. She treated the Privy Seals, which on emergencies she issued for advances to her Exchequer, simply as anticipations of her revenue (like our own Exchequer Bills), and punctually repaid them. The monopolies with which she fettered trade proved a more serious grievance ; but during her earlier reign they were looked on as a part of the system of Merchant Associations, which were at that time regarded as necessary for the regulation and protection of the growing commerce. Her thrift enabled her in ordinary times of peace to defray the current expenses of the Crown from its ordinary revenues. But the thrift was dictated not so much by economy as by the desire to avoid summoning fresh Parliaments. The Queen saw that the " management " of the two Houses, so easy to Cromwell, was becoming harder every day. The rise of a new nobility, enriched by the spoils of the Church and trained to political life by the stress of events around them, was giving fresh vigour to the Lords. The increased wealth of the country gentry, as well as their growing desire to obtain a seat in the Commons, brought about the cessation at this time of the old practice of payment of members by their con- stituencies. A change too in the borough representation, which had long been in progress but was now for the first time legally recognized, tended greatly to increase the vigour and independence of the Lower House. The members for boroughs had been required by the terms of the older writs to be chosen from the body of the burgesses ; and | an Act of Henry the Fifth gave this custom the force of law. But the | passing of the Act shows that the custom was already widely infringed ; I and by the time of Elizabeth most borough seats were filled by strangers, often nominees of the great landowners round, but for the VII.J THE REFORMATION. 403 11 back ereigns. I almost lizabeth leen en- Wolsey. in three, ecessity. tion and [1 the full isturbed. vely over 1 against )orary in i were so action at oned the » sense of the Privy :xchequer, uer Bills), tie fettered rlier reign sociations, lation and ;d her in ;he Crown so much .rliaments. so easy to w nobility, life by the fhe Lords. J growing lessationat Itheir con- rhich had ecognized, Ithe Lower the terms isses ; and But the I |infringed; filled by lUtfor the most part men of wealth and blood, whose aim in entering Parliament was a purely political one, and whose attitude towards the Crown was far bolder and more independent than that of the quiet tradesmen who preceded them. So changed, indeed, was the tone of the Commons, even as early as the close of Henry's reign, that Edward and Mary both fell back on the prerogative of the Crown to create boroughs, and summoned members from fresh constituencies, which were often mere villages, and wholly in the hands of the Crown. But this " pack- ing of the House" had still to be continued by their successor. The large number of such members whom Elizabeth called into the Commons, sixty-two in all, was a proof of the increasing difficulty which the Government found in securing a working majority. Had Elizabeth lived in quiet times her thrift would have saved her from the need of summoning Parliament at all. But the perils of her reign drove her to rene'ved demands of subsidies, and at each demand the tone of the Houses rose higher and higher. Constitutionally the policy of Cromwell had had this special advantage, that at the very crisis of our liberties it had acknowledged and confirmed by repeated instances, for its own purposes of arbitrary rule, the traditional right of Parliament to grant subsidies, to enact laws, and to consider and petition for the redress of grievances. These rights remained, while the power which had turned them into a mere engine of despotism was growing weaker year by year. Not only did the Parliament of Elizabeth exercise its powers as fully as the Parliament of Cromwell, but the forces, political and religious, which she sought stubbornly to hold in check pressed on irresistibly, and soon led to the claiming of new privileges. In spite of the rarity of its assembling, in spite of high words and imprisonment and dexterous management, the Parlia- ment quietly gained a power which, at her accession, the Queen could never have dreamed of its possessing. Step by step the Lower House won the freedom of its members from arrest save by its own permission, the right of punishing and expelling members for crimes committed within the House, and of determining all matters relating to elections. The more important claim of freedom of speech brought on a series of petty conflicts which showed Elizabeth's instincts of despotism, as well as her sense of the new power which despotism had to face. In the great crisis of the Darnley marriage Mr. Dalton defied a royal prohibi- tion to mention the subject of the succession by denouncing the claim of the Scottish Queen. Elizabeth at once ordered him into arrest, but the Commons prayed for leave " to confer upon their liberties," and the Queen ordered his release. In the same spirit she commanded Mr. Strickland, the mover of a bill for the reform of the Common Prayer, to appear no more in Parliament ; but as soon as she perceived the House was bent upon his restoration the command was withdi'awn. On the other hand, the Commons still shrank from any consistent D D 2 Sec. V. The England OF Elizabeth »ii,i '! Jl Elisabeth and the Parlia- ment : 5 i W \ ' 1566 iS7i tM *• r-r I 404 Sec. V. Thk England OK Elizabeth »57S 1588 Claims 0/ the COHtHtOttS. 1559 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. repudiation of Elizabetn's assumption of control over freedom of speech. The bold protest of Peter Wentworth against it was met by the House itself with his committal to the Tower: and the yet bolder question which he addressed to a later x^arliament, " Whether this Council is not a place for every member of the same freely and without control, by bill or speech, to utter any of the griefs of the Common- wealth," brought on him a fresh imprisonment at the hands of the Council, which lasted till the dissolution of the Parliament and with which the Commons declined to interfere. But vhile vacillating in its assertion of the rights of individual speakers, the House steadily asserted its claim to the wider powers which Cromwell's policy had given to Parliamentary action. In theory the Tudor statesmen re- garded three cardinal subjects, matters of trade, matters of religion, and matters of State, as lying exclusively within the competence of the Crown. But in actual fact such subjects had been treated by Parliament after Parliament. The whole religious fabric of the realm, the very title of Elizabeth, rested on Parliamentary statutes. When the Houses petitioned at the outset of her reign for the declaration of a successor and for the Queen's marriage, it was impossible to deny their right to intermeddle with these " matters of State," though she rebuked the demand and evaded an answer. But the question of the succes^jion became too vital to English freedom and English religion to remain confined within Elizabeth's council chamber. The Parliament which met in 1566 repeated the demand in a more im- perative way. Her consciousness of the real dangers of such a request united with her arbitrary temper to move Elizabeth to a burst of passionate anger. The marriage indeed she promised, but she peremptorily forbade the subject of the succession to be approached. Wentworth at once rose in the Commons to know whether such a prohibition was not "against the liberties of Parliament.?" and the question was followed by a hot debate. A fresh message from the Queen commanded "that there should be no further argument," but the message was met by a request for freedom of deliberation. Elizabeth's prudence taught her that retreat was necessary ; she protested that " she did not mean to prejudice any part of the liberties heretofore granted them ; " she softened the order of silence into a request ; and the Commons, won by the graceful concession to a loyal assent, received her message "most joyfully and with most hearty prayers and thanks for the same." But the victory was none the less a real one. No such struggle had taken place between the Commons and the Crown since the beginning of the New Monarchy; and the struggle had ended in the virtual defeat of the Crown. It was the prelude to another claim equally galling to the Queen. Though the constitution of the Church rested in actual fact on Parlia- mentary enactments, Elizabeth, like the rest of the Tudor sovereigns, VII.] THE REFORMATION. 405 theoretically held her ecclesiastical supremacy to be a purely personal power, with her administration of which neither Parliament nor even her Council had any right to interfere. But the exclusion of the Catholic gentry through the Test Acts, and the growth of Puritanism among the landowners as a class, gave more and more a Protestant tone to the Commons and to the Council ; and it was easy to re- member that the Supremacy which was thus jealously guarded from Parliamentary interference had been conferred on the Crown by a Parliamentary statute. Here, however, the Queen, as the religious representative of the two parties who made up her subjects, stood on firmer ground than the Commons, who represented but one of them. And she used her advantage boldly. The bills proposed by the more advanced Protestants for the reform of the Common Prayer were at her command delivered up into her hands and suppressed. Wentworth, the most outspoken of his party, was, as we have seen, imprisoned in the Tower : and in a later Parliament the Speaker was expressly for- bidden to receive bills "foi reforming the Church, and transforming the Commonwealth." In spite of these obstacles, however, the effort for reform continued, and though crushed by the Crown or set aside by the Lords, ecclesiastical bills were presented in every Parliament A better fortune awaited the Commons in their attack on the royal prerogative in matters of trade. Complaints made of the licences and monopolies by which internal and external commerce were fettered were at first repressed by a royal reprimand as matters neither per- taining to the Commons nor within the compass of their understanding. When the subject was again stirred nearly twenty years afterwards. Sir Edward Hoby was sharply rebuked by "a great personage" for his complaint of the illegal exactions made by the Exchequer. But the bill which he promoted was sent up to the Lords in spite of this, and at the close of Elizabeth's reign the storm of popular indignation which had been roused by the growing grievance nerved the Commons to a decisive struggle. It was in vain that the ministers opposed the bill for the Abolition of Monopolies, and after four days of vehement debate the tact of Elizabeth taught her to give way. She acted with her usual ability, declared her previous ignorance of the existence of the evil, thanked the House for its interference, and quashed at a single blow every monopoly that she had granted. Section VI. Mie Armada. 1572-1588. [AutJiontie.". — The general history of the Catholics is given in the work of Dodd ; see also "The Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers," published by Father Morris; and for the Jesuits, "More's Historia Provinciae Anglicanae Societatis Jesu ; " to these may be added Mr. Simpson's life of Cami>ian.] The wonderful growth in wealth and social energy which we have described was accompanied by a remarkable change in the religious Src. V. Thk England OF F.I.IZABKTII »57i 'S93 1601 The New Protes- tantiam 4 I't ¥■ 1; > y ^'■. , ' i ■'i= , M 4o6 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. [chap. Skc. VI. Thk Ahmaua 157a TO 1588 k temper of the nation. Silently, almost unconsciously, Eng'and became Protestant, as the traditionary Catholicism which formed the religion of three-fourths of the people at the Queen's accession died quietly away. At the close of her reign the only parts of England where the old faith retained anything of its former vigour were the north and the extreme west, at that time the poorest and least populated p? ' of the kingdom. One main cause of the ch.inge lay undoubted ^ .a the gradual dying out of the Catholic priesthood and the growth of a new Protestant clergy who supplied their place. The older parish priests, though they had almost to a man acquiesced in the changes of ritual and doctrine which the various phases of the Reformation imposed upon them, remained in heart utterly hostile to its spirit. As Mary had undone the changes of Edward, they hoped for a Catholic suc- cessor to undo the changes of Elizabeth ; and in the meantime they were content to wear the surplice instead of the chasuble, and to use the Communion-ofifice instead of the Mass-book. Cut if they were forced to read the Homilies from the pulpit, the spirit of their teaching remained unchanged ; and it was easy for them to cast contempt on the new services, till they seemed to old-fashioned worshippers a mere " Christmas game." But the lapse of twenty years did its work in emptying parsonage after parsonage. In 1579 the Queen felt strong enough to enforce for the first time a general compliance with the Act of Uniforrr.ity ; and the jealous supervision of Parker and the bishops ensuicu an inner as well as an outer conformity to the established faith in the clergy who took the place of the dying priesthood. The new parsons were for the most part not merely Protestant in belief and teaching, but ultra-Protestant. The old restrictions on the use of the pulpit were silently removed as the need for them passed away, and the zeal of the young ministers showed itself in an assiduous preaching which moulded in their own fashion the religious ideas of the new generation. But their character had even a greater influence than their preaching. Under Henry the priests had for the most part been ignorant and sensual men ; and the character of the clergy appointed by the greedy Protestants under Edward or > the first years of Eliza- beth's reig^ was even worse than that of their Catholic rivals. But the energy of the successive Primates, seconded as it was by the general increase of zeal and morality at the time, did its work ; and by the close of Elizabeth's reign the moral temper as well as the social character of the clergy had greatly changed. Scholars like Hooker could now be found in the ranks of the priesthood, and the grosser scandals which disgraced the clergy as a body for the most part disappeared. It was impossible for a Puritan libeller to bring against the ministers of Eliza- beth's reign the charges of drunkenness and immorality which Protest- ant libellers had been able to bring against the priesthood of Henry's. But the influence of the new clergy was backed by a general revolution [CHAP. t)ecame religion quietly ere the and the ' of the .A the f a new priests, of ritual imposed \s Mary olic suc- ime they id to use ley were teaching tempt on rs a mere work in ;lt strong h the Act e bishops ihed faith 'he new Delief and ise of the , and the )reaching the new snce than part been .ppointed of Eliza- But the e general the close iracter of d now be lis which It was of Eliza- Protest- Henry's, evolution VII.] THE REFORMATION. in English thought. We have already watched the first upgrowth of the new literature which was to find its highest types in Shakspcre and Bacon. The grammar schools were diffusing a new knowledge and mental energy through the middle classes and among the country gentry. The tone of the Universities, no unfair test of the tone of the nation at large, changed wholly as t\i